CHAPTER 13
All of this cocaine in the world, and your nose is still in my business.
-Iris to Teller
IRIS
“Do you have anything to do today?” he asked, his eyes intense and resting solely on me.
I shook my head. “No. I have to go to my parents’ house tomorrow. That means that I’ll have to be home by a decent time so I can get some sleep.”
Gosh, my life was exciting.
“Get some sleep to hang out with your family?” he teased. “What’s it matter if you’re rested?”
I opened my mouth and then closed it.
“Well…” I hesitated. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I was just thinking about the fact that I had something to do.”
He grinned then. “Then spend the day with me. I promise not to have you home early, though.”
My lips twitched.
“You don’t have to work today?” I asked, wondering if he ever worked, or if he always made his workers do it for him.
“No,” he hesitated. “Kind of? I mean, I should be working, but that’s why I hired people to work for me. It’ll take them an extra hour to get stuff done but… it’ll all be okay.”
I thought about that for a moment. “I don’t want your workers to hate me.”
He grinned. “They might. They might not. But at the end of the day, I like you, and that’s all that matters. They only care about getting a paycheck, and I give ‘em a good one.”
I felt myself melting.
“Okay,” I paused. “What is it, exactly, that you want me to do?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he headed to his closet and got dressed in jeans, a Crow Lawn Services t-shirt, and boots. Except, when he looked down at himself, he cursed and turned around to head back into his closet.
When he came out again, he had on a different shirt, in the same color.
This black t-shirt said ‘Crow Tree Farm’ on the breast pocket, which had my brows rising.
“A tree farm?” I asked curiously. “Why do you have a tree farm?”
“Because I want one.” He paused and regarded me closely as he answered. “And they’re easy. I can grow the trees, ship them out all over the country, and make bookoos of money doing it. Plus, it only takes up about five acres of land.”
The smirk on his beautiful lips let me know that there might be more to it than that, but he chose not to say anything because again, I wasn’t ready to know what he knew.
Instead of calling him out, I chose to let it ride, and I knew that he noticed my dismissal.
“What kinds of trees do you sell?” I wondered.
He jerked his head toward the door, and together we left, only to be stopped by Lindy in the living room.
“I’ll just have you know that it was traumatic to walk out into the kitchen today and find your brother there. He scared me,” she snapped.
I partially hid myself behind Callum’s giant shoulder and pressed my face into the large muscle before saying, “Oh, Jesus.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Callum grumbled. “Have a good one.”
“Wait!” she cried. “We need to talk about the rent!”
“Rent is yours this month, remember?” he called as he walked out the door.
I followed closely behind him, not stopping until we reached his motorcycle.
There, he handed me yet another helmet. This time, in Tiffany Blue.
“Wow,” I breathed. “This one is really pretty.”
“I got it new,” he said. “I know that you wouldn’t have complained, wearing her old helmet. But I wanted you to have your own.”
After the soft, squishy feeling started to roll through me, I didn’t stop myself from throwing my arms around him and squeezing him tight.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “That was really sweet.”
He took advantage of my closeness by pressing his hand against my ass and pulling me in even tighter into his hold.
The slam of a door, followed by the screech of tires, let us know that Lindy not only saw our closeness, but didn’t like it.
“She almost sideswiped us,” I mused as I pulled away.
He grumbled something under his breath, and then turned, giving me his full back for the first time.
That, or maybe I just now paid attention to what his shirt said.
“Umm,” I started to giggle. “We give good wood?”
He mounted the bike, then held his hand out for me.
“My sister’s idea,” he said. “Funny shirts mean people will buy them and give you free advertising.”
I snickered. “I want one.”
“I don’t have any in your size,” he admitted. “But I’ll get my sister on ordering me more.”
“Does your sister work for you?” I asked as I took his hand and mounted the bike behind him.
Before he started it up he said, “Not willingly. But sometimes, she deigns to offer me her expertise if I whine long enough.”
Laughing, he started the bike up and began to walk the bike backward out of the driveway.
When he was in the middle of the road, he started forward, only to come to a stop at the mailbox.
When he pulled it open, there was a shit ton of mail in it, causing my brows to rise.
“What the hell?” I asked.
“I don’t check this very often, because all of my bills are sent through emails. But Lindy refuses to bring my mail inside, so every once in a while, I remember to check it and dump the catalogs in the trash on the way out,” he called over the rumble of his bike.
My lips curved into a smile as he started to paw through the mail, stopping to toss Lindy’s back into the box before closing it.
When he had the stack of magazines, he rolled up to his trash can and dumped them inside, causing me to laugh all over again.
“You don’t think you would want to read those?” I called out.
He shrugged his large shoulder and said, “I don’t know how it works, but when you turn thirty-five, you get added to some useless catalog mailing list where they start sending you random catalogs that old people might want. The only one I’m interested in is the Shotgun Press, or the reloading magazines, and I didn’t see any of those.”
I snuggled closer to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, and he patted my hand before he headed out of the neighborhood.
Fifteen minutes later, he was pulling up to a big driveway with an industrial-sized gate blocking the entrance.
After inputting a code into the keypad, he started forward much slower, since the drive was made of crushed gravel.
After a few minutes of driving, I started to see trees in black pots. Then I started to see a few women that were watering said trees.
When we pulled up to a tiny office, he turned off the bike and helped me off before getting off himself.
My legs felt shaky as I took a look around.
“Wow,” I said, eyes wide. “Do you own this? Or rent it?”
“Own,” he answered as he jerked his head toward the door of the small cabin. “I want to build out here eventually, but with lumber prices costing a kidney and half your sphincter, I’m waiting.”
“Half your sphincter?” I snickered as I followed him inside.