inheritance.” His rheumy eyes shifted from me to settle on Jake.
Jake frowned. Blinked. Glanced at me, then back at Jeremiah. “You mean Olivia.”
“I mean both of you.”
A silent moment, crackling with questions, passed. And with it came my relief. My only shot for success with the farm lay in Jake’s hands, which was help I hadn’t been sure I could rely on until that very moment when his stakes became the same as mine.
Jeremiah reached into his briefcase, his hands returning to view with identical packets, which he handed to us. “Frank Brent’s will states that Brent Dairy Farm is to be equally distributed in its entirety to the two of you, fifty-fifty, with the exception of the farmhouse, which goes to Olivia. What you do with it is solely up to you, but Frank made sure you’d have to come together to decide.”
Jake nodded. “That’s easy. Olivia isn’t staying, so I’ll take over for Frank here, and she can just collect a paycheck.” He looked at me with his entire stupid, handsome, clueless face. “That’ll work, right?”
“No, that won’t work,” I said, my cheeks on fire and my brain ready for a fight. “I’m not leaving.”
His face quirked in confusion. “Just to live in the farmhouse? What else are you gonna do here?”
“I’m going to work.”
“Remotely for your job in New York?”
“I quit so I could work here.”
“Here?” A haughty burst of laughter hit me like a slap in the face. “You don’t know the first thing about running this farm.”
“Maybe not the cows and the hay—”
“What else is there?”
“Social media. Newsletters. Our website hasn’t been updated in fifteen years.”
He stiffened. “We don’t need any of that internet stuff.”
“That internet stuff is the way businesses run now whether you think we need it or not.”
The only acknowledgment was a derisive noise before he changed the subject. “What use do you have for a farm? I bet you can’t even remember how to milk a cow. Hell, you can’t even drink a glass of milk.”
I looked at him like he had several heads touting feelers. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want some part in running my family business. I can’t believe you expected me to hand it over without a fight. I can’t believe you thought I’d leave.”
“Why not? You did before.”
The heat in my cheeks flared. “Pop told me to go.”
“And you knew better than to believe him. That was his pride, but you’d have taken any excuse to leave. And you stayed gone. You left, Olivia, and you didn’t come back. You weren’t being noble—don’t pretend otherwise.” Before I could argue, he collected himself and tried again. “Listen—nobody expects you to stick around. Leave running the farm to me and go home. You know I’ll take care of it, so just go back to New York where you belong.”
“No,” I said quietly, voice trembling. “We have to decide together, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He drew an impatient breath through his nose, his eyes narrow and fiery. “I’m not going to spend my days fighting with you, and that’s exactly what it’ll be—a fight. I know what I’m doing, so just let me do my job without interference.”
“It’ll only be a fight if you make it one,” I pointed out.
His eyes narrowed when he swallowed an argument. “What’ll it take to get you to turn it over to me?”
“How can I answer that when I haven’t even had a chance to try my hand at it?”
A pause, the time marked by the tic of that muscle at his jaw.
“Well,” Jeremiah began, clearing his throat and shuffling things in his briefcase with no purpose, “no one has to decide anything right now. Olivia, your grandpa wanted to make sure you had time to make necessary plans once you decided what to do. So take some time. Get through what’s coming. It’ll be here waiting.” He closed his briefcase with a squeak and a snick of metal latches. “Call me if I can be of any help.”
When he stood, so did we. But before I could offer to walk him out, Jake steered him away, the two of them talking like I wasn’t even there. And I fumed at their backs with painful disbelief licking at my ribs.
Jake was indignant, shockingly presumptuous. His surprise at my willingness to stay confounded me almost as much as his rejection. I wanted to make excuses for him, and for a moment, I did. Because he wasn’t any better off than me when it came