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“Can you buy more?”
“Sadly, no.” Drew slowed the jeep as she spotted a fence post bent at an odd angle. She pointed to a toolbox on the floor near Maisie’s feet. “Can you grab that and come help me?”
“Out there?” Maisie gave the outdoors a dubious look as small white flakes of snow floated down from a gray sky but followed when Drew hopped out. “Why can’t you get more?”
“Cattle?” Drew stopped at the fence post, examining it from every angle. She dug inside the toolbox for a mallet. A few swift taps should do the trick. “Because you’ve gotta take into account how many animal units your land can support.”
“Animal units?” Maisie jumped as Drew gave the fencepost a hard thwack.
“A thousand-pound cow with an unweaned calf eats about twenty-six pounds of forage per day,” Drew explained. “That’s a unit. Or, it takes about seven sheep to equal a cow, and so on. This land can support about four hundred animal units, another fifty if you count the really hilly areas where you can only have sheep. We’re already bumping up against the ceiling.”
“Oh.” Maisie took the mallet back from Drew and stowed it in the chest. “What happened with that beef jerky guy in Vegas?”
Drew removed her hat and ran a hand through her hair. It had grown sweaty underneath the hat and froze instantly in the bitter wind. “To be honest, I dropped the ball on it after my dad’s heart attack. But I got the feeling it wouldn’t be overly profitable unless we had an operation twice this size.”
“Really? I bought a pound of beef jerky for my drive to Florida, and it cost over ten dollars. That’s like ten thousand dollars of beef jerky per cow. Times four hundred…”
Drew burst out laughing. “Darlin’—I mean, Maisie, I like how math works in your world, and I don’t mean to discredit your abilities. I saw what you did with that box and the pretty red bow, and it really was amazing. But it’s not like you can swoop in and put a big bow on the ranch and voilà, no more money trouble.”
Drew was hit by a pang of regret that she couldn’t give into this magical way of thinking. How nice that would feel. But it didn’t pay to indulge in hope instead of pragmatism. Oddly, though, Maisie didn’t appear to be offended by Drew’s dismissiveness, nor was she shrugging it off as Drew had expected her to.
“Trust me.” Maisie’s tone was calm and completely serious, with a bit of steel running through it that took Drew by surprise. “I’ve had my own experience with how hard it is to save one’s livelihood, and how tenuous a safety net can be.”
Drew put her hat back on, tilting her chin down as they headed back to the car against the wind. “I’m sorry. I had no idea about your job until I got to Milwaukee, and I regret whatever part I played in that.”
“There was no way you could’ve known.” Maisie shut her door, stomping her feet on the vehicle’s floor to knock the snow off her very fashionable yet highly impractical snow boots.
“I tried texting you after my father stabilized, but the messages didn’t go through.”
“I blocked your number.”
“I figured.” Drew gave Maisie’s feet a closer look. “You need some real boots if you’re going to be outside at all.”
“I don’t have any, other than these.”
No proper boots and her coat was too nice for outdoor work, too. Maisie would need both if she stayed any length of time. Probably some practical shirts, as well, and jeans she could afford to ruin. A hat. A horse of her own to ride. Did she know how to ride? Drew might have to teach her.
Drew was gettingwaytoo far ahead of herself here. Maisie wasn’t going to be staying long enough to need any of that.
“Hannah might. That’s my little sister,” Drew added when she saw the question forming on Maisie’s lips. She slid her eyes from Maisie’s lips as quickly as she could before she could start thinking about them. “You’ll meet her at dinner tonight, and Cord, too.”
“Is Cord your brother?”
“No relation, but I guess you could say he’s like an uncle. He’s been my dad’s ranch hand ever since before I was born. There’s a longer story there for another time, but he’s family.”
“Uh…” Maisie cleared her throat. “Do they know about me?”
“Only my dad.” Drew shifted, her back crackling all along her spine as the muscles and joints protested. “He was in the law office when I got the news. I didn’t bother telling anyone else because I didn’t reckon they’d need to know. I thought I would get it all taken care of in Milwaukee.”
“I guess I threw a wrench in those plans.” Maisie twisted her hands in her lap. “I didn’t mean to. I just had no other options.”
Drew paused for a moment, struck by the fact Maisie wasn’t trying to lay blame on her pushy friends for ending up here. Accepting responsibility spoke volumes about the woman’s character and was strangely endearing. As much as she might want to, Drew couldn’t bring herself to scold Maisie about the mess they were in, at least not right now. “I know all about running out of options.”
“You don’t have to be, though.” There was a strange hopeful quality to Maisie’s statement, making it clear she hadn’t lived on a ranch long enough to have it all beaten out of her. “I mean, maybe the beef jerky won’t work, but so many people love the idea of ranch life. There has to be a way to capitalize on that.”
“With what? T-shirts?” Drew couldn’t help but laugh.
Maisie waggled a finger at the side of Drew’s face. “Don’t diss the merch, Drew. Mugs, kitchen towels, key rings. You never know what people will want. For a lot of YouTubers, that stuff’s a gold mine.”
