Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
I have to find her.
Immediately.
Chapter Five
BECKETT
“Jesus, people are filthy.” Grimly, I turn to Abbi Wild, who I hired to clean my vacation rentals. Well, I hired her company. She usually sends other teams out to do the actual cleaning, but she came today, and she’s as unhappy about the state of cabin number three as I am.
“This one only sleeps two, right?” she asks.
“That’s right. So how did two people make this kind of a mess during a two-night stay?” I shake my head as I take in the amount of trash, the linens strewn all over the cabin, and the broken glass on the floor.
“At least the windows aren’t broken,” Abbi says, then shrugs when I stare at her. “I’ve seen it.”
“Jesus, why did I think this was a good idea?”
“It is a good idea,” Abbi assures me. “How much is your security and cleaning deposit on these rentals?”
“I just do a cleaning fee.”
Abbi shakes her head. “You need to add a considerable security deposit, and I suspect you need to increase the cleaning fee. If people have a bunch of money to lose, they’re less likely to act like this. You need a manager.”
“I know, and I have my eye on one, but she’s not available for a few months. She’s finishing a contract in Aspen, so I’ll have to figure it out in the meantime.”
“You can do that. And don’t worry, this isn’t as bad as I’ve seen in some other rentals. I’m going to call in another team to help me out here, though. Also, you need to add to your rental agreement that you will press charges if they destroy property. Even if you really won’t, the threat of it is there.”
“Hey, I like that. I’ll add it. Thanks, Abbi.”
“You bet.”
As she pulls her phone out of her pocket to call in some help, I make my way through the other two cabins vacated this morning. Thankfully, nothing is out of the ordinary in either of those.
Admittedly, I see trashed cabins like that one about once a month, which could be worse, but it still pisses me off and shreds all hope I have for humanity.
With that handled, I head back for the main house and the barns. I need to look in on the ice cream we’re producing and check the spring calves.
There’s never a dull moment at the Double B Ranch.
Just as I walk into the processing building, my phone rings, and I see it’s Abbi.
“What did we miss?” I ask by greeting.
“Uh, Beckett, there’s a cat in the bathroom.”
I scowl and stare blindly ahead. “A what?”
“A cat. Are you missing a barn cat?”
“How the hell should I know? Jesus, just let it outside. Sorry, Abbi.”
I hang up and stomp into the barn, where Brad’s seeing to one of our cows that’s had an infection.
“Are we missing one of the barn cats?” I ask him.
“I haven’t seen Morris in a few days,” Brad says. “Figured he was off hunting somewhere.”
“The assholes in cabin three had him. In the fucking cabin.”
Brad blinks and then laughs. “Poor Morris. He’s never been inside anything other than a barn in his whole life. Probably scared the shit out of him.”
“Let’s hope not because that’ll be one more fucking thing I have to pay to have cleaned up.”
Brad’s practically doubled over in hilarity, and I glare at the man.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s hilarious.” He’s holding his side, trying to catch his breath. “I’m just picturing the look on that poor cat’s face. Let me out! Let me out!”
Okay, so it’s slightly funny.
I kick Brad out to feed the calves and see to Bessy myself. I can tell she’s hurting.
“I’m sorry, girl. We’ll get you fixed up.”
“Your brother’s here, boss,” Brad says from the doorway of the milking barn, pointing over his shoulder.
“Which one?”
“Me.” Blake walks into the barn and frowns at me. “You’re not ready to go.”
“Ready to go where?”
“To Birdie’s dance recital, dumbass.” Blake shakes his head at me. “Go get changed. We have to go.”
“Blake, I have too much shit to do—”
“Nope,” Brad says with a grin. “We’ve got this. Go see that baby’s show. She’ll be sad if you don’t, and then we all will kick your ass for disappointing the peanut.”
Literally everyone connected with our family has a soft spot for Bridger’s daughter, Birdie. And who can blame them? She’s the best kid there is.
“Hurry up,” Blake adds, walking beside me to the house.
“I don’t need help changing my clothes,” I remind him.
He smirks. “And I’m grateful for that. I’ll wait on the porch.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re driving into town. “Did you come all the way out to the farm just to pick me up?”
“Yep. Because I knew that otherwise, you’d make an excuse not to go. Like your man said, that would crush our niece. So you’re going.”