Chapter 2
Eric
I stare out at my farm. My farm. It still doesn’t seem real after all this time.
Shit, I gotta figure out a way to make this profitable. I can’t keep bleeding from my trust fund to take care of it. And honestly, I don’t want to fail. I want to prove to every asshole who stood in my way that I can do this. Mostly though, I want to keep my father’s dream alive. He didn’t want to retire when he did, but Mom forced him. And to be fair, the warmer weather in the Bahamas has been great for her arthritis. And with my sister living in England with her husband and kids, it’s all come down to me. Make it work or sell it to the developers that have been hounding me.
This farm is really all I’ve ever known. Dad sold his microchip company and used the profits to buy this land and build the farm when I was still pretty young. Storyview Falls is my home.
“Eric!” I hear my name.
I walk down to my office that’s attached to the house. Joy, my jack-of-all-trades, is standing in front of her computer.
“What?” I ask as I walk around the desk.
“It’s the damn computer screen. Went black again,” she says.
I take a deep breath and look around the back of the screen. Yep, the end of the power cord is sitting there. I hold it up and Joy gives me a sheepish grin.
“Oops,” she says as I plug it in, and we both watch it come to life.
“I told you it would keep getting knocked out if you had the desk facing the window,” I explain as I motion to the configuration of the room.
“And I told you, I want the view. So, I guess I’m gonna have to remember to check that damn cord,” she mutters.
“Joy, lets add another room on here. Then you could have a better setup,” I argue.
She gives me a pointed look. “Eric, if you want to turn a profit, you gotta stop spending money. I swear, for a boy who has a minor in business administration, you have more heart than business sense.”
I open my mouth to counter her point, but Buck and Earl walk into the office. Earl shoves two coffees toward Joy and me.
“Elisha sent over the latest seasonal latte. I told her we just like our coffee black, no sugar, no cream, just plain old coffee, but that girl was determined to give us some frou-frou drink,” Earl mutters as he looks with contempt at the offending lattes complete with whipped cream on top and something that appears to be cinnamon sprinkled on it.
Joy picks up the coffee and sips it. She moans. “Good God, Elisha is the queen of coffee making. She better never close that café.”
I take a sip of mine. It’s actually pretty good. “Not bad,” I agree.
“Not bad,” Buck says. “This is even better than the one she had last month. If Mr. Curmudgeon over here would just try it…” He trails off and glares at Earl.
“Fine, give that here,” he motions to Joy who passes him her latte. He takes a sip and we all stare at him waiting for the verdict. “God damn it! Why does she have to be so good at this damn coffee-frothing thing? That latte is at least three dollars more than my plain coffee. She’s just trying to upsell me,” he grumbles.
Buck looks up at the ceiling and shakes his head. “She gave us the drinks for free, you piss ant. She made zero dollars. Now, can we take our coffees and go see about that tire on the tractor?”
“Fine, but mark my words, I ain’t paying a penny more for my coffee. I don’t care how good that shit is,” Earl grumbles as the two of them turn and head out the door.
Joy and I watch as they disappear, Earl still grumbling and Buck poking fun at him. I worry about those two. They aren’t exactly young anymore, but neither one would admit it. I won’t fire them, but I do realize I need some younger staff. If I could just get this farm turned in the right direction financially.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” Joy asks as I stare out the window.
“Kingsley is coming by to open the farmstand at noon. I gotta meet with Max about our next seasonal vegetable contract, and I think I got some applications for that social media marketing job that Kingsley talked me into posting.” I turn back to find Joy staring at me with a raised eyebrow.
“So, you actually posted the job?” she says.
I shrug. “I mean, he’s not wrong. I don’t know the first thing about social media. And if we’re gonna expand to have people coming to pick their own berries or apples and pet the farm animals, we need some better marketing. I just…I don’t know. I could buy a lot of advertisements instead of hiring someone.”
“Kingsley is right. Social media is the new marketing if you can do it right. My granddaughter is an influencer and makes more than my daughter and son-in-law combined,” she states with a pointed look.
I feel my eyebrows shoot up at her statement. “Is that…normal?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Eric, what’s normal these days?”
Sighing, I nod. “Valid point.”
“At least interview a few people, maybe you’ll find someone good,” Joy urges as she sits back down at her computer.
“I’m not sure how much I can pay a new employee. If social media influencers are making six figures, that’s not exactly economical, unless you know something I don’t about our profit margin from last month,” I state dryly.
“Just look at a few of the résumés,” she urges.
I sit down at the desk in the corner and open my laptop, begrudgingly. I’d rather be doing anything other than this. It’s like going to the dentist.
“Eric, you aren’t hiring an assassin. The stakes aren’t that high. Remember your plan. You’ll hire someone on a short-term basis at first and see how it goes,” she reminds me as I doomscroll through news online before logging in to the portal for the job posting.
There are three applications. One from a college kid who hasn’t graduated yet but has a following of ten thousand people on some social media app. One from someone with a graduate degree. I look at the résumé, intrigued. He’s had six jobs in two years. Nope, I think to myself. Red flag. The third one is from a recent college graduate. I click through her social media. It’s very artsy. Artistically taken photos of bags, shoes, cityscapes, park benches, and leather chairs. It’s all at unique angles, and the photos are framed to only show you a small part of the object or scenery. She has…five hundred thousand followers! That can’t be right. I click again. God, I wish I was better at this spy thing. Her profile photo of herself is even cropped. All I can see is part of a facial profile and massive amounts of red wavy hair.
Sighing again, I close the program and turn to Joy. “I don’t know. I was hoping we’d have at least like five candidates that looked good. There’s maybe one in there. I’ll give it a few more days,” I state as I get up and walk to the door.
“Come on, Barkley,” I add as I pat my thigh, waiting for the hound under Joy’s desk to emerge. Barkley has lived with me on the farm since I found him as a puppy dropped off with siblings in a box by the main road. I found homes for all of them but him and he’s been here ever since. He’s older now, and slower, but he’s still our office mascot.
“He’s keeping my feet warm,” Joy complains as I watch Barkley stir and pop his head up to look at me.
“Fine, you traitor. But don’t forget who pays for your food and your vet bills,” I say with a pointed look. Barkley drops his head back on the ground.
Shaking my head, I walk out to the barn to feed the animals. But somewhere in the recesses of my mind, the image of the mysterious redhead nags at me. My fingers itch to touch that hair. It’s a fleeting thought. And I push it aside. I’ve closed the door on anything more than an occasional fling. And even that is at the prompting of my friends. I should face the facts. I’m never going to love another woman. And besides, it’s not like beautiful women just fall into my lap out here on the farm.