Chapter 29
Boone spotted the white truck with the official county emblem kicking up dust long before it reached the fence line, and his mood soured like milk left in the July heat.
He was mid-push with a stubborn sorrel heifer who had clearly woken up and chosen violence when the truck door swung open and a man in khakis and a clipboard stepped out.
Perfect. Just what he needed—bureaucracy with a badge.
"Boone Callahan?" the man called out, squinting through the glare of the mid-day sun.
Boone tipped his hat. "That's me. You lost or just suicidal walking into a herd like that?"
The man lifted his clipboard like a sun visor. "Got word you're redoing the dwelling on the property and thinking of adding another room to the existing structure?"
Boone grunted, shoving the sorrel forward with his knee. "Thinking about it. Why?"
"I'll need to check the foundation before you move forward with the remodel."
Heaven forbid a man hammer a board without government approval.
Boone closed the distance. "You drove all the way out here to poke around the dirt under a building that's been standing since before the state had paved roads?"
The inspector cleared his throat, visibly recalibrating his approach. "Regulations, sir."
Regulations. Possibly the least sexy word in the English language.
"You need someone to walk you out there, so you don't get yourself trampled?"
"That would be appreciated."
Boone whistled sharply, his gelding trotting over. "Let's go then."
He really needed this day to be over.
He led the inspector toward the bunkhouse, which sat at the edge of the property like a shithole that had been standing on nothing but rusted nails and spite for the better part of a century.
The inspector crouched beside the foundation, poked at the concrete with a metal tool, frowned, and poked again.
“That’s just for a porch. There won’t be any dwelling on that space.”
“Are people going to stand on it?”
“Yes.”
“Then it needs to be sound.” He poked around so much and let out a cluck of the tongue.
Boone crossed his arms and braced himself. "This isn't going to be good news, is it?"
The inspector winced—never a good sign. "Mr. Callahan, the foundation's compromised. You can't add a room to this structure. It won't support the load."
"So, I brace it or simply patch it up."
"No, sir." The inspector stood, brushing off his knees. "It has to be repoured. Total do-over. And until that's done, you can't move forward with any expansion."
Boone felt the heat climb his neck from frustration, not the sun. "How long does that set us back?"
"Depends how fast you can get a crew and then get back on my schedule for another inspection. A couple of weeks at best. More if local crews are busy."
A couple of weeks might as well have been a couple of years with calving rotation coming up. Boone stared at the bunkhouse and said nothing.
"Anything else I should know before I start drinking?" he asked.
The inspector flipped a page on his clipboard. "Yes, actually. Since the foundation hasn’t been updated, I need to check the electricity."
He walked inside, ducking under a low beam. Boone followed, the smell of old wood and dust hitting him in a wave.
The inspector tapped one of the ancient fuse boxes with his pen, then unscrewed the plate covering the wall plug. "The wiring is daisy chained. Probably from when the previous owners did the first expansion.”
“That would have been my great-grandfather.”
“I see. Anyway, the electrical needs to be brought up to code before any remodel continues.”
“So I have to get the foundation done to do the electrical or is it the other way around?”
The inspection clearly didn’t hear the irritation in Boone’s question because he said, “You’ll have to check with the licensed electricians to see if they are comfortable walking across a sinking foundation."
Licensed? Boone swore quietly under his breath. And here everyone had promised him this would be a good idea.
"Another couple of weeks?"
"At least. And it won't be cheap."
Boone braced his hands on his hips and stared at the beams like they had personally let him down. Money and time and regulations were all stacking up on top of everything else he was already carrying.
"How much are we talking?" he finally asked.
"Mid to low five figures. My guess."
Boone sucked air through his teeth. "Fantastic. Anything else? You want my firstborn? Blood sample? Maybe a kidney?"
The inspector, entirely too literal, blinked. "No, sir. Just the foundation and the electrical."
"How did you hear about the remodel?"
"It's all around town," the man said with a smile. "Sounds like the community's really behind this. Like an old-fashioned barn raising."
"Barn raising," Boone said flatly, remembering that was exactly how Vivi had advertised it.
He turned and walked out before he said something that turned the visit into a felony. He stood in the open air, with hands on his hips, chest rising and falling, and dust swirling around his boots.
He needed money—and fast.
First, there were the ranch finances. Then came the water situation and looming standoff with Virgil. The cost of hay, the price of feed. It all compounded at once, pressing down on him from every direction.
Then, underneath all of it, quieter but no less sharp, was a sliver of something aimed straight at Vivi.
He didn't want to feel it. He hated feeling it.
But it was there, and he'd spent enough of his life pretending things weren't there to know better than to try.
If she hadn't rallied half the town with her sunshine-and-clipboard energy—posting progress updates like they were building something for a magazine spread, treating his private battle like a community project—the inspector never would have heard a word about it.
He wouldn't have shown up or poked around, and he sure as hell wouldn't have blown a hole in the timeline, the budget, and what was left of Boone's patience.
He stood there with it for a long moment, not ready to say it out loud.
Eventually, he made his way to the ranch house and stormed into the kitchen. Eli looked up from the ledger. Colter from a stack of supply invoices. And Rea paused mid-sip of her tea.
Three sets of eyes. Zero good options.
"We're about to go broke," Boone announced, dragging a hand down his face. "Well, the ranch isn't broke but the bunkhouse sure as hell is."
"That inspector really screwed you?" Eli asked.
"How did you know about that?"
"Saw him pull up," Colter said.
Boone let out a humorless laugh. "Foundation needs to be repoured.
Not patched. Not reinforced. Repoured. And the electrical is so old it might as well be running on aluminum foil.
" He paced, boots thudding against the floorboards.
"We can't move forward with anything until those two things are handled. I still don’t know what fucking order I’m supposed to go in.
Which means every contractor we have lined up needs to be postponed.
Drywall, carpenters, painters. All of it frozen until we have the money to get the foundation and wiring up to code. "
Rea carefully set her cup down. "How much?"
"More than feels legal to say out loud."
"We need a number," Colter said.
"Around fifteen to twenty thousand."
Colter leaned back and let out a long breath. "Damn, Boone."
"Yeah." The shame, the stress, and the thing he wasn't naming yet all burned together under his ribs. "We were finally getting ahead. Finally building something real. And now I'm calling everyone to tell them to stay home."
Eli studied him with this look he had—the one that saw too much and said nothing until it was ready. "This about Vivi?"
Boone went still and a muscle jumped in his cheek.
"Because I'm guessing you're thinking about how fast she pulled half the town into that remodel day," Eli said.
Boone braced both palms on the back of a chair, leaning into it like he needed the furniture to hold him upright. When he spoke, his voice was low and measured—not a man venting, but a man trying to be precise.
"I don't want to be angry at her. She was trying to help.
She always is and I know that. But if she hadn't been so—her—about it, so loud and enthusiastic and determined to put her mark on every corner of this place, the inspector wouldn't have heard a word about the expansion.
If he wouldn't have walked his clipboard-toting ass, we wouldn't be standing in this hole. "
Silence settled thick and heavy, and something close to regret slithered down his spine.
"If I hadn't been so much, you wouldn't be in this mess?" Vivi's voice came from behind him.
Boone closed his eyes with regret. Had he known she was there he would have said—what?
What exactly would he have said that was any different?
His words were honest and correct and—well, shit.
They were harsh and personal, and aimed at someone who hadn't deserved to hear them from across a room.
If he said them to anyone, it should have been to her first and not bitching like the kitchen was a playground.
He turned around.
She had her feet planted like the floor was the only thing keeping her upright. Her eyes were wide, practically swallowing her face. And that lower lip—the one he'd kissed more times than he could count—had a slight quiver she was doing everything she could to hide.
"My spontaneity is endearing when it benefits you?" Her voice was remarkably steady for someone whose eyes weren't. "But not when it doesn't fit your agenda?"
"The structural engineer from the county inspected the foundation and the electrical. Both failed and put the project on hold."
Her eyes went impossibly wider, filling with something he recognized immediately—not defensiveness, not pride. Just pure, unguarded remorse. "I am so sorry."
"He heard about it from people in town. All the talk about the barn raising."
She pressed a hand over her mouth and shook her head slowly. "I had no idea this would cause a problem. None." He watched her throat bob as she forced a swallow. "You have every right to be angry."
"I'm not angry," he said, and meant it. "Just frustrated. I never wanted to do this in the first place but I got talked into it."
"I know." She lifted her chin slightly, something resolute moving through her expression despite the brightness in her eyes. "I will fix this."
The confidence in her tone was so strong that he believed her—and that was the problem. He believed she'd throw herself at the way she threw herself at everything—fully and completely and purely on emotion.
And he was about to cut that off before she could complicate this further.
"You've helped enough," he said, keeping his voice soft. "I'll take it from here."
She gave a shaky nod. "Of course. Of course." She turned toward the door, and he caught it—just a flash, just a second—the moisture at the corners of her eyes before she walked out.
He listened to her footsteps down the hall and the bedroom door close with barely a sound, but it felt like a door slamming on something that had just begun.
Rea looked at him with the patient, steel-spined expression of a woman who had outlasted every storm this family had ever produced. "You know those things needed to be fixed sooner or later."
"I was counting on later," Boone said. "When we had the money."
"How were you going to redo the electrical after sheetrock?" Colter asked and Boone didn’t have an answer. But it proved his point that they’d jumped into this without a thorough plan.
“Was it worth making her cry?" Eli asked. "She already felt terrible. Did you have to go that far?"
"What did I say?" Boone asked, frowning.
"There's no middle ground with you," Eli said. "Either everything's fine or you burn it down. No safe territory. It's like Dad."
"At least he dedicated his life to keeping this place going," Boone said. "To honoring Granddad's memory."
"Because he felt he had to," Eli said. "And it made him one stressed out and lonely man. I don't want to be that. And I don't think you do either—not anymore."
"Save the ranch or don't," Colter said, leaning back with a grin that was equal parts affection and exasperation. "But do it because you want to, not because you feel like you have to. And if you want our help, just ask. Stop carrying it alone and then resenting the weight."
Boone opened his mouth to push back but couldn't. Because that's exactly what he'd been doing. The passive, grinding resentment that turned inward and then outward at whoever was closest. Just like his father. It had twisted things when he was a kid, and apparently it was still twisting things now.
He'd just aimed it at the one person in this house who had never once been anything but on his side.
"I want to save this ranch because I love it," he said finally, like saying it out loud was a different thing than knowing it. "Because it's ours. Because it was theirs. Not because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't."
Eli reached into his back pocket and tossed a folded flyer across the room. Boone caught it.
“What’s this?"
"There’s a rodeo, two counties over," Eli said. "The prize is twenty grand. Enough to cover the foundation, the electrical, and every contractor you just sent home.”
Boone let out a low whistle. "You buried the lead on this one, brother."
"It's been a minute," Eli said.
"Springville is amateur hour and you know it," Boone said, a grin pulling at his mouth despite everything.
"Speaking of amateur hour," Eli said, leaning forward with a smirk that meant trouble. "You going to go in there and grovel until that pretty lady forgives your sorry ass?"
Boone looked down at the flyer. Twenty thousand dollars. Now that was a problem he knew how to solve.
And then he thought of Vivi, behind a closed door at the end of the hall. A problem he'd made with his own mouth and didn’t have a roadmap for. No amount of prize money could fix that.