Page 6 of Hero Next Door
Not ranching. Not farming. Not horse breeding.
No, he’d wanted to do subdivisions and build houses on the land. I’d seen the plans, and each one of those houses had looked exactly the same. They’d been built too close to each other. And he’d been positive he could sell them each for so much money.
He’d been intent on turning our little town into some sort of suburb.
The Wheatings has laughed in his face and he’d vowed to find other land for sale in the area. Do the exact same thing somewhere else. And now he was meeting with some girl at Butterfly Glen, the very property I’d just been thinking about buying to keep it natural.
I was moving for my truck before I even knew I was going to do anything, and I didn’t bother wondering how I’d done it.
I was too busy trying to figure out how I was going to stop whatever deal that city-slicker developer was currently trying to put together. I hadn’t wanted houses on this property because they would have destroyed all the land around it, and I didn’t want them next door, either.
It would make it even more impossible to keep this ranch working the way it was supposed to.
CHAPTER4
Parker
Ilet my gaze wander to the right and then back to the left, taking in the house that had been my second home—my only real home, if I was being honest—when I was a kid.
God, it was weird to be back here. Like going-into-an-alternate-universe weird. And the memories were rushing back.
I’d come out here first when I was only twelve, but even at that age I’d known how much this place must have been worth. The house was enormous, reaching into the distance on both the right and left, room after room leading you away from the front door. I didn’t know who’d built the place before Scarlett lived here but they’d certainly had big ideas. It didn’t look like any of the other ranch houses around here. You wouldn’t find unfinished beams or red planking here, and God help you if you thought you’d get inside to find bear skin rugs or anything like that.
No, it looked like a place that belonged in antebellum Atlanta, all tall white walls stretching up into the sky and out toward the sides, the shutters a charming shade of red, the porch running along nearly this entire side of the house.
It was a lot like Scarlett in that way, I thought with a quick grin. Not the sort of thing you’d expect to find out in the wilderness outside of Arberry, North Carolina. But once you knew it was there, you couldn’t imagine it evernotbeing there. Scarlett had always been larger than life, her opinions bigger than anyone else’s, and her house was exactly the same.
God, this place was gorgeous. And it held the strings to my heart. The rose bushes that climbed up the pillars that surrounded the front door were already in bloom, a riot of pink and white buds traveling up the walls of the house, and my mind caught on a memory of exactly how those roses smelled. Scarlett used to pick one and tuck it behind her ear every morning like it belonged there.
I’d tried it once. It made me look like I was wearing someone else’s wig. Didn’t suit me at all. Of course, I’d only been thirteen at the time. Maybe now…
I walked forward, took a rose from the plant, and tucked it behind my ear.
And just like that, I was at home. Standing on a spot I’d stood on millions of times over the years, smelling the scents I’d grown up with, looking across the view that I knew by heart. I was in the very place I needed to be, the place that had been calling to me for years. I just…
“Hello, old friend,” I murmured, looking up at the house.
“Excuse me?” Richard Wright asked, appearing suddenly at my side.
I jumped and glanced at him, remembering quite suddenly that I wasn’t here by myself—and wondering whether he’d heard me. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, that was exactly what I needed: this haughty taughty developer guy overhearing me actually talking to a freaking house.
He’d think I was insane. And the offer he’d made on the place—the land, the house, all of it—might disappear as quickly as it had appeared.
I hadn’t even signed the paperwork the lawyer had left for me yet—hadn’t actually been inside the house, honestly—but that would be quick work. And the word must be out that the place was mine and that I might be interested in selling it, because I’d already had three calls from real estate people wanting to meet with me.
This guy was just the first one I’d called back.
And yeah, sure, I can hear what you’re saying: Parker, how the hell were you considering selling the place that Scarlett had left you, where you basically grew up and had all the good memories you had of this God-forsaken town? How could you bear to part with it now that it was yours? And the answer was simple: I might love this house. I might have adored the woman who owned it and I might have made the best memories of my life here.
But I was not moving back to Arberry, and that was final. This house represented the best of my childhood, and the town itself represented the worst. I simply wasn’t willing to live so close to the place where…
Well.
I wasn’t moving home. Period. And that made it fairly ridiculous to own a place that someone else might put to better use. A family could move in here. A family with two little girls who liked to ride horses and play with kittens. There was a horse barn on the property, if I remembered correctly, and it would be perfect for a family with kids.
Having quickly gone through all the reasons in my head, I turned back to Richard, who was looking at me like he thought I might be crazy.
Damn. He definitely heard me talking to the house.
