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can relax around you and not have to worry about keeping any secrets or saying the wrong thing.  You may be able to understand why I do some of the dumb things I'll no doubt do over the next year while I'm doing a lot of learning."
    His comment certainly had her wondering and he did have a point, to a degree.  She looked up at him and said, "I guess if we're going to be working together it would be easier if we knew a little more about each other."
    " It would.  Let me start and maybe it'll be easier for you then."  He led her over to the couch at the other end of his office.  Once they were seated, he began. "I grew up here, in this very house, with Carol and Mom and Dad and Consuela.  She's been our cook and housekeeper forever, but she's more than that.  She's part of the family.  Anyway, I always planned on taking over the ranch some day.  It's all I've ever wanted to do.  I just didn't plan on taking it over this soon."
    " What happened?"
    " My dad ran it.  I've worked on the ranch since I was about five, but after I graduated from college Dad started concentrating more on training me on the administrative aspect of it.  Mom always did the books for the ranch and he and Dad had just decided I was ready to learn that aspect of it when they were killed in a plane crash.  That was eleven months ago."
    He paused and Sam could see how difficult this was for him.  She said, "Trevor, I'm so sorry.  That had to have been awful, to lose both parents at the same time."
    He looked at her a moment, as if gathering strength, before saying, "Thank you.  It was hard.  It was so unexpected.  Carol and I weren't at all ready for it.  I guess we assumed things would be the same as they'd always been for a long time yet.  Anyway, I inherited the ranch and she got the house in Connecticut.  She stayed here," he paused as if thinking, "for several reasons.  This was home for both of us and we needed each other.  But then she went out to check on the house and ran into a guy she'd known in college.  Long story short, they're married now and she moved there."
    " And you're out a bookkeeper."
    He smiled as he said, "I'm out a bill payer.  Like I said, Dad was just ready to teach me about keeping the books and how to read these statements.  He hadn't started yet and unfortunately, Carol didn't have any training in anything like that, either.  She knew more about computers than I did and our accountant showed her how to pay the bills, but that's about all either of us has done."
    " So you didn't know if you were making money or losing money?"
    It was his turn to blush now as he said, "Not for sure.  I knew the ranch always ran in the black and I've been doing everything the same way we always have before.  Carol always said there was still money in the bank after we paid our bills every month.  I talked to our accountant that does our taxes and he assured me he'd come out and look at everything in a month or two to make sure we have everything we'll need to do our taxes.  He and the attorney that handled the estates took care of last year's taxes."
    " Wow."
    Trevor sighed as he said, "Yeah.  I wanted to tell you that so you'd know why I know so little about the ranch I run.  You don't know how glad I am to find out I can afford to hire you because I know my ranch right now is a bookkeeping nightmare.  I appreciate your patience in teaching me how to make some sense of these things you printed off for me.  If you have enough patience I'm hoping to get a better handle on this end of running the ranch this year.  Since Dad died I've been busy enough trying to step into his shoes and earning the respect of the hands so we can keep this place going."
    " That's really important.  I'm glad you did that.  I'm sure they respected you as you were working with them and knew you could do the ranch work, but proving to them you can run the ranch is altogether different.  They had to see that for themselves before you