Hart's Hollow Farm (New Americana 4)

“But you’re thinking it.” Emmy peered up at him. “You think I don’t know the other reason you finally deigned to come back here? You think I don’t know you came to take those two babies away from me, too?”

Kristen’s hands clenched around her mug, her attention shooting to Mitch. He avoided her eyes, but the guilty color blotching his neck and the tanned skin above the open collar of his shirt confirmed Emmy’s assertion.

“There’s a big world out there,” Mitch said. “Sadie and Dylan deserve a chance to live in it. They deserve the opportunity to grow and thrive in a stable home. To have choices and opportunities.”

“And I can’t give them that?” Emmy’s voice cracked. “I always fought for you, Mitch. Just like I’m fighting for them now. Can’t you see I’m trying to make things right?”

Mitch stared back at her, his face turning pale and a muscle clenching in his jaw. “It’s too late for that. Those kids deserve better, and you’ve earned a decent rest.”

Throat tightening, Kristen looked away and focused on the green rows of strawberry plants in the distance. The painful throb in Emmy’s voice brought tears to her eyes, blurring the view.

“I’ve rested enough in my life, and I’m not leaving my home or giving up the last bit of family I got left.” Emmy stood straighter. “I don’t use fancy phrases, because I only say what I mean. Ain’t nothing wrong with speaking plain. Like a plain yes or no. So be honest, Mitch. Do you think I’m capable of propping this place back on its feet?”

For a moment, only the birds’ chirps and the whisper of the spring breeze moved between them. Then Mitch answered, his tone hard.

“No.”

Kristen frowned at him, the angry set of his expression making her chest ache. The circumstances on this farm were dire, sure, but how could he be so cruel? How could he stand there and dismiss Emmy—his own family—as though she meant nothing to him? As though she were . . . no one?

“And you?” Emmy was facing her now, a look of helplessness on her face and suspicious wetness lining her lashes. “You think I got enough life left in me to fix this land?”

Alone? With two children to raise? No. Kristen closed her eyes against the thought, shame welling within her at the instinctual need to run. There were never guarantees in life. No controlled, predictable outcomes. No one knew that better than she.

“Yes.”

Her eyes sprang open, the lie that had left her lips as much a surprise to her as it seemed to be to Mitch and Emmy.

Shifting closer, Emmy wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. The desperate hope underpinning her tremulous smile made Kristen ache to turn away. “And will you take the job?”

Kristen glanced at Mitch, the thin line of his mouth and disapproving plea in his expression sending a chill through her.

She faced Emmy, then forced herself to speak. “Yes.”

CHAPTER 3

Mitch dug his heels deeper into the farm’s sludge-filled driveway, then braced his hands against the rental car’s back bumper.

“That plank you lodged in the front isn’t tight enough to the tire. I can give it a kick, if you’d like?”

He cut his eyes to the left. Kristen’s guarded gaze and determined stance made his tongue press tighter against the back of his clenched teeth. After his conversation with Emmy, he’d trudged out here, intent on blowing off some steam by prying the car from the mud, but not long after Kristen had followed.

“It’s nice of you to offer to help,” he said, “but the plank’s plenty tight and I can handle this on my own.”

“I’m sure you can, but Emmy asked me to give you a hand while she gets the kids up. She’d like you to bring her truck around. Said she doesn’t drive as much, because of her knee. She wants you to take us to the neighbors’. Ruth Ann Hadden’s, I think she said.”

“For what?”

Kristen shrugged. “Said she has business to discuss, and I’m here to work, so . . .” She glanced at his staggered legs. “I can give that plank a kick, then get on the other side and help you rock it out. An extra hand never hurts, and that’s what I’m here for.”

He closed his eyes and stifled a groan. “Fine. But the plank’s good, and it’ll go better if you get in the car and give it a little gas instead.”

She hesitated, the breeze twirling wisps of her blond hair across the stubborn set of her jaw, then nodded and walked toward the driver’s side.

Mitch clenched his hands tighter around the bumper of the sedan, the sun-warmed metal heating his palms and temper. How—in the space of five minutes—had Emmy maneuvered pleasantries over morning coffee into a debate over the farm’s worth? And hers as a person? Then for Kristen to jump on the bandwagon—

“Why did you do it?” He leaned around the side of the car, then glared as she froze and looked back at him, one of her slim legs poised in the front floorboard of the driver’s seat. “Why did you say yes and give Emmy false hope like that?” He shook his head. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you, and you can see the state of the place for yourself. Why join a project you know will fail? Take a job I told you right off would be a dead end?”

A muscle in her jaw ticked. “Why is it guaranteed to be a dead end? Because you say so?” One blond brow rose. “Your word is gospel—is that it?”