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“What?” My mouth opens and closes like a gaping fish.
“Seriously, Dad?” Emmett’s forehead wrinkles. “Rhea was mom’s best friend. Sadie is Jude’s. She’s family.”
Dad leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and sets his gaze on me. “She’s like family, but she’s not family. She could go down to The Hidden Cave and fall head over heels for some guy, marry him, and then he takes over the ranch. What are you gonna do then?”
The tacos in my stomach sour at the image he’s placed in my head. “Sadie wouldn’t.”
“She’s thirty-three, Jude. She’s never been shy about wanting a husband and a family one day.” My dad’s gaze doesn’t leave mine.
I glance at Emmett, whose eyebrows raise. He tilts his head, agreeing with Dad it seems. “She is getting older.”
“I thought you were on my side.”
Emmett holds up his hands. “I see both sides. Sadie is family, and I want to help, but I see what Dad’s saying too.”
“Sadie isn’t going to marry someone else.” I rock back on my chair, teetering on the back two legs.
“Else?” Emmett raises an eyebrow.
I flip him off. “Someone. She’s not going to marry anyone while she’s trying to get that farm going.”
“You know how long it’s going to take her to pay off the loan she needs to pay the mortgage plus start something new? Did she even tell you what her plans are? Because soybeans aren’t going to do it for her. I tried to tell Monty.” Dad takes the last bite of his sandwich and the room quiets.
The two of them are waiting for me to tell them, but I find I’m nervous. The longer they stare at me, waiting, the more I dread it.
“She wants to raise pasture-raised chickens.”
Dad nods and stands, taking his plate to the sink.
“That’s a shit-ton of work,” Emmett whispers as if Dad can’t hear him.
“And here I thought this was a workday.” Ben stands outside the screen door, his face pressed to the screen with his hands on either side of his face to peer inside. “What? I’m not part of the family meetings now?”
Ben walks in and takes the seat next to Emmett, stealing his cup of juice.
“Sadie wants to raise chickens. Pasture raised.” Emmett stares at my dad’s back.
I give Sadie props—it’s something I’ve been wanting to look into for the beef we produce, but I haven’t had the time. I brought it up once to my dad, but his mantra is why change something that’s working.
“That’s awesome. It’s gotta be more lucrative than soybeans, right?” With Ben being gone playing professional football since he was eighteen, he doesn’t know much these days about ranch life. “Must cost some money to overhaul the farm though…”
Ben eyes me with an expression that says he’s the solution. I want to haul him over the table and watch my fist collide with his smug face. I shake my head.
“We already decided Jude rides the white horse and we’re going to Lincoln to buy a knight costume.” Emmett smiles widely and sarcastically at me.
I flip him off again. He laughs.
“Is there a wedding ring in that costume too?” Ben asks, laughing along with Emmett.
“That’s the only way Dad will let Jude cosign a loan for Sadie.”
Fucking Emmett can’t keep his mouth shut.
“I’ll give you the loan for a better interest rate than the bank,” Ben says, still wanting to be the hero.
“I wish things were different,” Dad says, not sitting down which means he’s done talking about this. “But as much as I love the Wilkinses, as much as I want to save their land, and as much as I view them as family, they aren’t. There are too many variables, and I can’t risk your future, your brothers, your aunts and uncles and cousins. I would never ask anyone to do that for us. I’m sorry, Jude.”
Dad pats me on the shoulder, and I know it pains him. I know he wants all those things he said, and I hate that a small part of me agrees with him.
