Page 5 of All the Right Things
Jonas
“For the last time, I told you I’m not interested! My mind isn’t going to change. Lose my number!” I spit before hanging up the phone. I resist the urge to throw it across the porch as I walk back outside. Instead, I opt to kick the railing.
“Whoa! What the fuck is wrong with you?” A voice calls from behind me.
Turning around, I see Taylor, my best friend and right-hand man, walking toward me.
“I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count,” I say, holding up three fingers.
“They still harassing you about selling this place?”
“Every fucking day,” I growl.
“Start blocking their numbers.”
“I do, and they just call from different ones. And honestly, I’d rather have them calling rather than showing up in person.”
He smiles. “Why? Then you could wave a gun around and yell trespassing.”
I chuckle, mainly at the fact that I don’t even own a gun. I’m not a big hunter, and I live in the middle of nowhere, so it never seemed like a priority. With people sniffing around, though, I may have to rethink that.
The ranch has been doing surprisingly well the past couple of years, and I’ve grown exponentially to keep up with demand. My local market, which started as just the town of Grady, has slowly grown to include four of the surrounding counties. I’ve had to expand rapidly, and the other prominent players in the state are taking notice.
And they don’t like it.
They’ve been trying to buy me out for months now. It was no big deal when I was a small fish in a big pond, but now that I am growing and taking their customers, they’re none too happy.
Oh well. Let them keep trying because they aren’t going to get anywhere. I’ve put my blood, sweat, and tears into this place, and I’ll be damned if I give it up. Over my dead body. Hell, knowing these crazies, they’d probably send someone to off me just to make that happen.
Taylor looks over toward my new rental property. “So, who’s driving that little SUV over there?” He asks.
“Her name is Andi. I figured it was finally time to get a renter in there, and Shelly found me someone.”
“What’s her story?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. I only talked to her for a minute before the vultures called. I excused myself to answer the phone.”
“Is she pretty?”
I wish I could say no because it would make my life so much easier, but I know I can’t. When I turned around to see her standing there, my mouth about dropped. The yellow sundress she wore is perfect for this summertime weather and showed off that curvy body of hers just right. If sexy could be bottled up, this woman would overflow.
Don’t get me wrong; she looked out of place. The words city-slicker were written all over her, but still, she intrigued me. Her dark straight hair shined in the sun, and her caramel eyes sparkled when they met mine.
And that body. Damn…that body. The dress did little to hide her ample chest and ass that was more than a handful. She wasn’t your ‘typical’ skinny, and I liked that. Ireallyliked that.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Taylor laughs at the look on my face.
“She’s alright, I guess,” I say with a smile, but Tay sees right past my bullshit.
When he says, “Maybe I’ll go over and introduce myself and ask her out to dinner,” my stare shoots daggers through him. His laughter only gets louder.
“Joe, I’m just saying that a pretty girl is standing here, and you shunned her to answer the phone for the damn vultures?”
It takes him saying it to realize how rude I was. Shelly said something about how Andi was moving here from California. She probably doesn’t know a single person in this town, and the first one she meets is a dick to her.
“Damn,” I mutter. I’m usually pretty good with the ladies, but the stress from all these people hounding me about the ranch has made me a lumbering idiot.
“Maybe you should go over and apologize and properly introduce yourself.”