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Her body trembled, as did her voice when she whispered, “How dare you.”
“Oh, don’t play the victim,” I shot. “I am so sick and tired of you acting like I’m the crazy one when I’m the only one trying to keep this place running. All you’ve done is run up a bill when we’re already crippled from our debts. We’re not adding another harebrained idea that’s gonna double what you’ve already spent. I’m putting my foot down.”
She razed me to the ground with a glare. “How about you put the other foot down in front of the first and repeat until you’re out of my store.”
I snorted but turned for the door, vibrating with fury. “Keep on spending, and I’ll see you on the next flight out of here.”
“Nothing you do will scare me off—nothing.”
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.
