“How much time?” Noelle growled. Some better angel deep in her consciousness told her she was being unreasonable and unfair to Miriam, who had been taken by surprise as much as anyone. She told her better angel to shut it.

Hannah reached across their chairs and squeezed Miriam’s hand. “You don’t have to know right now, babe,” she sniffled.

Noelle lost the battle with her temper and slammed out the door.

She loved Cass, but how could she do this to them? How could she have hidden that the business was on the brink of bankruptcy? Noelle knew traffic had slowed down, but why hadn’t Cass trusted them with the full picture?

Noelle didn’t care if she inherited a half or quarter share, but she did care that her home now belonged in part to Miriam the Absent and that little fuckhead Levi. All that had been getting Noelle through losing Cass was the belief that she and Hannah would be carrying on Cass’s work into a new generation, and now that was gone. The woman she’d thought had loved and trusted her had pulled the rug out from under her.

She stomped through the trees to her work shed, which by God was still hers—Levi and Miriam be damned.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Miriam

Miriam caught up to Noelle in the work shed, a massive building that housed fertilizer, saplings, and the huge variety of implements it took to successfully raise award-winning evergreens. It smelled like growing things and winter, crisp and pungent.

“Can you leave me alone for five minutes until I don’t want to murder anyone?” Noelle asked through her teeth. “Please? Can this not be about you for five minutes?”

“Why are you so angry at me?” Miriam tried to put her hand on Noelle’s sleeve.

“To clarify,” Noelle snapped, jerking away, “I’m angry at Cass and livid at Levi. You barely matter enough to warrant being mad at, and I’d love to keep it that way. In fact, I’ve done everything I can to not get to know you this week, and if you leave now, I won’t have wasted that hard work.”

Miriam didn’t realize Noelle had been deliberately avoiding her, and she didn’t understand how Noelle could already dislike her so much. Their only conversation was when Miriam had walked into the kitchen and been knocked back on her heels by the sight of a blistering hot fat butch in suspenders—all broad shoulders and hips a wide revelation. She’d asked for coffee because her brain was too scrambled to think of what else to say. It shouldn’t even bother her that Noelle didn’t like her, but it did.