Page 88 of Hometown Hottie

“What else did you envision in your future here?” Tell me, Nova. Please don’t shut down on me now.

Her tongue came out to wet her lips as she thought about it. “Dad would never go for it, but I’d really like to open an event venue. We could open a Christmas tree farm, hold weddings and parties, and even have an inn or a bed and breakfast. We don’t have to rely wholly on cattle, but I want to revamp the way we go about selling even that. I told you about the subscription boxes, and I have so many other ideas. It’s just that Dad doesn’t want to let go of times that are long gone, even if I know we could make it work.”

As she described it, I finally saw the whole picture the way she did, the thriving ranch with so many different businesses all booming under her management. “That’s exactly what your family needs to do, I think. Diversification is the only way to go these days. Where is Ryan in all of this?”

“He hates change,” she said, and with those words, I finally understood why my friend had been having such a hard time.

Ryan hadn’t wanted things to change after high school. He had to stay home to help his family, but he also chose not to go away to college. He even turned down that scholarship and watched us move on without him. All so things wouldn’t change, and now, he didn’t want his friendship with me to change if Nova and I got together.

All of these things were suddenly so obvious that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t ever thought about it that way before. As much as he wanted to save the ranch, he also just didn’t want things to change, and if they had to, it had to be his way or the highway.

Expand the farming operations—or go big and find a new home. I grunted at the force of all these realizations as they hit, and my eyes flew wide open. Nova seemed amused, smiling even as a sense of sadness clung to her.

“Why does it feel like you just had an epiphany?” she asked.

“Because I did,” I admitted, feeling like she’d just yanked a sheet of thick wool away from my eyes. “Can it really be that simple? He just hates change.”

She shrugged. “That doesn’t mean that he’s not capable of it. He’d just rather things change as little as possible.”

“So then how is he taking it so easily that your parents might sell the whole ranch?”

“You think he’s taking it easily?” She snorted as she tried to hold back her laughter. “He’s not, Carson. He’s a wreck. I don’t think he’s stopped working long enough to sleep for even an hour all week and I know he’ll support me in whatever business I want to start here, but that doesn’t mean he wants the same things.”

“He’s told me that he’s got a lot of ideas for the place himself, though.”

She nodded. “Even Ryan knows that something has to give. In a way, he’s exactly like Dad. Ryan just isn’t stuck in the same past Dad is. He wants to move forward, modernize, expand, and diversify, but not quite as radically as I’d like to do.”

My heart tripped over itself, but for once, I wasn’t going to let Ryan stand in my way with all this. “Well, I think that you’re right. I think everything as you envision it is exactly what you need, and I want to invest in your business ideas. I’ll support you all the way and I don’t care what it costs. Just put a plan together and I’ll start pulling strings.”

“Are you serious?” she asked. “You can’t be. I mean, I know we’ve been talking about you buying the ranch and that was what I wanted to talk to you about today, but⁠—”

“I’m dead serious, Nova. This is a much better plan than me just buying a part of your property. It’s an actual business investment, which I’ve made a lot of at this point. If you can put these ideas on paper and follow through, then I really think it’ll work.”

Her eyes moved from one of mine to the other, but I could see she was trying not to get excited just yet. “You know, I promised myself I was going to step up and talk to you about saving the ranch, which this would do, but now I’d like to know something else.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“Would you still have thought that my ideas are good if you didn’t want to get into my pants?” she asked, completely deadpan.

I laughed and reached for her hands again. “Contrary to what everyone around here seems to believe, I know the difference between good business and romance, and I don’t confuse the two with one another.”

“You don’t?” she asked softly. “You seem to be doing just that right now.”

I stroked my thumbs across her knuckles, my gaze drinking in the vulnerability in her eyes and the hope as she stared back at me. “I would’ve wanted to do this for you either way, and I really want to help your family, but what you just described is exactly what I’ve found successful ranchers these days are doing. I’ve been looking into it for weeks and all my research has pointed to using the property for different things.”

“Diversification,” she said slowly. “That’s the only way to go these days, huh?”

“Yep.” I smiled and released one of her hands to brush a lock of wet hair behind her ear. “You’ve already proven that you’re a great businesswoman, Nova. You have a knack for it, and if you can start all these, with the help you need on a property you love, I know you’ll make a success of it. I’d be stupid not to want in on that. It’d just be an added bonus that it will also give me an excuse to speak to you more often.”

“Is this supposed to be romance or business?” she joked breathlessly. “It sounds like a bit of both to me.”

“Well, maybe I was wrong about not combining them,” I murmured as she wrapped her arms around my neck.

Nova beamed at me before bringing her mouth right to mine. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Before she could do it, I did, kissing her and pushing her back down on the sofa. Mom had warned me not to get distracted while we were talking, but we’d talked.

Nova seemed okay with me giving her the money she needed for business ideas that I honestly believed would work, and that meant we had a plan to save the ranch and to stay together while we were at it. Just this morning, I hadn’t been sure if either of those things were possible, but now, it felt like a whole new world of possibility had opened up to us.

One in which Nova and I changed the entire town for the better, created dozens of new jobs, and brought in people from all over to stay, to attend functions, and hopefully, to support the local people. I grinned against her lips as I pulled back a little bit.

“If we’re going into business together, does that mean you’re finally going to take me up on posing for the videos for the subscription boxes?”

“I don’t know,” she teased, her voice breathy as she pushed her hands under my shirt. “I think I’m going to need to inspect the merchandise. Thoroughly.”

“Inspect away,” I groaned as I let her sit me up and climb into my lap. “Inspect as much as you want. I’m all yours anyway.”

Nova smiled and repeated my words from earlier right back to me, making both my heart and my cock swell like they never had before. “I like the sound of that. I really, really like the sound of that. As long as you know that I’m all yours too, Carson. That still hasn’t changed and it’s not going to.”