Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
BECK
The porch steps have always been a good place to watch the sunset. And since I can’t stand to be inside right now, it’s not a bad spot to wait for Hattie.
I really fucking need to see her.
Because if I can tell her what I tried to do today—how I tried one last time to save everything and failed—maybe I can manage to tell the rest of my family.
The rest of my family.
I smirk at the thought. At its honesty.
Because Hattie might as well already be family. She’s mine.
More accurately, I’m hers.
And that’s just about the only thing that could make what happened today feel like anything less than the end of the world.
Headlights cut through the falling dark, and I hold my breath until I make out the shape of her Jeep in the dusk.
The sight is like a lighthouse. The hope that I won’t be lost at sea.
Still, when she pulls up to the farmhouse and parks, I can’t make myself rise to greet her.
I just can’t.
When she kills the Jeep’s engine, she’s staring at me from inside. Probably frowning. There’s not enough light to tell.
It only takes her a second, but she gets out and walks over to me. And I sense she knows something’s wrong.
Because Hattie doesn’t say a word.
Silently, she sits next to me and takes my hand. She squeezes it like she already understands how much this sucks.
It hits me how hard I was counting on her opening her mouth and chasing away this doom.
But she says nothing.
So I close my eyes, knowing I’ll have to start.
I say the words in my head
It’s over.
But I can’t form them on my tongue.
I fucking can’t. I—
“In case you’re wondering, I’m not going to try to cheer you up.”
Her words knock me back.
“You’re… not?”
Hattie shakes her head.
“I hate when people try to cheer me up when I’m upset. It just makes me madder.” She rolls her eyes. “Like, jeez, just let me be pissed for a minute, you know?”
And despite myself, despite what I failed to do today, the corner of my mouth twitches. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She nods earnestly. “If I’m pissed, I’m gonna be pissed. Don’t try to give me emotional whiplash with a funny story or some good news while I’m in full Fuck Force Five.”
I choke a little. “F… Fuck Force Five?”
“Like… Hulking out.”
The ghost of a laugh leaves me. “I… think Hulking out would be an improvement for me.”
“Yeah… You don’t look like you’re going Fuck Force Five.” She gives her head a slow shake. “More like… Eeyore Era.”
I blink. “Eeyore?”
“Yeah. The depressed donkey in Winnie the Pooh.” She tilts her head.
“Have you ever noticed that all the characters in Winnie the Pooh need clinical counseling? Like, Pooh clearly has an eating disorder if he binges on honey so hard that he gets stuck in a hole. Piglet has massive anxiety. Eeyore needs Zoloft like nobody’s business, and if Tigger doesn’t have an IEP for his ADHD, then I don’t know shi—”
It’s my laughter that interrupts her. Chest-cracking, gut-seizing laughter.
She stares at me without cracking a smile, and I just laugh harder.
Thank fucking Christ.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me. She hugs me tight but keeps talking.
“And the worst part is Christopher Robin is probably schizophrenic because he sees talking animals. It’s like, Wow, A.A. Milne. Who hurt yo—”
“S… stop… Fuck, Hattie…” I beg, dying. “C… can’t… breathe…”
This.
If this is what I get on my worst day, I’m going to survive. My eyes water, and it might not all be from laughter.
I squeeze her tight, and I don’t stop laughing until she goes rigid in my arms.
“Oh shit!” she shouts, jerking back, horror-stricken.
I wipe my eyes. “What? What’s wrong?”
She covers her mouth with her hand and mutters behind it. “I cheered you up. I didn’t mean to!”
And I kick off all over again. Eyes streaming. Abs aching.
So fucking in love with this woman.
But when my laughter finally dries up, I force out the words.
“I failed, Hattie.”
Her brows drift together. “What? What are you talking about?”
I suck in a deep breath and tell her everything.
“Last night—when you said if I wasn’t happy thinking about selling the farm, I wouldn’t be happy after I did it—I thought about it.” I shake my head. Understatement. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it… And it inspired me to try one last thing.”
I just wish that one last thing had actually worked.
“Yeah? What is it?”
I shrug. “Just another avenue that didn’t work. After I made my deliveries this morning, I called my uncle and asked him to join me for lunch.” The taste in my mouth goes bitter at the memory. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to set foot in Barry’s 1965 again.
“I pitched an idea I hoped he’d go for. Instead of selling to Steadman Farms and instead of taking on a crazy amount of debt, I asked if he would consider a kind of lease-to-own deal where I gave him a down payment and then structured a payoff plan for the rest of his share.”
Hattie perks up. “That’s a really good idea, Beck. Much less risk for you.”
“Yeah, it would’ve been. If Uncle Paul cared more about protecting the farm than he did about his big payday.
” I rub my forehead where a headache has gathered.
“He doesn’t want a ten percent down payment—which, honestly—might’ve required me to sell some farm equipment and maybe even a kidney to secure it.
He wants his point-three-million-plus. Like yesterday. ”
The woman I am crazy about wrinkles her nose. “Hate ze bagginses,” she hisses, and I fucking lose it again.
“Yeah, me too.” I drag her to me and plant a kiss on her forehead. Then I brace myself to tell her the rest. “He won’t budge. Turned me down flat. Said he was selling it all to me on or before January 20th or he was selling it all to Steadman, and if I was smart, I’d sell too.”
I swallow hard before I force out the words. “So that’s what I’m doing. I’m taking Steadman’s full offer and closing next month.”
All the color drains from her face. “You’re what?!”
I grip my temples to push back against the pressure. Why does she look so horrified? This really isn’t news. As much as I hate it.
“I’m… taking the Steadman deal.” I gulp down the nausea that rises and clear my throat. “I’m selling.”
Her mouth opens and her lower lip quivers. “H-have you signed anything yet? A contract or—or anything?”
My stomach sinks because now that she’s here, I have to do this. That’s the deal I made with myself.
I clear my throat before answering. “The papers are on the kitchen table.”
Fast as lightning, she snatches me by the collar and yanks me to her. My first thought is she’s going to kiss me hard—some kind of mark of solidarity—but when she drags my face to hers, she’s glaring like a demon.
“HAVE. YOU. SIGNED. THEM?!”
My girl is loud. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard her this loud. It’s almost funny.
But scary as shit too.
Still, I force a chuckle when I say, “No. I was waiting f—”
“YOU ARE NOT FUCKING SIGNING THEM!” she bellows right in my face.
I swear my teeth rattle.
My ears ring.
Her reaction is the last thing I expect. It makes my next words that much harder to say.
“Hattie, honey. I don’t have a choi—”
She shoves me. “Yes. You do.” Technically, she’s not yelling, but the words still echo off the cure shed walls. “I’m your choice.”
The urgency in her wide eyes throws me like a mechanical bull. “What ar—”
“I’M GOING TO BUY IT!”
She’s shouting again. So loud, I wince.
“Honey, you’re hurting my ears—”
“I’m going to buy it!” she loud-whispers, her hand fisting my collar again and giving me a little shake.
And it’s the shake that finally knocks her words into place.
Sort of.
“Wait… What?”
“I’m going to buy out your uncle,” she says in her normal Hattie-volume voice, just faster than usual.
“Well, not just me, but me and your brother-in-law Kennedy and you too if you agree to the plan. We’ll be partners and no one party will be over-leveraged, so the risk won’t be as high and we’ll all have a share—not an equal share of course, but one commensurate with our investments—in the farm’s and ultimately the future distillery profits. ”
I reel back, scrambling to make sense of her rapid-fire explanation.
I open my mouth, but I can’t decide which of the two dozen questions should come out first. And Hattie takes my speechless state as a cue to continue.
“I convinced my parents to let me use money from my trust fund to invest and—”
“You—” A mallet to the skull would be less stunning. “What did you say?”
Hattie spares me a pitying look. “My trust fund. They’re letting me withdraw $250K to invest in the farm.”
“Ha-Hattie—” Word stick like I’ve swallowed a fishbone. I clear my throat hard. “They couldn’t have. Are you being serious right now?”
There’s no way. No way they’d agree to that. They’ve met me once. And they weren’t all that impressed.
“Total seriousness.” Hattie nods wide-eyed. “It’s an investment, and I know it’s a good one.”
My eyes narrow. “They think it’s a good investment?”
I know Hattie believes in me, in the farm, and in my vision for its future. But I can’t imagine she could persuade her parents see things her way in the span of an afternoon.
Hattie blinks like I’ve asked a bizarre question. “I’m not sure. They just don’t want me to sell my townhouse.”
What the hell?!
“Sell your—”
“Yeah, I told them I would sell it to help buy out your uncle.” She ducks her head and lowers her voice like someone might be spying on us. “It was a negotiation tactic. I didn’t really want to sell the townhouse. But I would have if they hadn’t let me access my trust.”
My eyebrows have climbed into my hair. I know about her trust fund. Her parents have built it to make sure she’s always okay.
Not to buy a sweet potato farm.
“Hattie—you—that’s—”
Her eyes light up like a kid who’s just won at UNO. “I’m going to co-own a farm!”
My heart squeezes with a wild joy at the thought.
Then my stomach drops.
“But your parents set up that trust for you.” I’m already shaking my head. “To help you. You can’t—”