Page 4 of The Guy Who Stole My Ranch

Nanette, who had her own YouTube channel on which she composed music and put it over existing scenes from old movies, cleared her throat.

I braced for her to tell us she no longer had the bandwidth to do storage units with us.

“Staying relevant is important,” Nanette said. “Our numbers are going down, and I can tell you’re all thinking we need to do something drastic, but I’m not sure that’s the case.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She pursed her lips before she spoke. “I think we can keep doing storage unit videos, but we either need to make them more interesting or mix them up with something new. We could do individual spotlights and open our own units, we could open units that other people have bought for us, or we could add production value.” She held up a hand. “None of those needs to be our answer, just suggestions.”

Jessica nodded. “I agree.”

“What does that mean for us going forward?” Victoria asked.

“Nothing, yet.” Jessica smiled. “We’re here to toss out ideas. We’ve already got videos for the next four months filmed, so there’s no reason to mess with anything until at least that point.”

A weight that had been sitting on my chest eased.

“Does anyone have any ideas?” Jessica asked. She was looking at her camera, but it felt like she had her eyes on me. “Brooke?”

I pointed to my mouth and chewed.

“I like the idea of having outside people pick the units,” Teresa said.

“It might also be fun to have each of us do one on our own,” Victoria put in.

It felt like we were going to dive into a good discussion, but then everyone went quiet.

Jessica glanced over her shoulder and scowled. When she turned back, she spoke quickly. “I’ve only got another minute. Sorry, gals.”

Nanette cleared her throat. “Why don’t we all do some research and come up with a handful of suggestions? We can meet again in a week and share.”

“Sharing is caring,” someone chimed in.

We all rolled our eyes.

“Great. We’ll schedule another meeting for next week.” Jessica pointed at her camera. “And now it’s time for me to hear fifteen seconds of good news from each of you.”

We’d started this a few months ago, after Victoria had moved to Alaska and had been feeling down because of the lack of sunshine.

“In alphabetical order,” Jessica said.

Ashley grinned. “I can now confirm that I’ve been selected as a judge for the nextBattle of the Blowers!”

I couldn’t help myself, I let out a big yee-haw and pumped my fist.

Several people across the park looked in my direction.

“Brooke?” Jessica said.

I licked my lips, then took a breath. I was bursting to tell someone about my dad’s retirement, and I decided that these ladies were going to be my first candidates. “I think my dad is going to step back from the ranch.”

That got a round of cheers.

Jessica opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly a warm, wet thing jumped up on the bench next to me.

I let out a shriek and jerked back. My arm hit my phone, and it went flying.

Voices came through my earbuds.

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