Free The Inheritance by Elaine Jeremiah

possibility. 
She’d better look into it.  Later.  When she’d had a chance to get properly
settled… Maybe she’d go shopping again tomorrow.  She’d seen a gorgeous dress
in a shop that she knew would suit her perfectly.
    ‘Well I think we’d better be
going,’ Natalie said breaking Emma’s reverie.  ‘I’m sure you’ve got things to
do, Rebecca.  Em?’
    ‘Er… yeah, what?’
    ‘We’ve got to go.’
    Emma could vaguely hear Natalie and Rebecca
trying to conceal their laughter, but she didn’t care.  Right now she didn’t
care about anything.  She’d forgotten that cannabis put you in this dreamy
state.   It made her feel good.   And where was the harm in that?

Six
     
    It was six pm and Kate was still
hard at work.  Harvest time was one of the busiest periods she and her father
had on the farm.  She was busy lugging bales of hay from the wagon attached to
the tractor into the barn.  Her father often told her not to carry too much,
that she’d hurt her back, but Kate ignored him.  She liked to feel weary at the
end of the day; it sent her straight to sleep at night and meant she wasn’t lying
awake worrying about her future and her father.
    She knew he was worried about
Emma.  Even though she’d hurt him so badly, it was obvious to Kate that he
still loved her very much.  He had a mobile number for her that he’d tried to
call a few times, but it had said the number was not recognised.  Although initially
he’d made it clear to Kate that he wanted nothing more to do with his younger
daughter, she knew this wasn’t true.  Kate was concerned for her sister too,
but in a different way from their father. 
    She knew that Emma had landed on
her feet, but her worries were that her behaviour could spiral out of control,
that she could get into even worse company than Natalie.  Seeing as they
couldn’t even contact her on her mobile though, it seemed that Emma truly had
severed all ties with her family and in spite of everything Kate deeply
regretted this.  What would the future hold for them all?  Only time will tell,
she thought as she heaved the hay bales into the barn.
    ‘How did it go today?’ her father
asked later as the two of them ate their evening meal.  He’d been out all day
at a cattle market.
    ‘OK.  I got done what I needed to
do.  I’ll be glad when the harvest is over though.’
    Her father nodded.  ‘Me too.  Kate,
you know that I really appreciate all you do.’
    ‘Yes of course I do, Dad.’
    ‘But the thing is although you do a
brilliant job on the farm and I’d love for you to take over if you wanted, I
can’t help thinking that you’re missing out a little.  You never see any
friends, your whole life is the farm, and I can’t help wondering if maybe I’m
asking too much from you at this stage in your life.’
    ‘Dad I…’
    ‘You’re still young, Kate, you’re still
in your twenties, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.  I think it’s a
little too soon to decide definitively that you’re going to run this farm for
the rest of it.’
    Kate was stunned.  Her father had
never spoken to her in these terms before.  She’d always assumed that his
greatest wish for her was that she carry on his work on the farm.  Now she felt
as though the rug had been pulled from under her feet.  If I don’t work on the
farm what on earth will I do? she wondered.  Then she felt her chest burn with
rage.  She’d worked so hard for so long on the farm and now he was telling her
that he didn’t want her help anymore.  Angry tears came to her eyes and she
blinked them away furiously.
    ‘If that’s how you feel, maybe I
should just quit now!’ she shouted standing up from the table with her dinner
plate in her hand.  ‘I thought you wanted my help.  It would have been nice if
you’d told me that you didn’t.  Then maybe I wouldn’t have wasted the last eight
years of my life slogging my guts out for nothing!’
    She ignored her