Thursday, August 2, 2012
Kaleb Walker
“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’?”
I could barely make out my youngest brother’s words as he doubled over in laughter.
“Hell no. I’m dead serious.” I finished pouring my coffee before taking my mug back to my desk, dodging Zane in the process. “Sawyer was standin’ on the side of the road, holdin’ up a sign that said Will Work for Sex. I shit younot.”
It had been quite the sight, really. Then again, this was Sawyer we were talking about, so I hadn’t been all that surprised. But I had been hard-pressed to keep my jaw out of my lap as I drove past my brother, standing shirtless in the glaring Texas sun, wearing jeans and shit kickers while holding up the damn sign on the side of the road.
To top it off, there’d been a truck full of women pulled over, chatting him up. Likely trying to figure out what skills he was offering.
“You know Dad’s gonna be pissed when he sees it.” Zane doubled over in another fit of laughter.
I wasn’t all that worried about our father and what he thought about Sawyer’s wild and crazy antics. Curtis would laugh right along with Zane, but our mother, Lorrie … yeah, she was the one we had to worry about. If she got word of it, she would be fit to be tied.
But that was Sawyer for you. At thirty-three, he wasn’t supposed to be the wildest of the seven of them, but he even gave Zane a run for his money.
The screen door slammed, causing Zane to sit upright, immediately choking on his laughter. As Travis made his way into the small kitchen, I barely suppressed a groan.
“What’s goin’ on?”
The oldest of Curtis and Lorrie’s seven sons wasn’t smiling, and I had a feeling Travis wouldn’t find Sawyer’s antics all that funny, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Sawyer’s down on Main and First half dressed, holdin’ up a sign.”
“Fuck,” I muttered and pinned my brother with a death glare. “Seriously, Zane?”
I was met with a shrug and a devilish smirk.
Telling Travis anything that didn’t pertain to Walker Demolition was like telling our mother, as far as I was concerned. At thirty-five, Travis had turned into an old man in recent years—at least when it pertained to his mood.
“Fuck.” Travis grunted as he turned to the coffeepot sitting on the counter. “When will he ever grow up?”
“I’m gonna go with never,” Zane replied, seemingly unable to recognize a rhetorical question.
Today,justlikeanyotherday,IwasgoingtogiveTravis a wide berth, not to mention knock Zane upside his head for tellingonSawyer.
“Did you hear back from Carl Stranford?” Travis glanced over his shoulder at me before returning his attention to pouring his coffee. “You were goin’ by his house yesterday?”
Suddenly wishing I’d had more coffee, I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck, trying to squeeze some of the tension out. Not that there ever was a good time to have this conversation with Travis, but now certainly wasn’t it.
“Yeah.” I had stopped by Carl’s, just like I had several times that week, but our brief conversation hadn’t resulted in anything other than the expected Let me think about it, Kaleb, and get back with you.
“Shit,” Travis grunted again, obviously knowing what the response was before I even had to say it out loud. “That man keeps stallin’, and I don’t know what the hell for. We aren’t askin’ for much. He’s all but lost every one of his crops.”
That was Travis for you. When he set his sights on something, he went after it. And when he came up against an obstacle, he clawed and scraped until he got through to the other side. But this was one of those times when he couldn’t use brute force to get what he wanted.
“He’s gonna lose it all,” Travis grumbled. “And to tell you the truth, I’m gettin’ damn tired of waitin’.”
There was a good possibility he would. Lose it all, that was. Based on my research, Carl Stranford was on borrowed time when it came to his financial obligations. If the man didn’t do something soon, he’d lose a lot more than just his crops, but I didn’t say as much. I saw no reason to encourage my brother. Not yet.
Not to mention it wouldn’t matter what I told Travis until I had a firm agreement from Carl. My oldest brother was only looking for one answer. Everything else would simply piss him off more than he already was.
Walker Demolition—the company my brothers and I had built from the ground up—had grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. And instead of being content with what we’d built, Travis was ready to venture in another direction—expand our horizons, he’d said. Instead of focusing solely on tearing shit down, Travis had come up with the idea to build a resort.
A megaresort, to be specific.
Not that I didn’t think it was a brilliant idea—I did. I was just content with the tearing-shit-down part.
Because we’d been raised to value and support one another, my brothers and I were pitching in to move the project forward, to make Travis’s dream—the one he’d apparently harbored since he was younger—come true. The plans for the megaresort, the likes of which our small town had never known, were underway. And we were months out from bringing the next phase of our lives to fruition.
Provided I could secure the land we needed to make it happen.
We’d received the necessary approvals, and now the only thing left to do was to finalize one more section of land. Travis had already bought out two of our adjacent neighbors, acquiring a good three hundred acres of decrepit farmland, but he wasn’t satisfied with that. Now he was looking for another hundred that backed up to what we’d already purchased. Only this land belonged to Carl Stranford, an ornery old farmer who had been giving us the runaround for the better part of the last six months.
“Call him,” Zane told Travis, his tone laced with sarcasm. “Or better yet, go see him. Maybe some of your macho intimidation’ll make him come to a decision.”
I groaned.
Zane, at twenty-four, was the youngest, and considering the age difference between him and Travis, he didn’t remember much of the Travis we had all grown up with. The fun-loving, hang-on-by-the-seat-of-your-pants guy we’d all wanted to be like. But that Travis never returned from his four-year stint in the army. In his place was the grouchy, unsmiling man who stood before us now.
“I might just do that,” Travis snapped, before turning and walking out of the trailer.
When the screen door slammed behind him, Zane glanced my way. “Why don’t you bypass Carl altogether and try sweet talkin’ Zoey?”
I frowned. “What does Zoey have to do with this?”
“Maybe she’d be more amenable to your”—Zane coughed into his fist—“charm.”
Trust me, she won’t.
Rather than flip my brother off, I ignored him. One of Zane’s favorite pastimes was giving me shit about Carl Stranford’s only daughter.
Not only had Zoey been my closest female friend for the better part of the last decade, she was also the woman I’d always wanted, but never had. First and foremost, I was her friend, but that wasn’t the problem. My issue was hiding the unbridled lust that had been burning deep and hot for as far back as I could remember. It took effort to ignore the ever-present physical attraction without making a move or trying to push our friendship to another level, but somehow I’d managed. For years.
God knows, I’d certainly wanted to.
More than wanted to.
Since she’d never shown even an inkling of interest in me other than friendship, I had opted to take what I could get, and we’d established a solid friendship. Hell, the woman knew everything there was to know about me and most of my brothers, yet she still chose to associate with me, so I considered myself lucky.
My brothers and I were infamous in our little town, but that was primarily due to our wild and crazy behavior since about the time each of us could walk. We were a rowdy bunch, and there was a long list of rumors associated with us—some true, some not so much. For whatever reason, Zoey ignored them, and for that, I was grateful.
Not that Zoey was a choir girl or anything. She was about as wild as they came. That was partly what I found so damn attractive about the woman. She didn’t care what other people thought about her, and it seemed her one goal was to have fun, provided it didn’t hurt anyone else in the process.
To maintain that friendship, I’d mastered the art of pretending when it came to Zoey. And since my brothers had dubbed her the one woman who wouldn’t give me the time of day, they loved to give me a hard time about her.
It certainly wasn’t a hardship being friends with Zoey, but it had gotten increasingly more difficult in the last few years. Ever since she and that jackass Jason Tribbons divorced, I did everything I possibly could to make sure I kept my feelings for her hidden. But hell, I wasn’t a saint, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could pull off the charade.
“Zoey doesn’t have any say in what her father does with that land,” I explained as I watched the wheels turn in Zane’s head. My little brother was going to piss me off; I could feel it.
“Yeah, but she likes you,” Zane goaded. “I’m sure if she goes runnin’ to Daddy, tellin’ him her boy toy wants to buy the land, he’d sell it in a heartbeat.”
Boy toy? “I know you’ve got somethin’ better than that,” I pushed.
Carl Stranford would just as soon cut off my dick as let me date his daughter. I had grown quite fond of my dick, and I didn’t have any intentions of losing it, thank you very much.
Zoey’s father was an overprotective son of a bitch when it came to his one and only daughter. Hell, I’d expected Carl to answer the damn door with a shotgun in his hand the night I had taken Zoey to her senior prom. Thankfully he hadn’t, but that was probably due to Zoey’s mother, who had liked me.
Not that I could blame the man. If a nineteen-year-old man had the balls to show up on my doorstep asking to take my seventeen-year-old daughter to the prom, I knew damn well that young man would know how acquainted I was with my gun collection.
Because of her father’s overprotective nature, we’d had to clarify our friendship many times over the years. Granted, Carl was close to eighty now, and Zoey was very much a grown woman who didn’t let her daddy tell her whom she could see, but still.
True to my word, even back then, when I was ruled by hormones alone, I never laid a finger on Zoey, no matter how badly I wanted to. And to this day, I’d never so much as kissed her, a problem my dick was really hoping I would rectify sometime soon.
Shaking off the thought, I pushed myself out of my chair. “I’ll go talk to Carl. Until we get that land, Travis won’t let it go.”
“Nope, he won’t,” Zane agreed as he stood. “Tell Zoey hello for me.”
“Fuck off.” I grinned as I walked out the back door.
Not fifteen minutes later, I was pulling up to Carl Stranford’s house, wishing like hell I didn’t have to do this today. Lucky for me, Zoey’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, which meant she was probably working—something I should’ve been doing. Instead, I’d get the pleasure of explaining to Carl yet again what I wanted and why I was there.
I pulled around to the back of the house, put the truck in park, and climbed out. Steeling myself for the conversation to come, I took a deep breath and looked around. With the sun shining bright and not a single cloud in the sky, I took in the vast landscape, looking off to the south as I tried to picture the entrance to the resort as Travis envisioned it.
I could see the massive wrought-iron gates in my mind, the ones that would be staffed twenty-four hours a day by security, allowing only those invited to come inside. I had seen the artwork for the gates’ design, including the large “A” and “I” that would be welded into the intricately detailed iron. The letters stood for Alluring Indulgence, the name my brothers and I agreed on. Given the type of resort we were looking to create, the name suited it. The goal had been to come up with a name to reflect the carnal temptation we intended to offer. So, thanks to an online dictionary and a case of beer, Alluring Indulgence was born.
I wouldn’t lie, I was anxiously waiting for the day we opened our doors, but in order for that to happen, I had to convince Carl to sell us the land.
With a resigned sigh, I shut the truck door and made my way to the side of the house.
Rapping my knuckles on the wooden door frame, I waited like I always did until Carl’s gruff voice instructed me to come in. The man never bothered to get up, nor did he bother locking any of his doors, so I let myself into the spacious, classic farmhouse kitchen with its whitewashed cabinets, butcher-block island, and appliances that probably hadn’t been updated since the house was built.
“Mr. Stranford,” I greeted Zoey’s father as I stepped into the living room.
Instead of a greeting, I was met with a muted, “Hmmphh.”
Figures.
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “How’s it goin’?”
When Carl pointed to the couch, I choked back a sigh and took a seat, keeping a smile on my face and my eyes on the old man sitting in the chair.
Just like in recent days, I felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia sitting on the couch in the Stranfords’ dated living room. Noticing the dark wood paneling, well-worn hardwood floors, and a ceiling fan that had to have been produced in the 1980s, I was hit with flashbacks from my teenage years. The faint smell of cigarette smoke still lingered, although I knew Carl had quit smoking long ago.
Zoey and I spent many days sitting right here on the very same maroon and green flowery couch I sat on now, talking, laughing, and avoiding the glares of the cantankerous old man who continuously traipsed back and forth through the room, making sure the up-to-no-good teenage boy in his living room wasn’t somehow taking advantage of his sweet little girl.
“Was doin’ fine ’til you showed up.”
That was definitely the Carl I’d grown up around. And while he was rough around the edges, I much preferred the cranky old man to the fragile, forgetful one I’d spent hours with. Carl had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s within the last year, and as each day passed, I recognized more and more symptoms. At times, I was positive Carl didn’t know who I was, even though he pretended to.
“If you’re lookin’ for Zoey, she ain’t here.”
I barely heard him over the television. Not wearin’ your hearing aids, are you, Carl?
Glancing over at the TV and then back at Carl, I bit back a laugh when the man sighed dramatically before turning the volume down with the remote on the arm of his chair.
“I’m not here to see Zoey, Mr. Stranford. I’m here to see you.”
“Ahhh.” Carl didn’t look any happier than he sounded at the news. “Out to try and steal my land again, are ya?”
I forced back a smile. “No, sir.” I was, of course, looking to acquire some of Carl’s land, but in my opinion, the offer was more than fair. So, no, I was not looking to steal anything.
“Why is it you can come over to talk to me about my land, but you aren’t here tryin’ to woo my daughter?”
I couldn’t tell whether Carl was serious or trying to screw with me. Woo? Seriously? Who said woo anymore?
I couldn’t very well tell Carl that I’d been thinking about “wooing” his daughter for some time now, but had never gotten up enough nerve to do so. No matter how Carl sounded, I wasn’t convinced he’d take any man’s intentions toward Zoey as a good thing. Not after her devastating divorce.
Shaking off that train of thought, I focused my attention on Carl once more. “Mr. Stranford, I wanted to stop by to see if you’d come to a decision about the land.”
“What are you plannin’ to do with it again?”
I stretched my fingers to keep from balling them into fists. I was fairly certain Carl knew exactly what my brothers and I intended to do with it, but I figured I had no choice but to oblige him.
“Sir, we’re lookin’ to build a hotel.”
“Like what? A La Quinta?”
Fighting the urge to laugh, I shook my head. “No, sir. Not a La Quinta.” Not by a long shot, I thought.
“What do you plan to do with my house if you build this hotel?” Carl asked sincerely, his forehead creased with worry.
“We don’t have any plans for your house, Mr. Stranford. We aren’t lookin’ to buy the land your house sits on. We’re only lookin’ to acquire the one hundred acres that sit adjacent to my father’s land.”
“One hundred acres, huh?”
Oh, brother.
“Yes, sir.”
The amount that my brothers and I were looking to purchase was about half of what Carl owned in total. Even though I was sure Carl didn’t have any intentions of using the land in the future, we didn’t want to go overboard. In my opinion, Travis was riding a fine line as it was.
Since Travis was insistent that the entrance face the south, for a number of reasons I’d been told, this was our only option.
“And how much are you offerin’ me?”
I was pretty sure I saw a twinkle in Carl’s eye, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the man was trying to catch me in a lie. Well, the Walkers didn’t lie, and we didn’t try to cheat someone out of what was rightfully theirs.
Taking a deep breath, I settled in for the long haul.
For the next half hour, I repeated the exact conversation I’d had with Mr. Stranford for the umpteenth time.
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