She also didn’t make sense. Why had she added cancer and drug overdose in there as if it were necessary to this very confusing conversation? Apparently, questions weren’t getting what he needed from her ramblings so Garrett tried a different approach.
“I’m sorry, but you have to leave,” Garrett came right out and told her. “This is pasture land, Granger land,” he added, “and tomorrow there’ll be a work crew all around this place. It won’t be safe for you or the little girl.”
Loretta made another “oh.” Then, paused. “Didn’t your mother tell you?”
That was not a good start to an explanation. Any explanation. His mother, Belle, had some good qualities, if he graded on a curve and added bonus points for her giving birth to him, but good communication wasn’t one of Belle’s better skills.
“Tell me what?” Garrett demanded.
“Oh, dear.” Loretta did another hand press to her heart. “Your mother said we could stay here.”
“It’s not her place to do that.” Actually, it wasn’t Garrett’s, either. Not legally anyway, since Roman owned the ranch. But since Roman had no interest in anything to do with this ranch or the family, he left decisions like that to Garrett. Besides, Roman had his own business to run.
Garrett took out his phone to try to call his mother again and then cursed when he saw he was in another of those dead zones. “How long did my mother say you could stay here?”
“I’m not sure,” Loretta answered. “Maybe you can speak to Mrs. Marlow about that. She’s the one who talked to your mother. She’s upstairs.”
Maybe she was the cobweb duster. One with perhaps cancer. And Garrett would deal with her soon enough, but he held out hope that Loretta could give him some real information just in case this Mrs. Marlow turned out to be a tight-lipped scurrier like the women outside.
Garrett went with his next questions. “Who are you people anyway? Why would my mother have said you could stay here? And why the heck would you want to be here of all places?”
Loretta’s mouth moved, repeating those three questions, and she held up her fingers one by one as she went through them. “We’re friends. Because Belle’s doing us a favor. And because it was big enough for all of us.”
Well, they were answers. Sort of. But not the answers he wanted.
“Are you sure you’re not Roman?” Loretta continued. “Because you look like you’re ready to pick a fight again.”
“I am ready to do that,” he snarled. Then, he huffed and silently cursed. Being a badass was his brother’s specialty. He was actually a nice guy. Most days anyway, but this didn’t feel like most days.
“Look, Loretta, there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said. “One that I’m certain we can all work out. But trust me when I say that you can’t stay here. The work crew will have some big equipment, including a bulldozer. It’s not safe,” he repeated.
“You’re sure?” Loretta called out to him as he started for the stairs.
“Positive,” he assured her and kept on walking. Then, paused. “Is this Mrs. Marlow well enough to talk? I mean, she’s not bedridden, is she?”
“Lordy, no. Why would she be bedridden?” Loretta patted her chest again. “You think she’s sick?”
Yeah, he had thought that. After all, Loretta had mentioned cancer, but perhaps she’d been talking about Mrs. Marlow’s astrological sign.
The second floor was right out of a class project for a horror movie. A long, dark hall with a creaky floor, complete with burned-out wall lights and old paintings that were tilted and bowed enough to send OCD folks into a panic attack. He followed the hall to the room where he’d seen the woman in the window earlier.
Not there.
“Mrs. Marlow?” he called out.
Nothing. Well, not a voice anyway, but his phone rang, and he saw his sister’s name on the screen.
“Sorry, I was out riding, and I just now got your voice mail,” Sophie said the moment Garrett answered. “Are there really squatters at Z.T.’s house?”
“I’m not sure who they are, but one of them said Mom gave her permission to be here. You know anything about that?”
“No. Why would she do that? And why would anyone want to stay at that place anyway?”
“I asked first. Where’s Mom?”
“In the family room.” It wasn’t the best of connections, and there was plenty of static on the line. “I’m pretty sure she’s eating lunch and watching her soap.”
Which meant she had turned off her phone or else had the TV volume cranked so high that she hadn’t heard it ring. Of course, the third possibility was that she was avoiding him because she knew he’d be pissed about this.
“Can you go to her right now and ask her what the hell is going on?” He added some profanity to that.
“I will, but I’ll leave out all the language that’ll make her lecture you at her earliest convenience. Hold on. I’m heading to the family room now.” At least he thought that’s what Sophie had said through the static.
“Do you remember Mom ever mentioning a woman named Loretta Cunningham or a Mrs. Marlow?” Garrett asked, and he got moving, too, past the rows of bedrooms on each side of the hall.
“Not that I can recall. Wait... I do remember Mom mentioning a Loretta. She used to babysit us, I think.”
And apparently diaper them.
“Well, she’s here,” Garrett added. “She’s the one who claims Mom said she could stay.”
“Maybe Mom meant they could stay for the day or something. You know, for, like, a picnic.” More static, more noise, too, and he thought some of that noise was coming from a TV. Since the static was hurting his ears, Garrett put the call on speaker and kept searching for the elusive Mrs. Marlow.
“Garrett?” he finally heard his mother say. “You’ve had three calls on your office phone. All from women. I don’t think they’re calling about business, either. Now that you’re divorced, I think they want to get in your pants.”
Garrett groaned. That was the last thing he wanted to talk to his mother about.
“It’s not right,” his mother went on. “Those women just want to use you.”
Yes, and if his mind ever got back to a good place, he just might let those women get in his pants until he could work his way through a jumbo box of condoms.
“And speaking of the divorce, Meredith called, too, when she couldn’t reach you on your cell phone,” his mother continued before he could speak. “She said she needed to see you about something. Wouldn’t say what exactly. Needless to say, I don’t approve. I don’t think it’s right for your ex-wife to want to get into your pants.”
He’d been wrong. This was the last thing he wanted to talk to his mother about.
Garrett finally managed to get a word in edgewise. “Mom, I’m calling about Loretta Cunningham. I’m out at Z.T.’s house now, and she’s here.”
“Loretta’s there?” She sounded overjoyed about that. And static-y. Since the static was only getting worse, he stopped walking, hoping that would help with the signal. “She used to watch you kids for me when I needed a break. She’s the one who gave me that homemade ointment that cleared up the rash on your tushy.”
He would have groaned again if it’d do any good. “Please focus, Mom. Did you tell Loretta she could stay at Z.T.’s place?”
“No, of course not.”
Instant relief. He could be the asshole after all and demand that the women leave. He could even pay them for the cleaning they’d done. Then, he could get that work crew in to deal with the pond and fence.
“Any idea why Loretta thought you’d told her she could stay here?” Garrett pressed.
But the line went dead. While it would have been nice to hear what his mother had to say about that, it wasn’t necessary.
“Garrett Granger?”
someone said. It was a woman, and she stepped out from the last bedroom at the end of the hall.
Because of the shot lights, Garrett couldn’t see her that well, but she started walking toward him. “Yeah. And you are?”
“Nicky Marlow.”
Ah, finally. “There’s been a misunderstanding.” On your part, Garrett wanted to add. “My mother didn’t give Loretta permission to stay here.”
“No,” she calmly agreed, and she took something from the canvas bag she had in her hand. It was still hard to see, but it looked like some papers. “But she gave me permission. Actually, she gave me a one-year lease.”
Shit. His stomach landed near his kneecaps. No. This couldn’t be true.
She came closer, thrusting that paper at him. The lease, no doubt. The one that his mother better not have signed. Garrett snatched it from her and had a look for himself.
His stomach flopped down to the dusty floor. Because that was indeed a lease, indeed his mother’s signature.
He looked up to tell the woman that one way or another, the lease had to be broken. But the argument died on his lips when he looked at her face. That’s because this wasn’t Mrs. Marlow. This was Nicky Henderson.
The cute blonde flute player Garrett had deflowered seventeen years ago. And then dumped.
Not exactly good memories.
Apparently not for her, either. Judging from the way Nicky’s mouth tightened, this was one woman in Wrangler’s Creek who had absolutely no desire to get in his pants.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WASN’T EASY for her to stare down the man with whom she’d made her awkward sexual debut, but Nicky managed it. It helped that Garrett wasn’t exactly giving her the smoldering looks he had the night of said debut. In fact, once he got past the initial shock of seeing her, he started glaring.
All in all, he was a good glarer, too. Sharp, precise and with a smidge of I’m in charge here so get lost.
Nicky hadn’t seen him in seventeen years, not since they’d graduated from high school, but he hadn’t changed that much. By some measures anyway. He still had the thick dark brown hair that looked as if he’d just climbed out of bed after having sex. The same sizzling blue eyes that coordinated well with the smoldering looks. But there was something different about him, too. Something she knew a little too well.
Life had smacked Garrett Granger upside the head with a proverbial two-by-four. She recognized the world weariness, the impatience. The slight F-you attitude.
“My mother was wrong to give you that lease,” he growled. Speaking had to be hard with his jaw muscles that tight.
“She signed it,” Nicky pointed out, and she took the lease from him because he looked ready to vaporize it with his glare. She had other copies, but she didn’t want to have to go back to San Antonio to get them. That would mean a forty-five-minute drive.
He cursed. Stopped. And Nicky thought maybe he’d remembered that he was the “nice” Granger brother, but she followed his gaze over her shoulder where she spotted her daughter, Kaylee, who was coming out of the bedroom that Nicky had just been cleaning.
“Gar-if,” Kaylee greeted. She went to Garrett as if they were best buds and took his hand. “See my room.”
“How do you know my daughter?” Nicky asked at the same moment, Garrett said, “This is your daughter?”
Nicky nodded. Garrett gave her another dose of stink eye that he thankfully didn’t aim at Kaylee. Because if he had, Nicky would have let her own F-you attitude kick in, and she would have shown him the door. It didn’t matter that he was a Granger because he wasn’t her landlord. His mother, Belle, was.
“I met Kaylee outside earlier,” Garrett snarled. “She was poking a stick in a cow pie.”
Nicky groaned, immediately tugged Kaylee away from Garrett and checked her daughter’s hands. There was no visible poop, but she’d need the hand sanitizer. She should buy stock in the company as often as she had to use it.
“I thought Mrs. Ellery and her sisters were watching her,” Nicky explained.
Later, she would need to give Kaylee a lecture about cow pies and staying closer to her since the Ellery sisters apparently weren’t the stellar babysitters they claimed to be. Ironic since they were named for various goddesses of protection: Aradia, Diana and Hera.
Kaylee led Garrett back to the room. “It’s pink,” her daughter declared.
It wasn’t. Well, except for one dust-coated doll in a pink dress sitting on top of the chest of drawers. Everything else was gray, drab and probably festering with mold and things Nicky didn’t want to identify. She’d need the full year of the lease just to get the place clean.
Garrett looked around, managed a semi nod and equally semi smile for Kaylee. “You can’t stay here,” he added to Nicky.
Nicky made a show of running her hand like a magician’s assistant over the lease. “This says differently, and I should know because I drew up this lease myself. Since I’m a lawyer, I can promise you that it’s all in order.”
That seemed to distract him or something, and he gave her a funny look. “You’re a lawyer? You said you were going to be a doctor.”
Nicky gave him a funny look right back because she was surprised he had remembered that. “My plans changed. I learned the hard way that I tend to vomit at the sight of blood, guts and bones.” Not a very professional reaction, and her instructors agreed. “I see you’ve become what you’ve always said you’d be—a rancher. But you’re also a business owner. Granger Western.”
Or Cowboy Mart as most folks called it since it sold Western supplies in bulk and at a discount.
Nicky guessed that the business was making the Granger clan even richer than they already were. Especially now that they’d worked through the kinks of a recent setback and investigation.
“My sister, Sophie, runs the business,” he provided.
She listened for any hint of his disapproval about that. There wasn’t any. Interesting because she’d read an article about a codicil to his father’s will that had ousted Garrett and turned the reins of Granger Western over to Sophie. Things like that could tear a family apart, but it appeared there’d been no tearing involved in their case.
Apparently his idea of “small talk” was over because Garrett took the lease back from her and pointed to the bottom line. “My mother doesn’t have permission to sign this. The ranch belongs to my brother.”
“Roman.” She nodded. “Yes, he owns the ranch, but he doesn’t own this house. I researched it, and according to your great-grandfather’s will, he left the house itself to his wife who then left it to your grandfather. He left it to your father, and since your father didn’t stipulate in his will who was to inherit the house, ownership passed to your mother.”
The look he gave her could have flash melted sand, and it had no sexual components to it whatsoever. Not that she’d expected anything sexual from Garrett. After all, he’d rid her of her virginity and promptly dumped her. Still, it was impossible for him to be completely nonsexual since he was still physically hot.
“I’ll have my lawyers look into the will, too,” Garrett added, “because I can’t believe my father didn’t spell that out.”
Neither could she, especially since his father had apparently spelled out everything else. It was possible he’d simply not cared enough about the place to bother with it. In fact, judging from the state of disrepair, none of the current Grangers had cared much about it.
Unlike her.
Just like that, the bad stuff came. Memories that Nicky wished would die the death they deserved. But at the end of that memory tunnel was this place.
This house.
She’d escaped to this place too many times to count.
That was something the Grangers didn’t know. But she’d used it to recoup and in some cases to heal, mentally and ph
ysically. No way, though, did she want to share all of that with Garrett. It was one of her many secrets, but if she was labeling them, that was secret number one.
Apparently, Garrett had no plans to share anything else with her, either. He took out his phone, no doubt to call his lawyers, but he mumbled something she didn’t catch when he saw that he had no cell reception.
“Why would you care if we’re here or not?” Nicky asked. “Other than the current dead bug population, the place has been empty for decades.”
“I care because tomorrow there’ll be workers here to expand the pond. I care because I plan to use every inch of this pasture for cattle. And I care because this is Granger land.” He’d gotten a little louder with each word, and by the time he made it to the last one, he wasn’t shouting exactly, but it was close.
“Well, I care, too,” Nicky argued. “And our being here won’t interfere with your workers or the pasture.”
She hoped. Though the place would be a beehive of activity. Temporarily, since she didn’t need any literal or metaphorical beehives in her life. Neither did the other women.
“Dolly-baby,” Kaylee pointed out, leading him farther into the room. “And boogs.”
She meant bugs. And, yes, there were some dead ones on the floor. Yet something else that needed to be cleaned. Nicky had decided to start with the highest points in the room and work her way down.
“Aydee.” That was Kaylee’s attempt at lady, and she pointed to the painting over the bed. Nicky had no idea who the woman was, but she was coated with dust, too.
Garrett glanced at the other things Kaylee was showing him—the bed, the lamp, the cobweb Nicky had missed when she’d cleaned the window. Even the trunk of old clothes that Kaylee had discovered. Then he snapped back toward Nicky.
“Who are those women downstairs and in the yard, and why are you here?” he demanded.
“Widows. We’re all widows.”
His gaze drifted to Kaylee.
“Well, with the exception of her,” Nicky clarified. “No child-bride arrangements in Texas. And you know Loretta Cunningham. She said she used to change your diaper.”
No Getting Over a Cowboy Page 2
