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Brendan had said he needed to take a day to get all the paperwork sorted, to get a handle on the farm’s finances and where they stood, so he wouldn’t be working outside today. Nicole hated how much effort he was actually putting into this. Maybe she had been naïve to think that he would give up so easily. It turned out that he was a ridiculously hard worker despite his lack of knowledge or skills, and now he had let Nicole know that he was blocking out a whole day to reorganize all of the admin that had been neglected around here for far too long.
All of this meant that he wasn’t going to be up before dawn for one of his little reconnaissance missions, which would give Nicole the cover of darkness to maybe convince him that he really did need to give this whole thing up.
It was stupid. She knew that. It was really, really stupidandchildish to resort to sabotage. But Nicole felt so desperate and frenzied that right now she didn’tcareif it was stupid and childish. If Brendan was going to be taking stock of all the farm’s assets, then maybe she could get rid of some and make him think it was all a lost cause.
She had only shown him that first cursory glance inside the creamery. He hadn’t seen inside the fridges and had no idea how much milk had been processed ready for sale, how much they had in stock right now. So if she got rid of what was sitting in there…
Before she could change her mind, Nicole flung herself out of bed, dressed in record time and raced downstairs and out the door before she could stop herself. With only the light of the stars and a waning mood to guide her, she made her way over to the creamery.
There was a wave of nausea running through her and a tumbling war of thoughts fighting for dominance in her head. This wasn’t a good idea, surely… sabotaging her own farm, wasting her own product for the slim hope that Brendan would get frustrated and bored and move on from his impulsive lifestyle change.
But it wasn’therfarm anymore. It wasn’t her product either. All this milk in the neatly labeled glass bottles didn’t belong to her. It was Brendan’s property now. But didn’t that make it worse? Was this technically illegal? Did it count as stealing? What if he did figure it out and not only was she out of any chance of getting Green Acres back, but then she was arrested or something? Maybe she could claim insanity due to stress…
When she was little she’d always been so obsessed with following the rules. If she just did the right thing, did what she was told, arrived on time, looked her best and said her pleases and thank-yous, then everything would work out fine, because that was how the world worked. Except it wasn’t. Time and again life had a way of smacking her back down whenever she managed to claw her way up a little bit. Her mom, her dad, Scott leaving, having to sell the farm in the first place. Being “good” hadn’t stopped any of that, and it hadn’t helped in any other ways she could find. So maybe she just had to play dirty now, for the sake of self-preservation.
So, now she was standing alone in the creamery, with the last of the processed milk stacked up in crates by the sink, frozen as a statue wondering what the hell she was doing with her life.
Screw it. Being well-behaved had never gotten her anywhere, so now it was time to break the rules.
She couldn’t just dump it down the sink. That really was taking things a bit too far, and if she went ahead and actually physically wasted perfectly good milk, both of her parents would probably come back as ghosts and yell at her from beyond the grave.
Plan B, then… Moving away from the temptation of the sink, Nicole hauled the crates of milk onto the trolley and wheeled the whole thing out to her truck where she packed it all up, strapped it down, shot off a quick prayer to whoever might be listening that the bottles wouldn’t break under her haphazard arrangements, and drove into town with determination.
Silver Ridge was the closest town to the farm but was still more than a half-hour drive away, giving Nicole far too much free time to rethink every decision she’d ever made up until this point. But she’d committed now, and if it all fell apart at least she could say that she’d tried everything she could to get her farm back, leaving no stone unturned, whether it was technically stealing or not.
* * *
By the time she pulled up in front of the diner in Silver Ridge, it had only just opened, the dawn light still weak and the only customers being farmers or truckers passing through looking for a hot breakfast. Nicole made her way inside, the smell of bacon, pie and coffee saturating everything. She spotted the owner behind the counter and made a beeline for the woman before she could change her mind. This was her last opportunity to turn around and return to sanity, to not be a terrible person and play this dirty. But she’d come this far, and Nicole was terrified of losing her last chance to hold on to the home and land that had been in her family for generations.
“Hey, Jenna. How’s things?”
Jenna blinked at her a couple of times, looking confused, her spray bottle of surface cleaner still held aloft. She was a soft sort of woman; soft curls, soft cheeks and even a soft sweater draped over her frame as she cleaned the counter after some sort of spill.
“Nicole? I thought you’d sold up and left? Sorry, that was rude…”
Jenna’s neck went bright red. Nicole waved it off with a smile; it was accepted by pretty much everyone that Jenna didn’t have a filter between her brain and her mouth. So, yeah, she was awkward sometimes, but at least you always knew where you stood with her.
“Um, well, yeah, the farm did sell. It was definitely sold. But, uh, just got asked to stay on by the new owner for a couple of months to help out with that transitional period, you know.”
Jenna’s embarrassed flush turned into a pleased grin. “Oh, that’s great news!”
“And speaking of the new owner,” said Nicole, surging ahead before she could chicken out of her plan, “uh, he’s donating a whole bunch of product to you as, like, ahey so nice to be joining the communitysort of thing. If you want, that is?”
Poor Jenna was back to looking confused. “Product? Like your organic milk?”
“Yup. Got about four crates of the stuff in the truck that’s all yours.”
She led Jenna outside to the truck where she pulled back the canvas to reveal the cool-boxes storing her not-stolen milk. There wasn’t any chance of fooling herself that this was moral, but Nicole was determined to convince herself that it wasn’t entirely illegal.
Jenna’s face lit up at the sight of it all.
“Oh, Nicole. Thank you. That will save me a whole bunch of money on this week’s grocery bill if I can use all that up. And you pass on my thanks to the new owner, won’t you?”
“I sure will,” said Nicole, forcing the smile to stay on her face.
* * *
That evening Nicole took her time taking a walk around the farm. Over the course of the afternoon, and after multiple internal arguments with herself, she had convinced herself that the sky wasn’t going to fall in on her. She couldn’t quite accept that she had done nothing wrong, because kind of stealing milk that wasn’t technically hers and giving it away wasn’trightnecessarily, but she at least accepted that it was a victimless crime.
