“Thank you,” Charlie said, trying and failing to sound truly relieved. Ninety days was not nearly enough time, and he knew it. He ended the call and went back to clenching his teeth, which seemed to be his baseline these days.
He abandoned chopping firewood and forced himself to shuffle through paperwork instead. It was the worst possible way to let off steam. Instead, the pressure built and built inside him until he felt ready to burst. But what good would bursting do, anyway? The bank had been right. Even according to his father’s books, which were an unfortunate mess but still readable, the ranch was deeper underwater than Charlie could have possibly predicted.
All the math he did came out the same. Outside of a miracle, he was doomed to lose the ranch. Even if he sold off all his cattle and every other asset he had, he still couldn’t make enough to keep the land. One of the few vivid memories he still had of his mother could be bulldozed in the space of a few months.
Feeling miserable and hopeless, Charlie decided to finish his chores on the ranch and head out to his favorite bar. He was determined to numb the pain somehow, and getting off the property that was causing him so much grief seemed the right choice to him. As determined as he was to cling to the land, right now, he didn’t even want to look at it.
The Jolly Ram was just about as old as Denson Oaks itself, and it showed. Its furniture was all worn antiques, its woodworkpocked and scratched from years of use. Even the bar itself looked in dire need of replacement. But somehow, all any of that did was add to its charm. At least, Charlie found it charming. He’d been a regular since he was old enough to drink, stopping in from time to time to relax among people who didn’t pressure him into conversation or fake pleasantries. Everyone at the Jolly Ram tended to mind their own business or the business of the group they had come with, and Charlie was content to listen to their conversations in order to catch wind of the town gossip without really participating in it.
He sat at his usual barstool, the second from the end, and ordered his usual drink, bourbon on the rocks. Normally, he didn’t go out drinking this early in the day, but right now, he was anticipating his own grief, and he needed the ache to stop.
The bar was empty for the most part—just two other men drinking alone, plus the bartender. Charlie nursed his bourbon and enjoyed the music piping through the bar’s speakers at a volume that was only slightly higher than average. The band playing now was one that had performed there live several years ago. The Jolly Ram played their album multiple times a day, like an old man reliving his glory days. From where Charlie sat, the predictability was a treat. He always knew what to expect when he visited. No surprises. No need to adjust to anything out of the ordinary.
Slowly, the evening crowd trickled in. Charlie had been there for several hours by the time he ordered his third drink. The bartender looked worried but didn’t ask, which Charlie appreciated. He wasn’t in the mood to explain his situation to anyone.
After the newcomers had finished a few drinks, their conversation got louder, which made it impossible not to listenin. “We’re all going to be rich,” one woman was excitedly saying. “I’m getting merch ready immediately. I’ll be licensed to sell it on release day. You guys should get ready, too.”
A man who was with her responded. “Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a bit?”
“Not even a little,” the woman said. “If you had half an idea of how popular this book is, you’d be doing the same.”
Charlie recognized them as the owners of the local gift shop and bookstore. There was another person with them who Charlie knew had a diner in town. He had something to add to the conversation. “I’m going to name a breakfast platter after it.” Then, tipsy as he clearly was, the diner owner shouted to the bartender. “You guys should name a drink after it, too! Like atequila sunrise, but change it up a bit. Tourists will order it for sure.”
Tourists? Through the haze of bourbon clouding his brain, Charlie started to understand what they were talking about. It was that ridiculous movie they were making out of some romance novel. What was it called? Oh, yeah. He turned back to the bartender and asked, “Are they talking aboutTexas Sunrise?”
The bartender nodded. “Haven’t you heard? It’s all over town. The council is going to approve our town as the filming location. It’s sure to bring in lots of tourists. Local business owners are excited about it already.”
Charlie narrowed his eyes. “And you?”
The bartender shrugged. “People on vacation tend to tip well. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because they’re going to invade our town! It’ll never be the same afterwards. Don’t you know that?” He turned back to the group he’d overheard and asked, “Don’t any of you know that? This won’t be something you can take back.”
The gift shop owner waved away his concerns. “Go home, Charlie. You’re drunk.”
“I am not.” That wasn’t entirely true, but Charlie had no doubts his opinion would remain exactly the same come morning when he sobered up. Either way, he had clearly committed a crime against commerce and was less than welcome in the bar now. Not being the sort of guy who would stick around where he wasn’t wanted, Charlie paid his tab and walked away.
He muttered, “I’ll put a stop to this,” to himself before deciding to walk to the town hall to give everyone there a piece of his mind. It took him a second to realize it was well past seven in the evening, and the building was probably locked up tight. Instead, he decided to take a walk around town to clear his head before driving home.
Denson Oaks was home to Charlie. It always had been. He couldn’t point to any other place and say,I’m going home this weekend, like so many other people did. He grew up here, went to school here, attended the community college, and then learned a trade here. As he walked around town, he closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of the place. The scent alone brought so many memories back to him. All the mischief he’d made as a young man, and every older individual he’d calledGrandpaorGrandmadespite not being related at all came back to the forefront of his mind.
Those older townspeople had long since passed on, and now his father was among them. Every time Charlie thought aboutcamera crews and out-of-town actors trampling his hometown, he felt a little sick. There was an instinctive part of him that would do anything to protect this place, keep it in a snow globe and never let anyone else touch it.
The more he saw of his hometown during his sobering walk, the angrier he got. These people had no idea what they were agreeing to. Maybe they’d be happy for the tourists at first, but later, they’d regret losing the treasure they didn’t even know they had in this place. Outsiders were bad enough, butLAoutsiders? The worst. And who knew where the tourists would come from? There might even be tourists from New York, of all places! He shuddered at the thought.
No, there was no chance Denson Oaks would survive the onslaught. By the time Charlie climbed back into his truck to head home, he was determined to end this nonsense before it was too late. Anna Lafferty was about to learn what the consequences were when anyone walked onto his turf and didn’t takenofor an answer.
CHAPTER 8
CHARLIE
Charlie was up before the crack of dawn, going over and over the notes he’d scribbled down the night before. He squinted down at them, wishing he had bothered to improve his handwriting when he was younger. Why hadn’t he taken these notes on his phone? For some reason, his head was all tied up in the past, and he’d grabbed a pen and actual paper to write his thoughts down before they could escape for the night.
What hecouldmake out was remarkably unhelpful. Something about roots and ancestors. Something about waking up from dreams and trying to go home, only to find it transformed into something unrecognizable.Blah, blah, blah. Unless he thought of something particularly profound in the next couple of hours, he was going to have to wing it, and winging it never went the way he hoped it would—not when it was him doing the winging.
No doubt about it—Charlie’s greatest weakness had always been, and always would be, public speaking. Of course, it was the one skill that could possibly hand him a victory now, and of course he didn’t have it. He decided to leave the notes and focus on getting his morning chores done, all the while hoping hisunconscious mind formulated some kind of speech out of what he’d just read. However unlikely it was, he didn’t seem to have much hope of anything else.
His cattle were just starting to graze when he got out into their pastures. It was the edge of sunrise, with a sliver of golden-red light cresting over the distant hills. Almost everything was in silhouette at dawn, which was his favorite time of day by far. The quiet beauty of it was something experienced by the few who were capable of rising that early, and because it belonged to so few, it was unlikely to change anytime soon.
