After the Win Pt. 02

"That is why she needs the schooling and experience quickly as this whole thing is coming to a head. And she knows you so graciously volunteered to personally do or supervise the instruction and is very appreciative." Mike said smiling at Steve innocently.

"Okay, just where in blazes is all this ranch training going to take place. My 640 acres does have a bit or room but not enough for the roundup lessons and everything else that you mentioned."

"Out on your ranch to start with."

"Huh? What ranch? What the Hell are you talking about 'your ranch'. I don't have a ranch and have no plans for having one."

"You always told me you wished you could have been a farmer and rancher and now you are one as you have a ranch and it abuts this property and this house is now the headquarters for it, which is one of the reasons it is so nice and laid out like it is. The rest is the roughly 34,000 acres surrounding it and Christies little place that she will inherit. It is only about 20,000 acres but between the two of them and this place you have about 85 square miles of this Texas ranch land to call your own, and I can guarantee that makes for plenty of room for kids and grandkids to kill thousands and thousands of bad guys, plus raise a few cattle and rumor has it there has been a find of deep dish natural gas around here lately and that will be a natural money maker. I may have to go back to school or raise my ridiculously low rates to cover getting an accounting attorney or a CPA to be able to handle the influx of problems with assorted petrochemical company accounting practices and problems and we all get rich and rest on our laurels.

"Okay, Steve. I took the liberty of putting some clothes and personal items in the master suite for you as this is now your home, so start getting comfortable here. We will get most of the stuff you want from your old house tomorrow. This place came furnished just as you see it, and it is just about perfect, at least it is to me, but Christie may have some ideas of her own though." Mike said while laughing his ass off at my expression.

"By the way, this extra land was an addition to the headquarters house and grounds you just bought, but it goes with it and has already been paid for so don't fret or worry about it. Just enjoy being a rancher now. We would love to see this ranch grow to well over 100 square miles, 64,000 acres. By the way, that's not even close to being one of the largest, not even in this state. Heck, the Waggoner Ranch up in North Texas is for sale right now and it is about 510,000 acres with over 1000 oil wells and they are asking $725 million for it, so 64 or so thousand acres is just little more than a hobby ranch in some circles.

"It is your place but I went ahead and found a cook and housekeeper for you. You can interview them later when she fixes your breakfast. Her husband will be your gardener and handyman. They can live in the back gate house. Tomorrow sometime we need to get together to take care of some paperwork and move some money around like from your account to mine. Just kidding, Bro, just kidding. I deduct it electronically. He was laughing loudly as he was leaving. I sure needed to think of something to pay him back for all this. Maybe put Novocain in his KY Jelly or something. That would teach him.

Just before Mike left, he looked at Stephen and said, "Christie will be flying in tomorrow afternoon and should be landing at the General Aviation Terminal around 430 and that she is bringing quite a bit of clothing with her as she is planning on staying for a while. I have made reservations for all of us at Angelo's for 8:00 tomorrow night, so there will not be much time for you and Christie to get reacquainted before supper. A lifetime afterwards. Impress her right from the first, Sport. Dress nice and pick her up in your Escalade."

Escalade??? I don't have an Escalade. I drive a pickup. Guess he was thinking of himself or his dad...no, they drive BMW's so he must have been thinking about another friend.