Sweet Texas Charm Read Free Page A

rightfully belonged to him, he needed to act like he already had them.
    “So, please tell me why I’m here for a mandatory meeting this early in the morning?” Gavin strolled in with a white box in one hand and a leash attached to his black lab, Merle, in the other. As the town’s popular veterinarian, Gavin always took Merle to work with him. The black lab was quite the celebrity around Sweet Ridge and was known for sporting a wide variety of bandannas.
    “I see he’s wearing the Guac Olé uniform.” Grayson grinned and bent down to pet the happy canine, gently tugging the green bandanna with small avocados all over it.
    “He was a big hit this morning at the diner. Betty Lou filled him with dog treats.” Gavin glanced up at their father’s portrait. “Howdy, Dad. Can you haunt Grayson’s dreams and tell him never to call a shareholders’ meeting this early?”
    “Whatever. By now, Dad would have been on his third cup of coffee while waiting for you boneheads, and you know it.” Their dad had, indeed, been an early worm throughout most of his career. “What’s in the box?”
    Gavin sat down, opened the lid, and pulled out a salted caramel glazed donut, handing it to Grayson on a light blue napkin. “Betty Lou says these are Becca’s favorite.”
    “So?” Grayson passed on the donut that his washboard abs didn’t need. “Why should I care?”
    “No reason.” Gavin set the donut back in the box, his smirk a dead giveaway. Grayson knew exactly what his big brother was thinking because, for the last two months, the entire town had been giving him the same look.
    Both Gavin and Gage had fallen in love with the women whom their dad had willed away their inheritances to. Gavin and Macy were now shacked up in the Cooper homestead, and Gage was already married to Charlotte, for Christ’s sake. The gossip train had left the tracks full steam ahead for the Guac Olé plant, with the juicy news that Becca and Grayson were next.
    Well, if his dad was watching from up above, he’d have to be satisfied with his matchmaking for two out of three sons, because dating that factory worker wasn’t going to happen. Even if he had time for more than an occasional fling when he had an itch, he liked to think he could find a woman he’d have more in common with than one who peeled avocados.
    He realized how hypocritical that thought was since those avocados were his livelihood, but he was 100 percent certain Becca Nash was not the woman for him.
    “Okay, let’s get this meeting started. Gage’s butt better be in his computer chair.” Grayson turned on the flat-screen television mounted on the wall, and with a few quick keystrokes, Skyped in his younger brother.
    Within minutes, a disheveled Gage appeared on screen wearing a white T-shirt. “This better be good.” He rubbed his eyes and cracked his neck. “I mean, good morning.”
    “I’m sorry to wake you,” Grayson said unapologetically, reaching for his coffee and taking a sip while Gavin made himself comfortable next to him, attacking one of the donuts. “So, I’ll get right to it. I wanted us to meet because I’d like to move forward with my plans to begin pushing our dip into restaurants.”
    “This is what I got up early for?” Gage asked, leaning closer to his screen while whispering, “You do realize I have a naked woman in my bed.”
    “And you can go back to your wife when we’re done.” This time he’d use his brothers’ lack of focus to his advantage to get what he wanted. “I know it’s little interest to you both, but we’ve got a real opportunity here. In addition to grocery stores, we should be in every Tex-Mex restaurant and not just south of the Mason-Dixon line. We need to be everywhere. The West Coast, the East Coast, hell, the Great Plains.”
    He rose from his seat and began to pace. “Over the history of this company, we’ve concentrated most of our effort on supermarkets, which has been great and what we needed to do to