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I step back, hoping the two of them will go after one another so I can disappear.
“Good-looking, strong, and an exceptional fuck you mean?”
Lottie bursts out laughing, bending over. “Shit. One day you’re gonna come across some woman who will give it back as good.”
Emmett tips back his beer. “Looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll lock her down.”
Lottie rolls her eyes. “Emmett Noughton, a one-woman man? Right, can’t wait to see that.”
Emmett hits me with his elbow. “Ah, come on, Jude here is about to lose his bachelor card. There’s hope for me yet.”
Lottie’s head whips in my direction so fast, a stiff breeze blows against my face. “What?”
Emmett laughs. “You’d think she was the one in love with you.”
Lottie holds her hand up to Emmett. “Jude, what’s he talking about?”
Does Lottie really believe if I was with someone, everyone in this town wouldn’t know it? It would be on The Canary Post down at The Hidden Cave in five minutes.
I scowl at her. “He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”
Her body visibly relaxes. “So you’re not dating anyone?”
“I’m sure you’d know if I was.”
Lottie’s eyes narrow on Emmett as if asking him if I’m not being truthful.
Right then, Sadie looks around the crowd. Our eyes lock for a moment before she turns back to the older woman.
“Jude only loves one woman, and I have a bet going,” Emmett says.
“A bet?” I look at him.
“Oh, do tell.” Lottie steps closer, leaning forward.
“If I tell you in front of Jude, he might purposely make it so I lose.”
Lottie glances at me.
I shake my head in exasperation. “I don’t really care about your stupid fucking bet, Emmett.”
He nods to the side, and the two of them go under the oak tree I planted on Earth Day when I was seven. I know what the bet has to do with without even having to ask Emmett. I’m sure it involves Ben, and I’m also sure it involves something to do with Sadie and me. But I don’t give a shit what they’re saying. Never have.
Sadie politely steps away from the women and weaves through the crowd, not stopping to talk to the people stepping in front of her to offer their condolences. She heads into the house I grew up in, and I dump my half-drank beer, following her inside.
She’s at the kitchen table with her head in her hands, her back racking with sobs.
“Are you okay?” I ask, folding myself into the chair next to her. I want to touch her, but I don’t think she wants me to.
“I just need a minute,” Sadie says. “Everyone’s asking all these questions and judging my dad.”
“Screw ’em.”
I’ve heard the bastards, too, and I can’t say that judgments haven’t been running through my mind, although I’d never speak them. I understand Monty’s pride, and I’m sure he didn’t think a heart attack was coming for him, but at some point, pride needs to be put aside. He should have thought of Rhea and Sadie. Sadie gave up her entire life for Rhea and the farm, and this is how she’s rewarded.
“What am I going to do? I’ll never get that much money in two months.”
After the Notice of Sale was put on the Wilkins’s farm, Gillian helped Sadie look into everything, and it turns out her dad hadn’t paid the mortgage in almost an entire year. He made promises to the bank that he never made good on. Now, they’ve filed a Notice of Sale which only gives her two months to pay back a year’s worth of mortgage payments. Otherwise, the farm goes up for sale. It’s an impossible situation.
