by Liza Kendall
“How’s that?”
“Well.” Jules took a hard left out of the stables and headed for Main Street. “I have absolutely no idea how he got there, you understand? But he somehow made his way into the firehouse shower.”
“Somehow.” Rhett’s lips twitched.
“Yeah. Crazy, right? And somehow all the other guys except for Grady knew about it. So it scared the daylights out of my brother when he climbed in.”
Rhett hooted. “Oh, hey—why? I mean, I shower with feral chickens on a daily basis.”
“Grady, after a lot of cussing, declined ownership. Go figure. Dad refused ‘that bastage redheaded rooster,’ too. Told me to get rid of the ‘son of a gun.’ So, since I didn’t feel like driving him back to Bastrop, I drove him out to the Old Barn instead.”
Rhett’s laughter fell away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s gone, and all because of that crazy Bridezilla girl.”
“We’ll rebuild. Don’t you worry.”
“That’s not the word . . . but that’s also not my business.”
Rhett stared out the window without comment.
“Anyway. So I pull up to the Old Barn, stuff the rooster under my arm, and crash a Garden Club luncheon that Lila’d orchestrated. Told them I’d arrived with their entrée . . . but it was a little undercooked, still.”
Rhett’s mirth returned. Shoulders shaking, he turned to face her again. “Jules.”
She cackled. “I’m not sure who was more petrified, the chicken or the Garden Club ladies.”
“And what did my sister do?” he inquired.
“Grabs the chicken from me, says she ordered coq au vin, if you please, and stuffs it into an empty cupboard for the next couple of hours.”
“Priceless.”
“Then she kicks me out.”
“My guess is that you weren’t dressed for the Garden Club luncheon?”
Jules bit her lower lip. “Well, no. Not exactly.”
They’d pulled up in front of Holt Saddlery by this time, and she took a deep breath.
The bells on the knob jingled as Rhett opened the door for her, and they walked into the shop. It looked and smelled like a peculiar combo of Wild West meets Arabian Nights.
Aunt Sue had incense burning from hanging, hammered-tin containers, large beeswax candles—Mia’s—burned in colorful glass holders, and strings of porch lights (in cactus, cowboy boot, and chili pepper shapes) glimmered from almost every molding.
Some of the English saddles were slung on their stands over exotic fabrics. The western ones sat atop woven Mexican and Indian blankets. Bridles, halters, martingales, and leads hung on one wall. Rows and rows of hand-tooled western boots sat on another wall, waiting to walk out with their lucky new owners.
Aunt Sue did shoe, boot, and bag repairs in a back room, and in addition to holsters and canteens, made leather jewelry with semiprecious stones and feathers.
Folk art, homespun Texas crafts, and turned-wood objects nestled in every corner and crevice . . . Aunt Sue liked to help out other local craftspeople. Mia’s other beeswax products sat showcased in their own shelf near the cash register. The shelf itself was made by a local furniture-maker, handcrafted of polished driftwood and glass. It was a two-tiered affair that held a few items of Southwest jewelry on the higher shelf.
“Y’all come on in,” Sue’s husky voice called from the back room. “Be with you in two shakes.”
“Chocolate or vanilla?” Jules called.
Rhett groaned.
“What? Is that you, Jules?” Aunt Sue stuck her white head out of the back, her pewter-gray eyes leveling on first Jules and then Rhett. “Ah. Wondered when the new owner’d be stoppin’ by.” Soon the rest of her emerged, too—wielding what looked like a small sledgehammer.
No flies on Aunt Sue. She didn’t miss a trick. She was a handsome, comfortably padded lady of about fifty-five, dressed in a leather apron over an artistic, flowy silk top. That was draped over a long, swirly skirt and cowboy boots with flowers embroidered on them. Her white hair was pulled back in a turquoise-studded clip, and beaded, feather earrings dangled almost to her shoulders.
“How do you know who I am?” Rhett asked, a touch awkwardly.
She smiled. “Easy. You look like your mother, rumors run amok, and you’re with Jules . . . who looks as if she’d rather not be here, introducing you. That tells me that she’s touring you around the business and you’re looking for . . . should we call them . . . inefficiencies?”
Jules winced, but Rhett seemed to respect her logic. “I don’t think I’d dare call you an inefficiency, ma’am. You might hit me with that hammer.”
She considered him coolly and bared her teeth in what just passed for a smile. “I might.”
“Be nice, Aunt Sue,” Jules said.
“Sure, sure. I’ll be just as nice as you were, doll. Tossed Maggie’s flowers into a stall out at the barn . . .”
“Dad is a gossip,” Jules said. “Like everyone else in this town.”
“It was your mother who told me.”
“Oh. How is it that the entire family has been treating me like I’m two years old?”
“Don’t feel discriminated against. Billy only just told me.” Aunt Sue’s eyes went cloudy. “I am worried about him. Your mother’s a wreck.”
“I’m worried about both of them.”
“Well. We don’t want to suffocate Ever-Rhett, here, by airing our family laundry. How can I help you, sir?”
“Oh, just wanted to see the place,” Rhett said, a shade too casually.
“Sure.” Aunt Sue shot him a caustic glance. “Well, come on in. Check out our horse community photos—over there, see? On the wall opposite the ribbons and trophies.”
It was a deliberate move by her aunt: show Rhett that the Holt Saddlery was a Silverlake fixture, almost a museum as well as an odd, artsy general store. The community photo wall was one of Jules’s favorite spots in the hodgepodge of the saddlery.
Aunt Sue had inexplicably slung a beat-up suede couch and a trunk for a coffee table across two glass-paned double doors that opened inward. When questioned about this furniture placement, she flapped a dismissive hand. “Aw, nobody uses that entrance, anyway. So why not?”
On the adjacent walls hung a wealth of town horse history: trophies and ribbons on one wall, and on the other, photos of local kids and adults in rodeos, horse shows, special equestrian competitions and at the annual Black Tie & Boots Soiree, which raised money to rescue wild horses—mostly mustangs—from kill lots.
There stood Aunt Sue, MC at the 2003 soiree, blazing in bright red lipstick, a rhinestone collar and matching earrings, a long black velvet dress slit up to the thigh, and black cowboy boots with skulls on the toes; red and white roses climbing the shanks.
“Lookin’ good,” said Rhett.
“I held my own, back in the day.” Aunt Sue nodded.
There was Jules, in riding breeches, coat, and black velvet helmet, on the back of Lancelot, a massive bay gelding. They were hurtling over a fence that was six feet high. She had perfect form—heels down in the stirrups, leaning forward, shoulders back. She was proud of that—though what the photo didn’t show was Lancelot balking at the next fence and her flying over it to land in a heap on the ground. She remembered Dad’s white face, bending over her. Then Sue shoving him out of the way, getting down on her knees to do CPR if necessary. But Jules’d just had the breath knocked out of her. It returned, along with a nice dose of public humiliation.
And there . . . Jules chuckled. There, in fact, was Rhett himself: flying through the air after getting unseated by a pissed-off bull.
He winced. “Not my best event,” he said.
“I think you were dumb to even get near that animal,” Jules told him. “Stick with the mechanical kind. Did you see Schweitz’s
finally got one?”
“I did not.”
“Otto finally wore down Schweitzie. It should make for some good evening entertainment.”
“Good Lord,” Aunt Sue said. “I’ll have to take that in, a night or two.”
“You always were a wild child, Auntie.”
Sue snorted. “And now I’m a wild old woman.”
“Still a beauty,” Rhett said.
He got a squint for that. “Puh-lease. Save your charm for someone else, boy.”
“You’ll never be old,” Jules said. And she meant it.
“All right, you two. Why don’t you cut bait and tell me why you’re here, for real. Don’t like my profit margins, is that it?” She leveled her gaze on Rhett.
“They were fine,” he said carefully, “when all you had to pay was taxes. What you may not know is that Billy refinanced everything. Including taking out a big mortgage on your shop building, here.”
Jules swallowed hard. “He did not.”
Rhett nodded. “He did. He needed the cash.”
Aunt Sue’s face drained of color. “Oh, Billy.” She sat down hard on the suede couch. “Darn it.” Then her expression changed to one of puzzlement. “But you—you bought the whole operation, didn’t you?”
“I bought the operation, Sue,” he said. “But I haven’t paid off the mortgage on this particular building. First of all, I need an interest write-off. And second, I don’t know that the numbers justify doing that.”
Her chin came up and she did her best to stare him down.
He didn’t blink. “So for example . . . when you take people’s work on consignment”—Rhett gestured around to various items—“you may want to start taking the normal fifty percent cut, instead of only fifteen percent.”
“Why should they do all the work and only get paid half,” Sue murmured, “while the only thing I do is display their items?”
“I hear you,” Rhett said. “And I applaud the sentiment. But times have changed, and every square inch in here needs to start paying for itself.”
Aunt Sue patted her padded hip. “Every square inch, you say?”
Jules could practically see the cogs turning in Rhett’s head. How to handle a woman like Aunt Sue? And he chose well.
Rhett nodded. “Every square, beautiful inch.”
One side of Aunt Sue’s generous mouth quirked up. She wasn’t completely immune to flattery. Then she wiped any vestige of a smile off her face. “I don’t like change,” she said flatly.
“Neither do I,” he shot back. “But you bring in enough change, you’ll find yourself looking at a stack of dollar bills.”
* * *
Rhett rubbed the back of his neck as he and Jules headed back out to her goat-and-chicken-scented wreck on wheels. Aunt Sue had been running the saddlery as part charity for other artists, and part hobby shop. It was so far in the red, it wasn’t funny. This would be a tough call; everything in there called out to the kid who’d once loved rodeo. But just because you loved something didn’t mean it worked.
“Well?” Jules said when they were back in the truck.
He sighed. “I don’t know what you expect me to say. I get that Holt Saddlery is important to you. I get that your Aunt Sue is really important to you. But this is a business.”
“You could’ve been a little nicer,” she said. “I mean, who doesn’t like Aunt Sue? Except you, I mean.”
“I didn’t dislike her!”
“You were . . . hard on her.”
“It’s not being hard, Jules. It’s business. And she had an opinion about me before I’d even opened my mouth. She could’ve given me the benefit of the doubt.”
“But you didn’t change your position, did you? You still want to close down the shop.”
“Look, yes, I still think the best thing would be to close it down and find your aunt something else to do—something she’d really like. But like I said, I’m willing to consider alternatives. I think that’s pretty reasonable.”
Jules looked out the window. “Do you have any feelings for Silverlake, Rhett?”
He watched her push her ponytail off her neck. That same spot he’d had his mouth on in Dallas. Yeah, I’ve got feelings for Silverlake. Feelings I need to ignore.
“Something’s got to give, Jules,” Rhett said. “You can’t have it all and there are other areas where you’ve got to make changes.”
“What areas?”
Rhett hadn’t wanted to dump this on her all at once, but if Jules wanted a straightforward approach, that’s what she was going to get. “You’ve been overpaying for feed and supplies. You can place bulk orders much more cheaply with a big national chain,” he told her.
Jules folded her arms and shook her head. “We support local. We have always done business with Fred’s Feed and Supply. Always.”
“Well, maybe it’s time for a change.”
“Fred and my dad went to A&M together.”
“Uh . . . Jules, that’s great. They can still hoist a beer or two now and then for old times’ sake. But this is business.”
“Rhett, I know you’re a big-city guy. But you did grow up around here, and I’d hope you’d remember the way things are done in small-town Texas. We support our neighbors, through thick and thin.”
“And that’s a fine sentiment and an admirable way to be, but—”
“During the Great Depression, Fred’s dad, old Mr. Comstock, kept on delivering to the ranches around here, even when the owners couldn’t pay him, or couldn’t come up with quite enough. He fed half the county’s animals on credit, knowing that the ranchers would make good when they could. On a handshake. And they did.”
“I love the story, but it was a different day and age, Jules.”
“Old Comstock supplied feed to Silverlake Ranch, too,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him or didn’t care what he was saying. “Braddock livestock would have starved if not for him.”
Rhett fell silent at this and sighed.
“In return, when the Big-Box Boys came around offering better prices to all the local ranchers on their feed, they—and we—stuck by Fred’s Feed and Supply. We still do. And that will change,” Jules gritted her teeth, “over my dead body.”
“Over your dead body, huh?” Rhett said. He dragged a hand down his face in frustration. “That’s very helpful, Jules. I’m trying to come up with business solutions for you. Get this place into the black.”
She stared stubbornly back at him. “Well, you’re not going to do it by cutting out Fred’s.”
“All right. What would you rather do? Look at cutting out your salary?”
“Pardon?”
“Well, you said it yourself: You live for free in the cabin out here. Even your utilities are paid. So maybe we could just call that enough.”
“Rhett Braddock, the contract you signed with my dad guarantees me my job here, and you know it.”
“Sure,” he said. “And I will always honor that. However, the contract does not guarantee a specific salary. Read it.”
She gaped at him.
“Aw, close your mouth, Jules, before a horsefly swoops in and takes a seat on one of your molars. Decides to kick back and stay awhile.”
“Gross,” she said.
“I’m not going to cut your salary,” Rhett said irritably. “I was just making a point. In fact, as I told you, I’m trying to find ways to increase what we pay you! But I can’t find those ways if you won’t at least try to work with me.”
“I am working with you, unfortunately. But we’ll have to look at something else. Not Fred’s. My dad would have a conniption fit.”
Rhett didn’t point out that he didn’t have to ask her permission—or her father’s. But he was sure it was written all over his face—even if one Julianna Holt refused to read it.
“Fine. We’
ll revisit the idea later.”
“Or not,” she said sweetly.
“How much do you order from Fred’s at a time, and when?”
She told him.
Rhett leaned back and thought about it. “So what if you ordered six months’ worth at a time and paid up front for it? Might be worth Fred’s while to give you a better price if he gets a big chunk of money all at once.”
“I can’t pay all at once. I don’t have the cash. Besides, the sweet feed has to be stored in a climate-controlled environment, or it will rot. And it starts deteriorating after a month.”
“But oats—they’ll last up to a year, if stored right. So what if we did a combo? And you can now afford it. Remember? You’ve got an injection of capital, via yours truly.”
“Okay, Yours Truly.” Jules somehow made it sound as though there was an Up before the Yours. She was talented at that. “Then you tell me: Can we afford a year’s worth of oats at one time? How about hay?”
He nodded. “Yes, and yes.”
“Huh,” she said.
“That’s eloquent. So may I please, Miss Holt, have your royal permission to petition Fred for a better price? Make a win-win deal for everyone concerned?”
“I guess so,” she muttered.
“How can I express my undying gratitude to you?”
She made a graceful hand gesture and rolled her eyes. “Sit and spin.”
“Wow, Helen and Billy invested in charm school for you, did they? And you graduated with top honors.”
“Absolutely. Now, could you and all of your brilliant ideas just . . . get out of my face for a while?”
“There’s no need to growl at me,” Rhett said.
“That was my stomach,” Jules said. “I’m hungry.”
“Maybe that explains the ’tude,” Rhett muttered, mostly under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
He grinned at her.
She blew out a breath and shook her head. “What are we going to do about Sue?” she mumbled, jamming a hand down into her boot, doing who knew what.
