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“Anyway, I say that all to say, please don’t give up on my daddy. He’s a good man and loves hard. He just needs someone in his life to love and love him back truly,” she finishes.
“I’m not giving up on him. I promise. Now about these pageants. When are we going to our first one together? I have to clear my schedule, you know.”
Her eyes round and her mouth falls open. “You would come with me? I gave them up this year because Nanna has been looking tired. I don’t want her doing all that traveling on account of me. She seemed disappointed for me, but she’s more important to me than anything.”
She reaches to cover my hand and pat it. “You’ll have time to settle in here and figure things out before I start up again. Then I’d love to have you with me.”
“It’s a date.”
She slides closer and rests her head on my arm. “I think you’re just what we’ve been waiting for. Peace, that’s what we need around here, some good old-fashion peace.”
Well, now I know why she sounds and acts so much like Nanna. My heart hurts for Trevor and these babies. I want to be that peace for them.
Trevor
“It’s going to be okay,” I say into the top of Lynn’s hair as she sobs and hyperventilates.
I massage her shoulders as I stand behind her. We’ve been looking over the financials for the Galveston ranch, and it’s a lot worse than I thought it would be.
“Darlin’, it’s bad, but it’s still salvageable. Let me call Cliff and Ann over. We can brainstorm from there. I already see where we can make some adjustments,” I say soothingly.
“No wonder he had a stroke. He’s been dealing with this. Why not tell me. He could have taken a loan from me, not some bank.”
“I don’t know, baby. This is Moses we’re talking about.”
“I can’t let this happen. If he loses the ranch, we lose our home. I’d never forgive myself. This is my family’s legacy. I have to do something.”
My chest swells as she calls this our home. The boys have already made two trips this morning to go get things from the rental to bring here as if I told them this is our new place. The rooms they’re staying in already look as if they’ve been here for weeks, not one night.
I’ll have to get after them to clean up once I get my woman to settle. She’s not hearing me. My words are going right over her head in her panic.
Elise comes over and pulls the books and Lynn’s laptop in front of her. She pinches her lips together as she examines what we’ve been looking over. Lynn places her head in her palms as she continues to sob.
“Okay, Cakes. Pull it together, honey. We can fix this,” Elise says softly.
“It looks like that loan is what’s eating all the profits, and it has a balloon payment coming up,” I say. “I’ll pay off the loan. Moses wouldn’t allow me to pay the extra property taxes this place created. I’ll take over that as well.”
“Trev, no. I’ve got it. I’ll pay it all. I just need to figure out how to get this place back in the black.”
I sigh. She’s as stubborn as her daddy. I don’t want this to be her burden alone.
Had I known this was happening, I would have offered my help sooner. Moses has been a big part of my life.
“Will you at least allow me to handle the repairs?”
“Yes,” Elise answers for her. “Please and thank you. Also, call Cliff over. We can brainstorm. It looks like a lot of revenue has changed, I’m assuming because of Mr. Galveston’s age.
“I want to see what we can bring back with fresh hands and backs. We need to see what happened with these oil contracts. That seems to be the start of all this. That and this year with the whacky feed numbers.”
I knit my brows in thought. “I remember something about an infestation in the feed room.”
“That would make sense. That was about two years ago, right? Mama had mentioned something about that to me, but I wasn’t paying too much attention to her gossiping,” Elise replies.
“Yeah, about two years ago. Cliff was worried about it, but Moses waved him off.”
“Well, the first thing I want to do is update this bookkeeping system. I’m going to get you set up with an app so you can watch things from anywhere, and I’ll be able to monitor and place orders when needed. You said you had a few guys that piqued your interest to promote to help out.
“I’ll need those names. I can interview them in the morning and have a point person to make sure things are being tracked properly. I’ll put on my calendar to be here on the ground at least twice a month,” Elise rattles off as she starts to make notes.
