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“How are things in Colorado? Are you enjoying your vacation?”
“I am.”
Jared drank in the sight of his daughter as she gave him a rundown of her past few days' activities. Molly looked happy, which madehimhappy—until she got to the reason for the call. His baby was engaged to be married. He tried to be positive. God’s honest truth, he did try. But when they’d ended the call ten minutes later, he couldn’t deny the ache in his heart.
His little girl was all grown up.
And her mother wasn’t here to share the melancholy with him.
“Dammit, Emma,” he muttered.
He remembered the day Molly had been born. She’d been an “oops” baby, conceived after he and Emma were married but before she’d finished school. He’d just finished his shift waiting tables at a local restaurant when the call came that Emma was in labor. He’d rushed home, they’d hurried to the hospital, and fifteen stress-filled hours later, Emma delivered Mary Elizabeth.
His baby girl had owned his heart from her very first breath.
Those early years hadn’t been easy. Jared had been at UConn on a basketball scholarship when his friend and teammate Frank Rossi introduced him to his knockout of a sister. They dated for the next two years. After Jared’s graduation, they’d married, and he’d moved to Boston, where he worked two jobs to support his little family while Emma finished school. A Berklee College of Music student, she had taught piano lessons in her spare time, of which there was hardly any. But they’d made it, and the shared struggle had made them stronger, he’d always thought. Looking back, they’d been the best days of his life.
A knock at his ranch house office door shook him from his reverie, and his sister, Shelby Montrose, stuck her head in the room and asked, “Got a minute, Jared?”
“Sure. Come on in,” he replied, glad for the distraction.
Shelby was tall and lanky, with dark hair and a complexion tanned from the summertime sun. Three years younger than Jared and a numbers geek, Shelby had dived into the muck alongside him four years ago and started shoveling. Together, they’d brought Wildcatter Farms and Ranch back from the brink of bankruptcy. She’d done a fine job as their chief financial officer. Jared was grateful that she’d agreed to move back to the Wildcatter to work after Emma’s brother, Frank, almost destroyed them.
She carried a manila file folder and looked worried as she sat across from him. Jared didn’t like that look. “What’s wrong?”
She flipped her long, wavy hair behind her shoulder. “I’ve been running the numbers. I’m afraid we’ll have to go back to the bank, Jared.”
His stomach sank, and he grimaced. He’d been afraid of this for weeks now.
Damned if he’d go down that road—not again. They hadn’t scraped and scrapped and scrambled their way back from the brink of losing the ranch to put it back in jeopardy again now.
They spent twenty minutes discussing their financial issues, and then Shelby tossed out her verbal grenade. “I just don’t see another way around it, Jared, unless . . . we still have an offer on the table for the Johnston farm.”
“I’m not selling any more land.”
“Then you’ll be borrowing from the bank,” she fired back. “Even with the rise in beef prices and a strong alfalfa crop, we’re still looking at red ink come the end of the fiscal year.”
“I have some money set aside that I can tap.” He named a figure, then added, “It’s not a lot, but maybe we could scrape by.”
“You’re not sinking your savings into the Wildcatter, Jared. Not again. Mom and I have already discussed it. You’ve done enough.”
Exactly. He’d almost lost the family ranch. “It’s my fault that our financial—”
“Stop it! That was four years ago now, Jared. It’s over. Done. That particular excuse has run its course.”
Jared set his jaw. If he lived to be one hundred, it wouldn’t be over. It wouldn’t be done.
Shelby plowed on. “You hired me to do a job around here, Jared. You need to let me do it. I recommend you sell that farm and the mineral rights that go with it. We still have fifteen hundred acres at the Wildcatter. We don’t need those three hundred and—”
“Molly called a few minutes ago,” he interjected, hoping to change the direction of the conversation.
Shelby hesitated, tilted her head, and studied him. With a knowing note to her tone that signaled her awareness of his ploy, she asked, “And what did the squirt have to say?”
“She’s getting married.”
Shelby sat up straight and smiled with delight. “Go, Mason! I was a little worried when her birthday came and went without a ring. Better late than never, though, right?”
Jared tried to smile, but it must have been a sickly one because his sister’s expression dimmed. “Oh, Jared. Don’t tell me you have something against Mason.”
