Heart of a Rancher by Renee Andrews

Author:Renee Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2012-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

April showers decided on an early arrival. Rain had poured through every one of John’s four days off. Tonight he had to return to the steel plant, and he hadn’t made any progress on getting the dude ranch up and running. Mandy Brantley hadn’t been able to take any photos, because the trails were saturated and muddy. Casey hadn’t made any headway on the website, because he needed the photos to determine the layout. Titus Jameson, the construction guy John had hired to grade the campsite area and build the supplies shack by the creek, couldn’t get any of his equipment to the site because the fields resembled a swamp.

And on top of all that, six out of seven insurance companies John had contacted about insuring the dude ranch had turned him down flat. The only one left was the most expensive, and the price tag for the venture had climbed at a rapid pace already. Licenses and permits hadn’t come cheap, and then there was the cost of construction, supplies and advertising. Thanks to his business marketing classes, he’d learned more and more each day about the astronomical cost of advertising his business. The dude ranch wasn’t like the fish camp, relying on local word of mouth to keep the place filled. It wouldn’t be a weekend getaway, but a family vacation. So John needed to advertise to people who would potentially schedule a week off work and school to visit the ranch.

How would Brooks International justify pouring so much money into an Alabama rancher’s dream, especially when Dana had been down here to oversee the project for over a week, and nothing had happened? And for the past four days, because of the professors at Stockville trying to get in as much work as possible before next week’s spring break, John hadn’t spent nearly as much time with Dana as he would have liked. Two of his classes this semester had labs, and both of the labs habitually ran long and required extra work. Then today the rain, even heavier than it’d been every other day, kept him from getting to the farm and seeing Dana any quicker.

To make matters worse, he had to go back to work at the steel plant tonight. His four nights off had been pretty much wasted, as far as benefiting the ranch was concerned.

His windshield wipers beat a crazy rhythm as they attempted to slice through the endless sheet of water. Between the heavy rain and the windshield fogging over, he could barely see the road. The defroster, like most everything else on the old truck, hadn’t worked in years, so he cranked down the window a little to clear up the fog on the glass. Unfortunately, that allowed a thin steady stream to spray John’s side as he inched his way along the curvy wooded stretch leading to the farm.

Squinting to focus, he made out Eden Sanders’s mailbox through the downpour. “One more mile.” Finally, the entrance to the ranch came into view.

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