Luna walked fast and blindly since the chances that she was about to lose it were a twelve out of ten. Since she was far closer to the office building than her cabin, she sneaked inside via the back door, going straight to the staff room for her tub of double fudge ice cream and a big wooden spoon. Hearing voices, she quickly slid into the storage closet and silently shut the door before sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket with an incoming text. Unable to ignore it in case it was work related, she looked at the screen.
Gram: You okay?
Luna: How is my life such shit?
Gram: I think you’ll find that the outcome is in line with your self-destructive tendencies.
Luna choked out a half laugh, half sob, and put her phone away. This place, this farm, was . . . everything to her. She’d pulled the little community of people she loved together: an ex-boyfriend, adoptive grandma, her BFF, another close friend . . . and more recently the first man she could see forever with, all because she’d had a need for a family who loved her unconditionally. One of her biggest fears had always been that she would somehow blow it all up.
A self-fulfilling prophecy, as it turned out. Oh, she knew she could’ve told everyone the truth. But then they might’ve turned on Jameson. And if there was anyone who needed their little self-made family as much as she did, it was him.
She was still sitting on the floor eating ice cream when she heard footsteps stop right outside the closet door. “Go away.”
Willow opened the door and joined her in the closet, and Luna stared at her with narrowed eyes. “That’s the opposite of going away.”
Hands on hips, her BFF eyed the ice cream. “Nice breakfast.”
“I thought it was a beautiful day to get fat and tell everyone to go to hell. But now I just feel like throwing up.”
“Sorry, that’s my thing now.”
Luna tipped her head back to the wall and stared at the ceiling. “Everyone hates me.”
Willow sat next to her. “Hate is such a strong word.”
Luna sighed.
“And they don’t hate you, Luna. They love you. They just also love Jameson.”
“I think he broke my heart.” Blindly, she reached out for Willow’s hand and pressed it to her chest. “See? It’s not even there anymore.”
“Okay, no more ice cream for you. It’s Mama’s turn. Mama needs some sugar.”
“You hate ice cream.”
“Yeah . . .” Willow snatched the tub and started eating it. “But apparently the T. rex loves it.”
Luna gently patted Willow’s nonexistent baby bump. “Good T. rex, taking after her auntie already.”
“Jameson told us everything,” Willow said around a huge bite.
The implication of that, of him risking alienating the crew, was huge. He hadn’t cared about what they thought of him. He’d only cared about her.
“I get why you’re upset, but it was up to Silas to do what he wanted with this place when he was alive. That’s not on Jameson. And neither is the fact that Silas asked him to come here and not tell you about it.”
“By not telling me, he lied.”
“He omitted.” She turned to meet Luna’s eyes. “And isn’t that exactly the same thing you did when you didn’t tell me about Silas being your grandpa? Or when he told you not to give me a promotion. And I still love you, so . . .”
Luna sighed. “I’m failing this place.” And the people in it . . .
“Babe, you’re the glue of the farm and we all know it. But it’s up to you to believe in yourself.”
“Well, excuse me, but it’s hard to believe in myself when my own grandfather had to cook the books in order for us to continue operating.” She grabbed for the spoon and took another bite.
Willow growled and grabbed it back. “Now see, Silas not telling you all that is on him. If he’d told you, you could’ve adjusted, done things differently.”
“I’m adjusting now, and things are still a disaster.”
“You’re selling yourself short. Look at what you’ve pulled off. You’ve procured the permits for our event, got the locals on board, and are about to pull off the best Founders Day we’ve ever had.”
“It will be the only one we’ve ever had.”
Willow waved the spoon around. “Semantics. The advantage is that there are no expectations.”
“It’s in a week,” Luna said in disbelief. “We have presales. There are plenty of expectations. For one thing, we have to make enough to cover the balloon payment or we’re all out on our asses.”
“It’s going to happen.” Willow peered into the now nearly empty tub. “Is there more in the freezer . . . ? No?” she asked when Luna just stared at her. “Fine, whatever. Let’s get to why you’re really in the closet, because it’s not about the farm or Founders Day.”
“Uh, pretty sure it is.”
Willow smiled knowingly. “Okay, let’s pretend for a moment that you’re right.”
“Gee, thanks?”
Willow wasn’t deterred. “For reasons I can’t understand, you love this job.”
Luna gaped at her. “For reasons you don’t understand?”
Willow shrugged. “Well, as I’ve learned the hard way, dreams change.”
A wave of guilt washed over Luna. “About our B and B—”
“Shh.” Willow took her hand. “I’m going to say this with all the love in the world, since you let me be Head-in-Charge for not one but two days.” She drew a deep breath. “Your job is terrible.”
This startled a laugh out of Luna.
“It is,” Willow said. “When I first started here, I remember hearing you on a call. You said something like ‘sure, but your other solution is doing what I suggested in the first place.’ And then you just hung up. It was beautiful, and I knew I wanted to be you when I grow up. But . . .” She shook her head. “It turns out, I don’t. I don’t want to be Head-in-Charge. I know I was jealous of what you do for a long time, but the truth is, I don’t want to ever be the boss, not even for our someday dream of the B and B. I mean, your phone never stops, and if I was you, even caller ID wouldn’t be enough. I’d need to know why someone was calling me up front. I’d even pay extra every month for caller justification.”
Luna choked on another laugh.
“I’m not kidding. While I was you the other day, someone told me signing emails with ‘best’ was passive-aggressive, so I switched it up to ‘see you in hell’ just to eliminate any confusion. Turns out that’s just aggressive-aggressive. Oh, and apparently I’m no longer allowed to answer the phone with ‘for fuck’s sake, what now?’”
“I’m going to pretend you’re joking,” Luna said, and sighed. “But I hear you. I know the job is terrible, and I love it anyway. I love it so much. Even if someone gave me a million dollars to walk away, I’d still be here. This is still what I’d be doing.”
“And Jameson?”
Luna had to take a deep breath. “That’s over.”
“But if it wasn’t?”
Luna slid her a look.
“I’ll reword the question,” Willow said. “Would you still be doing it with Jameson?”
She went for light, because otherwise she’d cry. “Well, he is really good at it, so . . .”
Willow laughed, but wagged a finger. “No. I’m not going to let you joke this away.”
“You’re not going to let me?” Luna asked in amused disbelief.
“I’m trying out my mom voice. What do we think? Do we like it?”
“It needs a little work.” Luna’s stomach growled in spite of the ice cream. She wished she’d eaten before she’d stormed off. “Jameson’s nature is to tear things apart, not put them back together.”
“What Jameson are you talking about?” Willow asked. “Because the Jameson I know has done nothing but help you build this place up. Luna . . .”
When Willow didn’t finish her sentence, Luna turned to look at her.
“Be honest. If he’d told you the truth from day one about Silas funneling you money for the farm or the promise he extracted from Jameson to look after you, would you have even let a friendship with him happen, much less fall for him?”
Luna sighed. No. No, she wouldn’t have. If he’d told her from the beginning, she’d have felt like such a failure that she’d never have let herself get attached to him. And attached she was. And then there was the business. Without him, there’d be no upcoming Founders Day. She’d never have been brave enough.
Which meant that the farm would have failed for certain.
“He’s a man of his word, Luna. He’s proven that.”
“You’re right,” she admitted. “And he made the promise to Silas before he met me. I know he regrets that.”
“So then . . .” Willow went brows up. “Who are you really mad at?”
Luna closed her eyes.
“Let me help you,” Willow said. “You’re mad at you.”
“Yes,” she whispered, throat thick. “I used the situation to back off from him, when the truth is I got scared.”
“Bingo.” Willow smiled brilliantly. “Which I only know because I did the same with Shayne, and I nearly lost him because of it.”
“But now you’ve got a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Luna said, looking meaningfully at Willow’s stomach.
Willow snorted. “He should’ve run while he had the chance. I’m telling you, pregnancy hormones are not for the faint of heart. I bounce between being a needy five-year-old who can’t control her emotions, to a teenage rebel who makes poor life decisions, to an eighty-year-old woman who’s tired and needs a nap.”
Luna grinned.
“It’s no joke. It takes a plastic bag over one hundred years to break down, and it takes me only one minor inconvenience.”
Luna laughed and leaned her head on Willow’s shoulder. Right there on the floor of the closet, she knew that no matter what happened, whether they saved the farm or not, whether she and Jameson worked things out or not, that at least she and Willow were going to be okay. “I’ve been so scared,” she said softly. “Scared to blow up the farm and have everyone here lose their jobs and livelihood.”
Willow reached out to hold her hand. “You’ve done your best. If the worst happens, it won’t be your fault.”
Standing, Luna pulled Willow up as well. “You know what? I’m not going to let this do us in. If Silas was willing to go as far as cooking the books so we could stay open, then I have to turn this around. For him. For all of us.”
Willow smiled. “There you are. And just in time to make Founders Day a success and save all our asses.”
Luna felt her stomach jangle and the heart she thought decimated skipped a few beats.
“No.” Willow pointed at her. “Don’t you dare let the doubts back in. Sure, you messed up a really great relationship with a really great guy, and you pretend you’re an island of one when you’re not, but one thing you’re never wrong about? Your instincts. So go with them. The event, plus everything else we’re implementing, is going to work. Now repeat it.”
“It’s going to work.”
Willow smiled serenely.
“Are you going to be this scary for nine months?”
“And beyond.”
That night, and the next handful as well, leading up to the last night before Founders Day, Luna didn’t even try to be okay. And maybe it was this new strategy—letting herself wallow and grieve and overthink—that let some answers come to her.
Such as she was suddenly getting what Jameson—who’d moved back into cabin number seven—had been trying to tell her. Maybe Silas hadn’t been a warm, cuddly man. He hadn’t held a sweet side, or kept a roomful of bunnies and rainbows. That hadn’t been him. He’d understood that about himself, and well aware of his failings—messing up his marriage, and his relationship with his daughter, and not coming clean to Luna out of fear of messing up her life as he had those of everyone else he loved—he’d still tried to do the right thing by her in the only way he’d known how.
To a man like Jameson, also self-made and self-taught, that had been the very best part of her grandfather. After all, he’d taken in a street kid without qualm. He’d then gone on to give Luna a place to go when she’d been floundering in life without a direction. Looking at it that way, Silas had actually been far more sentimental than she’d given him credit for. And wasn’t that part of being a family? Understanding that everyone in it could be different? After all, they too had different love languages. Silas’s had been “I don’t know how to love you in the way you need, I’m scared to ruin another relationship or hurt you, so here’s a farm.”
Thinking about it hurt her head. And her heart. So she didn’t even pretend to be okay. Instead, she went over and over the plans for tomorrow’s Founders Day, making sure they hadn’t missed anything.
All while not looking at the empty spot next to her in bed.