So we started talking about money.

This was a bad idea. Very, very bad.

Not, surprisingly, when I told Gray that I was living with him and I wanted to kick in, not only finding something that didn’t involve horseshit to help out but also financially. I didn’t entirely wipe out my savings (though it was vastly depleted) and I had a healthy checking account so I wasn’t destitute. I could help and I could also find a job. Gray easily agreed to me being responsible for getting and paying for food and household items. I agreed he’d pay household bills. And the ranch account would pay for things for the ranch (like horse food).

That part was easy.

No, what got us into a sticky situation was Gray being honest about his finances in so far as telling me when he recently was looking to raise money to keep afloat, he sold four horses (that meant he’d had twenty-four!) but that was not what riled me.

He told me he also sold some furniture from the house and was looking to sell more.

Now that…

That semi-riled me.

And it got worse because somehow we veered from talking about him selling stuff in the house to his uncles and they…

Well, they would rile anyone.

It was just that they really riled me.

* * *

It went like this.

“You sold stuff from the house?”

That was me sounding horrified and mentally inventorying my memory of the place from seven years ago to see if I could figure out what might be missing.

“Yeah.”

That was Gray, nonchalant like everything in his house wasn’t a treasure which it was.

“Why did you do that?” I asked gently and his head tipped slightly to the side.

“Uh… because I was flat broke, losing my land and my Gran was being moved to a state-funded nursing home.”

These were all good reasons that in my horror at learning this news I didn’t consider.

But still.

“Gray, this house it’s like, like… a museum of Cody history,” I told him quietly and carefully.

“Ivey, this house was on the verge of not being Cody anything.”

Another good point.

Gray kept going.

“I had a foreclosure notice. I was goin’ down. If I sold the horses, all of them, I’d significantly decrease my ability to make money should I save the land. But it didn’t look like I was going to be able to save the land and I still needed money to survive, to eat, to put a roof over my head while I figured out what I was gonna do with the rest of my life so shit had to go. This place is full of junk. I sold three pieces, they made me seven grand. Three fuckin’ pieces and I got seven grand. And I never liked the look of ‘em anyway. Those pieces and those four horses, with you paying the loan current and beyond for a year and lookin’ after Gran, I’m liquid again. Money in the bank and I can build on our future. So, when you were back in Vegas, I had the guys at the auction house take a walk through and they think they can find private buyers for five more pieces.”

Oh dear Lord.

My eyes got big. “Five?”

“Yeah,” Gray replied, entirely unaffected about selling off Cody history. “And they think they can take other shit off my hands. They say the private sales could be fifteen or twenty K and if they auction the stuff they’re eyeballin’, I could get another three to five more.”

Oh God.

If he kept going, the house would be barren and not charming anymore.

On that thought, I muttered, “Maybe I should take that job with Janie.”

“No,” Gray returned firmly. “Maybe you should do what you said you were gonna do. Settle. Get used to a new life and take your time to land where you wanna land.”

“I liked working there,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, seven years ago before you became a Vegas showgirl then ended up the fake girlfriend of a millionaire,” he reminded me. “Ivey, honey, three days ago, you didn’t even own a pair of tennis shoes. Now you’re sayin’ you’re gonna shuffle drinks for below minimum wage and small town tips?”

Yet another good point which I was beginning to find annoying.

I decided to be calm, rational and slightly emotionally manipulative.

“Honey,” I said softly, “I like the house the way it is.”

“Baby,” Gray said softly back, “I’m glad but that shit’s gonna go and, trust me, you won’t miss it.”

There you go, emotional manipulation didn’t work with a cowboy.

“Do you need money that badly?” I asked cautiously.

“We’re good for awhile but there’s nothin’ more comin’ in until the crop comes in and those mares drop their foals and they can be sold, which is near to a year away. So, yeah. I sell seventeen thousand dollars worth of crap, no. I do that, we breathe easy.”

This was where the conversation veered to his uncles and yes, it was me who veered it that way.

And I did this by deciding, “Then you need to talk to your uncles.”

Gray sat back in his chair. “Say again?”

“You need money; they need to give it to you.”

“Ivey, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Why, because they’re assholes?”

“That and I wouldn’t take a dime from any of them.”

“Gray –”

“Seriously, Ivey, don’t go there.”

It seemed I was not treading as cautiously as I thought and it hit me then, this was really none of my business.

“You’re right. It’s none of my business. It’s your house, your land, your money. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

I said it in a conciliatory manner, clearly backing down but, again, it was the wrong thing to say and I knew it instantly when Gray’s eyes narrowed and the room filled with his pissed off vibe.

“My house, my land, my money?” he asked quietly but not his soft, sweet quietly. A different quietly. I ticked off quietly.

I didn’t get it.

“Well, yeah.”

“You sleep in this house?” he asked.

“Well, yeah,” I repeated.

“Go to the grocery store and come back home, a home that’s on this land?”

I saw where he was going.

“Yes, Gray, but –”

“Turn on the burner to the stove that’s gas, gas paid for by my money?”

I leaned toward him. “Gray –”

“You’re here, Ivey, you’re my girl, this is where you’re gonna stay. This is your home, your land, what’s mine is yours, all of it, including my money, what there is of it. You’re sittin’ at this table after eatin’ dinner here for the third night in a row but your ass should have been sittin’ right there every night for seven years. Unfortunately, that shit starts now and didn’t start then. You’ll find your way in Mustang whatever that way’s gonna be. You don’t wanna muck out stalls, you don’t have to. Like I said, you’ll find what suits you in Mustang but also here, in this house, on this land… with me.”

“Okay,” I said softly.

“Okay,” he replied, still ticked off and I partially got it because I should have been sitting at that table with him for seven years and I felt that loss as acutely as he did.

But I didn’t get all of it.

So, tentatively, I started to ask, “So, uh… what you’re saying is I have a place here –”

Gray, still pissed, cut me off, “Yeah. That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“I wasn’t done, honey.”

He stared at me.

Something new, Gray could get grouchy after a day of working hard as a rancher cowboy.

I tried again. “What I was saying is that you obviously want me to feel comfortable here… with you, so why can’t I go there with your uncles?”

It was then I could tell that I had a point this time and Gray, too, found it annoying.

“They should help protect their legacy,” I told him.

“It’s no longer their legacy. They carry the Cody name but they are not part of this land. They made that point sittin’ on their hands watching me drown. They drew that line. I’m not drownin’ anymore; they still stay to their side.”

“Right, I get that but what about Mrs. Cody?”

His brows drew together. “What?”

“Your Gran, Gray. How long has she been in that home?”

“Four and a half years.”

“Then, say you take responsibility for your share, which obviously you’d want to do, at three quarters of her home fees for as long as she’s been in there, they owe you two hundred and seventy K which means each one of them owes you ninety.”

“No they don’t.”

“Gray, yes they do.”

“They don’t have anything to do with that either,” Gray stated.

“How’s that?”

“They made that choice too.”

“Gray, they don’t get a choice with that. She’s their mother.”

“Yeah, a mother when I asked him to kick in that Frank reminded me about half a dozen times in the last four and a half years was a mother who held a grudge and didn’t speak to him since that shit went down after Dad died. His Mom ignored him for years, he didn’t feel like ponying up to keep her in a clean place she likes that has good food and staff who like to work there and the residents get the benefit of that. The other two agreed.”

“My point is still valid, he doesn’t get that choice.”

“Funny since he took it.”

Now I was getting mad.

“Sorry but them trying to horn in on your inheritance, land they hadn’t worked since they were eighteen, and Mrs. Cody being justifiably pissed about that is not grounds for them to turn their back on their mother in her final years,” I snapped.

“Ivey, honey, they don’t see it that way.”

“Well then someone has to make them see it that way and if you aren’t going to do it, that someone is going to be me.”