Hot Property (3 page)

Betsy situated herself in the truck that in
its present condition appeared way overdue the cruncher at the
local junk yard.

“I took my driving test in old Betsy here,”
Skylar said as he swung his long legs in under the steering
wheel.

Betsy wasn’t sure she heard him right. “You
named your truck Betsy?”

He snickered when he looked her way. “Don’t
be offended. I named this old girl long before I heard of Betsy
Alexander.”

He turned the key and the engine rebelled
with a loud backfire that overpowered Betsy’s words. “Who said I
was offended?” It was just as well he didn’t hear, she decided and
changed the subject. “So where is this land anyway?”

“Not far,” was all he told her and focused
on the street. A smile played around his mouth like he was enjoying
the thought of surprising her.

When he turned off the main street of town
she was indeed surprised. The turnoff led them in the direction of
her favorite country road. And as they rounded the final curve
nearly bouncing out of their seats after hitting a pot hole, the
panic set in.

“The land you bought is on this road?”

“Just up ahead. Not too far from the
conveniences of town. Yet it’s well secluded from all the hustle
and bustle. Something I’ve found appeals to a lot of my home
buyers.”

Betsy stopped listening to him.

Maybe it wasn’t her land he’d purchased.
There could’ve been another tract further north she wasn’t aware
was for sale. She could’ve missed the ‘for sale’ my owner sign on
one of her scouting trips. Betsy secured a number of listings that
way. She prided herself in giving a convincing sales pitch on the
benefits of having a Realtor to property owners who were trying to
sell themselves.

She’d steered clear of the owner of the land
she planned for her dream house. She had no desire to list the
property and advertise it for sale. But thoughts of hiding the ‘for
sale’ sign had crossed her mind more than once. It would help
prevent a sale and buy her more time to secure the financing she
needed to approach the land owner with an offer.

The entire time she’d rode home last night
she searched for the answer to what had happened to the ‘for sale’
sign on the land. The sign had been stolen by some prankster
teenagers and placed on another piece of land that wasn’t for sale.
The owner had changed his mind about selling right now. She refused
to even consider the possibility the land had been sold.

Now, even as the truck coasted to a stop at
the same place she’d stopped on her motorcycle numerous times,
Betsy refused to believe the inevitable.

“This is it,” Skylar announced and stepped
out of old Betsy. Even after he came around the front of the truck
and opened her door, Betsy didn’t budge from her seat. “Aren’t you
going to get out and have a look?”

A long moment of silence passed before Betsy
slowly shifted in her seat and stepped down. She moved zombie-like
as she followed the path he was making through the weeds.

“My first house is going on the center of
that hill,” Skylar told her, stopping a few feet into the stretch
of flat land and pointing toward the top of the hill.

Betsy saw, almost felt his excitement. But
the pain from her sudden loss of what she’d dreamed about being
hers was too overwhelming to allow even a trickle of excitement to
shine through.

“Are you okay, Betsy? Do you want to go sit
down or something?”

The tenderness and concern in his voice
forced her to answer. “I’ll be fine. I just had a moment of
lightheadedness. Go ahead and continue with what you were
saying.”

He hesitated a long time. His eyes moved
over her in an examining way like he needed to make certain she was
okay for himself. Finally, he turned his head away so he was once
again staring at that magical peak of the hill.

“The one on the very top will be the largest
and of course most expensive of the twenty I plan to build down the
hillside.”

He was on the move again and Betsy did her
best to keep up with him in spite of stopping every so often to
untangle weeds from her three inch heels. When he stopped again, he
didn’t speak at first. He stared off in front of him like he was in
deep thought.

“Listen,” Betsy finally said.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s my point. It seems almost a crime to
disturb such rare serenity.”

Betsy was having a difficult time trying to
decide if his eyes narrowed because he was giving her words serious
consideration. Or had she hit a raw nerve? It didn’t take long to
receive an answer.

“I don’t see providing necessary housing as
a crime, Miss Alexander.” He brushed against her as he stomped off
in the direction of his truck.

“You said you wanted my opinion,” Betsy
shouted just to be certain he heard her since he’d placed a wide
gap between them.

When she bent down to hoist her shoe out of
the ground where her heel had sunk to the sole, Betsy heard the
truck door slam. The sound of the engine turning over put more
speed in her step. She had seen a show of the man’s impatience
yesterday. And it wouldn’t surprise her if he left her
stranded.

Seeing the truck in the same spot where
they’d left it sent a wave of disappointment through her. She sort
of liked the idea of spending the day roaming the hillside. But she
was reminded her ride back to town waited by the sound of the
engine being revved.

Betsy hopped up in the cab barely getting
the door closed when he dug out and instantly began traveling at
top speed.

“Look here, Skylar Blakewood, I won’t allow
your temper and narrow mindedness to get us killed. If you can’t
drive sensibly let me out.”

Old Betsy backfired, sputtered and finally
conked out after Skylar unexpectedly slammed on the brakes.

“There, you happy now?” Without taking a
breather or giving her the opportunity to respond, he fired off
another question. “And what makes you think I’m narrow minded
anyway?”

“Are you kidding? I mention not being crazy
about polluting the area with twenty houses and you blow up.”

“I’ve changed my mind. There will be forty
of them now.”

Oh aren’t you the clever one, Betsy thought,
feeling an approaching storm of anger brewing. But for once in her
life, she was determined to be still until it passed. There was no
way she was stooping to his childish level.

“You can build fifty if you want. I mean
it’s your land. But if it was mine, that hillside would be littered
with Christmas trees.”

“You’re quite right, Miss Alexander. It’s my
land and I’ll do as I damn please with it.”

The amused grin signaling victory is what
griped Betsy the most. After he managed to get old Betsy running
again, they drove the entire distance back in total silence. But
Betsy’s emotions weren’t quiet. She wanted to scream. Cry when it
finally sunk in she had lost the precious land she’d dreamed about
owning for so long. All along ignoring the fact there were other
people out there with dreams of their own for that land. People
like Skylar Blakewood who had the money to bring those dreams to
life.

Skylar pulled up in front of Betsy’s office
building and didn’t hesitate getting out and bustling around to
open the door for her.

“So now he’s back to playing the role of
gentleman,” Betsy muttered under her breath and started to step
down. Only, the next thing she knew she was falling into his
arms.

For the briefest of moments, their eyes met.
And yet, they were able to carry on the most wonderful
conversation. Their lips were so close that Betsy could almost
taste the smoothness of his. The warm embrace lasted a short time
as well, but Betsy wouldn’t have cared if it never ended. There was
more than sparks flying deep within her. Every vital organ in her
body began going magnificently haywire.

Betsy couldn’t resist the need to blink and
the magical spell that had fallen over her ended. She quickly
pulled free of his hold. “Don’t bother asking. I’m just fine. My
heel got stuck.” She spoke in the same biting tone as she yanked
her shoe from the hole in the floorboard. She hadn’t even noticed
she’d broken off the heel as she carried her shoe and limped off
toward the building entrance.

“For supposedly being one of the wealthiest
men in Lewisburg, you’d think he could afford a decent form of
transportation,” she hissed under her breath and went inside.

The instant Betsy stumbled over the
threshold carrying her broken shoe and appearing as though she’d
just finished fighting a war, Mary gasped in alarm. “What on earth
happened to you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it now, Mary.”
Near tears, Betsy limped past her partner’s desk and climbed the
stairs to her private office.

She slipped off her intact shoe and walked
stocking-footed across the threadbare carpet to the window and
yanked shut the blind. She had no desire to be cheered up by the
bright rays of sunshine bursting inside the room.

Once she’d plopped down on her desk chair,
she committed herself to remaining firmly rooted in her seat and
sulking to her heart’s content.

Why did life have to be so complicated?
Nothing was working out the way she’d planned. She stewed for a
long while, blaming all the Stephanie Rogers and Skylar Blakewoods
of the world for ruining her dreams. It just wasn’t fair. But then,
life wasn’t fair unless you just happened to be born with a silver
spoon in your mouth like Stephanie.

When it came time to include Skylar, Betsy
found herself remembering a section of a newspaper article she’d
read about him.

Skylar Blakewood’s life was a true rag to
riches story. His childhood didn’t sound so different than hers.
Parents had divorced, his mother working two jobs so she could feed
her four children. While Skylar was still in high school, he spent
his summers working from dawn to dusk for a local contractor. After
a few years of saving nearly every penny he earned, he bought his
first piece of land, gambling on the bank giving him a construction
loan to erect a complex of condominiums. The bankers balked,
insisting there wasn’t a need for that sort of housing in the area.
But Skylar had a dream. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and
convinced the bank board to take the risk. The gamble paid off. And
now, Skylar sat on that same bank board.

Betsy sat erect in her seat, a determined
look on her heart-shaped face. Her sky blue eyes were opened wider
when she stood and headed downstairs with the intention of a brief
conversation with her partner until she saw Mary emptying a filing
cabinet.

“For Pete’s sake, Mary, what are you
doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m packing.”

“Well stop it.”

Mary dropped the handful of files into the
box on her desk and gave Betsy her undivided attention. But she did
the talking. “The bank called while you were holed up in your
office. Seems a little bird left it slip we lost our biggest
client.”

“Some little bird all right. I’m sure Steph
was chomping at the bit to tell whichever board member she was
sleeping with last night.”

“I know Stephanie wants that vacant seat on
the bank board. But I doubt she’d stoop to sleeping around to get
it.”

Betsy began unpacking the box on Mary’s
desk. “And I thought I had a tendency to be naïve.”

“Why are you unpacking that? I assumed by
the way you looked when you got back things didn’t go well with
Skylar Blakewood. And since the bank reminded me our year is up and
they need to take a look at the books--”

“Mr. Blakewood will not be taking
Stephanie’s place as our biggest client. As for the bank, I was
just about to pay them a visit.”

“And tell them what?” Mary asked and flopped
in her desk chair.

Betsy smiled slyly. “I’m not going to tell
them, Mary. I’m going to convince them it is in their best interest
to give us an extension. They want our money, not our
business.”

The telephone rang cutting short Mary’s
amused chuckle. Betsy watched her partner’s eyes brighten once she
gave her usual pleasant greeting to the caller.

“What already?” Betsy pressed the instant
Mary hung up and remained silent.

Mary finally found her voice. “Do you know
who that was?”

“Of course I don’t. Who was it?”

A gigantic smile landed on Mary’s mouth. “We
got it!” She sprang out of her seat and shouted. “Skylar
Blakewood.”

“Skylar Blakewood what?”

Mary stopped jumping up and down. “That was
his secretary on the phone. You’re supposed to bring over the
listing contract.”

Betsy believed Mary misunderstood. “He’s
contracting with us for the entire project?”

“Sounded that way. His secretary’s words,
Mr. Blakewood decided on your agency to handle his new home
development. Then she said to have Miss Alexander bring over the
contract.”

Instead of jumping for joy, Betsy stood
filled with skepticism, while her mind frantically searched for an
explanation.

Chapter Three

The industrial park area that skirted the
small community where Betsy lived had expanded over the last few
years with trucking terminals and warehouses. And now, a three
story brick office complex stood in the midst of them. One of
Skylar Blakewood’s projects Betsy had discovered. He’d reserved two
of the ground floor offices for himself and managed to lease all
the others for an incredible amount of money.

Not quite noon and the high humidity already
broke a record for the day. Betsy’s hair went flat and her slip
stuck to her as a result.

She stopped on the stoop to the main
entrance of the office building to pull the damp material down
beneath her sleeveless dress. But fixing her slip wasn’t the only
reason she hesitated outside the glass double doors.