Page 40 of The Prodigal Brother Returns

He’d noticed Malorie had been leaving the bed rails down the last day or two. At least during the day. Nathan, true to form, didn’t like being escorted to the bathroom and then back to bed. Blake was pretty surehewouldn’t like that, either, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep an eye on his brother while he was trying to balance on his crutches.

By the time Nathan sat cautiously at the table, Blake had plated the burgers and poured them both a glass of orange juice.

“We need to talk—”

Without looking in his direction, Nathan picked up his sandwich. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Oh, but there is, brother,” Blake said with quiet insistence. That got Nathan’s attention. “The financials don’t lie.” When Nathan put his burger down, a storm brewing in the stare he leveled, Blake held up his hand to ward off his argument. At least for the time it would take to lay his cards on the table.

Blake pushed his plate aside. One heavy discussion at a time. He’d wait to mention the discrepancy until Jonas could be part of the conversation. “I haven’t gone all the way through the ledgers, and I’m not blaming any of us for the ranch’s financial troubles. What’s done is done. More important is what we’re going to do about it. We have to come up with a solution that we can all live with and that will put the Triple L back in the black. Adding two mares to the herd was a good move on Jonas’s part.”

Pressing his lips together, Nathan leaned back in his chair. If he wasn’t going to talk, Blake had enough to say for both of them. “Let’s pick two or three things we can do that will bring in an income without a huge outlay of funds.”

Nathan crossed his arms, but didn’t object, so Blake continued. “We could rent out the pastures. And we have at least a dozen empty stalls. We can board horses.”

If he sounded desperate for his brother to see another future for the ranch than the one that was taking the Triple L down, it was because he was.

“I’m tired.” Nathan stood and slowly made his way back to bed.

Malorie would come later and get him ready for his meds and sleep. Defeated, Blake let him be. For now, he promised. They would have this conversation again.

Once Nathan was in bed, Blake put his dinner and the orange juice he’d pushed to the side on the table by his bed. Nathan didn’t look at him. He only continued his previous channel surfing.

It was what his brother did. He ignored a problem to make it go away, but the decline of the ranch wouldn’t go away.

What Nathan didn’t know was that the more he dug in his heels, the more Blake was determined to find a solution to the ranch’s problems. Not for his brothers, but for his parents’ dream of building a sanctuary for their family.

Sitting at the table, he gave up—for now—and while he ate dinner, he started the outline forTimmy, the Superhero Comes Home. He was still sitting there, fleshing out the plot and secondary characters, when Malorie came in. Timmy was right behind her.

Gathering up his notebook, his gaze locked with hers as he gestured toward Nathan. For just a moment, his pulse leaped. “I couldn’t get him to eat, but he’s, um, been asleep about forty-five minutes.”

“Okay, thanks,” she whispered and finally broke their connection when she went to do her final checks for the night.

He watched her disappear behind the makeshift cubicle wall and wished the feeling that he wasn’t alone anymore would stop growing. Timmy liked Malorie. And Tina would approve. He shook his head at the sudden notion.

Nudging Timmy out the door, he pointed them toward the apartment over the barn. “I need your help, kiddo.”

“With the truck? I’m already helping with that.” Timmy said matter-of-factly, then yawned.

Just because Nathan was being uncooperative with him didn’t mean his brother was completely unmovable. He hoped.

Blake patted Timmy on the shoulder. “No. It’s something else.” But first, “Are you sure you’re ready to leave our house in Sedona? More than anything, you want to move here to the ranch?”

He didn’t want either one of them to have any regrets.

“It would be awesome to move here,” Timmy said emphatically, his eyes lighting up.

“Okay, then, we’ll talk about it more tomorrow.” They climbed the stairs to the apartment and went inside. “Off to bed with you.”

The grin that spread across Timmy’s face was all the encouragement Blake needed to find a way to change Nathan’s mind, then pack up everything they owned and move to the Triple L.

He put the notebook on the table. His brothers liked Timmy. And Reece and Andee did too. Timmy liked them. With a little coaching, maybe the kids could help convince his brother to break down his blockade and become a partner in improving the ranch’s chances of survival.

Okay, he couldn’t do that and hang on to his hard-won integrity. Using the kids to influence his brother’s decision was worse than crashing his dad’s truck. There would be another way.

Unfortunately, if he couldn’t change Nathan’s mind, come September, instead of reversing the ranch’s downward spiral, they would be putting up aFor Salesign.

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