by Cassie Cole
“Thought it was them. Had to check.”
“You couldn’t have chosen a less destructive manner?” the redheaded lawyer shouted.
“I don’t understand,” I said, focusing on the owners of my neighboring ranch. “You are buying my ranch?”
Herald straightened his white suit and sent a final glare at Daniel before answering. “Like I said the other day. Always wanted to expand our property. But the east side is owned by the state, and the west and north sides won’t sell. Your ranch nearly doubles our land.”
I shook my head. “But you said you were going to buy it for pennies on the dollar at the auction tomorrow. Why make an offer before then?”
“Was gunna, ‘til we heard rumors of another buyer swoopin’ in. We were afraid of it never goin’ to auction.”
I tried not to laugh, until Mr. Bonile said, “There have indeed been other inquiries. None have made a formal offer, however. I suspect the ranch’s numerous maintenance problems have scared them away.”
Landon stepped up next to me. “That’s why you’ve been intentionally sabotaging the ranch! The damaged fence, causing the cows to wander and get lost…”
“The sudden termite damage!” Daniel exclaimed, still on the back of the horse. “I knew it was strange for an infestation that bad to spring up in a year!”
Landon’s eyes were still locked onto Herald Honeycomb. “You’ve done all that to lower the purchase value, and to scare other buyers off.”
At first, Herald had the nerve to look offended. Slowly, the facade dropped away and was replaced by the biggest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen. “You can’t prove a damn thing.”
Chase lurched forward. Somehow, Landon grabbed his arms and held him back.
“Don’t,” he warned. “You’re already out on bail. The last thing you want…”
“You piece of shit,” Chase said. “You piece of fucking shit.”
Francis had remained silent this entire time. He stepped forward with his bulky frame and cleared his throat. “We don’t have to bulldoze the house. We could keep it, if you wanted to stay there. You might like it…”
Oh God, I thought.
“I figured maybe I could take you out. I know you didn’t like me none when we was kids, but I’ve grown up. So have you.”
“Francis…” I said.
“You don’t have to answer now!” he quickly said. “Just think about it, is all.”
Herald barked a laugh. “She’d better do more than think about it. We’re the ones buying her shitty ranch. She ought to show you a good time. The least she could do is go out on a date.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help but laugh, it was so ridiculous. “This isn’t the 19th century. You can’t attach me to a contract like I’m a piece of cattle. I don’t have to do anything you ask.”
“And I don’t have to buy your ranch,” Herald said. “Maybe I’ll take my chances at the auction tomorrow.”
The threat was like a noose tightening around my neck. I couldn’t have him walk away now. This was my only way out.
“Buy the ranch, and then we’ll talk,” I said. I didn’t have to commit to anything.
Landon put a gentle hand on my arm. “Cindy. You don’t have to do this—”
“Oh, I get it now,” Francis spat. It was like a switch had been flipped, revealing Mr. Hyde. “You’ll be a whore for these cowboys but you won’t give me a shot.”
“The fuck did you just call her?”
“I said she’s a whore, you yellow haired—”
Before he could finish Chase was striding down the porch and across the space. Francis widened his stance and began to bring up his fists, but Chase faked a blow to the left before throwing a haymaker with his right, catching Francis on the jaw and knocking him to the ground.
“Oh fuck that hurts,” Chase said, holding his right arm by the wrist. “Jesus…”
Their lawyer ran in between them like a boxing referee. “Everyone just calm down! Personal issues aside, we’re here to complete a sale. Both sides have agreed to it. If we can sign the documents…”
Herald helped his son off the ground and spat in Chase’s direction, missing by two feet. “Fuck buying this ranch. I’ll take my chance with the auction.”
Now that his commission was on the line, Mr. Bonile ran forward. “Wait! What about being afraid of other buyers swooping in?”
“You already said nobody had made an offer, you fucking idiot.” Herald opened the door to his sedan, then brushed the broken glass off the seat. “Have a nice fucking life, Miss. Jameson.”
“I’ll kill you,” Francis said, eyes burning a hole in Chase. “You’re dead. You hear me, bitch?”
Chase was wincing too hard to respond, but Daniel shouted, “Bring your whole arsenal, buddy. You’ll need it.”
“Expect a visit from the sheriff,” Herald said, shoving his son in the car. “Hope your mad dog likes the inside of a jail cell.”
Their tires spun and sent rocks flying as they roared out of the driveway.
42
Cindy
I watched their car leave, and the lawyer’s car soon after. Their departure felt even more like doom than their arrival.
I was back to square one. The ranch was going to auction tomorrow.
Landon went to help Chase. “Let’s go get some ice on that hand. A wise man once told me if you don’t ice it, it’ll swell up like a dead pig.”
In spite of everything, Chase laughed. “Good. We’ll get the swelling down just in time for the sheriff to show up and haul me off to jail.”
“We’ll worry about that when he gets here.”
I stared at the documents still in my hand. Everything was filled out. My signature and date were at the bottom. The only thing missing was the buyer’s signature.
We’d been so close.
I followed them into the kitchen and helped Chase get a frozen bag for his hand. Daniel came in the back door after putting the horse away.
“Whelp,” I said. “That could’ve gone better.”
“Could it?” Daniel said. “Seems to me we saved ya from sellin’ your ranch to those assholes.”
“You have,” I said, “for another 24 hours. Then they’ll buy it at auction, leaving me more screwed than before.”
The phone rang with blaring intrusiveness. I grabbed the broken plastic receiver off the wall and snapped, “What?”
“Cindy?” came my boss’s voice on the other end.
“Oh, Mr. Cormoran! I’m sorry, I thought you were, uhh, a telemarketer…”
“Yes, it’s fine.” He paused. “Cindy, I wanted to have this discussion in person this afternoon—”
“Actually, I won’t be back until tomorrow,” I said. “Is that alright?”
“We can have it now. It will only take a moment.”
“Great, because I’ve already spoken to the clients,” I said. “I called each of them yesterday and went over the presentation. Ensured they were comfortable with what we were offering.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I know it’s not as good as an in-person presentation, but I did a good job of allaying their fears, if I do say so myself,” I said. “Once I’m back, I’ll take each of them out to lunch to get the personal touch. I have a good feeling about this new group.”
“Cindy, you didn’t need to do that,” Mr. Cormoran said. I heard another voice in his office, and then muted sounds like he was covering the receiver. “Jason gave the presentation in your absence. He did a fine job.”
“Sure, but I wanted to make sure they knew who would be managing their account.”
“Cindy, you’re not going to be managing their account.”
I sucked in my breath. “What?”
“We know this is untimely based on your, err, personal issues…”
“My father died. I’ve been handling his affairs.”
“…but we’ve decided to go in a different direction. Jason will be assuming all your responsibilities from this point fo
rward.”
“You’re fucking firing me?”
In the room, the three Hughes brothers tensed.
“We brought you on to build our cryptocurrency department from the ground up,” he said. “You’ve done a fantastic job. And now we’re moving into a BAU phase. Jason can take over from here. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, Cindy. Your past two quarterly performance reviews mentioned your issues…”
I gesticulated at the kitchen wall. “Yeah, okay, so I’m late for work sometimes. That’s only because I’m up late with the candlestick charts. Crypto doesn’t hold normal bank hours.”
“Our clients do,” he said with finality. “Again, I’m sorry to do this over the phone, you were calling our clients and confusing things…”
I slammed the phone down on the receiver, breaking off another shard of plastic.
Fuck. Fuck. This was all my fault. I’d gotten too comfortable at the job, had taken some liberties with my hours and absences. I’d taken for granted that I was irreplaceable there. The only person who knew anything about cryptocurrency, and the only person who had built the department from nothing.
Except I’d trained my goddamn replacement.
“That sounded like it went well,” Landon said.
I closed my eyes and held up a hand. “Don’t. Not now.”
“Cindy…” Chase began. “I’m sorry for—”
I threw the ruined contract across the room. “What, Chase? Are you going to tell me your sorry? That you have feelings for me? Because that’s great and all, but it doesn’t save me from financial ruin!”
Landon opened his mouth, but I rounded on him before he could speak.
“I don’t want to hear a word from you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth when I offered you the job. Yes, I’ve intended to sell this place from the start. Even before I knew of all the debt. And I’m sorry that leaves you guys out of a job. Especially if the Honeycombs end up buying, since they certainly won’t keep you on. But I have to look out for myself.” Tears welled up in my eyes against my will, which only made me angrier. “I don’t have anyone. My momma died years ago, and although dad wasn’t much support he was still my dad. And now I’m losing the only thing left of either of them.”
I swept my hand around the kitchen.
“This is it. This is all that’s left. I don’t give a fuck about photo albums, or the family jewelry Aunt Sophie took, or any other goddamn keepsake. They’re all just things. This place, the Jameson Ranch? It’s the only thing that reminds me of my family anymore. It’s all I have left. And tomorrow, it’ll be gone too.”
I was trembling by the end, whether from anger or grief or exhaustion. I didn’t realize how much I meant the words until they came out, but they were true. My family was gone. I was never going to get them back. And this was the only place where I felt close to them.
I couldn’t bear the stares of the three Hughes boys, so I clenched my eyes shut and prayed they would disappear.
“Cindy,” Landon said gently, “we have something to tell you.”
I wanted to scream at them. To tell them to leave, that it hurt to much for anyone to see me here, now, at my lowest point. Especially them, the three men who I knew I was slowly falling for and who I needed to break ties with—but desperately didn’t want to.
In the end, I had no energy to protest. I let Landon guide me to the head of the table and fell into the chair. The others sat all around me, smiling.
“We should start at the beginning,” Landon said. “It has to do with a ranch we worked last year. Back then, Daniel could ride a horse just fine. No qualms about it.”
“He already told me,” I said wearily. “What’s that have to do with any of this?”
“I, uhh, didn’t tell ya the important part,” Daniel said. “So I was ridin’, and the rancher’s son Percy fired a gun into the air as a joke. Tryin’ to scare me. Fell and crushed my leg.”
“He was in the hospital for months, in and out of surgery,” Chase said. The emotion on his face, the fear for his brother, shocked me. “Nearly bled out a few times.”
“Plus the physical therapy,” Landon said. “We had health insurance, but it wasn’t great. The bills were, uhh…” He scratched his head. “Well, they were a lot. More than we’d earn in 20 years. And the rancher refused to pay for his bills, even though he was well off from all the mineral rights of his ranch.”
“We didn’t want to sue him,” Chase said. “But it was Percy’s fault. And we had no other way to pay for Daniel’s bills.”
Daniel looked embarrassed as he chimed in. “All we wanted were the bills covered. The surgeries, plus physical therapy. Ya know?”
Landon put a comforting hand over his brother’s. “Apparently, this wasn’t the first incident with the kid. There’d been a dozen complaints about Percy before: taking potshots at cars, wounding animals on the neighbor’s ranch. Yet the ranch owner refused to store his guns in a locker to keep them out of the kid’s hands. It was an easy case. The judge awarded us everything we requested for Daniel’s medical bills…”
“Plus punitive damages on top,” Chase said.
The three brothers stared at me as if that explained everything.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So you got some extra cash from the lawsuit. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“No, Cindy,” Landon said. “We were awarded a lot of punitive damages.”
I could tell he didn’t want to say the number, but Chase had no qualms. “$13 million!” he blurted out.
“Chase!”
“What? I’m sick of secrets.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “You three have $13 million? Why the fuck are you still working as ranch hands?”
“Because we haven’t been working just to work,” Landon said. “We’ve been scoping out ranches. Looking for the right place.”
“The right place to buy,” Daniel said.
Chase nodded. “That’s why we took our last job at the Anderson ranch: we knew he was in money trouble, and wanted to scout out the ranch before making him an offer. But he fired us before we could.”
“And then you appeared out of thin air in the feed store,” Landon said. “Claiming you’d inherited a ranch and needed help.”
“That’s why you took the job?” I asked. I felt lightheaded. “You wanted to buy my ranch?”
“We were hoping to,” Landon said. “When you offered us the job, you lied and told me you wanted to keep the ranch. That’s why I was upset to learn you intended to sell it the entire time. That would have made things simpler.”
“That’s fucking stupid,” I said. “You’re walking around with a seven digit bank account looking for a place to buy, but keeping that a secret? Why weren’t you up front with your intentions?”
“Cause sellers always try to hide the flaws of a place,” Daniel explained. “Whether it’s water damage, or hidden termites. Working for the ranch first lets us find everything easier.” His lip twitched with half a smile.
I laughed. It was all I could do. “Well, I’m sorry you took the job and discovered how fucked up my ranch is. I’m sure you can find ranches in better shape to buy all around Greenville.”
Landon’s smile deepened. “We were going to make you an offer.”
“An offer.”
“Uh huh. To buy the ranch.”
I cocked my head. “You were the mystery buyer inquiring with my estate lawyer? I thought he was just making stuff up.”
“Nope. That was us. We were all ready to make an official offer, until the Honeycombs swept in.”
“That explains why you were so curious about their offer.” I put on a patronizing smile. “I hate to break it to you, but there’s a mountain of debt attached to the estate. Credit card debt, business lines of credit that are maxed out, an equity line of credit.”
“You told us.”
“I never told you how much debt,” I said. “The total amount owed to the bank and others is—”
�
�We know,” Daniel interrupted. “Sorry. We snooped through your financials when you were gone. We had to, to get a feel for the ranch’s affairs.”
“We’re prepared to buy the ranch with all liabilities attached,” Landon announced as if it were a royal decree.
The words washed over me without sinking in. Surely this wasn’t happening. They had no reason to do this.
“Again,” I said, “I’m sure there are plenty of other ranches around Greenville you could buy that are in better shape with less debt.”
“We don’t want other ranches!” Chase said. “We want yours.”
“We were prepared to walk away when we saw the shape of the ranch,” Landon said. “But then we got to know you.”
A flock of birds took flight in my stomach. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You can’t pretend you don’t feel it,” Landon said, taking my hand. The tattoos on his forearm rippled in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window, and his hard jawline was serious. “We all have feelings for you. And we think you have feelings for us.”
“It hasn’t been long,” I said. “Just a week…”
“Sometimes you know,” Chase said.
I searched my feelings. Part of me wanted this. Wanted it badly. Had wanted it all this time without realizing it.
But it was crazy. More than crazy. On both sides of it.
“You can’t buy a ranch just because we’ve all had a fling,” I said.
“Nope,” Landon agreed. “We can’t. But we can buy your ranch for its own sake. We have enough money to buy it three times over. We’ll fix it up. Get it into working order. We like a challenge.”
“And if anything romantic happens with you?” Daniel said. “Well, we reckon that’s just a bonus.”
“No pressure,” Chase added.
They were offering me a way out. An honest-to-God life preserver thrown to a drowning woman. But just like the Honeycomb offer, did this one come with strings attached? Would they expect anything from me if I sold to them?
As I looked around the table at their faces, I knew they wouldn’t. If something happened, something happened. But if not? That would be okay too. I hadn’t known them long, but I knew them well enough to know that.
