June 1901

Austin hansworth was good at two things: making money and managing people. What he wasn‟t good at was getting Claire Lewisville to stop coming by the bank where he worked every day. It wasn‟t that Claire was outwardly rude, but she was persistent and vocal.

This particular day was no exception. He was sitting in his office when he heard her enter the bank.

"I want to speak to someone in charge here," she told one of the tellers.

Austin closed his light blue eyes and ran his hand through his short dark brown straight hair. He rubbed his neatly trimmed

beard and sighed. He was only thirty-five but when he heard her nagging voice, he felt like he was ninety. She could wear any man out.

"Mr. Hansworth, that woman is back," Jackson Moore said.

"So? Take care of it," he replied."I‟ve done everything I can but she won‟t go away."

Austin shook his head. How did jackson ever expect to take over as president when his father retired if he couldn‟t handle one

woman? "I‟m the vice president, Jackson. I‟ll be working under you soon enough. You need to learn to handle these kinds of

customers.""That‟s easy for you to say. You handle people better than I do."

"Now is the perfect opportunity for you to work on that."

He heard her constant demands for a resolution to her family‟s debt every day for the past two weeks. She came in around noon every single day and said the same thing. He had unsuccessfully tried to resolve her dispute, but she wouldn‟t listen to any of the logic he presented to her.

"I don‟t want to talk to her," Jackson whined.

"I talked to her on Tuesday ," Austin said. "Now it‟s your turn."

"I talked to her yesterday. And Mr. Edwards talked to her last Friday."

"So we‟re all taking turns?" He sighed. "Then it‟s Edwards‟ turn again. We‟ll just go in circles because there‟s

nothing else to do. We can‟t solve her problem."

Jace Edwards was in charge of the mortgages. He really was the ideal person for her to talk to, though it wouldn‟t do her

any good.

"Miss, you can‟t just walk back there," the teller exclaimed.

"I will not be treated so rudely," she snapped. "I know my rights as a customer."

Austin cringed as she walked past the teller and into his office. He made a mental note to buy a lock for his door.

Claire was actually easy on the eyes, despite the fact that she wore her blond curly hair in a bun. Her face was nice to look at.

Her hourglass figure and ample bosom were even better. Her green eyes and fair complexion would grab the attention of anyman, but her aggressive behavior turned men off, which was why she was still single at thirty-one. No man wanted a nag for a

wife. They also didn‟t want the debt she came with. Every man knew that her parents were in desperate financial straits and if they

married her, they would have to take that debt on themselves. Considering the size of the debt, austin understood why men

shuddered to even consider a courtship with her. Had she been blessed to remove either her debt or nagging, she might have

succeeded in marrying someone. However, she had two strikes against her, and those were two strikes too many.

"I demand to have a conversation with you since you‟re the vice president," she ordered.

Austin sighed. The teller had no experience to withstand her stormy emotions.

Jackson and the teller quickly left the office.

Great. Now I‟m stuck with her. "I have nothing new to say to you," Austin finally told her. "You don‟t have a case."

She sat in the chair in front of his desk and folded her arms. "I won‟t go away until the issue is resolved."

"It is resolved." Why am I wasting my time? The woman simply refused to listen to reason.

"Not to my satisfaction."

Suddenly, an idea came to him. "I‟ll be right back."

"I‟ll stay here all day if I have to. I won‟t leave just

because you run and hide," she warned as he stood up.

He stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "I said I would

be right back." He made sure to emphasize the words "right

back." He grumbled as he left the office and went to the backroom where he could grab her family‟s folder. He shut the file cabinet in irritation and stomped back to his office.

Her eyes grew wide.

She didn‟t expect me to actually return. He placed the folder on his desk and opened it. "Have you seen these contracts?"She shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Her hard

expression disappeared. "Yes," she softly replied.

He looked at her in disbelief. How could a woman change her mood so quickly? Her gentle expression drained him of his

anger. He sighed. He didn‟t like what he would have to say next but knew there was no alternative.

"Your father signed the contracts, and he is legally bound to uphold them. If he fails to pay his debts, then he will lose the

house and the farm. He is already five months late in his payments. We sent a letter notifying him that foreclosure is

imminent. I‟m sorry but there is nothing we can do unless he gets current on his back payments."

"But the late fees associated with those back payments will make it impossible to get current."

"We can waive those late fees if we receive an additional month‟s payment in advance."

"Mr. Hansworth , there are circumstances that have greatly affected my family. We lost most of our crops in the fields last

summer during the hail storm, and the tornado killed a great number of the cattle in the fields." "I sympathize with you. There are two other farmers who are facing the same situation you are. If we made provisions for you, we‟d have to do it for everyone who suffered hardships, and

then we‟d lose so much money, we‟d have to go out of business. I know banking can be a cold business but we do need to make a

profit in order to stay open."

Her mouth tightened. "Surely, three farms aren‟t going to hurt your business so badly. We can work out a deal. Perhaps, we

could offer our crops or cattle."

"I already arranged that with the other two farmers. Their debts are considerably smaller than your father‟s debt. Even if

you were to offer food and cattle for ten years, it wouldn‟t be enough to pay what you owe.""There should be something you can do," she protested, quickly getting upset again.

He frowned. What right did she have to be upset with him? "I wasn‟t the one who made the poor financial decisions your father did. He borrowed so much against his house and land

that he buried himself in a hole he can‟t get out of."

"That was to cover the expenses for my youngest

brother‟s heart surgery. He would have died if we didn‟t do it. Really, you are heartless. I would think that even if you had an ounce of humanity in you, you would forgive part of the debt."

"The surgery wasn‟t the only thing that got your family in

trouble. Your grandfather had a substantial gambling problem."

"So my father is to pay for his father‟s sins?"

"Yes, since he insists on living on the property your grandfather borrowed against."

She banged her fists on the sides of the chair and glared at him.

He wasn‟t going to be intimidated by her. "Like I said, I am sorry but if we bailed your father out, we would lose too much money. This isn‟t personal." He struggled to remain calm but her continual insistence to bother him was getting on his nerves.

"I will come by every day until we can work something out."

"Then I will put your own chair in the lobby so you can be comfortable out there. But I will not be talking to you again. As far as I‟m concerned, the matter is closed. The best thing for your family to do is to move off the farm and purchase a reasonable residence in town. At least then, their debts will be eliminated and they can go about their lives."

She gasped. "That farm has been in our family for three generations. It is to go to my brother and his wife."

"He‟ll have to do something else. It‟s not that big of a deal. What use is it to hold onto something that isn‟t working?"

"You don‟t understand sentimental value.

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