Chapter Twenty
Kelsi
“The bank called and said they got an offer,” my mother said as we sat around eating our breakfast. “Are you sure you are okay with your father and I moving to Florida?”
How could I say I wasn’t okay with their dream? My parents had spent their entire life making sure me and my sister were all right. Over the last few weeks, I had learned that they didn’t even want to keep running the ranch and had only been doing it because they wanted us to have a stable childhood.
Then when Clyde was born, they stayed because they wanted me and him to have a stable environment as I navigated the world as a single parent. But it was time for them to live their life the way they wanted to live it. I was going to be fine. Clyde and I could live in a small two-bedroom apartment with pretty much any job I could find in town. I didn’t need a lot to be happy, and I knew things were going to be just fine for me.
“Mom, I told you before I think it’s an amazing idea. Clyde and I will come visit you and go to Disneyworld. It is perfect. You guys deserve some relaxation. I’ve really wanted to bring him to Disney, and this will be the perfect excuse. Plus, I think it’s warm down there all year long that will be so good for your arthritis, Mom.”
“The bank manager asked if you would come with us to the signing of the papers. There was something she wanted to talk to you about. Some contingency that is in the offer,” my father added.
He didn’t even look like he had been listening to us while he read his paper, but then again I knew my father could hear stories from the other side of the room if he wanted to. It was his special power in getting all the town gossip.
“I don’t have to go, do I?” Kendall asked. “Robert and I still have so much to do before our big garage sale this weekend. Do you think we will make a lot of money? I’d love to have more money for our move.”
Kendall and Robert had some big plans to move to New York, and it was really exciting. I didn’t like the idea of living in a big city, but for Kendall, it was a dream, and I couldn’t have been more excited for her. She had been planning with Robert for nearly a year, and now they were finally going to go for it. They were finally going to follow their dreams, and that was pretty cool to see.
“You don’t have to go,” my father said without looking up. “There isn’t anything you need to sign.”
My father was a very by the book sort of guy. He sometimes didn’t see the necessity in being super nice to people or playing up to their feelings. It always made me laugh how blunt he could be about things. But I was going to miss him and his opinions when my parents moved to Florida.
Even the little things on a daily basis I was going to miss about my parents. Like in the morning when I was extremely tired from working out on the ranch, they would get Clyde up and get him ready for school sometimes. Or at night, after a long day when all I wanted to do was take a long bath, my mother would take Clyde for me and read to him to give me a few minutes of time to relax. Those little things were how I had made it through the last few years as a single mom.
Technically, because I lived with my parents, I hadn’t felt much like a single mom at all. Having them with me and helping me was what made me feel like I could take on the world as a mother. Their help gave me the confidence I needed throughout the uncertain times of early parenting.
“Kelsi, you and Clyde could come to New York with us. We have an apartment rented and you two could sleep on the couch. It’s not a lot of room, but it would be so exciting to be there with you.”
“Absolutely not, I’m not bringing Clyde to New York; that doesn’t sound like a safe place to raise him up at all. But I promise we will visit, and you have to send lots of pictures of all the beautiful art that you’ll see.”
The last thing I wanted to do was go with Kendall to New York. It seemed like a fun place to visit, but not at all the sort of place I wanted to live. Plus, it was Kendall’s dream, and I wanted to give her a chance to follow it without worrying about me.
I was excited for my opportunity to live on my own, and I could tell she was too. Neither of us had really had to do life on our own yet. It was an exciting time for us both.
“I’m so excited,” Kendall said as she shoveled her oatmeal into her mouth. “This is the start to the rest of my life. You guys watch: I’m going to be famous someday.”
She hugged us all and ran out the door before any of us had a chance to respond. She was excited, and who could blame her? It was finally time for her to follow her dreams and she had an amazing boyfriend who was going to come with her. I was happy for her and I knew my parents were, too. It was exhilarating to see everyone in my family following their dreams.
“I’ll get dressed and come with you guys. What do you think they want to talk to me about?”
“Not sure. Sometimes they want a written document on how things are run or something like that. We can talk with them, and hopefully you can put it together for them. Whatever they need, please do it. From the sound of Kirsten’s voice, I think this offer is good. She said we would like it,” my mother said. “She had the realtor there with her and they were getting all the paperwork ready.”
She was clearly excited by the offer, and I couldn’t blame her. They didn’t want to take the option of selling the ranch back to the bank because they would lose a lot of their equity. A real offer for the property could net them some serious cash so they could retire in style.
I said a little prayer and hoped they would get a nice-sized offer that would allow them to retire like they wanted to. My parents had put everything they owned into the ranch, they didn’t have savings, and they didn’t have anything to live off of. The sale of the property was their chance to have a retirement. If they could just get a couple hundred thousand from the closing, that would be enough for them.
My parents were frugal people. They lived with the money they had and didn’t ask for anything that was beyond our means. Growing up, I hardly knew we were as poor as we were until I got to high school. Running a huge ranch wasn’t easy, but because they worked so hard, we had been able to live there for my entire life. Because of their hard work, I grew up to know what love was and not always worry about having the coolest gadgets. We might not have had a lot of money, but we had everything I needed.
By the time we arrived at the bank, I was getting as excited as my mother was about the offer. I’d already resigned myself to staying in Rainbow and working at the grocery store; it wasn’t great money, but I was happy there. But for my parents, I wanted an amazing offer so they could live life up for a change. My entire life they had worried about money; it would be really exciting if they didn’t have to worry for a little bit.
They wouldn’t admit that they wanted a big offer, but I knew they did. The ranch was worth millions, but with all the loans, I wasn’t sure what sort of numbers the new buyer could give us.
We also had the horses and all the equipment on the property though, and as soon as we accepted an offer, I was going to get to work selling that stuff off. We talked about holding an auction for everything, but I thought we could get better money if we listed things off individually at first. Then with whatever was left at the end, I would hold and auction.
My parents didn’t need to stay for the sale of everything, though, and neither did Kendall. I could handle it and let them move on to the dreams they were following. It would take a few months, but as long as we had a reasonable closing date, I was confident I could get my family some more money from everything.
“It’s nice to see you all. Thank you for coming over, I’ve got all the paperwork in the back room, and I think you’re really going to like this offer,” Kirsten said as she smiled from ear-to-ear.
She looked rather happy to have us there. It seemed a little odd to me considering the last time I was in her office I had screamed at her and stormed out. But at least she wasn’t holding that against me or my family, and she seemed to be a nice enough lady when she wasn’t denying someone their dream of taking over the family ranch.
I didn’t hold the denial against Kirsten though. It had been a long shot for me to get a loan and I knew it. I wasn’t prepared at all, and I should have waited and had Tyler help me with a full business plan. But that was all over now, and we were selling the farm. We had all come to terms with the sale, and everyone was moving on to their new life except me.
Our real estate agent was waiting in the back room, and she too had a smile on her face. This was clearly going to be a good offer, and my mother grabbed my hand in excitement as we sat down. Our real estate agent never smiled. Every time I had seen her she had a solid grimace on her face and looked like she needed to use the restroom. This was a far cry from her normal expression, and I hoped it was a sign of something very good to come.
“Okay, first off, I have to say this is one of the best offers I’ve seen in this area for a really long time. You should be proud of what you’ve done with the property and the reputation your ranch has. I think it really helped the buyer decide on the terms of their offer. Also, you should know that the buyer is not willing to negotiate on the terms of this offer at all. They are firm, and if you can’t agree to all of them, you’ll have to walk away from the deal entirely.”
“Just tell us how much,” my father said grumpily.
My father wasn’t the kind of guy who liked anticipation very much. Even if he didn’t show that he was nervous, he was just as nervous as my mother and I were. This was his life. He had given everything to the ranch, and it would have devastated him if he had to basically hand the property back to the bank and walk away empty handed. For my father’s sake, I hoped for an amazing offer and terms that we would all be able to agree to.
“The buyer is prepared to offer you full price, and they have added an additional million-dollar kicker if you include the home, animals, and other equipment that is currently on the property,” Kirsten said as she looked at my parents and then back to the agent.
“What? Really?” my mom said as tears streamed down her face.
My mom wasn’t a crying type of person. I once saw her almost rip her finger out of the socket when it caught on a piece of machinery, but she only winced and didn’t shed a single drop from her eyes. Just seeing that my mother was crying made me start to cry. This was an amazing offer. This was everything I had hoped for them. With this money, they were going to relax and have so much fun down in Florida.
“Yes, Mrs. Sullivan. This offer would net you and Richard a total of 2.2 million after your loan was paid off.”
“Now that’s an offer,” my father said as he clapped his hands. “Where do I sign? Get me a check and let’s do this.”
“There was one additional note that is included in the offer. It’s an essential item that they will rescind the offer if this is not included,” Kirsten said.
“Whatever it is, they can have it!” My father laughed. “I’ll sell them anything they want. Hell, I’ll even give them my kidney for $2 million.”
My father was clearly in a much better mood now that he heard what the offer was and that he was going to get to retire after all. It didn’t matter what the special side note was; I knew my father was going to say yes to them so he could get this deal closed.
“It’s Kelsi; they are requesting that Kelsi remain on at the ranch and manage it for at least the first six months.”
My mouth dropped open and I looked at my parents, and then at Kirsten and the real estate agent. I had just come to terms with the idea of leaving the ranch. I wasn’t sure I wanted to stick around and keep running things, and I really didn’t want to do it if my parents were going to be gone.
“Why? They could just hire someone,” I said.
“They want you. You would be given a salary of $120,000 for that time frame and whatever funding you deemed necessary to turn the ranch into a child-friendly equestrian learning facility. They would also like to talk to you about some other plans that they have and hear your plans for the property as well.”
“That’s what you wanted to do with it anyways,” my mother exclaimed. “It sounds like a very generous offer. You could save up and get your own ranch with that as a down payment.”
“Why do they want me?”
“I talked to them about their goals and you were the person I recommended for the job,” Kirsten said. “I know you might not want to work for the new owners, but it is a lucrative offer, and you’d have the option to leave after the first six months. They really needed someone knowledgeable about the animals who they could trust. They know that you were considering buying it and were really open to hearing your ideas for what could be done with the property.”
“That’s a lot of money to run the ranch. Would I have to do it alone? What ideas are they willing to consider? I had a lot of ideas about running a summer camp. Do they want to do that?”
“No, I’m not sure what all they were considering. You could talk to them about that after you accepted the position. I do know they have provisions to hire a dozen staff including whomever you deem necessary. They also gave you a lot of praise for what you’ve done with the property so far, and it sounded like they were open to keeping you on indefinitely if you were interested in that. But you can decide all of that down the road. Right now, you just need to say yes to their offer.”
“Wow, so they want to turn this into a training facility? That seems like a good idea and a great way to compete with Everett’s. But I don’t know if I’m the best person. I don’t know that much about building things, and I’d have to do a lot of research for each aspect.”
“We can go over the specifics with you later, but it sounded like they wanted to do educational courses and camps there, too,” Kirsten said as she smiled at me.
“That does seem like a good use of the property,” I said as I contemplated what was going on. “But I’m not so sure I want to work for some stranger. I don’t know if I want to help them build the ranch of my dreams. What if I want to build my own ranch someday? I really should talk to them before I accept the offer.”
“The property was purchased by a firm, and they don’t typically have the owners located at the property from what I understood. They would train a new manager if you decided to leave and they will keep in contact with you via email about the progress and changes. I have to say they seemed very open to any ideas you have.”
“If I say no, they will take the offer away from my family?”
“Yes, the offer only works for them if you stay on,” Kirsten said sternly.
It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the offer, but I wasn’t sure I could stay on at the ranch and build it into my dream when I wasn’t the owner. It seemed sort of cruel to build everything that I had always wanted, but then hand it back over to someone else. But I couldn’t say no, I couldn’t take the offer away from my family. It was only for a few months, and it would be fun to have money and the means I’d dreamed of for the ranch.
“Okay, but I can’t commit past the six months. At least not until I see how things go,” I said as I grabbed my mother’s hand and saw her tears turn into laughter. “I guess you’re officially a millionaire, Mom.”
“What a wonderful day,” my father said as he kissed my mom and hugged me.
It was exciting to see how full of life my father suddenly was. This offer had taken a lot of weight off of his shoulders, and I hadn’t realized just how stressed out he was until that moment. His whole life had been the ranch, and yet selling it was the first time I saw such a huge smile on his face. Clearly, he had been running the ranch for everyone else’s benefit and not for himself. It was a happy day to get to see the freedom in my father’s eyes. Plus, it wasn’t a bad offer on my end at all. I was going to get paid very well to run the ranch, much better than working for free like I had been for my parents.
“We just need some signatures then you three can go out and celebrate. It will take a few days for the bank transfer, but by the end of the week you should have your profits from the sale in your account, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan.”
I couldn’t believe it; my parents couldn’t believe it either. They were going to get the retirement of their dreams, and I was getting a pretty damn good job out of the deal. Life had certainly turned around for us. We went straight over to my father’s favorite steak restaurant and invited everyone to come join us.
At dinner, my parents told the family about the news and about me staying on at the ranch. We weren’t sure of the specifics at all yet, but I told Hannah she could stay on with me and we could even hire some additional help so the two of us could be supervisors instead of poop scoopers.
“This is amazing,” Hannah said as she sat with her family and mine. “It’s like a dream come true.”
“Not exactly a dream. I mean we will still be working for someone else, but the offer sounded really good, and I think we can pitch our ideas for things and get them to pay for the changes. In a few months, I could see the ranch being very successful.”
“Is Kendall going to stay on?”
“No, she and Robert are still going to New York; that’s her dream, and I don’t want to ruin it.”
“We will have to work so hard to make it an actual equestrian training facility. There’s lots of planning, and it will cost a lot. Hopefully the firm that bought it is really interested in investing that much.”
“Yeah, hopefully,” I said as my eyes glazed over with all the possibilities of the ranch. “I’m going to suggest they build some cabins out near the river and dredge the river. Oh, and we need an arena for showing off the skills that kids learn, and an office. Wow, there are so many things.”
“This is going to be one hell of a good time!” Hannah said as we both smiled and took in the moment.
The next few months were one big blur as Hannah and I hired employees, and I designed the ranch into what I thought would be the ultimate equestrian vacation. The infrastructure on the ranch required substantial updating before we could move forward with any of our plans, so most of the work went into the structures and buildings during those first few months.
The new owners were some sort of international firm and I never got to talk to anyone except a guy named Marcus. He answered my emails and helped me make decisions about which project we should do next.
The day-to-day work of running the ranch was hard. I got up early and got Clyde off to school and then spent the entire day working and planning. By the time Clyde returned, we often only had an hour or two together before I had to sit down and work again, but at least I could do it from the comfort of our living room. I sat down to send Marcus a quick email about the new housing units.
Email to Marcus: I’ve got the plans done for the housing units to be built near the river. I was thinking we should start with five buildings. Two for boys, two for girls, and one additional one for staff. It’s located pretty far back on the property so we should also work on getting a dirt road out there for vehicles, although campers will likely horseback to their cabins once that is all set up. How does that sound? I’m including the bid from a local builder.
Email from Marcus: Thank you for your hard work. I have to disagree about five cabins. That number does not fit with the vision you’ve explained for the camp. It sounded like you expected to sell camping space to at least one hundred campers and possibly up to two hundred, is that correct?
Email to Marcus: Yes, but building that many cabins all at once would be very expensive. I thought it would be best to start out smaller and then expand.
Email from Marcus: No, please send a design that includes the ideal total number of cabins. We would like to build this camp right and starting small is not in our plans. Also, our owner would like to come out and visit with you. He’s requesting a meeting in two weeks at the bank. I’ll send you the specifics as the date gets closer, but he’ll need a full tour of the facility after the bank paperwork is completed.
My heart sank at his email. It had already been six months, and that was all I had agreed to. From the sound of his email, it didn’t look like they were planning to keep me around past the agreed upon six months.
Originally, when I started running the ranch on my own, I didn’t expect to stay at all. But as the projects came together and the ranch grew into such a dream facility, I wanted to be part of it. Sure, I had a dream of running it all on my own, but if I couldn’t do that, I would keep working as the manager.
“The owner wants to meet with me in two weeks,” I said to Hannah in a bit of a panic.
“What about?”
“I’m not sure, but he wants to meet at the bank? What do you think that means? Maybe they need me to sign something else about the six-month contract or something.”
“No idea. Doesn’t he want to come to the ranch and see everything?” Hannah asked.
“He wants a tour of the facility after the bank paperwork is completed. I’m so nervous. I really love the ranch more than ever. I’d work for less money; it’s not about the money at all. I really want to keep running this place. I can’t wait to see it filled with kids. I just wish we could have included all the theater and art stuff that I always wanted here, but still, their idea is a really good one and I think kids are going to love coming here for summer vacations.”
“Kelsi, you have done an amazing job with this project. I bet they are going to ask you to stay on and want to give you another offer to continue running everything. They would be insane not to let you stay on. Really, you’re the one with the vision. You are the one with the big plan for the facility, and you are the one who kids are going to love as their camp leader.”
“Thanks, Hannah, I really appreciate that.”
“So, what should we do now? I’m a little nervous about them coming to see the facility right now, everything is in such a shape of transition, and the grounds are a disaster.”
“Let’s get a couple of the guys to finish the painting jobs and a couple others to clear the grounds of debris. We can’t make it look like the Ritz, we are a working horse ranch, but we can get it looking a little nicer for the visit. I guess they will just have to understand that running a ranch is messy business.” I laughed.
“Do you think this owner guy has any actually knowledge of running a ranch? Or is he part of one of those firms that just invests money and doesn’t know how to actually run things?”
“I’m not sure. The Marcus guy who I talk to doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, but I think the owner might. Sometimes Marcus will run ideas past the owner and then come back to me with a pretty solid plan.”
“Did you send them the five-year plan for the ranch that we had worked on?” Hannah asked.
“Yeah, they never responded with much. He just said it looked interesting.”
“What about the idea to buy out the Anderson and Decker farms? How did they like that idea?”
“Not really what they were looking to do, but he applauded my initiation,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think they understand how much more land they would have and all the amazing things we could do with the ranch. But in the end, it’s their ranch now, and not mine, so I’ll go along with whatever they decide to do.”
“Yeah, but they have to listen to you. You’re the expert here.”
“They don’t have to do anything, Hannah; I’m just an employee in their eyes.”