Chapter 2
BURKE
STEELE NUTS FARM HEADQUARTERS - AKA, STEELE FAMILY KITCHEN TABLE
Long live the queen.
A new royal sits at the head of the Regal Pecans kingdom. The Texas pecan leader has crowned Serena León, VP of sales and marketing and daughter of founder Eliseo León, CEO as the current king has announced his retirement.
Regal Pecans sales….
I slam my laptop shut and would throw it across the room if I had the money to purchase a new one.
But seeing as Steele Nuts falls in a very far second place to Regal Pecans, extra pennies are not readily available.
And now the Tribune is writing praise articles about Eliseo’s daughter taking over the company. As if they need any more clout.
A woman sitting at the head of a Fortune 500 hundred company always garners attention.
Make that woman young and beautiful, and the story will stay in the headline for weeks.
And while I know I shouldn’t be looking at a woman sixteen years younger than me, a man would have to be blind not to acknowledge how drop dead gorgeous Serena León is.
In fact, a blind man most definitely would be able to see her beauty.
Sun kissed skin, long brown hair that hangs to her small waist, hazel eyes that look like gold when the sun catches them just right.
Add to that how incredibly intelligent she is and I’d say Serena is perfect.
I’m not even going to address the fact that I know what she looks like from memory and not a picture on the internet.
That woman leaves a lasting impression on every one she meets.
I remember the first time I saw her. She was just out of high school and headed off to college.
Her father had propositioned me about purchasing my farms, and invited me to his office to discuss his offer.
We sat in his Texas sized boardroom with him at the head and his two children on either side.
I had met Santiago a few times prior to that day but could never recall meeting his sister.
She was younger and we’d have no reason to be running in the same circles.
Santiago was being groomed to sit where his dad was one day, so of course he was shown off as the future of Regal Pecans.
Serena was shy but sat attentive during our meeting.
Her timidness allowed me to examine just how beautiful she was.
She was a child so I mostly looked at her from a father’s perspective and thought about the troubles her dad would face with boys lining up to date her.
I shivered when I imagined putting myself in his position.
But as the years progressed and we found ourselves meeting just about once a year when Eliseo would propose to buy my company in which I would deny him, I took note of how Serena began to bloom into a woman.
She matured and with that came a confidence that shone through.
It was roughly when she was twenty-four when I first saw her as something other than a pretty young lady.
Serena León was a smoking hot woman and I am embarrassed to admit that I let my intrusive thoughts manifest in dreams and shower fantasies.
I blamed it all on the fact that I had been divorced for six years and my love life consisted of an occasional short relationship with mediocre sex.
I had three kids living fifty percent of the time in my home, so these hook-ups happened only a couple times a month.
Definitely not enough to satisfy a newly single man who was coming off of a marriage that was more of a roommate situation for several years before divorce.
By the time we filed for divorce, we were down to birthday and holiday sex.
Sad but that was the life of a disinterested marriage.
I wouldn’t say it was unhappy because Justine and I liked each other plenty.
Just not in the ways a husband and wife should.
My body was sparked back to life with one look at the woman version of Serena, and it was blatantly obvious that I would need to stay far away from her. Now it seems that I’ll be seeing more of her than ever before simply because of the nature of our profession and moreso, the small community.
“Dad.” My name is yelled from the living room and I shake free of the hold that woman has on me.
“What’s up, kiddo?” I stand from my chair and meet my youngest daughter, Daisy, as she comes walking in and hug her. She looks up at me with big brown eyes and a large smile. “Uh oh. I know that look. That look means I’m about to lose some money.”
“No,” she immediately retorts, but when I give her the dad look she deflates. “Okay, so maybe just a little.”
“Mmhm. How much is a little Daisy?” She drops her arms and I shove my hands in my pockets.
“First, you know you’re my favorite dad.”
“I’m your only dad.”
“That’s why you’re my fave. Second, I was hoping you would say yes to visiting Maggie this weekend and in turn, give me some money?” She narrows her eyes and scrunches up her face.
I sigh and close my eyes. Here I thought she wanted money to buy herself a pair of shoes or something, but it’s actually worse.
A visit to see Maggie –Magnolia, my twenty year old middle daughter– means I will be supplying money for both girls.
A weekend excursion can mean anything from a weekend of pizza and movies, to spontaneous sky diving.
Yes, that has happened before. I don’t even want to talk about how Daisy was able to accomplish that without a parents signature since she was seventeen.
She still is seventeen which is why I’m always so nervous about her visiting her sister.
“Is Aster going?”
Aster is twenty-five and is the typical older child. Mature since a young age, responsible and not likely to test the waters as much. I always feel more at ease when Aster joins Daisy and Maggie. When she doesn’t, things like sky diving happen.
“No but only because we didn’t ask her.” The big smile is back and I close my eyes once more.
“I would feel better if you would at least call her and extend an invite. You know she’s been down since the breakup of her and Vince.” Aster recently went through her first major heartbreak.
She and her boyfriend Vince began dating her senior year of high school and dated all through college.
After graduation, their careers took them to different cities, but they didn’t think it would be a problem and decided that they could endure the distance until one of them could move.
That lasted three years until Vince decided that it was too much and had no intentions to move closer to Aster.
Oh, and he also decided that his co-worker would make a better girlfriend than my daughter.
If only he would have realized that after they broke up.
It took the strength of ten men not to drive the two hours to Abilene and kick his cowardly ass.
I only restrained myself because my daughter begged me not to.
“That’s kind of why we didn’t ask her. She’s a major Debbie Downer and we were planning to go to–” She stops herself and I already know it means trouble.
“Plan to what, Daisy?”
She sighs with a dramatic blow of air and tells me, “We were planning to go to a Jacob’s Well.”
“Daisy! Are you serious right now? You know how I feel about that place. Kids getting drunk and diving into a 130 foot deep well and underground caves? Absolutely not. I do not want to be interviewed by the local news about the medical condition of my daughters after being injured.”
“Dad. That’s extreme. Your anxiety has tripled in your old age.
” My eye twitches as I glare at her. “Older age. And in any case, we’re not going to be doing that.
Well, not the diving into deep water part.
Swimming has been banned. But yes, there will be drinking and probably some rowdiness.
But I promise, there will be no sex or drugs. ”
“Dear Lord,” I say, looking up to the sky. “Why did you give me such open and outspoken daughters? Why couldn’t they have been demure and quiet and possibly interested in nunnery as a profession?”
“Add dramatic to that list of anxiety and old age,” she adds. “If I call Aster and invite her to come, will you let us go?”
I prop my hands on my waist and drop my head between my sagging shoulders. “I want to talk with Aster after you talk to her.”
Her face lights up and she’s lunging for me. “Okay, Daddy.”
Now I’m Daddy and not Old Man. This kid is lucky she’s so darn smart, otherwise she’d be locked up in a tower.
“Oo. Can I look up something on your laptop real quick?” she asks before leaving.
“Sure honey. Anything for you.” She skips off to where my laptop sits, and I walk over to the fridge, wondering if it’s too soon for a beer.
Checking my watch I see that it’s three o’clock so the answer to that is no.
“Rena León is the new CEO of Regal? Wow. She’s super young. Way to go girl. That’s so kickass.”
“Rena?” I parrot back as I pop the top to my Saint Arnolds. “Her name is Serena, Daisy.”
“I know that but everyone calls her Rena.” She rolls her eyes as if to say duh.
“Well you’re not everyone. You don’t even know her.” Daisy’s eyes scan across the screen, presumably reading the article.
“Um, yeah I do. I met her at lunch one day with Aster and she’s been really great at answering questions I had about graphic design and Kingsville University.”
“Why…to both of those?” I come to stand behind her, bracing my hand on the back of her chair.
“Because I want to go to Kingsville U and I like graphic design. Why else would I–Dad!” I reach out and immediately slam the laptop shut when she clicks on a link that I didn’t want her to see. “Were you on a corn site?”
“Corn site? Really, Daisy? Go use your own laptop. What I do on mine is none of your business.” I pick it up and hold it to my chest.
Daisy’s face is beet red and she looks a cross between mortified and amused. “You know, it’s a bit early to be peeling the cucumber, wouldn’t you say?” She snorts a laugh and now I’m the one who is mortified.
“It just popped up. I removed the blockers and a word I typed in must have–you know what. I’m an adult. A single adult. What I do in the privacy of my own home is none of your concern.”
She stands from her chair, pushing me back and pulling the beer from my hand. She takes a small swig and I watch her with discontent. She gives a refreshing aaah and swipes at her mouth.
“You’re free to polish the family jewels any time you want. But can’t you do it in your room or bathroom like the rest of us do? Geez, Dad.”
“What?” She laughs as she walks away, so delighted with how she is able to ruffle my feathers.
I am such a pushover. Being a girl dad is not what I thought it would be.
I thought I would have three little princesses who hated boys and never wanted to move out.
Instead, I have three young women who love shocking me with their talk of sex, drink and burp like frat guys, and have absolutely no filter when it comes to pretty much everything.
I stand for a moment longer, thinking about Serena and what was on my laptop before rushing off to my bathroom and polishing my jewels in private.