Page 2 of Hometown Hottie

He eyed me like he didn’t believe I would do it, but when I shrugged and started back toward the building, he scoffed down a disbelieving laugh and threw his hands up in front of him, palms out as he walked backward. “Okay, Nova. I’m leaving, but I will be back. That’s a promise, not a threat. Your days on this ranch are numbered and you know it. I kind of wish you’d have taken the easy way out.”

Not giving him the courtesy of a reply, I planted my hands on my hips and watched pointedly as he marched to his truck, slammed the door, and finally sped off, throwing up a cloud of dust and gravel behind him. My heart was racing a million miles a minute, my palms sweaty as I wiped them on my jeans.

I might have won the battle, but the war was coming. I felt it in my bones as surely as I felt the sunshine beating down on my bare shoulders. The ranch had been struggling for years. What we made from the bakery, coffee shop, and market offset that some, but even combined, those businesses didn’t do nearly well enough to make a real dent in the growing expenses on the farm.

Frank, our own personal vulture, had positioned himself perfectly. All he needed was for the ranch to go belly up and he’d be picking at our bones with those shiny white teeth of his. Veneers, probably.

Ugh.

Dread sank like a stone to the pit of my stomach, weighing me down, but I forced smiles and small talk on my way back to the bakery. Six years ago when I’d come back home from college, it had taken me four months to convince Dad to let me turn one of the old storage sheds into a little bakery.

The business had grown from there and I was damn proud of it, but at this rate, Frank would be the one kicking me off the property in a couple years.

I breathed in deep, trying my best to act calm as I chatted to people who sold their wares here every weekend. I had known them all my life. Seeing their smiling faces helped ease some of the worry weighing down on me.

When I finally made it back into the privacy of my kitchen, sweltering heat enveloped me, but I shut the door behind me anyway. My best friend and fellow baker, Cassidy, looked up when I walked in, smiling as always until she saw the look I had on my face.

“Girl, you need to get some sleep.” She blew out a low whistle between her teeth. “You look like hell. What time did you get in here this morning?”

“Four, but it’s not that.” I rocked back on my heels and jerked my head toward the parking lot. “I saw Frank out there.”

Her nose wrinkled like she smelled something rotten. “Your gun is under the counter.”

I snorted a laugh. “He left before I could shoot him for trespassing.”

“Oh well.” She sighed dramatically. “Maybe next time.”

“There better not be a next time,” I muttered.

Sympathy softened her kind brown eyes and a furrow appeared on her freckled brow. “Did he bother you about selling again?”

“Doesn’t he always?”

She walked out from around the worn wooden table we used to roll out the dough. “Come here.” She pulled me into a tight hug and rubbed my back as she held me. “It’ll be okay, doll. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we’re doing well here. You’ll figure it out, but not if you keep getting no sleep and working yourself to the bone. I’ve got it from here. You head on home.”

“I can’t.” I squeezed her back and ran through my mental checklist of things to do on market day. “I’ve got too much work to just crawl into bed in the middle of the morning.”

“Yeah, but you’ve always got too much work,” she said, backing away from me and grabbing the rolling pin she’d been holding when I’d walked in. “I’ll clean up. You really need to get some rest. Especially after dealing with that snake.”

A dry chuckle escaped me and I shook my head. “I can think of better words than that to describe him, but sure. Let’s go with snake. There are kids outside, so I better not start flinging around the more creative insults I’ve thought up.” Like he’s a shit-munching twat waffle who would sell his own mother’s kidneys to make a buck.

I inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to gain control of my hammering heart and simmering temper. If I let him upset me, he won, and I refused to let that bottom feeder win.

Frank first appeared in town a few years ago. Everyone thought he was just another developer passing through, but it soon became clear he was a scavenger, and a merciless one. He dug in his heels and started snatching up businesses and properties all over the area.

Despite plenty of opposition from the folks in town, myself included, he wasn’t going anywhere and he wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted.

And now, he has his sights set firmly on Red Stone Ranch.

Nausea rolled through me and the anger gave way to feeling just plain sick. For years now, I’d barely had a moment to slow down and I never relaxed. My brother Ryan and I had done everything we could think of to try to help our parents, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

“Do you remember Carson Drake?” Cassidy asked suddenly. “He went to school with us back in the day. Played with the NFL until he retired last season? I think he might’ve been in Ryan’s year.”

My eyes snapped open and my mouth went dry. Not even my worries about the ranch were enough to keep my body from reacting like I’d stuck my finger in an electrical outlet. “Uh, yeah? Sure, I think so.”

Did I remember Carson Drake? That was like asking if the sun had remembered to shine this morning. If the moon would remember to rise tonight.

For as long as I lived, I would remember that name, and not just because Carson had, in fact, been in Ryan’s year at school. He’d also been his best friend and teammate—as well as my one-time summer love. Cassidy had zero clue that we’d had a thing, though.