Rescuing Harmony Ranch

by Jennie Marts

  Jocelyn giggled, then got in on the game. “I may not be chili, but I’ll bet I can spice up your life.”

  Gram bent forward, holding her stomach as she burst into laughter. “I think you might be my missing ingredient.”

  The two of them doubled over in giggles. Jocelyn put her arms around her grandmother and gave her a hug. “I’ve missed you, Gram.”

  “I’ve missed you too, honey,” she said, squeezing her back. “All this talk of spicy chili has got me thirsty. Will you help me get some punch?”

  “Sure.” Jocelyn stepped forward to make a wide berth for her grandmother to turn around. The band started up a new song, and Mack came back through the door on the other side of the room. Sophie came in behind him holding a stapler and a roll of receipt tape in her hand. They must have gone for supplies.

  The crowd parted again as Gram made her way back across the room. Jocelyn wasn’t sure why she even needed her. As they approached the punch table, Jocelyn spotted Loretta holding out her hand to her grandson. It made Jocelyn’s heart do another one of those funny tumbles as she watched Mack smile down at his grandmother as he led her out to the dance floor. They were so dang cute.

  Gram had already poured herself a glass of punch by the time Jocelyn caught up to her. “It looks like you and Midge managed just fine. What did you need me for?”

  Her grandmother’s brow furrowed. “Oh shoot. You’re right.” She plunked the cup down, then wheeled the knee scooter forward, edging Jocelyn into the dancers. “Really, I just needed your help to…” She peered over Jocelyn’s shoulder. “Oh look, there’s Loretta.” She waved as she called to her friend. “Hey Lo, would you mind helping me with this punch?”

  Jocelyn turned to see Loretta and Mack had circled around the floor and were right behind her.

  Loretta smiled sweetly at Jocelyn. “Oh honey, I’d better help your grandmother. Would you mind taking over for me here?” She grabbed Jocelyn’s hand and put it into Mack’s as she scooted around to her other side, then gave the couple a little nudge. “You two look adorable together. Enjoy your dance.”

  Jocelyn looked up at Mack as she fell into step with him. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he said, wearing an amused smile as he shook his head. “Could those two be any more obvious?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He pulled her a little closer as he led her around the floor. “Just so you know, I was going to ask you to dance with me. All on my own.”

  She bent her forehead to his. “Just so you know, I was going to ask you to dance with me. All on my own.”

  He let out a soft laugh. “Will you ever stop competing with me?”

  She shook her head. “Probably not. Although I do owe you ten dollars. Gram walked in within seconds of the band starting, and she started right off complaining about how she couldn’t get Midge to cooperate when she tried to dance.”

  “That was an easy bet. You practically let me win that one.”

  She teased him with a flirty smile. “If you want to place a bet on whether I’ll let you kiss me after the dance, I’ll let you win that one too.”

  Apparently, her grandmother wasn’t the only one with mad skills when it came to cheesy pickup lines.

  For the next several hours, Jocelyn and Mack were both pulled in a million different directions. They found another few chances to dance, one time getting pulled into a fun line dance similar to the Virginia Reel. But at the last part of the line dance where they broke into couples, Mack ended up dancing with Sophie. Jocelyn tried to ignore the feeling that fate was trying to tell her something. She ended up dancing with Ted Wilkerson, their fiercest competitor from the obstacle course earlier that day.

  As the dance was winding down, Jocelyn escaped out the side door. She lifted her hair off her neck to let the night air cool it. The soft strains of the music carried through the open upper windows of the barn, and she could hear the chirp of a cricket and the occasional soft splash of the muskrats playing in the pond beside her.

  It was a perfect spring night. She could already feel the hint of summer in the air.

  She heard footsteps and turned to see Mack had followed her out. He came up behind her and put his arms around her waist. She leaned her back against his chest and breathed a contented sigh.

  “You having fun?” he asked. She shivered as his deep voice tickled her ear.

  “Yes.” She rested her hands on his arms. “This whole day has been perfect.”

  “Wow. A perfect day. That’s a rare find.”

  So was Mack Talbot.

  Staying in the circle of his arms, she turned around and laid her head on his shoulder. “Being here is like stepping back into the past. And it’s wonderful. But I have to keep reminding myself that this isn’t my future. My life is in New York. And your life is here.”

  He lifted his hand to touch her cheek as he peered down at her. “So forget about the past and the future, and just be in the present.” His gaze softened as he pulled her still closer. “You’re here now, and we’re together. That’s enough.”

  She let out a soft contented sigh as she snuggled into his chest. He was right. It was enough. It was more than enough. For now.

  “This night, and this day, have been amazing. I’ve had the best time,” Jocelyn told Mack an hour later when the dance finally finished. She, Mack, Molly, Hank, and Loretta sat at a table in the back as the band packed their gear and volunteers began to fold up the tables and chairs.

  “But now we’re at the moment of truth,” Mack said, although the truest moment of the night had been when they’d been outside, and he’d held her and hummed in her ear as they swayed on their own private dance floor to the music drifting through the windows of the barn. “Now that all the people are gone and we’ve sold the last luminary and the final bag of kettle corn, it’s time to count up the money and see if we really saved the ranch.”

  She sighed as a heavy feeling settled in her stomach. “Do we have to? Can’t we wait until the morning? Right now, this has been the perfect day. I want it to end on this note of success. I want to forget about the fact that we have to have made twenty-four thousand dollars or we’ll lose the ranch. I heard so much laughter and saw so many families enjoying the day. I just want to focus on that. Just for tonight.”

  “Sure. We can do that. We probably need to wait for the vendor sales, anyway.” In truth, he was fine putting it off…not just because losing the ranch would upend his world, but because they’d had such a great night and he didn’t want it to end it with Jocelyn’s being upset. He’d seen the gate sales and after doing this festival for so many years, he had an idea of about where their revenue would land. And he was sure they’d be short.

  Heck, he’d been sure of that before they’d even started. They’d never made that much at a festival, even with adding in all the new things they’d tried this year. But he didn’t want to be the one to destroy Jocelyn’s spirits.

  “That’s fine with me,” Molly said, stifling a yawn. “I’m too pooped to make any sense of the numbers tonight anyway. Let’s all get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll meet at my house in the morning to find out together.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Loretta said. “We’ll be there. And we’ll bring cinnamon rolls and prayers.”

  “Good,” Molly told them. “I’ll think we’ll need plenty of both.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, Loretta and Hank arrived at Gram’s early, a box of freshly baked cinnamon rolls from the Harmony Creek Bakery in their hands. Jocelyn had just brewed a pot of coffee, and poured a cup for each of them as they exchanged greetings and settled at the table next to her grandmother, who had her foot propped up on a pillow on the chair.

  “Smells delicious in here,” Mack said when he appeared a few minutes later, the box with the festival’s profits in his hands and Savage trotting at his heels. He
set the box on the table and picked up a roll. “Thanks,” he told Jocelyn, as she set a cup of coffee in front of him.

  The tension was evident in the room as Loretta wrung her hands, Mack paced from the living room to the kitchen and back, Hank’s leg wouldn’t stop shaking against his chair, and Jocelyn raced around trying to make sure everyone had food and that her grandmother was comfortable. Like Jocelyn, they were all eager to find out how the festival had done, but also worried about what would happen if they hadn’t made enough.

  Gram smacked the table in front of her, making them all jump. “Well, no use putting off the inevitable. Let’s get to it.” She pointed to the box. “Sort out the sections, Mack, and give us all something to count.” They each took a separate portion of the festival proceeds to add up.

  Forty minutes later, they stared grimly at each other over the piles of cash and receipts, finally at the moment of truth.

  “Before we add up the final numbers,” Gram said, putting her hand over the calculator. “I just want to tell you all how much this whole thing means to me. I wouldn’t be here without your love, friendship and support, and that means more to me than any piece of property. No matter the results, I know each one of you worked so hard, and we gave it our all.”

  “We love you too, Gram,” Jocelyn told her.

  “Okay.” Her grandmother inhaled a deep breath and pulled her hand back. She gripped her fingers together, kneading them in her lap as she nodded at Jocelyn. “Let’s do it. Add ’em up.”

  They all passed her the slips of paper with their totals on them. Jocelyn took each one and punched the numbers into the calculator.

  A hard knot of disappointment settled in her stomach as she stared down at the total. “With the entrance fees, the dance, the pie auction, the sale of the luminaries and hearts, the vendors, the chili cook-off, and the kettle corn sales…” She paused to take a breath. “We made just over twelve thousand dollars.”

  “Twelve thousand dollars?” Her grandmother stared at her in shock, her mouth agape. She clapped it shut as she shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m so sorry, Gram.”

  “Don’t be. There’s nothing to be sorry for. That’s incredible. I didn’t think we’d even break ten. Twelve thousand dollars is amazing. That’s the most we’ve ever made in one festival weekend. I’m thrilled.”

  “You might be thrilled,” Mack said. “But it’s not nearly enough to pay back the bank. We’re still shy twelve thousand bucks. And the festival was our best hope to make a bunch of cash. We’ve only got a week left. We’ll never make enough to save the ranch.”

  Gram lifted her shoulders in a shrug. She put on a brave face, but Jocelyn heard the small quiver in her voice. “Well, we gave it a good go, and I’ve had a great run here. Maybe it’s time I moved into town, anyway. If the bank takes the ranch, I just hope they try to sell it to another investor. It will break my heart if they tear it down and turn it into a shopping mall.”

  “A shopping mall?” a voice shrieked from behind them.

  They all turned to see Mrs. Crandle standing inside the front door. “I was planning to bake some lemon bars and needed my pan back,” she said, bustling over and dropping into an empty seat at the table. “What’s all this nonsense about losing the ranch?”

  “It’s not nonsense, I’m afraid,” Gram told her. “I owe the bank a lot of money, and it’s due next week.”

  “Yes, I heard. Twelve thousand dollars.”

  Dang. How long had she been standing there?

  She took a cinnamon roll from the box and tore off a bite. “So, what are you going to do next to try to raise it?”

  Jocelyn smiled. She loved this woman. She might be a bit of a crabby-pants, but she was all business and didn’t waste time on useless words. “We have no idea,” Jocelyn told her. “We were hoping the festival would make enough, but we fell way short.”

  “I understand that. But it sounds like you have a week left. What else can you do to try to make money?”

  She liked this woman’s attitude. Their time wasn’t up yet. They still had options. Jocelyn pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “I was thinking I could visit the bank tomorrow to try to take out a loan.”

  Mack nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. I can give you a ride.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Gram said, leveling a hard stare at both of them. “I will let you work as hard as you want the next week to try to earn the money, but I refuse to let you go into debt personally for me or the ranch. I don’t care if you can get loans. I won’t accept a dime from either one of you if it means you would now owe the bank instead of me.” She pointed a thin finger at one then the other. “You hear me? I’m not joking about this. I’ll call the bank manager myself if I need to, and tell them not to loan to you.”

  Jocelyn held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. We hear you. Although if you really have that kind of clout with the bank manager, why don’t you just get him to give you more time on the loan?”

  “Believe me, I’ve tried,” Gram muttered.

  “We’ll table the loan idea,” Mack said. “For now. But that brings us back to trying to come up with an idea for another great moneymaker we could pull off this week.”

  Jocelyn chewed her bottom lip as she stared at the pile of receipts. “What was the most successful part of the festival? And by successful, I mean what made the most money?”

  Mack scanned the stack of papers and receipts. “The dance was probably our most profitable. And that’s not including the food, drinks, and luminaries and hearts we sold. But we had a pretty cheap band.”

  An inkling of an idea sparked in Jocelyn’s mind. “Soooo…what if we did another dance slash concert thing? But made this one bigger and better?”

  “Another Plan B and B?” Mack asked.

  She grinned. “Exactly.”

  “That sounds good, but how do you suggest we accomplish it?”

  “I’m thinking,” Jocelyn said. “I’m trying to imagine some other great events. What makes them so successful?”

  “A ton of people combined with a fun activity,” Gram said.

  “Okay, so what if we did another concert, but had it outdoors, and made it an all-day event?”

  “You mean like Woodstock?” Hank asked.

  “Yeah. Sort of. That same kind of idea, but it would only be one day. Like all afternoon and into the night, so no camping. We could do it this Saturday and use that big field out behind the barn, so it wouldn’t be on the ranch and wouldn’t take away from the integrity of the living history museum.”

  Mack tilted his head. “I’m listening. But it seems like a lot of work to do in one week and not a lot of time to advertise to get a good crowd out here.”

  Jocelyn sat up a little straighter. “That’s the power of social media. We don’t need a ton of time, just a ton of people. And it wouldn’t take that much work. We could borrow a big flatbed trailer and pull it out in the field to use as a stage. And maybe some of the vendors would come back. I’ll bet we could get some food trucks to come out too. We just need some kind of cool theme and a way to make it sound so fun that no one would dare miss it.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Gram said. “What could we use for a theme?”

  “What kind of music would it be?” Loretta asked.

  “Probably country. Or maybe bluegrass. Something people could dance to.”

  “This could work,” her grandmother said, leaning back in her chair to look at the ceiling. “Some good country music and a bunch of food. What if we called it Tunes and Takeout? Or maybe Music and Munchies?”

  “Country Music and Country Cookin’?” Loretta suggested.

  “Guitars and Gravy?” Hank tried.

  Jocelyn tapped her finger against her lips. “How about Fiddles and Vittles?”

  Mack nodded. “That
’s pretty good. I like it.”

  “I love it,” Gram said. “You’re really good at this stuff, Joss. I can see why you’re up for that promotion.”

  Jocelyn smiled at the praise, but a hard lump settled in her stomach at the thought of going back to New York and leaving these people behind. Especially a certain handsome blacksmith.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Mrs. Crandle spoke up. “I think you need to make it a benefit concert. Why not let your neighbors and this community help you? Goodness knows you’ve helped all of them plenty of times. And they love this ranch as much as you do. Well, maybe not as much, but they do love it. And they love you. I know they’d want to help.”

  Gram folded her arms across her chest. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s embarrassing.”

  “Oh, please. Wetting your pants is embarrassing. Using six cans of Hormel chili as your cook-off entry is embarrassing. This is nothing. We all understand money troubles. There isn’t a one of us that hasn’t found ourselves in a pinch at one time or another.”

  “This is more than a pinch. This is twelve thousand dollars.”

  “All the more reason to get the community involved,” Jocelyn said. “I agree with Mrs. Crandle. Harmony Creek loves a good cause. And what could mean more to this town than rescuing Harmony Ranch?”

  They spent the next several hours brainstorming ideas, hashing out the details, and coming up with a concrete plan. They talked through lunch and into the afternoon. In the end, Gram agreed to let the community help, and the Fiddles and Vittles Benefit Concert was born.

  Over the next few days, Jocelyn worked tirelessly. She spent hours bent over her laptop or with her phone plastered to her ear, either working on projects due at her job or setting things up for the benefit concert. She’d created a Facebook page and scheduled numerous promotional posts and tweets using the hashtag #RescuingHarmonyRanch.

  Mack had taken on the task of finding local talent, and he’d booked several bands to fill slots throughout the afternoon and evening. Most of them knew Gram or had grown up going to the ranch and were glad to help. A few of the bigger bands cut their normal rates in half and most of the smaller ones offered to play for free, figuring they could use the publicity and help Harmony Ranch at the same time.