Page 123 of Just for Tonight

“Don’t be a dick, Jake.”

“There are literally hundreds of properties listed. You have a credit to shop at will. I’m not the one being a brat.”

“But the only one I want isn’t there. And you probably planned it that way.”

The penny drops.

“You want your orchard.”

“Of course, I want my fucking orchard! Do you know how much time I’ve spent out there? And it turns out I did it not to build something for myself, but to make somebody else rich at my expense.”

I heartily doubt that several dozen young fruit trees planted on scrubby land are going to make anyone rich, regardless of how well they’ve been tended, but I don’t say that out loud. “It’s not on the list because our father didn’t own that land himself.”

“Of course, he did!”

“No. No, it’s part of the property holdings of Cavendish Enterprises.” I’m not really patient, because he should know this. “That’s why there’s a big-ass greenhouse right beside your trees, Ethan. The corporation owns the land.”

“Well, it’s the only land I want. I won’t pick anything else.”

That is complicated. The corporation would have to divest of the property, which means it would have to be legally divided and the board would have to meet to approve it. If I remember correctly, such a divestiture would require unanimous agreement, which means asking Austin to take my side again, and argh. Just argh.

Or fuck. Take your choice.

“Thinking up a way to blow me off?” Ethan demands.

“Considering the mechanics,” I say. “It might be easier to grant you a lease.”

“Someone told me I should own anything I want to keep,” he shoots back and I have to grin. I know who said that to him.

“Good advice, but this is complicated. Give me a few days. I’ll have to check the articles of incorporation and the powers of the board. I’m not even sure it can be legally divided, but I’ll ask Richard Bradshaw.”

“You’re stalling,” he charges.

“I’m thinking,” I reply. “One week. If it’s possible, I’ll do it, just to get you off my ass.”

He laughs at that. “Well, anything I can do to motivate you,” he says and ends the call.

Brat.

I call Mike, in case he has an idea. He commiserates with me and we talk it out, then he catches me by surprise. “We should probably check in the files, come to think of it. There’s other property owned by the corporation. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dad was always looking for land, particularly anything adjacent to what we already own.”

“I know he sold our family farm to Cavendish Enterprises.”

“Yes, but there’s more. I know there’s a note on the Graham farm, for example. You probably don’t remember it. It abuts our holdings to the north, then wraps around Rhodes Vineyards, continuing down the east side of the vineyards. Big farm. But there was a drought a few years ago, and Augustine and Dad were going at it. Dad said it was a natural space for Augustine to expand and he was going to stop it. In the end, Dad offered Ralph Graham a cash payment for right of first refusal on the farm, if and when he ever decided to sell.”

“I did not know this,” I admit, my thoughts churning.

Mike continues. “We argued about it at the time, because the Graham farm is just too big. Honestly, if we built greenhouses on all of it, that would almost double our capacity. Where would we get that kind of capital all at once? And truth be told, Ralph is old-school. He wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of his land going under glass, not after he’s been so diligent about keeping it organic all these years. I know Dad just did it to piss off Augustine Rhodes.”

“Are Grahams going to sell?”

“Ralph’s getting up there. It might be that what keeps him going is the idea of those greenhouses. He might not want to see that in his lifetime.”

I’m so excited but I don’t want to blow this. “What if we divided the farm?”