Seduction on the Sand (The Billionaires of Barefoot Bay #2)(15)
The hello was very sleepy and not real pleased. “What?”
“Did I interrupt the honeymoon?”
He got a low groan. “We’re not married...yet.”
Geez, the guy fell hard and fast. “We need to talk.”
“You didn’t close that Cardinale deal yet, Becker?” Zeke was awake now.
“Working on it.”
“Call me when it’s done. I’m sleeping.” A female voice in the background, followed by a soft laugh, told Elliott that his friend wouldn’t be going back to sleep anytime soon. Lucky bastard.
“Well, sorry to delay your morning exercise, but you have to hear me out. I put an offer on the land through a lawyer who appears to have a legitimate claim naming his client as the owner of the land.”
“And?”
“Owner’s granddaughter is going to fight it, so I have to delay, distract, and divert her for a week while we slip in under the radar and get the land. And, just in case this lawyer’s a shyster and he’s lying, then I have to work on buying the land directly from her. Either way, I’m going to win.” He felt better just saying it out loud. He had a plan and needed to stick to it.
“Hmm. Okay. Sounds...okay.”
“Oh, it’s more than okay,” he said, reassuring himself as much as Zeke.
“Why, is she hot?”
“A ten.”
Zeke snorted. “You are the luckiest son of a bitch on earth.”
“Says the man who is in the sack with a gorgeous female while I have a goat waiting to be milked.”
“What?”
“It’s a goat farm,” he explained. “The late owner ran a goat farm, and she took over.”
“So why doesn’t she want to sell?”
“Sentimental value, best I can tell.”
“You can outbid that, Becker.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know about my deal with the lawyer, and she doesn’t know what we’re planning to build.” Another one of those little guilt pricks stabbed at his chest, so he paced the trailer.
In three steps, he was in a bedroom he knew had to be Frankie’s, decorated—if you could actually use that word—with a simple beige comforter and a few pillows, some pictures of the great outdoors on the walls, and a single dresser with a hairbrush, mirror, and two small, framed photographs.
It didn’t look like any woman’s bedroom where he’d spent time. He was used to counters that looked like the makeup department at Saks and overflowing closets with a zillion pictures of...themselves. This room was as simple as the farmer who lived in it. And all that did was intrigue him more.
“So, what’s your plan?” Zeke asked with a yawn.
“I’m going to, um, stick around her farm.” He cleared his throat. “And work.”
“What?” Zeke barked out a laugh. “You? Work a farm?”
“Yeah.” Leaning over the dresser, he squinted at one of the small pictures. But his focus was on the girl in the photo—definitely Frankie, though a good dozen or more years ago, with the gangly body and braces-heavy smile of a preteen. She stood between two people who were undoubtedly her parents, the mix of features easy to discern.
“Then she must be an eleven, not a ten.”
“Grow up, Einstein.” Hey, was that the Plaza in the background? A limo driver behind them, waiting with an open door, the small family dressed for a special event. Vacation in New York City?
The other picture was of an older man, he’d guess the grandfather she called Nonno, leaning against the shelter Elliott had just slept in. A bull of a man, with a shock of white hair and some teeth missing in his broad grin. One hand was on a goat, the giant, gnarled fingers nearly covering the animal’s whole head. Next to him, that same little girl, the braces still on.
“So, can you make it?” Zeke’s question brought Elliott back to the conversation.
“Sorry, make what?”
“Brunch tomorrow at Casa Blanca. Nate’s docked his yacht in the harbor, and he’s meeting Mandy and me for brunch. Why don’t you come over and join us? I mean, if you can get away from the goats.” He chuckled, and in the background, his girlfriend was laughing, too.
But Elliott ignored them, looking from one picture to the other, both of which had to have been taken in the same year. With her grandfather, she had hunched shoulders and a shadow of pain around her young eyes.
“We’re meeting around noon at the restaurant. Be there, because I have some great news to announce.”
Elliott pictured that great news in bed next to Zeke—the woman he’d known from high school and found not so long ago cleaning his villa over at Casa Blanca. “I can only imagine.”
“No, you can’t,” Zeke said, his voice rich with a contentment that Elliott had never heard in Einstein’s tone before.
No surprise, really. Zeke had confessed his longing to settle down awhile back, when he and Elliott had become friends. They’d had Yankees season tickets near each other and had then joined the same recreational softball team. But the very idea of settling anywhere with anyone made Elliott’s teeth itch.
Zeke covered the phone, muffling his words but not the woman’s laugh. Okay, it didn’t sound exactly like hell to be that happy, but the same woman forever? That was not easy enough for Elliott Becker. That was downright...difficult.