The Cowboy's Secret, page 8
“Shut the door behind you.”
I look back at my workmates and give them a nervous half-grin before shutting it.
When I turn to face my manager, he pushes the plate of spaghetti and meatballs on his desk toward me. “Do you know what is wrong with this dish?”
I shake my head.
“Why don’t you taste it?” he orders, holding up a fork.
I walk to the desk and take it from him. Twirling the noodles with my fork, I sample a bite. Although it’s cold, the sauce is flavorful, and I smile. “It’s a simple sauce, but not bad.”
“Not bad?” He stands up and demands, “What did you do to it?”
“What do you mean?”
He raises his eyebrows. “I watched the surveillance tapes.”
I brush back my hair, saying in my defense, “I couldn’t let perfectly good ingredients go to waste.”
He picks up another fork and stabs the meatball, taking a bite. “It’s fucking delicious.”
When I realize my job isn’t in jeopardy, I relax. “So, you’re saying you like it?”
“Not just me. The student body agrees, based on the amount of pasta we’re going through the last few weeks.”
I smile, pleased to hear my efforts have not been wasted.
“I’d like to see what simple changes you can make with our soup station.”
My smile spread across my face. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about!”
“In compensation, you have a free pass to eat at the dining hall whenever you want.”
A few weeks ago, I would have balked at such an offer, but this will save me money in food, which I can use for my plane ticket back to Colorado. It also makes me even more motivated to improve the menu here.
I hold out my hand to him. “I appreciate it. Thank you.”
When I leave the office, I give my co-workers a thumbs up, extremely grateful to still be employed.
The weeks that follow are a blur as I set my sights on spring break. I feel desperate to return to the ranch. Before I can find a solution to save it, I need to know how bad things really are.
I just hope my father can handle it.
Kiah and the Pups
I breathe a sigh of relief as the plane passes over the Colorado Rockies on the final descent into Denver. There is something about seeing those majestic mountains that fills my soul with peace.
I walk off the plane, anxious to see my family again. On my way to the main terminal, however, I notice a tiny, gray-haired woman struggling to balance a small carrier on top of her carry-on luggage.
I quickly make my way to her. “May I help you, ma’am?”
She looks up at me gratefully. “Can you hold Chester for me? My arms aren’t as strong as they used to be.”
I pick up the carrier and peek inside, expecting to see a cat. Instead, I see a boxer turtle and chuckle. “Chester, huh?”
“Yes, he’s been my beloved companion ever since my husband Ronald passed away.”
I look at her with compassion. “I’m sorry to hear about the passing of your husband.”
She smiles. “It wasn’t easy losing the love of my life, but it’s a natural part of living when you grow old, isn’t it? I’m grateful for the fifty-four years we had together.” Her eyes twinkle when she tells me. “It is a beautiful thing to know true love.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I reply lightly, but her simple declaration hits me hard in the chest. Although I love women with every fiber of my being, the fact is, I’m uncertain if I’ll ever fall in love.
Glee is the closest I’ve ever gotten to committing my heart to a woman, but I realize now that I was never “in love” with her.
I want to know what being in love feels like. Heck, I saw it every day between my parents when I was growing up. Married for years, they still act like teenagers in love. It’s something I admire about their relationship and want in my own life.
However, I’m now beginning to suspect that there are people in the world who aren’t built for that kind of love—and I happen to be one of them.
I insist on taking the old woman’s carry-on, slinging the strap of my duffle bag over my shoulder so I can carry it as well as her precious Chester.
“Memaw!” I hear a young girl shout, and the old lady’s eyes instantly light up.
She points to three ecstatic children jumping up and down and tells me proudly, “Those are my grandkids.”
I grin at them. “I’d say they are excited to see their grandma.”
The look of love on her face nearly moves me to tears when she tells me, “Grandkids are the greatest gift in life.”
“I’m certain they are,” I politely agree. The fact that I don’t like babies precludes me from ever knowing whether that’s true or not, but I keep that fact to myself as I hand the turtle carrier to the eldest child.
The boy’s father takes her carry-on luggage from me, saying “Much obliged to you, young man.”
“My pleasure.” I forget myself for a moment as I watch the joy on the old woman’s face as she hugs each of her grandchildren.
“Brad!”
Smiling, I turn to see my sisters waving enthusiastically at me. I wave back as I head toward my own welcome party. My littlest sister Christina breaks ranks and starts running toward me.
I open my arms wide as she jumps into them, and I pick her up and twirl her in the air. “Miss me, squirt?”
She nods, burying her head in my chest.
I hold out an arm to my mom and hug her with one arm while Christina clings to me. “Good to see you, Ma.”
She looks up at me with those vibrant green eyes, and for the first time in my life, I see they are shadowed with sadness. My heart constricts and I whisper, “It’ll be okay.” When I pull back, I wink at Ma confidently before turning to my sister Ruthie.
I’m stunned by how much she’s changed since I’ve been gone. She’s lost the innocent look of a child and I swear she’s two inches taller. Shaking my head, I tell her, “What the heck happened to my little sister? You’re not allowed to grow up so fast.”
Ruthie snorts. “I’m not the one with a boyfriend.”
I turn my attention to my oldest sister, Megan, and demand, “What is Ruthie talking about?”
Megan shrugs, her green eyes twinkling mischievously. “You don’t suppose your roommate will be jealous, do you?”
I grin, remembering the prank we played on Thane last Christmas. I’ve never seen the man sweat as much as he did when he read Megan’s letter claiming she was in love with him.
“Ruthie is pulling my leg about a boyfriend, right?”
Megan raises an eyebrow and challenges me, “What? You think I can’t get one?”
“I’m positive the guys won’t leave you alone, which is exactly why I am worried.”
She laughs, rolling her eyes at me.
I turn to hug my pop and am not prepared for his appearance. It looks as if my father has aged ten years in the span of a few months. I clear my throat to hide my shock.
“Son,” he states, giving me a big hug.
I grin wider to cover my discomfort, patting his back with my free hand while Christina continues to cling to me.
I think I understand now why she is being so clingy.
Things have definitely changed.
When I try to set Christina down, she holds onto me even tighter, refusing to let go. I chuckle as I heft my duffle bag onto my shoulder. “Okay, little monkey, I’ll carry you to the car, then.”
I knew things were rough, but this was not the homecoming I had been expecting.
Christina leans against me the entire drive home, not wanting to break contact. While I find it adorable, it also troubles me.
Once we arrive at the ranch, Ma encourages my sisters to take me to see Kiah and the new puppies. My mother smiles when she tells me, “You won’t believe how cute they are, Brad. If we could, I’d keep the whole dang litter.”
As I head to the barn with my sisters, Ruthie gushes, “Kiah’s an incredible mother. I don’t know how she keeps up with this brood.”
I can’t wait to see them and ask, “How many did she have?”
Ruthie only grins in answer as she pulls open the barn door.
I hear Kiah’s welcoming bark and start laughing in disbelief as a passel of Kuvasz pups that look like miniature polar bears comes barreling toward us.
I kneel on the ground and snort as they dogpile me. “I never expected she’d have so many!”
Megan looks down at Kiah tenderly. “Kiah and her pups have been a bright spot for us all.”
“What’s going on with Pop?” I ask her.
She shakes her head, looking at me in concern. “He works hard from sunup to sundown, never taking a break. I’m really worried about him. We all are.”
Ruthie nods in agreement. “He’s been like that for months, Brad. We haven’t seen him at the dinner table in all that time, and he won’t stop. Even Granddad can’t talk any sense into him.”
I frown. “How is Ma handling it?”
Ruthie glances at Christina. “Ma is too worried about Christina right now to deal with anything else.”
I turn to Christina, grasping her gently by the shoulders. “Talk to me, peanut.”
She just buries her face against my shoulder, holding on to me for dear life.
That’s when Ruthie informs me, “She stopped talking three weeks ago and hasn’t said a word since.”
My heart constricts in pain. I pull away to look into Christina’s tearful eyes. “Pop is going through a difficult time right now, but we’re going to get through this as a family. It’s going to be okay. There’s no reason for you to worry.”
She nods, but her bottom lip keeps quivering.
I look at Ruthie, feeling heartsick.
She gives me a hug. “I’m glad you’re here, big brother.”
Megan sits down beside me and lays her head against my shoulder. “Me, too.”
The eight puppies, completely unaware of our struggles as a family, keep jumping on their hind legs, trying to lick our faces.
Hot Chocolate nickers to me from her stall. I walk over and she leans her head down for me to pet. “Missed ya, girl.”
She bumps me in the chest with her nose to let me know she feels the same. “I bet they keep you entertained,” I tell her, looking at the pups.
Ruthie giggles. “Your horse likes it when these little rascals chase her. Whenever we let the puppies out to run in the yard, she trots in circles wanting them to chase her long tail.”
I caress Hot Chocolate’s soft muzzle and chuckle. “How damn cute is that?”
Watching the little fuzzballs crawling over each other as I listen to my sisters’ laughter fills me with hope.
No matter how bad things are, puppies can make everything better—if only for a moment.
I hear my father’s footsteps above me and look at the clock on my nightstand. I groan on seeing that it’s four in the morning. I have to pull myself out of bed so I can catch him before he leaves.
I find Pop in the kitchen, slamming down a mug of coffee while he stands over the sink.
“What are you up so early for, Pop?”
“Got a lot of work ahead of me today.” He forces a chuckle. “You know what they say, ‘no rest for the wicked.’”
“But you have ranch hands to help with that.”
His smile fades. “I had to let them go, son.”
“What?” I shake my head in disbelief. “You’re trying to run this ranch all by yourself?”
He furrows his brow. “No, your mother helps where she can.”
“Pop, the ranch is too much for one person.”
He looks at me with determination. “I got us into this mess, and I will damn well get us out of it.”
“You can’t run an operation this big by yourself. It’s impossible.”
“Look here…!” he shouts, and then grimaces, looks upstairs, and instantly lowers his voice. “I can’t pay my men, so I don’t have a choice.”
“Pop…”
“I need to stop the ranch from bleeding, son.”
“But this isn’t going to work.”
“Well, I damn well can’t ask them to work for free now, can I?” he growls.
I’ve never seen my father look so angry before.
Instead of answering him, I head to the back door and pull on my work boots. “Pour me a cup, would ya?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not asking you to help.”
“Nope. I’m helping you anyway. And then, tomorrow, we’re going over the books together.”
I see him bristle, but I’m being strategic. I know that working together will strengthen our bond. And, by giving him another day, it gives Pop time to get used to the idea that I will be going over all of his financials.
The only way I can help save this ranch is to know what we are facing.
The day is long and exhausting, but with an extra pair of hands, Pop and I get through the most important tasks and we spend dinner together as a family at my insistence.
Ma’s smile when she looks at me from across the table makes every blister and muscle ache I’m suffering worth it.
The next day, I join Pop again at four and am pleased to see he has a mug of coffee waiting for me. Needing to go over the financials before our brains are mush from exhaustion, I stop working at noon and tell Pop to take me to his office.
I see him stiffen, and his face turns a deep red. I wonder if he is about to fight me on it, but he brushes past and orders me to follow. When we enter his office, he immediately shuts the door behind me.
“Everything you see must remain strictly confidential. Not even your mother can know.”
Although I think it’s a horrible idea, I agree to it. My only mission right now is to get my hands on the financial data.
Pop opens a drawer and places a stack of files on his desk. I notice his face growing progressively redder and realize that it isn’t out of anger for my meddling, but his own embarrassment.
“It’s okay, Pop.”
“No, it’s not, son,” he says in a gruff voice full of shame.
Pop won’t even look at me as I start to pore over the papers. He just maintains a stoic expression while he gazes out the window at the ranch he loves.
I can see that the costs were ramped up considerably for the ranch once he got the organic certification. It makes sense to me. Livestock grazing on the range makes them susceptible to animal attacks, and being hormone-free adds additional health risks. All of which means lower productivity.
It’s only natural that each cow should cost significantly more to raise.
These were acceptable increases my father planned for. However, when the cattle went to market, the demand he anticipated wasn’t there and he couldn’t sell them at a fair price. He lost a considerable amount of money that put the ranch in free fall.
Pop believed so strongly in organic beef that he started pledging portions of our ranch land as collateral, and as the debt grew, he became desperate, promising calves not yet born, along with the ranch house.
When he began missing loan payments, it triggered higher interest rates, making him fall even further behind. And now, one of those loans is hitting its maturity date in twelve months, requiring him to pay it in full.
I swallow hard after looking everything over. Choosing my words carefully, I tell him, “You’re right. This is not good.”
He snorts. “That is the understatement of the century.”
“However, killing yourself trying to make this ranch run on your own is not going to solve the problem.”
He growls, “I don’t know what else to do! I hate owing money, and the only way I know how to fix it is to work harder.”
“About that, Pop. I want you to hire Clay back.”
“You know I don’t have the money!”
“But you have the pups. They’ll sell for a lot of money, and I can send you my paychecks from the dining hall.”
“Your mother has her heart set on keeping the pups.”
I chuckle. “Who wouldn’t want to keep them all? However, it’s not practical. Mom knows that as much as you do.”
His voice catches when he tells me, “I’ve failed your mother in so many ways. I just wanted to do that one thing for her…”
“Pop, you saw the way Ma smiled tonight when we were all eating dinner together. That’s all she wants.”
He sighs heavily. “As far as your offer to send money, I refuse to take it.”
I look him dead in the eye. “Pop, it’s either that or I quit college and come back here. I’m not willing to sit back and watch you kill yourself trying to keep this ranch running by yourself.”
He shakes his head. Seeing the look of defeat in my pop’s eyes absolutely does me in.
I look at the papers strewn across the table. The news was far bleaker than I’d expected, but I’m certain we can figure out a way to survive this—if only my father is willing to fight.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Pop, we will make it through this.”
“No, son. I’ve failed the family.”
He can’t take his eyes off the papers.
I start picking them up and organizing them by date so we will know what to tackle first. “You just need to stay focused, Pop. This isn’t over. We’re just getting started.”
He stares at the stack of banknotes and shakes his head. “I thought I was building a sustainable future for our family but, in reality, I was destroying everything this family has built.”
“No! You have the right idea raising organic beef,” I assure him. “We’re just a few years ahead of the market. All of your foresight and advancements on the ranch will pay off big time once we educate the public.”
He frowns. “I truly believed quality meat would improve the lives of everyday people.”
“And, it will, Pop. You’re right. You know you are! We can’t give up on that vision. It is the future of the beef industry. The market will support it.”
He sighs wearily. “We’re out of time…you know it and I know it.”
“We’ll tackle the loans one at a time. We’ll make it work.”
