This panic, this rage, is about more than just Andrea and me. This is about the future of my childhood farm. I can’t just write off her actions, or rather, her lack thereof.
Even if the realization absolutely fucking guts me.
“Now, see here, boy,” Howard begins, standing, but I swear, if I have to listen to him tell me as well why firing Andrea is a bad idea, my heart is going to overrule my head.
My heart has been ruling for the last forty-eight hours, and all I’ve got to show for it is a scorched farm and an anguishing betrayal from the one person I never thought would deceive me. It’s not going to continue a moment longer.
“This decision is final. And don’t bother trying to come back. Your belongings will be shipped to you.”
Andrea stares at me, too stunned to reply. Howard, on the other hand, looks like he’s winding up for a full-on tirade. I glare at him until his mouth snaps shut. I don’t even look at Andrea. I can’t. That small part of me is still screaming to take it back, that this is Andrea, not some idiot I care nothing about.
“You’re really firing me,” she says, voice dead.
I can’t take another second of that face, of this decision I’m making.
I almost make it to the door when she says, “You’re a real asshole, Axel.”
I pause, hand pressed against the door. “I’m well aware.” Then I push it open and leave without another glance behind me.
Chapter Sixteen
I regret firing Andrea immediately.
I said horrible, absolutely unforgivable things to her. What the fuck was I thinking, firing her like that? Yes, she met with Howard—and that still pisses me off—but I didn’t give her a chance to explain. I didn’t let Howard do that either, but he’s a dick and did something wrong.
Andrea, technically, did nothing wrong. She just happened to be in the presence of someone I dislike. And I, dumbfuck that I am, overreacted. The devil me in took over before I could stop to think. I fucking fired her.
Sure, I was still freaked out by the fire, but I shouldn’t have fired her. Shouldn’t have treated her so poorly. Not when she’s never been anything but understanding about my issues, not when fucking her was the best weekend of my life.
The farm needs her. Hell, I need her. It takes only half an hour into Tuesday morning for me to arrive at this dismal conclusion. It’s in the little things, the things she did without ever being asked. Things I didn’t even know she managed.
Andrea waters the flowers in the small boxes near the barn. She makes sure all the men have lunches, always has cakes for birthdays, and of course, does the finance. All of these tasks went unnoticed, certainly by me, until she’s gone.
You’re a real asshole.
The men make sure to let me know they’re highly dissatisfied with Andrea’s firing. Howard’s departure was met with disapproval, but her departure might actually stirs up outright mutiny. When Morris asks me about her on Tuesday and I tell him that she’s gone, he just looks at me, mouth tight with disgust. I feel his disapproval like a physical force—an overt shaming. I know that I deserve it.
After I send the men out for the day, I return to my office. Before I begin harvesting, I need to call Andrea, apologize, beg for her to return. Whatever needs to be said, whatever I need to do to get her to return, I’ll do it. I don’t care if it makes me look weak. I don’t care that I never apologize for anything. This one, I’ll make.
I sag into my office chair, suddenly shaking fingers nervously dialing her number. With each additional ring, my anxiety, my regret, mounts. But she doesn’t answer. Not that call, not the one immediately after, not even when I call during my lunch break.
Things go progressively downhill from there.
On Wednesday, I catalogue the damage wrought by the fire. All of the affected trees are dead. We spend a precious day away from the harvest digging up the dead trees so the soot and ash from the fire don’t change the composition of the soil. It’ll be harder, if not impossible, to plant new trees if we don’t. With the back corner of the farm no longer producing like it used to, I literally can’t afford for this portion to be ruined as well.
My men glare at me unabashedly the entire time. Morris the gossiping schoolboy apparently told everyone that I fired Andrea. They don’t even attempt to pretend they understand my decision. Seemingly every five minutes, there’s another snide comment or glare. No one actually disobeys me, but at this point I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.
After that demoralizing task is complete, I spend the afternoon trying to place an order for new trees. It takes half a day because I can’t recall the correct order of the numbers in the greenhouse’s phone number. Or even the name of the place, for that matter. I can remember the old greenhouse, the one we used for decades, but a year ago Andrea insisted we switch to a new one that specializes in organic trees. It hasn’t stuck in my mind yet.
I spend a few hours looking for the damn information, but Andrea apparently filed it somewhere in Timbuktu because no matter how hard I search, I can’t find it. I give up in disgust, heading back out to the harvest where I receive dirty looks from my employees. By the time they all leave for the day I’m utterly exhausted, especially by another unanswered call to Andrea.
With each passing day she’s gone, the wound caused by her absence gapes larger and larger, a giant scab picked open each morning just when it has a chance to close over during the night.
On Thursday, four of my men quit. I glower at them, threaten them, even offer them a raise, but the idiots are childhood friends of the dipshit who started the fire, and apparently a show of solidarity is in order. They march out of there so self-righteously, I wonder if their heads might explode from all that hot air.
The unexpected departure of a tenth of their coworkers does little to improve my employees’ morale. Their complaints and general bullshit grow to such a degree that I highly consider firing the whole bunch of them. Working alone at this point would be preferable.
You’re a real asshole.
It’s one catastrophe after the other, followed by nights alone, staring at the ceiling in self-loathing. And all the while, Andrea’s words replay in my mind, over and over, underscoring the true stupidity of my decision to fire her in the first place.
I till the earth, pull ripe peaches off trees, yell at my men, and feel like an utter failure. Just a few weeks ago, I finalized the terms of my acquisition of Rory’s old farm and had such optimism for the future, but now I just feel disgusted and disillusioned. I fucked things up royally, and I don’t even know how to begin to go about righting them.
Friday arrives, and I realize it’s well past time for me to do the thing I’ve been avoiding all week. Andrea’s belongings. I never sent them to her. Why bother doing so when she’d soon be back? But as days pass and I keep calling and she refuses to answer, I’m forced to accept that she’s not coming back. I fucked up, tried to correct my mistake, but couldn’t.
Everything I feared would happen if we got involved has occurred. And it wasn’t even Andrea who messed up our relationship—it was me and my blatant stupidity. I’m going to have to hire another accountant who can do the job and also tolerate my math limitations.
My feet drag as I head to her office. Everything is just as she left it. The computer is still on, a picture of the farm as its screensaver. It’s a shot we took a year ago for one of our brochures. A long line of our trees extends off into the distance. In the foreground, the farm’s employees stand in a huge group, grinning at the camera. My eyes snag first on Howard, then are inevitably drawn to Andrea, where they linger. They stand on either side of me. Howard’s arm is wrapped around my shoulders and Andrea stands so close she’s practically touching me.
The happiness in that photo guts me.
I viciously shake the mouse to awaken the computer, then change the wallpaper for good measure. I need zero visual reminders of the fact that this place is a brittle husk of what it once was.
Andr
ea must have sent Howard’s things home, because now that I think about it, I haven’t seen any of his shit in days. I’m immensely glad I don’t have to do this twice, because boxing up Andrea’s belongings makes my heart ache. It’s entirely deserved, I know, but acknowledging my mistake doesn’t make the fallout any easier.
As I begin packing up all of her things—pens, lunchbox, even an extra pair of glasses—my mood grows fouler and fouler. This fucking blows. Every single item I put in a cardboard box mocks me.
Pencil: Are you sure you want to put me in there?
Lunchbox: But I belong in the office fridge!
Glasses: Don’t do this. I’m her special work glasses. Andrea can’t read the screen without me!
I swear every single item yells at me as I pack it away. Even the cardboard box looks up at me, offended. I shove the box flaps closed with vicious force. I don’t need a guilt trip from a fucking pencil.
You’re a real asshole.
I freeze. Of course! Andrea won’t answer a single one of my damn phone calls, but what’s she going to do when I show up on her doorstop with her shit? Slam the door in my face?
Well, obviously that’s what she’ll do, but I’ll shove my foot in the door. This is the perfect excuse to see her, to beg her to come back. Excellent. It’ll have to wait until after work, because if I leave, then there really will be a mutiny, but the instant everyone leaves, I’m driving to her house.
I rejoin the men, spirits lifted for the first time this week, but they quickly plummet after a few hours with my unhappy employees. We work in silence, pausing only briefly for lunch. Eventually, I can’t take it anymore, and let them out early and give them Saturday off. My mind is elsewhere, anyway; a workplace accident would be the perfect end to this shitstorm of a week, and I’d rather like to avoid that.
We move in a dejected line back to the house, each of us looking forward to the end of a long and horrible week. As we near the barn, the men suddenly whisper to each other and stare at me, their faces lit with almost a strange kind of excitement.
I glare at them. “What?”
Morris jerks his chin gleefully toward the front of the barn. I follow his gaze and freeze.
Andrea is standing in front of her car, arms folded across her chest, glaring at me.
Chapter Seventeen
“A-Andrea?” I stutter in shock, wondering if I’m actually hallucinating. Can she really be here, after days of her ignoring my calls? My heart pounds in hope for the first time since I fired her.
Her expression narrows even further. She’s furious. Beyond pissed. I’ve seen Andrea angry many times over the years, even deserved her fury a few of those times, but I’ve never seen her this irate. The other men slow around us as well, sensing blood in the water. How wonderful. I have witnesses to my evisceration.
“How are you doing, Axel?”
I glance around as if searching for the hidden cameras. “Uh, good?”
She taps a foot on the ground, nostrils flaring. “Is that so? You’re good? Well isn’t that wonderful for you. I am not good.” She steps forward, jabbing her finger at my chest. While she’s much smaller than me, I feel the force of that finger like an entire cascade of peaches pummeling me from the very top of the tree. “So here’s what going to happen. You’re going to sit here, since you’re so good, and listen to me. None of this talking over me bullshit from Monday.”
“Andrea, wait …”
“Don’t you ‘Andrea’ me,” she snaps. “I need to talk and you need to shut the hell up and listen. You’re a fucking idiot. Firing Howard was a mistake. You and I both know that this place went to hell after he left. He might’ve done something terrible, but does that really negate nearly fifty years of services to this farm? Obviously not. People make mistakes, Axel. Even misguided ones.
“So you fire Howard, and you don’t even give him a chance to explain himself. You just can his ass and then go about your business. That’s fucked up. Even huge companies have a hearing when stuff like this happens.”
“This isn’t a big company—”
“Don’t you dare interrupt me. You fire Howard, thinking it’s the right thing to do, and almost instantly everything goes wrong on the farm. I mean, for God’s sake, the place nearly burned down! And instead of thinking ‘Oh, maybe I made a mistake,’ you double down. Have you missed the fact that your entire workforce is miserable?”
“Not anymore! Four guys just quit,” someone yells behind me.
Andrea throws her hands in the air. “Some of the men just quit? Seriously? What the hell else happened since I got fired?”
I open my mouth to reply, to tell her she’s right, that I regret everything. To apologize. But she cuts me off. “If it weren’t for Howard, you wouldn’t even have a farm right now.”
“What?” I say sharply.
Andrea pales slightly, like she had vowed not to say that. She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, then shrugs slightly as if to say to hell with it. “You know what? He told me not to tell you, but fuck it. You need to hear this.
“I immediately called Howard when I saw the flames. He’s the one who knew Montgomery had his own water tanker. If it weren’t for Howard, who knows if you would have been able to fight the fire until the fire department arrived.
“So yeah, after the danger passed, I went to see him. To thank him. You’re welcome, by the way. He should have been there, Axel. But instead of being grateful, you fire me as well. That makes sense.
“I wanted to give you hell, but even then, after all you’ve done to him, Howard still looked out for you. He told me to let you calm down, so I ignored your calls. But you know what? The craziest thing happened. Now I’m mad.
“You sit around here, expecting people to be at your beck and call, but you never put in the work yourself. You never make an effort to forge relationships with the people around you. If you had, you would have known about the cigarette bucket. Instead, you have zero patience when someone screws up. Everyone here hates it. It’s not a great way to lead, Axel.”
“It’s my farm!” I yell, knowing the first thing out of my mouth should be an apology, but it’s like I’m actually incapable of making good decisions. “It’s my job to direct you. At the end of the day, the responsibility falls to me. The harvest, the fire, your paychecks. All of it falls on my shoulders. If I screw up, we all suffer.”
Suddenly, all of her fire simply disappears. Andrea shakes her head slightly, staring at the ground. She jerks open her car door and makes to get in, but then stares back at me. The finality in her expression makes me shiver. “No, Axel,” she says, voice scarily calm. “It’s not your farm. It’s our farm.”
Without another word, Andrea climbs into her car and speeds down the drive. A few of the men actually have to jump back in order to get out of her way. The dust from the drive slowly settles back to the ground in the wake of her departure.
The men turn and stare at me.
“What the hell, man!”
“Why are you just standing there?”
“Go get her!”
“Axel.” Morris steps in front of me, arms folded over his chest, expression stern. “What in the hell are you doing right now? Howard’s loss was terrible, but Andrea’s the only one who can ever speak to you that way. We’re lost without her.”
“I was trying to apologize! I’ve been calling her all week to apologize. She won’t let me talk.”
“You didn’t try hard enough,” Morris snaps. “So allow me to rephrase. If you don’t rehire Andrea, I’m going to quit.”
The rest of the men look from Morris to me and back again. After a moment, someone shouts, “If Morris goes, I go!”
“Yeah, me too!”
“Get her back, or I walk!”
The yard is suddenly a cacophony of men yelling that they’ll quit if I don’t go after her.
“For fuck’s sake, relax! I’m going! I have no intention of letting her get away.”
I hop in my truck an
d peel out of the yard. Nausea, worry, anxiety ratchet ever higher with each passing second that I wonder whether I’ve irrevocably ruined our relationship. What if I can’t catch her? Will she go straight home? But that worry, at least, is unnecessary, for I have to brake suddenly in order to avoid Andrea’s car pulled over on the side of the road.
“What do you think you’re doing, yelling at me like that and then leaving before I can say anything?” I say, noting the irony of the situation as I come around the front of my vehicle. Andrea remains silent. When I finally make it around to the driver’s side, I see why.
She’s crying.
Ah hell. I’m the world’s biggest asshole. She probably pulled over here, too overcome by tears to drive. I did that.
I open the door and crouch down to her level. She turns her head away, wiping her face furiously in embarrassment. And that one little gesture absolutely crushes my battered heart.
“Andrea,” I say, startled at the hoarseness of my voice. “I’m so very sorry. I fucked up. You’re right, about all of it. I knew it instantly. This last week has been an absolute misery. I should have never fired you. I regretted it the moment I returned home, saw the devastation of the farm, and knew you’d never be there to help me recover. I was just so angry and afraid from the fire. I should never have taken that out on you.
“But you’re wrong. Howard isn’t the glue that holds this place together—you are. You’re the one we need. Maybe Howard needs to come back, but we’d be completely lost without you. Please don’t leave. Please don’t leave all of us. Don’t leave me. I need you. I’ve always needed you. For years it was because of the work you did, but now … it’s more than that. I need you, not just your brain.”
Devil (King Brothers #2) Page 10