“That doesn’t mean you know what’s what. You couldn’t even milk old Alice without my help.”
“I don’t think that’s indicative of my business acumen.”
He snorted a laugh. “Acumen, huh? So tell me, how do you think you’re gonna run an entire dairy farm?”
“I’m not. We are.”
This time, the noise he made wasn’t a laugh at all. “So I’ll do everything while you what, come in here and talk to Alice like she’s your diary?”
“There’s plenty to be done, things that have been neglected and ignored for years. I’m here to turn the business around. You can keep doing whatever it is you do.”
“Whatever it is I do?” he shot. “By that statement alone, your argument’s invalid. You’re in over your head, farmgirl.”
“Farmgirl, huh?”
“City girl, showing up in her city getup, pretending she’s a farmgirl. One tumble into the pigsty, and you’ll be running for Saks where I bet you bought those stupid boots.”
“Your boots are stupid,” I shot back. “My boots are pretty and pink and they make me happy, which is more than I can say for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a cow to milk.”
“What for? You can’t drink it.”
I stopped, turning my fury on him like a siren. “What the hell do you care? If you came in here just to bully me, you’re even worse than I realized.”
“I was here first.”
“Technically, I was here first,” I volleyed. “This farm was born of my blood, so don’t go on trying to convince me that I don’t matter. I matter, Jake. And I own half this farm, same as you.”
“Tell me how to get you to turn it over,” he said sternly, echoing his demand from earlier, a demand I didn’t suspect he’d relinquish. “You can run your financial half, if you feel you have to. But it’ll be easier for everyone if you do it from New York.”
“Easier for everyone or easier for you?”
His jaw clenched.
“You know, the worst part of all this is that you won’t even give me a chance. You won’t even let me try.”
Jake pushed off the post and spoke too quietly to be as intense as he was. “All right then, big shot—I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. If you can turn things around in one season, I’ll give you one percent of my share, and the whole thing can be yours. And if you don’t, you give me one percent and go home.”
“I am home.”
The look on his face said bullshit, but rather than speak, he extended his hand for a shake.
And I took that big, dumb hammer of a hand and squeezed it as hard as I could when I gave it a pump.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised again.
His eyes were dark, brows drawn, his lips touched with a ghost of a smile. “We’ll see about that,” he said.
Before I could sling my bucket at him, he turned to go.
By God, if I wasn’t happy to see the back of him. And for more than one reason.
“It’s you and me against the world, Alice.”
And with a moo of agreement and a nudge for me to finish the job, I was left hoping I’d come out on top.
5
Survival Instinct
JAKE
I couldn’t get my tie straight.
With a huff and a tug and a slip of silk, it was undone again, and so I made to try once more.
I could count on one hand the times I’d worn a tie, and every single time, I’d had Frank to help me fix it when it was crooked or the tail was too long. But today, on the day of his funeral, it was only me and the mirror.
My face was fresh-shaven, my hair combed neatly, fingernails scrubbed clean. The tailored shirt I’d pulled out of the depths of my closet was nearly too small, the fabric taut around my chest and biceps, but nobody’d see it anyway. Kit had let out my coat to fit, at least. It’d do.
If I had my way, I’d burn the whole outfit the second this day was over.
A hard swallow did little to open my throat, and the urge to bolt overcame me. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I didn’t want to pretend like it was all going to be okay, and I didn’t want to comfort the people of the town, the friends and loved ones who would be here today.
All I wanted was to sit in the kitchen with the people who loved him best and remember him. For a moment, I daydreamed about that impossible scene where Kit baked and I sat at the island, picking at the results. Olivia would be there too, and I found I didn’t hate the idea. Because if there was one person in the world who knew and loved Frank as well as me, it was her.
I imagined her crying and knew I wouldn’t know what to do. Her emotions were big and loud and subject to change without notice. Mine were quiet and simmering and stewed until they boiled over. I didn’t know how to deal with her big loudness any better than she seemed to know how to deal with me. She wanted to talk. I wanted to listen. And in that, I figured we’d do well enough. So long as she didn’t expect me to talk back.
That pain I’d carried around since Frank died was deep and dull and constant. It was a feeling I knew well, one that I’d had since I was sixteen and motherless, trucking across the country, working odd jobs on farms. I kept quiet and kept my head down. Used my size and strength to keep a roof over my head and my belly full. And when I’d knocked on the old farmhouse door, I’d found a home when I thought I’d never know family again.
Homeless and alone at sixteen, that summer marked the beginning of a new life. Frank brought me into the family in ways I’d never expected or imagined. All I’d wanted was maybe a cot in the barn and a few weeks’ work, but he gave me a home. He gave me hope when I’d convinced myself no such thing existed.
So I did whatever he’d asked, without question. I kept my head down, as I was like to do. But I watched Olivia. We’d both lost our families, both been saved by Frank. Given a home, shown kindness and love. And I spent so long marveling at her unsinkable optimism when there wasn’t an ounce of optimism in me. There was rarely a moment when she wasn’t smiling, never a time when she didn’t find joy where I could find none.
When she found me up in the hayloft that night long ago, staring out the open gable window at the moon, we talked about the losses we shared. Well, she talked. I listened, my heart aching with understanding I couldn’t find the words to express. She’d been younger than I was when my mother died, but when she spoke of her parents’ death, I found myself jealous that she hadn’t seen them go—she was at school when the accident happened, their coffins closed. For years, she said, she expected them to just walk in the door, told herself they were just away and would be back at any time.
And I told her how I’d held my mother’s hand and watched her take her last breath, leaving me alone in the world.
Maybe it was the recognition on her face. Maybe it was the honesty of the tears in her eyes. Maybe I’d never met anyone who understood me until her.
But I kissed her. And that kiss made me wish I’d kissed her the second I met her instead of the night before she left.