Page 7 of Hero Next Door
“What would you do with the property if I sold to you?” I asked, knowing that it was probably the most important of the questions running through my brain.
Instead of giving me a quick answer, though—I have a family that wants to live in a place like this, orI’d sell it to a hotel chain that wants it for a B&B—his face suddenly turned crafty.
“Not sure that’s any of your concern, little lady,” he said, his voice unnaturally twangy and his tone… well, slimy. “After all, it won’t be your property anymore. You’ll have been paid for it. Why worry your pretty little head about things like that?”
My eyes narrowed of their own volition.No onecalled me ‘little lady.’ Particularly when they were asking me to sell them the one and only piece of property I’d ever owned. I was an up-and-coming music and artist manager with the biggest record label in the area, thank you very much. A woman who mattered. A woman who did important things.
I was no one’s little lady.
Before I could answer him, though, a truck came tearing up the driveway, gravel and dust billowing up from its wheels. It came to a sliding halt right next to the SUV I’d rented, nearly running into the car I’d have to pay to repair, and a man jumped out.
His jump from the cab of the truck brought him down in the middle of the dust cloud, which let me see the outline of his body but not his face, and he charged forward, moving out of the dust like some sort of superhero in a movie or something.
When his face broke through the fog, I gasped.
I knew that face. I knew thatman.
Or… well, ‘knew’ might have been a stretch. I mean yeah, we’d gone to high school together, but we’d never even talked during school. Then I’d spent too much time with him over the week when I was stuck in Arberry, last year. Avery had been at Jackson’s house and I’d been sent to stay with one of Jackson’s friends. Dev Hawthorne had been…
A friend of the woman I was staying with, I guess. Part of their social group. One of the cowboys who helped the town when they were struggling with all the rain.
And more than that. My mind skipped across the memory of a run up the mountain in his truck during some sort of race they’d started doing here. A jerk of the wheel that had sent me sprawling across his lap, and the moment when he slammed on the brakes and pulled to the side, his eyes anxious on mine as he inspected me, making sure I was okay.
The tense moments afterwards as we stared at each other, me still draped across his legs and his fingers on my cheek, his melted chocolate eyes searching mine with questions I hadn’t known how to answer. His curls falling down over his eyes, just begging me to brush them back for him.
I’d gone out of my way not to get near him after that. I’d been confused about how he’d made me feel and certain that it hadn’t meant anything. Certain that I’d never see him again.
And yet here he was stomping right at me, his face a thundercloud and his hands in fists at his sides.
When he reached me, he jerked me toward him, our bodies nearly meeting, and then whirled around and faced Richard.
“And what the hell are you doing here?” he asked, without bothering to introduce himself.
It turned out, though, that Richard knew exactly who he was. “I’m looking at a piece of property, Mr. Hawthorne, though I don’t think that’s any of your business,” he said, the wheedling, slimy tone gone.
No, now he sounded angry. Like he’d already had a run-in with Dev Hawthorne and wasn’t too pleased to see him again.
“It’s my business when I’ve told you you’re not welcome in this town,” Dev ground out, his voice gravelly with threat.
What the…?
Richard just smirked. “Afraid that’s not your call either, Mr. Hawthorne. Unless you’ve bought the entire town while I wasn’t looking.”
Right, that was enough of whatever this was. I didn’t know what had happened between them, but I’d asked Richard Wright up here to talk about the property and Dev was suddenly putting that deal at risk. I shoved him out of the way and turned to glare at him. “Dev, what the hell are you doing here?”
I saw the flash of something in his eyes, but it was gone before I could identify what it had been. “What am I doing here? I live right there!” His arm swept toward the next house over—miles away, on the next hill—and then he squinted at me. “What the hell areyoudoing here? The last time I talked to you was…”
His voice tapered off and my skin started to buzz, remembering exactly what he wasn’t saying. An afternoon in the rain. The cab of a truck that had suddenly seemed far too small. The windows fogging with the heat sizzling between us.
Heat we’d never acted on, thank you very much. Not that that had meant anything.
Nothing had happened, I reminded myself firmly. So I didn’t know why I was standing here staring at him like I’d completely forgotten how tospeak.
“Yes, well, we got out of town,” I told him bluntly. “Got a new bus and went out on tour the way we were supposed to. Couldn’t just hang out here for the rest of our lives.”
He blinked, the emotion in his eyes disappearing, and he scowled. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing herenow.”
“Now,” I said, really annoyed at his tone, “I’m standing in front of the house that Scarlett Davis left me, discussing its prospect with an agent. And I don’t remember inviting you to this conversation. So unless you have something important to add…”
