onto the bed with her new laptop, set up an email account, and began searching for apartments.
Logically, she needed one that was furnished, but it soon became obvious that wasn't going to be an easy task. So, she began pulling up Realtor sites and making calls. She didn't need a fancy apartment with access to a fitness center and a pool. She just needed it to have functioning air and heat and to be clean and safe.
The next two hours were frustrating and depressing. She would have to be approved before anyone would rent to her, which meant filling out an application without having a place of work to reference her monthly wages. Nobody wanted to rent property to someone who had no job, and she had no idea what her credit rating was, or if she still had one.
"I didn't expect this to be easy, but this is ridiculous," Gracie muttered, then set aside the housing issue for now and began searching online for jobs.
John Gatlin finally had all of his equipment back up and running, and tomorrow's schedules posted, when the crews began coming in for the evening. With no complaints to deal with and no more equipment out of service, he closed up shop for the day and headed home.
There was always traffic in Branson, and at different times of day, it was worse than others. Going home from work traffic for locals coincided with going out to dinner traffic for tourists, and then there was the traffic for the music shows that began later.
All he wanted was to get home. He was too tired to stop and pick up food, so leftovers were calling his name.
As he drove, he caught himself looking at the drivers he met, and the ones that he passed, giving any female with long, dark hair a second look. Finally, he made himself stop.
Chances were, she was long gone from Branson and on her way to somewhere else.
But he'd seen her face and her tears.
And he'd heard her voice, "Not yet, but I will be."
He didn't know what had happened, but he'd seen the pain it had caused, and it had made his heart hurt.
If only he knew her name.
By the time Gracie went to bed, she had applied for jobs online at more than a dozen places. Now, she had to wait for them to respond.
It was a maddening way to job hunt. But she was at her destination, and while the shine had come off a little on her expectations, she was, by no means, defeated. She would find work, and she would find a home, and she would find a way to be happy again. All she had to do now was just rest and be grateful for air conditioning and the lack of blowing dust.
James Dunham didn't get to go home when everyone else had. He was still in Sweetwater, at the La Quinta Inn, floating in the pool, and feeling sorry for himself.
Tomorrow, he had to go talk to his mama's lawyer. The will had to go into probate, and he had to get a change of address for her mail to be sent to him in Houston so he would be able to pay the utility bills and every other fucking deal that came with being a long-distance heir.
But the longer he floated, the worse he felt. Bottom line—he didn't deserve the inheritance, and selling the ranch was just selling out his daddy's dream that he would be the fourth generation Dunham to run it.
James knew his limitations. He wasn't a rancher. He was an accountant who lived about as far away from Sweetwater as a man could live and still be in Texas. He was mad at himself for being an ass all these years, and mad at the first Dunham to own that the land, who had decided it would be just fine with other generations of his family to give everything to the oldest son. Thus, he'd set up a trust that held his future heirs’ feet to the fire in the process.
James had some thinking to do, and maybe the lawyer could help him fix this mess. Joel and Mamie had already refused a share. Darlene had called it "blood money" and walked out on all of them. And Gracie was in the wind. The only person who likely knew where she'd gone would be his ex-wife, and the thought of having to deal with her in any way made him anxious.
But,