Home On The Ranch

“Yeah, foreign concept to me.”

The waitress, a little blonde teenager about the size of his pinky finger, came and took their order for a large sausage pizza.

“So, back to the hat,” Ella said. “You look at home in it. No interest in becoming a rancher?”

“When I was younger.” Back when he’d held out hope that maybe his grandparents would change, would see how the way they chose to live affected him.

“When I was younger, I thought I’d be a fighter pilot when I grew up.”

That surprised him. “Really?”

“And then I changed my mind and was determined to become an anthropologist. Then a professional figure skater even though I’d been on ice skates exactly twice. But, hey, it was the year the Winter Olympics were in Nagano, and we were living in Japan. Guess you could say I changed career paths as often as we changed addresses.”

“And you settled on making stuff out of other people’s junk?”

She sighed. “People are too eager to label things junk. We’re such a throwaway culture. I like trying to imagine how to give something that’s seemingly outlived its usefulness a new life. And lucky for me, there are buyers.”

“A lot of them?”

“Enough that I need to figure out how to clone myself. And my house.”

His skin itched at the idea that she might be packing her house as full as his grandparents had. “You don’t have a shop?”

She shook her head as the waitress placed their drinks on the table then spun to take the order at the next table.

“A little toolshed and the back porch. One of my long-term goals is to be able to buy a place with a lot of room to spread out with storage and work space separate from my house.”

He tried to imagine her selling enough reclaimed home decor to afford such a place and had a hard time picturing it. But then he wasn’t the most knowledgeable guy about interior decorating or whatever was in style. Somehow he thought his style was probably called minimalist.

“I know a place that will be for sale soon,” he said with a little smile that conveyed he knew that probably wasn’t in the cards for her.

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. Alas, it’s me and the little rental for the foreseeable future. I may see if I can convert the toolshed into a little store if my landlord will let me since they’re working to get the arts and crafts trail up and running.”

He must have given her a questioning look because she went on to explain.

“The local tourist bureau is compiling a list of all the artists and craftspeople in the area and is going to create a trail with a map so tourists can go from one to the next shopping for handmade items and original art.”

“Sounds like a good way to bring in more tourist dollars.”

He tried to picture Ella sitting in a little metal toolshed with the name of her business painted on the outside. For some reason, he didn’t like the image. She seemed like a hard worker, a go-getter, someone who believed wholeheartedly in what she was doing. Someone like that deserved a better public presence than a place you’d normally store garden tools and lawn mowers.

“If you’d like me to look at a business plan or your work flow plan, let me know.”

She stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth. “You’d do that?”

“Yeah. Why do you seem so surprised?”

“Because quite honestly I’m surprised you stopped progress on getting the house ready to sell long enough to come eat, let alone look at the business plan of someone you’ve known barely more than two seconds.”

“It’s something I can do easily when I go back to the hotel at night.” It was certainly a better use of his time than staring at the ceiling imagining Ella lying in bed next to him. At that thought he had to shift in the booth to make himself less uncomfortable. Thank goodness the table hid what those kinds of thoughts did to him.

“I’ll think about it. Thank you for the offer.”

“That wasn’t meant to say you don’t know how to run your business.”

She flipped her hand as if to wave away his concern that he’d insulted her.

“Just a little intimidating. I mean, I’m not exactly running a big corporation here.”

“Every company starts small.” True enough, but a lot of them failed, too. Ella seemed to believe in her business so much, it’d be a shame if hers failed because of lack of proper planning. Sure, he didn’t understand her business, but all businesses came down to numbers. And numbers and logistics he understood.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.