Chapter 38

CHAPTER 38

SLATE

J ess didn't come home for dinner and Austin went out with some old friends after. He'd invited me to go with them, but I'd turned him down.

All day, I'd felt like there was a weight tethered to my rib cage and I knew I wouldn't be able to get rid of it until I talked to Jess. At around nine p.m., I drifted back to the kitchen from the living room, squinting into the dark and searching for lights at the bottom of the drive.

There weren't any.

I blew out a breath, hoping she was okay. She'd been pretty damn upset when she'd left here, but that had been hours ago.

At this point, though, I was about to call in the freaking cavalry. Her parents had gone to bed a little while ago, but I could always go wake them up. Call Austin. Let them know she'd gone missing.

On the other hand, she's a thirty-year-old woman out past her bedtime. Come off it, Spieres. She's fine.

I swept my tongue across my lips and prayed she was with Sophie or one of the others. At least I knew they would take care of her.

As I was turning to head back to the living room to make another attempt at getting into some TV show, a glint of metal under the carport caught my eye. I frowned and moved closer to the window, suddenly realizing that Jess's truck was already back.

What the heck?

My pulse spiked. That truck had been gone earlier, which meant that she had to be around here somewhere. Deciding on the spot to go looking for her, I headed outside and started the hunt.

I couldn't find her anywhere. Not at the site and not in the field at the back where she'd taken me to see the fireflies. Not in the truck, on the porch, or in the garden around the back.

Eventually, I gazed up at the hayloft and followed a hunch to head up there. That was where I found her, lying flat on her back watching the stars.

"Hey," I said quietly, not wanting to startle her. "Can I lie down with you?"

She didn't lift herself up on her elbows or make any other move to look at me, but she also didn't protest. Instead, all I got out of her was a listless, "Sure."

Carefully striding across the creaky wooden floor, I lay down next to her and folded my hands under my head, sucking in a breath as I focused on the sky. I'd been out here for a while now, always watching the stars from my bed at night, but I sure didn't have the same view from there as I did from here.

Jess didn't speak at first and neither did I. I just lay there beside her, once again stunned by how this place and the nature it showcased so spectacularly kept surprising me. I'd seen a lot of stars in my time. It wasn't like the rigs were surrounded by ambient light either, but there was still something different about the night sky here.

Something deep, and vast, and yet peaceful. Maybe it's not the sky that's different in Firefly Grove, though. Maybe it's me.

That was certainly a possibility. I already knew I had changed since I'd been out here. Or perhaps I hadn't changed . Perhaps I'd simply slowed down and that made it feel like I'd changed.

Either way, a large part of that was on account of Jess showing me some of the world through her eyes and yet I'd failed her earlier. I'd told the truth, but in doing so, I knew I had disappointed her bitterly.

"I'm sorry about the way things went down earlier," I murmured. "I know what I said wasn't what you wanted to hear."

She shook her head beside me. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Slate. My expectations were unfair. You just told the truth."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's the right call," I said. "I would have taken the offer, but I don't have the emotional investment in the farm that you and your family do. To me, it's not worth fifty million, but I know it's worth so much more than that to you. I should've taken that into account."

When she finally looked over at me, her eyes glistened with tears. "Thank you."

One of the tears slid from the corner of her eye. I felt like I'd been stabbed in the chest. I propped myself up on my elbow and wiped it away with my thumb. "I'm trying to understand why you're crying. Nothing has happened yet, Jess. Your parents haven't made any decisions."

"I know, but it just feels like all this is getting too big for us," she said, her voice cracking under the strength of her emotions. "We're simple, small-town dairy farmers. We don't get fifty million dollar offers before breakfast. This isn't our life."

"I know it doesn't feel that way," I said gently. "But this offer is a good thing. Selling the farm definitely won't be your only option if the property is worth as much as Oden seems to think it is. The assessment is ongoing and no one needs to make any decisions today."

She exhaled a shuddering breath, her head shaking back and forth once more. "We don't have to, but we also can't wait too long. Our financial situation just doesn't allow us to take our time."

I kept quiet because there was absolutely nothing I could say to that. I'd already known things were tight financially on Merrick Meadows Farm. It stood to reason that they couldn't afford to gamble with fifty million.

"I want to save my parents and the farm from having to declare bankruptcy," she said. "Obviously, I don't want my family to lose everything and this is a sure ticket out of the danger zone, but I don't want the cost of that ticket to be Merrick Meadows. I'm just not sure there's an in-between anymore."

"It's early days yet, Jess," I said, trying to reassure her. "You're definitely not at the point where there is no in-between anymore. We don't even know how much oil there is. This is just a safer bet because if there's not much of it, then it's not your problem."

She let out a long, soft sigh. "It will be my problem if I convince my dad to walk away from this deal and the oil is a flop. If he doesn't take this money and we turn no profit, we'll lose everything."

I sought out her hand in the dark, slid my fingers between hers, and squeezed them. "All we know for sure about the oil at the moment is that the team is still here. They're still looking. The likelihood of it being a complete flop is becoming smaller and smaller every day."

"Is it really?" she asked, but it sounded like she meant it as a rhetorical question, so I didn't answer. "The team is still here, but they haven't found anything conclusive. Not as far as I know. We've had feedback from them but not much. We don't really know anything other than that we found oil and they're here to see if there's more."

"Sure, but it's looking promising. I can't guarantee how much oil is out there. All I can say is that if the big players are interested, it's a good sign. Plus, my team hasn't run dry yet. Another good sign."

"You told my parents you would sell, though," she reminded me. "All these good signs don't mean anything if you still think it's a safer bet to sell."

"It's always going to be the safer bet to sell early. A bird in the hand and all that, but I've become risk-averse in certain respects recently. In your case specifically, I told your parents what I would've done because if I had been in your shoes, that is exactly what I would've done, but again, it might not be worth it to you to take fifty when you could make double that at least if you hold on."

"Like you said though, there's no guarantee of that. We could make double, but we could also make half or less. Or nothing."

"That's the risk," I said. "Which is why I told your parents I would take the deal. That amount of money would allow your parents, you, your brother, and even your kids to live very comfortably for the rest of your lives. If you're careful with it? Hell, you could turn it into triple that yourself. I know some people who could help you with your investments. Your brother could too. It's literally what he does."

She turned her head to mine and looked deep into my eyes for a long, quiet minute. "It's not that the picture you and Austin are painting is unappealing to me. Obviously, it's appealing. It's very freaking appealing, but if we do what you're suggesting, the farm is gone. Forever."

I nodded. "Yes, it is, and I know that another farm won't be the same to you."

"This is it, Slate. It's our last shot," she whispered. "We can't afford to miss."

Hearing those words felt like someone had shoved a little stone deep into my heart. She was right. Earlier today, I'd been sure that selling was the right thing to do, but now that the stone was there, I felt it spiking into me with every breath I took and I knew it was going to fester. It would stay right where it was until we found a way to dig it out.

"You're not powerless in all this, Jess," I finally said. "I know you're feeling like it's all become too big for you, but that's why I'm here, remember?"

"So what can we do?" she asked.

I considered their options the way I saw them for a moment. "You can write your own counteroffer. You can adjust the terms and conditions. We can buy you more time to drill. Maybe you could use Oden's offer as a backup plan."

"Would he do that?"

I shrugged. "I don't see why not. Guys like him don't expect an immediate answer. They're patient even while they're putting pressure on you, but they play the long game."

"Have you told my family any of this?" she asked quietly, hope burning in those eyes as they held mine. "Please tell me you told my dad we didn't have to decide right away."

"Of course, I did," I said. "After you left, I gave them some time to process and then I laid out the alternatives. It's my job. Contrary to how you might've felt about me today, I'm really not too bad at it."

She chuckled, relief splashing across her features, and she reached over to hug me. "Thank you."

I slid an arm around her, pulled her to me, and positioned her on my chest. She stayed there, her arm draped around my waist and her muscles a whole lot less tense now.

"Let me talk to Oden," I said. "Maybe he and I can work something out."

"That would be amazing," she agreed softly, shifting so she could look at the stars again. "Thank you for giving me hope."

"That's all it is right now, though," I said. "I still don't know how any of this is going to play out, but we're going to try, okay?"

"Okay." She snuggled into me, quiet before she finally started explaining all her plans for the hayloft to me as we lay there together.

She pointed out what would go where and how she envisioned it looking. I found it surprisingly easy to see it come to life around me. We stayed just like that for the rest of the night, wrapped up in each other and talking about everything and nothing all at once.

Eventually, Jess fell asleep and it wasn't long until I followed right after her.