"Or you can benefit from it."
After he left, Emma remained silent.
Eli looked at her.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
She crossed her arms.
"Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars could save the farm."
Eli stared at her.
"The farm isn't for sale."
"Forty acres isn't the whole farm."
"It starts that way."
Emma looked down.
"Mom used to say Grandpa sold the first parcel."
"He did."
"And then Dad bought it back."
Eli's expression softened.
His father had spent years rebuilding what his grandfather had nearly lost.
"You know why?"
"Because land is all you ever talk about."
"No."
Eli looked outside.
"Because when you sell part of a farm, you don't just lose acreage."
He paused.
"You lose options."
Emma understood.
But she also understood something else.
The farm was struggling.
The machinery was old.
The roof needed repairs.
Their accounts were thinner than Eli admitted.
And the world around them was getting more expensive every year.
For the first time, Emma wondered whether preserving her family's past might cost them their future.
The trouble became personal in October.
A storm rolled through overnight.
By morning, one of the northern gates was broken.
Eli discovered it while checking the cattle.
The chain had been cut.
Three cows were missing.
He followed tracks toward Willow Ridge.
One cow was standing in a landscaped garden.
Another had wandered onto a tennis court.
The third was nowhere to be found.
Eli stood beside the HOA clubhouse while residents gathered around.
Phones came out.
People whispered.
Richard Caldwell arrived.
"This is unacceptable."
Eli stared at him.
"You tell me."
"This is your livestock."
"And that's your neighborhood."
"You need to control your animals."
"I need my gate not to be cut."
Richard went quiet.
A woman near him whispered, "He has no proof."
Eli heard her.
He turned.
"I don't need proof to know somebody cut a lock."
"But you don't know who."
"No."
His eyes moved across the crowd.
"Not yet."