Page 49 of Trickster King

“What is that?” Jessica demanded.

“That would be a tree covered with our fungus problem. I’ve got patches just like it in my field. I’m going to be taking a week off work and making sure I take my medication with as low stress of a schedule I can get. I just bought the kingdom a present. In bad news for the kingdom, they’re paying for it.”

“You bought a fungus-covered tree?”

“I’m buying the Montgomery Center to be our new RPS training facility, and there are around two hundred horses that’ll be marked for RPS use—and I’m coming in below budget on the acquisition. I’m getting the horses for five hundred a head.” As I expected my wife to erupt, I hurried to add, “The center ran into issues with their boarding contracts and the owners. The owners didn’t want to pay their share of the fungal treatments, and they wanted to unload the horses to the meat market. These are Grand Prix contending horses, mostly younger stock starting ground training. I’ll probably cherry pick a few for the royal stable, but they’ll be good horses for the RPS.”

“Five hundred a head?” Jessica blurted.

“That’s right.”

She erupted into nonsensical sounds that might have started life as curses she cut off to prevent exposing the kids to foul language. I waited out the storm before saying, “I’m sorry I didn’t discuss the situation with you before making a decision, but this is too good of an opportunity to give up. We’re going to inherit the staff from the center, and we’ll put them in the RPS as interior employees.”

“How much for the center?”

“The asking price is a million before the horses.”

Silence.

I waited for my wife to work through her thoughts, and after a few minutes, I asked, “Are you all right?”

“You’re buying five hundred acres of premier pasture land and buildings for only a million?”

“That does seem to be the case,” I said, scratching my temple as I hadn’t researched how many acres the center had. “Everything is in great condition, and the situation with the owners isn’t ideal, so we’re buying quite a few problems.”

“I have lawyers for that, and I’m willing to send them your way. Aren’t you supposed to be resting and relaxing, though?”

“I find it very restful getting a long-term problem off my desk accidentally. Add in a good sample of this fungus in action, and I think I deserve some praise.”

My wife giggled. “All right. I’ll take the picture to our gardener, and I’ll have somebody go to your ranch with a hazmat suit to gather as much of that crap as we can. Can I send someone to the center?”

“Hey, Jerrod?” I asked, turning the bay mare he’d loaned me with a signal from my leg.

“What can I do for you?”

I pointed at the fungus monstrosity. “My wife would like to send someone to have a good look at this to see what it is and how best to eradicate it. Since we haven’t finalized the sale, I need your permission.”

“Send as many as you’d like. As soon as we found this, we closed the pasture, but we’ve got smaller patches just about everywhere.”

“You can send a team over, babe. Apologize to the accounting team for me. Also apologize to those real estate people we keep around. They’re about to have a busy day.”

“I’m sure they’ll survive. For some reason, I don’t think the paperwork will be that bad.”

“Until you remember we have two hundred horses that are being offloaded by questionable owners due to a boarding contract dispute,” I countered.

“I stand corrected. I’ll warn the attorneys. Try to hold your temper about those owners. If the horses are going to you and the RPS, they aren’t going to the meat market. You have no reason to find a whip and teach them their manners.”

I considered telling my wife about the other ranches, both of which I’d purchase using the funds from Twilight Rose’s sale. As I wanted to see the shock in her expression myself, in person, I decided to live up to her belief I was the Trickster King. “With your leave, I’m going to ride through infected fields to see what’s going on with this property, with the promise I will get my prescriptions renewed and started over in anticipation of infection.”

“I’ll nurse you back to health, and we’ll put us both on a light schedule to limit the odds you have a relapse. Just don’t roll in the fields, wear a mask if you must go through something dusty and you know it’s infected, and hose yourself off outside before taking a shower.”

“It shall be as you demand, my queen.”

She laughed. “You just want to pretend you’re out camping with Eddie.”

Hmm. Well, if my wife wanted to give me an easy alibi, I would accept it with a grin. “That might be true, but you’re going to have to get rough with me if you want a confession.”

“If you can find a way to do so safely, camp with Eddie. It’s fine. We know how to treat your infections now, and I’ve been told repeatedly that stress is the primary factor in your illnesses. If it takes rolling around in a bad field to get you on the mend, then roll around in a bad field. You sound happy, so that’s all I care about.”

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