Chapter 16
He needed a better plan. Greer was hiding from him every time he even got close to her. He’d sent her flowers—she’d pretended to be someone else and the delivery guy had given the flowers to her oldest sister. Who had had a lot to say to Kurt later that night when he’d called. Yikes.
He winced. That sister had far more bite than the little nurse one.
And she’d told him in no uncertain terms where he had screwed up and that he wasn’t to even try to do something stupid to her sister now.
That she was watching, and knew just how to handle him.
Since she was with the county attorney’s office he was a bit afraid of what she meant.
He’d seen her in town before—a very beautiful woman, Greer favored her a great deal, but that woman was beyond scary. He’d tried to tell her that he loved her sister, her sister terrified him, and that he would never do anything to hurt Greer ever again.
And to be honest, he kind of wanted his girls to grow up with a voice like that woman. She didn’t back down from what mattered to her. He wanted his girls to be like that, too. Fierce.
He just had to convince Greer to actually give him another chance first. Without thinking he was a crazy stalker or anything. He had never had this kind of trouble getting a woman to at least talk to him before.
He had one more shot. Greer was going to have to at least talk to him about the baby, if nothing else.
They’d have details to work out. And it would give him the opportunity to show her he wasn’t the total jackass she thought he was.
Kurt was a very determined man. He had built his empire into what it was by sacrifice and sweat equity.
He knew when not to give up on something—someone—who mattered the way this woman did.
He just didn’t know how to prove to her he was the kind of man she deserved.
Hell, he knew he wasn’t, but he was the man who would love her forever.
His secretary knocked on the door. Luna was about Greer’s age, with long dark brown hair and big brown eyes.
She came from a big family like Greer’s.
She’d gone to school with Greer, too, he thought.
Her older brothers were friends with Greer’s older brothers.
The Sandovals were very established in Value. They fit in.
Kurt had envied them that before. “Hey, what do you need now? Can’t you just leave a man alone to think?”
“A man like you left on his own devices for too long is just bound to get into trouble.” Luna had a big stack of mail—probably invoices and bills and all the things he didn’t want to take time to deal with—in her skinny arms. “I am dealing with this today, whether you like it or not, boss. I have big plans for tomorrow.”
“What are these plans? The boyfriend?”
“Hardly. Not the boyfriend any longer. He apparently had some not so nice things to say about my brothers behind my back. Total deal-breaker.”
Her older brothers could be difficult, Luna had complained about them to him before. “So that…matters with a guy? What if you were really into him?”
“I can understand a guy having a problem with one of my brothers—I mean, have you met them all? Total buttheads at times—but what he was saying when Luis had a few questions for him were beyond what I was going to tolerate. Especially him running his mouth to his buddies—who were all unemployed, I might add. So…we argued. Anyway, now I can actually enjoy myself at the Hiller Barbecue Saturday without having to referee between him and those lunatics.” She shook her head like she was exasperated or something.
Sometimes Kurt was convinced Luna Sandoval had been born eighty-four years old.
Beautiful—though she seriously doubted that fact—brilliant, and so scarily organized it terrified him, but she had what he’d once heard described as an old soul.
She took that next level.
Kurt adored her and intended to keep her forever. He made sure to pay his assistant very well. He was well aware that Luna kept him going in the right direction with everything he had to juggle.
And since he’d gotten the girls, she had been worth double her weight in gold.
He couldn’t do this job without her. “What is this Hiller barbecue?”
She just blinked those big dark eyes at him. “The…annual cook-out at the Hiller Ranch. Every year, since before I was born. Mom goes and helps Gayle Hiller every year, too. Where have you been?”
“I…have never been to the Hiller Ranch, let alone a barbecue there. I’m not even certain I’ve ever gotten an invitation.”
“No invitations are needed, Kurt. People just…go. Everyone knows about it. The entire town. People pitch in with desserts and sides, that kind of thing. The Hillers handle the brisket. There are usually about two or three hundred people that go. It’s like…
bigger than the town festival. It’s this weekend. You seriously didn’t know about it?”
He shook his head. Things happening at the Hiller Ranch weren’t exactly his thing, after all. Considering.
“That’s right…you usually go to Idaho and talk to the Rawlins’ staff this time of year, don’t you?”
Of course, she knew his schedule—she always booked his flights.
“Yes, probably. So…what time? I am a part of this community; I should make an appearance. For my girls’ sake.
I want them to have…a support system and all of that.
To fit in with their new hometown, that kind of thing. Do Marie and Garth go?”
“I think they do. I know Janie and the seriously hot Jackson Glass do.” Luna fanned herself with what looked like a Discover Card advertisement. “That man…wow. Wow. Wow. I’m getting hot here just thinking about him.”
“Please, my blood pressure can’t take it. Does Jackson know you are in love with him? I can fill him in…?”
Luna threw the mail at him. “Too old, too hot, too much a pain in the ass like my brothers. He and Lamar are like besties, you know. So not into the bro’s best friend thing.”
“So what time?”
“Usually people begin arriving around ten-thirty.”
He’d be there by eleven.
It would get him that much closer to his woman.
Kurt was seriously going to enjoy hunting that maddening woman down again. It was time to do some strategizing. But first… “What does one do with two baby girls at a Hiller barbecue?”
Priorities now. The mail could wait. The barbecue was in four days.
He had some planning to do.