Page 112 of Wingwoman
“If you choose to not pay in full, we could always use your land and your horses here to pay off the debt.”
My glare narrowed. “Use my horses? For what?”
He looked around the sprawling land. “My partner and I have some business ideas. Guided horse tours of the ranch. Tourism in this area is really picking up and to stay on a real ranch or take a tour of the beautiful land here on horseback? Well, people pay a pretty penny for that.”
I snorted my opinion of his little plan. “Except I would lose my nonprofit standing.”
Owen shrugged. “If you’re earning out, who cares? The fines will pay for themselves with the earnings.”
“My mom would care,that’swho. Most of these horses were worked to the bone in their previous lives. At my ranch, they’re going to live out the remainder of their days happy and stress-free, just as my mom intended. Besides, you and this partner of yours have money. Buy some land yourself.”
He gave me a look. “I know you’re smarter than that. You know our money needs… well, it needs to go through some processes before we can spend it.”
Fuck me. He wanted me to wash his money for him. That’s what this was about.
“When is the deadline?”
“You have until the end of the month,” Owen said.
A few weeks. A few fucking weeks to get together half a million dollars. It wasn’t impossible. But it also wasn’t easy.
“You’ll have your fucking half a million by the 30th.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. Personally, I had the money. Though my personal accounts were getting leaner and leaner with every one of my dad’s debts I had to pay off. And I’d be goddamned if I was going to let my dad or Owen take what my mom had worked so hard to build.
Usually, I funnel most of my personal money into keeping the rescue afloat. But with this hitch, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough left to keep the rescue going.
This rodeo gala needed to bring in donations.
More donations than we ever have in the past if I was going to pay off Owen and keep the rescue afloat for another year. As it stood, the money in my personal account would only get us to Thanksgiving.
And now, more than ever, I needed to write my next album.
“You know I’m fucking good for the half a million,” I said. “Now get off my property. It is stillmyproperty.”
Owen rapped his knuckles against the fence post, adding, “For now.”
Then he slipped into his sleek car and drove off.
* * *
Behind the wheel of my truck with Hope seated beside me, I felt much lighter.
Owen wasn’t taking this ranch.
He wouldnevertake the ranch. Over my dead body… and maybe not even then.
“Are you going to tell me who Owen Wright is?”
My grip on the wheel tightened. That was quite literally the last name I expected to come out of her mouth. “How’d you know his na—” I sighed as realization hit me. “Rob,” I said. “Rob told you.”
“He didn’t want to. But I can be very persuasive.”
I brought her knuckles to my mouth and brushed a kiss over them. “Don’t I know it.”
“So?”
Damn. No amount of charm would let me off the hook. Not with Hope.
