Grandpa's Will Said Marry Within a Year or Lose the Farm, and the Neighbor Everyone Called a Land-Grabber Had Already Deeded Me His Own Land novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Every Term

The deed is read to the whole room, and that night Colby puts every term of a courthouse marriage on Casey's kitchen table; she says yes on one condition, and headlights come up the lane.

The lawyer unfolded the paper and read it to himself first.

Then he read it again out loud, because I don't think he trusted his own eyes.

"Warranty deed. Colby Dean Henning conveys to Casey Marie Stiles, sole owner, one hundred sixty acres in Section Fourteen."

His voice had stopped sounding like a feed receipt.

"Together with the barn and shop, one combine, two tractors, and one grain truck."

Nobody in the room moved.

"Recorded at the Register of Deeds this morning at 8:02. Consideration, ten dollars."

Ginny's blue folder slid off her lap.

The little flags fanned out across the linoleum.

"That's a stunt," Travis said. "Anybody can print a stamp."

"Not at the Register of Deeds, Travis," the lawyer said. "I'll call them myself before I leave this building."

Ginny found her voice first.

"He's giving up a farm to get a farm, Casey. Think about that."

"He gave me his farm, Aunt Ginny."

I was still looking at Colby.

"What exactly is he getting?"

Ginny opened her mouth and shut it.

"My kitchen," I said to Colby, loud enough for the back row. "Seven o'clock."

He nodded once, picked up his hat, and went out through the folding chairs without a word.

He knocked at seven exactly, even though the door was open.

Grandpa's seed cap still hung on the hook by the stove.

His cup was still in the dish drainer.

I hadn't been able to touch either one.

Colby set a yellow legal pad and a manila folder on the table and didn't sit.

"Sit," I said.

He took the chair at the far end, the one he'd always taken at Christmas.

"Start with why."

"Your aunt was going to say I was after the farm," he said. "So I made it so I couldn't be."

"By giving me yours."

"Everything I own that's worth anything is in your name since 8:02 this morning."

"You say yes and walk, you keep it. You say no and walk, you keep it."

"Either way I've got a pickup and a hat."

"That's insane."

"My mother said the same on the phone. She said it louder."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

It came out cracked, and it was the first time I'd laughed in twelve days.

He looked at the table.

"You didn't think to ask me first?"

"Walt said if I asked first you'd throw me out of the yard."

"He was right."

"He usually was."

He slid the legal pad toward me.

The handwriting was square, in pencil, with every sentence pressed hard into the page.

"These are the terms," he said. "All of them. There's nothing under the table."

I read them.

One, a courthouse wedding on any day I picked.

Two, he'd sleep in the bunkhouse across the yard.

Three, he asked for nothing, not land, not money, not a kiss.

Four, if I ever left, I kept both farms and he kept nothing.

Five, he'd be gone by morning if I said the word.

I read the whole page twice.

"You wrote 'not a kiss' on a legal document."

"I wanted it plain."

"Colby, why would a man do this?"

He turned his hat around once on the table.

"Three years ago in August, Walt and I were setting posts on the north fence," he said.

"He had the post driver in his hands."

"He said, 'Don't court her. Don't say a word till my will's read. She's got to choose it, not get pushed into it.'"

I couldn't move.

"I said yes. I kept it through three Christmases."

"You never said a word."

"No, ma'am."

"Why would Grandpa tell you that and not me?"

"He said you'd hate being managed."

That one landed so hard I had to look at the stove.

Grandpa had managed me for sixteen years, and he'd done it so well that I called it being loved.

Colby waited until I looked back.

"The will's read now," he said. "So I'm going to say this once, and then I'll quit."

"Okay."

"I've been in love with you for three years. You don't owe me one thing for it."

The refrigerator hummed.

A truck went by on the county road, far off.

"You said more tonight than in three Christmases," I said.

"I've been saving up."

I almost laughed again, and then I didn't.

"I'm not in love with you."

"I know."

"I barely know you."

"I know that too."

"If I say yes, I'm not doing it for a deed."

"That's why I wrote term three."

I picked up his pencil.

It was a short pencil, chewed at the end, and I held it for a while.

I thought about Aunt Ginny's foil plates, left on the counter every Sunday for seven years.

I thought about Grandpa eating every one of them alone.

"I have one term of my own," I said.

"Name it."

"You eat supper at this table. Every night, at six."

He stared at me.

"That's all?"

"I'm not eating alone in this house."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And stop calling me ma'am."

"Yes, Casey."

I wrote it at the bottom of his page in my own handwriting.

Six, supper at six.

Then I circled term one.

"Friday," I said. "The courthouse."

His shoulders dropped.

"Friday."

We had just shaken on it when headlights swept across the kitchen wall.

A second set came right behind the first.

It was twenty minutes to nine, and nobody drives six miles of gravel at that hour to be friendly.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend