Page 13 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

“You’re a Gallagher, Dinah. Failure is not an option.” With that, Grandmother stepped into Craig’s office and the door closed behind her with an audible click.

“Psst.”

Dinah looked over to where Kayla was sticking her head out of her office door. “Is it safe?”

“I don’t think it’s ever safe.”

Kayla smiled. “True enough.”

“Have you been hiding from her the whole time?”

“You know how much that woman scares me,” Kayla answered with an exaggerated shudder as Dinah stepped into Kayla’s sunshiny little office.

Dinah slipped her arm around Kayla’s shoulders. “She’s your grandmother.”

“She’s Lucille Gallagher. I’m under no illusions that our relationship means anything to her. You being the oldest lends you some leeway, but me? The daughter of the second Gallagher? It’s like being . . . I don’t know, those grapes at the bottom of the bag that are all shriveled up and only the most desperate people eat.”

“Kayla, you’re crazy. And I love you. We have got to figure this out. What’s your schedule today?”

Dinah took a seat across from Kayla’s desk and they went over Kayla’s day as sustainability manager. She had some meetings to attend, and Dinah had a few things that she would have to do for Uncle Craig in the morning, but in the afternoon they could focus on the Trask problem together.

Right now, she wasn’t quite sure she trusted herself to focus on it alone. Not with Grandmother’s loomingGallaghers don’t failedict hanging over her head.

“I don’t think anything is going to matter to that man. Not after the way he talked to us. This might be—”

“Everyone has a point to fold,” Dinah said forcefully. “Everyone has a straw that will break their back. We just have to find it.” And she had to keep C and Carter as two different people in her mind.

“What if he’s sitting in his little—adorable, by the way—house thinking the same thing? That there’s some way to break us from being Gallagher’s bitches? That all he has to do is find a weakness?”

Dinah felt the uncomfortable truth of that statement settle in her gut. Though she hadn’t known it at the time, shehadgotten to know at least the Internet version of Carter Trask. Which seemed to be pretty damn close to the real him. He talked about land like it was his . . . Not even like it was his girlfriend or his wife, but like it was his god. His religion. What were the chances she’d get through to a man who viewed farming as a calling?

“You’re worried,” Kayla accused.

“No. I’m thinking. Gallagher’s has been here for over a century. We’re not going anywhere. He’s got nothing on our century.”

“But we’re not going anywhere even if we don’t get his land. It’s not like we fail if we don’t get that land.”

“It’ll bemyfailure. And, as Grandmother so lovingly reminded me, Gallaghers don’t fail.”

“I think there are a lot of ways to fail, and not all of them have to do with this business.”

Dinah was sure Kayla felt that, but her cousin didn’t have the same kind of pressure on her, and she didn’t have the same kind of connection. Kayla was more interested in her sustainability and green initiatives than she was in the integrity and the history of Gallagher’s. As one of the seconds, it hadn’t been poured into her like blood.

Gallagher’s was Dinah’s own religion to compare to Carter’s. The thing she worshipped and breathed and believed andneeded.

And hers was bigger, deeper, and more damn important. So she wasn’t going to lose. No way in hell.

* * *

Carter cut himself on a jagged corner of brick edging, for the third time that morning. He kept meaning to stop and fix it, but then would get completely distracted by his squash.

He wasneverdistracted at work. His work was everything. His life, his soul, his promise. But last night had left him . . .

It had been a long time since he’d been this mixed up. Since anything had reached through and touched him as deeply as the land touched him.

Which was moronic. Everything with D—Dinah Gallagher—had been emails and instant messages. It had been fake. Like reading a book or watching a movie. Even though he’d poured his own self into it, the exchanges didn’t require anything of him. He could be moved, or not moved. It was all abouthim.

But she was real, and she had come to him last night. Now he had to deal with how that affected him and . . .

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