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He found himself wondering what it must be like to live in a household where someone didn’t believe in him. It couldn’t have been easy.
Great!Now he was feeling sorry for her.
10
Scarlett
Scarlett fumed and sputtered as she paced the front porch. She’d taken her plate and started toward the barn, only to remember that there weren’t any places for her to actually sit down and eat her supper unless she wanted to sit in the mud with the pigs.
She found herself making a beeline for the front of the house, tempted to sneak in the front door and head up to her room. But there was a problem with that.
Both Elijah and her father would definitely get a glimpse of her running off with her tail between her legs. She’d made a great exit after putting her foot down, and she wasn’t willing to turn back now. They both needed to know where she stood when it came to this farm, and she didn’t care how many times she had to say it. One of these days her father would accept that she wasn’t the same girl who had dreamed of international travel.
She wanted to come home.
For good.
Now, as her food sat cold on the top porch step, she found herself… stuck. She couldn’t go inside. She didn’t have the appetite to eat out here. And she didn’t want to show her face to anyone, really—especially because she’d allowed a few tears to streak down her face and was almost certain the evidence was written all over her cheeks.
Scarlett heaved a sigh and collapsed onto the top stair beside her food. She placed her elbows on her knees, racking her brain for what she could do to make these men see that they were wrong.
Never in her life had she felt so alone.
Maybe her mother had done her a disservice by always siding with her.
More tears fell, staining her cheeks and then her jeans. Oh, how she wished her mother were still here with her today. She’d know what to say to her father to make him see he was being unreasonable. What father didn’t want his children taking over the family business he’d poured his life into?
Apparently, her father was one of them.
If her mother were still alive, she wouldn’t have put up with it. She would have made her father see that Scarlett deserved an opportunity to prove to them that she wanted to stay. Yes, her mother might also show some reservations about such a drastic change, but she wouldn’t have immediately dismissed Scarlett like her father was doing. And she definitely wouldn’t let her father offer part of the farm to Elijah.
She lost track of how long she sat out there, only to realize that this was the only logical exit for Elijah to take. The door behind her opened and shut. He didn’t move from the door, and she almost thought he slipped back inside until she heard his voice.
“You okay?”
She huffed. “I don’t see why you’d care.”
He sighed.
“Just because I think you’re bad for my sister… and you don’t seem to care about your family’s farm… doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”
Scarlett found herself rolling her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time before she turned to face him. “That’s hard to believe.”
His expression shifted from unreadable to concerned in a heartbeat. In two swift steps he was beside her, moving the plate that had managed to gather the interest of several hungry flies. “Have you been crying?” He reached forward with his thumb extended, but she jerked away from him.
“What? No.”
“Scarlett,” he said with utter exasperation. “Your face is still wet.”
She brushed at her cheeks with the back of her hand, then looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t move, and the longer he sat beside her, the more antsy she became.
“Don’t you have some work to do?”
“Yeah.”
Still, he didn’t leave. She could practically feel the heat from his skin pulsating in her direction. Scarlett threw her hands into the air and forced herself to meet his gaze. “Then why don’t you go do it? The sooner you get it done, the sooner you can leave.”
