“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Same difference.” Caleb held out the phone. “Talk to her. She has some ideas.”

Danielle Marin was Caleb’s lawyer. Following the debacle of their late father’s will, she’d drafted the papers that switched ownership of the Terrell ranch from Caleb to Reed. Then she’d worked out the financial transaction where Caleb bought half of it back.

Reed wasn’t exactly grateful to her for helping to put him in his current financial position, but he had to admit, the woman seemed to know what she was doing.

He took the phone. “Hello?”

As usual, Danielle’s tone was crisp, no-nonsense. “Hi, Reed. I was wondering if you’d had a chance to look over the package I emailed to you yesterday?” Then her voice became muffled as she obviously spoke to someone at her end of the line in Chicago.

“Not yet,” he answered. He only opened his email about once a week. He didn’t have a lot of technically inclined friends. Most of the people he knew still called on a landline or simply stopped by the ranch when they had something to say.

She sighed into the receiver. “You’re losing both income and investment potential every day you wait.”

“You’ve pointed that out.”

“Can you give me some general parameters? Do you want to keep your investments in the country? Go international? Blue chips? Emerging markets?”

“I was thinking about buying a sports car,” he drawled, impatient with having to worry about the damn money. There were real problems requiring real solutions right here on the ranch.

Her voice instantly perked up. “So, you’re saying I should keep some ready cash for luxury purchases?”

“I was joking, Danielle. We don’t have paved roads in Lyndon Valley.”

“You could always drive it on the highway. What appeals to you? Lamborghini? Ferrari?”