2. Lia

There'spoop on my shoe.

It's been awhile since I've had poop on my shoe, but at least this time it's from a barnyard animal. Does Baabara count as a barnyard animal? My brother told me the Bedds were building her an enclosure near the house.

I shake my head. I shouldn't be wistfully recalling the Bedd family and their eccentricities. I'm here to talk about money. I try to discreetly clean my shoe on the edge of one of the folding chairs, but there's no hope for it. The chair or the shoe.

I direct my gaze toward Ethel, clutching hands with Colleen and looking red-faced and flustered. "I'm so sorry we're meeting again under these circumstances. I didn't get a chance to speak with you after the funeral."

She nods. "I saw you there, though, sweetheart."

I snuck in the back, like a coward, and didn't stay to talk to anyone afterward. I haven't ventured back to the Catskills much at all in the past decade. My brother and I see one another at our parents' senior living complex in Florida a few times a year, or when I can convince him to visit me. I cut ties with everyone else I knew in high school. I felt like I had to, in that moment, and now I never feel like I have the time to rekindle old friendships.

Today, surrounded by this grieving family I've known my whole life, I can't help but wish I'd at least sent some holiday cards. I close my eyes against the hallucination of an Ethan Bedd holiday card, him with one arm around a wife and the other around a child. Does he have the family he always longed for?

My hand lifts to the diamond bracelet around my wrist, a gift from the man who loves me now. Ethan would never have bought me anything like it. My life is also nothing like the one I might have had in Fork Lick.

Alexander Bedd coughs and I turn to face him as he asks, "So, what do we do now? About the money?"

"Right. Well, I think the first step is to move into the conference room where we have a bit more space."

Samuel snorts. "And a bit less sheep dung."

I nod my head. "That, too." I glance around the room. "Is there … a plan to get Baabara home?"

Ethel comes to her feet slowly, shaking her silvery head. "Ethan just needs a minute to cool off. He's like a custard that way. Has to settle before you can top him off with anything." She pats my arm as she approaches the door. "He'll come back for you."

A knot forms in my throat. "Excuse me?"

Ethel smiles. "The ewe. Baabara. He'll come back for her."

We carefully make our way into the conference room, such as it is. Burgess and Bowers arranged for me to rent an office here in Lionel's ancient Victorian home, originally converted by Lionel's father into the family's legal offices. Now Lionel lives upstairs, conducts business from the tiny room on the first floor, and set me up in what was surely once a library but is now a maze of filing cabinets, stacked paper, and other flammable hoardings.

I do like the big table with the old-timey green glass lamp, complete with pull chain. Unfortunately, I don't have chairs to offer the Bedd family and I stand in the door, tapping my lip and thinking about the best course of action. "I'm wondering if it makes more sense to regroup tomorrow? I can leave you with the forms from the bank to review and then I could come out to the house to discuss some potential options for you moving forward."

Ethel beams. "That sounds fine. It'll be Ethan you mostly need to convince anyway, and he's?—"

"Yeah, yeah, he's setting like lemon curd." Alex interrupts his grandmother and struggles back into his coat. "You all do whatever you think is best. I gotta check on my dog."

He hustles out the door like his brother, leaving Samuel, Colleen, and Jackson to handle Ethel and the sheep on their own.

Colleen bites her lip. "Samuel and I rode in together with Gran."

Jackson shakes his head rapidly. "No way am I putting that sheep in my car. Do you know what this thing costs to have detailed?"

"Where are you getting a Bentley detailed in Fork Lick?" Samuel thrusts Baabara's collar at his brother. She must have wriggled out of it sometime between pooping on the floor and following us into the conference room. I glance over to see her nuzzling a stack of papers, yellowed with age. She begins to chomp as the remaining Bedd siblings argue.

In a frenzy of temper and wool coats, they all leave the house … and Baabara … behind. The sheep and I glance at one another. She continues to munch on the paper as I sink into my chair to wait for the predicted return of Ethan.

It takes him two hours to come back for the sheep. I hear the tread of his boots on the porch steps, and I know it's him without looking. It's unnerving to still be so aware of Ethan Bedd after so much time apart. I have no business knowing the rhythm of his stride, not anymore.

But, sure enough, he leans on the door jamb, looking much more at ease in boots and Dickies and a worn Carhartt jacket than he did in a suit. He looks damn fine, even in a tattered beanie. The years have been good to Ethan, which makes sense. He probably keeps fit working the land, just like he always wanted. I'm happy he has the life he wished for, although I suppose some of that is about to change.

"I came back for Baabara. Did she damage anything I should know about?" I shake my head and he snorts. "You could add it to my tab if she did." He clicks his tongue at the sheep, who looks up from her forty-year-old law journal hors d"oeuvres. "Come on, Babs. Let's get back in the truck."

She bleats at him in protest. "Since she's occupied for the moment, I wondered if you and I could talk?"

Ethan doesn't look at me, but squats down to snap his fingers at the sheep. "You sent the papers home with Gran. We'll take it from here."

"That's not how this works, Ethan. Your family is in a very serious amount of debt. I'm trying to help you avoid foreclosure." He continues snapping his fingers and clicking his tongue at the sheep. "You stand to lose your land."

"I know what foreclosure means Lia! I may not have a fancy college degree, but I know that much."

"That's not what I meant. I know this is a shock to all of you, that your grandfather was operating at a loss for so?—"

"Every farmer in these parts is operating at a loss. That's the way of it nowadays. We'll figure it out and get you your money. You have my word."

I rise from the chair and walk around the table, not daring to touch him but coming close enough that I'm hit with the wave of his scent. The memory had lain dormant for a decade…sweet hay and fresh air and Old Spice. And something special, something uniquely Ethan that drove me wild from the moment I understood what lust meant.

"Ethan." I wring my hands together at my waist. "The firm wants to foreclose immediately. I bought you some time by coming here. But they're ready to move swiftly and we need an action plan."

He finally rises to his full, impressive height. Ethan Bedd was a boy when I left for college. A large, strapping boy, but he's a man now, filled out and beautifully weathered, with a hint of stubble and a thick neck. The bulk of him shakes loose something powerful in my libido and I clench everything I can to stop the flood of desire I'm shocked to experience in his presence.

Who lusts after a grieving man, reeling in shock at the threat to his family's livelihood? When she has a doctor-boyfriend back home? Me. I do these things.

I walked away from Ethan and cut off all communication when I got my diagnosis my freshman year. And I'm finally in a relationship. I have a life laid out, and it doesn't include Fork Lick. I don't know why I volunteered to take on the Bedd portfolio. I certainly don't know what made me push the firm partners to let me come here in person to try and save the farm rather than foreclose and take the loss.

But here I am, with my job on the line and a devastatingly handsome ex-boyfriend currently sweet-talking a sheep.

Ethan meets my eye, his ice blue gaze shooting sparks as his jaw clenches. "And just what plan can we come up with that will satisfy these suits? You want me to pull a million dollars from the pole barn? Just leave us alone, Lia. You did it before."

I should follow him. I should defend myself or my work. But I crumple against the desk in his wake as Ethan scoops up the sheep and, once more, strides out of the office.