AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2)

by Lexie Ray

  “We know about the missing cattle,” Hunter said gravely, looking to get this show on the road.

  “Missing cattle?” Tucker repeated. “Really? Have you checked the gorge? Let’s send Emmett.”

  “I am dying laughing, but it’s on the inside,” Emmett said, his hand on his knee brace.

  “Missing cattle isn’t a joke,” Chance barked. “Avery, what’s the count?”

  “We’re down five,” I said. “Hunter and I have been all over looking for stragglers.”

  “And I’m going to do a perimeter run after this,” Hunter said, impatient to get back in the saddle.

  “That’s not the only reason we’re meeting,” Chance said, putting his face in his hand. My stomach dropped out from underneath me. I knew what was coming and my brothers didn’t have a clue.

  Chance was saved from having to drop the bomb on everyone by a sharp rap on the front door, followed by several pressings on the doorbell Hunter had recently fixed.

  We all looked up, confused.

  “Are we expecting a shipment today?” Chance asked Tucker.

  “They wouldn’t ring the doorbell — they’d just drop it off at the barn.”

  “Well, no one’s down at the barn,” Emmett reasoned.

  “Are any of you lazy asses going to get the door?” Zoe demanded, bustling back down the hallway.

  “Sorry, Zoe,” Chance said. “That’s not your job.”

  “It’s somebody’s goddamn job.” She switched her sweetness on as she opened the front door. “Corbin Ranch. What can I help you with?”

  “Bud Billings. Here to see whichever Corbin is on hand.”

  All of us froze. What the hell was that vulture doing here?

  “Well, looks like you have your pick of Corbins today,” Zoe said, her tone notably chillier. “May I ask what your business is?”

  “Business with the Corbins. Not your concern, girl.”

  Chance was on his feet in a flash, marching toward the door before even Tucker could grab him. “Listen here, you son of a bitch …”

  “Excellent,” Bud said, sidestepping both Zoe and Chance and looking around the front room. “You’re all here. This is better than I could’ve imagined.”

  Bud Billings was one of those old men who never seemed to age, an exact date of birth indeterminate. He looked the same to me now as he had when I was a boy, wiry, close-cropped white hair and ropy muscles you could still discern beneath his clothes. He walked with a cane, but not because he had to, I didn’t think. He was always dressed sharply and was one of the first ranchers in the area to go commercial — that is, practicing everything in ranching my parents had been so against. Bud couldn’t rightly call himself a rancher anymore, really, though that didn’t stop him from doing so. He used ATVs and trucks to move the cattle from feeding pen to feeding pen. It was more of a controlled feeding operation than a ranch, and the shit he fed his numerous herds made them big and fat and quick to sell. Bud was highly successful at what he did, whether you believed in it or not.

  “Have I caught you Corbins at a bad time?” Bud asked, his eyes lingering on Emmett’s brace and the portion of carbon fiber prosthesis showing beneath Hunter’s jean cuff. “You’re a raggedy bunch, aren’t you?”

  “You’re going to die alone in your bed,” Hunter replied pleasantly, and Tucker snorted.

  “You have caught us at a bad time,” Chance said, crossing his arms over his chest before sitting back down in the chair he’d vacated in rage. Zoe shook her head at the lot of us and returned to the kitchen. I realized belatedly that Chance had only been so angry because of Bud’s rudeness toward Zoe, and wondered at that.

  “Well, I’ll be in and out of here in no time,” Bud said. “Is this what you do all day? Loaf around in your house? No wonder your ranch is in such trouble.”

  “We’re all capable of throwing you out of here,” Tucker rumbled. “Speak your piece and go.”

  “I’m only here to help,” Bud said, spreading his hands as if he were a reasonable man. “I’d like to offer you a fair price on your ranch — particularly fair considering all the trouble you’re in.”

  “What trouble?” Hunter asked, peering at the old rancher.

  And with a jolt of horror, I realized that Chance and I weren’t going to be the ones to break the bad news about the foreclosure to our brothers. It was going to be Bud Billings, and there was no worse man for the job. Paisley had been right. Everyone in town really did know that the ranch was under foreclosure. How had my brothers missed that news?

  “Why, the bank’s going to take your ranch,” he said, raising his bushy white eyebrows at the youngest Corbin. “Or hasn’t anyone told you?”

  “You’re lying,” Hunter said confidently.

  “It’s true,” I said, so Chance didn’t have to. Everyone stared at me. “That’s what the meeting was about. The bank’s moving to foreclose if we can’t repay the loan and interest by the end of the month.”

  “So sad,” Bud commented, even as his voice was gleeful. “The five of you have run this place into the ground. I told you that you would.”

  “And I told you to go to hell,” Chance said, his voice remarkably calm. “Are you going to give me another opportunity to do so?”

  “Hear me out,” Bud said, even as the rest of my brothers looked like their hearts had been scooped out and smashed underfoot right in front of them. “My offer is reasonable. If you care anything about your futures, you’ll take it. When the bank takes this place, you’ll have nothing. If you sell it to me, like you should’ve done when your parents died, I’ll not only repay the loan; I’ll see to it that each of you has a little money to get started again somewhere else. Ten thousand dollars a boy.”

  “You’re crazy, old man,” Chance said. “My parents never sold to you, and neither will we.”

  “You’d be a fool,” Bud said. “What do you think will happen when the bank repossesses your ranch at the end of the month? They’ll offer it at auction, I’ll win it, and none of you will own so much as a pebble on this property anymore. You’ll all go to the poorhouse. But if you sell it to me now, at least you’ll have a leg to stand on — pardon the expression, Hunter.”

  “Ten thousand dollars isn’t enough to start over again,” Chance said before Hunter could fire back something rude. Tucker patted our baby brother’s shoulder comfortingly as Hunter seethed silently but obviously, rubbing his hands together.

  “Then what would be?” Bud asked smoothly. “Name your price.”

  “You heard Chance the first time,” Tucker said. “We’ll never sell to you. Now get out. You’ve overstayed, and you were never welcome here.”

  “Consider my offer,” Bud said, his eyes not leaving Chance. “It won’t stand for very long. I’ll show myself out, though your housekeeper is very charming.”

  “Fuck off, you old codger!” Zoe yelled from the kitchen. Chance covered his mouth, and Tucker laughed openly.

  Bud only shook his head and left, the car we’d never heard pulling up to the front of the house now the only sound we could hear.

  “What the actual fuck is going on?” Hunter demanded, looking at me. “You knew the bank was trying to repossess the ranch?”

  “Chance and I only just found out yesterday,” I said. “It’s not like we weren’t going to tell you.”

  “That’s what this meeting was about.” Now that Bud was gone, Chance didn’t have anyone to hide his despair from. His shoulders sagged and he rested his forearms on his knees.

  “You could’ve told us earlier,” Hunter persisted, as if it were my damn fault the ranch was going under.

  “Would an hour earlier have made a difference?” I asked. “I didn’t think it was my place to tell you. That’s why I didn’t.”

  We all looked to Chance, the de facto captain of this sinking ship.

  “So what’s the plan?” Tucker asked, clapping his hands together. “What are we going to do to put the bank off?”

  “There’s no p
utting the bank off anymore,” I said, only because I didn’t think Chance could bring himself to say it. “The original loan — and its accrued interest — must be paid in full by the end of the month.”

  “I thought everything was okay,” Emmett said.

  “Nothing’s ever okay,” I said, but stopped when Chance shot me a look. “We had a deal with the bank, but all of you know how hard it’s been around here. The drought has been screwing everyone over. We can barely keep up our expenses, let alone pay taxes or even think about trying to repay what we owe.”

  “You don’t have to pay me,” Zoe said, sidling into the room. “It’s enough of a kindness that you all are letting my son and me stay here.”

  Chance looked up. “We value your work here. Of course you’re still going to get paid.”

  “I can’t accept it, then,” she said. “Not in a situation like this when you all need to be scraping together whatever money you can find. Living here saved our lives. I won’t take your money from you.”

  Chance bowed his head again, unable to find the words to form a response to that.

  “Let’s go through it line by line,” Tucker said, false cheer in his voice. He was trying — all of them were — to find the sunny side, to come through victorious against yet another opponent. “Where can we scrimp and save? What are we spending too much money on? All of us can go without pay to try and help make the repayment.”

  “All of us have been going without pay for a while now,” Chance said quietly. “You know that.”

  “All right,” Tucker said. “Let’s try it this way: What can we do without? How much of the herd can we cull to settle the debt? It’ll be hard for a while, but we’ll eventually get them back.”

  “We don’t have a herd big enough to settle the debt,” Chance said, and everyone blinked at that.

  “How much is it, exactly, that we need to repay?” Emmett asked.

  “I don’t think you want to know,” Chance said. “Enough that we should seriously consider Bud Billings’ offer.”

  The entire front room blew up.

  “That rotten motherfucker is never going to get this ranch,” Hunter spat.

  “I’d rather starve than sell to him,” Tucker put in.

  “There has to be another way,” Emmett said.

  “There isn’t.” Chance stood and tried to resume his pacing, but plopped back down in the chair, exhausted by all of this. “I’ve run the numbers. Every single combination of them. Selling the contents of the barn. Selling the herd. Selling the horses.” Here, Emmett made a sound of protest, but Chance ignored him. “Selling the house. The trucks.”

  “What about parceling the land?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to break up the ranch,” Chance said. “It’s what Mom and Dad wanted for us. It said so in their will. As long as I’m alive and able, I’m keeping this ranch together.”

  “But you’re seriously considering selling to Bud?” I asked, dubious.

  “Only because I’m worried for all of you,” Chance said. “This is the life we all know. This is what we’ve been doing for our whole lives. What are we supposed to do once the bank takes this place away from us? How are any of us going to survive?”

  “The bank’s not going to take it,” Hunter said vehemently. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “I think it’s time to start thinking about what we want to do after the ranch,” Chance said. “Ten thousand dollars isn’t much, but it’ll pay the rent for a few months at an apartment until you can get back on your feet.”

  “This isn’t like you to give up,” Tucker said. “Do you think Mom and Dad would’ve wanted this place to go to Bud Billings? Fuck, no.”

  But Chance continued on as if he hadn’t paused. “Tucker, I bet you can go back to the police force — any police force. It doesn’t have to be Dallas. You’d be recommended anywhere. Get yourself a cushy spot in a small town like this one. Emmett, you’d be snapped up in a second for vets and horse farms.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Emmett said. “We should be a horse farm, too, in addition to the cattle. We could sell the horses for much more than what the cattle are going for, and it would diversify the ranch.”

  “The horses would be starving and thirsty right alongside the cattle,” Chance said tiredly. “Now isn’t the time, and I don’t think there ever will be a time for that. Take your ten thousand dollars and invest in your own dream.”

  “This is a pointless exercise,” Hunter said angrily. “This is our ranch. We’re going to save it.”

  “You would make an excellent spokesman for the Marines,” Chance said, looking at him. “You’re a success story because you turned everything around. You could find work with them that you really might find rewarding — or with another organization that helps veterans.”

  “But that’s not what I want to do,” Hunter said angrily. “What would you do? Become a football star like everyone always wanted you to be? You’re no Brett Favre.”

  Hadley walked in the front door with a bag full of supplies. “Am I missing a meeting?” she asked. “Why do you all look like someone just died?”

  “The bank’s trying to take the ranch,” Hunter told her, reaching for her, in need of physical comfort.

  “There’s no trying,” I said, attempting to get through to him. “It’s a done deal. It’s happening. We don’t have the money to pay the loan in full without obliterating the ranch.”

  “How much?” she asked, pure business. “I’ll liquidate my assets.”

  “We couldn’t accept that, Hadley,” Chance said.

  “Nonsense. What’s mine is Hunter’s is the Corbins’.”

  “We owe upward of five million dollars,” Chance said. “No offense, Hadley, but I don’t think getting rid of your every worldly possession is going to make a dent in that.”

  “I wish it would,” she said, as all of us stared, aghast. “I can try to get a loan, use my business as collateral.”

  “Not for five million dollars,” Hunter said grimly. “Your business is new. No one is going to want to take that risk.”

  “I’m an established physical therapist with a great reputation,” she said. “Look what I did for your sorry ass.” He smiled and kissed her, and I thought of Paisley, my panic growing.

  “What would I do if the bank took the ranch?” I asked suddenly, staring at Chance. He’d foretold everyone’s post-ranch futures except for mine, and my inner turmoil turned outward. I didn’t have an identity away from this place as much as I craved to have one.

  “You can do whatever you want to do, Avery,” Chance said, defeated. “I’m sorry, you guys. I’m sorry that it’s come to this. But I think I’m going to call Bud Billings and tell him that a deal’s a deal. Anything else we do is just holding off the inevitable, selling land parcels included. This ranch hasn’t made us money for a long time.”

  It was what I had been thinking to myself for years, but hearing Chance say it out loud — Chance, the champion of this place — really hammered it home.

  “I just want you all to be happy and successful,” he said, putting his face in his hands, muffling his words. “I think you can do it outside of the ranch, even if it wasn’t what Mom and Dad wanted for us. I think they would understand, now, how hard it is, that we tried our best, that we’re doing this to look out for each other.”

  Chance’s shoulders hitched, and Zoe went to him, laying her hand on his head in an oddly intimate gesture.

  “You all have your health, and whether you realize it or not, you’ll find your happiness somewhere else,” she said. “Ten thousand dollars is much more than many people have. You’ll be smart and creative with it, from what I’ve seen. You Corbins are pretty good at taking care of yourselves. You’ll be fine.”

  “I just really wanted us to keep this place,” Chance sobbed. “It’s all we have left of our parents.”

  With that, it suddenly became clear to me just what my role would be. I thought
I would want to be rid of this place, but now that the reality of that imagining was upon me, I understood that I didn’t have an identity beyond the ranch. This ranch was just as big a part of me as it was the rest of my brothers. Even if all of them would go on to be successful at other pursuits, this was the one they wanted the most, the one our parents had left us. It really was our legacy, and if I didn’t speak up, Bud Billings, of all people, would take charge of it.

  “We’re not losing the ranch,” I said quietly, but no one paid me any mind. Hadley was comforting Hunter, Tucker was sitting, mostly composed except for his hands, which were gripping the armrests of the chair he was in so tightly that his knuckles were white, and Emmett was furiously scrolling through his phone as if it would save him from all of this. Zoe kept her hand on Chance’s head as he wept for all that he thought he had lost us.

  “Listen to me,” I said, louder. “Everyone stop. This isn’t over. We’re not going to let the bank take this ranch.”

  “You said it was a done deal,” Hunter reminded me. “Just now. We all heard you.”

  “We’re just going to move forward,” Tucker said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself of that fact than anyone else. “We don’t have to pretend to hang on here anymore. We’ll keep moving forward and everything will be okay.”

  “We will move forward, but it will be with this ranch,” I said even more forcefully this time.

  “It’s not fair to get everyone’s hopes up, Avery,” Emmett said. “I seriously doubt you have five million dollars just sitting around, or else you would’ve told us by now — I hope.”

  “I don’t have five million dollars just sitting around, but I know someone who might,” I said.

  Now even Chance was looking at me. “What are you talking about?”