Page 4 of Claiming His Property

What an unbelievable man.

“Now listen here, you little bitch, and listen good,” Beatrice growls as I reach her. She’s showing her teeth and pointing her finger at me like a snake ready to strike. I’m taken so off guard I barely know how to react.

“You stay away from Cade or you’ll never see a dime of my money. Do you understand? Do you?!”

“Yes!” I blurt out, almost automatically.

“Good,” she hisses, slamming the door in my face.

The next thing I know, like a robot on auto-pilot, I’m walking down the steps and down the path to my dad’s truck.

I knew I hadn’t left anything.

“Everything okay?” he asks as I climb in.

“Yup…” I lie.

“Good.” He smiles, pulling away from the house.

I glance in the rearview at Cade, his thick, muscled arms gleaming in the sun as he goes back to shoveling.

That funny, fuzzy feeling is still there, but I’m also in shock from what just happened. I literally don’t know what to do or how to feel right now.

“Listen, I know Beatrice can be a bit rough around the edges from time to time, but she doesn’t mean any real harm. We just have to put up with her until she lightens up. All right, sweetie?”

“Yeah.” I nod again, still shaken with disbelief. “Right...”

2

CADE

It’s been six days since I’ve seen Skylar, and I haven’t been able to get her off my mind. I don’t obsess over girls. That’s a road to ruin. I casually date, but I’ve been too busy building my landscaping business to bother with any real relationships. But this girl, Sky, has been like a splinter in my mind.

Andy and Chuck are getting sick of hearing me talk about her. The first couple of days, they were just laughing and busting my balls every time I’d bring her up and talk about how curvy she was, how long her legs were and how sweet her ass looked when she was walking away from me, or how despite the fact that she was wearing a button-up you could tell that she had a nice pair of tits on her. But now they’re just telling me to shut up already when I bring her up.

“So propose to her already.” Andy groans on the drive up to Beatrice’s this morning when I bring Skylar up again.

“Tell me about it,” Chuck laughs, giving me an elbow in the ribs. “Make some babies with her so we can stop hearing about her.”

“If you don’t, one of us will.”

“Like hell you will,” I growl.

“I sure wouldn’t mind,” Andy chimes in. “I saw those hips. Those are pure baby-makers.”

I feel an anger starting to cook in my chest.

Chuck smirks and nods. “And some real mommy-milkers too. What are those? Ds? Double-Ds?”

“All right, that’s enough!” It’s completely out of character the way I snap at them, but I go off like a lion claiming his territory against an outside invader.

The boys gave me strange looks as we approach the house.

“Sorry,” I say, forcing a smile. “Just practicing my acting, ya know? For when I quit all this landscaping and handyman work.”

They both laugh. I’m not sure if they buy that I was kidding or they just want to believe I was. Either way, it doesn’t really matter to me because as I pull in, I see Sky’s truck is already parked out front. We had a job down in Dover this morning and arrived late, so she and her father must have gotten here before us.

“Andy, why don’t you head around the far side with the weedwhacker? Chuck, why don’t you start watering the front gardens here? I’m gonna head around back and check on the weeds. I also think she may need some stonework repair as well.”

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