Play It Safe

It was.

Very.

As I knew years ago I would never get used to his beauty I knew then I would never get tired of watching Gray work his land.

Ever.

That said, it was clearly a lot of work.

So much Gray worked part of the day Saturday but he took off Sunday then worked all day Monday from six thirty to quitting at five.

Flat out (except for lunch).

Ten hours.

Jeez.

Even before I knew this, we talked on Saturday morning as I’d broached the subject that I was there, unemployed and I could help. Unfortunately, I had suitcases and boxes full of designer clothes and high-heeled shoes and you couldn’t muck out a horse stall in Christian Louboutins. Or you could but you’d be an idiot. So I missed helping out on Saturday seeing as I didn’t have the proper gear. Though Gray did teach me how to feed and water the horses which wasn’t very taxing except you had to remember which horse was which since he had eight mares in foal and they needed different food than the others.

But you still couldn’t do it in high heels.

Therefore we took a trip to Hayes department store in town on Saturday afternoon so I could stock up on durable western wear. Then we moved onto a big, somewhat frightening and rickety tin building on the outskirts of Mustang so Gray could stock up on horse food.

Then Monday morning, wearing my new duds, I gamely followed Gray to the barn, mucked out one stall and decided it was definitely not for me. Serious visions of Green Acres except Gray was never an attorney who gave up the big city to force me into a life of torture on the farm.

Luckily, Gray thought this was funny and I knew this when he roared with laughter like I was hilarious before his gloved hand hooked me around the neck and he tugged me to him for a hard kiss which was still hard even though he laughed through it. Then he let me off the hook. His roar of laughter had some to do with me clearly not wishing to spend my days shoveling horseshit but it had more to do with me faking being taken over by the spirit of Eva Gabor.

So I went into the house, cleaned it, did laundry, unpacked the rest of my stuff and made sure he had a good lunch and dinner, activities which took most of the day.

Lash took over my cooking lessons so now I had a full repertoire though Lash didn’t make casseroles and I wasn’t sure how Gray would feel about me making lobster thermidor. But I could do a sandwich and I did, a big, grilled, delicious one at that. After lunch, Gray went out to do macho man rancher cowboy things and I did a quick inspection of the cupboards then took a not-so-quick trip into town to buy groceries and I made him my fabulous, homemade beef stroganoff for dinner.

Dirty plates still on the table and us sitting around it finishing our beers, Gray complimented me on the culinary strides I’d made since he last ate my food and then I decided we needed to get down to the nitty gritty of life.

So we started talking about money.

This was a bad idea. Very, very bad.

Not, surprisingly, when I told Gray that I was living with him and I wanted to kick in, not only finding something that didn’t involve horseshit to help out but also financially. I didn’t entirely wipe out my savings (though it was vastly depleted) and I had a healthy checking account so I wasn’t destitute. I could help and I could also find a job. Gray easily agreed to me being responsible for getting and paying for food and household items. I agreed he’d pay household bills. And the ranch account would pay for things for the ranch (like horse food).

That part was easy.

No, what got us into a sticky situation was Gray being honest about his finances in so far as telling me when he recently was looking to raise money to keep afloat, he sold four horses (that meant he’d had twenty-four!) but that was not what riled me.

He told me he also sold some furniture from the house and was looking to sell more.

Now that…

That semi-riled me.

And it got worse because somehow we veered from talking about him selling stuff in the house to his uncles and they…

Well, they would rile anyone.

It was just that they really riled me.

* * * * *

It went like this.

“You sold stuff from the house?”

That was me sounding horrified and mentally inventorying my memory of the place from seven years ago to see if I could figure out what might be missing.

“Yeah.”

That was Gray, nonchalant like everything in his house wasn’t a treasure which it was.

“Why did you do that?” I asked gently and his head tipped slightly to the side.

“Uh…because I was flat broke, losing my land and my Gran was being moved to a state-funded nursing home.”

These were all good reasons that in my horror at learning this news I didn’t consider.

But still.

“Gray, this house it’s like, like…a museum of Cody history,” I told him quietly and carefully.

“Ivey, this house was on the verge of not being Cody anything.”

Another good point.

Gray kept going.

“I had a foreclosure notice. I was goin’ down. If I sold the horses, all of them, I’d significantly decrease my ability to make money should I save the land. But it didn’t look like I was going to be able to save the land and I still needed money to survive, to eat, to put a roof over my head while I figured out what I was gonna do with the rest of my life so shit had to go. This place is full of junk. I sold three pieces, they made me seven grand. Three f**kin’ pieces and I got seven grand. And I never liked the look of ‘em anyway. Those pieces and those four horses, with you paying the loan current and beyond for a year and lookin’ after Gran, I’m liquid again. Money in the bank and I can build on our future. So, when you were back in Vegas, I had the guys at the auction house take a walk through and they think they can find private buyers for five more pieces.”

Oh dear Lord.

My eyes got big. “Five?”

“Yeah,” Gray replied, entirely unaffected about selling off Cody history. “And they think they can take other shit off my hands. They say the private sales could be fifteen or twenty K and if they auction the stuff they’re eyeballin’, I could get another three to five more.”

Oh God.

If he kept going, the house would be barren and not charming anymore.

On that thought, I muttered, “Maybe I should take that job with Janie.”

“No,” Gray returned firmly. “Maybe you should do what you said you were gonna do. Settle. Get used to a new life and take your time to land where you wanna land.”

“I liked working there,” I reminded him.