Page 9 of Hero Next Door
Sure.
But I’d learned early on that people who looked at you like that and then ran couldn’t be trusted. I’d learned that girls like her didn’t take guys like me seriously. And as soon as she left town without so much as a ‘hey, it was nice to see you,’ I’d put her out of my mind.
Right where she belonged.
She didn’t have any right to come barging back into my life, all brown hair and long legs and laughing mouth.
She certainly didn’t have any right to put my plans—and my ranch—at risk by meeting with the developer I’d specifically told to stay the hell away from our town. She didn’t have any right to be thinking of selling the ranch she happened to now own to said developer.
It didn’t matter how beautiful or intelligent or charming she might be. Didn’t matter that it wasn’t actually her fault that she now happened to own the ranch next to me. Didn’t matter that she couldn’t possibly know how much damage she might do.
I was going to have to stop her. Period. Because Richard Wright and all the construction and people and noise he’d bring with him didn’t fit with my plan. They’d be bad for my ranch and they’d be bad for the town itself.
So I’d do whatever I had to, to make sure he didn’t get that land.
Parker was just going to have to live with it. Because if she sold that place—particularly to him—it would mean the end of my dreams.
* * *
“Who peed in your Cheerios?” Connor asked, taking one look at my face and sliding down the bar to make room for me.
“I don’t eat Cheerios,” I ground out. “So that doesn’t even make sense.”
“Of course you don’t,” he said, chuckling. “That would be way too simple for someone so continental that he takes his cream and sugar with some coffee flavoring.”
I turned and punched him right in the shoulder.
And I’m not going to lie; I felt better for having done it. It took some of the edginess off my current mood.
“I’m not here to talk,” I said, giving in to the knowledge that Ishouldfeel guilty for having punched my best friend. Even if it was only in the shoulder. “I’m here for a very large, very cold root beer. And that’s it.”
Connor nodded, and I didn’t have to look at him to know he was raising his eyebrows and not believing a word of what I said.
We’d known each other for something like ten years, now. And I’d nevernotwanted to talk. Our friend Jackson? Yeah, there were plenty of times he didn’t want to talk. He was more your strong and silent type.
I’d always done better when I could talk through my problems.
“Well, I’ll just be sitting here with my beer, then,” Connor noted evenly. “Not talking with you.”
I ground my teeth, frustrated, because now all I wanted to do was tell him what was wrong. “Just a complicated day,” I finally said.
Connor set his beer down slowly. “Oh yeah? What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it.”
There was a smile in his voice, damn the man. But it was also an opening. Connor had seen Richard Wright working on his parents and had called me in to help. If anyone would understand, it was him.
Before I could say anything, though, he said something else.
“Got anything to do with Parker Pelton being back in town?”
This time, he wasn’t even trying to hide the grin.
Damnthe man.
Still.
“More like the man she brought with her,” I ground out. “Did you know about this?”
When I turned to him, Connor was outright laughing at me, looking like he’d just won some sort of bet.
