Jennifer settled down in the Fainting Goat Chair and stared at the piles in front of her. She had gone through the costs of running the Miller Family Farm, and now was the time to start into the income pile. Not surprisingly, this pile of receipts was much smaller. Wasn’t that always how it went?
Hmmm…she picked up a paid invoice for one of the swankiest restaurants in Boise. She looked at the bottom line of the invoice and let out a low whistle. Stetson had to be raising some pretty high-end cows if he was selling them at this price.
“What?” he asked, his deep voice startling her out of her thoughts.
And out of her chair. With a yelp, she tried to spin in the chair towards the office door but instead she found herself on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
Again.
He hurried to her side and helped her onto her feet as she brushed at her clothing.
Again.
“That chair is…temperamental,” Stetson said in way of apology as he stood back and let her try to straighten herself out. “My dad kept saying he was going to get a new chair someday, but he never did, and…well, I didn’t either.” He didn’t say anything else, and Jennifer wondered where that thought would’ve ended if he considered her to be a friend and someone he could talk to. She was pretty sure that there was more there than he was offering up.
“I’m usually more careful in the Fainting Goat Chair, but you startled me,” she admitted with a little laugh, looking up, up, up at him.
He really should stop eating Wheaties in the morning. She was pretty sure he’d already grown all that he should by this point.
“Fainting Goat—” Stetson said with a startled snort of a laugh. “You know, that’s just about the perfect name for it.”
They stopped and stared at each other for a minute. Jennifer was getting a crick in her neck, and had to keep herself from putting her high heels on and then continuing to talk to him. Or insisting that he sit in the chair.
But she wasn’t about to admit weakness.
Never admit weakness.
“So why were you whistling?” Stetson asked, his dark brown eyes ensnaring hers. Trapping her. Making her feel like the most important person he’d ever talked to. Jennifer had the fleeting question of whether everyone felt that way around Stetson, and then dismissed the thought. She needed to concentrate.
“Your cows,” she forced herself to say, focusing on his question. “That’s a damn fine price per pound that you’re selling at, especially on the hoof. Is the restaurant taking care of the butchering step?”
He nodded. “They have a specialty butcher who hangs and cures and does everything the way the restaurant wants. A typical butcher wouldn’t be able to get it just right for them. There’s a reason why a T-bone steak is so damn expensive there.”
“I…I don’t get it,” Jennifer admitted, and then swallowed hard.
Saying something like that out loud – especially to Stetson of all people – burned her biscuit. Truth was, though, she was totally stumped and out of options. She had to ask questions because going in circles while staring at the books was doing her no good at all.
She cleared her throat and plunged on. “I’ve seen your costs. I’ve seen your expenses. I’ve seen some of your income – I just got started on that part today, I’ll admit. But I see how you live. You should be able to make the yearly payment to the bank without breaking a sweat. But you have these huge transfers to your personal account, way more than your lifestyle here would demand. Do you have a bevy of prostitutes or mistresses tucked away somewhere, that you’re keeping in style?”
“A bevy of…” Stetson let out another snort of laughter. “I don’t have a bevy of prostitutes or mistresses or anyone else hidden away. Is that a typical expense that you find while auditing books?”
She glared up at him. He was laughing at her, and she wasn’t quite sure she appreciated that. “So, if it isn’t prostitutes or mistresses, what is it? A gambling problem?”
“Gambling…good Lord. You have a real high opinion of me, don’t you?”
This time, she added crossed arms to the glare. “I just met you three days ago. I don’t think I could have formed an opinion of you – good or bad – by this point.” Well, she had – that he was an overgrown ape with the manners of a caveman – but she wasn’t about to tell him that. She wasn’t going to let him score a point, even if it meant losing out on the chance to insult him.
Which really was too bad, honestly.
“My dad,” he said simply, and then shrugged.
She stared. He stared back. The clock ticked on the wall. A cow lowed in the distance.
“Your dad what?” Jennifer asked, breaking first. She hated giving in and actually asking him what he meant by his purposefully obtuse statement, but she also hated not knowing.
It was quite the predicament to be in.
“His cancer treatments,” Stetson said simply, as if it were obvious. “That’s what I spent all of the money on. The cows made me enough money to pay for his cancer treatments. My wheat, corn, and hay made me enough money to pay Carmelita, Christian, and my other employees, and cover the costs of my living expenses, scarce as they are, but that’s all the crops I raise. There was no crop left to sell that would bring in money to pay the bank.”
“Oh.” She blinked, her frustration with him slowly deflating as she put it together. Jennifer, you really stepped in it this time. “How long did your father have cancer?” she asked softly.
“Eighteen months. After the first round of chemo, he didn’t want to fight it anymore, but I…I pushed him.” His voice went flat and quiet, and his gaze skittered away from hers. “I wasn’t ready to lose him yet. I talked him into another round, and…I shouldn’t have. It was selfish of me. He was in a lot of pain.”
He was staring at the far wall over her shoulder as he talked, and she swallowed. Hard. She officially felt like an ass, which wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling.
“So why all of the crops?” she asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards something less painful, which would include almost every topic on the planet at this point.
“Why all of what crops?” he repeated, confused. He was looking at her again, and she suddenly found herself wishing that he’d go back to staring at the wall. He was entirely too handsome for his own good.
Or hers.
“Usually, a rancher raises cows, or a farmer does hay or corn or potatoes or whatever. You do everything. It’s…unusual. I’ve been wondering about that for a couple of days now.”
“Honestly, I shouldn’t.” He shrugged. “Millers are row croppers. Beets, corn, whatever. If it grows in a straight line, that’s our cup of tea. I had a brilliant idea when I was a kid that I wanted to do cows. Wheat was boring, you know? Row after row, field after field…it wasn’t where my heart was. So when I was 17, I finally talked my dad into letting me buy a small herd of cows. He thought I’d lost my ever-lovin’ mind, but he let me do it anyway. I think he expected me to fail and get it out of my system and then go back to doing what Millers were supposed to do.”
He smiled a little, just a small twist of the lips. “Instead, I slowly grew the herd over time, and found a Boise restaurant to sell organic, specialty beef to, and then another restaurant, and…here we are. If Dad had gotten cancer a couple of years later, or if I hadn’t insisted that we do an extra round of treatment, I probably could’ve made my payment to the bank this year.” He shrugged again. “Live and learn, I suppose.”
His dark brown eyes were hooded with pain and Jennifer reached up without thinking about it to stroke his cheek. She shouldn’t have because he was a client and she was an employee of the bank and no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t forget that she may have to recommend foreclosure some day in the future, but none of that mattered in that moment, and her fingers touched his stubbled cheek anyway.
As soon as they did, her breath stopped and she stared, her body on fire from the touch and him and he stared back, unblinking…
And then he was gone, his boots echoing down the hallway as he hurried out of the house and away from her.
Away from the person who was probably going to have to ruin his life.
And she didn’t blame him one bit for running.