Page 9 of Ace of Spades
“Tell them the horse is a lost hope and that we’ll buy him for cheap,” Chance shrugs.
“I’m giving them my honest opinion,” I tell him.
“Y’all are no fun,” Chase scolds, lifting his beer bottle to his lips.
“Day drinking already?” Rafe remarks.
“It’s my day off.”
“No such thing as a day off when you work on a ranch.”
Chance only rolls his eyes before taking another sip.
“Hey,” Beau cuts in, sauntering over from the direction of the main lodge.
“I’m not loving that look,” Chance breathes.
Rafe hops off of the gelding, walking him back over to the gate as a bad feeling settles in my gut, a quiet tension falling over us as Beau—the fourth final founder and co-owner of our ranch—approaches.
“I’ve got some news. Y’all aren’t gonna like it.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Beau looks between the three of us, his brow knit with worry.
“Joe’s was vandalized last night. Cleaned out the registers and trashed the place; there wasn’t much left to salvage. I just got off the phone with Lisa.”
“Shit” Rafe breathes.
“How bad?” I ask.
“Bad.”
“We can do something about it, right?” Chance asks, trying to convince himself as much as us. “The payout for this next rodeo should be one of the highest, I can front them anything they need. We’ll help with repairs, anything it takes.”
“Yeah, and I got this horse figured out, that should be a decent paycheck coming in,” I add.
Beau looks anywhere but us, and I don’t have to ask to know what he’s not telling us.
“Beau,” Rafe says.
“They sold. Said they had no choice.”
A moment of silence passes over us as we take in the news.
“Well, we’ll find a way to get them out of this,” Chance states. “Tell them to undo it, we’ll figure something out.”
“They already signed the papers as of this morning. Said their backs were against the wall.”
“Fuck.”
“Who did they sell to?” Rafe asks as if we don’t all already know.
“Sorrels,” Beau confirms, rubbing his temple. My lips press into a thin line.
“Of fucking course,” Chance mutters. “I’ll bet anything that they had something to do with the vandalism, too.”
“We can’t just go around making accusations,” Rafe argues.
