Page 8 of Harvest Moon

“I can see that.”

“But I went to school for this. Graduated near top of my class in crop and soil sciences. I’m not just messing around here, Mr. Novak. I know what I’m doing, what I’m getting myself into.”

Chuck folded his hands in his lap, leaned back in his chair too. “Sure, but did you have to go out of state?”

I blinked. I hadn’t expected to be put on the spot by this guy. “It’s a good school. A great program, and—” And, I got in. I’d have loved to go somewhere closer to home, but for one reason or another, I hadn’t made the cut. “Listen, what’s done is done. I’ve got the debt I’ve got, and I mean to pay it off one day, but I’m here about the farm. Today. What are my options?”

The guy’s chin dimpled. He didn’t so much frown as shove his bottom lip up so his whole face got kind of scrunched. Finally, he pushed the papers on his desk away from him and shrugged.

“Don’t see any, kid. You’ve got excessive obligations in relation to income—I mean, we can’t really count jobs you no longer have. If you wanted to find something local, a job you can keep and hold for a couple months...”

I didn’t have a couple of months. “Then I wouldn’t be able to see to the farm.”

With a heavy sigh, he leaned back in his seat and shrugged, like there wasn’t a damn thing in the world he could do. “It’d be one thing if the farm were working, but I don’t think you’d get it for this price, then.”

“It’s my parents’ farm.” They’d give me any price I damn well asked for, because they were meant to give it to me anyway. I’d make them see reason.

Not that they’d committed to selling it to me. Not that they’d made me a single goddamn promise of the sort.

After dinner, Pa’d been in the living room watching late-night television. Ma was doing the dishes, and she gave me a soft look when I came in, but I marched on through and slammed my bedroom door behind me.

In the morning, we’d barely said a word to each other over breakfast. Then, I was replacing boards and getting ready for this meeting. Working on the house had calmed my nerves.

No doubt, if Sterling Corporation bought my family farm, they’d tear down the old farmhouse. Taking time to fix it up felt like an investment in its future. It wouldn’t be gone after Monday—no, otherwise there was no point trying to keep it up.

Never mind that my parents hadn’t bothered keeping it up.

“Yeah, but the land isn’t worth as much fallow, you know? And do you even have a business plan? Maybe you could look for local investors.”

“I just got back into town. I haven’t had time to pull together a business plan.” I was starting to sound snappish, and that wasn’t going to do me any good. My nerves were completely shot, and this, my last, best hope, was slipping through my fingers and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

“Even if you do, it—I’m sorry, kid, but it seems like a stretch. You’d spend as much as you could get just getting the place up and running again, and what then? You’reoneguy. It’s almost fourteen hundred acres.”

I took a long, deep breath. All I wanted to do was slash this guy with a wolf’s claws and tell him he didn’t have a single goddamn idea what I was able to do. But that was an alpha impulse, nothing more, and it wouldn’t get the better of me.

Truth was, he was right. Without Ma and Pa’s support, without farm hands and equipment and a working tractor? I couldn’t do shit, and everybody in this office damn well knew it.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, but this was too important to just let go without one more try.

“So there’s nothing I can do here?” I asked, leaning on my knees. If I thought I could’ve clasped my hands together and begged, and that would’ve gotten me anything, I’d have done it. No question.

The guy frowned, practically bleeding sympathy. “At present, no. If you want to come back again once you’ve shown you can make your student loan payments, when you have some more liquid assets...”

“All right,” I said, clapping my hands on my thighs and pushing myself out of the seat across from him. “Thank you for all your help today, Mr. Novak.”

I’d already turned to leave when he said, “Sorry we couldn’t do more for you today, Mr. Paterson.”

I stalked down the hall, ignoring the red tinge at the corners of my vision. This was—

This was nothing. I’d figure it out.

Or I could give up, admit I’d wasted all my potential and five years of my life working toward something I’d always thought I had, but hadn’t.

“Fuck,” I hissed, soon as I was in the open air. Ma’d never liked it when I cussed, but something about it made me feel better, made me see things a little clearer.

My phone buzzed again—the second notification for a message I’d ignored. I pulled it out of my pocket to finally see who’d needed my attention while I’d been in my meeting.

It was a message from Alexis, and for a second, I was afraid to open it. No doubt he was mighty peeved at me for brushing him off the day before, and I half suspected he’d chew me out at some point, but I’d never been a coward, so I opened it.

---