Her smarmy jerk of an uncle was more than happy to deliver the news to her as he sat behind Chelle’s desk with his size-nine cowboy boots (the ones with the hidden lift insoles) propped up on the battered wood corner. His ten-gallon hat was half on and half off a stack of aid requests sitting in the middle of her desk, making the half-a-foot-high stack look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Never mind the fact that in his sixty-five years, the closest Buckley Finch had ever been to a ranch was watching old westerns and rereading every Louis L’Amour book lining the library at his mansion on Eighty-Sixth.

“No one is saying you haven’t accomplished, by a miracle no doubt, something that no one thought you possibly could,” Uncle Buckley said as he patted down his silver combover, the few strands of which were always popping up anyway despite the amount of hairspray he blasted on it. “But you knew being executive director was a limited-time engagement. The business world is no place for a woman, and your dad cared about you enough to know that you needed a nudge in that direction.”

“A nudge?” That’s what he was calling this absolute metric ton of bullshit? “Getting slammed by a rocket loaded with billionaires suited up for low atmospheric joyrides in zero G would be less of a nudge than this.”

She tucked some of her dark hair behind her ears and took in a deep, cleansing breath, willing herself to calm down. The last thing she needed right now was to appear anything but calm, cool, and collected. Uncle Buckley would seize on the moment to tell her that women were too emotional for leadership positions, she was sure.

He shrugged. “It is what it is, and you knew what was going to happen when your dad’s will was read last Christmas.”

Chelle’s pulse skyrocketed as she fought to keep an even-keel exterior even though, on the inside, she felt like she was drowning. “I never thought my own family would follow his ridiculous dictate.”

It really had been too bizarre to even consider. For all of their many faults and toxic attributes, she’d thought her family loved her and finally saw her as a smart, independent, forty-two-year-old woman who had proven herself. That, obviously, had been wishful thinking on her part.