10. Kent #3
"They belong to this property," Teddy answered, her chin tilting upward defensively as her tone sharpened. "These records are linked to the disputed six-acre parcel. The deeds office still hasn’t managed to untangle this mess. They’ve found three more deeds that are somehow in their files and yet unregistered.
The legal liability rests on this farm. So yes, Nell, those answers do belong to us. "
Nell took a slow, measured breath, her posture tense against the warm stove pipe.
"You four Marchetti girls look at those deeds, and photos, and documents, and all you see are legal liabilities.
You treat human lives as a problem to be solved and cataloged in a neat spreadsheet.
Like one of your restoration projects, Teodora.
" Her voice was so fierce it seemed to reverberate through the kitchen.
"Those women didn't leave their initials in that barn to help you settle some ledger.
They built private, peaceful lives after surviving unimaginable pain, and you're preparing to pull down their privacy to make sure the deeds office is satisfied. "
Teddy's skin prickled with a rage she tried to push down. "You may have been Mom’s best friend, Nell, but you’re not a friend to this farm by keeping secrets.
Secrecy didn't protect this farm. It created a legal mess that us four are left trying to clean up. Thank goodness we’ve had Micah to help us.
Mom built a network of hidden contacts and unrecorded deeds, and then she died without leaving a single clear explanation.
She left us responsible for consequences we don't understand.
We might have a temporary reprieve from any legal consequences, but until the issue is finally resolved, we have no way of knowing.
The end result could force us to lose the entire farm, so the fact that you still so stubbornly refuse to tell us the full story makes me angry. "
"Be angry all you want, Teodora, but I won’t break the promises I made.
Rosalind protected women who had nowhere else to turn," Nell responded, her tone surprisingly calm after Teddy’s outburst. "But mark my words: if you go knocking on those front doors asking questions about forty-year-old trauma, you won't be solving a legal dispute.
You'll be destroying the peace and safety those women spent their adult lives trying to build. "
The sharp silence that followed felt suffocating.
Teddy didn’t bother to gather her legal pad as her expression locked in a protective mask and she stood up from the wooden chair.
She moved past Kent without meeting his gaze, her cotton shirt brushing his arm as she exited through the side screen door.
Kent followed her out onto the cider barn and she was grateful for the company. She knew if she had stayed in the kitchen a minute longer she would have said something she couldn’t take back. Talking to Nell was like talking to a brick wall. Or a stuck record.
The late afternoon sun cast long, copper shadows across the unpaved yard, lighting the drying apple leaves along the orchard fence. Teddy entered the barn and stood next to the thick workbench, her palms resting against the timber rim as she stared toward the trees.
"Nell’s warning about the risk isn't wrong," Kent remarked, his tone low and restrained while he leaned against the barn wall.
"The women whose names correspond to those initials built stability.
They built new lives, ran businesses, and put their pasts behind them.
Approaching them with property records will seem like a threat, regardless of your intentions. "
Teddy turned her head, her dark eyes burning again with a sudden, defensive fire. How could he take Nell’s side?
"I'm not attempting to expose anyone. I'm trying to protect this property. We have to trace where those agreements originated, where the original, valid deed is."
"I understand why you’re doing this," Kent said.
“Then why are you so against it? Was your mother’s safety suddenly compromised after talking to us? I just want to talk to them to find out what they know.”
"Even private conversations have a way of becoming public in a small town. If you confront those women or use their pasts as bargaining chips in a land dispute, you'll fracture the trust this entire community rests on. And you'll create a rift that no amount of carpentry work can repair."
Teddy observed him, her lips parting slightly as her posture stiffened.
For a prolonged pause, the subtle rustle of crisp autumn leaves in the orchard grove was the sole noise between them.
She didn't offer a witty rebuttal or a sharp retort.
She simply picked up her bundle of ledgers from the workbench and retreated further into the shadowed space of the timber cider barn, leaving Kent alone by the doorway as the sun dipped beneath the ridge.
Teddy knew the tension between them was no longer purely about Portland or personal fear; it had expanded into a clash over how to honor the past without destroying the living.