Page 18 of The Wedding Ranch
Reece reminded him of Valerie like that. Valerie had been the visionary, always coming up with ways to streamline thework that needed to be done, which left him to be the worker bee. Ryder had been known to complain about that a time or two, but it appeared Ross was fine with that role.
Ryder’s thoughts were back on what Kasey had gone through and how she and Cody were funneling the tragedy into good works. Valerie would’ve thought of something like that.
“Hey, do you want some pie, Uncle Ryder?” Reece’s dark lashes fluttered over her blue eyes.
“No. I’m good.”
“Oh, well there’s one thing that we need your help with,” she said.
Here we go.“I was wondering what you were buttering me up for.”
“We’re not buttering you up.” She had that wide-eyed innocent look that had twisted his arm a million times over the years. “You’re our biggest investor, what’s suspicious about that?”
He was theironlyinvestor. “I know y’all better than you know yourselves. You forget that.”
“Okay, well, the one catch is that we’ve already rented them the cabins at the venue, but that’s not enough. We need something bigger.” Reece visibly swallowed.
Ross completed his sister’s thought. “What we’re saying is, we want to rent your house from you for five days.”
He could almost feel his eyes bugging out in surprise like a cartoon character’s dangling from wobbly springs. That was a big ask.
Before he could open his mouth, Reece interjected. “It’s the only place that is gated and sits back off the road so we canguarantee that if word gets out we’re prepared. We’ve really thought this through. We did a whole FMEA on it.”
“Failure Mode and Effects Analysis?” If nothing else these kids knew how to speak his language. A short stint working for General Electric straight out of college as a Six Sigma Master Black Belt had armed him with invaluable business sense and he’d ingrained those skills into Reece and Ross from a young age.
“Right,” Ross interjected. “And we’ve already priced a cleaning crew for before and after. We will put all of your valuables in the study and Jimmy John can put a lock on that door, original to the era of the house because we know how funny you are about that. We’ll take full responsibility.”
“And where am I supposed to stay during all of this?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Reece said. “Of course, Mom said you could stay with her, but I know that would make you crazy.”
“She knows?” Ryder hated it when his sister kept things from him. She could’ve at least warned him.
“I came up with the idea that you could pull the horse trailer down to the creek and stay there with Thunder. Like a camping trip on—”
“My own property?”
“Or we could send you somewhere,” Ross said. “Where would you want to go? The Bahamas? Mexico? Maybe a cruise.”
“You know me better than that.” Ryder had to admit, camping here on his own land was about the only vacation he was up for. Traveling to parts unknown had never been appealing to him.
“I told him that’s what you’d say.” Reece arched her brow that same way his sister did.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ryder said. “What if something went wrong?”
“It won’t.”
“Famous last words. Have you already signed the contract?”
“No, we wanted to talk with you first. This would be so big for our business. National acclaim. Please, Uncle Ryder…”
Who was he kidding asking those questions? He wasn’t going to say no to them. When they’d come to him asking to lease five acres and the decaying barn on the lower part of the property, he’d thought they were crazy, but he hadn’t said no. And although he thought they’d never be able to renovate that old barn into something beautiful on their shoestring budget, they had. And masterfully so. No, he’d never stand in their way. What they’d built in just a couple of years was remarkable.
“Thunder and I will camp down at the creek during this big week-long shindig. Just a cell phone call away. If something goes wrong, you call me immediately for help. You hear me?”
“Yes! Thank you!” Reece jumped from her seat and practically into his lap.
Ross paused. “You’re saying we should go for it.”
