Chapter One #2
“What I’d like to do is walk right out of here and go back to the house,” Holly whispered as she tucked the phone back into her purse.
Miles Chapman was used to being wined and dined, so the evening wasn’t anything new or exciting to him.
Regina, the Realtor that he had been dealing with, had brought a woman with her to the dinner.
Miles was pretty sure that the impromptu blind date had been told that he was a rich rancher, because he could practically see dollar signs flashing in the lady’s green eyes.
He’d lost count of how many women he’d been out with in the past, and 99.
9 percent of them had only been interested in the Chapman money.
They would do anything to get a fist in the piggy bank.
For once, Miles wished he could meet a woman who liked him for himself and not his family fortune.
If she had long red hair and gorgeous blue eyes, that would be a bonus for sure.
“Tell me again how big is this ranch you are buying.” Linda batted her eyes at him.
“It’s two sections of land,” Regina answered. “With the possibility of adding two more ranches to it in the future.”
“I would have loved to be the one selling you that property,” Linda almost swooned.
“Someday you will be,” Regina told her. “If you don’t fall in love and decide to leave the real-estate life behind.
” She turned back to Miles. “Are you really interested in this property or would you like to see the other two ranches on the market? But remember, this is the only one of the three that has living quarters already on it and with as many acres as you requested.”
Miles nodded. “I’m interested, but I need to run some figures before I make an offer. I’d be inclined to give them their asking price if they’d let me have that Angus bull and maybe throw in a hundred head of cattle.”
“What if they sold the whole place, as is, and let you have all the cattle?” she asked.
“That’s another conversation, but I’d like to see what they’d want for the place with that idea,” he answered.
“I’ll see what I can do and get in touch with you tomorrow,” Regina said as she pushed her chair back and stood up.
“I’ll think about it,” Miles answered and looked around at all the empty tables. “Is this place always this slow?”
“Not at all, but there is a speed-dating event going on over in the speakeasy,” Linda answered.
“Last I heard, it wasn’t completely filled up.
I love speed dating, but I’ve got to go with Regina and show a house tonight.
If you’re going to be in town a couple of days, give me a call. I’d be glad to show you around.”
“I’ll be busy from daylight to dark, but it was really nice meeting you,” Miles said.
“You should go over and throw your name in the pot,” Regina said. “You never know what might happen. My granddaughter met her husband at one of those things, and they’ve been married five years now.”
“I’m not interested in settling down. I’m a love ’em and leave ’em guy.” Miles laid his napkin on the table and stood up. “Thanks for dinner.” He hoped that Linda got the message and Regina didn’t give the woman his phone number.
“My pleasure. Call me tomorrow if you want to make an offer or see the other two properties,” Regina said.
Miles followed the signs to the men’s room and figured he’d be watching another night of football on television after he talked to his father about the ranch.
He took care of business, washed and dried his hands, and was in the hallway headed back toward the hotel lobby when a red-haired woman with bright blue eyes came out of the women’s room.
Her shoulder brushed against his, and steamy, hot sparks danced all over the hallway.
He had always been attracted to redheaded women, especially those with blue eyes, but not a single one had ever affected him like that.
Matter of fact, no woman ever had. He was one of those guys who sent roses and a promise to call after a date.
He wasn’t so crass as not to call, but if the first date didn’t go well, he made an excuse about a second one.
“Pardon me,” he said.
“No worries,” she told him, and headed toward the speakeasy.
On second thought, maybe football and his father could wait. He kept her bright red hair in sight and followed her right into the place, where she went to a table and sat down. A lady at the door looked up at him with a question on her face.
“Is this the speed-dating place?” he asked.
“Yes, but it started a while ago. We only have five tickets left. Twenty dollars for each one,” she answered, “payable by credit card or PayPal when you fill out the app online. It only takes a minute, if you are interested.”
Miles picked up a flyer from the table, glanced over it, and pulled up the link for the app on his phone.
“Are you sure you want to pay money for such a short amount of time?” the lady asked.
“Yes, ma’am. That redheaded woman who went inside ahead of me just got my attention, and I want to know more about her.
” His thumbs moved quickly over the phone’s tiny keyboard, and the app popped right up.
He already had Miles written where it asked for his name, but he backspaced and put in Bubba—a nickname that his older sister called him—and added Jones at the end.
One of the guys who he went to school with was Dicky Jones.
He smiled as he added his personal cell phone number beneath that.
No way did he want another gold digger to call and hear, “Texas Rose Ranch. This is Sandy. Where may I direct your call?”
That done, he went on inside the room and stood back against the wall and watched three men spend five minutes with the woman he had brushed shoulders with.
If there was anything Miles, now Bubba, knew, it was women—their moods, their aura, and their expressions.
And that lady was bored out of her mind.
She would have rather been sitting on a barbed-wire fence in hell than dealing with men for five minutes at a stretch.
A guy nudged him on the shoulder. “I’m Hank, and I see you eyeballing that redhead.
Don’t bother giving her five minutes of your time.
As my grandpa says: ‘When they passed out gorgeous, she was first in line, but when they were giving out excitement, she was off gathering wildflowers.’ He’s not always spot-on, but he is when it comes to her.
Those blue eyes are as cold as ice cubes. ”
Miles raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
“Got to admit, with a name like Lula Ann, I shouldn’t have expected much,” the man said.
“I’m…”—he hesitated for a moment—“Bubba, and I think I’ll give it a shot,” he said, and headed toward Lula Ann’s table.
“You’ll never get that five minutes of your life back,” Hank called out.
Miles was halfway across the room when a bald guy with a beer belly hanging over his belt and a neck the size of Miles’s broad chest sat down in front of Lula Ann. Miles picked up his pace and chose to sit down at the table next to Lula Ann’s.
A big smile covered the blonde’s face when she looked at him. “Well, hello to you! I’m Delilah. Please tell me you are Samson.”
“No, ma’am, just plain old Bubba Jones, who is late getting to the party. What do you do for a living?” he asked, but kept his ear tuned to what Lula Ann was saying about liking sunsets.
“I’m a wedding planner,” she said, and went on for a full three minutes about herself.
Miles scrolled down on the app until he found Delilah and marked no, and then tuned his ear to the conversation at the table next to him.
“What do you do, cowboy?” Delilah asked and reached across the table to touch his cheek. “Have you heard a word I’ve said? I hope so because I’ve already given you a yes.”
“Thank you for that. I work on a ranch,” he answered. “Someday in the future, I hope to own my own place.”
“So, you play in the dirt?”
“You might say that,” Miles said.
“You look like sex on a stick, darlin’, but I hate anything that has to do with sweat, dirt, or being outside. We might have some good times together, but I’m going to have to change my yes to a no,” she said. “I hope you aren’t disappointed.”
“Not a bit,” he said just as the bell rang.
The big guy traded places with him as soon as Miles stood up. He barely beat another fellow waiting to get five minutes with Lula Ann. He sat down, stuck out his hand, and said, “Hello, I’m Bubba Jones. I believe we met in the hallway by the restrooms.”
Most women he met were eager to flirt with him, but not Lula Ann.
She covered a yawn with the back of her hand before she extended it to him.
His interest had never been piqued like this in all the years he had been dating.
She had no idea who he was or that he came from money, which was a good thing.
The vibes that sparked between them when their hands met was something he’d never felt before.
For the first time in his adult life, he couldn’t read a woman.
Was she playing hard to get or was she really not interested in him?
He could only hope that it was the former, and not the latter, because he really wanted to get to know her.
“Lula Ann Smith,” she said. “I like …”
“I know,” Bubba said. “I was sitting at the table over there and heard you giving the last feller that line. Is it to weed out the undesirables or the real truth?”
“I don’t give away all my secrets in one night,” she teased, suddenly more interested than she’d been all evening.
She held her hands tightly in her lap to attempt to stop the trembling. No simple handshake had ever made her want to drag a guy outside and make out with him like a couple of teenagers, but Bubba’s touch damn sure had.
“Why are you here?” Bubba asked.
“My friend set this up for us, and then she got sick and couldn’t come,” Lula Ann replied honestly. “I might ask you the same thing.”
“I heard about it during dinner in the hotel restaurant and decided to see what it was all about,” Bubba said. “Is this your first one?”
“Yep,” Lula Ann answered. “How about you?”
“Oh yeah, but I’m glad I came because I’m meeting you,” he said.
“Is that your best pickup line?” she asked.
“No, but if it’s working, I might add it to my list.” He chuckled. “Tell me, Ms. Lula Ann, why do you like sunsets?”
“Because my grandparents always sat on the porch at the end of the day and watched the sun go down,” she answered.
“They held hands everywhere they went, and even in their old age, Grandma’s eyes lit up every time he walked into a room.
And he went looking around to find her when she wasn’t right beside him.
I want what they had if I ever commit to a relationship. ”
“Did you sit on the porch with them?” Bubba asked.
“Every chance I got,” she answered.
If she had met Bubba Jones at a bar or a party, she might have thought he saw dollar signs when he figured out that she was the daughter of Fletcher McLean, the owner of the Wild Texas Oil Company.
But as Lula Ann Smith, he wouldn’t know all that, and as a stranger, she felt like she could be honest with him about her feelings.
After all, most likely she would never see him again, because not even a Bubba Jones would waste time on a Lula Ann.
“So, what do you do for a living?” she asked.
“I work on a cattle ranch. You?”
“I like to play with rocks and dirt, but sometimes I have to spend time indoors,” she answered. No one else had asked her what her job involved all evening.
“So you are a landscaper?”
“If there must be a title, then that’s a good one.” She looked up at the clock on the wall. The time had sped by, and they had only one more minute. “What are you looking for in a woman?”
“Honesty, but to tell the truth, I’m not interested in settling down—at least not yet,” he said without a moment’s hesitation, his green eyes boring into hers.
“So when are you planning to get serious?”
Bubba shrugged. “When I find the right woman. What are you wanting in a man?”
Suddenly, she was a child who had not done well on a test and was in the hot seat in front of her father for lying about her grade. She wiggled in her seat. “Someone who will accept me for who I am and not try to change me.”
“Sounds like …” Bubba said just as the bell rang.
“And that concludes our speed-dating event for the evening,” a lady with a microphone said from the stage at the end of the room.
“We will text the matches to you tomorrow morning. Be safe going home tonight, or wherever you go. We’ll have another event on the last Saturday night in September.
Same time, same place. Come back if nothing works out with this one. ”
Holly scrolled down to find Bubba Jones and marked a yes beside his name.
When she looked up, he had already disappeared into the crowd.
She kept scanning the tall guys in the crowd but couldn’t see him anywhere.
She hoped that he marked yes like she had, but she scolded herself for even thinking such a thing.
Sure, she was attracted to him, but she had lied about who she was.
Besides, there was no future in a simple physical attraction—especially not when she was just play-acting as Lula Ann Smith.
She was still looking around to see where he was when she went outside, gave the valet her ticket, and waited for him to bring Darlene’s grandpa’s truck around.
His disgusted expression left no doubt in her mind that he was judging her by the name written on the ticket and the condition of the truck she was driving.
Had she been driving one of her own vehicles, maybe even the brand-new Jeep Wrangler with all the bells and whistles, he might have had a smile on his face.
If he’d been returning her personal vehicle that was now in the shop for a tune-up, he would have been kissing her feet just to get to sit in the seat of a Jaguar.
She tipped him enough to make him stutter his thanks, and then she slid behind the wheel. As she started the engine, she wondered what Bubba was driving that evening.
If he was eating in the restaurant of that fancy hotel, a person could bet dollars to doughnuts that his truck did not look like hers. And the wager could also include the fact that he was not interested in a woman with a back-woodsy name like Lula Ann.