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“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.
