“That doesn’t matter,” Dean answered. “What matters is, legally, the farm is safe. That’s what matters.”

He had moved from angry to relieved and he was right. Put it behind, move on.

“I’d like Debbie’s home phone number,” Mike requested. “I think we shouldn’t delay in informing her we understand what we understand and as she has no legal recourse, she’ll need to stand down. This will allow Fin, Kirb and Rhonda to rest easy, at least on this.”

“I’ll phone her,” Dean muttered, moving to the cell sitting on the coffee table and as Mike watched him do it, he debated the merits of allowing it.

However, Debbie would very likely be more responsive to a phone call from her father, who Mike had to assume she loved or at least had some feeling for, than Mike who at this point she’d convinced herself she detested.

As Dean dialed and Mike watched, Dusty left her perch on the couch and came to him. He looked down at her, again sliding an arm around her waist as both her arms circled his middle.

“So, Debbie’s derailed. Wanna go upstairs and celebrate by making out on a teenage boy’s bed?” she whispered.

No, he did not want that. What he wanted was to walk her back to his house, put her ass in his truck and drive her to the watering hole where they could celebrate decisively. But this time in the backseat where he’d have the freedom to flip her after she was done so he could drive in hard to give the same to himself using her silken, tight, wet pu**y to find it.

Unfortunately, with her nephew on his couch, this was not an option.

Dean started muttering on the phone while Mike answered, “Sweet as that offer is, Angel, I’m gonna have to pass.”

“Barn?” she suggested softly for only him to hear. “I’ll bring blankets. We can break up a bale of hay.”

“Honey, love you but do not love the idea of gettin’ hard in your family’s living room with your parents in attendance. You wanna cut me some slack?”

Her face got soft with the “love you”, her eyes flashed in that way that made his dick go hard when he mentioned his dick getting hard then the humor slid through it when he finished.

All of this happened in seconds. It was a spectacular show.

“Right, I’ll be good,” she muttered.

“Appreciate it,” he muttered back.

“Have you lost your mind!” Dean shouted, Dusty tensed next to him and both their eyes cut to Dean Holliday.

Mike tensed too when he saw the man red-faced again, fist planted on his hip, head bowed to look at his stocking feet.

The room was silent for some time then the silence was ended when Dean spoke.

And his tone hurt Mike to hear and he had never been particularly close to the man, just knew him, respected him and shot the shit with him on a variety of occasions over twenty-five years.

It had to kill Dusty and that was why, as they listened, Mike turned into her and curved his other arm around her tight.

“I do not know you,” Dean whispered, his voice tortured. “I cannot understand why you’ve done what you’ve already done to this family with your mean-spirited deceits, your sister-in-law, your nephews having lost what they’ve lost and why you’re staying that course. I cannot understand it. I don’t want to understand it. You contesting your brother’s will has no possible result but more aggravation and heartache not to mention depleting the reserves Rhonda has to care for her boys as they try to make a go to keep this farm viable. And what’s worse, you’re a goddamned attorney and you know you have no hope of winning and still, you’re doing it. Out of spite. Out of greed. I don’t know which it is but neither of them say one good thing about you. It’s like you’re not of my loins, you’re not my daughter. I don’t know who you are. I just know that right now, Deborah Holliday, I don’t wanna know.”

Then he flipped his phone shut, tossed it on the couch and stared at it as he lifted up a hand to pass it over the back of his neck.

Then he dropped his arm and took in the room.

“She’s contesting the will,” he told them something they already knew. “She’s already got the ball rolling. Her talks with Rhonda were an attempt to get Rhonda on her side.”

Without delay, Della sprang from her perch on the chair, dashed to her husband’s phone, snatched it up, flipped it open and started hitting buttons.

“Della –” Dean started, his face ravaged but she lifted a hand his way, palm up without taking her eyes from the phone.

“Not a word, Dean,” she snapped and put the phone to her ear.

Della Holliday was a good woman, a good mother and a good wife. Further, she was an excellent farmer’s wife. He’d eaten her cooking often when he dated Debbie and enjoyed every meal. There was a reason Dusty was as she was. Della didn’t sing but she often had music on and would sway through the house doing whatever it was she was doing. She was a hard worker and always busy. If she had a failing, it was that she often inadvertently caused issues or aggravated them because she refused to see the failings in her children. She also had trouble keeping her mouth shut. But she loved her kids and showed it. She loved her husband and showed it. She loved the farm and showed it.

But when she got pissed, watch out.

“Debbie? It’s your mother,” she snapped into the phone. “No, you listen to me. I only have a few words to say, I’m gonna say them, you’re gonna listen to them and then you’re gonna think about them. You do this to this family, you are no longer my daughter. I am not joking. I am not threatening. That’s just the plain, ole truth. You do this, you will never, ever see or hear from me again. Think about that.”

Then she flipped the phone closed, tossed it on the couch and swept her eyes through the room.

“I’m takin’ a ding-darned walk,” she announced then she promptly stomped out.

After she left the room all occupants remained silent.

Finally, Dean muttered, “Better get my boots on and follow her. No tellin’, in this mood, what she’ll get up to.”

And after delivering that, he moved out the door giving his younger daughter a gloomy look and Mike a jerk of his chin.

When they were alone, Mike felt Dusty’s arms around him get tight and her face plant in his chest.

“Mom never did that,” she mumbled into his chest. “As in ever. Not even close.”

He bent his neck and put his lips to her hair.

“She’ll not get the farm, honey,” he whispered into her hair. “This shit’s a pain in the ass. It’s baffling why she’s done what she’s done. It’s annoying that she’s intent to do what she’s going to do. But, breaking it down, Darrin looked out for his kids, he owned this farm outright and no judge in the state of Indiana is going to find in favor of an attorney who lives in Washington DC and makes six figures at the expense of two boys with no Dad and a legacy farm. So, it might be a pain in the ass but, in the end, this farm will be safe.”