shit. I thought you were the law enforcement around here. You’d think you could put two and two together.”
Eli was tempted to hit Connor over the head with something, but it was June. And June was a bad month for Connor, since it was his anniversary month. But then, March was a bad month for Connor, too, because it was Jessie’s birthday. And April was a bad month because it was the month she’d died three years ago. August was when they’d started dating, ten years ago. December was when they’d gotten engaged.
So basically, there were a lot of bad months for Connor. And Eli got it, and he hurt on his behalf. But it didn’t mean he didn’t want to hit his brother for his obnoxious surliness sometimes.
“Would you care to explain?”
“Sure. We need some more revenue. I leased the house. Long-term.”
“What? Don’t you think we should have talked about this?” he asked.
“No,” Connor said. “Because while I respect that this ranch is yours, too, you have to respect that it’s more essential to me. It’s my only job, Eli. You and Kate have work outside this place, but I don’t, because someone has to run it full-time.”
“I know that, but you didn’t think about telling me you were going to lease out a house on our property?”
“I did think about it. I decided against it. Because I thought, at the end of the day, it was my damned decision.”
“Dammit, Connor, I say this with love, please get drunk and pass out. You’re impossible when you’re like this.”
“I’m always like this,” Connor said.
“Yeah, and you’re always impossible.”
“Why are you all growling in here?” Kate, the youngest of the Garrett clan, walked into the kitchen, her dark hair in a low ponytail. She looked like she’d been working hard all day, and it was probably because she had been.
“Because Connor’s in the room,” Eli told her.
Kate smiled and crossed to Connor, planting a kiss on his cheek. Connor grunted.
“I love you, too,” she said. “Did anyone make dinner?”
“No one made dinner,” Eli said. “We all have jobs. But I did bring a pizza, just in case.” Eli turned and put the box of pizza on the granite countertop. Kate started getting plates out of the cupboard.
This was Connor’s house, the main house on the property, which he’d shared with Jessie during their years as a married couple. He stayed because this was the family ranch, going back generations. Because he was the one who worked the land, and the one least likely to leave. This was his rightful place.
But Eli often got the feeling he hated it.
“I will take a beer now,” Connor said.
“Get it yourself,” Kate suggested. “I’m already dishing up your dinner, and I am not a waitress.”
“You wouldn’t get a tip if you were one,” Connor grumbled, getting up from his spot at the table and wandering to the fridge, jerking it open.
Eli noticed that there wasn’t much in it beyond beer and cheese. He wasn’t sure he liked what that said about his brother’s mental state. Or maybe it was just that Connor hadn’t had time to go shopping recently. That could be it.
“You should get a housekeeper,” Eli said.
Connor grunted, which was something he seemed to do a lot lately. “I don’t want a stranger rifling around in my stuff.”
“Then hire someone you know.”
“No.”
Eli took a piece of pizza out of the box and set it on a plate, doing his best to ignore Kate, who wasn’t using her plate, but was standing, arched over the bar, dripping sauce onto the otherwise clean surface.
Eli didn’t like that. He liked things in their place. He liked things clean. He’d spent too many years putting things in order to let them slide now.
When they’d been kids, cleanliness hadn’t just been a preference, it had been survival. Connor keeping things going on the ranch and Eli making it appear that there was a functional adult managing the household had been the only way to keep Child Protective Services away.
Order had been the only thing keeping them all together.
“So, Connor was just telling me about our new tenant.”
“We have a tenant?” Kate asked, her mouth full.
“Yes, we do.”
“Get me a beer, Connor,” Kate said.
“Do I look like a damned waitress, Katie? Do I?” he growled, while he stalked back to the fridge and got out two beers, handing one to each of his siblings.
“Guess so,” Kate said, taking the bottle and popping the top on the counter.
Sometimes Eli wondered if Kate had suffered a bit for having nothing but men in her life. But if he mentioned that to Kate she would probably spit on him. Which just proved his point.
“So,” Eli said, leaning against the counter. “The tenant.”
Anything to get his mind off the events from earlier today. Sadie Miller. He remembered her as a little blonde ball of trouble. Dressed in all black, ripped jeans, she’d been a stereotype of social rebellion. His least favorite kind of brat to deal with. She’d also been feisty as hell. Resisting arrest was putting it mildly. It had been his first summer with the sheriff’s department, and they’d broken up a big party in an empty barn. Drunk, freaked-out teenagers had made the whole thing a nightmare. Basically, all hell had broken loose.
And he had ended up handcuffing and booking seventeen-year-old Sadie, making her the first person he’d ever arrested. Though ultimately she wasn’t charged, as he’d said, with ill-advised word choices today, you never forgot your first.
“I drew up a long-term lease so that the Catalog House could be used as a bed-and-breakfast,” Connor said.
“A what?” he and Kate asked the question in unison.
“You heard me. With the renovation of Old Town, and the fireworks show on the ocean getting bigger every year, tourism is a big deal. And I want in on that industry.”
“How is your going behind our backs us being ‘in on the industry’?”
“Income from the lease, and a small percentage of profits. And like I already told you,” he said, directing his words at Eli, “some of us only get money from the ranch, so the more profitable I can make it, the better.”
“And you’re sure that your lessee isn’t going to destroy the place?”
“She’s a local. Or at least, she was.”
The
