April, Dani - Raven's Ranch (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme) (9 page)

“Mrs. Harding is meeting with an account holder in her office now.” The old lady fumbled with an appointment book in front of her. Raven saw she didn’t even have a computer on her desk. Didn’t anyone use modern technology out here in the boonies?

“Please have a seat over there, and Mrs. Harding will be out in a few minutes.”

Raven thanked the old lady and took a seat. She felt like she was on trial for murder here instead of just coming to ask for a loan. So much depended on the outcome of this meeting, and her life would be irrevocably changed one way or another after it was over.

What’s going to happen to me?
Raven kept asking herself this question over and over as she waited for the bank vice president, and she came up with no answers, only the great expanse of an unknown future loomed before her.

If she returned to the city she knew exactly what her life would be like, but how would she react to being alone again after her all too brief brush with happiness and having a family out here in the country? Connor wouldn’t return with her. In the city he would be a fish out of water and even more lost than she was out here.

Maybe she would go back to the city and take up with some of her former friends again. Of course none of those friends had been very good friends, and the thought of giving up the ranch to return and take up her friendships with those empty-headed waitresses and bartenders she had known before was not very appealing.

No, this had to work today at the bank. Right here this morning she had to buy herself and her ranch enough time to make a go of things. Her wait would not be long; the receptionist had told her the vice president would see her in a few minutes.

Raven watched the customers of the bank run around the lobby from window to window conducting their daily business at the bank and carrying on with their daily lives. She glanced down the hall in the direction she thought the vice president’s office must be but could see nothing yet.

She realized her palms were sweaty and wiped them along the side of her pantsuit. Bringing out her iPad one more time before her meeting, she brought up the figures for the ranch’s budget on the little touch screen and took another minute to peruse them and commit them to memory.

There was a digital clock mounted on the wall over the teller’s windows. The background of the clock was black and the digits were red. She watched the clock and waited for the minute to advance. That one minute seemed like it would never end. She finally gave up and concentrated on the old couple at the teller window directly beneath the clock who had come to deposit their pension checks, and the teller behind the window was explaining the interest rates the new CDs offered.

“Miss White?” A woman’s voice approached Raven. “I’m Linda Harding. We have an appointment.”

Raven got up from her little chair in the lobby. Linda Harding led her down the hall and into her office which had a nice view of Main Street and the town square across the street.

Linda Harding took her seat behind her desk. A plaque on the desk proudly proclaimed her title, and customer service awards she had gotten over the years were on display on a wall. On a counter behind her desk sat a trophy she had won in a women’s softball tournament. The other wall of the office had a nice painting of a coyote howling at the moon out on the prairie.

Raven set down in front of Linda Harding’s desk feeling her nerves return to her and they were worse than ever. A strand of her long, black hair had come undone and fallen along her cheek. She angrily tossed it back behind her ear and hoped the vice president hadn’t noticed.

There were three file folders laying on the desk, one on top of the other. She noticed the bank’s logo in the top right corner, and the title of each folder read “Lazy L.” Apparently the ranch owed so much money to the bank that they even kept files on them.

Linda Harding arranged the folders across her desk and opened the first one, taking a look inside and frowning at what she saw.

“Have you decided to sell the ranch, Miss White?” Linda Harding asked her.

“I’ve been under a lot of pressure to do so, and I’ve been seriously thinking about it, but no, I’m not ready to sell just yet. I want to give the ranch one more try.”

“When your grandfather died and I heard you were coming out here to live, I assumed you would want to sell as soon as possible.”

If I’d had any kind of life or relationship back in the city that’s exactly what I would have done,
Raven thought, but to the bank vice president she said, “I think the Lazy L can make a profit again. We just need a little more time.”

“How do you propose to go about that?” Linda Harding wasn’t even looking at her but was going through the files on her desk.

“I need a loan.”

“Miss White, your ranch already has numerous loans with the bank and three mortgages.”

“I’m aware of that, but I need one more to tide us over for the summer until we can sell the herd in the fall.”

“Miss White, this bank just gave the ranch a loan last month to install a new drainage system on one of its ranges that’s prone to flooding. What would this new loan be used for?”

“To pay the ranch hands.” Raven cleared her throat and boldly charged forward. This is what she had come here for. It was now or never. “My ranch hands haven’t been paid in over six months. I’m sure you’ll agree that’s way too long.”

“Your grandfather never seemed to have that problem with the ranch hands,” Linda Harding acted as if she didn’t believe her.

“Actually he did,” Raven countered. “My grandfather had no funds to pay them with either.”

“Yet he always seemed to work something out with them. I never heard of him losing an employee in all the years I’ve been handling this account. They were loyal to him. Why aren’t they loyal to you?”

“Well I’m not my grandfather.” Raven found herself fumbling for words. She hated the directness of the vice president. “I’m a…”

“You’re a woman,” Linda Harding finished for her. “The ranch hands don’t want to work for a woman.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Raven said, feeling herself blushing. “But it doesn’t make any difference whether the boss is a man or woman, I don’t think anyone should work without getting paid.”

“If the ranch hands quit, what will you do?” Linda Harding asked. “Will you stay on and run the ranch alone?”

“I can’t do that,” Raven answered honestly. “Of course I don’t know how.”

“Miss White.” Linda Harding seemed to be losing patience with her. “You’re about to lose the ranch no matter what you do. When the ranch hands quit you’ll be out of business for good. Why don’t you just sell to Wholesale Foods? They have made you a really good offer.”

“No, but you don’t understand.” Raven sat up in her chair. “That’s why I’ve come here to the bank this morning. If you will give me that loan, then I can pay the ranch hands and they’ll stay on for the rest of the summer until the herd is ready to be sold.”

“Miss White, that’s not the way it works.” Linda Harding closed up the file folder she had been reading, now losing all patience with her. “You can’t run that ranch. The only reason your grandfather could is because he had the backing of his men. You don’t have that. You are just a young woman. Those are tough cowboys who work out there. They don’t respect you because you’re not one of them and can never be one of them.”

“Those are good men,” Raven said, anger in her voice. “They do respect me, and I respect them. They’re the best ranch hands in this state. It’s because of them that the Lazy L can be brought back to profitability again. They had a family with my grandfather, and they loved him. Now he’s dead and they’ve got nothing, and I can’t offer them anything because, as you reminded me, I am a woman. I can’t even pay them.”

“Miss White.” Linda Harding got up from behind her desk and checked her watch. “This bank won’t give you another loan. You need to start concentrating on finding a way to pay the loans you’ve already got.”

Raven got up, too, and felt ill. She would have to force herself to sell the ranch and go back to her old life no matter how badly she hated to. All of her options had now run out.

Chapter Eight

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me we were in such bad shape?” Raven tore into Connor the moment she entered his trailer.

“I’m sorry,” was all he had to say, and he hung his head, not meeting her eyes.

“You had the entire trip out from Chicago!” she accused him. “You didn’t think to tell me I owed the guys six months back pay? I guess I owe you six months back pay, too. You could have at least mentioned that.”

“I just wanted it to work so bad because of the way I feel about you, Raven.”

Raven paced across the floor of his trailer and noticed it was messy. He was living like a slob and hadn’t picked the place up in weeks. She wondered if that was how all the guys lived.

“How do you feel about me, Connor?” she asked him.

“I care about you.” His voice was quiet.

“How did you ever think it could work, knowing what a mountain of debt we face out here?”

“I just hoped you could make it work with the guys.”

“I care about you, Connor,” she told him. “And I care about all of the guys, but there’s only so much I can do. When the bank turned me down for the loan today, that was the last straw.”

“The guys all care about you just like I do, you know,” he told her, still not able to meet her stare.

“I like all of them, too,” she assured him, not actually certain of what he meant. “They’re the best. I’d do anything for you and the guys. That’s why I went into town today and humiliated myself in front of that old witch at the bank.”

“Please don’t give up,” he told her, trying to go to her, and she thought maybe he wanted to put his arm around her, but she shrugged away from him, feeling too angry to let him touch her.

“The guys are going to leave the ranch,” she told him and realized her head was hung low and she was staring at the dusty floor. “I’m going to sell the ranch and leave, too.”

“Then none of us will ever see you again?”

“Yeah, that’s right, probably not.” There was a catch in her voice.

“Those guys stayed for your grandfather because they loved him, and they’ll stay for you, too.”

“Well I don’t know, maybe they don’t love me, because it doesn’t seem to be working out.”

“They’re in lust with you, and that’s the problem.”

“No, Connor.” She corrected him. “The
problem
is I don’t have any money to pay them.”

“Raven, you still don’t understand certain things about life out here on the ranch.”

“I understand now,” she told him. “I spoke with Tyler yesterday and he made me understand everything.”

“Tyler’s a good man,” Connor acknowledged, “but he’s also been left a bitter and broken man after what happened to his family. Don’t listen to what he said or you’re going to lose your family just like he did.”

“I don’t have a family.”

“We’re your family, Raven.” He made a lunge to grab her into his arms, but she moved away from him again, shoving past him in the narrow confines of the trailer.

Raven felt like she wanted a cigarette, though she didn’t smoke. She felt like she needed a drink, though this would be the worst time to have one because she needed to keep her head clear and her wits sharp.

“The guys will stay on and work the ranch for you if you ask them to,” Connor told her, though she didn’t really detect any certainty in his voice.

“No, the guys will stay and work if I pay them,” she explained to him, trying to calm her voice. “I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t stay at a job and work if I wasn’t getting paid. Would you?” And then she caught herself because she knew that was exactly what he had done.