For the first time in a long time, the knot in my chest loosened just a smidge. Having to spend a month in Ido, Texas, might just be the best thing that had ever happened to me.
CHAPTER 2
JASPER
I drewin a breath as I walked through what remained of my family’s pecan orchard. The twister that blew through last month had skipped over our neighbor’s cattle ranch but unleashed its wrath on Taylor Grove. Less than a quarter of the trees from our hundred-year-old orchard remained, not nearly enough to fulfill the orders we’d already committed to from this year’s harvest.
“We’re doomed.” My dad, Frank, hung his head. “I shouldn’t have taken out a loan against the farm. We’re going to lose it all.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek and tried to come up with a reassuring word. Truth was, we were doomed. Unless I could find a way to conjure pecans out of thin air, we weren’t going to be able to dig ourselves out this time.
“Your poor mama. She’s going to skin me alive when she finds out what I’ve done.” Dad ran a calloused hand behind his neck. “If only Colin were around. It’s about time you two made up, don’t you think?”
According to my parents, the absence of my older brother was the reason everything had gone to shit. I had been tempted to tell them the truth on more than one occasion, but it wouldbreak their hearts. So instead I let them go on believing what they would while I tried to hold things together on my own.
“I might have an idea.” I hadn’t wanted to bring it up yet. I’d been shot down too many times in the past for trying to buck tradition and expand beyond the family trade. But look where doing things the same had gotten us—wiped out by a fickle late-summer storm. If I didn’t figure out a way to literally save the family farm, there wouldn’t be any traditions left to buck, because we’d be forced to sell our land and figure out a new way of life.
“Don’t start spoutin’ off about that woman’s crazy wedding ideas again,” Dad warned.
“Do you want to have to tell Mom you’re moving the family into town?”
“She’d leave me.” Dad sighed.
“She’d never leave you. But she might not talk to you for the rest of your lives.” I had seen my mama hold a grudge and it wasn’t pretty. She still had trouble looking me in the eye, since she blamed me for Colin’s departure.
“Tell me what you have in mind. I suppose it’s worth a listen.”
“Mayor Cherish said she’s looking for complementary businesses to help expand Ido’s hold on the wedding market. I told you years ago that people pay big bucks to rent out barns for wedding receptions. And we’ve got the oldest barn in the state of Texas, that ought to be good for?—”
“You can’t tell me some hoity-toity bride all dressed in white is going to want to say her vows while standing in a pile of horse shit.” Dad shook his head.
“You’re missing the point.” My dad had almost run our business into the ground thanks to his narrow-minded ways. If he didn’t come around to trying something new, we’d all suffer.
“What’s the point then? Enlighten me.” We’d stopped at the edge of the ring, where my twelve-year-old sister, Abby, was putting her favorite mare through her paces. Dad hooked the heel of his boot on the lowest fence board.
“We move the horses to the smaller barn and renovate the big one. You’re right, no bride is going to want to use it like it is now. But with the insurance money we have coming in, we could use that to?—”
“Have you lost your mind? That insurance money’s got to buy trees to replace the ones we lost. What good is a pecan farm without pecan trees?”
I tried to keep my cool. “You know it’s going to take at least five years, probably seven or eight, to get those trees back to producing something we can sell. But if we revamp the barn, we could be making money hand over fist by next spring.”
Dad shook his head. “That’s crazy talk. Your mama would never go for such a crackpot idea.”
My chest tightened. Now was my shot. “She thinks it might work.”
“What?” Dad’s eyes went wide, and his mouth hung open.
“I talked to Mayor Cherish about it last week, just to gauge her reaction. She thinks it’s a great idea. Then I mentioned it to Mom.”
“You went behind my back.” Dad’s voice dropped into a growl. “You talked to your mama, you visited with the mayor, all without saying a word to me?”
I let out a long sigh. “Because I knew you wouldn’t even consider it. But we’ve got to do something to make some money over the next few years. Even if we replant half the trees we lost, can’t you try something else to supplement in the meantime?”
Dad rested his hands on the top rail of the fence and let his head drop between his shoulders. “Over a hundred years.This farm’s been operating under the Taylor name for four generations. I can’t lose it.”
“Then let me help you save it.” I clapped a hand on my dad’s shoulder. “I only want what’s best for all of us.”
“If that’s true, you’d best go find your brother and convince him to come back.”
