Those Texas Nights

by Delores Fossen

  Clay got one of his questions answered about how the man had gotten there. There was a truck parked just behind Clay’s. Of course, the reason Clay hadn’t heard the truck, or the man approaching, was because he’d been kissing Sophie.

  “What are you doing here?” Sophie asked the man, so obviously she knew him.

  “What are you doing here?” the man countered. His voice was as cocky as the rest of him. “Wait, don’t answer that. I can see what you were doing. What I want to know is who you were doing it with.” He extended his hand to Clay. “I’m Roman Granger, Sophie’s brother.”

  Brother. The one with the police record. The one who’d refused to come home yet here he was. Well, the timing of his arrival sure sucked. Clay hadn’t exactly been setting a stellar example for the badge.

  Sophie fixed her shirt that had ridden up some, and she got out of the car on the passenger’s side. It was still drizzling, but she made her way to Roman and pulled him into her arms. She kissed his cheek, then punched him on the shoulder when she pulled away from him.

  “That’s for not coming home when I asked you to,” she snarled, but then she hugged him again.

  With the sibling “greeting” out of the way, Clay knew it was his turn. He got out of the car, not easily, since he was having a little trouble moving what with his bruises and his semihard dick.

  “I’m Clay McKinnon,” he said, and he shook Roman’s hand.

  The corner of his mouth edged up into a smile, and Clay saw the resemblance between him and Garrett. “The new interim chief. So, you two are...seeing each other?” Roman asked. He sounded like a big brother now.

  “No,” Sophie quickly answered. Then she huffed. “If anyone asks, Clay and I aren’t seeing each other.”

  Clay didn’t correct that, either. But what did it mean? Did she plan for them to see each other on the sly? If so, that wasn’t going to work in a small town.

  “You don’t want anyone to know because his sister wouldn’t like it.” Roman shrugged when Sophie stared at him. “Hey, I might not live here, but I still catch some gossip now and then. Plus, Tate keeps in touch with Mila.”

  It seemed strange that Roman’s son would have a friendship with Sophie’s friend, but Clay wasn’t exactly in a position to judge. Hell, he still wasn’t in a position to walk right after that make-out session with Sophie.

  “Did you come home because of that?” Sophie asked her brother. She hitched her thumb to the pink envelope on the seat.

  Roman followed her hitched thumb and frowned. “No. I’m here because of Garrett.”

  Sophie did more staring at him. “You mean because Meredith is staying in Austin for a while?”

  The staring continued, this time on Roman’s end. “You haven’t heard?”

  Sophie looked at Clay to see if he knew what Roman meant, but Clay had to shake his head.

  “It’s all over the internet,” Roman continued. He took out his phone, and while there was no cell service out here, Roman was able to play a video he had apparently saved. “I tried to stop it, but some folks knew they had a story.”

  “Oh, God,” Sophie repeated, and this time it wasn’t because Roman had shown up. It was because of what was on that video.

  Garrett’s wife, in the backseat of a car. Not alone, either. Nor was she dressed. She was buck naked and had her hands and mouth on some guy’s dick.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AS ROMAN MADE his way up the steps of the ranch house, he contemplated a couple of things about his place, or lack thereof, in his family. Garrett was the golden boy of Wrangler’s Creek. The winner of the town’s annual bronco riding competition for fifteen years running. Prom king. Star football player.

  Men wanted to be like Garrett. Women wanted to marry him.

  Then there was Sophie. Smart, beautiful. The prom queen. And a six-time winner of the town’s barrel racing competition. Women wanted to be like her and some men, dickhead Brantley excluded, wanted to make out with her on the side of the road.

  And then there was Roman right in the middle of them.

  He had been arrested twice for underage drinking because he clearly hadn’t learned his lesson after the first time. Then arrested for reckless driving. Lesson learned there. Another lesson learned when he’d knocked up his high school girlfriend and had become a father just a few weeks shy of his twentieth birthday. Despite fatherhood, he’d continued his bad boy ways. Some of them, anyway. Men hated him, and women wanted to fuck him.

  Not a bad trade-off, all things considered.

  “I can’t believe this happened,” Sophie said.

  Sophie was right behind him, coming up the steps. Not with Clay, though. The cop had wisely opted out of this visit when Roman had offered to give Sophie a ride. Clay might be stupid enough to carry on with Sophie on the side of the road, but he was smart enough to know not to walk into the middle of a family shit-storm.

  “Poor Garrett,” Sophie added.

  Yeah, poor Garrett.

  But Roman put himself in the “poor” category. To a lesser extent, of course. There was a reason that Roman rarely made it home, and the reason was waiting for him in the entry of the ranch house.

  His mother.

  For such a sweet-looking lady, she had developed a good stink eye, and as she had done for the past twelve plus years, she was aiming that stink eye at him.

  “How’d she even know I was coming?” Roman grumbled to Sophie.

  “Once I was out of the dead zone, I texted Garrett, and he must have told her.”

  “He didn’t,” her mother’s voice was coated with a little stink eye, too. “I heard Garrett tell Alice that’d you would be here soon and that she should probably put on a fresh pot of coffee.”

  Alice was their longtime cook and housekeeper, and unless she was filling that coffeepot with Jim Beam, Roman would pass. He didn’t especially want to be any more alert for this visit.

  “Is Tate with you?” his mother wanted to know.

  Roman shook his head. “He’s in school today.” And just in case this visit involved taking Garrett to the bar to get drunk, Roman had arranged for a sitter to pick up Tate and take him to their home in San Antonio.

  “Where’s Garrett?” Sophie asked their mother.

  “In his office.”

  Sophie and Roman started there, but their mother stepped in front of them. “You didn’t come home for Sophie’s wedding. Your only sister, and you missed her wedding.”

  Sophie huffed. “Really, Mom? We’re going to rehash this now with what Garrett is going through?”

  Apparently, they were because his mother launched right into the rehashing. Roman tuned her out, but his brain had no trouble filling in what she was saying. Because she’d said it so often it was like a broken record.

  Your family needed you, and you weren’t here.

  You’ve always been so irresponsible, and that obviously hasn’t changed.

  And the biggie—why haven’t you married Tate’s mother yet?

  The last was the easiest to answer. He hadn’t married Valerie because they’d decided not to say “I Do” when she’d gotten pregnant with Tate at the tender age of eighteen. Roman had been only a year older. They had decided to raise the baby together, which had lasted until Tate was about six months old and Valerie skipped out on them, never to be seen in Wrangler’s Creek again.

  Rumor had it that Roman had murdered Valerie and buried the body. Second most popular rumor was that Roman’s father had murdered her. The truth was Valerie just hadn’t wanted to be a mom and had tucked tail and run. She sent occasional cards to Tate, called him on his birthday, when she remembered. On the years she didn’t remember and when Roman saw the disappointment on his boy’s face, he wanted to find her and wring her neck.

  As for the first two rants
from his mother, the answer to both of those was yes. His siblings had likely needed him, and yes, he was irresponsible. By his mother’s standards, anyway, but he’d quit living by her standards when he’d left Wrangler’s Creek eleven years ago.

  What his mother didn’t know was that he had gone to Sophie’s wedding with plans to watch it from the back of the church, and when it’d been apparent that Brantley had skipped out on her, Roman had hunted down the man and punched him in the face. It hadn’t been a very mature reaction, but it’d felt damn good.

  “Well?” his mother asked. Obviously she wanted some kind of response, and while she wasn’t tapping her foot with impatience, it looked as if that was something she wanted to do.

  Roman gave her a response, but it likely wasn’t the one she wanted. And it definitely didn’t involve groveling. He kissed her on the cheek, flashed his cockiest smile and headed toward Garrett’s office.

  “Oh, and why don’t you ask Sophie why she was kissing a cop on the road?” Roman added.

  Sophie glared at him, and yeah, it was bad to throw her to the wolf that way, but if he hadn’t, his mother would have followed instead of staying in the entry to find out what was going on. This would buy Roman a few moments alone with his brother.

  He’d always thought the house was too big. Twenty-three rooms. And it felt as if he had to walk past at least twenty of those to get to the office. The door was shut, but Roman didn’t knock. He went right in, closed the door behind him and saw about what he expected to see.

  Garrett, seated behind the massive oak desk.

  His brother was sprawled out in the chair, legs stretched in front of him, his head against the back of the seat, and he had a highball glass dangling from each hand. The glasses were filled nearly to the brim with brown liquid.

  Roman was betting it wasn’t Diet Coke.

  “You didn’t have to come,” Garrett said. Judging from his speech pattern, he wasn’t anywhere close to being drunk. Too bad because while the booze wouldn’t help, it might make him pass out so he could forget for a couple of minutes.

  “I know. But every now and then I like to do something that surprises people. Keeps them on their toes.” Roman located the whiskey bottle on the floor next to Garrett’s chair and took a sip.

  “I take it you tried to stop the video from going viral?” Garrett asked.

  Roman nodded and pulled up a chair so they’d be face-to-face for the heart-to-heart they would have. Not that it would help. Nothing would at this point. But they would have it anyway.

  “First of all, I’m sorry,” Roman said. “And no, I didn’t have a clue Meredith was cheating on you. Did you?”

  “No.” Garrett cursed, shook his head. “I knew she wasn’t happy about being here. She hates the ranch, hated that we aren’t at the business in Austin. Hated that we might never be back there.”

  Yeah, Roman had figured out that much. Garrett had been the prom king because his classmates had elected him and he’d reluctantly accepted it. Meredith had been prom queen because she’d lobbied, begged and prayed for it.

  “Meredith left yesterday,” Garrett went on. “Said she was going to be in Austin for a while. I asked if that meant we were separating, and she said no, that she just needed some space.”

  They both winced at that. Space was code for you’ll get the divorce papers soon.

  “Is this the part where you tell me I shouldn’t have married her?” Garrett added.

  “Nope.” Roman took another sip of whiskey, a small one since he’d likely have to drive soon. “She was pregnant. You two wanted a baby, and you’d been dating a long time—since high school. And after hearing Mom harp on me for years about being an unwed parent, you probably didn’t want to put yourself through it.”

  The difference was that Meredith and Garrett had been eleven years older than Roman had been. And Meredith and Garrett would have probably married eventually anyway. The baby had just moved the date up a bit. Then, fate had pissed on their lives because the baby girl had been stillborn.

  As a father, that still cut Roman bone deep, and the cut went even deeper for Garrett.

  “What about you?” Garrett asked. “Have you recently had your heart stomped on, or have you found a woman who’ll put up with you for more than a one-nighter?”

  Roman didn’t mind the shift in conversation. His brother might be looking for a “misery loves company” kind of thread. Then again, they so rarely talked that maybe Garrett just wanted to know if he was close to becoming a brother-in-law or uncle again.

  “No to both,” Roman answered. “I was involved with the owner of the motorcycle shop where I get my bike parts, but she broke off things because she said I had a commitment phobia.” And because he thought they could use some levity, he added, “I told her I didn’t have a phobia, that being with someone on a regular basis scared the shit out of me.”

  It worked. Garrett smiled a little. Then, that vanished when his phone rang, and his brother hit the button to decline the call. “Meredith again. She keeps calling.”

  “Have you talked to her yet?”

  “Some. I took the first call, and she said she was sorry. But I think she means she was sorry she got caught on camera blowing some guy.”

  Yeah. It wouldn’t be good for her socialite image, and coming on the heels of the mess with Granger Western, Roman was betting Meredith would no longer be on Austin’s A-list for parties and charity events. Her name would be mud in Wrangler’s Creek, too, because she’d basically just cheated on the town’s golden boy.

  “We can do this a couple of ways,” Roman started. “We can sit here and drink with the constant interruptions from Mom, Sophie and Alice. They’ll want to feed you and smother you with love. I, on the other hand, want to get you shit-faced at some secondary location of your choosing. We can trash-talk Meredith, and if you’re up to it, you can have a revenge fuck from just about any woman who crosses your shit-faced path.”

  Garrett stayed quiet a moment, swirled the drink in his left hand, took a sip from the one in his right. “Got any other options?”

  Roman had to think about it. “We could saddle some horses, ride out to our great-granddaddy’s old house and hide out the way we used to do when we were kids.”

  Though the place had been a lot more appealing way back when they didn’t know how butt-ugly it was. The Gothic house was an architectural mess complete with some gargoyles, staircases that led to nowhere and secret passages. And it was painted a dull shade of purple with equally dull yellow trim. It looked like a giant bruise in various stages of healing.

  A movie studio had once wanted to use it to film a horror flick, but their mother had declined, saying she didn’t want to disrespect the place. It seemed to Roman that the place had pretty much screamed disrespect from the moment the painter had slapped on those colors.

  “I could sneak some food from Alice,” Roman suggested. “And threaten the ranch hands so they won’t tell anyone which direction we’re heading. We can grab some sleeping bags. Some liquor...”

  “But what about Tate? He’ll be expecting you home.”

  That was his big brother. Always looking at the big picture. “I’ll call the sitter and have her stay with him.”

  Tate hated her. Well, actually he hated sitters in general because he thought he was old enough to stay alone, but if Roman explained that Uncle Garrett was in a bad place, then Tate would understand. Maybe. Tate was so surly these days that it was hard to tell if he was riled or if a grouch bug had crawled up his butt and taken up permanent residence.

  “All right,” Garrett agreed on a weary breath. “Let’s get the shit-face session started.”

  Roman took out his phone and went through the contacts to find the sitter, Misty Joyner, and he wasn’t really surprised when Misty answered on the first ring. That’s because she was sup
posed to be picking up Tate right about now.

  “Is Tate with you?” Misty blurted out before Roman could say anything.

  Roman’s heart skipped a couple of beats. “No. He’s at school.”

  “He’s not. I’m here now, and the lady in the office said he didn’t show for his sixth-period class. She thought maybe you’d picked him up and forgot to check him out.”

  “No,” he repeated, already getting to his feet. Thank God he’d had only a sip of the whiskey and was good to drive. “I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

  “Wait. Hold on a second. The office lady was checking his locker, and she’s walking toward me right now.”

  Roman cursed when Misty put him on hold, and the bad thoughts started to fire through his head. He’d learned over the years that parents could have some really god-awful thoughts about what could happen to their kids.

  “What’s wrong?” Garrett got to his feet, too, and Roman could see that he was already steeling himself up. No doubt so he could be the one to steel up Roman.

  Roman didn’t get a chance to answer his brother because Misty came back on the line, and his heart did more beat-skipping when he heard the first three words she said.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He could hear the concern in the sitter’s voice, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what Roman was feeling. “What happened?”

  “Tate left a note in his locker,” Misty continued a moment later. “Mr. Granger, Tate ran away.”

  * * *

  ONCE AGAIN SOPHIE was driving up Main Street looking for a Granger. Tate this time instead of Garrett, but she wasn’t having any better luck spotting her nephew than she had when she looked for Meredith the day her sister-in-law had walked out. Of course, the difference was Garrett was able to take care of himself, but Tate was barely twelve.

  Garrett, Roman, their mother and Sophie had divided up the search so they’d have a better chance of finding him. According to one of his friends, Tate was on his way to Wrangler’s Creek. God knew how, since it was miles away from his school, and besides it was possible Tate had told his friend that just to throw them off his trail. That’s why Roman had gone back to San Antonio to look for him there, and Garrett was on his way to San Antonio PD to file a missing person’s report.