Page 23 of Hometown Hottie

I handed over the spare bottle I’d brought along for him instead of pushing the issue. As he took it, he blew out a long breath, his eyes resting heavily on mine.

“Look, Nova. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. It’s not. I can tell that you’ve really done your research on this, and if it’s working for other people, then it might just work for us. That being said, I just can’t do it.”

“Why not?” I gave him a pleading look. “If we get even a tenth of the orders it looks like that place in Montana is getting, then we’d be able to fix the fence in a couple months. With cash money. You can’t tell me that’s not worth posing for a few videos.”

Ryan’s reddened brow lifted, his nostrils flaring as he turned to take in the length of fence immediately behind him. “Cash money is good. Great, actually, but I’ve been working on a few ideas of my own.”

“Like what?” I asked. “We talked about this just the other day and neither of us knew what to do next.”

“Yeah, I know, but then I heard about these investors who specifically look for going concerns worth pumping their money into. I’ve been talking to Dad about trying to find one for Red Stone. It would allow us to modernize our facilities and to expand your market. All without compromising any of the stuff Dad is so worried about compromising.”

“Like our ownership of this ranch?” I huffed out a breath. “Investors don’t give money for nothing and they certainly don’t do it without collateral.”

“Maybe not, but as long as we can give them their piece of the pie, they’d never call in that collateral. A lot of our equipment is going. Dad knows that. He also knows that I’ve fixed what I could but that some of it is on its last legs. It’s going to need replacement and soon, and he also knows that we won’t even be able to find some of those relics we’ve been using at auction, which means that a certain level of modernization is going to be impossible to avoid.”

“Okay, so he’s finally willing to compromise,” I said. “At least a little. If he’s realized that modernization is unavoidable, even to a certain extent, then we might be able to sell him on using the money we make from subscription boxes to do the upgrades we need to do.”

“Or we could find an investor who’s willing to give us the money to do it,” he reasoned. “Obviously, cash money without any strings will always be better, but not like this, Nova. Not by making me prance around on a horse waving my dick in people’s faces.”

“We’re not talking about porn, Ryan.” I wrinkled my nose. “You wouldn’t be waving your bits in anyone’s face. All we’re talking about is flashing your abs and flexing your biceps a bit.”

“But an investor⁠—”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” I said emphatically, the emotion of it clogging up my throat as I stared at him, silently begging now. “Finding an investor could take months. Then there’s negotiations to be done. Visits, inspections, and all kinds of corporate red tape and due diligence that any investor worth his salt would insist on. Meanwhile, we’ve got Frank breathing down our necks and bills that are piling up. We just don’t have that kind of time, Ryan.”

I hadn’t been expecting him to jump on this opportunity, but I needed him to understand that it was fast becoming a Hail Mary. And that if he had just said yes, I could’ve already had our first video. We might even already have sold our first subscription box before the day was out.

That was the beauty and the power of social media—and I fully intended on harnessing it. Now I just had to convince my family to let me.