Jade Lee Read Online Free PDF Page B

land. He may or may not have been able to do it. So why are you here kicking at stones and acting as though your brother has done some horrible thing?”
    “Because I do have some money. Not enough, but maybe if Grant has some too… Maybe we could scrape together enough.”
    “So write him.”
    “I have—to our solicitor—but nothing will come of it.” He slid down the bark until he squatted on one of the roots. “People don’t change. My grandfather was a gambler and a drunk. My father, too. Do you know how many promises they broke? How many good intentions they had that never came to anything?”
    She waved that away. “That’s them. What about your brother?”
    Will shrugged. “He burned down our barn.”
    “What is that to the point? I once fell off a fence and landed in the wallow. Doesn’t mean I’m a pig.”
    He turned to stare at her. “You say the oddest things.”
    As if she needed the reminder. “You don’t know what your brother has done, so don’t damn him until you know the truth.”
    He sighed. “Here’s what I do know. Your father has offered me a small piece of land if I finish the canal by the time the five years are up. He called it incentive, and it is. It’s a very good piece of land.”
    Was that the reason for the urgency? Because Will’s family might up and buy the land? But that made no sense.
    Will stretched out his legs in front of him, his breath easing out of him on a long sigh. When he finally spoke, his tone was matter-of-fact. “The sale is for a fair price . If I finish the canal, then the price for the land triples. There’s no chance that my brother could have gotten that much money together in five years.”
    “But you’ll have Papa’s bonus, right? The small piece of land.”
    “But if I don’t get the canal done, the land is worth more, but not triple. Maybe Grant has that much money. Maybe he still plans to buy it all in six weeks.”
    “But if you get the canal done—”
    “Then the price is too high. There’s not a chance Grant has made that much money. No one could make that much in five years’ time.”
    She understood the problem now. He could work hard, take the safe bet, and finish the canal. He’d get the bonus plot of land and be happy. Or he could risk everything on his brother making good on a five-year-old promise. He could give up his bonus and delay finishing the canal, then maybe Grant would appear in six weeks with enough money to buy it all back. “But you have no idea what Grant has done. So you have no idea whether he has any money at all.”
    He nodded. “Do you know what it would mean for this land to be owned by the Crowles again? This has been our place since Henry II. The village is named Crowlesby. Seven hundred years undone by three generations of idiots.”
    “Two,” she corrected. “Your father and grandfather. You don’t yet know about your brother.”
    “I know he’s gone. I know people don’t change.”
    “Of course they can!” she cried. Else she would be doomed to be the odd, unladylike, wild thing she’d always been.
    He didn’t respond because he didn’t believe. Of course he didn’t because she very much feared he was right. After all, wasn’t that what the stubborn Yorkshire people prided themselves on? That generation after generation everything was exactly the same, done exactly the same way in an unceasing roll of Not Changing.
    “I’m going to prove it to you,” she said, not fully understanding why she was being so vehement. “People can change.”
    He shoved to his feet. “This is not a game, Miss Josephine. This is my home and my land.”
    “So fight for it!” She stood to face him square on.
    “How?” He threw up his hands. “It was all sold out from under me!”
    “I don’t know! Find your brother. Make a new deal with my father. Do something, but don’t sit here kicking at stones while someone else—”
    “Burns down my barn?”
    She swallowed. So she’d guessed right. He’d