Cayce returned with a swagger in his hips like he owned the place.
First thing he did was a fly-by of the table, scooping up the contracts and dumping them in the trash. He went to the coffee maker next, tossed the grounds from the pot I had made that morning and set another pot brewing.
“Help me understand this, princess.” Turning, he leaned against the counter, crossed his arms in front of his chest and cocked an angry brow at me. “You get pissed at me for God knows what and put the house up for sale the next day?”
I rolled my lips. I didn’t want this conversation. But, as much as Cayce thought I was stubborn, he was truly obstinate.
He was also about to be out of my life forever.
Getting up from my chair, I stormed over to the small desk by the pantry door. The first thing I grabbed were a half dozen or so business cards. One by one, I started reading the names then flicked the accompanying card at Cayce.
“Bernard at Century, he came by the fifteenth of last month. Gene at Re-Max, twenty-third of last month. Heather at Keller-Williams, second of this month…”
I let the rest of the cards telescope into the air then fall to the ground as I turned back to the desk and pulled out a folder stuffed with papers. Taking it to the kitchen table, I slammed it down.
His coffee cup filled, Cayce took a seat in the chair Megan had been warming minutes before. I plucked out three pages from the folder, each one a cover document for a different loan my father had taken out in the last few years before his death.
“Some were for medical bills,” I said before my voice turned ugly. “I don’t know what the hell the rest was for. Doesn’t matter now. I can’t keep up with it.”
Cayce put his cup down and examined the papers from the oldest document forward. His usually strong features sagged.
“I told you, Ash. Your daddy was a great vet, but a really lousy businessman.” He took a long sip of the coffee then slowly exhaled. His mouth opened, but then he shut it again before taking a quick lick of his top lip. “Looks like he was putting some of this into the practice.”
I felt like one of the linemen for the UT Longhorns had just tackled me. All the air went out of my chest. I even felt faint for a few seconds, my hands holding the edge of the table in a death grip in case I started to slide to the floor.
“So, you’re saying…”
The words really didn’t want to come out, but I pushed and grunted until they did.
“You’re saying he hocked the house to put it into a business he sold to you for bottom dollar.” A harsh, hateful laugh escaped me. “Mama always said she wished she had been able to give him a son…guess daddy went out and found his own.”
I finished with a harsh eye roll before turning my gaze to the kitchen window and glaring at the curtains. All these years I went around mooning over Cayce, I should have been furious about his presence.
I opened my mouth ready to rain hellfire on his usurping ass.
“You,” he growled and pointed a thick finger at me, “need to calm down or you’re getting another spanking.”
My jaws snapped shut.
“I’ve been working my ass night and day to keep my head above water, Ashley. So don’t look at me like I’m sitting on a pile of gold.”
“Someone is,” I snarked.
Leaning back in his chair, Cayce stared me into silence. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Frank never had you do any of his bookkeeping for him? You’re an accountant, for the love of God.”
I looked away, head aimlessly shaking side to side. It had been the only sore spot between my dad and me, one he wasn’t even aware of as far as I knew. I never flat out demanded he let me help him. I just offered—frequently.
“I always figured he was keeping Ellen busy in getting the books ready for the accountant. Bringing me in would have pushed her out. She couldn’t handle the animals anymore as bad as her hands and back had gotten.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m not sure she can handle the books, either. Since the middle of this last year, I’ve been going over them with a fine tooth comb after they leave her hands. I don’t have time to go back any further and there’s not enough money to pay someone competent to perform an audit.”
Cayce huffed for a few seconds, steam all but coming out of his ears as he looked through some of the other papers in my Folder of Financial Doom.
Putting all the contracts and account histories back in place, he waved his hand over the fat stack then nailed me with a firm gaze.
“This is solvable without you having to sell the house.”
I snorted. He had just noted a minute or so ago that I was an accountant, then immediately proceeded to forget that fact. I had spent hours with my calculator looking at every slip of paper in front of us and a whole lot more. I’d looked at leasing the untilled land. I’d looked at refinancing.
Hell, I had even looked at selling a few of my eggs—but the ova of chunky brunettes with a family history of renal cancer on one side and breast cancer on the other were worth a big, fat zero.
“First, I move out of my apartment,” Cayce said as he flipped over a page on one of the account histories then rooted in his back pocket for a pen. “That’s five hundred a month going to the mortgage on the farm plus they’ll have to return my deposit.”
“You’re suggesting you move in here?” I asked.
Had he suddenly gone completely mental? Did he not recall our fucking the night before? Had he forgotten my morning text telling him to go fuck himself?
I patted my pockets for my phone so I could refresh his failing memory.
“Five hundred,” he repeated. “I already don’t have cable or internet at home, but that also gets rid of electricity, water and trash, so figure another one-fifty that goes to the farm since I’m mostly paying to keep the stuff turned on rather than actually using it.”
He jotted the numbers down while I pulled up my text from that morning.
“About another hundred a month dropping the renter’s insurance and adding the multi-car discount. That’s seven-fifty.”
His head bobbed and then he smiled. “I figure re-opening the stable for boarding horses will net us another five hundred a month for starters. Once we fill up, that’s a damn sight more.”
I put the phone down and stared at him. The numbers were starting to look good, but his reasoning was off. Even forgetting about the night we had spent together in which he had finally, irrevocably broken my heart, the stables had been shut down for almost four years.
“You’re already working night and day,” I pointed out. “I can only muck so much on my own, we’d have to get the word out that the stables were open and we probably wouldn’t fill a single stall until—”
“We could fill the stalls tomorrow,” he interrupted. “Old Man Sessions closed on a contract to sell his land for a bunch of McMansions. I’m getting calls every day from people wanting leads on where they can board and ride—preferably with a vet on call.”
“Still, the extra work, having someone on site during normal visiting hours.”
Cayce lifted his hands, quieting me.
“Got at least a temporary solution for that, a guy who’ll be here, keep the stalls clean and the feed bags full if we fix up the stable master’s apartment and let him live in it with utilities paid.”
My mind rifled through the numbers and facts he had thrown at me. If the contract on Mr. Sessions property soon became public record and then building on the hundred acre lot started, my own land would become more valuable—in time. That would mean I could refinance on better terms or sell off a few acres and keep the rest.
But how long would I have to put up with renting a room to Cayce and having an employee on the farm? Hell, who was Cayce’s would-be stable master?
“Do I know the guy?”
He shook his head, his hands suddenly dancing in that “don’t freak out” manner that he had picked up from working with my dad.
“His name is Jess Stone, grew up around horses, knows what to do.”
I kept looking at Cayce’s hands playing pat-a-cake with the air. He wasn’t telling me everything. Why would someone who knew horses well enough to work around them take a job for very basic housing?
“What’s the catch? Did he get fired or something?”
His mouth twisted as he sucked in a deep breath. “He got discharged—from the Army. He’s safe, but he has PTSD. Getting his benefits has been a problem because…”
Yep, there it was, the big, smelly “but” I had figured was coming.
“He’s homeless.” Cayce paused, his cheeks coloring. “Again, he’s safe, just needs an environment where he feels more in control. Something mostly solo. I trust him completely. I let him use my place a couple times a week for showering and…uh…stuff.”
I stared at Cayce a few seconds then nodded even though I couldn’t believe the words about to come out of my mouth.
“I’m willing to meet Jess.”
He beamed a smile at me that, for one blinding second, made me forget I never wanted to talk to him again, let alone rent a room to him for an undetermined period.
Cayce said something but my mind was spinning in a new direction. Was it possible that I could lease the house at a high enough rent that I could ride the current mortgage out until the property value went up? I hadn’t given the thought consideration before, probably because a formal lease came with a number of complications, both in terms of liability insurance and personal income taxes.
“You stopped listening, baby girl.”
I looked at him. He began to repeat whatever he’d been blathering about.
“Putting me on your health insurance is another three hundred saved, which takes us over a thousand solid without worrying about the stables. Fifteen hundred if I’m right about how soon we can fill them and at what price. More after word gets out.”
I stopped him before he could add the three hundred to the list of savings.
“Only family can go on my health insurance.”
“Yeah, what’s your point?” His brows lifted for a second and then he threw another brilliant smile at me. “As your husband, I’d be family.”