own. That was the kind of luck the McNaughtons had.
“It’s not your father who’s forcing us off,” Suzanne said. “The letter mentions a corporation. Passaic Holdings.”
“Yes,” Hope conceded, nodding to Faith. “Technically, that’s true. Passaic Holdings—or the person who owns it, the guy Derek lost the card game to—does not want to own one hundred fifty acres of land in southern Nevada. Dad, once again, gets away scot free while the rest of us get wiped out.”
“Now that’s not really fair, Hope,” Suzanne said. “Your father is basically a good person. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt us.”
“And yet, here we are. Hurt and forced off, just the same.”
Amber’s anxious eyes followed her grandmother, her aunt, and her mother as the conversation bounced around the table.
“There must be something we can do,” Faith said, seeing her daughter’s distress. “Can we pay rent to the corporation? Or make a down payment to buy? I know you’re paying the lion’s share here, Hope, but I could increase the size of the greenhouse, get more customers. That might be enough. What do you think?”
The fortunes of the McNaughtons had never been robust. While Suzanne had worked a couple of miles away at the Mesquite Springs diner ever since they could remember, earning minimum wage, Faith had stayed at home with Amber and tried to make a living from the ranch. So far they’d had a hot air balloon business, a children’s riding school, and now, her latest effort, an organic farm. She’d built a greenhouse at enormous expense, and she served forty residential customers and one commercial account, who received a delivery of organic vegetables twice a week. With all the hours Faith put into her greenhouse, plus the costs of building the structure, improving the ventilation and irrigation systems, buying certified plants, getting the permits, and maintaining her equipment, Faith’s organic farming venture barely broke even.
And they were still paying off the two loans from the failed hot-air balloon business and the failed children’s riding school, loans that had been secured by Hope’s salary and stock options at the software startup. With her job, they were just getting by.
The McNaughton women didn’t have two million dollars to buy their place. They couldn’t beg, borrow or steal it, either. They were tapped out. They would have to move.
Where could they go? They probably couldn’t afford even to rent a place big enough to pasture three horses and have a greenhouse. They might have to move to a house—even an apartment—in town somewhere.
Damn Derek. Damn her father.
Hope thought of Banjo, how he came to her for affection and treats, about Ralph and his crazy two-step, about the patient, loving Blondie she’d owned for nineteen years and who had taught her how to ride.
They’d have to be sold. Her home would be sold.
Faith would have to give up her farm and her dreams of making the ranch pay. All her work, wasted.
For her mother, being forced off the ranch would be just one more disappointment in a life that had been filled with them.
And Amber. That kid, already much too serious, whose family would be further fractured by this move.
“I don’t know, Faith,” Hope said, a catch in her voice. “It’s sweet of you to think of expanding the greenhouse for us. But I don’t think we can get enough returns from the vegetable business fast enough to buy the place in a month.”
“I wish organic vegetables were addictive, like nicotine,” Faith said. “We could run a flashy television ad campaign directed at teenagers, and with all the discretionary spending kids have these days, they’d get hooked early and stay hooked for life. You’d need one of those stick-on patches to kick the habit. A stick-on cabbage patch.”
Hope grinned at her sister. “That would be fantastic,” she said. “But practically speaking, rent on a two-million dollar property, or a down payment, would be incredibly expensive. I don’t think you can expand fast enough to do it.”
Faith looked downcast, like she was going to cry. Hope thought she probably looked the same.
“How much time do we have?” Faith asked.
“We have to be out in a month.” Hope knew she sounded grim.
“I suppose we need to start looking now,” Suzanne said.
“But we don’t know when it will sell, right?” Faith asked. “Who knows how long it will be before they find a buyer.”
Hope was silent. They lived on one hundred fifty acres of land with water and a hot springs. The commute to Las Vegas was