Mistletoe Mistake (River's End Ranch Book 35) Read online

  When he finished with the story, Gillian reached over and placed her hand on his. He turned to look at her, and tears glinted from her lashes before she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

  “That’s horrible,” she said softly.

  Aaron took a sip of his hot chocolate. “It was. My mother never recovered, really. Died pretty early. Dad raised us in the city. Worked for somebody else’s farm.”

  “Oh, Aaron. I’m so sorry. No wonder you’re not fond of bankers.”

  “Was it that obvious when I was talking with that real estate guy at the gala? Bankers and real estate agents—they can be vipers if they want to be.”

  “They sure can. I’m so sorry that happened to you. Fred and I—we work very hard to help our mortgage customers get what they need and meet with success. Granted, we don’t have too many of them with all the other clients at the bank, but the ones we do have, we feel like they’re family.”

  Aaron leaned forward and looked toward the top of the mountains to the east, but they were covered in clouds—and the clouds seemed to be going lower.

  “I hated everything about real estate and banking when I was an angry teenager, but after that, when I went into the business myself to try to help, I realized there were good people and bad people in almost every business field.”

  Gillian nodded quickly. “That’s for sure. Good and bad apples in everything. So what business exactly did you end up in?” she asked just as they passed under a wrought-iron gate.

  Gillian drove down toward the house and Aaron thought about her question. He didn’t really have a great answer, but he decided to go with his gut.

  “I honestly don’t think I ever met the right person,” he said quickly. “Most of the women I met were more interested in money, and traveling and—definitely not having children.”

  He looked out the window, but felt Gillian’s eyes on him, hoping they weren’t filled with pity. He couldn’t bear that. He’d had a good life, and his brother and nieces filled in quite nicely.

  He caught her eye just before she said, “Oh, look, there they are,” as she pulled up to a log cabin with a porch that wrapped around three sides. Smoke twisted out of the stone chimney and a satellite dish perched from the roof.

  Gillian hopped out and reached for her briefcase, heading toward the front door where the couple greeted her with hugs.

  He finished his hot chocolate and stepped out of the SUV, taking a deep breath of the cold air. He could see his breath when he exhaled, and he leaned his head back, looking up at the surrounding mountains and over to the barn on the other side of what likely was the driveway. It was a beautiful setting, and a large patch of ice led him to guess that in the summer, there might be a pond underneath.

  He followed Gillian up onto the porch, and she made the introductions.

  “Aaron, I’d like you to meet Patty and Darren Franklin. Guys, this is Aaron Hamilton, a friend of mine.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Mr. Franklin said with a hearty handshake. He stomped his feet in the cold and the porch rattled. “Come inside where it’s warm.”

  He held the door as the Franklins and Gillian entered the warm house. A wood stove crackled against the wall, and patchwork blankets were strewn on the couch and rocker close to the fire. It was quite cozy, and Aaron thought it looked like what he’d imagined a mountain cabin would be.

  The Franklins handed them steaming mugs of coffee and guided them to the rough-hewn, long table in an alcove near the fire. He listened as Gillian opened her briefcase and they talked numbers. Periodically, he gazed out the window at the snow falling down—much harder now. As they spoke, he took a longer look around the cabin—several tables held huge computer monitors and a couple of laptops were scattered around the room.

  Patty Franklin pushed back from the table and reached for the coffee pot on the wood stove.

  “What kind of internet reception do you get up here?”

  Mr. Franklin shook his head slowly. “Not great at all. Like now, with the blizzard coming, it’ll be out for days. We’re on satellite, so it’s sketchy at best. But when there’s bad weather, sometimes we even have to dig out the dish.”

  He frowned and reached for his wife’s hand.

  “You know, Mrs. Wharton, when we bought this place, the excitement of living off the land, owning a business...well, it was really appealing.”

  He ran his thumb over his young wife’s chapped hands, and she looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears.

  “Honestly, the work is fun. I mean, I don’t always mind getting up at dawn, but sometimes it’s just—”

  “Cold,” her husband said.

  Gillian looked at Aaron and smiled. “Yes. Idaho gets very cold. And you’re pretty isolated out here.”

  “We had no idea that it’d take over an hour to get to town in the winter. I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing. Millennials like us get a pretty bad rap for being soft, and we sure have tried hard. We didn’t want to give up. But not only are we alone out here, but nobody’ll come visit.”

  Aaron tried not to smile and rested his chin in his hand as he leaned forward on the table.

  “No Starbucks?”

  Patty shot him a wry smile. “Right. No Starbucks.”

  Gillian reached across the table and squeezed Patty’s hand.

  “Listen, when I moved to Idaho thirty years ago, I thought I wanted to be way out here, where I could see the eagles and walk for hours and hours. But we needed to be near the bank...near civilization...and there still isn’t a Starbucks in Riston, as you know. We all go out to Sadie’s at the ranch, so I totally understand.”

  Pattie smiled at them gratefully.

  Aaron leaned forward and looked around the cabin once again. It was beautiful, the light of the flames from the wood stove bouncing off the log walls, and rough-hewn stairs leading to an upstairs. He had no idea what they’d paid for it, but he certainly didn’t know anybody who would want to live this far out from the world. Not young people, anyway, building their lives.

  “We really do love it here, but...I’m just not sure it fits our life. Where we are right now, you know?”

  “I sure do,” Gillian said as she gathered the papers she and Olivia had worked so hard on. “And I guess I have some news I should share, then.”

  Chapter 13

  Gillian stole a glance at Aaron, who stood and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pacing in front of the wood stove. She knew he didn’t like Ed—she didn’t either, in fact—but Ed was right. She’d be remiss not to let them know they had an offer as she knew now that they didn’t really want to stay.

  Olivia had spent a lot of her time running numbers to restructure the Franklins’ loan, but now that Gillian knew they weren’t sure they wanted to stay, it would be out of bounds ethically for her to withhold Ed Thompson’s offer. As much as it pained her to see him with the property, her primary concern needed to be the Franklins, so she reached into her briefcase for another set of papers.

  “You’re going to present that offer?” Aaron said. He’d stopped pacing and rested his hands on the back of the chair he’d been sitting on.

  Gillian looked up at him and cocked her head. “I think I’m bound to, don’t you?”

  She frowned as he raised his eyebrows and threw his hands in the air, striding back toward the wood stove.

  “What offer?” Patty asked as she leaned forward.

  “Well, I was at the charity gala last night that I’d told you about. I’m sorry you missed it.”

  Mr. Franklin laughed. “It would have taken us an hour to get there and back.”

  Gillian shifted in her seat. “Point taken. Anyway, Ed Thompson, a well-known real estate developer in Idaho, mentioned that he’d be interested in buying the property.”

  She took out the papers she’d prepared and slid them over toward the young couple. It wasn’t a formal offer—she wasn’t even an officially licensed real estate agent in the state—so she’d just talked with
Olivia and run some scenarios on the offer price in general.

  The couple glanced at each other and held hands before they leaned forward and looked at the paperwork. As they perused the numbers, Gillian leaned back and looked over at Aaron, who was rubbing the back of his neck and appeared to be trying to ignore the conversation. That was really the proper thing to do, as he wasn’t directly involved in the transaction, but she found herself hoping for his input. He seemed to have some understanding of business, finance and real estate transactions and even in the short time they’d known each other, somehow she felt his judgment would be good.

  “I know I’ve just been a farmer for a couple of years, but both Patty and I were in the technology business before we moved here. It looks to me like he’s offering even less than we owe on our mortgage. And substantially less than what the property should be worth.”

  Aaron coughed and shuffled his feet, glancing quickly at Gillian before he strode over to the plate glass window. She leaned back, looking past him, at the clouds gathering and the snow drifts rising by the minute.

  Mr. Franklin leaned back in his chair, his hands resting on his head as he looked from the papers to Gillian. He ran his hand through his hair and rested his arm over his wife’s shoulder, pulling her close.

  “Look, you know all of our financials. If we sold to him, it would take the rest of our savings from the merger to make up the difference in the money we borrowed to buy the place.”

  Gillian took a deep breath. “Yes, the sale price would be quite short of what is owed on the mortgage,” she said as she tapped her pen on the table. “You know, you could just put it on the open market and see if you could sell it for the value.”

  Mr. Franklin’s head dropped into his hands. “Sure. There are tons of people waiting in line to buy a very expensive, very large piece of property with no central heat, a wood stove and...well, chickens.”

  Gillian’s heart tugged as Aaron turned from the plate glass window and shot her a frown.

  She turned back to the young couple. “I understand your frustration. I know that when you bought the place, you intended to build a business and make it an income-producing property. Nobody expected you wouldn’t like it here.”

  A log sputtered loudly in the wood stove as silence fell over the room.

  Patty Franklin wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “It’s not at all that we don’t like it here, Mrs. Wharton. I love it here. I wake up every morning and feel the sun warming my face as it crosses over the tops of the mountains. I welcome the wind crossing my cheeks as I walk to the barn early in the morning. I’ve even named all the chickens,” she said with a smile.

  “She has. And some of them are really stupid names,” her husband said as he pulled her close and laughed.

  “Buffy is not a stupid name for a chicken,” she said as she wiped away another tear and her husband kissed the top of her head.

  “Of course not, Patty,” he said as he glanced at Aaron, who was listening closely as he stood by the wood stove, his arms folded across his chest.

  “What I mean is we love it here. But we’re hoping to start a family, and all of our friends are...somewhere else. And it just feels a little bit lonely. Beautiful, inspirational, gorgeous...but lonely.”

  Gillian certainly appreciated how Patty felt. She herself had wanted to stay in Riston when she was a young married woman, soon pregnant with Fred. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be so far out at that time in her life.

  She looked around the cabin. It truly was beautiful, and she could envision children running around, or sleeping quietly on the rug in front of the wood stove...but they could also reach out and burn themselves on the heated metal.

  No. That combined with the hour drive to town and nobody wanting to come visit—if she was in their shoes, she’d feel the same.

  But the fact remained that they were a little bit stuck. They owed more on their mortgage than Ed was offering.

  “I’m not sure what to say.” Patty reached for her husband’s hand.

  “I’m not either at the moment,” Mr. Franklin said. “To be perfectly honest, we did really well in the merger when they bought us out. But the difference between the offer and what we owe on the mortgage would wipe out our savings. Our nest egg would be gone.”

  Patty looked up at him, her big blue eyes brimming with tears.

  “We could stay. Try to make it work. Make enough money from the ranch and make up the difference, and still keep our savings. Then move.”

  Gillian’s heart ached for the young couple. She thought of Olivia and Fred, who were busy at the Bank of Riston, and had a home they could count on and property that they could build on. She was suddenly struck with the awareness that it wasn’t that easy for all people their age. The Franklins were even on the luckier side of things, having made money during the tech boom. Most kids their age worked paycheck to paycheck, and would never even find themselves in this position. Still, it was painful to watch as they comforted each other, not sure what to do.

  “Can we look at these numbers and think about it for a while?” Patty asked as she fiddled with the papers on the table.

  “Of course,” Gillian said as she gathered the other papers she’d brought and set them in her briefcase.

  Aaron cleared his throat as he crossed the room and rested his hand on Gillian’s chair.

  “If we’re going to make it back to town before the blizzard, we’d better get going. It’s getting pretty deep out there.”

  Patty walked over to the plate glass window and glanced nervously at the pile of wood near the stove.

  “Are we all set for the blizzard?” she asked her husband.

  He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Yes. We’re ready for anything.”

  Gillian sighed as she clicked her briefcase shut and stood. She shrugged on her coat.

  “We can take you into town and you can stay with us. The weather service said this is going to be quite a whiteout,” she said as she pulled on her gloves.

  Patty turned toward her husband and hugged him. “I think it’s best if we stay here. We have some thinking to do, and we’ve battened down the hatches. We’ll be fine, but thank you for the offer.”

  Chapter 14

  Aaron could barely see the car from the porch as he and Gillian stepped out of the cabin. They’d bundled up, and he grabbed Gillian’s briefcase while she hugged the jars of canned tomatoes that the Franklins had sent them home with close to her chest.

  He reached for her hand and pulled her close as they crunched through the snow toward her SUV, heads down against the driving snow.

  The car doors opened as she clicked the key fob, and he pulled her toward the passenger side, opening the door and helping her in.

  He rounded to the driver’s side and slid into the seat beside her, breathing a sigh as he closed the door and turned the engine over.

  “Wow. This is really something,” he said as he leaned forward and looked up. It was as if all the clouds had dropped down and enveloped the ranch and the car in the last thirty seconds.

  Gillian leaned forward and looked behind them. “I’m not sure we should try it. The blizzard’s coming in fast.”

  “Your SUV is four-wheel drive, right?” he asked as he put it in reverse. Even though he’d lived most of his life in Texas, his business had taken him into the wilds of Montana and he had some experience driving in inclement weather. He was confident they’d make it back.

  It was slow going—better that way anyway—but he fought against rushing to get back in time so they wouldn’t be stranded on the road between the Franklins’ and Riston. Several times, he slowed and Gillian reminded him, “No, don’t stop. Too easy not to be able to start again.”

  It was certainly a white-knuckle drive, but Gillian kept the hot chocolate flowing and they weren’t both leaning forward trying to see through the wi
ndshield, they were trying to stay warm.

  A couple of times, after the tires slid on a turn and Gillian inhaled a sharp breath, he tried to strike up a conversation. There was no way he could concentrate on the road and talk about the Franklins, but he could make small talk.

  “I’m really happy to be here for Christmas. I’ve been with Allen and the girls every Christmas since they were born, and I’m glad I don’t have to miss this one.”

  “Oh, Christmas is my favorite holiday, too. I love everything about it. Egg nog, cinnamon cider, Christmas trees, caroling, all of it.”

  “You like Christmas carols, too?” Aaron said, as his favorite starting in his head.

  “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go,” he sang as they rounded another bend and squeezed through what was left of the road between two snow drifts.

  Gillian’s eyes grew wide as he passed through the drifts, but she joined in.

  “Take a look in the five and ten, glistening once again with candy canes and silver lanes aglow,” Gillian sang as she kept her eyes on the road.

  They sang the rest of the song together, and it seemed to help as they navigated the ever dwindling remaining pavement.

  The snow was coming down too thick to see very far ahead, and she was quick to make sure he had enough time to anticipate any turns or changes in the road. She was an excellent navigator and he was glad that he was wearing gloves and she couldn’t see—and he didn’t have to look at himself—his white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel.

  He started to wonder if the snow drifts were getting too big to pass.

  “How much further?” he asked as they finished the song.

  “Not much. Fifteen minutes, maybe longer since we keep having to slow down.”

  “Okay. Well, then, another song it is. Pick one.”

  “Hm. I know.”

  “Good. Go ahead,” Aaron said, welcoming the distraction as they crept toward Riston.