“He’s nosy.”
“That too.” Jake grinned, and Wes felt something warm unfurl in his chest.
He grabbed the coffee mugs and sat down across from Jake, ready to face the numbers that would determine whether he kept his home or lost everything.
The numbers were better than Wes expected.
Not good, exactly. But not the disaster he’d been bracing for since the foreclosure notice had arrived.
Jake walked him through it—debt-to-income ratio, cash flow projections, seasonal income spikes versus year-round expenses. He explained things in a way that didn’t make Wes feel stupid, didn’t talk down to him like some bankers did, the ones who seemed to think dirt under your fingernails meant you couldn’t understand math.
And Wes tried to focus.
He really did.
But Jake kept doing this thing with his hands when he spoke—gesturing with a kind of serene confidence that made the back of Wes’s neck tingle with awareness. There was something about them—the way his fingers moved across the keyboard, quick and sure, or how his thumb would absently rub the edge of his coffee mug while he talked, tracing the ceramic rim in small circles. Business hands, Wes told himself. City hands that knew conference rooms and keyboards, not chainsaws and pine sap.
Except when Jake pointed at something on the screen, Wes noticed a small scar across one knuckle—white against tan skin, the kind you got from catching yourself on something sharp—and suddenly those hands seemed more real. More touchable.
Focus.
“Your debt-to-income ratio is actually better than most farms I work with,” Jake said, pointing at a spreadsheet that might as well have been hieroglyphics for all Wes was absorbing. “The problem isn’t that you’re failing. It’s that you’re treading water with no room for error. One bad season, one equipment failure, and you’re under.”
Wes nodded, dragging his eyes away from Jake’s hands and back to the numbers glowing on the screen.
“If we restructure,” Jake continued, his finger tracing down a column of figures, “we can lower your monthly payments by about thirty percent, which gives you breathing room. But—” He looked up, and their eyes met across the small table. “—you’d need to commit to a five-year plan. No shortcuts. No giving up when it gets hard.”
“I don’t give up.”
“I know.” Jake’s smile was small but genuine. “I could tell that the first time I met you. The way you wouldn’t shake my hand.”
Heat crept up Wes’s neck at the memory. “Yeah, well. Wasn’t my finest moment.”
“I’ve had worse greetings. One guy in Valdosta met me with a shotgun.”
“Jesus.”
“Unloaded, thankfully. He just wanted to make a point.” Jake’s expression sobered. “I get it, though. I show up representing the bank that could take everything. I’d be hostile too.”
Wes looked down at his coffee, now cold. “So what’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just partnership. You’d have to trust me.”
Trust.
Wes turned that word over in his head like one of his carvings, examining it from all angles. Trust meant letting someone in. Trust meant admitting he couldn’t do this alone, that three generations of Dalton stubbornness couldn’t save the farm by sheer force of will.
“And if I say yes?” Wes asked carefully. “What happens then?”
“Then we file the restructuring paperwork, get you on a new payment schedule, and start looking at long-term sustainability strategies.”
“Like what?”
Jake leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking softly. “That depends. You’ve got forty acres here, right? How much of that is currently in use for the tree farm?”
“About half. The rest is just sitting there. Used to be pastureland when my granddad ran cattle, but we haven’t used it in years. It’s just... there.”
“Could you use it for something else? Diversify income streams so you’re not just relying on six weeks of Christmas tree sales to carry you through the entire year?”
