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.
“Iris Jo,” Mama scolded, though she fought a smile. “I cannot believe how rude you were.”
“Really? I threw an egg at him on live television two days ago. Was I really supposed to pretend like I was happy to see him in my kitchen?”
“Well, no, but you could have at least told him off politely.”
“I can’t even believe you entertained him.”
“What were we supposed to do, send him off when he came here being so nice?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Oh, relax,” Poppy said. “I put a laxative in his coffee.”
Mom spun around to face her with her mouth open. “Poppy June—you did not.”
Poppy shrugged. “No, I didn’t. But I thought about it.”
“Am I the only one who thinks he’s dangerous?”
“He’s only dangerous if you give him power,” Daisy said, hooking her arm in mine. “So don’t.”
I sighed. “Fine. But don’t let him in the house again. You’ll mislead him into thinking he’s got a shot at our rights.”
“He brought an awfully big number with him,” Mom said as she cleared his place. “Lots of zeros. Enough zeros to make us rich.”
“And kill our business. If Grandpa didn’t sell to oil in the fifties when the farm was actually in trouble, why would we do it now when things are fine?”
“I didn’t say we should,” she noted.
I made a derisive noise as Daisy towed me toward the coffee pot, ignoring the prick of fear that I didn’t have as much of a say as I liked to think I did. Mama owned fifty-two percent, and we each got a split of the remainder when we turned eighteen. At the end of the day, all we could do was tell her what we thought and what we wanted. And though I knew she’d listen and honor our wishes if she could, it was still up to her.
Daisy leaned against the counter as I poured myself a cup.
With the jerk of my chin toward a vase of fresh flowers on the counter, I asked, “Did Billy or Bobby Jenkins send those?”
She sighed. “Billy. It’s been five years those twins have been courting us. They just won’t learn. And I don’t think they’ve discovered the line between persistent and creepy.”
“Listen, any boys dumb enough to think that if they came after all three of us at the same time, one of us would cave, deserves every Tuesday’s bouquet rejection.”
“I just feel bad, but they won’t take no for an answer. If they weren’t a couple of sweet little puppies, I’d worry.”
Poppy snorted a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I could take them both at once. They can’t weigh more than two fifty combined.”