“It’s a subscription to a dating site,” April blurted out. She sounded considerably less bitchy than she had a couple of seconds ago. Maybe the shit-storm had passed. Maybe her hormones had leveled out.
“It was April’s idea,” Brantley quietly added.
No doubt. It was exactly the kind of thing his sister would do, and Clay would toss it out with the egg as soon as they left.
“It’s time you started dating again,” April went on, “now that things have cooled between Sophie and you.”
Things were never hot between Sophie and him. Well, they were, but only in a lustful sort of way. Hell, he’d never even kissed her.
Something he suddenly wished he’d done.
Clay frowned at that thought. He already had enough complications without adding his brother-in-law’s ex to the mix. Plus, Sophie hadn’t exactly stayed in touch or anything.
“The boys have gifts for you, too.” April made air quotes around gifts. “And I can’t wait for you to hear what Hunter told us.”
“He said he wanted to be a top like his Nunk Cay,” Brantley provided, followed by a laugh. “It was cute as all get-out.”
Cute, maybe, but also confusing. Clay got the Nunk Cay part because that was Hunter’s attempt at Uncle Clay. But it took him a second to realize that top was cop.
“No,” Clay snapped, a little sharper than he’d meant to. “You talk him out of that.” It made his stomach twist to think of a grown-up Hunter going through what he’d been through.
April rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. As if I’ve ever been able to talk Hunter out of anything. He’s like a mini version of me.”
He was, and that was even more reason to steer Hunter in another career direction. The next time he was at the bookstore, Clay would pick him up some kiddie doctor books. Lawyer books, too, if they published such a thing. Even books about cowboys. Anything but a cop.
“I’ll put the cake in the kitchen,” April volunteered. “We can cut it when the boys wake up. Oh, and we bought some steaks and burgers to grill for dinner.”
Clay thanked her and would have gone into his room to change if Brantley hadn’t caught onto his arm. “Can we talk?”
Hell. That was yet something else he hadn’t wanted to hear. “You’d better not be about to tell me that you’re dumping my sister.”
Brantley’s eyes widened to the size of salad plates. “No. Of course not. I love April. I love the boys, and I love our unborn child.”
“Good. And you’d better keep on loving them, or I’ll kick your ass into the next county.”
Brantley stared at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re scary?”
“All the time. And I also carry through on my threats.”
Clay waited. When Brantley didn’t say anything he asked, “Was that what you wanted to talk about—the threats?”
“Uh, no.” Brantley glanced into the kitchen as if to make sure April was still there. She was. “This is about Sophie.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I was, well, hoping you’d ask her out.”
Clay huffed. “First a dating site subscription and now this? I can handle my own love life.” Or lack thereof. “And didn’t you hear what your wife just said? She doesn’t want Sophie anywhere near her gene pool.”
Brantley huffed, too. “I’m not saying to ask Sophie out for your sake but for her own. She could be headed for some trouble.”
Until Brantley added that last part, Clay was about to tell him to mind his own business, but that got Clay’s attention. “Explain that.”
“Shane.” And Brantley must have thought that was enough of an explanation because he paused.
“Shane, the guy she’s got a date with tonight. Yeah, I know about it.” Clay had heard it from at least a dozen people who doled out sympathy over his and Sophie’s breakup. Apparently, Sophie was meeting this guy in a couple of hours at the Longhorn Bar at the end of Main Street.
“Shane Whitlock,” Brantley provided. He made another of those kitchen glances and leaned in closer. Clay was reasonably sure there was nothing Brantley could say that would interest him about Sophie’s date.
But Clay was wrong.
CHAPTER SIX
SOPHIE HADN’T KNOWN there was a level of Hell below the internet dating sites, but she could say for certain that there was.
It was the date itself.
She’d been so hopeful about seeing Shane. Or at least curious. And eager to get on with her life and dipping her toes back into the dating pond so that her mom and Mila would get off her back. But what she hadn’t counted on was that she didn’t have much in common with a boy she’d crushed on in middle school. A boy she hadn’t even actually known that well.
Shane looked pretty much the same. An older version of the blond, blue-eyed kid who had first stirred her girl parts. He still had that little gap in his front teeth, a tiny flaw that she’d once thought of as a perfect imperfection. It was around the time she’d started reading Jane Austen books so she had been in somewhat of a romantic phase. In fact, maybe she should credit Jane’s books for helping stir those parts.
Her parts weren’t stirring now though, unless she counted her butt going numb from sitting so stiffly on the hard leather seat in the booth.
“And so after I got back from Italy, I moved in with a modern artist in Soho,” Shane went on. He was forty-five minutes into answering her question: So, what have you been up to for the past seventeen years?
From what Sophie could tell, he was on year seven or eight now.
“You know modern art?” he asked, gobbling down one of the nachos they’d just been served. It was the best one on the plate, loaded with jalapenos and dripping with cheese. Sophie had had her eye on it, but she apparently wasn’t fast enough because Shane had moved the plate closer to him.
“Not really.”
“Well, you should study up on it. Interesting stuff. There’s nothing like seeing a really good painting and just looking at it for hours to try to see what the artist saw.”
She made a noncommittal sound, reached way across the table to retrieve a less generously topped nacho. She also checked the time again on her phone. It wasn’t even eight yet.
Time had apparently stopped in this level of Hell.
“Anyway, after Soho,” he went on and on and on, “I moved to Merida down in the Yucatan. Hooked up with another artist there. Man, she was amazing.” He paused only long enough to drink some of his beer to wash down that nacho and move the plate even closer to him. “You’re sure you’re not into art?”
“Not really,” she repeated, and she prayed for an earthquake or something. Nothing major, just enough to shake things up so she could say she needed to leave to check on the ranch.
At least Shane hadn’t brought up the family business and their financial troubles with Billy Lee. Maybe because he already knew all the details from the gossips. Maybe because he didn’t want to bring up such a sour subject on a date. Or perhaps because her life in no way interested him.
“Merida was incredible,” he continued after wolfing down another nacho. He talked around the crunching and the swipes of his napkin to get the cheese drippings off his mouth.
Sophie listened in case she had to grunt in response or something, and she looked across the bar at the back booth where Mila was sitting. As planned.
Well, as Mila had planned, anyway.
She’d told Sophie that she wanted to be there for moral support, but Sophie figured Mila had also wanted to make sure she stayed put and went through with the date.
The door opened, bringing in a gust of the October wind. Not cold exactly, but since she was wearing a thin top—which she’d chosen because it was flattering—with her jeans, Sophie shivered a little. Her shiver turned to a shudder when her mother walked in.
Belle didn’t own any bar/clubbing clothes and had perhaps never been in the Longhorn, but she’d tried to dress to fit in. She had on mom jeans, one of Sophie’s work shirts and cowboy boots that she’d likely taken right out of the box. She smiled at Sophie, gave her a toodle-do wave and made her way to Mila’s booth. Apparently, her mom was there for moral support, too.
“...and after a year in Merida,” Shane was saying, “I stayed a while in LA. Great place. You know LA?”
Sophie caught enough of that so she could answer, “I’ve been there a couple of times on business. We distributed rodeo gear to—”
“Amazing city. Of course, I got involved with another artist.” He chuckled, flashing that tooth gap. Sophie wondered if she could throw a dart through it. “Also did some work as a sushi chef. Yes, me a sushi chef. And yes, I wore this.” He put his thumb beneath the brim of his tan cowboy hat and tilted it back on his head. “Everybody called me the Sushi Cowboy. Sushi’s like art in a way because it’s not just the taste but the visual experience. You like sushi, Sophie?”
“I do.” And she’d had enough of this. “But I prefer books and reading. Do you read, Shane?”
He chuckled again as if it were a fine joke. “I love books.” But he didn’t linger even a second on which books he loved. “After LA, I made my way back to Texas—”
“I know Texas,” she jumped to say.
Another chuckle from Shane. Sophie imagined driving a Mack truck through that tooth gap.
The door opened again, and since Sophie was more attentive to anything other than her date, she looked in that direction. And in walked Clay. He looked around, spotted her. Spotted Shane, too, because he scowled and made his way to the bar. Sophie wasn’t sure if the scowl was for her or Shane, but it was probably all over town that Sophie had made this date only after learning that April was pregnant. Maybe Clay didn’t approve.
Maybe he was jealous.
But she had to admit that was a stretch, considering Clay had spent a lot of the past five months avoiding her.
“Now, where was I?” Shane asked after eating more nachos. “I was telling you about being a sushi chef. Well, when that gig was over, I moved back to San Antonio and connected with an old friend who got me into graffiti art. You know graffiti art, Sophie? Probably not since there won’t be any around here.” He laughed. “Most of the yokels here would just consider it graffiti.”
Enough of this. She could overlook the nacho hoarding, but if she stayed, she would end up saying things that wouldn’t be very nice.
She wolfed down a few nachos. “I should hurry and finish this so I can get back.”
“Get back where?” he asked.
“Home. I’m sure I mentioned I had some work that I had to get done tonight.” It was a lie. She hadn’t said a thing about work, but Shane made a sound of agreement.
“Yeah, I guess you’ve been busy with the ranch. How’s that going?”
She nearly choked on a jalapeno because she hadn’t anticipated a question about her. “Fine,” she managed. “We own lots of cows now, and we’re expanding our markets.” She wouldn’t mention the bull sperm, but they did own a lot of that, too, especially now that they owned the “sperm extraction” machine.
“Your great-granddaddy would be proud,” Shane said. “Of course, he left Garrett, Roman and you with a pretty good nest egg what with all that land, trust funds and the big sprawling house. All you had to do was not screw it up.” He added a passive-aggressive wink to that.
What he’d said was true, and she was certain others felt this way. The Grangers and those giant silver spoons in their mouths. Some, maybe even Shane, didn’t know that Garrett and she put in plenty of hours to keep things going. Plus, the company they’d worked so hard to grow had nearly landed them in jail. Sometimes, they’d had to use those silver spoons to clean up buckets of crap.
An analogy that unsettled her stomach.
She put her napkin aside and was about to get up, but Shane beat her to it. “Gotta run to the little boy’s room,” he said. “If the waitress comes by, could you order me another beer and some more nachos? We seem to have gone through most of the whole plate. Love a woman with a good appetite.”
Sophie had an appetite all right, but it hadn’t been satisfied with the one nacho she’d gotten. Shane was off before she could even respond, but the moment he got back, she was leaving. In the meantime, she settled for nacho crumbs since she was starving.
Mila didn’t waste time scurrying over to her, and she slid into Shane’s seat. “So, how’s it going? Any sparkage?”
“I want to kill him. Does that count?”
Mila frowned. “It can’t be that bad. You’re just not used to being on a date, that’s all. Brantley and you were in the old hat stage. You didn’t have to work at dinner conversation.”
No, and she hadn’t had to work for dinner, either, but it had been a battle getting that nacho plate away from Shane.
“There’s something off about him.” Sophie looked up and saw that Clay was no longer at the bar. Maybe he’d gone to the little boy’s room, too.
“Well?” her mother said, hurrying toward them. She nudged Sophie over with her hip and dropped down on the seat beside her.
“No sparkage, she says,” Mila repeated. “But I’m hoping she’ll give him a second chance just to make sure.”
“I don’t need a second chance. He’s boring and self-centered. We have nothing in common, and he ate the best nacho.”
That last part didn’t seem to convince them, and judging from their blank stares, they were focusing more on that than the other two things. Important things since she didn’t want boring and self-centered. She wanted—well, she didn’t know exactly, but her want list didn’t include Shane.
“If you can hold out for a Fifty Shades of Grey guy, then why can’t I?” Sophie asked Mila. But she wished she hadn’t asked it in front of her mother.
Her mom snapped to Mila. “You mean that naughty book where the man uses feathers, ice and stuff like that?” She didn’t wait for Mila to answer. She shifted her attention back to Sophie. “Are there men like that around here? Maybe there’s a dating site to find them?”
There was no good answer to that. Not to her mother, anyway. But yes, there probably were sites, and maybe Sophie needed to turn the tables on Mila and find her a date on one of them.
The waitress, Marcie Jean Garza, must have realized that it’d been a while since she’d been to the booth because she hurried toward them.
“My date wants more nachos and a beer,” Sophie said, nudging her mother off the seat so she’d be able to get out. “But can you tell him I had to leave? Something’s come up.” Not a lie exactly. Something had come up—her lack of desire to spend another second with Shane.
“Sure, I’ll tell him, but you probably shouldn’t go just yet. I think you should check on him first.”
That comment and Marcie Jean’s dour expression got Sophie scrambling to her feet. “Did he slip in the bathroom or something?”
Marcie Jean hitched her thumb in the direction of the back door. “No. He’s out in the back alley with Chief McKinnon. And it looks like the chief is about to beat your date to a pulp.”
* * *
CLAY HADN’T PLANNED on punching this clown, but maybe he needed to rethink that. If anyone needed punching, it was Shane. Clay had spent less than a minute with him and had already figured that out.
“This is police harassment,” Shane protested. “I know my rights.”
“Yeah, I know them, too, and you don’t have a right to swindle rich women out of their money.”
“I didn’t do that, and I’m leaving. You’ve got no grounds to hold me.”
Shane started to walk away, but Clay stepped in front of him. That’s when Clay spotted one of the Busby boys at the other end of
the alley. The boy was taking a leak, but he quickly zipped up to hurry back inside the Longhorn. No doubt to tell everyone that Clay had Sophie’s date cornered. By the time the gossip made its way to Sophie, she’d think there was a murder in progress.
“You did do that to several women,” Clay argued. “That’s how you got your ranch and everything else you own. And you’re not going to do it to Sophie. She’s vulnerable right now, and she’s been through enough.”
Shane smiled. “Are you fucking her?”
Yep, Shane needed punching all right. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. What is your business though, and mine, is that I’m not going to let you pull your scam in Wrangler’s Creek.”
Shane just kept on smiling. “Are you running me out of town, interim Chief McKinnon?”
Rarely did the interim label bother him, but it did now. Then again, everything about this guy was bothering him. “Pretty much. Or you can stay, and I’ll arrest you. Your choice.”
That finally got that smile off his stupid face. “Arrest me?” Shane howled. “For what?’
“Loitering, public intoxication.” He leaned in. “I smell alcohol on your breath.” And jalapenos. In fact, there was a chunk of what appeared to be jalapeno stuck in that big-assed gap between his front teeth.
“I’m not drunk. Not loitering, either. The only reason I’m out here is because you forced me into this alley.”
Clay had forced him, in a way, but it hadn’t taken much doing. He’d merely tapped his badge and said they needed to talk either in the bar or outside. Shane’s choice. Shane had opted for outside maybe because he didn’t want Sophie to hear Clay’s accusations of his being a gigolo. One who’d resorted to everything from forging checks and fraud to theft.
“Besides, those charges won’t stick,” Shane went on. “I don’t even have a record.”
True. But that’s because his victims had been too embarrassed or unwilling to file charges against him. That didn’t mean he was innocent.
Those Texas Nights Page 8
