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“Yes. Thank you for stopping.”
“You should’ve called me the minute he started raising his voice.” He went to the window and looked at Finn. “Are you eating Uncle Sawyer’s bear claw?”
Sawyer laughed. “No. He’s eating your bear claw.”
J.T. opened the door and picked up Finn. “You’re welcome to it.” He handed Finn to Joey. “I’ve got to go do some work. But I’ll come see you later.”
“Thank you. Dad really rattled me.”
“I’ll be over after dinner. Don’t let him back in the house.”
J.T. spent the day working with Sawyer and Jake, back-hoeing out one end of the pond to make it bigger. The rainy spring and summer had increased the flow of water from the spring, so they needed to make a bigger reservoir to hold more water. This would prevent too much water from flowing into the lower pasture and flooding it.
Sawyer loved driving the backhoe, which left Jake and J.T. on the ground with shovels. By the time they stopped for dinner, both Jake and J.T. were caked in mud up to their thighs.
J.T. scowled at Sawyer. “Tomorrow, I’m driving the backhoe.”
Jake laughed. “I might call that privilege, actually. And I have seniority.” They started walking back to the house. “Why don’t you shower in the loft? Dinner’s in about thirty minutes.”
J.T. showered and put on some clean clothes that he still had at the loft, then the two of them went to the house. They came into the kitchen through the mudroom and found Ember at the stove.
“Hey guys. It’s just about ready.”
Sawyer went to the refrigerator and took out two beers, handing one to J.T. As he took a sip of beer, he looked at the kitchen floor. “How’d Dad get upstairs without dragging any mud with him?”
Ember smiled. “He took off his muddy clothes on the back porch.”
“Oh, of course.”
Jacob came into the kitchen. “I see you boys got cleaned up.”
J.T. glanced at Sawyer. “I did. One of us spent the day on the backhoe.”
Jacob laughed. “You’ll have to flip a coin tomorrow to see who gets to stay clean.”
J.T. shook his head. “I think Dad has already dibbed it.”
When Jake arrived, they all sat down to dinner. Halfway through the meal of corn on the cob, steak, and a baked potato, J.T. set down his fork.
“I’d like to run something by you guys.”
Jake looked at him. “What’s up, son?”
“As you know, Freddy put the money down for the Bradford place and has been paying for the repairs.”
“Right. Sage says it’s looking pretty good.”
“It is. But it’s still a long way from being done. The thing is, Freddy was there today, threatening to renege on his part of the deal. He says it’s costing him a fortune, and he doesn’t see where all the money is going.”
Jacob nodded. “I’m sure it is costing him a lot. But he should’ve known it was going to. I assume he looked at the place before he bought it.”
“He’s an ass, and I’d really like to see his involvement end.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “What can we do to help?”
“I assume you still wouldn’t mind having that piece of property.”
“That’s correct.”
