And the slump in business wasn’t the only problem. The horses were aging and experiencing a growing number of health issues, which meant the expenses associated with their care were forever mounting. Month on month the bills were piling higher and higher, and Ryan’s strategy of pretending “the check was in the mail” while pleading with the bank to borrow more money was no longer working. He was now over ninety days late on every single account, all the credit cards were maxed out, and he had borrowed against everything they owned, from the property itself to the ranch machinery, even down to the twenty-six-year-old skid steer rusting behind the shed. There was literally nothing left to draw against. And to make matters worse, just last month the bank had started sending letters, formal notices issued in stark white envelopes, bearing red stamps marked Urgent. He couldn’t even bring himself to open those. Then, just the other day, someone had phoned the ranch and left a solicitous message on their machine, a problem that had required Ryan to dig deeper into his vault of cunning.

“A fellow from the bank got in touch,” his father had said. “He wanted you to call him back.”

“Oh?”

“Why would the bank be phoning?”

“You know what they’re like, Dad—they’ll be trying to sell us something, some newfangled insurance product probably. Waste of time if you ask me.”

Desperate to stave off disaster, Ryan had even landed a part-time job at Rosie’s, the diner in town. Joe and Linda weren’t hiring, but they were willing to give him whatever work they could spare, running tables, working the till. During the last few weeks, he’d even become a half-decent fry cook. But it wasn’t enough, not even close. The dollars he scrimped and saved may as well have been pennies for all the difference they made. Short of looking to the sky and hoping for a miracle, he didn’t know what to do. The ranch was in dire trouble, he was the only one who knew anything about it, and he feared it was only a matter of time before someone came knocking on their door.