Page 56 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

Carter stiffened. He knew his friend was trying to make a joke, but nothing with Dinah felt particularly joke-like right now. So he didn’t say anything to that; he focused on his last-of-the-season corn.

“You really got a thing for her, huh?”

Carter eyed Jordan, who was standing there watching him carefully. “Hell. I think I’m in love with the damn woman,” he muttered.

“No shit.”

Carter shook his head. He had no idea why he’d said that aloud, to Jordan of all people. He wasn’t an effusive guy. Didn’t talk about his problems or his damn feelings.

But he didn’t know what todowith them.

“I hate change,” Jordan said with a weary sigh. “People getting older. New partnerships. New . . . feelings and crap. It’s all a load of bullshit.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, but you know what my dad always used to say about bullshit?”

“Some country hillbilly saying that will make no damn sense to me?”

“Bullshit grows the best produce.”

Jordan barked out a laugh. “I’d rather have a way to stop time than a damn big tomato.”

“It ain’t that magical.”

Again Jordan laughed, and though Carter was still worried about Dinah, it felt good to laugh, to remember a thing his dad had said about hard times, and commiserate a bit on how good stuff can grow from difficult stuff.

He’d lost his land time and time again, but always found more land, and more meaning. He’d lost Grandma, and that would always hurt, but Dinah had been a salve for his grief. Company and care. Someone to lean on even if she didn’t have a clue he was leaning.

“So, you going to go after her?” Jordan asked, nodding toward Gallagher’s.

Carter assumed she’d gone to talk to Kayla, and maybe she needed that. To talk to family, people who understood all the weird Gallagher’s dynamics. He’d give her that time, but then . . .

“Soon enough,” he returned. “Soon enough.”

Chapter 16

Dinah was a mess, and she’d never been a mess before. Even after her family life had exploded into what it was now, she’d never fallen apart like this. She’d still had a plan and a goal and a focus.

Now she was confused and lost and, most problematic of all, needing someone else’s advice. She couldn’t ask Carter, not when this was about them, though she had the sneaking suspicion the man in her life she’d known the least amount of time might understand her the best.

Still, this wasn’t as easy as understanding. This was choosing, and it was a choice she’d never imagined having to make. She’d been certain her whole life she could have it all—everything she wanted—if she only worked hard enough.

Was it all a lie?

She didn’t particularly want to ask Kayla for advice when Kayla was having a break with Gallagher’s and the family. But Kayla knew the family, knew Grandmother, knewDinah. Surely she could put aside her feelings about Gallagher’s in order to give advice.

Dinah thumped her head against Kayla’s apartment door in lieu of knocking. She felt like she needed to knock her head against something hard about a hundred more times before today would make sense.

When Kayla opened the door, she was a little breathless and flushed, and her eyes widened as she took in Dinah. “You’ve been crying,” she said by way of greeting.

“Hi to you too.”

Kayla opened the door farther and ushered Dinah inside.

“Did that bastard hurt you?” Kayla demanded.

“Bastard? You mean Carter?”

Kayla nodded emphatically and Dinah smiled, because even with things not quite normal between them, Kayla was being protective.

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