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“Don’t look at me,” Hallie said.“I barely have enough money to pay my bills.”She took a swig of wine and wrinkled her nose.“Damn, this is awful.I should have brought a case of my beer.”
“I have a little savings,” Cloe said.“But even together with Liberty’s and Belle’s, it won’t be enough to cover all the payments Daddy has missed.”
Noelle accepted the bottle from Hallie.“Like Hallie, I don’t have any extra money.But even if I did, I feel like we’re trying to use one of those wine corks to keep Old Faithful from erupting.Eventually, we’re not going to be able to make the payments.And Daddy’s proven he can’t run the ranch successfully.As hard as it is to watch, maybe we need to just let things run their course.”
Sweetie shook her head.“If the ranch is foreclosed on, everyone in town will find out about it.Y’all know how gossip spreads.That wouldn’t just hurt Daddy’s pride, but also Mama’s and Mimi’s.We need to convince Mimi to sell.”
“How do we do that?”Belle asked.
Sweetie sighed.“I don’t know.But I do know that one of us needs to stay here and try.”
“One of us?”Liberty lowered the bottle she’d just taken a drink from.“Belle and I have a business to run.We can’t just take off indefinitely while we try to convince our grandmother to stop being pigheaded.”She looked at Hallie.“What about you, Hal?”
Hallie stared at her.“Me?Why me?”
“Because brewing beer at a brewery isn’t a real job,” Noelle said.
“And you think decorating cakes is?”
“At least I have a viable skill.”
“Brewing beer is a viable skill.People drink more beer than eat pastries.Once I get a backer and start selling my beer, I’ll make more than you ever will selling cupcakes.”
“While you wait for a backer, you could brew your own beer right here at the ranch,” Liberty said.“It does make sense.”
“To you, Libby.Not to me.And just because you can tell Belle when to take a pee doesn’t mean you can tell me when to.”
Belle’s eyes widened.“Liberty doesn’t tell me when to take a pee.”
“Really?Then why don’t you let her run your business while you stay here and help figure out how to convince Mimi to sell?”
Belle turned to Liberty.“Maybe I should—”
“Absolutely not!”Liberty cut her off.“Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and we have too many events.”She glared at Hallie.“Unlike a hobby, we have a profitable, successful business.”
“Brewing beer is not a hobby,” Hallie snapped.“I’m sick of everyone thinking that my career dreams aren’t as important as theirs.What about Sweetie?She’s spent twelve years in Nashville and no one is pointing out that her chances of making it big after all this time are as good as us saving this ranch.”As soon as the words left Hallie’s mouth, she turned to Sweetie with wide eyes.“I’m sorry, Sweetie.I didn’t mean that.As usual, my temper got ahead of my brain.”
Sweetie shook her head.“It’s okay, Hal.You’re right.The chances of me making it big after all these years is slim to none.”
Cloe rested a hand on her arm.“That’s not true, Sweetie.It could still happen.”
“Of course it could,” Liberty said.“You just need the right break.”
It was what Sweetie had been telling herself for twelve long years.As she looked around at her sisters—none of who could look her in the eye—she suddenly realized she was more like her daddy than she thought.Not only did she hide her emotions from people, she also stuck her head in the sand and refused to see things for what they were.His daughters had all left him, his stress was killing him, and he was losing the thing he’d strived all his life to keep.All because he refused to accept the truth that he was never going to have a ranch as large as the Remingtons’.If he had only scaled down his dream, they might not be losing the ranch.
Sweetie needed to accept the truth too.She wasn’t good enough to make it as a country singer.If she’d been good enough, she would have made it by now.But she couldn’t even sing the songs she wrote in front of people.Every time she’d tried, she’d felt like she was standing on the stage naked as the day she was born.The songs were all her emotions in music and lyrics.If she couldn’t tell people how she felt with words, what had made her think she could tell them how she felt in song?
“I’ll stay,” she said.
All her sisters stared at her.
“No, Sweetie,” Cloe said.“We aren’t going to ask you to give up your dream.”
“I’m not even sure what my dream is anymore, Cloe.It makes sense that I’m the one who stays to help untangle this mess.”
Cloe got the determined look on her face she always got when she had made up her mind about something.“Then we’ll all take turns coming back and helping.”She glanced around at her sisters.“This is a family crisis.And as a family we need to put aside our other responsibilities and face this crisis as a team.As sisters.”
There was a long stretch of silence before Belle spoke.“I move that we all take turns coming back and helping.Not only do we need to convince Mimi to sell, but Mama and Daddy will need help putting the house on the market and packing up everything and finding a new place to live.They’ll need us all to pitch in.”
