Page 4 of For Love Or Honey

Sure can, I thought back.

Everyone turned when I made my noisy entrance. And the devil struck me down with icy eyes, a razor-sharp jaw, and a smile that could have convinced the Pope himself to eat forbidden fruit.

“What do you want?” I shot, ignoring the recognition that I sounded like a child. I folded my arms across my T-shirt that read Don’t Mess With Texas.

He stood, never breaking eye contact as he smoothed his tie and stepped toward me. My chin lifted the closer he got, his height imposing. In another life, in another time, he lived out here in the sticks with an ax in his beastly hand or the reins of an oxen yoke clutched in his hammer fist. But I bet his hands were smooth as a baby’s ass. I bet he wouldn’t last one fucking day in the full sun doing real work. I bet he’d rather die than get in that shiny little sports car’s bucket seats sweaty and peppered with dirt.

I warmed, either from his encroaching proximity or the mental image of him shirtless and chopping wood.

“I wanted to introduce myself since I didn’t get a chance at the press conference,” he said, extending that gargantuan appendage he called an arm. “Grant Stone.” When I didn’t take his hand, he added, “You threw an egg at me?”

“I recall. But you didn’t just come here to meet me.”

His empty hand returned to his side. “Then why did I come?”

“You’re trying to butter us up. Come here being all polite as if that’ll change our minds.”

“Sounds like you have me all figured out.”

My temper flamed at his milky reaction. “You realize we run a bee farm, right? You think we’re going to let you run your diesel and pollute our flowers? Kill our bees? First it’s bulldozers and backhoes. Then diesel trucks bringing machines and parts. Then your diesel rig and diesel trucks to haul your fuel off. And I swear to god, if you say one word about clean diesel, I will chase you off my property with a whole crate of eggs.”

“Funny to hear all the green talk coming from the girl driving the Hemi.”

My eyes narrowed. “Can’t exactly pull a trailer with a Prius, can I?”

“Can’t exactly get fuel for your Hemi out of the ground without diesel, either.”

I shifted back to my point. “That’s not even to mention what you’ll do to our water. I’ll tell you what my family was too polite to say—we don’t want your money, so please get the hell out of our house.”

He assessed me for a drawn out moment, his face unreadable. I was just about to repeat myself a little louder and a little slower when he said, “You don’t think I understand.”

My face quirked. “How could you? Isn’t your daddy some big oil guy? Didn’t you grow up somewhere on the East Coast with seersucker and bow ties? Yacht club and boat shoes? So tell me—what do you know of small towns and the working class? I don’t even know how you can drive on half the roads in this town in that car.”

“And what’s wrong with my car?”

“It’s useless and out of touch, especially around here. I don’t even know how you can fit in it. What are you, like eight feet tall?”

An amused sound through his nose. “So if I came here in a pickup truck wearing a Stetson, you’d listen?”

“No.”

“That’s reasonable.” He turned back to my family. “I’ll see myself out. It’s been nice to meet you. Thank you for the coffee.”

My mother offered another smile, this time apologetic. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stone. Good luck.”

I didn’t know if he caught the little bit of snark in her well wishes, but my sisters and I did.

He nodded once, then turned back to me, his eyes lit with the embers of challenge. As he passed, he leaned in, his lips close enough to my ear to feel his breath. “I’m afraid you’ve underestimated me, Ms. Blum—I understand you better than you think. So get ready. I’m coming for you.”

I braced myself against a shiver of anticipation that wriggled down my spine. But rather than shy away, I turned my face toward him, forcing him to retreat or risk our lips connecting.

“Let’s see what you’ve got, Stone,” I said with a wry smile. “You have a nice day, now.”

“Oh, I will.”

With a mirroring expression on his face, he headed out. The second his back was turned, I scowled at him the duration of his walk to that stupid car, laughing when he realized the back of my truck was full of bees. He hurried into the HotWheels like his pants were on fire. I had to admit that the rumble when he started the engine did something funny to my insides, but I never would have said so.

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