He Sold My Mother's Farm, So I Got Engaged to His Best Friend novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Deed

Lainey's POV

Boone's hand was warm and dry around mine, and he didn't let go until we reached the fence.

He'd come home from the closing at half past ten and stood in the kitchen doorway in his good jacket.

"I'll walk you down," he'd said. "If you'll let me."

So I'd let him.

The pasture grass was white with frost in the shade and wet in the sun.

The spring house sat at the bottom of the slope, square and grey, with the water running out from under it toward the creek.

Hayes was standing by the door in his tweed jacket with an envelope in his hand.

Dot was there with three of our barn crew, all of them in work jackets, trying to look like they'd just happened by.

Boone stopped at the fence.

He looked at Hayes over my head for a long moment.

Then he let go of my hand.

"I'll be at the house," he said, and he turned around and walked back up the hill.

I went down the rest of the way by myself.

Hayes held the envelope out to me.

"It recorded at eleven forty," he said. "Courthouse in Versailles. It's done."

I opened it.

The deed was three pages, and my name was on the first one.

Lainey Ashcraft, of Woodford County, Kentucky.

The consideration line said one dollar.

"I didn't pay you a dollar," I said.

"I'll put it on your tab," he said. "Under the eleven hundred."

Dot made a sound.

I looked at the deed, and then up the hill at my mother's house.

My hands had started shaking, and I couldn't make them stop.

"Why?" I said.

"Because it's yours," Hayes said. "It always was. I just held it a while."

"And the spring."

"Is yours," he said. "Your mama won it fair. Well. Your great-granddaddy did. With three queens, I'm told."

The barn crew laughed.

I didn't.

"Rule three," I said. "It ends the day the farm is in my name."

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