Page 10 of Hero Next Door
“I mean the developer, you idiot,” I snapped.
This made him sober up, and for a second I thought he hadn’t known that Wright was back in town. But how could that be true?
“Sure you do,” he said, making it very obvious that he didn’t believe it was only about the ‘developer’ label. “But if that’s true, you’ll be glad to hear he just hightailed it out of town. And he didn’t look too pleased when he came past here. Looked pretty pissed, in fact. Like he’d just had a tongue lashing.” He gave me a long, considering look. “Maybe you should go back up there and ask Parker what she said to him to piss him off so bad.”
A thrill went through me… followed by suspicion.
When I’d been in that driveway, Parker had been telling me I had no business knowing what she was doing, and I thought I probably knew her well enough to say that she was about to get really, really stubborn about something.
Probably her right to sell that land regardless of what I thought of it.
What had changed between then and now? What had she told that man? And why?
Why do you care as long as he’s gone?
The question echoing through my head caught me by surprise, but I had to admit that the voice had a good point. I didn’t have a claim on Parker’s land and I didn’t have any claim on her. The only thing I could control was my own land, and if Connor was right and she’d sent Wright away, that meant my land was safe for the moment.
I didn’t need to know the reason for it. I just needed to know that it had happened. Parker Pelton’s reasoning didn’t mean a damn thing to me. Why would it?
I turned, spinning the barstool to give myself time to think before I replied to Connor, and was facing the door when the relief I’d been feeling evaporated.
A stranger had just come through the door, his eyes moving quickly through the people at the bar, and the guy was the definition of city slicker. Hair gelled to within an inch of its life. Shoes that had never seen a spec of dirt before they got here. A suit that featured not only a pink handkerchief but also pinstripes.
He didn’t belong here any more than Richard Wright had, and it wouldn’t take me more than half a guess to figure out that they were the same sort of people.
The man made his way toward the bar, sticking his hand out like he expected someone to take it. The bartender—Ted, who I’d known since I was fifteen—took the offered hand with a look of confusion and shook.
“Help you with something?” he asked, obviously hoping the answer was no.
“Direct me to the closest hotel,” City Slicker Man said, smiling with far too many teeth. “Name’s Kevin Farlan. Going to be in town for a while and need a place to stay.”
My heart sank into my stomach. What was with all the outsiders suddenly showing up in my town? It couldn’t be a coincidence. What, was Arberry the hot new area for real estate speculation or something?
I shoved the rest of the root beer away from me, having had enough of being out in public, and stood up. “Heading home,” I told Connor. “Got some work to take care of.”
“Hope you’re planning to stop by and see Parker on the way home,” he said by way of goodbye.
I ignored the jibe—he’d been teasing me about Parker for the last year, for reasons I still couldn’t figure out—and walked out of the bar.
And right into a cloud of butterflies that took up the entire sidewalk. I took an involuntary step back, surprised, and then zeroed in on the insects. Silvery Blues and Clouded Sulphurs, I thought, recognizing the bright blue and yellow of the two species.
Strange. It was early for butterflies, the weather barely warm enough for them, and I almost never saw these two groups together. Particularly not in town. This was…
Odd.
“Strangers invading town,” I muttered. “Butterflies arriving early. What the hell is going on around here?”
Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.
CHAPTER6
Parker
Iwas standing on the porch, my eyes on the view of the valley and my mind trying to make sense of the feelings flooding through my heart, when they found me.
And by ‘they,’ I mean a group of at least five hundred butterflies, all flashing yellow and gray/blue. They came up from nowhere, appeared out of thin air, and before I knew it, I was surrounded. I stood incredibly still, wondering what the hell was going on and trying to remember whether this was normal—didn’t it seem early for butterflies?—but within moments I let those thoughts drift off. The butterflies were so close that their wings were tickling my skin, their antennae brushing against me as if they were giving me millions of tiny kisses.
I closed my eyes and turned my face up toward the afternoon sun, reveling in it, and before I knew it, I’d put my hands out to the side and started spinning slowly in the cloud of sunlight and shadow, laughing. I’d never stood in a gathering of butterflies before but it was like being inside a magic globe, silence around me as the butterflies bobbed and wove around me.
