Staring at the trailing three dots on my phone screen—an indication of Cletus’s imminent response—I willed him to type faster. Finally, his message came through,
Cletus: Keep him outside on the front porch. DO NOT open the door. Someone will be there in less than three minutes. I’m ten away.
“Jennifer, Ms. Donner, be reasonable. Open the door so we can talk.”
Still holding my phone, I stepped right up to the door. “Mr. Miller, it’s Jennifer. I—we—you know, my momma has been real sick, and I don’t think she can see visitors today. Maybe next week?”
“Jennifer, I can barely hear you. Open the door so we can talk face-to-face.”
“I—I can’t—”
“Now, don’t turn me away until you see my offer.”
“Farmer Miller. Please understand—” I glanced at my phone screen, less than a minute had passed “—I just had my wedding shower this afternoon, did you know that? I think your niece was there, such a lovely—"
“Jenn, I always liked you. You’re a nice girl. And I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I need those cows back, and I need my land, and so—I suppose—this offer is for both of you. Both. Of. You. And I don’t think it’s something you’d appreciate if’n I made the offer out loud. I know it’s something you’re going to want to see.”
Oh goodness. Well.
I glanced at the phone again. Two minutes left.
“Be smart. Open the door. Let me show you what I mean.” He lowered his voice from a shout, deepened it to a threatening baritone.
Gulping in air, I placed my hand on the doorknob. “Mr. Miller, I will open the door. But you have to give me a solemn oath that you will stay on the front porch.”
“If you want me to stay on the front porch—out in the open—after seeing my offer, then I will do so. But if you invite me in to discuss terms, then I will. Now open the door because I am ten seconds away from making my offer out loud.”
Cletus had told me not to open the door, but I didn’t have a choice, I didn’t have ten seconds.
Miller had to know the house was being watched—of course he knows, everybody knows! It’s not like the FBI van is making an effort to be clandestine seeing as how they wave at me every time I drive past—which meant he’d deduced they were also listening. I placed my hand on the lock, ready to flip it.
Working to hide my fear, I slowly unlocked the door, counted to three, and slowly opened it just wide enough to slip outside and close it behind me. Miller had to back up as I did so, but he still stood close, hovering, maybe giving me just two feet of room.
Other than the hovering, the first thing I noticed was the crazy quality in his eyes. “Glad to see you’re open to being reasonable. That’s good,” he said.
I set sweaty hands on my hips and poked out my chin, working real hard to keep my voice firm. “Now, sir. If you would—”
The words died on my lips. Instead of a check or a contract or whatever I thought maybe he wanted me to see, he held up a white piece of paper with words written in black marker that read, “I know what you did, both of you. I know what you’re covering up. And if you don’t want the police to find out your secrets, you’ll do as I say. Right now.”
I read the note three or four times, my heart slowing to a sluggish pace by the time I lifted my attention to his scornful features. My ears rang. My throat felt full and dry. Anger, thick and hot, pumped through my veins.
I was tempted—so very tempted—to call his bluff out loud, to read the paper he showed me and ask him what the hell it was about. I had nothing to hide. He didn’t know poo about me. And if he thought I’d give him his farm back now, well, he was mistaken. That field? Mine. That pond? Mine. That prairie and mountain view? Mine and mine.
“I am not interested in this offer,” I said deliberately, much calmer than I’d expected the words to arrive.
The sneer fell from his face, and he blinked, visibly shocked.
“And frankly, I’m insulted,” I continued, not needing to dig very deep for fury. “How. Dare. You.”
Farmer Miller—nay, Mr. Miller!—stumbled back a step, his blinking now on overdrive.
But I was not yet finished. “You conspired to cheat my mother out of a good deal of money last year, but she paid full price for those cows. You’ve been more than fairly compensated for them. You may have signed over your land while under false assumptions, believing the string of lies my father told you, but you are an adult. You are responsible for your bad business decisions, no one else.”
He gulped, staring at me, and stumbled on the porch step, needing to grip the banister to keep from falling. He was still a foot taller than me; but clearly, he was the smaller person in every way that mattered.
“I can’t believe I ever looked up to you. I can’t believe I made excuses for you, to my mother, to Cletus. I stood up for you last year. Even after what my father put me through and all your scheming with him, I asked my mother to consider selling you back those cows over the summer. Did you know that? And when I found out my father had left me your farm, I was planning to sign it back over because I believed it was the right and good thing to do. But not anymore.”
Mr. Miller lowered his gaze to the porch, but his features were still within my view. He also lowered his hand holding the paper. The man swallowed thickly, his brain obviously working, a hint of remorse taming some of the crazy in his eyes.
“I thought the best of you. And what did you do? You betrayed me. You betrayed everyone who ever thought of you as a good and decent person. You betrayed yourself. Shame, Mr. Miller. Shame on you.”
As I finished, the sound of car tires on gravel pulled my attention to the driveway just as Shelly’s brown car barreled into view. She and Beau jumped out of the car, not even cutting the engine, and ran over to the porch.
Mr. Miller didn’t look up as they ran past him, Beau stepping in front of me while Shelly flanked my side and rushed to ask, “Are you okay?”
I nodded, but said nothing, so darn angry I couldn’t see straight.
“Mr. Miller.” Beau leaned a hand against the porch rail, forcing Miller down the three remaining steps until he stood at ground level with the three of us above. “It’s time to go,” the redhead said, sounding sterner than I’d ever heard him.
Miller glanced between us—first Beau, then Shelly, then me—and heaved a weary sigh. “Fine. I’m going. I’ll leave. But, Jennifer, I can’t let this go. I am real sorry, but I won’t. Those Guernseys, that land, they’re my life.” His tone held more desperation than threat, an appeal for understanding. He seemed close to tears, his words roughened with emotion. “You have to understand, it’s nothing personal, but I’ll do what I have to do to get back what’s mine. Tell your momma, time is running out. She has a week, no more. I’m sorry.”
With that, he turned, shoulders slumped, and walked back to his car.
Chapter Eighteen
*Jenn*
“The more one judges, the less one loves.”
Honoré de Balzac, Physiologie Du Mariage