“Grandma would disagree.” I gestured to the house. “Before she died, we had both.”
“How are we gonna make money if we have to hire a bunch of people to run tours and work at the shop?”
“I was thinking we could see if anyone here wants to help out with it. Who better to tour than our people? And we could limit it to the weekends, keep it simple at first.”
“You’re going to put us in the ground, Olivia.”
Something about the way he’d said my name sounded like a curse.
“We’re not maximizing our earning potential. We could do a pumpkin patch. Festivals. The Fourth of July is coming up, and we could—”
“No.”
I blinked. “No?”
“No.”
I blinked some more. “No to what part?”
“All of it. We’re not whoring the farm out for money.”
I jerked back like I’d been slapped. “Excuse me?”
“You want to exploit this place, taint it with strangers just to earn a buck. I don’t know a better definition of the word.” He pointed at the barn. “I didn’t think much of you to start, but I thought more of you than this.”
Cheeks flushed and nose burning, I could barely tamp down my fury. “I don’t know who you think you are—”
“I think I’m the only person who knows how to run this place, and I think you are full of more shit than the manure yards.”
“Well, Jake,” I spat, “I think you’re a miserable asshole who’s so scared of change, you’d rather see the farm fail than admit defeat. And you’ll bully everyone around you until you get your way. But guess what? You don’t scare me, and I won’t be told what I can and can’t do around my farm.”
He kicked his head back and laughed so heartily, a bird flew out of a nearby tree. “Your farm. That’s rich. Call it whatever you want for the next three months. Because after that?” When he met my eyes, his smile went cold. “You’re gone.”
My muscles ached to launch myself at him and push him with every bit of strength I had. I clenched my fists at my sides, the ridges of the key cutting into my palm.
“We made a deal,” I said quietly, my voice trembling from restraint. “I can’t save the farm if you won’t let me. If you’re going to make this fair, you’re going to let me do whatever I want.”
He glared down at me, those stupid, angry muscles bouncing at his jaws. They were huge, bigger than a normal person’s, probably from excessive use.
“Every other farm whores their farms out because it’s good business. You won’t have to do anything—I’ll take full control and responsibility for it. Otherwise, I’m considering you in breach of our agreement, and the deal will be off the table.”
For a second, he just kept staring at me with his eyes hot coals in their sockets. It went on so long, I wondered if he’d answer at all.
“Terms,” he finally ground out. “You won’t ask me for any help—this little endeavor is yours to fail, and I won’t dirty my hands with it. Whatever you spend becomes your debt to the farm and will be repaid in full. And when you lose, you won’t argue when I say I told you so.”
“Fair enough.” I tried to explode his head with my eyeballs. It didn’t work.
Hot, hostile energy sizzled between us, our thoughts almost loud enough to hear, almost sharp enough to cut.
“It’s not going to work.”
“Not with that attitude,” I said with mock cheer before whirling away from him.
I didn’t check to see if he was watching, just unlocked the door with shaking hands and ringing ears before slipping inside.
The shop was quiet and still, the dust thicker and the smell mustier. But everything else was the same.
My pulse slowed as I wandered toward the back, occasionally pausing to brush the dust off things. And when I reached the shiplap wall, I turned around and surveyed my domain.
He was going to be so mad when I won, and I was going to be so smug when he lost.
And fueled by that fire, there was nothing left to do but get to work.
8
Hogwash
JAKE
A string of expletives blew through my brain like a rope in a tornado.
The second she closed the door to the shop, I turned on my heel and marched away. Three days without seeing hide nor hair of Olivia hadn’t been enough distance, if my fury was any proof. I’d thought I’d mostly gotten my anger put away, but one look, and poof—there went the lid on that particular box.
For a moment, I’d thought there was a chance we could work together. And then I caught her smiling at Chase like he was a goddamn angel, talking about our farm with a man intent on seeing it fail.
After that, nothing could convince me anything Olivia said was a good idea. Every little infraction piled onto the next. Her intrusion. Our shared responsibility, one I hadn’t ever planned on having in the first place, but one I couldn’t stomach sharing with her and her cockamamie ideas that resulted in her changing the sum of my world. The sight of her with Chase Fucking Patton and the knowledge he’d do anything to get ahold of our farm for his crooked daddy. Even use Olivia, and in any capacity he could.
Any capacity.
And now she was going to rifle around in Janet’s shop, knowing full well Frank wouldn’t step foot in that place. I could feel his discomfort from beyond the veil, and it made me feel sick. My stomach was a rusty bucket of rocks, clanking and grinding with every step I took.
I didn’t think anyone in the world had ever made me so goddamn mad as Olivia Brent.
“Well, what’s gotten into you?” Kit asked.
My gaze snapped to her, unaware of her presence in the barn. Her face was screwed up in a mixture of curiosity, surprise, and maybe a little judgment. In her hand was a bucket half the size of a trash can, full of kitchen waste, and she stood at one of the pig troughs in the barn with the slop poised to pour. I barely heard her over the squeal of a handful of hungry pigs.
“Her.” I jabbed a finger in the direction of the shop.
Kit gave me an accusing look. “You’re always grumpy, but this is a whole new level of hot under the collar. Only other times you’ve been this mad is over a Patton.”
“Yeah, well, screw them and her both.”
That earned me a full-blown look of reprimand. “Jakob Milovic, you watch your mouth. Olivia is just trying to help, and I for one don’t think opening the store is a bad idea.”
“Do you run the farm?” I shot.
Immediately, I regretted it.
The flush in Kit’s cheeks rose, her mouth pinching with the flex of her chin. The shine in her eyes gutted me—the rocks in my belly thunked to the ground.
“No, I don’t suppose I do. But neither do you.”
Ashamed, I sighed and raked a hand through my hair, affording me the opportunity to look at the ground where I couldn’t see what I’d done. So I could take a second to loosen the clamp on my throat.
In the dirt under my boots, I discovered a truth I hadn’t acknowledged.
This wasn’t about the store. It was barely even about Olivia.