Page 10 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

"Don't wait too long," he advised gently. "If you want to catch Sassafras's next cycle, we should start planning now."

"Right. Thanks again." I hung up before he could hear the wobble in my voice.

For an endless moment, I stood there, staring at the numbers I'd scrawled across the back of the electric bill. Two thousand dollars, he’d said, bare minimum. Might as well have been a million. I slammed my fist down on the counter, the sharp pain momentarily distracting from the deeper ache of impending failure.

The impact sent a stack of papers cascading to the floor—a colorful waterfall of final notices, past-due bills, and bank warnings. Red and yellow paper slips fanned out across the peeling linoleum like autumn leaves, each one a deadline I couldn't meet, a promise I couldn't keep.

I sank to my knees, gathering the scattered papers with trembling hands. Mortgage statement: months behind. Electric bill: final notice before disconnection. Feed supplier: full payment required on tab before next purchase. Property tax assessment: due in a matter of weeks.

And beneath them all, a postcard from Derek. "Hope you're enjoying playing rancher," he'd written. "My offer still stands when you're ready to come home. Got a few new dresses waiting. This season’s purses. Even those limited-edition shoes you wanted last year that were sold out.”

Sold out. What an asshole. They weren’t sold out; he’d just hated them. Said they looked frumpy.

I crumpled the postcard in my fist, rage temporarily overriding despair.

It wasn’t just rage at Derek.

No, it was rage at myself—for that millisecond my mind envisioned those stupid red soled shoes with the adorable bows across the pointed toes. I had really wanted those at the time. Now, I wanted to be totally free of that life, and the way it had strapped me into place as firmly as a good pair of peep toe, crisscross stilettos did.

When I was ready to come home…

Home. As if his sprawling ranch with its imported furniture and his suffocating expectations had ever been home. This place—this crumbling, financially unsustainable dream—was home. My home. And I was about to lose it.

I spread the bills across the kitchen table, a depressing mosaic of my failure. The red numbers blurred as tears threatened, but I blinked them back. Crying wouldn't solve anything. Neither would artificial insemination I couldn't afford.

My eyes drifted to the calendar again, to the bold red circle around looming foreclosure. I had so little time to come up with a miracle or surrender everything I'd worked for.

Outside, through the smudged kitchen window, I could see Mystery and Sassafras in their separate corners of the field, grazing contentedly, blissfully unaware that their mutual dislike might cost us all our home. The afternoon sun caught Mystery's coat, turning it to burnished copper, while Sassafras's chestnut hide gleamed with an almost golden sheen. Beautiful, valuable, and completely useless to me unless they produced a foal.

"There has to be another way," I muttered, turning away from the window and back to the mountain of bills. But as the afternoon shadows lengthened across the kitchen floor, no brilliant solution materialized, only the growing certainty that I was running out of both time and options.

The whiskey bottle clinked against the glass as I poured myself a generous two fingers. Derek never let me drink whiskey, said it was unladylike, which was exactly why I’d bought a case the day I closed on the ranch.

I moved outside, a glass in one hand, liquor bottle in the other, taking up roost in my normal evening spot.

The first sip of the amber liquid burned a now familiar path down my throat, warming me against the evening chill that had started to settle over Sunflower Hills. From my perch on the sagging porch steps, I watched the sunset paint the sky. Strokes of orange. Thick dashes of hot pink. It might have been beautiful if I could stop thinking about losing this place, about never sitting on this crappy porch to watch a sunrise or sunset again.

Another day gone, another day closer to losing everything.

The wetness in my glass caught the last rays of sunlight, glowing like liquid gold. If only it were actual gold, then I'd have enough to pay off the bank and wouldn't be sitting here, drinking away my sorrows while my future literally grazed in opposite corners of the pasture looking just as unlikely to mate as they had on day one. I’d opened the middle gate again, letting Mystery and Sassy have full roam of both sides. It didn’t matter if I gave them square miles or square inches, they found a way to avoid each other. I needed to go out and put them up for the night, but I didn’t have the energy right now. A few drinks, then I’d drag myself out there.

The shadowed creatures, the day darkening around them, continued to deliberately maintain their distance. They’d made it an art form. Earlier, when I’d given all the horses their nutritional evening feed, I’d tried to have Mystery and Sassy in the same stall—the largest one in the stables, easily big enough for four horses. That had almost led to a knockdown, drag out fight. So, I’d put them in their separate stalls again. About a week ago, I’d tried similar. For the next few days, Sassy hadn’t wanted to eat at all. I wasn’t sure which was worse: horses trying to kill each other, or horses starving to death.

If these horses weren’t my last hope for financial salvation, I might have found their mutual disdain amusing. Mystery and Sassafras were prime candidates for a real, slow-burn, enemies to lovers romance. It would be so fulfilling to see it play out, but I couldn’t wait for them to have changes of heart. There wasn’t time.

"You two are literally my last hope," I called out, raising my glass in a mock toast. My voice carried across the quiet evening air, startling a nearby meadowlark into flight. "The least you could do is pretend to like each other long enough to make a baby. Hell, how about a little hate sex?"

Mystery's head lifted at the sound of my voice, his ears pricked forward momentarily before he returned to grazing. Sassafras didn't even bother to look up, too happily engrossed in a patch of clover to acknowledge my existence. A thick, rough braying called my gaze over to Artie. His spotted body looked dingy. He needed a good scrub down again. I’d cleaned Mystery up after he’d rolled in the dirt, but I hadn’t paid him any attention today. I’d make it up to him tomorrow, give him a glorious grooming session and a bunch of apple slices.

“You’re the only one that really cares about me, Artie!” I shouted out, tipping my glass to him as well. He gave an adorable little jump that probably made his old haunches ache. He understood me; I just knew he did. Horses were like dogs and cats. Just big fur babies wanting love. Well… Mystery was a cat. Sassy and Artie were decidedly dog like.

I took another swig of whiskey, longer this time, welcoming the burn. The alcohol dulled the edges of my anxiety, softening the sharp corners of my fear. It was a temporary solution, but tonight, temporary was all I had.

Derek's voice drifted into my mind, unwelcome as a tax collector. "You'll come crawling back when you realize running a ranch isn't just standing there looking pretty."

I could see him so clearly. That day early on when he’d shown up, unwanted, to mock Sunflower Hills and what I was trying to accomplish. He’d leaned against the porch column, looking upward when the weight of his body made it creak in protest. He’d crossed his arms over his chest, that trademark infuriating smirk playing at his lips, as if the creaking of the house confirmed his belief that I was going to fail. He'd always looked at me like I was a particularly amusing child, my dreams and ambitions nothing more than adorable little phases to be indulged until I grew out of them. He said I was cute when I daydreamed. I never wanted a man to call me cute again.

"You can’t make it on your own," he'd continued, tone dancing between acidic and condescending. "Ranching is in my blood, Tammy. Not yours. You're a city girl playing cowgirl, and sooner or later, reality's going to catch up with you." Those were his parting words to me that day, as if I wasn’t already aware that I had zero experience.