It was over and done with, and not something she could fix, so there was no point in getting upset about it.
“My children take therapy from you.”
“I know. I recognized you from seeing you last fall. I believe it was in town just before your wife passed away. I’m sorry.” She’d seen him with his children at the grocery store. From what she understood, one of the rare times they’d been out together.
She did feel bad for him. From what she had heard, he had been completely devastated. At first, she had believed that other people had been bringing his children to therapy because he had been unable to function, but then word around town was that he had been rebuilding his business, which he almost lost because of neglect and embezzlement.
“You must have good eyes, if you remember me from that long ago.”
“I do have a tendency to remember a face,” she said. And a horse. She had that tendency too.
“Is there anything I should know about the place before I put an offer in?”
“I can’t think of anything. Everything worksjust fine. I’m not selling because there is a huge list of repairs that need to be done. Of course, there are a few places in the fence that could be taken care of, but that’s pretty much the way it always is. Animals scratch their necks or butts on it and bend it over and knock it down, and you’re constantly repairing it unless you electrify it. Which I haven’t done.”
“I see. Everything’s in pasture?”
He hadn’t laughed at her statement about the animals with their necks and butts, and although she hadn’t exactly meant it to be funny, because it was true, she said it with a smile. His face remained serious.
She kind of got the feeling that he might be a jerk. She wasn’t sure what was giving her that vibe, but no doubt the guy did not seem to be overly friendly or nice, although he did keep asking her questions.
“Yes. I don’t have any crops planted at all. Although I did get some hay off of ten acres twice this year. With only having five horses, they didn’t eat all the grass. We had a good bit of rain this year. If it had been a dry year, I would have needed every bit of those twenty acres for them to eat, and then I would have bought hay this winter.”
“So how many horses do you think this place could sustain comfortably?”
“In a wet year, it can easily handle the five horses that I have. In a dry year, you most likely couldn’t have one, depending on how dry it was of course.”
He nodded and then turned to his agent. “I think we can go.” He looked back at Summer. “You’ll be hearing from me. I love the place, and I’ll be putting in an offer as soon as Jane can get it written up.”
“All right. Sounds good,” she said, feeling neither happiness nor animosity toward him. She didn’t feel grateful either, although she supposed she probably should. His offer, if it was the full asking price, and it should be considering the place hadn’t even been on the market for twenty-four hours, would enable her to be out of debt and no longer have the chains of debt wrapped around her.
She’d lived with it for so long she’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be free.
“Mr. McBride, you haven’t seen the apartment that’s above the stables. Would you like to look at that?” The real estate agent looked up from the papers she carried.
“Sure,” he said, sounding surprised.
There wasn’t much to see up there. Just two rooms, a kitchen and dining room and living room combo along with a bedroom, and a small bath with a standup shower. It had originally been built for a stable manager to stay, or if someone was on foal watch, they could hang out there too. The kitchen was tiny, although it did have a stove and a fridge, and the bathroom was serviceable, but it certainly was nothing compared to the house. She wouldn’t rent it out to anyone. It just wasn’t nice enough for someone to want to pay to stay there or to even turn it into a rental for a little bit of extra income. It would need to have some money poured into it first.
That was only her opinion though, and maybe she was wrong. She’d been wrong about a lot of things in her life, and that could be another one.
She glanced at her phone. She had a little bit of time. She would use that to give her horses baths before she needed to get them loaded to take in for the parade. She loved working with her Pasa Finos, not just because of their beauty and elegance, but because they had such sweet personalities. Of course, she was partial to any horse. She’d been horse crazy from the time she was little, and she was doing her dream job, living in her dream house, on her dream farm. Which was her family farm, the one that had been in her family for generations.
But sometimes people lived their dreams for a little while and then had to move on. Apparently that was what God was going to do with her, and she just had to accept it. There was no point in getting sad and falling into a deep depression because she wasn’t getting what she wanted. After all, she needed to lift up her eyes and look for the door that God was going to open. She had convinced herself,almost anyway, that what God had planned for her was better than what she had. She just had to go through this rough patch first in order to get there.
Part of her didn’t believe that, part of her wanted to think that God was actually out to get her and wanted to make her life as miserable as He possibly could. But most of her thought that she was right, that God was good, and in just a little while, she would see how very, very good He was.
Chapter Six
“Ineed to drop Larissa off at Summer’s, so she can help Summer get ready for the parade,” Gilbert’s mother said as she bustled around the kitchen, tidying it up after lunch, since they were all planning on heading to the festival later.
“How about I do that?” Gilbert said, thinking that he wouldn’t mind another chance to see the farm that he had put an offer on just a couple of hours ago. They hadn’t even left the farm before they’d submitted it. He’d been right beside Jane as she typed it all up and had approved every word.
He knew that Summer was working and had plans to be in the parade, and she might not even look at the offer until that evening, so he wasn’t completely disappointed that he hadn’t heard anything from Jane.
But it wouldn’t hurt for him to go, look at the farm again, and maybe put in a word for himself with Summer. He hadn’t told his children, because since he had put in the offer, he figured he might as well wait. She had forty-eight hours to respond, and at this point, he might as well wait until she let him know. They’d waited this long. It wouldn’t hurt them to not know at least until he found out for sure.
“Gram! I’m ready to go,” Larissa said, popping into the kitchen with her hair in a ponytail and wearing a cute riding outfit.
