Page 10 of Strung Along
He flips the screen, and alarm replaces that initial interest. The photo of the woman on my screen is a Rita-classifiednightmare. I swipe my arm out to take the phone when Caleb tugs it back to his chest, shaking his head.
“No fucking way. I’m rolling with this,” he decides.
“You’re not. Delete the message and the picture. Nobody should have my number.”
Especially not the woman who sent me a photo of herself—or I assume it’s her—in a dress with a long pale leg peeking through a high slit and her cleavage on display. It doesn’t matter that both of those things were blaringly attractive even after only a millisecond of view. The photo didn’t even show above her shoulders, which raises more than a few alarms.
Caleb’s fingers fly across the screen far faster than if he were doing what I told him to. I push myself over the table as far as I can go without climbing onto the fucking thing and try to take the phone from him. His laugh is rough and loud and a massive fuck you that I don’t plan on forgetting anytime soon.
By the time he finally tosses the phone toward me, I look desperately at the screen and feel my stomach turn hollow. He’s replied to her not once but twice.
Me: Yes.
Me: What do I have to do to get plus one approval?
5
BRODY
The auction grounds are packed.Harsh winter wind bites at my face and neck as we stand beside a group of wrinkled ranchers Grandpa hasn’t told to get lost yet. The old man knows just about everyone who owns so much as a lick of farmland in this province.“They’re connections,”he says. I think he’s just a goddamn hoarder of acquaintances.
The thick wool socks I forced myself to wear inside my boots are paying off with the quickly dipping November temperature. It’s a damn shame my Stetson doesn’t come with ear warmers.
“Brody, come here,” Grandpa huffs.
Snow crunches beneath my feet as I join the group, trying not to focus on the bitter judgment that flicks in the eyes of the old men. I knew my choice to leave Cherry Peak would rub a few members of the community the wrong way, but while the majority of people understood . . . these men did no such thing.
I don’t say anything as I sidle up beside my grandfather, taking note of the familiar hat resting over the top of his shoulder-length silver hair. He refuses to cut it, even when Grandma chases after him with her scissors. I can’t tell him to cut it either, considering I refuse to do the same thing to mine.
Blue eyes so similar to mine land on my face and stay there, watching as I tip my chin at the men. “Hey.”
“Brody,” George grumbles. He’s the toughest of Grandpa’s friends, a millionth-generation cattle rancher similar to the Steeles. “You didn’t tell us you were bringing your grandson, Wade.”
My grandpa blows a foggy breath into the cool air. “’Course I was. He’s helping me pick a good buy today.”
George’s eyes sharpen. “You haven’t forgotten how to lift a hood in the time you’ve been gone?”
And so it begins.My shoulders tense as I slip my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “Some things aren’t easily forgotten.”
“So you say,” George grinds out. “We’ll see inside, won’t we?”
Cool tension ripples from my grandfather as he takes a single step toward his friend and slaps a hand between his shoulders. “Brody doesn’t need an old ass pissin’ all over his foot. Let me him be and head inside.”
George glances at the other two men, who don’t have the nerve to stick their noses in whatever problem he has with me, and they wait for him to lift his glare from my face before following him toward the auction gates.
Grandpa lingers beside me, a heavy silence swirling between us until he slices through it with two words. “Ignore him.”
“Been ignorin’ him since I got back to town. He doesn’t make it easy.”
“They’re stuck in their old ways.”
It’s more than that. They’re protective of the old man, and that’s a good thing. But also a pain in my ass. “I’m not their enemy. I’m not here to cause trouble with your little cadre.”
“Cadre,” he echoes, barking a rough laugh. “Is it such a bad thing for an old man to surround himself with friends?”
“No, it isn’t. Even if they’ve got nearly a century of sticks up their asses.”
Another laugh, this one hoarse, highlighting the damage caused by a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. “I recommend you don’t say that to their faces unless you’re prepared to taste leather, boy.”