She stood, checked on Garrett again. Frowned again. Lady had leaned in even closer. Garrett wasn’t leaning, though. He glanced at the office window and met Nicky’s gaze. He shot her a glare, and that was her cue to get out there and rescue him from Lady. And no, it didn’t have anything to do with Nicky being jealous. She just wanted to minimize the crud that Garrett was having to face because they were all there.
Nicky grabbed her purse and was on the way out the door when she heard the footsteps, and she hoped this wasn’t another widow in search of sanctuary. If so, she’d have to turn her away. She looked in the hall to do just that. But it wasn’t a widow. Heck, it wasn’t even a woman.
It was Roman.
He came toward her, several widows trailing behind him. Not showing him the way obviously. Because he knew the way in his own home. No, she recognized the signs. They were starstruck or rather Roman-struck as she used to call it. He definitely had that effect on most women. Not her, though. Nicky had never had a thing for bad boys, and Roman was very, very bad.
“Nicky,” Roman greeted. As greetings went, it wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. “I’ve come here to evict you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
NICKY DRAGGED IN a long breath, one that she was certain she would need for the argument she was about to have with Roman. Obviously, his brother had gotten to him and convinced Roman to oust them. For a moment Nicky considered letting him do just that with no argument whatsoever from her, but then she remembered there were actually women who needed the Widows’ House.
Including her.
“Roman, please, don’t kick us off the ranch.” Nicky figured she was going to have to say a lot more than that to convince him.
He shrugged. “Okay.”
Nicky took another long breath, but that’s because she was confused. The confusion didn’t clear up any when Roman took some keys from his pocket and dangled them in front of her.
“A friend lent me his RV.” He took her hand, put the keys in her palm. “It sleeps six so that means you won’t have to spend the night on Garrett’s desk again. I’ve also told Mom to put someone in my old room. Sophie insists someone use hers, too. That’ll mean fewer women will have to double and triple up. But the RV is for you. Consider that my version of an eviction.”
She hadn’t intended to kiss him but Nicky did. The kiss was purely chaste and on his cheek, but one of the gawking widows sighed.
“Thank you,” she whispered to him. “But how’d you know I’d slept on his desk?”
“I got it from the horse’s mouth when he called me about some ranching business. At least he said it was ranching business, but really Garrett just wanted to vent.”
Of course, he did. She would vent if everyone else weren’t doing the same thing. In fact, this had turned into a vent-a-thon where all the complaints were becoming white noise.
“I swear, we’ll clear out of here as soon as I can manage it,” Nicky assured him.
He shrugged again in that lazy way that most mortal men couldn’t have managed. “My brother’s going through some stuff.”
That was a nice way of saying Garrett’s life had taken a nosedive. “I knew about some of it,” she said. “But if I’d had the big picture, I would have just bitten the bullet and sent all the widows away.”
“Big picture?” he repeated. “You mean his baby?”
She nodded. “I only just found out about it. He must think about her every time he looks at my little girl.”
“He thinks about her even when your daughter’s not here. Nothing you can do about that. Nothing any of us can do,” he added in a mumble. Roman tipped his head to the purse she’d looped over her shoulder. “Going somewhere?”
“Clay’s office to sign a report.” She followed his gaze to the window where he’d spotted Garrett and Lady. “But I can stay if you want to catch up.”
“No. I should see Garrett.” He checked his watch. “I’ll wait, though, about twenty or thirty minutes. I enjoy seeing him sweat a little.”
Nicky had another look at Garrett, too. “Maybe he’s not sweating. He could be interested in her.”
Roman responded with a sound that could have meant anything.
At that exact moment, Garrett shot her another glare, and he must have also spotted Roman because he said something to Lady and started for the house. That was Nicky’s cue to leave. She said goodbye to Roman, goodbye, too, to the trail of widows gawking at him.
Nicky made a quick call to Gina to let her know that she’d be gone for a while, and she headed out the front door. Her SUV was actually parked in the back, but this way she could avoid Garrett. Thankfully, she avoided not only him but anyone else who might have stopped her along the way.
She got in her SUV, letting the quiet wash over her. Ironic that this was the most peace she’d found in the past twenty-four hours. Too bad it would have to end with that report.
The drive to town was a blast from the past. She’d done this trip many times, first on her bike and then in the run-down Toyota she’d managed to afford by working summers and weekends at the grocery store. There’d been no real reason for her to make the drive since the Granger Ranch wasn’t on the way to anything. It was just something she’d done, all the while thinking about how it would feel to be normal like the Grangers.
She passed Clay’s house and then Vita Banchini’s, the oddball fortune-teller who sometimes put curses on people. Vita definitely fell outside the normal range.
And, of course, Nicky saw the old house where she’d been raised.
It didn’t sit right on the road, but since there were no trees in front of it, it was impossible to miss. She slowed, not intending to stop but stopping anyway. Maybe this was a moth-to-a-flame kind of thing, but she also wondered if it was time to confront a demon or two.
The place was vacant and apparently had been for years. Her parents had once owned it and then lost it in foreclosure just a few weeks before her high school graduation. It hadn’t exactly felt like much of a loss at the time.
Still didn’t.
The Penningtons had bought the place from the bank after that and had used it as rental property. That probably hadn’t been a successful venture because Wrangler’s Creek didn’t have a big renters’ market, but she hadn’t been around to know for sure. In fact, she’d spent the next seven years of her life working her way through college and trying to forget this place ever existed.
In hindsight, that need to forget had been the reason she’d avoided any and all updates on the town and especially the Grangers. After what’d happened with Garrett, the memories had rolled together into one giant, smothering ball of hurt and misery. But all of that had happened seventeen years ago. A lifetime. Maybe it was lifetime enough for this place to have lost its hold over her.
She parked next to the yard that was more weeds than grass. There were no signs of her mother’s rosebushes and flowerbeds, and Nicky wondered if the weeds had claimed them or if someone had taken mercy on them and replanted them at a more hospitable place. She hoped it was the latter.
Something good had to have come out of here.
The screen door on the front was hanging on one hinge, and the July breeze caught it, causing it to make a creaking sound as it swayed. Definitely not welcoming, but she just kept on walking up the steps. Nicky only made it to the second of five steps before she had to stop. She couldn’t make her feet, or her mind, go any farther.
Even though she was still a good two yards away from the front door, she caught the scent of the place. She got an instant slam of dust, mustiness and other smells she didn’t want to identify.
She’d thought there couldn’t be a place grimier than Z.T.’s house, but Nicky had been wrong about that. From what she could see, there was plenty of dust here. Dead leaves and other debris, too. The paint on the walls was b
listered and peeling. The wood floors, pocked with nicks and gouges. Nothing the way it had been when she’d lived here. She and her mother had at least kept the place clean.
But clean places sometimes held a dirty secret. This one certainly did.
The memories came. Not as some old, watery images that she couldn’t blink away, either. No. She wasn’t that lucky. These were crystal clear.
Memories of her father and his drunken rages.
Memories of him coming home from whatever job he hadn’t been fired from yet. Staggering through the door, his body slumped because he was too drunk to stand upright. It always put a knot in her gut to know that he’d driven home that way from some bar.
Grow a pair, Nicky!
He’d yelled it at her so many times that it was like a tattoo inked on her brain. He’d told her that anytime he was disappointed in her. Anytime she’d cried. Anytime things hadn’t gone his way.
Which was often.
She hadn’t even known what it meant until she was eleven or so and then had gotten a backhand across the face when she had tried to explain in earnest that she would never grow a pair of testicles. After that he’d amended it.
Grow a pair, you dumb bitch!
There had been no lamps in the house because he’d managed to break every one of them. Most of their dishes were plastic. Because when he was in a drunken rage, he liked to smash things.
It didn’t happen every night. In fact, sometimes he’d stay sober for months. Just long enough to lull her mother and her into thinking that the monster wouldn’t come back. But it did.
It always came back.
There were times, like now, when Nicky could feel his hand slap her face. Times when she could hear the slurred words that had made her feel broken. So broken that she might never fit together again.
Stupid. Bitch. Ugly. Whore.
He’d had other words for her mother, but those were the ones he saved just for her. They echoed through her head now. Through the house, too, and Nicky could have sworn she smelled the cheap whiskey on his breath. The old sweat he hadn’t bothered to wash off before he’d started his slide into the bottle.
His name had been Walt Levi Henderson. And he’d died of liver failure at the age of forty-three. But not before leaving his mark on her. Several of them in fact. Nicky had the scars he’d given her along with the one she’d given herself. The one when she’d used a razor to cut into her own breast.
Cutter was such an ugly word.
But it wasn’t as ugly as the word she’d cut into her skin.
That was another of her secrets. And it was a secret she could hide beneath her clothes.
Grow a pair, you dumb bitch!
She thought of her big brother. Kyle. He was five years older than she was and had run away when Nicky had only been twelve. Or rather ridden away on a motorcycle he’d built from spare parts he’d found in the junkyard. Sometimes, she’d resented him for leaving, for not trying to save her. But he’d been just a kid, as well, and he certainly hadn’t gotten out unscathed. No. Kyle had scars, too.
The tears came, and she cursed them. Damn him. Damn this. Obviously, she was nowhere close to chasing away the demons. In fact, it felt as if she’d just cut herself again. As if she’d ripped herself open to let those demons back inside her.
Grow a pair, you dumb bitch!
She whirled around, ready to bolt off the step, and landed right in Garrett’s arms.
Nicky heard the strangled sound make its way through her throat. It wasn’t a sound she wanted anyone to hear. Especially Garrett.
“You scared me,” she managed to say.
Nicky didn’t look at him. In fact, she looked everywhere else because she didn’t want him to see what was in her eyes. Not just the tears. But the broken pain.
He opened his mouth, and she braced herself for him to say something like I wasn’t the one who scared you. Or what the hell is going on?
But he didn’t.
Garrett closed his mouth, and she could almost sense him debating how to handle this. Her elusive gaze probably wasn’t fooling him, and he likely knew something was wrong. Hopefully, he also knew that saying anything about it would be opening a particularly nasty can of worms.
“I picked you up a couple of times here when we dated,” he finally said.
So, no worm-can-opening today. Good. Because Nicky thought that maybe talking about it would be the same skin-cutting experience as being inside the place. It’d been a mistake to come here, and like the other times she’d felt this way, she wanted to run. Not to just any ordinary place but to Z.T.’s old house.
Fifteen minutes. That’s all it would take her to run there if she cut through the old ranch trails and the pastures. Fifteen minutes before she could hide in a safe, quiet place with no drunk fathers calling her names.
Of course, she couldn’t go there. Not only because of the investigation but also because Garrett likely wouldn’t let her start running without expecting her to explain what the heck was going on.
“The dust got to me,” she lied, wiping her eyes. Nicky stepped around him and went into the yard. It helped. She could catch her breath, could try to tamp down all these stupid emotions.
She could leave.
And that’s what she started to do, but Garrett stepped in front of her, blocking her path. Judging from the look on his face, he was getting that opener ready for the worm can.
* * *
GARRETT WASN’T SURE that stopping Nicky was the smartest idea he’d ever had. It was obvious she didn’t want to talk about what was going on in her head. But that stark look in her eyes tugged at him.
Because he was likely the reason for it.
Not just his attitude about the lease but also their past. He couldn’t undo the past and couldn’t pretend to be happy about the lease so Garrett just chose another topic. One that might get her mind on something else. In turn that something else might get that look off her face.
“Why are you here anyway?” he asked.
“I was on my way into town to sign a report for Clay, and I couldn’t resist a trip down memory lane.”
He glanced around the place. “Sometimes memory lane is best forgotten.”
That got the reaction he wanted. She smiled. It didn’t last and probably wasn’t genuine, but he’d take it.
“Your folks moved right around the time you left to go to college,” he commented. “Where are they now? And what about your brother? Where did he end up?”
She glanced away again, and he wanted to curse himself for the nerve that he’d obviously hit. “Kyle’s in San Antonio. My mother moved to Virginia to be closer to her sister. And my dad passed away.” She paused only the span of a breath. “What about you? Why are you here?”
“I’m on my way to sign a report, too. If I’d known you had to come in, I could have given you a ride.” Man, she probably thought he had multiple personalities or something. One minute he was trying to give her the boot. The next, trying to give her a ride.
She shook her head. “I had some errands to do, too.”
He got the feeling that was a lie, but he didn’t call her on it. “How’d your visit with Roman go?”
“Great.” No smile, but she seemed relieved with not only the topic but the result. “He’s letting us stay in the house, and I’m sure you saw the RV he brought.”
Garrett nodded. He saw it and approved. Well, as much as he could approve of any of this. It would get Nicky off his desk.
“Should I ask why Roman doesn’t live at home?” she said.
“No.” He paused, looked away. Since that was rude, he felt the need to explain a little. “He owns a rodeo business in San Antonio and has a house there. But he also owns the Granger Ranch.”
“Yes. I heard your mom mention someth
ing about that last night. And she said your cousins still own all the land north of here and are trying to buy more. Pretty soon Wrangler’s Creek isn’t going to be big enough for the Grangers.”
It already wasn’t big enough. The only saving grace right now was that his cousins didn’t have a working ranch on their land. They had a large spread just one county over. That was in part why Lawson worked for him in Wrangler’s Creek. Also in part because there was some feuding going on between him and his brothers. A feud Garrett didn’t want to know anything about.
“How was your visit with Lady?” she asked.
Well, it hadn’t been great, as Nicky had no doubt witnessed from the window. “Lady doesn’t seem to be grief stricken.”
“How so?” But it was a question meant to poke fun at him. Because she knew that Lady had been all over him.
“As my mother would say, she wants to get in my pants. That won’t happen. So, I told her I wasn’t interested.” Of course, he’d had to say variations of that not interested several times before the woman got the message.
The silence came, and it wasn’t a good silence, either. It was the awkward kind so he stepped to the side in case she wanted to leave. She did. Nicky immediately headed for her SUV and got in. She couldn’t leave, though, because Garrett was parked behind her so he went to his truck and drove away. But not before giving the old house one last look.
What the hell had gone on here?
Because he was no longer certain that he was the one responsible for those tears he’d seen in Nicky’s eyes.
Garrett drove into town and parked in front of the Wrangler’s Creek Police Station. Nicky didn’t, though. She drove past him, no doubt to run those errands she’d mentioned. Probably to avoid him, as well. Since he’d been avoiding her, Garrett couldn’t fault her for that.
He went inside and made a beeline for Clay’s office at the back of the building. Not a long walk since, like everything else in the town of Wrangler’s Creek, it wasn’t that big. He found his soon-to-be brother-in-law seated at his desk.
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