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God, has he even blinked? I wondered as I climbed the porch stairs.
“Hey,” was all I could think to say.
“Hey.” His voice was gravelly and raw as he looked down at me.
I hadn’t known just how much I missed him until he was right here, tearing me to shreds.
“I … I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said, breaking my heart just a little more.
With a small smile, I said, “You live here too. It’s just … well, I thought you might want to talk.”
He didn’t answer right away. His brows ticked a little closer together, a war behind his eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Me neither.”
A long beat.
“I think …” he started, trailing off. “I wondered if I could handle seeing you.”
My heart jerked. “Can you?”
“No.”
I pursed my lips, biting down to stop myself from crying. “Because you hate me.”
“Because it hurts too bad.” He paused. “I told you once, I could never hate you.”
“I didn’t think that was still true.”
“It is. That’s why it hurts.”
I tamped down my emotions like sails in a storm, the edges flying away before I could secure them. But I didn’t cry.
“I think you should take the deciding share,” I said with more strength than I felt. “Just take control of the farm. You’re the only one who really knows what to do with it.”
Again he looked down, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I don’t want anything else.”
“You say that, but—”
“I don’t want anything else, Livi.”
My shoulders sagged. He wouldn’t even let me give him what he was owed. “If you change your mind—”
“I won’t.”
A chuff of laughter through my nose. “No, you wouldn’t. Once you make your mind up about something, there’s no going back.”
The faint smile on my lips faded at a shift of context. He only looked torn.
The moment broke with a stiffening of his back. “I’d better get back to work.”
“All right,” I answered, watching him move for the stairs.
Stop him. Say something. This is your last chance.
“Jake,” I called after him a little too loud.
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, and I was devastated by his beauty, by that deep and constant river of pain that rolled through him. And I knew it was useless. Fighting would only hurt both of us worse.
So I gave him another truth, one he already knew. “I’m sorry.”
He stood, poised to either walk away or climb back up the stairs and to me.
But he only said, “Me too.”
And then he walked away, and that final ember of hope went with him.
This farm couldn’t function without Jake. I was replaceable, inconsequential to the work he did. I gave nothing to this farm that someone else couldn’t provide, but Jake was the beating heart of this place.
To lose him would mean losing the farm’s motor.
The time to fight had passed. Trying to make a stand now would only drag the battle on and on until we were both bloody and ruined. But I had no doubt he would win.
As he should. Because where else would he go? Some other farm, to leave his home behind simply because he couldn’t look at me without reliving his pain? I had a job waiting for me in New York. I had a life there to fall back on.
I realized with a cold wash of reality just how right he’d been about me, just not in the way I’d thought he meant. This farm was Jake’s entire world, and I always had a plan B. There was always a safety net for me where he had none. His ferocity in defending this place was born of something deeper.
It was everything he had.
The truth dawned on me like sunrise from the gallows. If I stayed on, I wouldn’t be helping the farm at all.
I wouldn’t be helping Jake.
I’d be breaking everything I loved.
There was only one thing I could do.
And with tears on my cheeks, I turned for the house to make the call that would do it.
30
Just One Favor
JAKE
Twice in my life, I’d experienced such loss that a part of me broke, the fault leaving a sharp, craggy chasm in me, too deep and wide to bridge. The death of my mother and then of Frank.
Today marked a third.
I walked away from her shaking, too overcome to think, too overwhelmed to do anything but sink into my loss and hope I didn’t drown. I wanted to turn around, to gather her up in my arms, to kiss away everything that’d happened. To beg her to forgive me. To let myself forgive her.
But I couldn’t. Not if I wanted this farm to survive.
What a dumb idea, coming up to the house. Here I’d thought I had a firm grip on the reins, and one look at her had set me on a wild gallop. All I could do was hang on until I mastered myself.
