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It takes some fiddling but we make it work without her banging her head.
“I was studying her ledger?—”
“Ledger?” I ask, confused. “Like for accounts?”
“Yeah. That’s what I found. Her little black book,” she says grimly. “We were always in the red. Until ‘CK’ made a deposit.” She shudders. “I think he wanted to make the same deal with me at the airport. The way he touched my cheek…”
Outrage fills me. “That asshole.” I draw her tighter into my hold.
“That asshole singlehandedly propped up the Bar 9,” she rasps. “The duration of their arrangement is insane to me.”
“When your father was alive?”
“No. But this went on foryears.”
“Shit.”
Nodding, she mutters, “Maybe I’d be better with the breeding now that I know it wasn’t… what I thought it was.”
My mind’s blank.
I have no idea what to say to her to make any of this right. I don’t know if it’s within my power to?—
“We need to hire my family some staff to look after the house. They’re not doing so great on their own.”
Okay.
Change of topic coming right up.
Not healthy but damn if I have a better idea on how to improve this shitshow.
“Sure thing. I’ll get Theo on it.”
Relieved, she sighs. “Thank you. Your mom called me Zee.”
I kiss her temple. “When?”
“When she introduced me to Mia. Who, by the way, is sweet.”
“She is.” I gesture to a smaller lake in the distance. “Cole proposed to her on that lake over there.”
Her brows lift. “When it wasmylake. Why, Mr. Korhonen, were you trespassing?”
I grin at her. “The whole setup was pretty neat if I do say so myself. The water was frozen and he’d hired this violinist to serenade them. Then, Callan, Cody, and I placed hundreds of candles on the ice. She’s a figure-skating coach and he was her pupil, so, mid-routine, he proposed.” I tap my nose and then point to a barely there rise on the horizon. “He doesn’t know that we watched.”
Amusement lights up her eyes. “Did he fall?”
“Once. But it was a controlled landing. When he went down, he proposed.”
“That’s sweet.”
“He can be. When he tries not to be a pain in the ass.” I clear my throat. “Once we get over this hurdle, he’ll be a good brother-in-law.”
“He doesn’t have to like me, Colt,” she reasons. “I don’t need that from him.”
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. I didn’t raise him to be a dick to women and certainly not to family.”
“You didn’t raise him.”