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“I don’t know how.”
“Why are you mad about this?”
“Because, Mike,” she said, plenty of disdain in her voice. “You can’t just buy people farms.”
“Why not? This is exactly what HMC does for people.” The fire inside him started to lick against his ribs, but he didn’t want to fight with her. He drew in a deep breath. “Gerty, when I got my inheritance, I was given a very solemn charge to do something good with it. My Uncle Cy built a motorcycle shop—yes, it was what he wanted to do, but still to this day—and he’s over seventy years old—he builds and donates a custom bike for a military veteran. He does good with his money.”
“This is not the same at all,” she said.
Mike didn’t see the difference. “Hunter funded an equine therapy unit in Massachusetts before he even graduated from college. And he funded and helped his wife build Pony Power.”
“Yeah, she’s hiswife.”
Mike started to nod, sudden understanding filling his mind. “You think I’m buying you.”
“No.”
“You think you’ll owe me something, then.”
“Of course I will,” she said. “And if you can’t see that, you’re delusional.”
Mike dropped his head, trying to see it from her point of view. He’d known there was a possibility of her reacting this way, and maybe that said more than he’d thought. Maybe he’d brushed that thought from his mind because he didn’t want to believe it. “This is what I want to do with my money,” he said very quietly. “I want to seek out the quiet ones, the people who get overlooked in their families, those who have small dreams that are very big to them, and I want to make them come true.”
His heart burned with the desire to do it. “I thought I’d start with someone I knew and cared about, because then they could help me see where I went wrong.” He turned and faced her then, her displeasure smacking him right in the face. “I can see now I shouldn’t have made it a surprise.” He started to leave, and her arm shot out and grabbed his. He waited, his humiliation burning through his lungs.
“Mike,” she said, and her tone was far gentler than before. “That all sounds so amazing. Really.”
“Yeah, I believe you,” he said sarcastically.
“Hey,” she said, and he shook his head as a way of apology. “I just meant, with those other people, you’ll be consulting with them on their dreams. Asking questions to see what they need and want, and then providing this amazing gift. I didn’t get any of that.”
“You don’t trust me? You don’t think I know what you’d like?”
She sighed. “That’s not it at all.” She released his arm and faced the mountains again. “This is…it’s too much for a birthday gift, Mike. It would be one thing if it came from your foundation or whatever. This isn’t that. This came from you.”
“Yeah.” He dared to slide his hand along her waist, and when she didn’t bite or bark at him, he pulled her against his hip. “This came from me, to you, because I care about you and want you to have everything you dream about.”
She stayed still next to him, almost unyielding but not quite. “Mike, it’s too much for me.”
“You think I’m too much for you,” he said.
“You said we could go slow.”
“That hasn’t changed.”
“How?” she asked, her voice pitching up. “You just bought me a farm for my birthday. How has that not changed?”
Another door opened in Mike’s mind, and he had a very hard time not stepping away from her and leaving her right here on this farm she didn’t want. She hadn’t even gone around and looked at anything yet. He wondered if she even would.
“Gerty,” he said calmly though his heartbeat thrashed against his ribcage. “You told me that you were imagining our life together, and it was you helping me in the morning before I drive into the city for work. And that I’d have to make that drive from our very own farm. Those were your words. ‘Our very own farm.’”
“Yeah, but….”
“Did you not mean that?”
“I meant it.”
Mike frowned, and he did drop his arm and step away from her then. “Okay, then, I’m gonna need you to explain to me why Ishouldn’thave bought this farm for you.”
