It wouldn’t be the same. But maybe with Wyatt and Greta’s plans to eventually move to the new house by the inn, he was ready for a change. “Your garden?”

“Reckon a garden can grow on your land every bit as much as on Wyatt’s.”

She couldn’t possibly take Judd up on his offer, could she? She hadn’t given the land much more than a passing thought since the day Flynn had shown her the deed. In fact, she didn’t even know where the deed was. Truth was, she didn’t want it, not when it would be a forever reminder that Jericho had bought it for her with his reward money from catching Otis, a fact Steele had let slip at baby Willa’s funeral.

“The land’s not really mine.” She rubbed at the sore spot on her backside. “It’s Jericho’s, and I ain’t taking a handout from him. No how, no way.” Especially knowing he’d used it to bribe her brothers into letting her have her own place without a fight.

Judd dug in his vest pocket and produced the deed. “Whose name is on this-here paper?”

She didn’t have to glance at it to know her name was there. “Don’t matter—”

“If that man’s gonna give himself his own hangin’, don’t mean you have to join him.”

What was Judd saying? That Jericho was hurting himself by leaving South Park? She wasn’t so sure about that. After all, he had a good job and a new life carved out for himself in Chicago.

But Judd was right about one thing. Just because Jericho left, didn’t mean she had to stop living.

“Fact is, we can’t build on a bog ’cause the place would sink after the first storm.” Judd held out the deed, but she had a feeling he wasn’t talking about building in the real sense of the word. “We’ve got to build on somethin’ solid if we want to make it past the rain and wind and snow.”

Her mind spun, trying to make sense of Judd’s advice. But she couldn’t wrangle the wisdom from his proverb.

As if sensing her confusion, he continued. “You get on with building your life on the good Lord ’cause He’s the only thing that ain’t gonna crumble away when the going gets rough and people leave you behind. Believe me. I oughta know.”

She had the feeling he was referring to losing his wife and kids long ago. If Judd hadn’t given up when everyone he’d loved had been brutally murdered, then how could she give up when she hadn’t lost nearly as much?