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Paulina snorted. "Hiding is more like it."
It was a running joke that when JT had an assfull of dealing with certain members of his family, new summer staff members, or certain guests, he took on major manual labor projects that weren't in his official job description. Sometimes it involved fixing the miles of barbed wire fence that surrounded their five thousand acres. Sometimes, particularly in spring, it involved saddling up to help move the ranch's small herd of cattle to a different pasture. Sometimes, like today, it involved working on the irrigation for the hay they grew to keep their horses and cattle fed over the winter.
"If I saw Sandy Carmichael's face walking into the office one more time I knew I was going to lose it."
They looked up briefly as Janelle returned with the pizza and set it on the table between them. Ignoring his glare, Paulina pulled a piece off the pan and put it on her bread plate.
"He's barely been here for twenty-four hours," Paulina said as she blew on her slice to cool it. "He already has the wranglers threatening to put a burr under his saddle blanket."
"And this morning he made his waitress cry," JT said around a bite of pizza. He sighed as it gave his stomach something to attack other than its own lining.
"And it wasn't even her fault. Granted, a lot of these kids are clueless," Paulina said around another bite of pizza. Most of the summer staff were college kids from all over the place, some of whom had come to the Lazy Creek on family vacations growing up. Most of them didn't have a whole lot of experience—except for the wranglers who needed to know how to ride—but with a good attitude and decent work ethic, your average nineteen-year-old could learn how to wait tables and clean cabins.
Nevertheless, it always took a little bit to get everyone up to speed. Two days into the season and the kitchen staff weren't quite there yet, as evidenced by the incident at breakfast.
"It's not like it was Stacey's fault his egg was overcooked. That's on Bryan, although he probably did it on purpose. You know how much he hates doing poached eggs."
JT nodded. He wouldn't put it past the surly breakfast cook. He made a mental note to talk to him about it. Any other guest would have politely asked for his overcooked egg to be redone.
Not Sandy Carmichael. In his mid-seventies now, Carmichael was a former trial attorney who lived outside Boston. Though he'd been retired for nearly ten years, he still treated every conversation like a legal argument he needed to win.
JT didn't know exactly what he'd said to poor nineteen-year-old Stacey, the communications major, but apparently she was no match for him.
Carmichael was also in a special category of guests. Some called them legacies; JT called them old timers. In any case, Carmichael was part of a handful of families who had been coming to the Lazy Creek for generations, some clear back to the 1920s when JT's great grandfather had first started the business.
Year after year, generation after generation, these families returned to the Lazy Creek for their annual summer vacations. For the most part it was great, and the Osborne family took pride in inspiring such loyalty in their guests, grateful for the lifelong friendships that had resulted.
Then there were people like Sandy Carmichael, who thought all the years of coming to the ranch meant they deserved special treatment. It wasn't just that they wanted to stay in the same cabin, or ride the same horse, or even have the same table in the restaurant. The Lazy Creek liked to reward returning guests, especially if the guests returned over a period that spanned decades.
But Carmichael took it to a new level. Hungry after dinner? Why was it a problem if he let himself into the restaurant's kitchen and helped himself to some leftover steak from dinner, and cookies from the bakery?
Yeah, he knew that he and his family were supposed to be in from their morning ride by 11:45, but his seven-year-old grandson wanted to get off his horse and wade in the creek.
"I don't know how we're going to survive a week of this," Paulina said, pausing as Janelle came back with JT's rack of lamb and Paulina's steak salad.
"You know Grandmother's rolling over in her grave."
In unison they spontaneously recited what their paternal grandmother June used to say whenever any of her children or grandchildren complained about a guest. "'Those people are your bread and butter. They're the reason you have clothes on your backs and shoes on your feet, so if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.'"
They grinned at each other across the table. Even though they hadn't always seen eye to eye growing up, they had grown closer in recent years since Paulina had graduated from college and come back to work at the ranch. Now that he was the general manager, Paulina was his right-hand woman, and he was grateful for it.
"I don't know about you, but I could do with one less pair of new shoes if it meant getting Carmichael off our backs." JT sighed, then groaned as he took a bite of Brady's amazing lamb.
“Yeah, but since he foots the bill for the entire family, that means we lose revenue for fifteen guests. And there goes June."
JT sighed again and tried to focus on being happy that he and Paulina had managed to sneak away for dinner. Once the season really got going, he knew he would barely have a spare minute.
"So, I talked to Ben about the mountain bike rentals," she said. "He says we can either rent several at a time and keep them out at the ranch for people to use whenever they want, or he'll deliver them individually, but it will cost more." Over the years, as mountain biking had become increasingly popular, several guests had inquired about renting bikes to ride around the ranch.
"That's great. Now just to convince Dad and the uncles," JT said.
Paulina let out a frustrated sound and rolled her eyes.
The uncles were her father's brothers, Jack and Mike. Along with their dad, they had lived and worked on the ranch their entire lives, and each had their areas of responsibility. Jack ran the corral and the cattle, and Mike was in charge of maintenance but helped out at the barn during the summer. Their Dad, Robert, was in charge of the business side of things, or had been until JT graduated from business school and came on as General Manager.
At that point he'd taken a step back. Well sort of, anyway. He and JT’s mom had moved into a house closer to town, allowing JT to move into their house. And he wasn't as involved in the day-to-day operations.
But the man still had opinions, as did his brothers. And since all three of them were on the board of Lazy Creek Ranch, despite JT's senior title, he and Paulina were still mostly at their mercy when it came to making decisions for the ranch and its business.
