“Did you get what you needed?” I whispered when I came back, leaning very close to Meredith’s ear as she took a picture over the winding staircase. She jumped slightly in surprise, and then shot me a fierce look.

I enjoyed the moment to breathe her in. She had changed a lot since I last seen her, and I was having a hard time not staring down her low-cut shirt.

“Well, all except that one, which will be blurry now.” She wrinkled her nose in what seemed like an unconscious gesture. It was cute.

Clearly, she was annoyed for actually losing her picture but still smiling, and it took all my strength not to laugh. I forgotten how fun it was to tease her. As kids, I did it purely to piss her off, but now I couldn’t help the satisfaction I was getting in my nether regions every time I threw her off her kilter.

“I’m sure it’s not too bad. Eyes like yours are probably pretty good at finding anything with beauty.”

Her pale skin turned the faintest shade of pink and she looked away from my gaze. I might have taken it too far on that one. I was used to charming women but I was a little out of my comfort zone when I found myself doing it with Meredith.

I coughed lightly and changed the subject. “What can I fix you to eat?” I was going for a bored tone, as if she appeared in my kitchen every day of the week.

“Oh nothing, I’ve got a long drive back when we’re done here. I’ll stop and grab something along the way.”

“Don’t be silly, now. My mama’d kill me if I let someone stop by and sent them on their way empty-bellied. I’m fixing us some steaks.” I pulled the ingredients for a steak dinner and salad out of the fridge while Meredith peppered me with questions. When she finally stopped, things got personal.

“Speaking of your mama, how is she doing?”

“She’s good, but just couldn’t stay out here after Dad passed away. The twins both went to school over in Dallas, and she got a little house closer to them.”

“Doesn’t that make it hard to come to visit you here?” she asked. I could tell she was treading carefully so her questions didn’t come across as too forward, but my mom had been like extended family to her while Meredith was growing up. She must have felt she had a right to know how Mama was getting along.

“She heads out here a few times a year, and I just send the helicopter to fetch her,” I answered, nodding my head towards the window where a shiny, luxury vehicle sat waiting in a paved clearing. “Mostly, I fly up to see her though. There are a lot of memories buried around this place. Dad finally passed away in their room upstairs, but that was his wish after the cancer got too bad. And of course, Mama and Dad were already living out here on the ranch when his parents both died. There’s just a lot of hurt wrapped up in one old house, and it can be too much for some people.”

“That’s true. But wait, I’m sorry—I’m still hung up on the helicopter! You have your own helicopter?” Meredith asked with a laugh. I nodded like it was no big deal, but finally even I had to crack a smile.

“Now don’t go thinking I’ve turned into some tycoon. I swear, it’s just a business thing, and it comes in handy with the cows. You know how it is out here, isolated from everything. Now, the jet, the four-wheelers, and the RV… those are just ’cause I like to travel in style.”

Meredith’s laugh was the most amazing, friendly sound, like something right out of my childhood.

“You know, you’re still exactly the same. My big brother’s obnoxious friend. After hearing you made yourself into something so big, I didn’t expect you would still be the same.” She cleared her throat and a slight blush appeared again in her pale cheeks. “I’m sorry, that sounded rude, I really did mean for the article.”

“Oh yeah, the article. I kinda forgot about that. Well, lemme see…” I began, looking intently at the countertop grill where the steaks were almost done. “You know that I inherited the ranch and the house, that part’s no secret. And my dad left us in good enough shape, nothing outrageous… We’re not rolling in money, but not struggling, either. He was a smart man, and a hard worker, but a little too conservative with his risks.”

Meredith looked at me with the strangest mix of rapt attention and friendly catching up while I explained about my eco-land use designs and products, all aimed at helping farmers continue to do what they’d done for generations while ensuring that the land could support it for decades to come.

“So, I built my designs, bought more than a few patents, sold some of those patents to corporations that could implement them on a bigger scale, and the rest is history.” I chopped vegetables into an oversized bowl of lettuce while I talked, watching Meredith out of the corner of my eye as she scribbled furiously in her notebook. “There’s oil on the property, and Dad was smart about not letting the oil giants drill for it. There’s just too much risk in the way things have always been done. When I inherited and took over, of course the oil vultures descended… heck, I don’t think Dad had been in the ground a week before one of them was out here knocking on the door, wanting to negotiate a lease to get their hands on that oil.”

Meredith waited, watching me. I could tell what she was thinking: she was wondering how her interview about a house and environmentally friendly ranching had turned into a heartbreaking trip down memory lane. I smiled to reassure her a little, and cleared my throat.

“Anyway, the land they wanted to access was at the back of the property, and I got them to agree to a whole lot of measures to protect it. Some of the negotiating was tough since they didn’t want to spend a dime more over what the government regulations required of them, but I told them that was the only way they were getting close enough to my land to even smell oil, let alone drill for it.”

“That’s incredible,” she finally acknowledged, eyeing me with a new appreciation. “From country boy to soldier boy to tech giant, all in just a few years.”

“You make it sound like I invented the iPhone or something. It wasn’t like that. I just saw a need, and found a better way to do a few things. The rest just happened naturally.”

“And so modest, too,” Meredith answered with a smirk.

“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes and blowing off her comment.

“I just mean success looks good on you,” she said, giving me a look over the rim of the wine glass that I’d managed to slide in front of her while I told my story.

“That’s funny,” I said, leaning my forearms on the bar separating us. “I was just thinking of something else that might look good on me.”

I turned back to dishing out salads onto our plates, and now it was my turn to get a little red-faced. What the hell had I just said? And to my best friend’s little sister, no less?

Meredith immediately choked on a sip of wine, and her eyes watered with the effort of trying not to throw an all-out coughing fit. I handed her a napkin, and quickly changed the subject.

“How do you like your steak?”