Page 65 of The One for Me
“I’d start by marryin’ her and then fixing the farm.”
I chuckle. “It’s not that easy.”
“The hell it’s not.”
“If it were, why haven’t you married Presley?” I ask, tossing it back in his face.
He releases a heavy sigh. “It’s not for lack of tryin’.”
I laugh, imagining him begging the same stupid way I was to get her to open up. Women, they’re all a pain in the ass, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. “Well, I’ll let you know if I have it any easier.”
“Fair enough.”
“Let’s talk about the farm since that is fixable . . .”
For the next hour, Zach and I make a list of things that he would do if he were me. It’s long, and I’m not sure I can even accomplish half of it, but I’m going to try. The first thing is to get a new foreman on board, then I need to hire extra help and talk to our distributors.
We need to lower costs, fix the farm, and produce more . . . sounds like absolute hell.
I take a walk down to my brother’s house and catch him just as he’s exiting the barn.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Connor smiles. “What’s going on?”
I fill him in on everything I’ve learned, and he nods along, not making a comment until I’m done.
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“Yeah, and you’re the one who wants this, tell me why.”
Connor sits on a bale of hay and motions for me to do the same. “This farm may be filled with horrible shit for the four of us, but it doesn’t have to be the legacy the land leaves.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that Declan and I have families of our own in Sugarloaf, and I’m hoping you and Jacob follow suit. We can do better than our father. We can make this place thrive and not because we need the money but because I think the four of us need it. And I think it’s what Mom would’ve wanted.”
I give myself a few seconds to let that sink in before reacting. This land holds a lot of memories, most bad, but he’s right about Mom. She would’ve wanted more for us. Even though we suffered here, there was good.
There was love.
And there was forgiveness.
“Is that what you want?” I ask my brother.
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying for the last year to figure out what I want to do about this place. I don’t need the farm to function to live. I have a very affordable mortgage, the land cost me nothing, and I have my company that is already doing well. Ellie’s job is great, so it’s not financial, but then I think of Hadley, Bethanne, and Deacon. I want them to have something when we’re gone.”
“It’ll be a lot of work, Connor. It’s not something I can just do in a day. This is going to take a fuckton of time and effort. It’s firing and hiring people who won’t be able to fix all the problems in three and a half months.”
He nods. “I know. And you can’t stay here. I get that.”
“Do you?”
The thing I worry about is that they’ll try to trap me here in some way. I want to sell my land. I have zero fucking desire to stay in Sugarloaf. My life is in Florida. My job is there, so even if I wanted to stay, I wouldn’t have the luxury of doing it like Connor and Declan did.
“Of course I do.” He gets to his feet. “I’m not asking for you to stay here and become a dairy farmer. I’m just asking you to do what youvolunteeredto handle. I got dealt the first hand and had to renovate everything, which I’m still doing, Declan is handling the real estate piece, you have the cows, and Jacob is going to pick up whatever is left.”
“Relax, asshat. I’m just making sure that no one has any grand ideas of me moving in.”
