Grandma would never approve.
Mark kicked his heels in an alternating rhythm now, but it had a sort of cadence that seemed accidental. Even though he didn't speak, I could hear his thoughts moving. Likely, they never stopped. I could tell that some sort of calculation moved behind his eyes. Although overcome with doubts that he'd be able to save this place, I appreciated his moxie at trying.
Adventura was lovely, but its prospect was bleak. If he really wanted to make stable money off of it, it would need far more upgrading. My lips twitched as I thought of his idea a few months ago.
“Horses, Marie,” he'd said. “I think I need to invest in horses. There's a lot of grazing land out here, and we could use them for the summer camp. What do you think? Horses may draw in more people. My investors are thinking it over.”
While he rattled about horse therapy and autistic kids, my mind had gone down the trail of insurance needs, care, grooming, and basic maintenance. We'd spoken for over an hour about it, and he'd happily paid my consulting fee. Until now, I hadn't realized that Mark did nothing with the horse idea. Maybe it wasn't the worst concept, but the practicality behind it would be more detailed than he'd like.
No, that was a dead end.
My mind spun through other possibilities. How else could the land be used but still maintained for the money-making summer? My thoughts must have spiraled deep—or perhaps my face just betrayed me—because his voice broke into them. My thoughts scattered like grains of sand.
“It's going to be okay, Stella.”
When I looked at him, he peered at me with a curious, but steady, gaze. For a second, I was tempted to smile and lead him down a different track. Tell him that fear and concern weren't even on my mind. But that would be a lie, and I never lied.
“I hope so.”
“I always figure it out.”
That much was true. He figured something out usually, even if it was patchwork and eventually abandoned. His life was littered with bandaids, but even those had slowly side-stepped him places.
Where did the steady trust in himself come from? How could he so easily spin ideas and just hope to find the money? There needed to be a firm plan. A path to find the people that would do the rentals. A known, trusted source for each step that we could logically move into next.
“It's pretty simple, really,” he said as if he were talking to himself now. “We already have the space to rent since you are kind enough to move to the attic. There are no upgrades that need to happen aside from basic cozying up, which is easy. So we have one week to find someone—or several someones—to rent it. The path is clear.”
“Right,” I said, my tone deadpan. “As if that were so simple. As if companies don't spend thousands of dollars every day in lead acquisition.”
He laughed. “We don't need thousands of dollars.”
My frustration was palpable. “How are you going to find those people? Leads? Paid traffic? Do you have some sort of . . . connection in Jackson City or . . .”
He grinned, which stopped me short. There was a little too much rugged attractiveness about his beard, his quirky hair, and the bright set of teeth behind his lips. Lips that, I admitted to myself, I looked at a few too many times today.
“With the steadiest, most reliable asset I have,” he said.
“What's that?”
“My unflappable charm, of course.”
Turned out, he wasn't kidding.
Two hours later, we drove back down the highway toward Pineville but pulled off before we arrived in town. Mark didn't say where we were going as we bounced down a paved road that turned into dirt and eventually a worn two-track with dead weeds in the middle. Instead, his forehead remained slightly puckered with thought. I held onto the seat and tried not to panic.
When Mark had ideas, sometimes they got weird.
Fifteen minutes later, he stopped at a small, gray house with two windows framed by dull red shutters, a porch with a swing, and a giant gray truck. The charming little place was tucked up against a hill at the foot of a sprawling mountain, like everything here. When I stepped outside, I could hear the tinkle of a creek nearby.
“Where are we?” I asked as I stepped out.
A man with salt and pepper hair and a lined face stepped onto the porch in a pair of cowboy boots and a long flannel shirt. The screen door slammed shut behind him with a crack. The knees of his jeans were worn to soft white patches. He half grinned, and it looked so much like Mark that I knew immediately who he was.
His father.
“Hey, Dad.” Mark started around the front of the truck and toward his father, who stepped down a few stairs, gaze on me.
“Hi.”
Mark motioned to me. “This is my friend, Stella. She's staying with me for a while. Stella, this is my father, Jim.”
I nodded. He returned it. A fishing pole leaned against the front of the house near the screen door. Mark stopped a few feet away from the porch and half-tucked his hands into his pockets. He seemed at ease. Jim, at first sight, didn't strike me as a talker.
Mark dove right in.
“Is your Cuban friend, Camilo, still painting these days?”
If Jim noticed my sudden surprise at the question, he gave no indication. Instead, he frowned at the dirt. “Not sure,” he finally drawled. “Why?”
“Trying something new.”
Jim snorted, but his lips twitched with a smile. “I can ask him.”
“Do you have his number? I'll call. No need for you to break your quota and talk to more people than me for the next week.”
Jim snorted with warm amusement, then pulled a phone out of his pocket and tossed it to Mark. Mark scrolled through and seemed to text something to himself because I heard the buzz of his phone a second later. Meanwhile, Jim glanced at me
