Page 41 of Hero Next Door
Because it turned out I wasn’t looking forward to letting her go yet, either.
Unfortunately, that feeling of floating happiness disappeared the moment we got into the circle of dirt in front of her house. A man was waiting there, leaning up against his sedan and studying his phone.
A man I recognized.
“What the hell ishedoing here?” I asked sharply.
That guy was becoming a real thorn in my side. He’d been bothering me nonstop about my ranch, and now he was in Parker’s driveway like he freaking belonged here, all smooth and oily and sophisticated and—
Wait. Did they have something going on between them? Was that why he was here so early? What could they possibly have? How did they even—
Oh. Oh, God.
I knew how they knew each other. I’d given him her number. I’d been at that lunch with Avery and found out all the bad things about Parker’s past, and when I went outside and ran right into Kevin and he asked again about buying my property, I’d told him to pound sand... but that I might know someone who would welcome a call. I’d just learned why Parker was running from Arberry, and I’d been intent on helping her get out of the town where so many bad things had happened to her.
I’d told Kevin Farlan to call her.
And now he was in her driveway like he belonged here and I wanted to kill him for it.
“You okay with this clown here?” I asked, hating that my voice sounded so sharp.
She was looking warily at the man, like she didn’t like that he was here any more than I did, but nodded once. “He’s just going to make another offer. And I’m going to tell him to go away. Again. I’ll be fine.”
Maybe so, but my instincts didn’t like leaving her here with him. “You sure?”
She turned her eyes to me and gave me a look I was starting to think she’d created just for me. “Are you going to stay here and protect me from the big, bad developer?”
Okay, well when she put it like that...
“No. Just making sure you’ve got this.”
“I’ve got it. I’ll call you later, okay?” She swung the door open, hopped out, and strode quickly toward Kevin, already talking.
I waited for long enough to see him start to look annoyed, then turned and drove away, feeling more than a little bit annoyed myself. That guy was trouble. I could feel it. And I didn’t like knowing something like that and not doing anything about it.
I grabbed at the phone when it rang, sure that it was Parker calling for help. “Parker?”
“No, and I’m not sure how I feel about you mistaking me for a girl,” Connor said.
Oh.
“Connor. What’s up?”
“Aside from you calling me ‘Parker’? Oh nothing, just figured you’d want to hear that Kevin Farlan is back in town. I was having breakfast and saw him walking by.”
Connor knew Kevin from when he was trying to buy the Wheating place. And he knew how I felt about him.
“I know. He’s been in town for about a week, actually.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Nothing good. Trying to buy land, same as always.”
“Our land?”
I snorted. “No, I finally got it through his thick skull that it was never going to happen. Looks like he’s moved on to trying to get Parker’s land, now.”
There was a long, pregnant pause, and it told me that Connor definitely knew more than he was letting on.
