Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

JESS

F ury raged inside of me. Oden Sawyer had come into my house while I'd been minding my own darn business and turned my world upside down.

With Tweedledum and Tweedledee downstairs, probably already planning how they would spend the money, I grabbed my purse and headed out. The last place I wanted to be right then was home, with those two asshats who'd sooner destroy our family's legacy over some cash than to even entertain for a minute the possibility of investigating other options.

Lifting my keys off the hook, I slammed the front door behind me and left, driving directly to Sophie's house. Her gorgeous, sunshine yellow front door was open and I called out when I arrived, letting her know I was there.

"Soph? Hello! Are you in here?"

"I'm in the sewing room," she replied. "Come on in."

I shut the door behind me and turned down the long hallway into what was Sophie's wing of the grand old house these days. She'd turned her mother's old art studio into her own little design studio and I found her behind her sewing machine, a design of a new dress in front of her to guide her way.

"What's up?" she asked, pausing for a moment to look at me over her shoulder. When she saw whatever look was on my face, she abandoned her sewing, spinning on her chair to face me. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Slate Spieres happened to me," I vented, dropping down on the chaise lounge against the wall as the dam of emotion within me broke apart. "Well, technically, it wasn't him. It was a representative for some big oil company who brought my parents an offer for the farm, but Slate didn't back me up. Can you believe that?"

She frowned. "Uh, yeah? Of course, I can believe that. He's here to advise your family, isn't he? Last I checked, he didn't come to Firefly Grove to do your bidding."

I snorted. "Clearly, but you'd think that I'd be able to count on him. He knows how much the farm means to me and now he wants my parents to sell it? That's absurd."

"Slate wants your dad to sell the farm?" Her features scrunched up. "That doesn't seem right. What happened?"

"Oden Sawyer, that representative dude? He showed up this morning and offered my parents fifty million dollars for it. Slate and Austin think they should take it. Frigging boys. They've known each other for, like, only a few days and they're thick as thieves all of a sudden. Maybe I should…"

I trailed off when I realized she was blinking really fast, really often.

I leaned forward. "Are you okay? I think your eyelids are broken."

"They're not…" She blinked a few more times, her lips parting. "Let me get this straight. You want to turn down fifty million dollars? Are you dumb?"

I rolled my eyes. "Look, I know you don't understand. How can you? I know it's a lot of money, but it's not worth losing the farm over."

"It's not?"

"No, and what pisses me off the most is that Slate didn't back me up. I can't be angry at my parents for receiving an offer and I'm not happy with my brother, but he was never going to have my back when it came to something like this. Slate, on the other hand, has no personal interest in the money or the farm, but he just left me out to dry."

"He told the truth, Jessie," she said gently, her blue eyes wide and still shimmering with shock. "That's why you brought him here, right? As an expert to guide you through this discovery?"

I groaned. "Yes. No. I mean…" I couldn't find the right words. All I knew was that I was pissed at him, even though logically, he hadn't done anything wrong. "That is why we have him there, but he didn't even think about it. He just sat down, looked us in the eyes, and said we should take the offer. That's it. He didn't even take five minutes to consider the impact of his words."

"How do you know?" she asked. "I'm sure he had his reasons."

"Of course he had his reasons." I grimaced. "They don't matter, though. I thought he understood how much the farm meant to me, but as soon as he was asked, he said he thought we should sell. Apparently, this Oden guy is good for the money if he makes an offer."

"And that's a bad thing?" She arched an eyebrow at me. "I'm not sure if the reality of this has dawned on you yet, but it's fifty. Million. Dollars." She widened her eyes at me. "Do you even realize how much and in how many ways that can change your life?"

"Do you even know what would be left of my life if we sell that farm?" I sighed as I dropped my head into my hands. "I just can't believe that he didn't even stop to think about it. He just went with ‘sell. It's safer that way.'"

"So what?" she asked. "Do you think he owed it to you to choose your side because you guys, you know?" She made a hole with her thumb and forefinger and slid her other forefinger in and out of it.

I slapped her hand down. "Ew! No."

"Ew?" She scoffed. "There's nothing ew about having sex with Slate. Unless he's one of those weirdos who makes out with his eyes open."

I dropped my head back into my hands. "Can you take this seriously for like, five seconds? Merrick Meadows is my life, Soph. It's my past and everything I've ever wanted for my future, and if Slate and my brother get their way, we're selling it."

Sophie finally stopped messing around and empathized with me. Standing up, she came to sit down next to me and wrapped my hand in both of hers. "I know how precious the farm is to you, Jess. I do. I also know that you envision spending the rest of your life on that property."

I sniffled, resting my head on her shoulder. "Thanks, but I don't think I'm going to be spending it there anymore. I'm just not sure how to wrap my head around it."

"You've grown up seeing one future for yourself," she said softly, lowering her head to mine. "I can't imagine what it would feel like to have that rug pulled out from under you all of a sudden."

She paused for a beat. "But maybe this is your chance to make Merrick Meadows your own."

Tears stung my eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Your dad would want this for you, honey," she murmured. "It will give him peace of mind to know he's leaving you a running farm and not a place that's falling apart."

"That's not what I want, though," I said. "I just want the Merrick Meadows that we have."

"I get that, babe, but that farm hasn't been what it used to be for a very long time," she said.

I blew out a long, slow breath. Curse Oden Sawyer for swooping in out of nowhere and messing everything up.

"I know it's not what it used to be." There was no getting around the state of disrepair the once thriving property was in now. "I can fix it, though. All I need is a little bit of money and I'll get it back to what it was. I'll even make it better."

"Yeah, but that's what I'm trying to say. Maybe you can do exactly that. Just on a different property. Merrick Meadows is wherever you guys are, right? The Merricks. You're what makes that particular parcel of land special."

"We're not, though," I said, and I truly believed it. "It's one of the best properties in the area. We've got everything, from fields, to rivers, to crops, to the barns, and the house my family built with their own hands."

"Okay, but outside of the house, you could find all those other things on a different property," she suggested. "With that kind of money, you could buy any farm you wanted. You could even buy two or three. Better yet, you can build new houses. Also with your own hands if you really want to. Get a fresh start."

"Did you crawl into Austin's head?" I asked lamely. "Those are the exact arguments he made."

"Probably not as well as I'm making them," she teased. "Listen to me, Jess. People move all the time. I know you and I haven't done it, but if my dad ever wanted to sell this place, I'd be sad and I'd hate to leave, but if I knew where I was going was better? Yeah. I think I'd be open to it."

"There's no guarantee it'll be better if we sell," I reminded her. "We'd have a mountain of money and no land."

"Yeah, but that mountain of money will buy you any land you want." She lifted her head away from my own and turned to face me. Her brow furrowed as the expression in her eyes grew serious. "I love Merrick Meadows, Jess. I grew up there too and a lot of my fondest memories are there, but realistically, the house needs a lot of work. Like, a lot."

"I know, but?—"

"Hear me out," she said, taking my hands again and keeping her gaze on mine. "Your parents can't maintain that big old house anymore. They don't have the money, and moreover, I don't know if they want to take on so much work on such a regular basis anymore. The same argument applies to every structure and every piece of equipment you've got. It's a lot."

"What are you saying?" I felt more tears well in my eyes. "You think we should sell too?"

"I think you should at least consider it," she said softly. "I know it hurts, but think about what you can get for a fraction of that money. Think about the setup you could put on a new farm. A little cottage for your parents by a stream. A house for you. New barns and equipment. You could buy any herd you want and keep as many cows as you want to accommodate."

"You sound exactly like my brother," I grumbled. "Why does nobody else seem to understand how important that land is to our family?"

"Why don't you understand how much your family could do with that money?" she reasoned. "Considering it doesn't make it a done deal. Just think about how much good you could do for the entire town. Hell, you could even invest some cash in my boutique."

I chuckled through the wave of emotions sweeping through me. "I love that idea, but the money wouldn't be mine to do with what I want. It would be my dad's. The family's."

"Doug's always loved me," she joked. "I'm sure I could convince him to take an interest in the fashion industry."

"My dad?" I snorted, but then I sighed. "Actually, you're probably right. You could convince them to do anything, but I really don't want to lose that farm."

"If this doesn't work out, won't you lose it anyway?" she asked, the question a none-too-gentle reminder of what was at stake. "Only, if you lose it that way, you won't have the possibility of a new farm or three in the future. You just lose."

I exhaled slowly, trembling. Fear crept into the deepest recesses of my soul. Sophie wasn't wrong. I couldn't just dig in my heels and bury my head in the sand.

There were very real risks involved with the situation we were in. One of which was that we lost everything if the oil turned out to be a bust. A tiny little deposit with no real prospects of selling it for a meaningful sum of money.

I leaned my head back and scrubbed my hands over my face. "I think you might be right. I think I should probably at least consider it."