My palm slapped the door as I pushed it open, laughing cruelly, hating myself more with every step I took.
Why? Why do you do it? Why’d you say it? Why’d you hurt her when you could have walked away, you son of a bitch? I asked myself as I stormed away.
But I knew the answer. She’d never get it out of me, and I’d never say it aloud, but I knew.
Olivia Brent held the power to take away everything that meant something to me. And I was too terrified of that possibility to do anything but fight her off.
Even if she might be right.
14
Pretty in Pink
OLIVIA
I popped open the can of pink paint with a screwdriver and smiled at its contents.
I hadn’t seen Jake since he’d stormed out of the store two days ago, which was a feat in itself. Kit had told me that rather than bring Bowie to me like he’d done every day for weeks, Jake rode around with him all day as he made his rounds. There was no way to know his motivation for avoiding me—he was either cooling off or plotting a coup. Maybe he couldn’t stand to look at me. Or maybe he knew if I saw him, I’d yell at him.
He’d be right.
There were no words to describe how he’d made me feel, not exactly. There was no single phrase for the wash of emotions that hit me when he shoved the shop door open and walked out to the tune of his laughter. The few silent tears I shed were laden with frustration and audacity and a deep, aching pain. My heart thudded with loneliness and rejection, my pulse racing with a hostile discord I couldn’t remember feeling before.
It was impossible not to care, not with the fate of the farm hanging between us. There was nowhere to go, no chance at getting away from each other, not when I could see his front porch from my kitchen. I was trapped here with a man who saw me as a threat, who hurt me in one of the deepest ways he could.
He’d said I had no honor and no respect for this place. Speaking those words was an unforgivable sin, a magnificent lie. All I could do was hope he didn’t mean it.
If he did, there was no chance this would work.
I’d had it with the bickering—it was time to settle things once and for all. His time to stew was nearly up, and as soon as his work day was done, I’d march my way over there and force him to hash it out with me. No running away, no insults. Just a real-life, grown-up conversation that wouldn’t end until we shook hands.
This morning, I’d awoken with a sense of possibility, all the good sitting in front of me like a basket of kittens. The shop and tours yesterday had gone off with barely a hitch. We’d made a fat stack of cash over the weekend, which I’d designated funds for Fourth of July, the expenses amended to strike fireworks and carnival rides from the list. I hadn’t even thought of the animals before Jake said something.
Just one more thing I needed him for.
If I could only get him to realize he needs me too.
You’d think I’d recognize a brick wall, but I was just as stubborn as he was. He’d see what I was showing him eventually.
All I had to do was not give up.
Humming along to the music playing from my earbuds, I stirred and poured and dipped my brush into the creamy pink paint to lay the first stroke on the old black door. It was a streak of joy on darkness, and with it came inevitable levity. Stroke by stroke, I blotted out the depthless black, and with it, I erased my worries. Everything would work out. It always did. Jake would come around—he just needed breathing room. Space to see all my ideas in action, like the store. Before he’d hulked out of the shop the other day, he’d been genuinely struck by the money I’d made. For a second, I’d gotten through to him, and if I could keep it up, I knew I’d win him over.
I stepped back and took stock of the door, which was going to take a few coats. Should have primed it, I thought. The paint only went up as high as I could reach—a patch of black capped off my work. I’d need a ladder to fix it.
But when I turned to head for the shed, I ended up face to face with Jake, skidding to a stop an inch before tumbling into him.
Briefly, I wondered if a person’s eyeballs could actually turn red if they got mad enough like in cartoons. If they built up so much pressure, they’d burst a blood vessel or ten just out of sheer rage.
Jake was the picture of magnificent fury, composed once again of squares. The hard line of his brows made the top, his jaw made the bottom, and somewhere in between, his flat lips opened and closed, making shapes that should have produced sounds.
I pulled out one earbud.
“… fucking pink? The store was fair game, but the big house? Frank rolled over in his grave the second you put that brush to wood. Jesus, Olivia. You have no fucking shame.”
Blinking at him, I fumbled to catch up, noting how strange it was to be the same height as a giant, me on the porch and him on the steps.
“Are you serious? Are you seriously picking a fight with me again?”
Square shoulders rose, square pectorals heaving as he drew a breath like a billow. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you stop for one fucking minute and think? You didn’t ask anybody if you could paint the door—”
“And who should I have asked to paint my door? The house isn’t yours—Pop left it to me, and I can paint the door whatever goddamn color I want.” I crossed my arms, forgetting the paintbrush was still in my hand until the wet paint soaked into my T-shirt. Refusing to acknowledge it so as not to disturb my very powerful facade, I said, “I don’t have to ask your permission. Not for this.”
“How about the goats? How about the farm’s expenses? How about posting all our business on the fucking internet? I just want to know why? Why do you think you have the right to slide back in here after ten years and rip this place apart?”
“Because this is my home. I’m trying to help.”
He leaned in, his face the color of menace. “You keep saying that, but all you’ve done is—”
“Try? Work? I can’t help if you insist on keeping everything the same, even this argument.” The pitch of my voice climbed. “You don’t want to save the farm—you want to push me away and pray everything works out. News flash, Jake—no one is going to save the farm except us. And that’s gonna take change.”
“You convinced me of change—I let you open the store, didn’t I?”
“You let me?” I scoffed over him.
“But you won’t stop. You can’t leave well enough alone. It’s like you’ve gotta scrawl your name on every surface you come across. Like you’ve gotta move everything you walk past until nothing looks right anymore.”
My head cocked, my brows close enough to nearly touch as it dawned on me. “Is that what this is about?”
“This is about money.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” he snapped.
“You … you don’t recognize it anymore, and you’re mad at me for … for erasing your home?”
He shook his head, his eyes flicking to the heavens in a plea for help. “You think everything’s that simple, don’t you? You don’t know me, Olivia. You don’t know anything about me. So you’d best not assume.”