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“Good, I guess. How’d you do in here?”
Her face lit up like New Year’s Eve. “Oh, Jake—we kept running out of milk and ice cream, and we had to put away the cheese plate because as soon as we put food out, it was gone. We nearly sold out of Presley’s goodies.”
“I put out everything I had in the car. I thought I was just being optimistic.” She smiled over at Olivia. “I don’t think a single person skipped the store after the tour.”
“They saw your spread in the window and couldn’t resist,” Olivia said. “I’m going to have to put in a new merchandise order—a rush order, if tomorrow goes like this. And I think I’m going to need a couple more fridges so we don’t run poor Mack to death.”
“He’s got an ATV at his disposal. I think he’ll live,” I teased. “Any idea what our profit was today?”
“I’ve been dying to look,” she said with a grin, turning to the tablet she’d set up as a register to click through a couple of screens.
But then she stopped. Her smile fell. Her eyes went wide.
My heart lurched in fear.
Slowly, her face turned to mine. “I rang up almost seven thousand dollars today.”
Presley’s jaw hung open as she stared over Olivia’s shoulder. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she breathed.
“No bad words, Mama.” Priscilla held out her hand, but Presley was too stunned to even acknowledge her.
“I … you what?” I asked stupidly. There was no way.
“Look.” She swiveled the screen around, and I stepped up to look.
And there it was. Two hundred seven transactions, a few which spent several hundred dollars.
“How …” I breathed, running the math.
“We booked a hundred and sixty heads for tours, and a bunch of people from town came just to show their support. Almost everybody left with something from the fridge at least, but plenty of them bought other things. I’ve been teasing products all week on social, and people were asking for specifics.”
“We even sold the hammock, and that thing was a hundred and fifty bucks,” Presley added.
“And what’s your markup?” I asked.
“Fifty percent,” Olivia answered quietly. “Two hundred for our dairy. And this doesn’t include the ten dollars per head for the tours.”
I scrubbed a hand over my mouth. “Another sixteen hundred for tours? In one day?”
Smiling, Olivia nodded.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.
“Do you have any idea what this means?” Olivia asked. “Even if we don’t do this much every weekend, we’re going to make well over ten thousand a week between the shop and tours. And when we start doing festivals? All the vendors will have to pay a table fee, and we’re going to call crowds from a tri-county area.”
I frowned. “Festivals?”
“Like Fourth of July. I’ve been calling around looking for carnival rides and food trucks, and I think I’ve found a fireworks guy who can—”
My blood pressure spiked. “We’re not doing carnival rides and fireworks on the farm.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“Because it’ll scare the animals for one, but mostly because we can’t afford it.”
“But if we keep earning money, can’t we—”
“Do you have any idea how much this farm costs to run? Twelve hundred cows cost six thousand per day to feed. You add that to the debts we already had, and you’re scratching the surface with what you’ve made here.”
“But that’s what I’m saying—if we’ve earned this much in one day with the store, what could we do if we opened the farm up even more?”
My neck was hot with indignation, a prickle of sweat licking my hairline. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. And she couldn’t let anything breathe. She just couldn’t leave well enough alone. She couldn’t focus on one thing at a time, preferring to pile a new project, a new goal, a new change on top of everything else she’d turned inside out.
“It’s never going to be enough for you, is it?” My words were hard, sharp. “Not dusting off Janet’s shop. Not erasing the old logo in favor of your stupid goddamn rain boots—”
“Monies—”
Presley clapped her hand over Priscilla’s mouth.
“Not the fucking goats and not even a damn good first day. You haven’t even locked the door and you’re already talking about more. More, more, more.”
Olivia’s face pinched and flushed. “You are the most miserable, ornery asshole I’ve ever known. I’m making us money. I’m thinking outside the box. What I’m not is an enemy.”
“Haven’t you invaded? Aren’t we at war? All you’ve done since you stepped foot on this property is blow things up.”
“And all you’ve done is fight back when we could be working together.”
A dry laugh shot out of me. “That’s what the Romans promised before they enslaved every country they overtook. So yeah, I’ll fight to the bitter end. Who else is going to defend the farm? Because you won’t. You have no honor, no respect for this place, for what it stands for.”
