“Well, if I can’t wrestle cattle, like Tanner mentioned, I can at least do this for the ranch before I go,” Jake said. “I can distract myself by getting this all figured out while we wait for news from the lawyer.”
“Distraction? Hah, this is a full-time job for someone, honestly. Paperwork is never finished, and even when it’s organized, more just keeps showing up,” Brady said, and they both laughed.
Jake was telling the truth about that, though. He needed something to get his brain out of his pants as well, because all morning in the kitchen he’d been foggy headed and half aroused thinking about what he and Liz had done the night before, and wondering if he could give a repeat performance tonight. He wanted to, but he was dog-tired. He wasn’t used to late nights anymore now that his clock had set itself to early mornings.
The cattle-barn office was the eventual go-to because cooking this morning had done nothing to quell the thoughts rolling around in his head, the sting of the fingernail welts on his back rubbing against his shirt, reminding him every time he bent over.
Diving into this mess was an act of desperation to focus on anything else.
It sort of worked, but it was sending his head in another direction he wasn’t sure how to handle, just like Brady’s question.
After only an hour of sifting, he recognized his dad’s handwriting from the scrawled signatures on every invoice, but as for understanding anything more, he was lost. As he had attempted to create categories to sort, he quickly realized that he, Mr. City Slicker, had absolutely no idea what it took to run a ranch, despite his earlier thought of it being just like any other business. There were invoices for the oddest things—when he’d opened a folder calledVet, the first invoice he looked at had fees for castration services.
He’d closed that one quickly and set it aside. All thoughts of the softness of Liz’s inner thigh were gone in an instant the minute he thought about what that bill meant.
“I was hoping to get it all into my laptop. At least put a few years of the financials in so you guys could see the business better. I have accounting software licenses from the restaurant, which I never canceled, so—”
“That’s really great of you,” Brady replied. “We could use some of that know-how around here until we get settled. Dad shoveled it onto the accountant and just seemed to have an instinct when it came to what was needed.”
Jake nodded at him, and their eyes met. “Thanks. Bigger job than I thought, but a couple of days of this will keep me busy, right?”
“Well, you got in late last night from taking your car back. I’d say something, or perhaps someone, kept you busy?” Brady said, a lighter tone to his voice.
“Um, yeah. Something like that. Late . . . yeah,” Jake replied. He didn’t want to spill about Liz yet, although coming into the house at 3 a.m. carrying his shoes and his door hinges creaking likely woke Brady up. His guest room was just down the hall from Brady’s.
“No judgment from here, New York. I already said my piece,” Brady replied, and winked at him.
A bit of the worry about how his brothers—and Peony, for that matter—would react when they figured out he and Liz were sleeping together left. He cracked his neck and let Brady’s comment lie, and changed the conversation over to safer topics, which turned into Jake asking questions and Brady plopping himself into a chair and very patiently humoring him, like he had before on the porch. Jake’s natural curiosity took over, wanting to understand the real parts of all the invoices and receipts he was piling up. He quizzed Brady on the crops they grew and the cows, trying to get a sense for the revenue streams the ranch relied on each year, piecing together bits of information he’d pulled from the paperwork he had already sifted through.
Brady answered him candidly and seemed happy he wanted to know, and Jake appreciated that more than he’d ever let on. Jake hated being treated like an idiot, and it irritated him at the best of times. In the past, he’d been the expert, and he briefly wondered if he’d always treated his new hires with the respect Brady was showing.
It was humbling, feeling what so many young cooks might’ve felt like as they got their footing.
As Brady moved a stack of folders to his desk to sort, he began talking about some of his ideas for the ranch, and Jake started enjoying himself. Brady was a great storyteller, and learning more about him away from the dinner table meant he got to see another side to his brother. The rancher, the working man; not just the funny, kind guy who tried to please everybody.
“I’ve got this crazy idea to grow peanuts. The ranch has this area we call Sandstone Ridge, we bought it a while ago, and it has a south facing slope, plus the perfect conditions,” Brady said.
“Peanuts?” Jake asked, intrigued. “Would they grow here?”
“The soil composition along the slope down from the ridge is really sandy. Not ideal, but we can amend it with nutrients that would suit a strain that’s hardy in our zone. No idea on yield first year, but it’d definitely be fun to try.”
“What else could you grow there?” Jake asked. If peanuts didn’t work, there had to be something profitable.
“Potatoes or carrots, maybe. Not sure the ridge has enough acreage for sugar beets. The amount we’d have to grow to meet minimum supply quota for the sugar plant in Taber is a lot.”
“What does Tanner say about all this?” Jake asked carefully, wondering if Brady had any sway with his older brother. “Or have you told him any of this?”
Brady shook his head. “Haven’t. I talked to Dad about it a few weeks before he died. He was adamantly against any of it. Said peanuts weren’t worth . . . um . . . peanuts when it came to cash crops. He said stick to soybeans and corn and leave the ridge to pasture. I’ve always wanted to try new things, given the sheltered nature of the ridge, but Dad never did anything with it except put cattle on it. He said, ‘Corn sells. Experiments don’t,’ and that was that.”
“Well, why not do it next year, then? The place is yours now,” Jake offered.
“That would pop the top of Tanner’s head clean off!” Brady laughed. “Now is not the time to experiment, with all of this up in the air. We’d have to start planning crops real soon, secure seed, that sort of thing. I’d need to buy a new type of planter and harvester. That all takes money he won’t want to part with until West Line is back in our hands.”
Jake sighed, and figured Brady knew what he was talking about, understanding his brother—and the nature of ranching business—better than Jake could. The entrepreneur in him wanted to dive into it, because it seemed like an interesting experiment. Peanuts. Huh.
“Well, maybe soon, then,” he offered, wanting to give Brady a boost.
“Yeah. Listen. Let’s finish this up. I originally came in here to offer you a chance to ride today, show you some of the land this afternoon. Weather’s good, breeze knocks the bugs back, and it isn’t fry-your-balls hot.”
