Chapter 4 #2
“I’ve had worse greetings. One guy in Valdosta met me with a shotgun.”
“Jesus.”
“Unloaded, thankfully. He just wanted to make a point.” Jake’s expression sobered. “I get it, though. I show up representing the bank that could take everything. I’d be hostile too.”
Wes looked down at his coffee, now cold. “So what’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just partnership. You’d have to trust me.”
Trust.
Wes turned that word over in his head like one of his carvings, examining it from all angles. Trust meant letting someone in. Trust meant admitting he couldn’t do this alone, that three generations of Dalton stubbornness couldn’t save the farm by sheer force of will.
“And if I say yes?” Wes asked carefully. “What happens then?”
“Then we file the restructuring paperwork, get you on a new payment schedule, and start looking at long-term sustainability strategies.”
“Like what?”
Jake leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking softly. “That depends. You’ve got forty acres here, right? How much of that is currently in use for the tree farm?”
“About half. The rest is just sitting there. Used to be pastureland when my granddad ran cattle, but we haven’t used it in years. It’s just... there.”
“Could you use it for something else? Diversify income streams so you’re not just relying on six weeks of Christmas tree sales to carry you through the entire year?”
Wes frowned, defensive instinct kicking in. “Like what? I’m a tree farmer, not a—”
“You’re more than that, Wes,” Jake interrupted gently. “You’ve got skills most people don’t. Land, equipment, a customer base that already trusts you. There are options if you’re willing to consider them.”
“Such as?”
Jake hesitated, and Wes recognized the careful way he was choosing his words.
“There’s a local contact who might be helpful.
Pedro Torres-Shepherd—he runs a landscaping company.
Barb mentioned he navigated something similar a while back.
Seasonal slumps, cash flow issues. He diversified, and it worked. ”
Wes stiffened slightly at the name, his jaw tightening. “Titus already tried to buy into the farm once. I said no.”
“This isn’t about Titus,” Jake said quickly, leaning forward. “And it’s not about buying in. Just peer advice. Businessman to businessman. Someone who understands the agricultural cycle and the challenges of seasonal income. That’s all. But only if you’re willing.”
Wes looked away, his gaze finding the window and the rows of pines beyond.
He knew Titus and Pedro meant well. Hell, they were good people.
Titus had been working to make Spoon a haven for people like them—like Wes—even if Wes had never quite been ready to acknowledge what people like them meant.
But accepting help from the mayor’s family—from folks who had money to throw around, who could write checks without checking their bank balance first—felt like charity.
And Wes didn’t do charity.
“I’ll think about it,” he said finally.
“That’s all I’m asking.”
They sat in silence for a moment. The numbers on the laptop screen glowed between them, patient and implacable. From the living room came the muffled sound of Henry’s cooking show, someone explaining the proper way to fold egg whites.
“Can I ask you something?” Wes said.
“Sure.”
“Why do you do this?”
Jake blinked. “Do what?”
“This. Save farms. Most bankers I’ve met don’t give a shit if a place goes under. They just want their money back, one way or another.”
Jake’s expression shifted—something softer breaking through the professional veneer, more honest. He closed the laptop slowly, leaning forward with his forearms on the table.
“I moved around a lot,” he said, his voice quieter now.
“Seven homes in ten years. Never had a place that felt like home—you know, really home. The kind of place where you know which floorboards creak, where the sun hits in the morning, where three generations carved their initials into the same fence post.” He paused, his fingers tracing an invisible pattern on the table.
“And then I got into banking, started working agricultural accounts, and I saw these families—people who’d been on the same land for generations, who had roots and history and legacy. Things I never had.”
He looked up, meeting Wes’s eyes.
“I guess I figured if I couldn’t have that for myself, at least I could help other people keep it. Maybe that makes me sound pathetic—”
“No,” Wes interrupted, his throat tight. “It doesn’t. It makes you sound human.”
He hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected Jake to be so... real. To have his own scars, his own losses. To understand what it meant to fight for something bigger than yourself.
“It’s—” Wes started, then stopped, unsure what to say. What words could possibly be adequate?
“Sappy?” Jake offered with a small, self-deprecating smile.
“No, it’s—honest. Kind. It’s good. What you do. It matters.”
Jake held his gaze for perhaps a beat too long, and Wes felt the air between them thicken, become something almost tangible.
Wes cleared his throat and stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. “You want to see my shop? The chainsaw carvings?”
Jake’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Yeah. I do.”
“Come on.”
The workshop was Wes’s sanctuary.
He didn’t bring people here—not customers, not even Henry much anymore since the stroke made navigating the uneven ground treacherous.
It was where he went when the weight of everything got too heavy, when his hands needed to create something instead of just maintain, when he needed to remember that he was more than a struggling farmer drowning in debt.
But something about Jake made him want to share it.
He unlocked the door—habit more than necessity out here—and gestured Jake inside.
“This is where the magic happens,” Wes said, then immediately felt stupid.
Magic. Jesus.
But Jake didn’t laugh. He stepped inside slowly, looking around with genuine interest—at the workbenches scarred with decades of use, the tools hung on pegboard with obsessive precision, the half-finished carvings lined up like sentries along the back wall.
Santa figures and reindeer, bears and eagles, abstract shapes that were more feeling than form.
“Wow,” Jake said softly, his voice almost reverent.
He crossed to a carved Santa, nearly three feet tall, standing proud in the corner.
He picked it up carefully, his hands cradling it like something precious.
His fingers traced the detail—the beard carved in individual flowing strands, the wrinkles around the eyes that suggested a lifetime of joy, the tiny buttons on the coat that Wes had spent an hour getting just right.
“You made this?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s incredible.” Jake looked up, his eyes bright with genuine surprise. “Wes, you’re an artist.”
Wes shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise, with being seen. “Just something I do.”
“No.” Jake set the Santa down carefully, moved closer, closing the distance between them. “This isn’t just something you do. This is... this is real talent. Have you ever shown these? Sold them?”
“Sometimes. Church craft fair, online a little. But it’s not—it’s not a business.”
“It could be.”
They were standing close now. Close enough that Wes could smell Jake’s cologne more clearly—cedarwood, definitely, with something underneath that was just Jake. Something warm and clean that seemed absurdly foreign in a workshop full of sawdust and pine resin.
“I gave up an art scholarship to run this place,” Wes heard himself say, not sure why he was admitting it.
Not sure why this felt like a safe space to voice the regret he usually kept locked down tight.
“School of Visual Arts in New York. Full ride. Seemed stupid at the time to turn it down. Still does, most days.”
Jake’s expression softened with understanding. “It’s not stupid. You preserved your family’s legacy. That matters.”
“Yeah, well. Legacy doesn’t pay the bills.”
“No. But this—” Jake gestured at the carvings, at the workshop, at Wes himself. “—this is why it’ll work. You’re not just a tree farmer going through the motions. You’re creative. Resourceful. You find ways to make beauty even when everything’s hard. That’s not nothing, Wes.”
Wes’s throat went tight with an emotion he couldn’t name.
No one had said anything like that to him in.
.. well, he couldn’t remember when. Henry was practical, focused on keeping the operation running.
Miguel was supportive but kept things surface-level.
And Wes sure as hell didn’t talk about his feelings with customers who just wanted their perfect Christmas tree.
Jake was still looking at him with those impossibly blue eyes, standing too close, close enough that Wes could see the hazel flecks near his pupils, the slight shadow of stubble along his jaw that suggested he’d shaved this morning but it was already fighting back.
His lips parted slightly, as if he was about to say something else, something important.
Don’t.
But Wes wanted to. God, he wanted to close the space between them, find out if Jake tasted as good as he looked, if those confident hands felt as sure on skin as they did on keyboards.
Wanted to know if this chemistry crackling between them was real or just loneliness and proximity and the desperation of a man who hadn’t been touched with desire in longer than he wanted to admit.
Jake’s gaze dropped to Wes’s mouth, lingered there for a heartbeat that stretched into eternity.
He lifted his hand slowly, giving Wes time to pull away, time to stop this before it started. When Wes didn’t move, Jake’s fingers found Wes’s jaw, gentle against the soft beard. His thumb brushed Wes’s cheekbone with devastating tenderness.
“Wes—” Jake’s voice was soft, barely above a whisper.
The ping of Henry’s medication app shattered the moment like glass.
MEDICATION REMINDER: 2:00 PM - BLOOD PRESSURE
Wes stepped back fast, nearly stumbling, pulling his phone from his pocket with shaking hands. “Shit. I need to—Henry’s meds.”
“Of course.” Jake’s voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat, taking his own step back, putting a safe distance between them. “I should go anyway. Let you think about everything.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
They walked back to Jake’s car in silence, the December air biting after the warmth of the workshop. The space between them felt electric, charged, like one wrong word would ignite something neither of them was ready for—or maybe something they were both afraid of how badly they wanted.
Jake opened his car door, paused with one hand on the frame, looking back at Wes over the roof. “Friday? We could meet again. Go over any questions and finalize things if you’re ready to move forward.”
“Friday works.”
“Good.” Jake climbed in, started the engine. It purred to life, smooth and expensive and so different from Wes’s truck that coughed like a lifetime smoker. He lowered the window, and cold air rushed in. “Think about it, Wes. Really think about it. Not just the farm restructuring. All of it.”
He drove away, taillights disappearing down the driveway, leaving a wake of dust that settled slowly in the still air.
Wes stood there in the cold, heart still racing, skin still warm from the ghost of Jake’s touch, from the memory of standing close enough to feel the heat radiating between them.
He went back to the workshop and picked up the Santa Jake had touched. His fingers traced the same path Jake’s had—the beard, the eyes, the buttons—like he could absorb the memory through his skin.
Think about it. All of it.
The words echoed in his head, carrying weight that had nothing to do with loan restructuring or payment plans or five-year business strategies.
Wes set the carving down carefully and leaned against the workbench, letting his head fall back, eyes closed.
He was thinking about it.
He was thinking about almost nothing else.
And that terrified him more than any foreclosure notice ever could.