Page 27 of Will Bark for Pizza (Bluebell Springs #1)

TWENTY

BECKETT

Cutting the ignition, I scanned the full parking lot of Kat’s Place. I didn’t recognize any of the vehicles packed into the gravel lot. No patrol car. No beater truck. No red Jeep .

Just as well. I could grab a late dinner to-go and head back to the Kniffen Street house to finally start mudding.

I did some of my best thinking while mudding and sanding walls.

And after the lunch hour that stretched to two hours and ended with dessert pizza and slightly tipsy book club members who had a whole lot to say about a certain Margene Miller, I had a lot to think about.

Before I could push open my truck door, my phone rang.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep centering breath as I pulled the phone from my shirt pocket. Some days, the temptation to throw this thing in the lake was stronger than others .

When I opened my eyes, it wasn’t Madeline’s name on the screen as I expected, but Nana’s.

Small relief, though still more than I wanted to deal with tonight. But I didn’t dare send her to voicemail.

“Hey, Nana.”

“Well, how’d it go?” Nana asked, skipping the pleasantries just like Madeline always did. Guess it ran in the family, and I never noticed.

“I did a walk-through of the bookstore today with the current owner and an appraiser.”

“And?”

“It’s a good building. Great building, actually.

Corner location in the middle of downtown.

An apartment upstairs that could be rented out.

Good bones. No obvious issues. It’s been well kept up.

There’d be no issue leasing it out. I’m told there’s plenty of local interest. I have a meeting with my realtor next week to go over market rent rates. ”

“It’s priced competitively, I’m sure.”

“The appraiser hasn’t given the owner a final number yet. He promised to have it by early next week, but I have a ballpark. I’ve been promised first right of refusal.”

“You get that in writing?”

“No,” I admitted. “Didn’t think that’d go over well here.”

“Ah, I forget you’re in a small town.”

Nana grew up in a town roughly this size and lived there until her first husband passed away.

But once she remarried a couple of decades ago, she moved from major city to major city.

Now that she was a wealthy widow, she traveled the world and bought real estate when she was bored.

She avoided small towns as much as possible.

Whether she liked being on the go, or was running from the painful memories of losing Gramps, I still hadn’t decided.

“You have the capital to make this work?” she asked.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

The bookstore would require a hefty down payment and likely be the last property I acquired for a while, until I built my cash reserve back up—unless Karl did something shocking, like offer to sell me the cabin on the lake.

It would mean frugal living for a while if he did, but I’d make it work.

Maybe pick up some handyman jobs around town if I wanted to build that reserve more quickly.

Joe promised there were plenty if I wanted them.

The book club ladies would get a kick out of that.

“That’s why I’m leaving you everything in the will,” she cackled. “You never ask for money.”

She didn’t have to say the rest. We both heard it. Unlike my ungrateful, entitled daughter.

“You can leave it to Madeline.” It was my typical response.

“So she can give it all to your mother? Fat chance. Madeline’s heart’s in the right place, but her actions are a bit misguided. Heard she’s been trying to con you into letting your folks live in one of your Richmond rentals.”

“Yeah,” I said on a heavy sigh. I didn’t bother to ask how she heard that. Maybe Kyle filled her in.

“You’re not letting them?”

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Good. Doesn’t do any good to enable people who wouldn’t lift a damn finger to help themselves, much less anyone else.”

Though Nana sounded heartless, she’d tried as much as I did to help my parents. She spent a great deal more money doing it, too.

“It’s too bad,” Nana said, sounding as though she meant it.

“Your mother could have had such a different life, but she had to go and get mixed up with that drunk.” She never referred to my dad as my dad , for which I was grateful.

“Ruined her whole life. But not my circus, not my monkeys. Not anymore. I bailed her out of jail once. She didn’t learn her lesson. ”

Her comment sparked a thought from my earlier lunch conversation.

“Slightly off topic, but do you know any good private investigators?”

“What do you need a PI for? You in some kind of hot water?”

I instantly regretted my question, but I knew better than to weasel out of the answer now. “No, nothing like that.”

“You trying to get the four-one-one on that redhead from the lake before you go and get mixed up with her?”

It shouldn’t surprise me that she remembered that very brief conversation. I avoided that topic entirely.

“The old manager for the bookstore I’m buying stole a bunch of money and took off south of the border. It’s the reason the owner is liquidating. They haven’t found her.”

“I thought you were buying the building.”

“I am.”

“Sounds like you’re trying to buy a business, too. ”

“I don’t think it’s for sale.”

And even if it were, what the hell did I know about running a bookstore? Not a damn thing. The only thing worse than the bookstore going out of business, per Joe’s decision, was if some idiot decided to buy it and ran it immediately into the ground. I didn’t need to be that idiot.

“You can’t get emotionally invested, Beck.”

“I know.”

But I tasted the lie, and it tasted like lake water, iced coffee and, unsurprisingly, a little bit like dog breath.

Until moving to Bluebell Springs, I did a solid job of not getting emotionally invested with my investment properties.

I always offered a fair price for any property I acquired, and I hired the best property managers to ensure my tenants were well taken care of.

But the hometown of my closest friends and their family was a far cry from a city where everyone could easily become invisible if they wanted.

I was learning, very quickly, that not getting emotionally invested was the wrong way to go about things here.

“This about a woman?”

“What? No.”

“Fuck. It is, isn’t it?”

“She’s one of the Masons, that’s all.”

“Christ on a cracker, is she the one who fell in the lake?”

It was eerie how perceptive Nana was. I suppose it was one of the reasons she was worth millions.

“That was a coincidence.”

“The redhead, right?”

“Kira. ”

“You’re picking me up from the Denver airport Sunday.”

“You don’t need to come, Nana.”

“Just booked my ticket.”

“Already?”

“I’ll text you my itinerary.”

“I don’t have anywhere for you to stay?—”

“I’ve got it covered. And Beck?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep it in your pants until I get there, mkay?”

The call ended as a motorcycle pulled into the parking lot, taking a narrow spot in front of my truck. Thoren pulled off his helmet and hung it from the handlebar. He caught sight of me and nodded a hello.

I turned my phone to silent, shoved it in my shirt pocket, and got out of the truck.

“It’s fucking strange seeing you all over town,” Thoren said, sporting a grin as we headed to the front door. “Beckett Campbell living in my hometown. Never thought you’d settle somewhere small.”

“Small town life is growing on me.”

“You haven’t been here long enough for the town to decide they know all your shit. Tell me how you feel after that happens.”

I held open the door. “You ever moving back?”

“Nah,” Thoren said. “Nothing for me here.”

Except his eyes zeroed in immediately on a brunette laughing in the corner. The woman I didn’t recognize was huddled with Aspen—and Kira.

Fuck, Kira was here .

I froze behind Thoren .

“You two dumbasses coming inside or you just going to stand in the doorway and let in the flies?” Luke slapped me on the back of the shoulder, breaking the trance before Kira had a chance to spot me. “You’re late.”

“Took the scenic route,” Thoren said, clearing his throat as I followed them both to a high-top near the bar.

“Who’s that?” I asked Thoren.

“A ghost,” he mumbled, taking a seat that allowed him to put his back to the brunette.

Kira glanced my way as I pulled out the seat adjacent to him, our gazes locking for a single heartbeat.

Her long red hair was tied back in a wavy ponytail high up on the crown of her head.

One side of it hung over her shoulder. I followed the path of that long hair down the side of her face, her neck, her collarbone, right to the low cut of her tight teal shirt where a silver necklace dangled into her cleavage.

Fuck, she was beautiful.

I yearned to explore every peak and valley with my fingertips.

The moment was shattered a second later when those blue eyes narrowed into daggers directed right at me. She spun away, putting her back firmly to me.

Message received.

“Heard you got assaulted by the book club today,” Luke said from behind a menu he probably didn’t need to look at but studied anyway every time we came here. He always ordered the same damn thing.

“I joined them for lunch,” I offered, sneaking another glance at Kira.

“You sure you want to go there?” Thoren asked, his voice low enough to be drowned out by the country music so Luke didn’t hear.

Fuck, had I been that obvious?

“Not going anywhere.”

Kira Mason was off limits.

Whether she hated me or not, that would never change.

But fuck, I was only a man. It was impossible not to appreciate the view.

“Guess we’re both full of shit tonight, huh?” I asked him.

“They had some opinions about Dad selling the bookstore?” Luke asked of the book club ladies.

“When did you become such a gossip girl?” Thoren ribbed.

“It’s not fucking gossip,” Luke shot back. “I need to know what’s going on in my town.”

“Sure, Glenda .”

Luke shot him a pissy look.