Iris didn’t know how she had gone from standing in front of a shop window only a few moments ago to being sent on an errand up into the north forty to meet a man she’d never even heard of.
“Rose, I don’t know…”
“It might be worth it,” Rose said. “And you won’t know unless you try.”
Her sister had a point. And as this sort of thing went, it was better than being with a guy who didn’t excite her. She had been offended before when she’d thought Rose had imagined that she couldn’t handle a fantasy more compelling than Elliott.
At least this felt like the start of something exciting.
* * *
GRIFFIN CHANCE WAS impossible to get a hold of, it turned out. Or maybe it was just that he declined to be gotten a hold of. Iris couldn’t be sure. But in the days since she had discovered he was the owner of the property that she was interested in renting, she had left messages on two different phone lines, both with robot voices that had given her no indication of what the man himself actually sounded like, and had written two emails.
So it couldn’t be said she hadn’t tried to warn him.
But Iris had spent the last several years of her life in a place of absolute stagnation, and she was over it. Absolutely and completely. That meant that she wasn’t accepting no response for an answer. You would think that the man would get back to her. After all, she had matters to discuss with him. Well, she was trying to finagle a way to get lower rent. And maybe he sensed that. Maybe that was why he wasn’t getting in touch with her personally. But she had a plan, a plan that involved a about two dozen cookies.
Shortly, Mr. Chance would see that what she was proposing was going to be so profitable that in the end he would benefit.
If there was one thing Iris knew about herself, it was that she was a fantastic baker. She didn’t have a whole lot in the way of self-esteem. But what she had was pretty solid. And that was how she found herself driving her sister’s truck up the back roads toward Griffin Chance’s house.
She hoped that he was home. But if not, she would leave everything behind with a detailed note and go from there. The important thing was that he try her food. It was very, very important. Much to her chagrin, the road narrowed, and turned to gravel long before her phone said she was set to arrive at his house. And then there was… There was a damn log in the middle of the road, not five hundred feet from where she was supposed to turn to get up the drive to his house.
She parked her truck and sat there, looking around. She didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do. This is it. This is the first challenge. You can either fall down, or you can keep going.
Keep going.
She was not going to be thwarted now over something this stupid.
She got out of the truck, her plate of cookies and her just-in-case note in hand. She pocketed the truck keys, locked everything behind her and marched right over the tree, carrying on up the road.
“If there are any cougars out there,” she said. “Do not eat me.”
She was not about to die a thirty-one-year-old virgin with no career.
Whose one and only attempt at dating had resulted in facing the truth that things were as she’d often feared.
Given the option, a man would choose her younger sister over her.
As much as that bothered her, of the two, currently the business situation bothered her the most. Because it was the one she felt motivated to fix.
The other… Well, she’d lived this long with it. It wasn’t going to hurt her if it stayed. Anyway. She had a feeling that her biggest problem was the fact that she didn’t do much of anything. This business was the start of that. The start of the change. Shoving all thoughts of her virginity to the side, she continued on up the narrow road. She tightened her hands on the plate. It was beautiful out here, but a touch eerie.
The trees were tall and green, and it was impossible to see too deeply into the woods, because the plants were so dense. It was wild out here. And for being so near to town, it felt wholly removed.
She took a left from the gravel road, onto an even narrower, more harrowing road. It was a hike up toward his house. Whatever vehicle the man drove, it had to have tires that were bigger than the truck she’d come in. She muttered as she hiked up the trail. And then she saw it. It was not a grand custom home. It was a little cabin, dilapidated and run-down.
“This is ridiculous,” she said. “There’s no way he even actually lives here.”
And if he did, there was something wrong with him. He was like a full-on ax murderer or something.
She shoved that thought to the side. At least she had told Rose where she was going today. And her other sister was the police chief. So, Rose would tell Pansy, and Pansy would come up guns blazing if Iris were gone for too long. So, there was that.
“That would figure,” she thought. “I try to do something out of my comfort zone, and I walked myself into a horror movie.”
Yeah. It was just a little bit too on the nose.
But she was determined, and she wasn’t going to back down now. Stealing herself, she picked her way over the uneven ground and walked up the porch, nearly losing her balance on a loose board. The place was an absolute dive.
The wood was old, and part of it was covered in moss. The siding was split, and the porch… Well, she was afraid she was going to fall right through it.
She took a breath, and knocked on the door. And waited.
“This was stupid,” she muttered under her breath. There was no way anyone was actually here. There was no way anyone could actually… Live here.
But then, she heard footsteps. And she waited.
The door jerked open, and her heart tried to take a hard fast beat through the front of her chest. Because standing in the doorway was the biggest man she’d ever seen. Tall and broad, a black cowboy hat resting low on his head.
His eyes were wild, intense. If she’d hoped to find a welcome there, she could see she wouldn’t. He had a full, dark beard, and tattoos running up his massive forearms.
He said nothing. He only stared her down, the glint in his blue eyes so hard it made her feel like she was pinned to the spot.
But she had left her truck halfway down the mountain, trapped behind a fallen tree. She had hiked up this narrow road… And no amount of glaring was going to deter her from her mission.
“Griffin Chance? I brought you some cookies.”
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ISBN-13: 9781488070655
Fake Engagement, Nashville Style
Copyright © 2021 by Jules Bennett
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