Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
LIAM
T his has to be a joke.
Travis? Really?
I’m seething, pacing, and mentally trying to envision the consequences if I take a chainsaw to the hood of his car.
The way he showed up here like nothing happened? Like we were just two old friends?
Un-freaking-believable.
I storm out of the barn after storming into the barn after watching him drive off with Olive.
My fists are tight at my sides, my vision red, and my anger flaring.
It’s just like that night.
The bonfire. The party. The conversation, the catching up, and him swooping in like he had some right to claim her. Stepping aside instead of stepping up.
Why didn’t I step up then? Why can’t I step up now?
Why can’t I just say what I want? Tell people how I feel?
I get into my truck and slam my fist against the steering wheel, mad at myself more than anything .
Another missed opportunity, another chance to get things right. The farm, my job, Olive—it doesn’t matter.
I keep going around the same mountain.
I start the engine and pull away, gravel dust following me like a cloud as I peel away.
I drive down to the main barn and park behind the equipment garage in the employee lot, waiting until I get a glimpse of Manny through the open overhead door. I see him walk across the garage toward one of the tractors.
Manny has been the Pine Creek farm manager for as long as I can remember. His dad had the job before him, and he slid right into the position when his dad retired just like everyone expected me to do when my dad retires.
But he’s more than a guy who works here. No one knows how he’s helped me. No one knows the years of crap I dumped on him—and he took it, listened, and told me exactly what I needed to hear.
He was a steady and calming voice in my life. For years, when my dad wouldn’t listen—Manny would. And he never steered me wrong.
I walk into the garage and see him hunched over a tractor, working on the engine. When he sees me, he stops moving, stands upright, and wipes the wrench down with a rag from his back pocket. “Well, lookie here.” He squints at me. “You look—like you want to throw something.”
Travis’s face comes to mind.
Manny tosses an old spin-on oil filter to me.
I catch it, and he says, “Here, chuck that against that wall. I’ve done it at least fifty times.”
Without hesitation, I rear back, channel my baseball days, and whip the filter at the corrugated wall, throwing all my anger behind it. It cracks against the metal with a satisfying p-TANG , splitting in half sending the pieces spinning in opposite directions .
“Woo-eee, that was a good one! Feel better?”
I grit my teeth. “Yeah, a little.”
“Women don’t understand that. Every once in a while, a guy’s just gotta throw something.” He laughs.
I look at him, and his humor-filled face gets to me. I immediately start calming down with a laugh of my own.
“You good?”
I marvel at how perceptive Manny is, even after all these years.
“Better now.”
Manny leans back toward the motor. “You want to talk about it?”
I scoff. “Do I ever want to talk about it?”
Without looking up he points a wrench at me. “Yeah, I wondered if maybe you’ve evolved past the grunts.”
I grunt a reply.
“Guess not.” He smirks at me, then walks around to the other side of the tractor and leans on it in front of me. “How’ve you been?”
I shrug and look away, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Being back here, man.”
He folds his arms, nods, and says, “Yep.”
Unlike everyone else in my life, Manny doesn’t ask me to explain. It’s like that’s all I need to say for him to get it.
“Let’s go for a ride,” he says.
I follow him to the back of the barn where the ATVs are parked. He nods to the helmets. I grab two, handing him one.
“Keys are in ‘em. All gassed up.” He swings a leg over one, and I do the same on the one beside it.
We each start an engine, and without a word, both flip down the visors on our helmets, almost in unison the way we’ve done so many times before.
As we head off into the fields, the scene whisks me back years in an instant. Rows and rows of familiar trees pass by, and I start to think about the countless hours I spent out here, planting, harvesting, weeding. Whatever the season, there was always something to do.
It was grueling sometimes, and sweaty and physical. And I don’t miss it at all.
My current job in Indianapolis isn’t perfect, but at least it was my choice to take it.
Manny speeds ahead, and I’m surprised the old guy still drives these as fast as he always did.
“No way, buddy. You’re not beating me this time,” I say to myself inside the helmet, and gun the engine harder.
I draw in a deep breath, the cool air coating my lungs, and I’m surprised when, on the exhale, something inside me loosens.
Something that’s been there since I got home. The only other time it goes away is when I’m with Olive.
Huh.
I shake my head to clear the mental picture of her face. I try to think about nothing. Stare at the fields. The grass. The trees. But all of it makes me think of Olive. She’s out here, exploring this place she loves so much . . . with Travis.
The part of me that loosened tightens again. I pop the clutch and drop into a faster gear, winding through rows and doing my best to keep up.
Maybe nostalgia will kick in and rekindle whatever they had all those years ago.
Something I never got over was the fact that if I hadn’t had that stupid party, they never would’ve met.
I was twenty-one. Rebellious. Angry. My parents weren’t on board with my career plans, and my dad did not understand how I could walk away from Pine Creek—it had always been the plan that I would run it.
Now it seems my plans will ruin it.
With or without Lacey, Pine Creek was my legacy .
I hate that word. Legacy . Why don’t they just call it what it is? Responsibility. Duty.
Obligation.
Maybe I should’ve been grateful. Once upon a time, I’d loved it here even more than Olive. I’d loved coming out to see my grandparents. I’d loved the way my grandpa would show me how everything worked, the way the house always smelled like cinnamon, the way people would smile just walking around the property.
I understood that Pine Creek was special. But, while the farm gave other people joy, that’s exactly what it stole from me.
Everything changed when my grandpa died and we moved here. Because it was our legacy . And from the jump, it was clear that my participation in the daily operations was non-negotiable. I was expected to be in the fields, doing the work. Nobody asked if that was what I wanted. They started saying things like, “one day, when this place is yours—” like it was a given.
My future was locked and loaded, and I didn’t have a say in it at all.
I grumble at the thought of it, mad at myself for not saying something. I tell myself I’m over it now, the same way I’m over Travis and Olive, but I know I’m lying.
Manny knows it too. I don’t even have to say anything for him to zero in on the problem. Same way he always used to.
Granted, the problem was usually my dad. Not listening. Barking orders. Taking his stress out on me. But this is different.
Manny slows near a row of trees on the extreme backlot of the property, and we park.
He pulls off his helmet, and says to me, “You’ve gotten slow.”
I chuckle and shake my head, then glance up and find him watching me.
“Is it your dad? ”
“No.” I get off the ATV. “I’ve hardly seen him since I’ve been home.”
Manny nods. “So, it’s about the girl.”
I don’t respond. Of course he knows. He probably always knows I’m working really hard not to think or feel anything about “the girl.”
“Yeah,” he nods. “It’s about the girl.”
Manny gets off and walks around the back of the ATV and picks up a small trimmer. “Trim.”
That’s all he says to me. It’s all he needs to say. Because I’ve done this a thousand times. I’ve done every job on the farm a thousand times. That was part of the deal—my dad wanted to make sure I understood how it all worked. And as I walk off toward a row of trees, I’m not all that surprised to realize I still do.
It’s like muscle memory kicks in the second the trimmer is in my hand.
We have a fair number of people who want to cut their own Christmas trees, but there are also plenty who want to buy a precut one. And trimming them up so they look showroom ready is the best way to move them off the lot.
I get to work, thankful for the sunshine, even though the air is cool. As I work, Manny starts cutting down the trimmed trees down. We fall into a familiar rhythm, and eventually, I forget to be mad. I forget about everything except the task in front of me.
I let go of the conflicting emotions pinballing around in my head. I let go of trying to figure it all out.
This—trimming the trees—I can do.
I can clean them up and make them look good. I can make sure that when customers show up wanting the perfect tree, they find it.
I work in silence as a few other guys show up to haul the trees to the precut area and set them up for shoppers. I finish the row, then go behind Manny to help load the trees onto the trailer.
It’s hard, physical work, the kind of work I hated all through high school and college.
But now I kind of enjoy it. It’s not for a specific purpose. It’s not for a deadline, and it’s sure as heck not because my dad is barking at me to finish the checklist before he gets back.
I’m just . . . existing. And cleaning up some trees for people who may appreciate it later.
When we’re done and packing up, I notice I don’t feel exhausted. And I don’t feel angry.
I feel good. Accomplished. Productive.
And I couldn’t have predicted that. I let out a long, satisfied sigh.
Leaning on his ATV, Manny up-nods me. “There’s something about it, right?”
I pull my gloves off, rubbing my hands in the cool air. “About what?”
“Working with your hands.” He inhales a long breath. “Outside in nature. Not at your cushy desk job.”
At the mention of it, I feel an uncomfortable twinge. Knowing how hard Manny and his guys work, I don’t have any business complaining about my situation. And being here with him, after a hard morning’s work, I have to wonder how it is that he seems more content with his work than I do with mine.
“Do you miss it?” he asks. “The toll it takes on your body? The way your muscles ache at the end of the night? The way your face is drawn up toward the sun every time you walk through these fields? The smell of it . . .?” He trails off, like he’s lost in a pleasant thought.
I take in the green of the trees, the smell of cut pine, aware that my normal knee-jerk reply doesn’t ring true.
“Is Lacey coming out today?” Manny swings a leg over his ATV .
I hop on mine and frown at him. “Lacey? Out here?”
“We’ve missed her too.”
“In the fields?”
“Next to you, she’s my best worker.” Manny grins.
“Shut up.”
“Actually, she might be better than you. She’s a tree whisperer.” He says this last part wiggling his fingers at me, voodoo style.
I chuckle. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
“Don’t believe me?” He glances at me briefly, then starts his engine. “She’s got the magic touch out here,” he yells at me.
I frown as I start my ATV. She never said anything to me about working anywhere on the farm other than in the shop or the hot chocolate shed. Once she tried driving the carriages and led the horses off the path straight into the lake, so she doesn’t get free rein of this place anymore. “Since when?”
He shrugs. “After you left, I guess. Always felt like she had something to prove.”
I think about that, about how my father never even considered Lacey to take over when they retired. How I never considered her either. And then I think about how she pleaded with me to do this with her.
I thought she was just being sentimental, but what if it was more than that?
The ride back isn’t as fast. And I notice that my head is as clear as the air out here. It takes us a good ten minutes to make it back to the equipment barn where we started.
“Why do you stay here, Manny?” I ask, after we park behind the garage and I remove my helmet. “Don’t you ever want to do something else?”
He frowns, almost like the thought has never occurred to him. “What would I do? Work in an office, like you?” He cackles. “Nah—the dirtier I am at the end of the day, the better I feel.”
I laugh. “How’s Brenda feel about that? ”
“She tolerates it,” he says. “But she knows she’d end up murdering me if I were stuck inside all day.”
“I still don’t understand what that woman sees in you.” I laugh, and Manny grabs the trimmer off the back of the ATV.
“You and me both, buddy.”
He makes his way into the barn, and I follow.
I don’t want to know the answer to this question, but I ask it anyway. “What will you do after they sell?”
He shrugs. “Your dad is going to try to negotiate a way for most of the staff to stay on, so we’re just waiting.”
“You know there’s no guarantee whoever buys it is going to keep it running,” I say, because seriously—had my parents not told the staff this? There was no telling what would happen to Pine Creek.
“I know,” Manny says. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got options.”
“Any farm would be lucky to have you,” I say honestly. “Heck, any company.” Because really, where would we be without Manny and his family? We wouldn’t have gotten our footing here, I’m sure of it.
He grins. “Don’t go getting sentimental on me now.”
“Have I ever been sentimental?”
He hoots and wraps an arm around me, which is, I’m sure he knows, the most physical touch I can stand at times. He gives me a paternal squeeze. “It’s good to have you back, kid.”
“I’m not back,” I say. “Just home through the holidays. Promised Mom I’d help get things sorted, but I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing. Mostly, I just feel like I’m in the way.”
Also, I’m on Olive duty. Which could be worse.
Manny takes a step back and shakes his head. “You really don’t know how lucky you have it, do you?”
The question nags, but I don’t respond because my thoughts are sidetracked when Olive’s car whips into the parking lot and skids to a stop right in front of the main barn where the shop and café are housed, a cloud of gravel dust kicked up in the car’s wake. I watch as Travis gets out immediately and puts a hand on the car to steady himself.
I watch as she gets out, neat as a pin, and confidently walks into the shop without waiting for him. His shoulders and head sag, as if gathering strength, and he slowly walks to follow her.
Okay. My spirit rebounds at the sight. Maybe they won’t rekindle what they had all those years ago.
They don’t see me, standing here watching, the same way I did the night of that stupid party. Watching this guy who was supposed to be my friend move in on Olive, knowing exactly how I felt about her—it burned me up. It still burns me up.
Mostly because I did nothing to try and stop it. What would Olive have said if I’d stuck around instead of disappearing for the rest of the night?
I’m irritated that I can conjure that memory so easily. It was a long time ago. And Olive and I are barely friends now, let alone anything else. I have no claim, and I can’t pretend I do, no matter how jealous I feel.
Beside me, Manny shifts, breaking the spell, and giving me a reason to look away. He watches me, amusement behind his dark eyes.
“See?” He nudges me. “It is about the girl.”