Chapter 2

It was barely two months when I took Alexis to the ranch to meet my parents for the Thanksgiving holidays. I have no siblings because it would have been too dangerous for my mother to have had another pregnancy.

My parent's extensive ranch has been in the family since the 1880's. The ranch backs up to a National Forest so we have millions of acres to ride our horses in addition to the 450,000 acres the ranch encompassed. Successive generations have improved and expanded the ranch and its holdings though it had been difficult with successive generations with the federal government instituting inheritance taxes, and state and local taxes seemed to be going up ever year along with land values. The ranch was especially affected with the near proximity of some high-end ski resorts along with the rich and famous who built equally expensive vacation residences. Our ranch had pretty well locked in any future expansion by the ski resorts and exclusive residential sites and no development was allowed on Federal land.

My dad had become a veterinarian in part to offset the impact of ever increasing taxes and dramatically increasing land values. He specialized in large as well as small animals due to there were many well-heeled and famous clients in the area. Within a few years of starting out he had a very successful practice, with four vets working for him.

All I ever wanted to be was a vet, my vet education started very early going out with my dad when I was young and working in his clinic, educating me in medical school terms and not as a vet assistant.

Dad was planning to retire when I graduated and hand the clinic over to me at no charge – a practice that was worth a couple million dollars if he had sold it along with his client base. However Dad has a knack for information technology and for writing computer software code as a side hobby. He had written a program to manage all aspects of large and small veterinarian clinics and his software development had made him millions and continued to do even more so when it started to go international. Dad's software income had enabled him to set up a permanent untouchable trust meant to perpetuate the ranch for future family generations, the principal was untouchable and all interest was used for taxes and ranch improvements. Still a considerable amount of interest was not ever utilized and was rolled over into the principal for future contingencies, thereby creating a perpetual trust that would still flourish no matter how badly the stock market crashed or interest rates plummeted.

The Thanksgiving holidays were over too soon and were a whirlwind of activity culminated by taking Alexis on an overnight trip by horseback high up in the mountains to one of the small range cabins the family had preserved and maintained.

Later Alexis told me I had her hooked during our first date, during the second date to the rodeo and dance she was hooked and landed! But it was during the trip to the family ranch to meet my wonderful parents, hearing the wild stories of me growing up on the ranch and the mischief I always got into, then finally the overnight high mountain horse ride listening to me talk of my love of the mountains, the land, wildlife, the history of the area, the family ranch and mostly, of my parents, did she fully acknowledge to herself that for the first time in her life she loved another man besides her father and how frightfully searingly deep and intense that love was.

I knew Alexis's family had money as Alexis drove a new top of the line Range Rover and I had often seen her whip out an American Express Centurion credit card ("The Black Card") and a VISA Black credit card. This often resulted in arguments as I felt she was paying for things I should be picking up the tab for or contributing to. I wasn't a destitute college student, dad gave me a pretty generous living stipend and I drove a new fully loaded truck. I never won many arguments with her - she was definitely a high brow hard headed European! Despite the monetary arguments, we never really discussed our family's financial statuses. She well figured out my family's financial status when I took her home to meet my parents and saw Dad's practice, the extensive ranch, large ranch house, and a few thousand plus head of cattle and horses.

With her family, just once Alexis eluded that her family came from "old money" that successive generations were very successful in parlaying and we never discussed our family's wealth while we were dating. It still irked me, especially when we went on short weekend trips and extended weekend trips skiing, learned that she had already prepaid the lodging and skiing costs without telling me. It further irritated me when I complained and she told me the costs was inconsequential to her and to her family, it gave her great pleasure to do such "little" things for me and to stop arguing about it.