* * *
HOME SUCKED.
This was not what Clay had in mind when he’d moved to Wrangler’s Creek. He’d come here to take over for the retiring sheriff. Also for some peace and quiet and to keep an eye on his kid sister, April. At the moment, neither was happening.
There was a toilet in the corner of what was supposed to be his living room. The bathtub was where he’d hoped to have a sofa. The toilet was obviously hooked up to some sort of plumbing because it was making a loud gurgling sound that Clay could hear even over the tile saw that was screeching in the kitchen.
“Yeah, I know,” Freddie said, scratching his head. Freddie Shoemaker was the only contractor in Wrangler’s Creek, and that’s the reason Clay had hired him to renovate the old house he’d bought.
Freddie was clearly an idiot.
“The guest bathroom’s not right,” Freddie conceded. “They put the plumbing in the wrong place so they just hooked it up where the fittings stopped. I left instructions with my crew, but they musta read it wrong.”
Yeah, or else they were idiots, too. Since the crew consisted of Freddie’s two sons and a nephew, that was a strong possibility.
“I don’t guess you could get used to having it this way?” Freddie asked. “It’d save you a lot of money if we didn’t have to undo all of this.”
No one had ever accused Clay of having a friendly face. It was a by-product of having been a cop for twelve years. First in Houston. Then, here in Wrangler’s Creek. And Freddie got a whopping big-assed dose of that nonfriendly face.
“Put the guest bathroom fixtures in the guest bathroom,” Clay snarled. “And no, it won’t cost me a lot of money because I’ll only pay for the work you do right.”
Freddie mumbled an “okay, you’re the boss” and headed toward his rust-scabbed truck parked just outside. Apparently that meant he was done for the day even though it was barely 3:00 p.m.
Clay tried to call April again. Again, no answer. He wasn’t ready to sound the alarms just yet because April wasn’t the most reliable person, but it’d been two days since he’d heard from her. Her boss at the hair salon where she worked had said April had asked for time off. She hadn’t been at her house, either, when he’d dropped by, which meant something was up. With April, something was up usually went hand in hand with trouble. She was twenty-three, eleven years younger than Clay, but plenty of times she still acted like an irresponsible teenager.
Clay growled out another voice mail for April to call him, and he followed the sound of the tile saw into the kitchen. The saw was going all right, but no one was cutting the backsplash tiles. In fact, no one was in the kitchen at all. Clay unplugged the saw to kill the noise and went in search of any signs of progress or intelligent life.
He found neither.
There was still a hole in his bedroom floor marked with a scrawled sign that said hole. No windows, just tarp where they should be. And there was a fridge in the master bathroom, something that hadn’t been there that morning. That didn’t qualify as progress.
The fridge door was open, and one of Freddie’s sons—Mick—was peering inside. Not foraging for food apparently but rather using it as a makeshift air conditioner to stave off the already sweltering April heat. He looked to be having an orgasmic moment with his eyes closed and his head going back and forth like an oscillating fan.
Clay cleared his throat, and Mick jumped nearly a foot off the floor. It was the fastest Clay had ever seen the man move.
“Shit,” Mick repeated a couple of times. “You scared the dickens out of me, Chief.”
Ditto. But Clay wasn’t afraid of Mick. He was afraid he was going to have to live with these clowns for the rest of his life.
And learn the meaning of dickens.
Mick didn’t close the fridge door. He just stood there enjoying the cool air on his backside and was seemingly oblivious to the fact that Clay wanted to rip off his arm and beat him with it.
“Why’s the fridge in here?” Clay asked.
“Oh, it’s temporary,” Mick said as if that explained everything.
Clay decided to give very specific instructions and use small words. “I want the fridge in the kitchen, and the toilet and bathtub out of the living room and into the guest bath.”
Mick looked at him as if that were a tall order but then nodded.
Even though Clay figured this was going to be just another exercise in frustration, he still wanted some answers. “Why exactly is the fridge in here anyway?”
“The plug.” Mick hitched his thumb to the outlet.
“Did the electrical plug in the kitchen quit working?” Clay pressed when Mick didn’t add more.
“Nope. I needed it for the saw, and since I wanted to keep my Pepsi cold, I brought the fridge in here. Didn’t think you’d want it in your bedroom.”
“I don’t want it anywhere but the kitchen.”
Again, Mick made it seem as if that would be a tall order. “Say, in case you didn’t notice, the phone next to your couch is blinking. Guess that means you got a message or something.”
Yeah, or something, but Clay didn’t want to deal with that right now. The landline had come with the house, and while he hadn’t given the number to April and didn’t use it as his contact information, his neighbors sometimes called him on it. Along with one other person who’d managed to get hold of it.
And that particular person did leave messages.
Apparently, this was Clay’s day to receive one. But not now. He’d listen to it when he was alone.
“Your face and hands are healing,” Mick remarked. “Those chickens messed you up real good, didn’t they?”
Yeah, and it pained Clay to admit it, but he’d actually checked for the feathered critters to make sure they weren’t around before he got out of his truck and went into the house. The chickens weren’t his. They’d sort of come with the property, but as soon as Clay could catch them, he was having a barbecue.
Clay shut the fridge door, hoping it would spur Mick to get back to work, and the man did follow Clay back into the living room. But apparently it wasn’t to work. It was to chat.
“Guess you heard all about Sophie and Garrett having to move back a couple of weeks ago?” Mick went on.
Clay nodded. Hard not to hear what was the number one gossip topic. It had even surpassed Sophie’s jilting and the talk about Sophie showing up at his office and asking him on a date. Of course, it was possible the date-thing was still the hottest topic, but the townsfolk were keeping quiet about that around him.
“I heard the FBI fellas took all their money and stuff.” Mick followed him when Clay went out the back—after he checked for the feral chickens.
Apparently, they were still on the topic of the Grangers, but Clay ignored him and walked to the pasture fence. Now, here was why he’d bought the run-down place that folks called the old Pennington ranch. The land and the barn. No more boarding his horses, Sal and Mal. The pair were in the pasture and looked a lot more content than Clay did at the moment.
But Clay did have plans for the place. Plans that included a house where everything was in the right room. That way he could get on with the peace and quiet part of his life.
Man, he needed it bad.
“Don’t know how their cousin, Lawson, is taking Sophie and Garrett coming back and being right under his nose,” Mick continued. “Guess you heard about all the bad blood there?”
“I heard,” Clay settled for saying, and he hoped that put an end to this conversation.
It didn’t.
“Sophie and Garrett’s great-grandpa was Zachariah Taylor Granger, or Z.T. as people called him,” Mick explained. “Lawson’s great-granddaddy was Jerimiah, Z.T.’s brother. Both of ’em made a fortune to pass onto their kids and grandkids. Z.T’s kin live here on the Granger ranch. Jeri
miah’s kin live nearby, but they don’t come into town much at all. The two families own so much land that it almost bumps right up against each other.”
“Are you telling me this for a reason?” Clay asked. He used the same tone he did when interrogating felony suspects.
“Sure am. I’m telling you because there might be trouble with Lawson. Ever since he had a falling-out with his brothers about five or six years ago, he’s been working the Granger ranch on Roman’s behalf. Roman doesn’t want to work it because of a falling-out he had with his mom and on account of him being so busy.” He paused. “A lot of the Grangers have falling-outs.”
“And you’re telling me this for a reason?” Clay repeated.
“Yeah, it could be real important that you get the whole messy picture when it comes to the Grangers. Roman won’t be trouble. He lives in San Antonio and owns a rodeo business. But Lawson’s a different story. He might not be so happy now that Sophie and Garrett are back to take over things.”
Maybe that was true, but Clay still couldn’t find any angle that connected him to this situation. This all sounded like gossip.
“You figure Sophie Granger and you will get back together now that things are off with Brantley and her?” Mick asked.
So, that was the angle.
Clay gave him an annoyed glance. “Sophie and I were never together.”
Mick made a yeah right sound, and Clay didn’t bother to set him straight since it wouldn’t do any good. Because Mick, like most other people, believed that Sophie and Clay had had a “thing,” and that’s why her ex-fiancé had called off the wedding. Apparently, Brantley was still well liked in town, and Sophie was getting the blame for ruining things with Mr. Perfect.
Other than Sophie launching herself into his arms the day of the jilting, Clay had never laid a hand on her. And wouldn’t. Sophie wasn’t exactly the peace-and-quiet-inducing type.
Plus, there were her eyes.
Clay figured a lot of men looked at Sophie and saw an attractive woman. And she was. But Clay just couldn’t get past those eyes because they reminded him, well, of things he didn’t want to be reminded of.
He mentally put those eyes back in the memory box in his head that he’d marked as “shit to forget.” It worked, but in those couple of seconds that it took him to move it there, the images came. He felt the sick feeling of dread in his stomach.
And he saw her.
Hell. He saw her, her face way too clear for just a tiny piece of a nightmare.
“Say, are you okay?” Mick asked.
“Fine,” Clay lied, and he tried to look normal. Whatever that was. Maybe he needed to create a normal box in his head that he could pull out and use to fool people. Of course, it probably wasn’t hard to fool an idiot like Mick because he seemed to buy right into Clay’s “fine” lie.
“They haven’t found Billy Lee.” Mick again. He paused. “Since you’re a cop, you’ll probably know the answer to this, but what would make a fella run off with all that money?”
“Greed.” And you didn’t need to be a cop to know that.
Even though Billy Lee didn’t exactly fit the profile of an embezzler and money launderer. The man didn’t have so much as a parking ticket, and from what Clay could gather from the gossip, Billy Lee had been a father figure to Sophie and Garrett since their dad had passed away about ten years ago.
If Clay were leading the investigation, he would look for mitigating factors. Like maybe Billy Lee was being blackmailed or something, but this wasn’t his rodeo, wasn’t his bullshit to shovel.
Peace and quiet.
And a job where someone around him didn’t get killed because of something he’d screwed up.
He’d trade the adrenaline rush of the rodeo for that.
“Guess you’ll get more horses soon.” Mick again. “Maybe make it the way it used to be.”
“Yes, and that includes not having a toilet in the living room. You need to go take care of that now. I’d actually like to have a finished house before I reach retirement age.”
Mick laughed as if it were a fine joke rather than one of Clay’s genuine concerns. Clay would have spelled out his concerns—in both writing and while using sentences with small words—but the sound of a car engine snagged his attention. He got a jolt of relief then anger when he saw that it was April’s powder blue VW convertible.
She stepped from the car as if all was right with the world, and she wasn’t alone. His two-year-old twin nephews, Hunter and Hayden, barreled out the moment their mom freed them from their car seats, and they ran toward Clay as if he were a major prize at the finish line.
That’s exactly how he felt about them.
They owned his heart, and the little shits knew it.
Clay scooped them up, kissed them both and got some sweaty, sticky kisses in return. Judging from the smell and stains on their shirts, they’d been eating chocolate ice cream. Of course, the ice-cream kisses and cuddles didn’t last. The moment the boys spotted the horses, they wiggled to get out of his arms so they could get closer to the animals.
“Don’t climb the fence or I’ll arrest you,” he warned them.
Hunter giggled like a loon, and Hayden immediately tried to climb the fence. Clay took hold of him like a wiggly football and tucked him under his arm while he gave April a once-over. She wasn’t hurt, but she did have new purple streaks in her dark brown hair. And a hickey on her neck.
“Obviously, you’re not dead in a ditch,” Clay growled.
She was still smiling when she kissed his cheek and grabbed Hunter when he tried to climb the fence. “Nope. Not dead. And I don’t go near ditches. According to you, they’re death traps for kid sisters.”
“Then there’d better be a good reason why you didn’t return my calls.” Normally, Clay would have punctuated that with a curse word or two, but he was in the little pitcher, big ear zone.
Still smiling and still with a kid in her arms, April twirled around like a ballerina. She sort of looked like one, too, in her pink dress.
“I do have a good reason.” She stopped twirling long enough to thrust out her left hand for him to see the diamond ring sitting on her finger.
Clay sure didn’t smile. “Please tell me that’s a fashion statement and not what I think it is.”
“No fashion statement.” Another twirl, and she set Hunter back on the ground. “I’m engaged.”
“For shit’s sake.” Clay mumbled it again when he realized he’d said that out loud. “The ink’s barely dry on your divorce,” he reminded her. “And you haven’t been dating anyone that I know about.”
“I’ve been divorced three months. That’s plenty of time for the ink to dry.”
“Yes, but not enough time to meet someone, fall in love and get engaged.”
“Maybe not for a stick-in-the-mud like you, but for me it was like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Love at first sight.”
“More like lust,” Clay grumbled, but he didn’t grumble it softly enough because both Hayden and Hunter started a babble fest with shit and lust. “Where were the boys during all of this?” He snapped his fingers to imitate April’s description of the joyous event.
“With their dad. Spike and I worked out a custody schedule. We’ll alternate weeks.”
Clay thought a week was too long for the boys to go without seeing one of their parents, especially since it would be Spike’s, aka Ryan’s, folks who ended up taking care of the boys when it was his week of custody. Ryan’s folks were decent enough people and were well respected in Wrangler’s Creek, but like April, Spike had some growing up to do. But that was another debate for another day. Right now, Clay had bigger fish to fry.
“Who’s your fiancé?” Because as soon as he had a name, Clay would run a background check on him. He loved his sister—most of the time anyway
—but April was a turd magnet when it came to men.
April quit smiling. “Now, before you bad-mouth him, or me, just hear me out. I’m in love with him, and he’s a decent man.”
Hell. That couldn’t be good. “What’s his name?”
“When I tell you, you’ve got to promise not to curse or yell. This could work out good for you, too. Well, since rumor has it that you’re seeing Sophie Granger and all.”
He pulled back his shoulders. “Sophie? I’m not seeing her. And what the heck does she have to do with this anyway?”
Clay looked at the ring. At the hickey on his sister’s neck.
And the answer hit him like a fully loaded Mack truck exceeding the speed limit.
CHAPTER THREE
CLAY PULLED TO a stop in the circular drive that fronted the Granger ranch. To say he was dreading this visit was like saying it got a little bit hot in Texas during the summer.
This was his first trip here, but he’d driven past the place plenty of times. Hard to miss it with the sprawling house, sprawling pastures and miles of white fence. It looked the way he wanted his own place to look one day. Scaled down, of course, and with a real house with stuff in places where stuff belonged.
He was betting the Grangers didn’t have a toilet in their living room.
Clay got out of his truck, taking his time and hoping this went better than the scenarios playing out in his mind. Of course, there weren’t any good scenarios in this situation except that maybe Sophie had already moved on with her life and didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything.
He certainly did, and in Sophie’s and his case, they had a rat in common.
Brantley.
Sophie needed to know that Brantley had proposed to April. That didn’t mean the marriage was going to happen. For Clay, this qualified as one of those “over my dead body” situations. Brantley was only a month out of a long-term relationship with Sophie. A relationship he’d apparently ended because of some “love at first sight” shit with April.
Those Texas Nights Page 3
