You Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 3)

Chapter 1: Jeannie

One Year Later

I had to give the news to our very last employee yesterday that the money to pay him just isn’t coming anytime soon. But thankfully, he assured me that he isn’t planning on leaving us until everything is taken care of and ready for the auction, bless his heart.

Yes, that’s right. Auction. We’re selling the house, the farm, and all our leftover machinery and equipment, hoping to get at least enough to pay all the back bills and maybe give us some breathing room with the hospital bills that are still piling up, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Grandpa was experiencing strange symptoms for a few months, maybe even a year, before he finally broke down and saw a doctor, and everything changed for us the day he did. It’s been chaotic ever since. The diagnosis was an aggressive form of brain cancer, and it was already pretty advanced. It felt like one day, he was outside working side-by-side in the barn with me, and the next he was in the hospital and fading fast. He has changed so much so quickly that I almost can’t recognize him these days.

My worst fears have been realized, and now here I am, scrambling to figure everything out. There have been bills piling up that I didn’t even know we had, people calling the house demanding back pay that I didn’t even know were our employees, and what seems like problem after problem everywhere I turn. But thankfully, I’m down to what I hope is the last of it. It makes me sad to see everything being sold right out from under me, but I’m also relieved that the burden of working and paying for it all will soon be someone else’s.

I’m in the barn sorting through what we have left from this year’s garden when I hear a vehicle pull up outside. It’s been getting chilly at night, so I have the door closed and can’t see who it is. I hope it’s that guy who’s been helping me, though. Mitch. The last loyal employee we have but cannot pay.

Panic sets into my gut when I look up and see that it’s not Mitch, but the man who drives the green truck. It’s too late to hide, and I couldn’t anyway. If he’s here to do business, I can’t afford to turn him and his sons away.

“Hi there,” he greets me cheerfully.

I take a moment to regard him since I’ve never had the opportunity to look at him up close before. He’s tall, well over six feet, with a thick mop of curly brown hair. His eyes are dark but kind, and he’s smiling at me as he holds his hand out. I take it timidly, knowing he expects a handshake but still feeling uncertain about how to interact with him.

Two of his sons are with him and they’re both watching me with interest, though I can’t tell what exactly it is that interests them. Are they undressing me with their eyes the way that Grandpa always warned all the men would? I couldn’t possibly tell because I have no idea what that would even look like.

“Hi,” I respond somewhat shyly.

“Is your grandpa around?” the man asks, glancing around as if looking for signs of the man in question.

Or maybe he’s taking in the spread of produce I have set out. I can’t tell, and probably shouldn’t even be trying to make assumptions since my people skills are so severely lacking.

“Uh, no. He’s not here,” I tell him, fighting back the emotion I can’t help feeling about it. Nothing about this situation is the way it is supposed to be, but that most of all.

“Oh, that’s odd. He should be expecting us,” the man says next.

“He’s in the hospital,” I blurt out nervously. “He’s sick. With cancer. And I’m trying, but I don’t know what all people are expecting, like for orders and stuff. He kept track of all that.”

“That’s okay,” the man assures me, giving me another warm smile. “I’m sorry to hear that about your grandpa. He’s a good man, and we’ve always appreciated doing business with him.”

“The farm’s being sold,” I tell him, not wanting him to think his order will be ready next time, either.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. That must be hard. Will you be alright? You have some place to go?”

“We’ll figure it out,” I say hurriedly, not wanting to think about that part yet.

No, we don’t have a new place lined up. It’s all been happening too fast. That’s why we’re going the auction route because I need to liquidate some assets and pay things off, and fast. I don’t have time to bother with selling the house, the land, the fields, and all the equipment separately. He never told me, but Grandpa had already been accumulating a lot of debt. With him falling sick on top of it, things just spiraled out of control in a hurry.

“Well, listen. Unless you need some of this to fill some other orders, how about I just take everything you have and get it all out of here for you?” the man offers, stunning me to silence. “We have a lot of people to feed back home, so it will all get used. My boys can help us pack and load it all, and then you won’t have to worry about it anymore. Plus, I’m sure you could use the cash with everything you’re dealing with.”

It takes me a few seconds to process what he just offered to me, but once my brain and my mouth are finally connecting again, I manage to accept.

“Gosh, that’s really kind of you. Thank you,” I tell him gratefully. “You have no idea how much this helps.”

“You sure you won’t need any of this for someone else?”

“I have no idea,” I shrug. “I haven’t found where my grandpa keeps those records, assuming he even writes any of it down. Knowing him, it’s all up here.”

I tap my temple the way my grandpa always does whenever someone questions him about his tendency to not write important things down.

“Alright then,” the man chuckles. “Would you happen to have any of your meats leftover that we can take off your hands as well?”

It clicks in my mind that he must be the one that orders all the pork and chicken every year. That and the produce from Grandma’s garden would account for how often he comes by to talk to Grandpa. I’m probably standing face-to-face with our biggest customer, which makes me feel a heck of a lot better about just selling him everything and calling it a day.

“We have some stuff leftover in the freezers, but nothing fresh,” I inform him. “Mitch took the two milk cows and all our pigs to auction just last week, so there’s no more coming either. All I have left are my chickens, and I’m keeping them.”

“Understood. You have fresh eggs then?”

“Those we do have, about four dozen currently.”

“Perfect. Give us all of it, even the meats in the freezer. We’re buying you out today, Miss Carpenter,” the man tells me, his eyes twinkling as he smiles at me.

It surprises me that he knows my last name, but only for a split-second until I realize that he probably knows my grandpa by name. I must react in some way that suggests he’s wrong about it, though, because he apologizes.

“I’m sorry, I just assumed,” he says sheepishly.

“No, you’re correct. It just caught me off-guard,” I tell him. “I’m Jeannie, by the way.”

“Matt Bentley,” he introduces himself, holding out his hand again. “And these are my two younger boys, Aaron and Gideon.”

He points to the boys behind him. Aaron gives a half-smile and a slight wave, but Gideon only nods. He seems very serious, or maybe even shy. Matt called them boys, but they’re older than that would suggest. Teenagers, maybe even close to my own age. I think Gideon is the younger of the two, but I can’t be sure.

“It’s so nice to meet you all,” I say politely, finally remembering my manners, as my grandma used to say.

“It’s nice to finally see more than just your ponytail disappearing behind the barn,” Aaron chimes in, giving me a lopsided smile.

I guess that means they’ve noticed me when they’ve been here before. I wonder if they think it’s odd that my grandpa always sent me away when we had guests, but I’m not curious enough to bother asking.

Instead, I gesture at the vegetables laid out nearby and try to get us back on task. Clearing out our whole stock is going to take a bit of time, time that stands between me and the warm shower I intend to take before I finally get to crawl into bed and try to sleep off the busy, stressful day I’ve had.