“Is that rumor or is that truth?”
The opening and closing of his mouth says he doesn’t exactly know.
“That isn’t her fault.”
“No, not when you look at it in pieces, but when you look at the whole, it is something a lot of people won’t overlook. She stopped coming into town after that article. People went to her at the ranch—hair, nails, shopping—hell, who knows what else. But she made it known that she thought she was better than the rest of us and that was the start.”
“Surely, there were other reasons.”
Like maybe she knew how much you all hated her and didn’t want to deal with it?
“Well, when you’re paying extra for people to tend to you and buying new cars and trailers while also maxing out accounts and never making payments on them, people don’t take too kindly to you.”
“So, she’s shit at running the finances?” I ask, trying to see where he’s going with this.
“Nah, it was Fletcher who was doing that. Her good-for-nothing husband who dealt with the accounts, but she had to have known what he was doing, which makes her just as bad.”
I tuck my tongue in my cheek, lean back on my stool, look around the bar, glancing between the couples at tables with their young kids, the businessmen in their slacks and cowboy boots, and the men on their lunch breaks between transporting livestock.
I understand these people and the simplicity of working with your hands on the land. The way someone looks at you when you walk in somewhere with cow shit still stuck on the heel of your boot, not because you forgot but because you were too damn exhausted to remember to wipe it off.
If what Ginger says is true, I’d probably hate her too.
Then again, I can also relate to Tate, and I’m not sure if I own it or reject it.
“So, is that why her ranch is in dire need of help?” I ask. “No one likes her enough to work for her?”
“That ranch is a mess because her husband didn’t know his ass from a hole in his head. He was shit at picking studs to breed. Like absolute shit.” He throws his towel down and wipes the bar top. “He had a good enough head to keep the place above water, sell what needed to be sold, but that was about it. One of the horses he sold died. Another was quite sick. People don’t take kindly to spending hard-earned cash on damaged goods.”
I chew the inside of my lip as I glance at the images that finally pop up on my phone. Ginger’s right. Knox did make this place look majestic. I don’t know shit about photography, but the lighting and angles and what-the-fuck-ever other terms photographers use make Lone Star look like a little piece of lost America. Turbulent skies over idyllic pastures and symbols of time gone by: red-white-and-blue flags, Radio Flyer wagons, cowboy boots, and apple pie.
I pull my focus from my phone and force it back to Ginger.
“People are saying she’s to blame for the horses’ deaths?”
“Nah. But a ranch that produces sick foals doesn’t exactly win any recommendations.”
I take a slow draw on the neck of my bottle and nod. “True.”
“I’m assuming that’s why she brought you here. You any good with breeding and such?”
Another slow nod as I think of home. Of the endless acres filled with livestock and my duties in overseeing it all.
“I can hold my own.”
“She see your references?” he asks.
“You vetting her employees for her now?” I counter. No one needs to know shit about me. Not who I am. Not where I come from. Not shit.
Ginger’s chuckle is more miffed than amused. “Nah. Just curious. You seem like you might be worth your salt.”
His eyes say he feels differently, but I’m not offended in the least. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone in this town.
“Why can’t she keep anyone on staff?” I ask.
He chuckles, his eyes flitting around the room before coming back to meet mine. “Supposedly, he paid ranch hands double what everyone else would.”
Seems there was a lot of paying too much for things on Fletcher’s part.
“He being her husband?”
Ginger nods. “Some say it was so they’d keep quiet about the things going on there. Most did, so no one really knows for sure. After he died, I guess she went into a rage over something and fired them all. She’s tried hiring others, but they don’t stay for long because she won’t pay what he was and other places pay more. Something like that.”
“Is that your official Lone Star warning that I should steer clear?”
“That’s for you to decide, man. If you like a challenge”—he throws his hands up— “then be my guest.”
So many rumors. I’m sure some are warranted while others . . . not so much.
Tatum was all defiance and defeat mixed with uncertainty and obstinance when I’d met her, so I’d put the split at fifty-fifty.
“But if you’re going to stay, I suggest you keep to your six-month stint.”
“Why’s that?” I glance up at the television where a baseball game is underway—the Austin Aces against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“This isn’t the life she wants. I give her one more season before she cashes out while she can and makes a new life for herself.”
“The six-month time frame was my doing. Not hers. I have other obligations I need to fulfill.” I clear my throat to make a point. “And who says this isn’t the life she wants?”
Ginger chuckles as he serves a beer down the line to a man who looks like he doesn’t need another drink. “You’ve spoken with her, right? Hostile. Nasty.”
“Determined?”
“Don’t look now,” Ginger says, “but you just stood up for her.”
I shrug as I take a long pull on my beer.
“Five-plus years is a long time not to turn a piece of land, a business like hers—with a goddamn derby horse on it, no less—into a successful breeding operation,” he muses.
“For most of that time, it wasn’t her running it, though,” I argue on her behalf while keeping the little tidbit he just dropped tucked away.
She has a derby horse? Why isn’t she breeding it?
He slides a beer across the bar to his server and gives me a wink. “You learn how to read people standing behind a bar,” he says.
“Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“One more thing. No one in this town wants their name affiliated with failure.” He leans close and lowers his voice for dramatic effect. Jesus fucking Christ, does he ever shut up? “Nobody likes a long shot, man, and the Knox Ranch is the long shot. No. People around here like the sure thing.”
I chuckle in response to this small-town bullshit nonsense. Fucking hell, it’s no wonder the poor woman is struggling.
They like the sure thing.
Running my thumb over the Coors Light label, I give the subtlest shake of my head, wondering how much of what he said holds any weight.
“I have a hundred of those beers you’re holding that say you can’t salvage what’s left of that ranch,” he says and wipes his hand on the rag tucked in the side of his waistband. “I’m all about defying convention, but you can’t do that when you don’t know the ropes. And she sure as shit doesn’t know the ropes. Hell, she’d do best if she took the offer she was given a while back to sell it so she can go live that hoity-toity life it seems she was born to lead. Give us back our land and . . .”