“I don’t know, hellcat.” He tipped his chair back onto two legs and took a sip of coffee, like he hadn’t just offered to get me pregnant for a grant. “Seems like this idiot jackass just came up withtwosolutions to your current predicament.”
With a huff, I stood and strode straight toward the front door, grabbing my bag along the way. As I slipped on my boots, I said, “If I stay here another second, I’ll stab you with that fork.”
“Ohhh…forkplay. I didn’t read about that inBred by the Moonlight, but I’m up for trying anything with you.”
I shot him a scowl—and the finger—before storming out of his apartment and slamming the door behind me.
Hell would have to freeze over before I eventhoughtabout marrying Lincoln Steele.
CHAPTER THREE
WILLA
I was goingto burn this entire office to the ground. Not with, like, a vat of gasoline or anything quite so dramatic. But I could definitely get a good smolder going by lighting up one overdue bill at a time.
Slumped in my dad’s old chair, I cradled my head in my hands. Partially from the lingering hangover and partially from the overwhelming dread of…well, everything.
Piles of papers and stacks of mail surrounded me, all of them saying the same thing in slightly different fonts.
You’re failing.
Between the past-due notices, the rejection emails, and a co-op application I’d spent two nights filling out just to learn the farm “didn’t meet the long-term viability benchmarks”—translation:you’re too broke to bet on—I’d been nearing the straw that broke the camel’s back territory.
But after what I’d discovered yesterday? I was fully entrenched in that territory. Hell, I was the damn leader.
My ancient laptop whirred as loud as a jet engine, the grant site that had been my last hope displayed on the screen. The cursor blinked on the line that had sealed my fate last night and sent me into a downward spiral—open to family-based applicants, defined as couples or households; individual applicants will not be considered.
So that was just fucking great.
Meanwhile, the stack of overdue bills had grown so large, I’d had to split it into two because it kept toppling over. Just another mess to match the rest of my life.
Outside, everything looked deceptively perfect. The farm glowed in the fading June sun. The fruit bushes were lush, the chicken coop was calm, and the golden light hit the evergreens just right—like the farm was posing for a picture on a brochure I couldn’t afford to print.
But inside—buried deep in my heart and my head and my body—everything was barely held together with duct tape and pure spite.
I caught a glimpse of the mock-up I’d sketched a couple months ago for the farm’s rebrand. Stone & Bramble was supposed to be a fresh start. Something I could make my own…something to build on.
But I couldn’t even keep what was already in place from drowning in debt.
Anger surged through me like a match to dry tinder. I grabbed the nearest pen, scribbling over my dreams until the nib tore through the page.
Fuck, why was this so goddamn hard? And why was I near the point oftearsover it? I didn’t cry. Sure as hell not over a hurdle in the road.
Except losing the farm that had been in my family for five generations was a lot more than just a hurdle. It was failure. Pure and simple.
I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes until everything went black, and then stars burst beneath my eyelids. If only the rest of the world were so easy to filter out.
My phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lighting up with my brother’s contact picture. In it, he was sleeping, dark hair a disaster, his mouth hanging open with drool dripping out. Had to keep the objectively handsome, annoyingly accomplished man humble somehow.
I answered the video call on reflex, realizing after I’d hit accept that was probably a stupid thing to do, considering I’d just been on the verge of tears.
Beau grinned through the dim screen. His skin was deeply tanned, his hair windblown and wild, and even with the dark circles under his eyes, he still looked like he could model for aDoctors Without Borderscalendar.
“You look like shit,” he said without greeting.
“Gee, thanks. Remind me why I answer your calls?”
“Because you love me and you miss your twin.”
