Page 123 of Tempting Wyatt

I wring my hands. “And until then?”

Willow watches me carefully. “I wouldn’t mention it until you have to.”

Laurel nods in agreement.

As much as I’m worried this could blow up in our faces, it’s the only way I know how to help. The only way I can come up with the kind of money the ranch needs to buy them more time.

“Anything I get—advance, royalties, whatever—I want the money to go to the ranch.” My voice feels too loud, too heavy. “My last advance was eighty grand. The next one should be more now that I’ve already got one successful series out there.”

Willow’s brows shoot upward. “Wait, you’d give all of that to the ranch?”

“Well, yeah.” I glance between them. “Because without this place, I wouldn’t have written this.”

Another beat of silence stretches between us.

Then Laurel folds her arms. “Ivy, you don’t have to?—”

“Iwantto.” I straighten. “And it wouldn’t just be the advance. Studios pay ranches to train actors, to put them through cowboy training camp before filming. Wyatt has the land, the horses. He and Isaac and Willow have the knowledge—they could make real money doing this. It wouldn’t just save the ranch. It could provide a great deal of future income.”

Saying the words out loud makes me realize Wyatt will have to see this as a positive. Maybe not at first, but eventually.It’s a real revenue stream that won’t hinder the ranch’s ability to operate in any way.

I take my phone out and send both my agent and Willow the screenplay.

Willow stares intently at me. “But I mean, you need money to, like, live.”

“I still make royalties on a currently streaming series, and I have some money from my last advance in savings. I’ll survive.”

And if this goes as well as I hope, so will this ranch.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

wyatt

JOE’S VISIT FUCKED WITH MY HEAD.

Thoroughly.

After carrying Ivy to my best last night, I didn’t sleep much, just poured over the bills and the assets, trying to figure out what I can liquidate quickly.

Joe’s visit wasn’t the only thing that fucked me up yesterday. My Hollywood angel waking in the middle of the night and helping me to organize the mountain of invoices I’d been struggling to wrangle for months, shocked the shit out of me.

I’m the one who helps everyone, not the other way around. But she was there, making coffee, building a spreadsheet on my ancient laptop, color-coding shit like a pro until she couldn’t keep her eyes open. I owe her. A thank you, a date, something.

But I’m so busy scrambling to figure out how to come up with this money, I can barely find time to breathe.

I waste most of the day making calls, trying to sell whatever assets I can afford to in the next thirty days. I’m nowhere near where I need to be to hold the foreclosure off. But I havea meeting next week with a shady loan shark named Rick. He owns a few businesses in town, so there’s hope.

Next on the list is the ten-year-old broken-down ranch truck I need to fix and sell. It no sooner got a new radiator then the spark plugs went bad. I need to sell it along with some other equipment as soon as possible.

If Asher were here, it would’ve been taken care of weeks ago. But he’s not, so it’s been at the bottom of my endless to-do list for far too long.

I’m elbow-deep in the engine of it when Isaac shows up, leaning against the side like he’s got all the time in the world.

My hand slips off the wrench and my knuckles slam into the engine.

“Damn it.” I shake my hand to ease the sting then return it to the wrench.

“You seem a little jumpy lately, brother,” Isaac drawls.