Doris paused for several moments, but she didn’t take her gaze from his. “It’s about Nicky Marlow.”
So, maybe she was a widow after all. “What about her?”
“She’s a liar,” Doris said, and this time she didn’t pause.
All right. That was a start. Not a good one, though. A knot tightened in his gut. Here he’d assumed that the reason Nicky wanted the restraining order was because of a stalker. A male stalker. Maybe an old boyfriend. But it could be this woman.
“Are you the one who’s been sending Nicky flowers?” he came out and asked.
Doris pulled back her shoulders, clearly surprised by what he’d just said, but what she didn’t do was deny it. She searched his eyes, maybe trying to figure out how much he knew about all of this.
He didn’t know much.
No way, though, would he tell Doris that.
“Why the flowers?” he asked.
She had to get her jaw unclenched so she could speak. “Because I don’t want her to forget what she’s done.”
Garrett didn’t respond. He just waited, hoping Doris would continue. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Nicky’s not Kaylee’s mother. She stole her from me, and I intend to get her back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE THUNDER CAUSED Nicky to curse. From the sound of it, the storm was moving in sooner than expected, and that meant there might be a full downpour when the party guests were arriving. It also meant the trail would become a bog. At least Lady’s tow truck was there if anyone needed to be pulled out.
Nicky hurried into the kitchen to grab the last of the plates, but she was careful about where she was stepping. She hadn’t managed to catch the escaped crab, and she didn’t want the critter pinching her toes.
It seemed a silly thing to worry about, since the crab had been bound for the boiling pot, but she hoped he wasn’t hungry wherever he was. In case he was, she’d put a few baby spinach leaves under the prep table, along with a shallow bowl of water. And she hoped that no one thought she was an idiot for doing that.
Alice, Belle and Ruby were also in the kitchen, finishing up the various dishes. Including the other crabs, which were now crab cakes. Despite the A/C, the room was sticky hot, and Nicky felt the sweat trickle down her back.
She hadn’t asked Garrett’s mom about how things had gone with Candy. She hadn’t wanted to bring up anything unpleasant, especially since Belle was in a good mood. Maybe that meant Candy was under arrest and had been locked up.
She took the plates to the formal dining room table, and thankfully Ginger was there to arrange things. Some of the other women were doing the same to another table they’d set up in the parlor. Since none of the rooms were large enough to accommodate a lot of guests, there’d be plenty of mingling.
Nicky’s phone dinged, and when she pulled her phone from her pocket, she saw that the text was from an unknown number. Her stomach automatically started to churn because that was how Doris usually contacted her.
And this had to be Doris all right.
There was no greeting, no name, just the text: I’ll be in touch soon.
Even though there was no profanity or threats, Nicky knew that it was exactly that—a threat.
“Where’s Loretta?” Ginger asked, drawing Nicky’s attention back to her and the party prep. “She knows how to fold the napkins into cute shapes.”
“She had a meeting with her lawyer in San Antonio. Something to do with her husband’s estate.”
Nicky checked the time. It was less than an hour before the guests would start arriving, and Loretta had said she would be back by now. Unless she got there soon, there wouldn’t be any cute-shaped napkins.
She pushed aside the effects of that text message and made a quick check of the bar area that D.M. and Lady were setting up. It wasn’t perfect, mainly because the two had been testing out new cocktail recipes all day, but it would have to do. At least Lady wasn’t off somewhere satisfying her sexual urges.
As Nicky had done earlier with Garrett.
As Nicky suspected Gina had done, too.
Her friend was doing an inordinate amount of smiling while she dusted and did a final cleaning check. Nicky was smiling, as well, but she didn’t think Garrett was doing the same thing. The sex had been great as usual, but she knew that when he arrived at the house he’d wanted to talk. That would happen soon.
Tomorrow, probably.
But first she had to get through this night.
While she texted Loretta to make sure she was okay, Nicky headed upstairs to change her clothes. She looked in on Kaylee first, and her little girl and the sitter, Piper, were playing Kaylee’s favorite game of dress up. Since this was Piper’s first time watching Kaylee, Nicky would be looking in on them often, but Piper was the mayor’s daughter, a college freshman, and everyone had raved about her babysitting skills. She certainly had figured out the way to Kaylee’s heart because her daughter seemed to be having fun.
Nicky wasn’t going to interrupt that fun, but she thought of something she needed to tell Piper. The problem was how to word it so that it didn’t frighten her or Kaylee. Nicky took out her phone, scrolled to the picture that she’d given Clay for the restraining order, and showed it to Piper.
“If this woman happens to show up, you need to let me know right away,” Nicky whispered to her.
Piper’s eyes widened a little. “Is she a widow you’ve kicked out of here? Because I heard a couple of them had left.”
One had left. Meredith. And Nicky hadn’t actually kicked her out. “She just shouldn’t be here,” Nicky settled for saying. “And she probably won’t come. I wanted you to know just in case.”
Piper nodded and suddenly didn’t look as at ease as she had a few moments earlier. Nicky started to assure her that the woman wasn’t dangerous, but she was. Anyone who wanted to take Kaylee fell into the dangerous category.
There was an advantage to being in such a sprawling house. Kaylee’s room wasn’t exactly easy to find, and even with the guests who’d be coming and going, Doris would stand out because no one from town would recognize her. With her height and size, she wouldn’t be able to just blend in, either. Still, Nicky wished she hadn’t planned this stupid party.
I’ll be in touch soon, Doris had texted.
But Nicky prayed that was an empty threat.
She took a quick shower, dressed and even managed to put on some makeup before she heard the doorbell. Obviously, someone had arrived early. She checked her phone as she headed downstairs. Still no response from Loretta, and while Nicky wasn’t ready to sound the alarm just yet, she was concerned. Maybe Loretta was driving and hadn’t checked her messages yet.
“It’s the mayor and some men I don’t know,” Lady said as she passed Nicky at the bottom of the stairs.
Nicky had been expecting the mayor—Belle had invited him—but she was a little surprised that there were men on the guest list that Lady didn’t know. Nicky figured Lady had become acquainted with everyone in or near Wrangler’s Creek who had a penis.
There was another rumble of thunder. Some lightning. And Nicky saw that Belle was taking a wet umbrella from the mayor. Nicky greeted him and left it to Belle to show him around when she spotted the other three men that Nicky didn’t recognize.
And that immediately set off alarms.
No. Not this. Not tonight.
Had Doris sent them?
Nicky went to them, trying to keep hold of her composure. “Who are you?” she asked, and no, she didn’t exactly sound like a welcoming hostess.
The men didn’t answer. Unlike the mayor, they obviously hadn’t had umbrellas because they were wet. Not just their hair but their clothes, as well. They also had plenty of mud on their shoes and the bottom of their pants.
“I
’m Barry,” the one in the middle said. “These are my brothers, Bobby and Bennie.”
That still didn’t explain who they were, and Nicky didn’t get a chance to demand more information. That’s because there was a shrieking sound, followed by a thud, and she whirled around to see the Ellery sisters. Two of them anyway. It took Nicky a second to spot the third one, Diana, who was now on the floor. She appeared to have fainted, but despite this, her sisters weren’t doing anything to help her. That’s because they were gaping at the men.
“Hera,” one of the men said.
“Aradia,” another said.
“Diana,” the third one, Barry, said. He didn’t go to the woman, either.
“Bobby,” Hera said.
“Bennie,” Aradia said. Even though her voice had hardly any sound, Nicky heard her. So did the others in the house because suddenly all the widows, Belle, Alice and the mayor were there. Like Nicky, they’d obviously figured out there was a huge problem here.
Three of them.
“I’m going to take a wild guess that these men are your husbands.” But it wasn’t much of a guess. The men wore wedding bands that were identical to the ones the sisters were wearing. There was also the emotion. In the time that the sisters had been at the house, none had ever seemed to get their pulses elevated above a resting rate.
Their pulses were clearly elevated now.
Even Diana who was regaining consciousness but appeared to be moving to the hyperventilation stage.
“How? Why?” the sisters asked, and there were some oh Gods and oh dears thrown in there.
Judging from the way the men dodged their gazes, there wasn’t going to be a happy answer. Such as they’d gotten lost or had amnesia and had just now found their way back or recovered.
After nearly two years.
“Our boat didn’t capsize,” Bennie finally said. “We made it look that way so we could, well, disappear.”
“Why?” That came as a collective question from the sisters, followed by some sobs.
“We just weren’t thinking straight,” one of the men said. “We were drunk and made a bad decision.”
“Bullshit.” That came from D.M. For a woman of so few words, she nailed it every time since her BS meant she knew they were lying.
The sisters’ shock was quickly wearing off, and since Nicky wasn’t sure what they would do, she walked between the sisters and their husbands. Probably not a stellar idea, but Gina joined her.
“Why don’t all of you go into the library so you can talk?” Nicky suggested.
If anyone heard her, they didn’t acknowledge it.
“Why?” Diana repeated in a gusty breath. Hera’s breath was gusting now, too, but she sounded more like a snorting bull.
“Because we wanted out,” Barry finally admitted. “And because we knew you wouldn’t give us a divorce. We didn’t want to hurt you and thought this was the best way to go about it.”
“You shit heads,” Lady snarled. It was the first and only time Nicky had ever heard Lady defend the sisters. “They’ve been here grieving. Where the hell have you been?”
“Florida,” Bennie answered, his attention on the floor and not his sobbing wife. “But we ran out of money, and we didn’t have any other place to go. We couldn’t get jobs because we didn’t have fake IDs. We were living off the cash we took with us.” He paused. “You have no idea how hard it is to be married to them.”
No one in the room argued with that, but that didn’t stop Lady from flinging another shit heads at them. Nicky went to Diana, took her arm and got her moving toward the library. Thankfully, Gina managed to get the other two sisters to follow, and Belle and D.M. did the same to the men. Maybe once they talked, they could work all of this out.
Or not.
Making a feral sound, Diana launched herself at Barry. Gina caught the woman in midlaunch, whirling her around and practically slinging her into the library.
“No violence,” Gina warned them.
“These F-word heads made us think they were dead,” Hera said, no longer sobbing. Her eyes were narrowed to tiny slits. “What would you do if your husband had done that to you?”
“I would have killed the ass wipe,” Lady quickly volunteered. That only fueled the narrowed eyes, the snorting breaths and the G-rated profanity. Diana called the men chicken caca.
“I would have hit him with a shovel and buried him in the swamp,” D.M. contributed.
Nicky hoped that was the last of the answers to Hera’s question.
It wasn’t.
“I would have given him a chance to explain.” That from Ruby. Nicky wanted to kiss her. It didn’t last though. “And if he told me that he’d faked his death to get away from me, then I would have asked D.M. to help me hit him with a shovel and bury him in the swamp.”
Nicky groaned. It was too bad Cassie wasn’t here yet, or she could have asked her to do an emergency therapy session. Since it might be a while before the therapist arrived, Nicky just went with the “least collateral damage” approach.
“You three get on that side of the room,” Nicky ordered the men. “And you get over there.” She pointed to the other side for the sisters. “There’ll be no violence, no shovels, no grave digging and only minimal name calling. Hey, you deserve some name calling,” she added when one of the men groaned.
The doorbell rang, causing Nicky to do her own groaning. Obviously, she would have to let the guests know what was going on and let them decide if they wanted to stay for a free sideshow. She also needed to call Clay and get him out here, though he was likely already on his way with Sophie.
Nicky glanced around and pointed to the mayor, Gina, Belle and Alice. “Could the four of you stay here and mediate? You get the door,” she added to Lady and D.M.
The pair weren’t exactly the best greeters, but Nicky needed to make that call to Clay. When she stepped out in the hall to do that, she saw Jake. Thank God. He was big enough to hold back at least a couple of the sisters if a fight broke out. She was about to fill him in on what was happening, but he spoke first.
“What happened to Loretta?” he asked.
Nicky had to shake her head. “I’m not sure. Is she here yet?”
“No. She’s in town. I just drove by the police station and saw Loretta through the window. Reena was with her, and she had Loretta in handcuffs.”
* * *
GARRETT HAD THOUGHT if he arrived early to the party that he could get a moment alone with Nicky. But it didn’t look like that was likely. Someone was shouting.
Lady and another widow were in the foyer, greeting Herman from the hardware store and Fred, the pharmacist. No sign of Nicky, though, or the people who were shouting.
A woman called someone a doodle head.
“The sisters’ husbands faked their deaths,” Lady informed him. And she called them dickheads instead of the shouted version.
Oh, man. That couldn’t have been the start that Nicky had wanted to the party. But, of course, with what he had to tell her, this party was going to be over fast.
“Nicky was outside the library last time I saw her,” Lady added, and she winked at Garrett. Maybe innocent flirting, but it was probably a reminder that if things didn’t work out between Nicky and him, then she was available. He wasn’t interested in Lady.
But he wasn’t so sure things were going to work out with Nicky, either.
After they talked, she’d probably be anxious to get Kaylee out of there. Get herself out, too.
“By the way,” he told Lady. “The trail from the road to this house is pure mud right now. Cars are stuck, and no one can get in or out.”
Lady smiled. “I’ll bet those judgmental bats from the Garden Guild won’t mind my Camel-Tow sign now.”
Yes, they would still mind, but they wouldn’t
turn down a tow.
He went in search of Nicky and found her just outside the library, and she had her phone in hand. She looked up at him, their gazes connecting, and she must not have picked up on his tense body language because she hugged him.
“Thank God you’re here,” she said. “Clay’s not answering his phone. Do you have another number for him? A private one. I don’t want to talk to any of the deputies.”
“Why? You want him to arrest the sisters’ husbands?”
“No. Maybe,” she amended when the yelling went up a notch. “But I need to check on Loretta. Jake said he saw her in the police station in handcuffs. Have you heard anything about that?”
“No.” Hell. Was there some kind of bad juju in the air?
He hoped Vita hadn’t put some kind of creepy spell on the place. He got confirmation that might be true when he heard something crash against the wall. At first, he thought someone had thrown something, but one of the sisters had one of the men—her husband probably—against the wall. For a small-statured woman, she’d done a pretty decent body slam.
His mother and the mayor were trying to get the sister off the man. Jake was holding back the other two sisters who were clawing and biting at him to get loose. The other two men were trying to open the window. Maybe to escape. Gina was shouting for everyone to stop.
“Stop it!” Garrett yelled.
His yell worked a lot better than Gina’s. The sisters with Jake stopped fighting. The one trying to choke her husband let up on that, too. Everyone seemed to pause to gather their breath, and they looked at him as if waiting for some further instructions.
Garrett really hadn’t planned that far ahead, but it was obvious that there needed to be some cooling off. That probably wouldn’t happen if the husbands and wives were in the same room.
He pointed to the men. “All of you, out of here. You can go wait in whatever vehicle you used to get here.”
“It’s stuck in the mud,” one of them said.
“Tough. Wait in it anyway. If you get lucky and manage a tow from Lady, then you can go into town and wait there.”
No Getting Over a Cowboy Page 23
