Dare (19 page)

I exhaled and swiped at a tear that escaped down my cheek. “Thank you. It’s really kind of you to say that.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Okay.” I gripped the edge of the bar and steeled myself mentally. “What could you not tell me about the farm sale that would’ve made everything make sense to me?”

It had been the biggest point of contention in our relationship, and it felt kind of strange to sit here in a dive bar in Las Vegas and address it head on. I felt, strangely, like an adult way of handling it. Adults faced their problems like this, instead of running away from them. I could be done with running away from things.

“I knew about the money problems the farm was having,” Sebastian told me. “Just a perk of working in the industry, I guess. I know everyone’s business. But your father had run it into the ground.”

“It wasn’t him,” I said quickly, jumping to defend him. “It was me. Dad took out loans he couldn’t pay back to send me to the college I wanted to go to. I didn’t know until I saw all the bills just how little money he had left.”

“Well, that solves one mystery,” Sebastian said, giving me a small smile. “That’s why I wanted to buy the farm—to settle that debt. You were both so passionate about it, and I liked seeing that. And I loved you, and you seemed to be really happy there. I wanted to get the farm out of trouble to make sure you had a farm when you were ready to take it over from your father. Is that still what you want? Because I would still buy it from you, now that you’re the owner. I would make it so the debtors would come after me, not you, and I’d shower them with cash while you ran the farm however you wanted. I have that kind of cash to spare—don’t wrinkle your face like that. I’m not bragging. I’m being honest.”

But I wasn’t silently judging him. I was silently crying that Sebastian would buy the farm just to make sure I had a farm to go back to, just because he thought it was what I wanted.

“Why are you crying?” he asked, confused. “Did I say something mean?”

“No, idiot, I’m crying because you’re unreal,” I sobbed, burying my face in the front of his shirt. “Because after everything, you still want to give me the farm.”

“I love you,” he said. “I’d give you this entire planet if it was mine to give.”

“I love you, too.”

We were quiet for a long time in that dive bar, me getting my tears out, marveling at how I could love a person so much, how Sebastian’s heart could be made of solid gold. He was so kind, so incredibly important to me.

“Are you ready to go back and get everything sorted out?” Sebastian asked me.

“Yes,” I said, smiling at him through my tears. “Yes, I’m ready. Let’s go home.” It had never felt so strongly like home to me before.

After we landed, our first stop was the funeral home. I retrieved Dad’s urn, which was surprisingly heavy, and we drove out to the farm, the vessel secured in my lap, my arms wrapped around it. I knew where he needed to be.

There was so much to do. That was the thought that kept looping through my brain even as we pulled into the driveway at the farm. The house was still standing. That was one blessing. But I knew there was a lot inside of it—and on the farm — that required my attention. Things only I could do, even if I had Sebastian at my side, willing to do anything and everything in his power to help me. It was overwhelming, but it was almost joyful. There were tasks that needed to be completed, and I was here to complete them.

In an instant, getting out of the car and studying the farm around me, my childhood home, I understood that this was exactly where I needed to be. Was I who I expected I would be? Perhaps not. But I was in the right place. Maybe everything else would make sense soon.

I clutched the urn and walked out to the fields, Sebastian following me, letting little handfuls of soft ash go in the places Dad liked to go—up and down the rows of crops, through the barn, down near the river, until the urn was empty, and I was empty, too. Dad was back where he belonged.

“Are you ready to go inside?” Sebastian asked me after what was probably an hour of me staring out into the river. By then I was already striding off to the house, straight to the office, ignoring the last memories I had of the place—Dad being carted off on a stretcher, blue and red emergency lights careening over the façade of the house. There were literally mountains of papers to go through, understand, and act upon now.

Once we had the gist of the most pressing issues boiled down and organized, Sebastian bundled the papers into a folder and tucked it underneath his arm.

“Now I’ll take it to my accountant to sort out,” he said. “Want to ride into town with me?”

“No, thank you,” I said, eyeing the rest of the cluttered office. Dad had been a lot of things, but organized wasn’t one of them. “There are a lot of things to do here. I’ll just keep working while you’re gone.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to stay here by yourself?” Sebastian asked, concerned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, laughing at him. “It’s my home, after all.”

“Fair enough.” He kissed my forehead. “Call me if you need anything. You’d be surprised how fast I can make the commute.”

“Be careful,” I told him. “Don’t cut off any young, sassy girls driving big pickup trucks on the highway.”

“Duly noted.”

I attacked the piles of superfluous papers with gusto before Sebastian even got to the front door, tossing the ones that were just junk mail and catalogs accumulated over months and years into garbage bags. I sorted out what I thought was important, like the latest catalog from the company we ordered the most supplies from and correspondence that still needed to be answered. The rest I carted out to shred and compost.

I moved from room to room in the house like a tornado. The force driving me was to purge the old and welcome a renewed sense of purpose, physically and dramatically. I found myself bagging up clothes I hadn’t worn in years and plopping them in the bed of the truck to take to donate somewhere. I threw out food that had gone bad in the kitchen, and cleaned everything with bleach until the entire house sparkled. I didn’t think it had gotten a cleaning that deep since I’d been put in charge of keeping the place in order.

What I hadn’t been prepared for, though, was the swell of emotions I’d feel when I went into Dad’s room armed with a bucket of cleaning supplies and a roll of trash bags. I hadn’t been in there in years. He always assured me that he’d take care of the chores in there, like he promised to do in the office, thinking that a younger me might misplace something or throw out something important. Even as I got older and more responsible, I never brought up cleaning his room. One less thing for me to do, right? But the memories here were so raw and fresh, as if they’d only been waiting for me to open the door and retreat into the past that would always remain out of reach.

All of Dad’s clothes were in the drawers, but I gasped when I opened the closet. All of my mother’s old clothes, the things she’d worn around the farm, were still in here, hung up neatly, perfectly preserved. Dad had never talked about her after she left, but he’d kept all her clothes, holding on to the memory of her in that way. It floored me so completely that I had to sit on the edge of the bed for a while to regain my composure. That he’d loved her still, even after the divorce. After her betrayal of his dream for hers.

And now, here I was, at a crossroads of dreams. My dream was somewhere in this room, too, but I would have to dig deep to find it. I started clearing out the drawers and closet, certain that there were people who would need these clothes more than I thought I needed to hang on to them. I had memories. I didn’t need mementos. I bagged up toiletries and pills and crumpled up receipts and carted them out. I gave everything a good cleaning in here, just as I had for the rest of the house, not satisfied until I saw it sparkle.

It struck me that I shouldn’t turn my back on the past. My family had been dysfunctional in the kindest of descriptions, but it had been my family. I pounded upstairs and retrieved the box of picture frames I’d squirreled away after my mother had left us, the professional portraits we’d driven to the mall to take, the candid shots of me gazing up adoringly at her, framed for posterity. I’d hidden them after I’d understood, at twelve years old, how upset Dad was at her departure; he was wounded more deeply and visibly than I was. Now, though, I was ready to bring them out again, to accept the fact that even though my family was atypical, I was still me. Maybe I wouldn’t see my mother again or feel an urge to speak to her. Maybe I would. Everything would make sense when it had to, and right now it made sense for me to put the pictures back up.

It had been just what the house needed to feel full again. I was just standing back to admire all of my hard work when Sebastian stepped in through the front door.

“Hey, there are a ton of bags outside. Do you need me to call your trash collection services to make sure they’re still picking your stuff up?”

“No,” I said, feeling strangely light, as if I was in danger of floating away on a breeze. “I did some housekeeping.”

Sebastian gave a low whistle, looking around. “Did you leave anything standing in here? There were a lot of trash bags.”

“Just ready to start fresh,” I said, smiling at him. “Are you excited about your new farm?”

“Your farm, and nothing new about it,” Sebastian said. “I meant what I said. I have the money to back your operation. You just be happy. Grow things. Do what you want. I am an owner in name only.”

“And what if I want you to have a more active role in the place?” I asked.

“How much more active?”

“Come run this farm with me, Sebastian,” I said. “Lots of land. Lots of privacy.”

I watched his slow smile, as I was sure he remembered a conversation we had in his penthouse in Los Angeles, one about a relative lack of privacy when the lights were on in his home and all of the residents of the neighboring buildings being able to see inside. It hadn’t bothered us then, not even when we’d relocated to his bedroom.

“I know it’s not as exciting as Los Angeles, but I can vouch for this place,” I said. “We could split our time, if you wanted, or we could just get a new computer and you could manage Clementine Organics from here. Or—and hear me out—maybe the farm can work with your company now, maybe developing different organic techniques and serving as a model for promotional materials. Or it can function as a retreat campus or something. Or it could—”

“Rachel, whoa, whoa,” Sebastian cut in, laughing and putting his hands up. “You’re talking a mile a minute. I like what I’m hearing, all good ideas, but it’s going to end up being whatever you want to do with the farm. It’s yours. You’re the owner. All I did was push some papers around and settle some debts.”

“I want to work together with you,” I said. “I think it would be fun.”

“Uh-huh.” Sebastian didn’t seem convinced, even as his brown eyes sparkled, his dimples deepening. “I think this is just a roundabout way of asking me to move in with you, Ms. Dare.”

I laughed at that, at the memory that at the early stages of our turbulent relationship I’d made him call me that. It was something like a cross between a porn star and a substitute teacher, but I’d insisted on keeping him from calling me Rachel, pissed that he thought he could.

“You’ve seen straight through me, Mr. Clementine,” I said through my giggles. “Fine. Then I’ll do this the proper way. Will you do me the honor of being my live-in boyfriend? We would live in sin and delight, mixing business with pleasure as often as possible, spending our time together in the best of both worlds—the country and the city. We share a passion in organic farming and for each other. Would you make me the happiest woman in the world and agree to go on this fantastic journey with me?”

“I’ll do you one better.”

I was laughing too hard to realize what was happening until the glint from a nearby lamp on what Sebastian was holding nearly blinded me.

“What is that?” I asked, my mouth hanging open. “Sebastian? What the hell?”

He shrugged as if he wasn’t holding the biggest diamond ring I’d ever seen in my life.

“Ms. Dare, I’d be lying if I told you that I’d ever come across someone as beautiful and strong-willed and self-assured as you,” he said, the ring sparkling in the light. “When you meet someone who challenges and complements you all at the same time, when all you can think about is what you can do to make that person happy because it makes you happy when they’re happy, then you don’t just walk away from it. When you love them so much that it’s kind of scary, you just have to do something even scarier to try and show them.”

I trembled as he slipped the ring on my finger—on that finger, the fourth one on my left hand. The ring made the entire hand feel heavier, but in a pleasant way, like Sebastian falling asleep while still on top of me back at his penthouse that night. I knew what he meant. It was scary to love someone as deeply as I loved him, and he had shown me his truest heart throughout the ordeal I’d been through with Dad. Sebastian had been instrumental in helping me realize that what I dreamed about was right in front of me. That I’d gotten a degree in agriculture because I really did want to pursue farming in my future, not because I thought Dad wanted me to. He’d told me to go after my dreams, and I did. I just hadn’t been sure of myself then—not sure of myself like I was now.

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” Sebastian said, visibly worried. “Just…think about it.”