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Do I want to be burned alive on the gossip stake? No. I’m not telling anybody that we kissed and that pulling away from her was one of the hardest things I’ve done in a very long time. “Nothing happened.”
“No fucking way.” He gives me a wide-eyed horror look. “No wonder—”
“She was drunk, Raiden.” And as much I wanted more of her… all of her… the closer we edge towards this invisible hold we seem to have on each other, the tighter I get squeezed by my fear for going back to those months after she was plucked out of my life.
Beth is leaving. She will go back to San Francisco, and I will need to deal with the loss once she’s gone. As it is, she’s crawling back into my heart with alarming speed, knocking on those empty chambers, reviving dreams and longings I’d written off ages ago.
“Fair enough.” Raiden continues to eat his pie and I glance down at my own. I have appetite for nothing… except for her. “You’ve got to admit though, she’s adorable when she’s tipsy.”
For fuck’s sake. “You wanted to talk?” I push my half-eaten pie to the side. There’s a reason I’m at the Pie Chart and not at the office at this time on a random Friday morning. Raiden asked to meet with me.
“Yeah. Hmm.” He gives me a long, searching stare then shakes his head. “Listen, about Uncle Bill’s barn.”
Here we go. Raiden’s budding business is great for him, but it’s messing with Bill’s plans for expansion and modernization. This sale of Collingwood Farm couldn’t come at a worse time. Raiden has his tiny house workshop set up in Bill’s new barn, forcing him to use the older, dated barn and milking parlor. Neither of us want to oust Raiden right now—he seems to be getting on his feet at last—but if we had both barns, at least Bill could salvage some of the Collingwood operations and help Simon out too.
“What about the barn?”
“I was hoping to rent it, six months at a time, just until I’ve scouted somewhere where we can set up shop. Things have been nuts after the exhibition and I’m not touching ground. Georgiana is running with all the admin, but I need to make sure we have a workshop for the foreseeable future so I can commit to projects.”
“That’s not for me to decide. You know that. It’s Bill’s barn.”
“Yes, but—fuck it, Hunter, I-I hate to look him in the eye for yet another leg-up.”
“What do you want me to do? I can’t offer you an alternative and right now—” I have too much on my plate. I can’t even think straight around my own problems because every single thought I have has to circle around Beth Anderson first. And right about there I get lost in thoughts of her and everything else plays second fiddle.
“I get it.” Raiden throws his hands up in a give-up gesture and a long stretch of quiet hangs between us.
“You’ve been helping him with the milking?”
“I went one day to check how things were going. He asked me to help while I was there and to be honest, he looked relieved for the extra pair of hands. I’m a bit worried it might be too much for him. I’m there some afternoons and every morning for now.”
I’m grateful to Raiden for helping Bill out. He’s recently looked more tired than usual, but I bet the Collingwood Farm sale is eating at him too. We had our own plans with the three million dollars I was supposed to get from the bank, and now all Bill’s worries have pivoted to the livestock at Collingwood Farm. He really cares for the animals. It’s not in everybody’s physical or mental capacity to be a dairy farmer and Bill has been doing this for decades. It’s milking twice a day, three-sixty-five a year, and that’s not even half of it.
But Raiden going to work at four-thirty in the morning? And then working a full day in his workshop too… maybe he isn’t getting as lucky as I’ve been imagining. “Georgiana must love that.”
A smile steals over his lips. “She’s still in bed by the time I’m back.”
Yep. I needed to know that. “If you’re helping Uncle Bill in the milking parlor, asking him to rent his barn isn’t a leg-up, is it? We help each other out. That’s what us Logans and Brodies do.”
“I suppose so. Are you going to finish that?” He points with his fork to my discarded pie.
“No. You have it.” Something is needling me and I can’t pinpoint it. It’s as if Raiden came to talk about something else and swerved away at the last minute. “What’s the news on the street about the farm sale?” If he knows something I need to know—and don’t know because I’m the last to hear in the gossip line—I’ll drag it out of him, even if he is hesitant to share because it’s going to threaten my business.
“Bar that some rich-ass Frenchman is on his way to come have a look-see?” Raiden asks. “From some French hotel conglomerate? Apparently, Brenda is toying with sending out a brochure to several ski resort corporates. She’s seen the bids rolling in and is getting greedy.”
“I bet. Collingwood will never be a Killington. At least there’s that.”
“Everybody wants a second Stowe.”
“There isn’t enough mountain for that and the development cost will be substantial.”
“Up in Maine a privately owned ski resort recently went for ninety million dollars. That makes the farm look like a steal.”
These numbers make my stomach churn. Three million was all I wanted, and I couldn’t even get that. “What’re your plans for the weekend?” I ask, diverting to something that won’t give me a stomach ulcer.
“Working, mostly. Hanging out with Ethan while he’s here.”
“He looked like he’s the cat that got the cream last night.”
