The alrightness of things was debatable. The next day Anna sat with a cup of strong coffee and a pounding headache and went over the last half-decades worth of numbers. They weren’t good. Or rather, they were okay, but there was something hinky about them.

“Tamsan!”

Tamsan poked her head around the door. “Need help?”

“Do these numbers look even remotely right to you?” Anna pushed the ledger across the table and leaned back in her father’s creaky old chair.

Tamsan scanned the pages, her face twisting as she did. “Honestly… no.”

“Looks like there’s a lot of things on the books that never actually made it to the ranch, right? Like 50,000 for a stock pen upgrade? Those pens haven’t changed since I was a kid.”

“Mhm, and who knows how many of those smaller expenses aren’t also wrong. Do you know if you got 200 bales or 2000 last winter?”

Anna shook her head. “You were right about Rex. He’s been ripping this place off for years. All of these entries are in his handwriting. My dad trusted him, and he robbed our family blind.”

“That’s going to be hard to prove,” Tamsan said. “And there’s a risk that you’ll actually end up owing the IRS a lot of money if it turns out more profit was made than declared. Nothing is stopping Rex from saying that your father told him to put those things on the books, and your dad isn’t here to defend himself. At the end of the day, the buck stops with you.”

“So on top of being ripped off, I have to keep my mouth shut about it so the tax man doesn’t take my ranch.” Anna’s frustration was kept in check only by the forceful pounding in her head which made it impossible to stand up and throw things. “So that bastard is going to get away with it.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The important thing is he’s gone and he can’t do any more damage.”

“Shit,” Anna groaned down at the desk, putting her head in her hands. “I should just sell this place and be done with it.”

There was a moment of silence. “I guess, if that’s what you want to do. Running a ranch isn’t easy. You have to want to do it.”

“I don’t like exploiting cattle,” Anna said. “I don’t like driving them in and out and round and round. I don’t like that we send the steers to slaughter so young. It’s a dirty, bloody business. But I love this land.”

“Sun Ranch doesn’t have to be a cattle ranch, you know.”

“Yeah, I told Rex we were going to convert to kale,” Anna said, the beginnings of a smile creeping over her lips. “Maybe we’ll be a vegetable ranch.”

“I think they call that a farm.”

“Vegetable ranch sounds better.” Anna’s spirits were beginning to lift in spite of the very bad news which had been rocketing her way like fecal matter out the back of a charging bull. Everything was going terribly, so much so that she couldn’t imagine it getting worse, which was a sort of relief in and of itself. Once you contemplated running a vegetable ranch, things could only get better.

“I’m going to make make sure the hands are getting that drenching done,” Tamsan said. “You finish checking those books.”

Anna agreed. She couldn’t face the hands, their stupid smirks, their muttered profanity. Fortunately, Tamsan didn’t seem to have any trouble kicking a few asses when necessary – and for her, it wasn’t necessary very often. She commanded respect because she was capable and because she knew what she was doing. Anna watched through the window as the cattle were drenched, noting how things seemed to be flowing much more easily.

Watching Tamsan was a very pleasant distraction, especially when she was perched over the run, straddling the cattle with her long legs akimbo. What a woman, Anna mused to herself. Able, sexy, talented, kind… the list went on and on. Anna really wasn’t sure what Tamsan saw in her, but she must have seen something because she had been close by ever since they met.

Anna was a little too old and a little too experienced in the ways of love to let herself fall for the woman just yet though, or at least, to let herself acknowledge that she was falling for Tamsan. Love was dangerous and women could be fickle. Even the good ones. Sometimes especially the good ones.

“She probably wants a job,” Anna mumbled to herself. “This is probably just about business.”

Business was more easily handled than love. With fairly significant effort, Anna managed to force her attention back to the books and to a the calculations.

The numbers got worse. Much worse.

“Fuck!”

Anna swore and slammed her hand on the table. By her reckoning there was at least half a million dollars missing. Half a million dollars siphoned off here and there in the form of stock purchases that did not eventuate and other dubious transactions. “If I see Rex again…” she muttered a whole range of dire threats under her breath, each nastier and more physical than the next.

She stood up and paced the office. Her footsteps wore a familiar track, one which had been trodden by boots not her own. How many times had her father worried about ranch matters? How many times had he taken this circuitous path? He’d often been grumpy in her younger days, now she understood why. Running a ranch was stressful. Scratch that, being an adult and having responsibility was stressful.

Tamsan didn’t seem to have any trouble with it though. She sought out responsibility and control at all costs. It was her only flaw, really, a take charge persona that really didn’t leave much room for dissent or disagreement. She was a cheerful bulldozer, a kindly commander of friends and strangers alike.