Page 8 of Extreme Romancing in Idaho

The car drifted off into the weeds lining the driveway. Myles corrected and rolled back into the center of the lane. His gaze reflected off the rearview mirror and scalded me. My grip tightened on my knees.

I was here to buy a centennial farm that neither the kids nor the parents wanted to sell.

I was here to buy Angie’s farm.

Chapter 3

Remi

StacksofLevi’slinedthe wall next to the Carhart jackets and coveralls in the local farm store. I thumbed through them with my ears tuned to the conversations around me in the Monday morning rush.

Idaho was a goldmine. Everyone and their parakeet wanted to move from their over-priced lofts to the open fields and lower cost of living. I’d tipped my father off to its potential—and why wouldn’t I? That was my job. Plus, I’d always dreamed of being a part of one of the most rugged states in our country.

Scents from the numerous feed bags piled on shelves mixed in the stagnant air, creating a unique, veterinary-office-meets-Target smell.

Myles flicked through a rack of clearance clothes to my right, the metal hangers scraping against the hanging rod. “You sure this is the best place to—”

“Gather information,” I interrupted, still half-listening to two farmers in the chicken aisle bellyaching about a dog attacking their flock. “Yes. Trust me. This is where the action happens. Not only is this store owned by the mayor and his wife, but it’s also the only gas station in town.”

Myles leaned his arm against the freestanding clothing rod. “James really agreed to give us our seed money if you get this deal done? As in twomilliondollars?”

Although I shared a name with my father, he went by our middle name, whereas I much preferred our first. Anything to be different. “Yes. He is desperate to get this property. Nobody has ever told him no like this. And he can’t resist the challenge the Johnsons present, making him an easy target to get whatever I want.”

“How did you arrange to sit with them on the plane?” He ran his hands along the hoodies with Idaho splashed all over them.

“I didn’t. Crazy, huh?” Lady Luck was once again on my side. I’d been my normal charismatic self on the plane and now they loved me. “I didn’t put two and two together until we dropped them off at their house.”

I could kiss Tony, Nora, and most definitely Angie for standing up to my father but seeing how they were my problem now, made me conflicted.

“What did the Gucci Bag Rampager have to say about the two mil?”

Myles’s nickname for my mother never failed to put a smile on my face. Once, in our early teenage years, we sneaked into Mother’s closet and tried to count the number of Gucci and Louis Vuitton bags she owned. We didn’t get through half of them before we were caught. It was one of the many times Mother banned me from seeing Myles.

The more she pushed me to stop hanging out with him, the more I needed a friend like him in my life. Myles lived in the real world. He went to public school, ordered cheap Chinese take-out, and consumed SPAM, a canned block of supposed meat, regularly.

Without Myles, I would have never seen the inside of a thrift store … or a Wal-Mart. I’d be out of touch with reality like my parents and Matthew, which was why I succeeded where they failed. I spoke both billionaire and pauper.

“She wasn’t happy. But she’d never dream of going against James.”

Much like her endless Gucci collection, I couldn’t count the number of times I’d begged my mother to hold me on her lap and read me a story or do something corny, like play a card game or video game with me. She never did. It was the one deal I’d never been able to close.

A wide smile split across Myles’s face. “Texas Bros, here we come.” He held up his hand, and I high fived him. “What’s your plan?”

Myles and I had started dreaming about Texas Bros—a store to fit all your extreme sporting needs—in college. But here we were, years later, still in golden handcuffs by the wages and even better perks of working for Cockrell Development Co. which I’d nicknamed the CDC.

Communicable diseases aside, working for the other CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, would be a vacation compared to being a puppet for my brother and father. I even toyed with the idea of creating a badge for myself: Remington James, special agent, CDC.

Yesterday when we’d dropped Angie and her parents off, I’d told Myles to circle around to the back entrance of the neighborhood. We were staying in the model home inMountain Meadows, a house appearing to be ostentatious and fancy, yet, upon closer inspection, it was as cheap as quarter-machine jewelry.

If I headed the company, our houses wouldn’t be garbage builds, but I didn’t want the responsibility of being CEO. I didn’t enjoy my job, yet I couldn’t leave. Getting out was harder than leaving the mafia. Let me rephrase. Sure, my dad would let me quit, but without a penny to my name. I’d be disowned. Cut off. With a few phone calls, he’d make sure I wasn’t hirable and that no bank would give me a business loan. He had the personal cell phone number for the Pope himself. His reach was global. And more than my dreams were riding on my success.

Buying this farm was my one and only way to a future I wanted to live.

“I’m assuming you have a plan,” Myles said.

I was interrupted in replying when the bell above the door rang, and three guys in greasy, dark-blue coveralls walked in.

“Hey, Myles,” the one with short brown hair said with a wave.

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