She sat up and turned to look at him. “What? No, you love this place!”
“But this isn’t just about me.”
“No, it’s not,” Logan agreed.
She glared at him across the table, but he just stared back at her calmly. “He’s been a selfish prick; I’m just agreeing with him. Trying to take this all on was a fucking selfish thing to do. And now he gets to go play hero and try to fix this mess.”
Max set her aside and stood. “You think I want to go?
She stood and glared at Logan then Max. “Both of you, stop. I can’t go through another shouting match where you end up storming off.”
“Sorry, love,” Max said, sitting.
Logan grunted but didn’t say anything more.
“I think we can all agree that Max should have told us what was going on sooner. That he doesn’t need to fix this problem alone, right?”
“Right,” Logan agreed.
Max didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
She turned to Logan. “But we’ve made mistakes too. Both of us realized the ranch wasn’t doing that well, but we never asked Max about how bad things were.” She turned to Max. “Logan and I are adults. We don’t need sheltering from the hard facts of life.”
“I’m not dumb,” Logan told him. “You can talk to me about finances and shit.”
Max’s eyes widened. “I don’t think you’re dumb. You’re a dickhead at times but you’re not dumb.”
Men. A compliment couldn’t come without an insult.
“Call Travis and tell him you’re not doing the job,” Logan ordered. “We’ll figure something out.”
Max shook his head. “I can’t. We need a big injection of cash. Fast. I’ve gone through every alternative. This is the quickest and simplest way.”
But he’d be gone. And she didn’t know for how long or how dangerous it would be.
“What if we sell some things?” Logan asked.
“There’s nothing to sell that would bring in enough cash to get us out of this hole. Plus, it could take weeks to sell things. This is one job. I’ll be gone a week, ten days at most, and it will bring enough cash in to get the bank manager off my back. Travis is expecting me tomorrow night. My plane ticket is booked. I can’t pull out now. He doesn’t have enough time to find someone else.”
Tomorrow night?
“What exactly does this job involve?” she asked. “Who is this Travis?”
“Travis Andrews owns Raptors, Inc.,” Max explained. “We’ve done some jobs for him the past. It helped us get the deposit for this place. Raptors, Inc. takes jobs overseas, mainly escorting people or cargo.”
That didn’t seem so bad. But, then, why would it pay so well?
“What Max isn’t saying is that the jobs usually involve going into some of the shittiest places on Earth. Places that don’t welcome Americans.”
She licked her dry lips. “So you’ll be going overseas? To someplace dangerous?”
Max looked over at Logan.
“No, don’t sugarcoat it for me. I’m not putting up with that any longer.”
“Excuse me?” Logan drawled.
Max leaned back in his chair as she climbed off his lap. “Watch your tone there, love. You’ll do well to remember who’s in charge here.”