15. Bree
— ? —
Bree
The walk from the greenhouse to the house took approximately forty-five seconds.
Butterbean made it memorable.
The pig had been sunning himself on the porch when we rounded the corner, his pink snout twitching in the afternoon breeze. He looked peaceful. Content. An animal built for greeting cards about simple country living.
His belly was pressed flat against the warm wood, his ears flopped forward, and his tail gave one lazy curl. He was the picture of pastoral tranquility.
Then he saw Rafael.
The transformation was instant. Butterbean’s ears flattened. His small eyes narrowed. He heaved himself to his feet with a grunt that sounded almost military, and before I could say anything, seventy pounds of porcine fury was charging across the yard.
“What the-” Rafael saw him coming and froze, which was exactly the wrong response.
Butterbean hit him at knee level.
Rafael went down hard, his expensive shoes slipping in the dirt. He scrambled back up, but Butterbean was already circling, snapping at his ankles with teeth that could crack walnuts. Rafael dodged left. Butterbean followed. Rafael dodged right. Butterbean anticipated.
“Get him off me!”
“He doesn’t like strangers.”
“I noticed!”
Rafael bolted for the porch. Butterbean pursued, his hooves thundering against the packed earth. They careened through the screen door and into my kitchen, where Rafael scrambled onto a chair while Butterbean stood below, snorting with frustrated bloodlust.
I leaned against the doorframe and watched.
The billionaire CEO of Grant Foods was standing on my kitchen chair in his ruined suit, holding his briefcase above his head, while my pig circled below and screamed for vengeance.
His face was red and his hair was a disaster.
There was still a smear of tomato on his collar from the day he’d arrived.
I pressed my lips together.
“Is this funny to you?”
“No,” I managed. “Not at all.”
The laugh escaped anyway. I couldn’t help it. The sight was too absurd, too perfectly ridiculous, and I’d spent four years angry at this man and now he was cowering from my pig in my kitchen and the laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep and wouldn’t stay down.
“Bree, please. Call him off.”
“Butterbean.” I snapped my fingers. “Leave it.”
Butterbean gave Rafael one more murderous look, then trotted to my side with the self-satisfaction of a job well done. I scratched behind his ears.
“Good boy.”
“Good boy?” Rafael climbed down from the chair cautiously, eyes still on the pig. “He tried to kill me.”
“He tried to bite your ankles. There’s a difference.”
“Minimal.”
“You’ll learn to move faster.” I pulled out a chair at the table and sat. After a moment, Rafael sat across from me, still eyeing Butterbean with deep suspicion. “We need to talk about the terms.”
“The terms.”
“If you’re going to be in Rosie’s life. If you’re going to work here. There have to be rules.”
He straightened. The wariness in his eyes shifted to a look I recognized from conference rooms and negotiations. This was territory he understood. Rules and terms.
“I’m listening.”
“First. You don’t live here. You stay at the inn. Patsy’s place. You’re welcome on the property during working hours and when I specifically invite you, but you don’t sleep under this roof.”
He nodded once, the same clipped nod he used to give quarterly targets, and I hated how easily we both slid back into the old rhythm of negotiation.
“Understood.”
“Second. Your money doesn’t touch us. Not one dollar, for the farm or my debts or Rosie. If you want to buy her a birthday present, you ask me first and you keep it reasonable. No pony. No trust fund. No fancy private school.”
“Define reasonable.” He said it the way he’d say it across a negotiating table.
“Under fifty dollars.”
His mouth opened, then closed. “That’s very reasonable.”
“Welcome to the real world. Third. No press, no photographs, no contact with anyone from our past. Grant Foods doesn’t know we exist. Your parents don’t know we exist. As far as the outside world is concerned, you’re on an extended personal leave in a small town nobody’s ever heard of.”
“My company will have questions.”
“Figure out answers that don’t include my name or my daughter’s.”
He nodded slowly. “What else?”
“Rosie.” I leaned forward, making sure he was looking at me. “She knows you as Rafe. Just Rafe. Not Dad, not Daddy, not Father. You’re the guy who works on the farm. That’s it. When she’s ready to know more, if she’s ever ready, I’ll be the one to tell her. Not you. Are we clear?”
“Yes.”
“Say it back to me.”
“Rosie calls me Rafe. She doesn’t know I’m her father until you decide to tell her.”
“Good.” I sat back. Butterbean had settled at my feet, still watching Rafael with prejudicial intent. “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Look at me.”
He looked. Those pale blue eyes, so much his daughter’s, met mine with an intensity that made my chest tight.
“If you choose anything over us, once, just once, I’m done.” I kept my voice flat. Controlled. “A phone call. A business deal. A crisis that isn’t ours. If a call comes in and you pick it instead of us, we’re finished. And this time you won’t find me. Because this time I’ll be hiding on purpose.”
The words hung between us. Rafael’s jaw tightened.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” He leaned forward, matching my posture. “I understand that you’re giving me one chance. I understand that I don’t deserve it. And I understand that if I blow it, I lose everything that matters.”
“Easy to say.”
“I’ll prove they’re more than that.”
We stared at each other across the kitchen table. Butterbean snorted.
“Do you have a pen?” Rafael asked.
“What?”
“A pen. And paper. I want to write this down.”
“Write what down?” I stared at him.
“Everything we just agreed to. In writing. With signatures.”
I set down my coffee. “You want to draft a contract.”
“You’re a Salazar. I’m a Grant. Our families do things in writing.” He was already reaching for his briefcase, pulling out a legal pad and a pen with the Grant Foods logo. “It’s not that I don’t trust your word. It’s that I want you to know I take this seriously.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve been told.”
He started writing. I watched his hand move across the page, neat block letters forming clauses and subclauses, the language precise and formal.
Article 1: Residence. The party of the second part (Rafael Grant, hereinafter “Rafe”) shall maintain separate accommodations at the establishment known as Patsy’s Inn for the duration of this agreement.
“You’re writing it in legal terms.”
“It’s how I think,” he said, not looking up from the page.
“You’re insane.”
“Possibly.”
He kept writing. Article 2: Financial Independence. Article 3: Media and Privacy. Article 4: Parental Disclosure. Each section was detailed, careful, capturing exactly what I’d said and converting it into language that would hold up in court.
His pen moved steadily across the page, brow furrowed, and his tongue poked slightly from the corner of his mouth, the same thing Rosie did when she was concentrating.
I looked away.
Article 5: Priority of Commitment.
I watched him write the final clause. The one about choosing us. The one that meant the most.
Should the party of the second part, at any time, prioritize external concerns over the well-being of the party of the first part (Brianna Salazar) or the minor child (Rosie), this agreement shall be considered null and void, and all contact shall cease immediately and permanently.
He signed at the bottom. Held out the pen.
“Your turn.”
I took the pen. Read through what he’d written. It was accurate. Thorough. A document that left no room for misinterpretation.
I signed.
“There.” Rafael smiled, the first real smile I’d seen from him since he’d arrived in Marigold. “It’s official.”
Butterbean chose that moment to strike.
He’d been biding his time, apparently, waiting for the perfect opportunity. The pig lunged from his position at my feet, jaws snapping, and caught Rafael’s calf with a bite that would leave a bruise.
“Shit!”
Rafael jumped. His knee hit the underside of the table. The table jolted, and the contract went flying.
Butterbean caught it.
Before either of us could react, the pig had the legal pad in his mouth and was trotting toward the door with the self-satisfaction of a successful heist.
“Butterbean, no!”
Too late. The pig was through the screen door and into the yard, whipping the pad back and forth in his teeth. By the time I caught up to him, the first page was confetti and the second was rapidly joining it.
I stood in my yard and watched my pig eat the contract that defined my relationship with my ex-husband.
Behind me, Rafael appeared in the doorway. His pants were torn where Butterbean had bitten, his face was flushed, and his hair had managed to get worse.
“Did he just-”
“Yes.”
“The entire contract?” His voice climbed.
“Looks like it.”
We stared at each other. Butterbean snorted happily and trotted off to find shade, pieces of legal pad still dangling from his mouth.
“I’ll redraft it,” Rafael said.
“You’ll have to.”
“Do you have any paper that isn’t in reach of homicidal livestock?”
I bit down on a knuckle. The laugh was building again, pressing against my teeth, threatening to escape.
“Top cabinet,” I managed. “Above the refrigerator.”
“The pig can’t reach that?”
“The pig is seventy pounds. He can’t reach anything above three feet.”
“I’m adding a clause about the pig.”
He said it with total seriousness. A month ago this man had been negotiating with foreign governments. Now he wanted contractual protection from a pig named Butterbean.
“No.”
“Bree, that animal wants me dead.”
“He’ll warm up to you.”
I had no evidence for this. Butterbean had disliked Rafael on sight and shown no sign of reconsidering.
“When?”
“Probably never.”
Rafael walked back inside to redraft the contract. I stayed in the yard for a moment, watching Butterbean chew the last scraps of legalese, and tried to process what had just happened.
I’d agreed to let Rafael Grant be part of my daughter’s life.
I’d signed a contract, albeit a contract that was currently pig food, laying out the terms of our arrangement.
I’d watched this man, this billionaire CEO who ran a multinational corporation, cower on my kitchen chair from my pet pig and then solemnly draft a legal document at my table.
He was ridiculous.
He was infuriating.
He was standing in my kitchen right now, flushed and embarrassed and wearing a torn suit, and I hated that I thought he looked gorgeous. I hated even more that a small part of me, a part I hadn’t acknowledged in four years, was hoping he’d last past a week.
Butterbean finished his snack and ambled over for ear scratches.
“You’re a menace,” I told him.
He snorted in agreement.
I walked back inside to help Rafael redraft the document, and I didn’t let myself examine why my heart was beating so fast.