“And those demands are?” he prompted when I gave no detail.
I settled more fully on him and shared, “Well, usually it’s when they don’t read the terms and conditions and think there are towels, toilet paper, daily maid service, laundry onsite, crap like that. And that only happens when they first get here and find out that stuff isn’t provided.” My eyes wandered to the pillow and I went on, “Though, next up for Glacier Lily, gonna build an outbuilding and have a coin-op washer and dryer so I don’t have to deal with that part. When that’s done, I’ll build my gazebo.”
“Gazebo?’ he asked and I looked back at him.
“Last big dream for Glacier Lily. A big gazebo by the river with chairs in it for folks to sit, relax, drink in the view.”
“Can you afford that?”
“I’m gonna refinance the property,” I answered. “Roll the second mortgage in with money to pay back my dad and—”
I said no more because I found myself suddenly and surprisingly on my back with Deacon looming over me.
“You haven’t paid back your dad?”
I felt my brows drawing together, remembering I’d told him about that but confused as to why he had a dark look on his face all of a sudden. “No. He won’t accept installments and—”
“And you got a loan from the bank?”
“Well, yeah, Deacon,” I replied. “All the work I did on the cabins cost some cake.”
“And you got a loan from the bank to pay for it.”
I stared at him and repeated slowly, “Well…yeah.”
“Woman, don’t do that again.”
This was quick and firm too, it was also surprising.
“Why?”
“Banks suck.”
“Perhaps,” I allowed. “But they’re a necessary evil. And anyway, I didn’t promise them my firstborn child,” I pointed out.
Again, Deacon wasn’t in the mood for teasing or banter.
“Cassidy, listen to me, the economy was in the toilet for years. So bad, every time I came here, did it uneasy, hopin’ you were still in business, ridin’ a wave the rest of the country was not and keepin’ your head above water.”
God.
Deacon.
I wondered if it would ever stop coming to me, his moments of sweet and how deep they ran.
I wondered, but hoped it didn’t.
“Straight up miracle you did,” he kept at me. “You didn’t, you get in too deep with the bank and your shit gets messy, they can take it all and you walk away with nothing.”
“That won’t happen.”
“You don’t think it will until it does,” he stated and his words made me still underneath him. “You worked too fuckin’ hard on this place not to enjoy the goodness you created. Do not put that in jeopardy.”
“Did that happen to you?” I asked cautiously.
“What?” he asked back.
“Did you lose something to the bank?”