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She took a deep breath, pushed her shoulders back, and looked me in the eye. “I’m keeping the ranch, and, I’m keeping that crazy Caddy that I’ll never drive, but it makes sense for right now.”
I grabbed my phone, and it suddenly dawned on me that we had less than an hour and a half to make our appointment. We couldn’t be late on the very first day of this thing. It wouldn’t be good.
“I can be ready in fifteen minutes,” I told her.
“Sounds good. But before we start on this insane path, I need one thing from you.”
I tossed the covers back and stood. My hard-on was almost gone.
“What’s that?” She tossed me a tempting little gaze after she gave my cock a quick glance.
“A promise that no matter what happens, you won’t abandon me. I know you can’t speak for Josh or Luke, but I want your word. It would mean a lot.”
She suddenly looked deadly serious, so I had to match her intensity.
“No matter what happens, I won’t abandon you. I promise. And you? Do I have your word that you won’t abandon me or the band?”
She cocked her head and flashed those beautiful gunmetal eyes at me. “You have my word. I promise not to abandon you, no matter what.”
We didn’t shake hands; instead, we kissed. Just a blush of a kiss, but a kiss nevertheless that once again stirred those damn inner fires I couldn’t seem to control.
“Now, let’s do this,” I told her, and we parted, each of us going in the opposite direction, grinning, but I felt about as apprehensive as a baby bird on its first flight out of the nest.
Connie 12
Once we all signed the official contract for a four-week engagement at Dirty Coyote, which I’d had Jade Whitaker look over first, and which paid each of us a tidy sum, beginning on opening night, we drove over to Jade’s office, here in Sweet Whiskey. Instead of her office being inside an old Victorian, like it was in Cricket, this time it was located on the second floor of a red-brick building on Green Street, the main business street in the town. A Western clothing store namedSpur of the Moment,took up thefirst floor.
Because I already knew Jade, she made everything easy for me.
“There’s a bit more that comes with the ranch.”
“We already had a tour, so I know about the horses and the vineyard,” I told her as she slid the documents in front of me. Once I signed them, everything would be mine.
I took in a deep breath and let it out.
“That’s fine, but there’s still more. There’s a trust fund set up to help pay for the expenses of running the ranch and vineyard.”
“What kind of a trust fund?” I asked, gazing over at the guys who encircled me, sitting in heavy wooden, leather-backed chairs. “Nobody ever mentioned a trust fund.”
“It’s quite a substantial fund,” she said, then flipped over a page of the document and pointed to a number. “It’s five million dollars to be exact. You should know that selling the grapes to local vintners more than pays for the ranch, for the staff in the house, and all the ranch hands. The grapes are tended to by folks who buy the grapes. I believe that’s divided up by two vintners. Either way, that income will pay for everything and will provide you with an income. The trust was set up as a backup plan in case there was a bad crop or some other catastrophe.”
“That’s some crazy backup plan,” Rascal said, looking a bit stunned.
“Why didn’t I know about this before?” I asked, feeling my stomach clench.
I was used to dealing with a lot of money from handling Shea’s crazy inheritance through Betty’s Startup fund, but that was Shea’s money. That was a charity we set up for local entrepreneurs, and we’d expanded it to encompass a lot more things, but whatever we did with it, that money didn’t affect my daily life or even Shea’s for that matter. We liked our bargain hunting Sundays, and neither of us wanted to change that.
But this… this was something else entirely.
“Dusty wanted to make sure you were committed to the land first. He didn’t want you to be swayed by the amount of money that went with it,” she said, grinning, her deep-blue eyes sparkling as if this was the best part of the entire deal, and she was the one laying it on me. One thing about Jade, she knew how to toss you a curve ball and grin while it buzzed past you. She slid the stack of legal papers in front of me, and waited for my signature, knowing damn well, there was no way in hell I would pass this up now.
Josh whistled out his amazement, while Luke stared down at the floor for a moment, then winked when he saw me watching him.
“You do whatever you think is right,” Rascal said. “We’re on your side no matter what.”
But I knew if this band would ever see a real audience and perform at Dirty Coyote like our contract said we would, we needed that music room.
And to have access to that music room, I had to sign these papers.
