Conflict of Interest (The Walker Five Book 1)

by Marie Johnston

  The screen showed it was Dillon.

  She shut the water off and stared at it. Part of her wanted desperately to hear his voice, wished he had a vehicle so he could rush over and pleasure the anxiety out of her. The other part didn’t want to deal with the dilemma the farm boy presented. He hadn’t drunk any alcohol around her, but what if he did? What then? Could she walk after their time together? Probably not if he had a beer, maybe two. If he over imbibed she would be stuck with a major decision.

  Her phone when silent. Then started up again. He must be getting worried. She answered.

  “Did everything go okay?”

  No. And he sounded too good to her ears and frazzled nerves. “Yeah, I just had to shovel out before I could get into the house.”

  “No one did it for you?” His tone was indignant.

  “Nope, the whole block was cleared but my house. ’S okay. I got it.”

  “It’s not okay. I should’ve called in a favor.”

  And announce to the community that they were a thing? She wasn’t ready. “It’s fine. I was just going to take a bath. Talk to you later?” Did that sound like a brush off?

  From his silence, yes, it did.

  “When can I see you again, Elle?”

  She didn’t mean to not say anything, but she didn’t have an answer. The time with her dad reconstructed the dam around her emotions, stirred all the doubts she’d temporarily shelved. She knew the road her dad’s behavior led to, had spent another evening humoring his blubbering over his perceived unfair treatment.

  She’d experienced it all before, didn’t want to again, but had mentally prepared for the possibility with her dad. Doing any of this with Dillon was out of the question. She’d promised herself not to allow any addiction into her private life beyond what her dad presented her with.

  “Tell you what,” he filled in, sounding falsely chipper. “Once I get a new pick-up, I’ll take you on a date, nice and proper.”

  She chose an answer that would put off her Dillon dilemma and allow her to sink into her bath and forget the world. “Sure.”

  “You’ll be the first one allowed into my new ride.”

  She couldn’t fight her grin. Giddiness floated through her at the teenage idea she’d get exclusive access to the hot farm boy’s new wheels. “Deal.”

  When he disconnected, she put her phone on vibrate and tossed it into the hallway so nothing would lure her out of bubbly heaven. With a sigh, she sunk into her bath, missing Dillon terribly, and scared that’d be the story of her life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So, we heading to the Ford dealership?”

  Dillon scowled at Brock as he drove into town. “Fuck you. You know I like quality.”

  Buying a new truck took his mind off his last conversation with Elle and the growing distance between them that had nothing to do with mileage. It was Monday and he hadn’t talked to her since he’d called her Friday after she’d gotten home.

  “You like showmanship.”

  Dillon snorted in disagreement. “I like not having to Fix-Or-Repair-Daily.”

  They continued their Chevy versus Ford argument all the way to the Chevy dealership. His crashed truck had made the news, but his name had been omitted.

  “Hey Dillon, thought I might be seeing you.” Sam Johnson swaggered over to them. “Sorry to hear about what happened.”

  Ah, small town living.

  “Thanks, Sam.”

  All the dealerships thought the Walkers farmed money trees and people like Sam sought to make a buck off them. Dillon’s dad had always said, You can’t save what you spend.

  Sam followed him around the car lot while he looked at the pickups in stock. With every pickup, he got the full run-down and history. Of course, Sam tried to steer him to the brand-spanking new black beauty with all the latest bells and whistles, including the fancy wheel wells that flared out. If Dillon was seventeen, he’d be all over a truck that screamed, Look at me, I got a truck the size of my balls! The fifty-five-grand price tag that would drop a good twenty thousand once he drove it off the lot was a big no-deal.

  Moore was a small town, but big enough to have a decent variety of vehicles and never a shortage of trucks because it was inhabited by farmers and ranchers. Each dealership made sure to get in a good selection of new and used trucks, but no way in hell was Farmer A going to buy the castoffs of Farmer B. It was just how it worked.

  “Tell me about the used red one here.” Dillon had looked up the Blue Book value of his destroyed vehicle and calculated how much insurance payout he should get. Going into debt over a perfectly good truck some asshole had destroyed was something Dillon was unwilling to do.

  Using funds to buy a flashy vehicle was irresponsible and that was Cash’s area.

  “Well that one’s a couple of years old,” Sam said, like it was a bad thing.

  In Dillon’s mind, it meant it knocked a few thousand off the price and probably came with some extra features. Sam rattled off the details and Dillon worked numbers in his head. To get the same quality pickup and keep from spending thousands of dollars—and answering to Aaron—he’d have to talk Sam down quite a bit on the price.

  “I want to try out this one, the used blue one on the end, and the black one next to it.”

  “You got it, Dillon. I’ll be right back.” Sam scurried off to grab the keys.

  “Coming with?” Dillon asked Brock. He’d promised Elle she’d get the first ride, but technically, he hadn’t bought it yet.

  “Might as well if I’m going to be fixing it,” Brock grumbled, but he didn’t mind. The dude in both of them always liked driving new vehicles. Sam came out and tossed them the keys for the red one. “Grab me when you get back and I’ll get you set up in the blue one.”

  Dillon took the standard route for test driving. He drove through town, hit some dirt roads, and took it out on the highway. The exact same route his dad had taken with every vehicle he’d ever purchased. He was pretty sure this was the one he’d go with, but wasn’t impulsive enough to buy it without trying a couple of others first. Another dad lesson.

  “Elle get home okay?” Brock asked.

  Dillon couldn’t avoid the topic with his cousins forever. They all pressed into his personal business, but he never indulged much. He watched out for them, not the other way around.

  “I wish you hadn’t dragged her into it.” But then Elle wouldn’t have been his for days.

  A hint of memory of what went on between them threatened to make him hard. Bad timing.

  “You know I had to,” Brock grumbled. “We couldn’t be saddled with that liability.”

  “Well, she got home okay.”

  “When?”

  Dillon aimed the pickup to head back to town. “Friday.”

  Brock gave him the side-eye and whistled. “Nice. She’s cute.”

  She’s sexy as hell. “Yeah.”

  “Something going on between you two?”

  It was tempting to say no, keep Elle his little secret in case she cut and run, but he found himself saying, “Trying like hell.”

  Brock smirked. “Good. You gotta work for it.”

  “Since when have you ever had to work for it?” Brock might be more concerned about what’s under the hood of a GTO than between a girl’s legs, but that didn’t stop girls from flocking to him.

  “Finding love for more than one night isn’t easy. No one wants forever with a gearhead.”

  Dillon glanced at his cousin. In no way would he have thought Brock nursed a lonely heart. Again, the sense of distance between him and his cousins nagged him. In high school, they’d always approached him for advice. Nowadays, not so much.

  “The right one’s out there for you. You might have to convince her like I need to do with Elle.”

  “That serious, huh?”

  “On my end, yes. On hers? I’m working on it.”

  “Women,” Brock snorted.

  “Exactly.”

  They test drove the other tw
o trucks but Dillon’s intuition had been right. The red one was the best deal and drove real nice. With the paperwork done, he wrote a check. It hurt, writing one for that much but once the insurance money came in he could pay three-quarters of it back. If they ever found out who wrecked his other truck, he’d make sure he got the rest. Legally, of course.

  After Dillon was handed the keys, Brock left, muttering about being behind on his work. Dillon drove his new ride straight to the nursing home to visit Gram.

  “There’s my lady,” he greeted, strolling in.

  “Oh, Dillon, what a surprise.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t make it yesterday.”

  Her shrewd gaze pinned him. “Well, when you don’t have a set of wheels, it’s hard to get to town.”

  Ducking his head, he grinned at her. “Heard about that, didya?”

  Gram chuckled. “A nursing home concentrates the gossip of a small town. Which means, I also heard of the vandalism.”

  Dillon met her weary blue gaze. “Sorry I didn’t tell you at first Gram. I just didn’t want to worry you and we didn’t have much information.”

  “Tsk, tsk, Dillon. Shouldering the weight of the world again. It gets pretty heavy.” She sighed and leaned back in her rocking chair. “I’m old, but I’m a farm wife. I can take a lot.”

  Gram was the toughest woman he’d ever met, outmatching all of the hard-asses in the Army he’d come across.

  “We don’t know who’s behind it, or why.”

  She aimed a thousand yard stare out the window. “History likes to repeat itself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gram snapped her gaze toward him. “People always messing with stuff that’s not theirs. Never changes no matter what year it is.”

  Dillon narrowed his eyes at her. Either she was smoothly steering the conversation where she wanted it, like Sam the salesman, or she was losing her mind. Each week, she said something that just wasn’t his sharp-minded Gram.

  “Since you’re here now, you must have a new pickup. Tell me about it.”

  He’d keep an eye on her, maybe ask the others if they experienced anything similar.

  ***

  Since his time with Elle revealed how pathetic his food supply was, Dillon pushed a wobbly cart through Better Grocers. He was a grown man and shouldn’t be living off his mama’s cooking. She was a damn good cook, though. He also suspected that as long as his future wife didn’t mind, his mama would continue to supply them with a month’s worth of food.

  Future wife.

  Was it too early to get that serious about Elle? Because he totally could. She was more than he’d ever found in a woman. Intelligent, driven, sweet, and tenacious in bed.

  His shop, against his workbench. Groaning, he buried the thought in the recesses of his mind until he was home, in the shower.

  Turning down the cereal aisle, he almost ran into another cart. He looked up to apologize and found himself staring into a beautiful pair of surprised green eyes.

  “Hey,” he smiled. He’d get groceries more often if he could run into Elle each time.

  “Dillon!” She backed her cart up and he pulled his beside hers. She peeked inside. “Replenishing?’

  “Is it replenishing if there was nothing there in the first place?” He gave her cart a once over, noting leafy greens, red apples, and bananas. “Looks like I forgot a whole department.

  “It’s called produce and it’s at the end of the store. You should check it out sometime,” she teased.

  “I’d do that if I had someone who knew their way around it. Know anyone?”

  She chuckled. “What are you doing in town? Did you get a new vehicle?”

  “Purdy little red thing sitting out in the lot.” He seized the opportunity. “I’m starving. Let’s pick something up to eat at your place and then I’ll take you for a spin.”

  Good thing he wasn’t a betting man, because if he’d wagered that she’d say yes, he’d be awfully worried about losing all his money. She was chewing on her bottom lip, her gaze avoiding his, eyeing her groceries instead.

  “We can call it that date you promised me,” he urged.

  Elle relaxed a little, the idea actually seemed to please her. “Can you assemble ingredients, or do we need to buy it fully prepared to throw in an oven?”

  “I made a perfectly fine grilled cheese, if I do remember.”

  The way she beamed up at him through her lashes…he could get used to seeing that for forever.

  “How about spaghetti?” she offered.

  “Let’s get shopping.”

  ***

  A task as mundane as grocery shopping transformed into a fun event with Dillon, once she left her self-consciousness in the cereal aisle.

  He cracked jokes all the way through the store and stopped to chat with every old farmer they crossed. It was like they all belonged to a secret club, spoke their own language, their grimy trucker hats serving as an ID badge.

  She stuffed down the worry that she and Dillon would be the talk of the town. Worst case scenario: the old farmers would peg her as the new counselor. She had her own cart, filled with her own groceries, and was meandering through the place next to Dillon. Maybe they’d think they were seeing each other, maybe not. Elle couldn’t let the what-ifs run—or ruin—her night.

  He followed her home and swore his groceries would be fine in the bed of his truck since the evenings this time of year dropped to much cooler temps. “Mobile refrigeration.”

  Over dinner, she’d asked him why he was in town so late.

  “Grandma Agnes. I missed my Sunday showing and had to make it up.”

  “Had to?”

  “Can’t miss a week with Grandma. Just ain’t right. Today was a nice treat. The fields need more drying time, giving me a day to just run errands.”

  Twirling her spaghetti onto her fork, wistful thoughts filled her head. She’d love to be excited about visiting her dad. Instead it was a duty, the parent/child roles had reversed years earlier. His attitude toward a decline in pain meds taxed her tolerance, so she’d taken a couple of days off from visiting him, making a quick check-in call once a day.

  He tapped her nose.

  She jerked back. “What was that for?”

  “You were getting lost in that pretty little head of yours.”

  He seemed to know when she’d retreated into her anxiety. The night was such a lovely change of plans from doing nothing that she didn’t want to dive into her latest daddy issues.

  “Wanna ride before the sun sets?” he asked with a boyish grin.

  A smile of relief curved her mouth. “Sounds divine.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her outside.

  When she stepped into the pickup, he assisted her with a hand on her waist.

  She’d missed him. Her body missed him, her eyes couldn’t soak him in enough. Two days had felt like two weeks.

  Tomorrow she planned to remedy her quiet evenings by taking the advice she’d dished out to many clients. Being settled into her house and job, her dad nestled in the nursing home, opened up time for much needed workouts.

  But this was so much better.

  His new pickup was more than nice. While it had to cost three times more than any car she’d ever bought, which was two total, it wasn’t the newest thing on the market. Her time at his farm taught her that their possessions might be quality, but they were functional and well cared for, like the equipment in his shop. The red pickup probably transformed like Optimus Prime into some other farm equipment. Examining the spacious cab, she thought it could double as an RV.

  “Do you fish?”

  She’d been so lost in thought, she wondered if she’d missed an entire hunk of conversation. “Nooo?”

  “You grew up in the land of ten thousand lakes, but never went fishing?”

  “I still grew up a city girl, fishing was not on my radar. Ironic, since I spent so much time in the water.”

  “Tonight, you get the tour of the main fishi
ng area for Moore, but when the roads clear up, I’ll show you the Walkers’ private fishing hole.”

  Her interest perked up at the mention of a body of water on their property. “Do you only fish there or can you swim at all?”

  “Oh, there’s been plenty of times the boys, and rumor has it, Cash’s little sister, have been in that water, but I don’t think swimming was their intention.” At her raised eyebrow, he explained with a wicked grin. “They’d take their dates there, you know, for a swim with no clothes.”

  Laughing with Dillon never grew old. “I can’t say we never had those stories on the swim decks, but I think that’s all they were. I’m not so sure with your family.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Yes. I worked so hard on the swim team, and then my degree was done and I haven’t stepped into a pool since.” The idea of swimming laps for an hour equated ultimate boredom to many, but swimming was meditation for Elle. “Does Moore even have an indoor pool?”

  “Other than the two hotels in town that have small ones? Not yet, but last year the town voted in a new family gym facility.”

  “When are they going to build the place?” Resting her head back, watching scenery go by, she made a mental note to check on the details. Like how much a membership cost.

  “I think they broke ground already. I didn’t pay much attention cuz I wasn’t seeing a sexy swimmer at the time. You probably hadn’t moved here yet when the excitement was swirling around town.” He turned onto a small two-lane highway. “Lake Osborne is the largest lake in the county. This highway goes right through it, so there’s shore fishin’ and a boat ramp off both sides.”

  Four miles later, he pulled into one of the lots around the boating ramp.

  “I’m surprised it’s empty. But I guess it’s getting late, and it’s a Monday night.” Swinging around like he was going to drive out, he stopped and threw the truck in park. “Want to get out and walk around? Get up an up-close view of Lake Osborne? We missed the sunset, but I can leave the headlights on for us.”