Tangled Up in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  “I was in town about to go into Fred’s Grocery and get some things for my grandmother,” Sunny explained, following Shaw to his truck. “I heard Kinsley asking how to get out here to the ranch. Apparently, she’d hitchhiked from San Antonio to Lone Star Ridge.”

  Great. So not just angry but also stupid if she’d done something that risky.

  “I noticed the family resemblance so I offered to bring her here,” Sunny went on. “I think she’s broke. I know she’s angry.” She paused, checked her watch. “And I’m sorry to dump all of this on you, but I have to go. I still need to get those groceries, and Granny Em’s expecting me. I don’t want her to worry.”

  No, she wouldn’t want to do that. Her grandmother was in her late seventies, and while Em wasn’t feeble, the woman would indeed worry if Sunny was late. Especially since Sunny and her siblings didn’t visit that often. However, Em did keep the town informed about her girls. Sunny lived in Houston and was an illustrator for a graphic novel series that apparently had quite a following.

  According to the latest intel Shaw had heard from Em, Sunny was also going through a breakup. Not her first, either. Over the years Em had mentioned two breakups, and once Shaw had seen a tabloid headline labeling Sunny as the Runaway Fiancée. He wasn’t sure how many times she’d been engaged or did any running away, but it was possible this last one had hit her hard. So maybe not tired but depressed.

  “Bye, Shaw,” Sunny muttered.

  Then she did something that surprised him. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. It was the kind of absentminded gesture from a woman to a friend who’d never French-kissed her or attempted to give her an orgasm.

  It was the gesture of someone who felt sorry for him.

  That seemed only reasonable because at the moment Shaw was feeling a little sorry for himself. He was, well, lower than a gopher hole about once again having to clean up after his father. Still, the friendly arm squeeze from Sunny got his attention and bothered him. At the feel of her hand on him, he got a jolt of the attraction that had caused them to be more than friends in the first place.

  The attraction might be older than dirt, but it still nudged the wrong part of him. The part right behind the zipper of his jeans.

  Sunny’s gaze practically collided with his, and either she’d developed ESP or else some wrong parts of her had gotten a sizzler of a nudge, too, because she seemed to know exactly what had gone through his mind. She sighed, shook her head.

  “Two words that you should remember,” she whispered. “Sore nuts.”

  Yeah, those were good words to remember all right. And it should have cooled him right down, considering that’s exactly what he’d gotten—not once, but twice—when he’d been with Sunny. A man’s dick just didn’t seem to think straight, though, when nudges and heat got involved. Still, Sunny was hands-off.

  At least she was until he’d dealt with the more immediate problem in the pink boots.

  Shaw pushed his pity party and groin-tightening aside, started his truck and headed for his house. However, that didn’t stop him from glancing at the man who’d strapped what was left of the box back on top of the SUV and then had gotten behind the wheel. The guy was young, very young, but maybe this was the new man in Sunny’s life. After all, Sunny wouldn’t want to stay in her own personal gopher hole any longer than necessary.

  Dragging in a long breath that he was certain he’d need, Shaw turned his attention away from his old flame and drove home. The moment he was there, he went straight into the house. He immediately spotted his mother, Lenore, standing in front of the open door of the fridge.

  “Pineapple tuna casserole or tofu hot dog fondue?” she asked. “Which do you think Kinsley would like?”

  Neither was the correct answer. He loved his mother, but Lenore was the worst cook in the tristate area, and that’s why the fridge was always filled with leftovers. There were a dozen choices in there that no sane person would eat.

  “Hold off on the food,” Shaw advised her. “Where is she?”

  Lenore tipped her head to the adjacent dining room, the motion causing her long gray hair to swing like a curtain. She and Kinsley had a little in common in that his mother clanged some, too. Lenore always wore an assortment of bangles and beads.

  “Did she happen to mention who her mother is?” Shaw pressed.

  Lenore shook her head. “All she told me was her name, and then she insisted I call Marty.”

  That was the same demand the girl had made to him. “I’ll take care of it,” Shaw assured her. “Just wait here.”

  “But Kinsley looks hungry,” Lenore protested.

  “I’ll make sure she gets fed when I take her back home.” Wherever home was.

  Shaw took off his cowboy hat, hung it on the peg by the door and went into the dining room. Kinsley was seated at the huge table, her arms folded over her chest and that temper still flaring in her eyes.

  “Well, did you call the A-hole sperm donor?” she snarled.

  “Not yet. But even when I do call him, it could be days before he comes.” Shaw was being optimistic. It could be years.

  Or never.

  Marty still did singing gigs and occasionally even went on tour, and it was often hard to track him down, especially if he didn’t want to be tracked down.

  “I’ll talk to him or his manager,” Shaw said, “and then take you home—”

  “No.” Kinsley jumped to her feet as if the chair had just scalded her butt. “I’m not going back there. My mother lied to me. All this time, she lied.”

  Oh, crap. Her voice cracked on that last word, and Shaw could practically feel himself getting reeled in on a wave of emotion. And really bad pissed-off anger. Why couldn’t Marty just keep his jeans zipped? Or do something to cut down his sperm count?

  The man needed to be neutered.

  “Who’s your mom?” Shaw asked. When Kinsley only glared at him, he added, “I might know her.”

  That wasn’t a stab in the dark. After all, Kinsley had asked him if he was Shaw, so her mom had maybe told her about Marty’s son.

  “You don’t know her. I don’t know her, not really, since she spent my entire life lying to me,” Kinsley proclaimed with a heavy dose of teenage angst.

  “Do you want some sunshine surprise salad?” Lenore called out to them from the kitchen.

  “Say no,” Shaw advised the girl.

  “I’d love some,” Kinsley answered loud enough for his mom to hear. She gave Shaw the metaphorical finger with her defiant glare.

  Her defiance was going to cost her. Maybe with mere indigestion. Perhaps with the food so god-awful that it would cause her taste buds to self-destruct. But hey, that was her problem for agreeing to be served any food with the word “surprise” in it.

  “So,” Shaw said to move this conversation along, “you recently found out we have the same father.”

  “Sperm donor,” she corrected. “And my mom didn’t bother to tell me. She let me believe my ex-stepdad was my father. She was like a groupie or something when the bio-dad knocked her up.”

  Shaw figured there’d been one hell of a blowup to go along with her mom revealing that information. “And your mother’s name?” he pressed.

  The girl went through with some sneering and scowling before she said, “Aurora Elmore Rubio. We’re from San Antonio.”

  Shaw mentally tested out the name, but it didn’t ring any bells. “How old are you?”

  More sneering and scowling. “Fifteen.”

  It was the second time in the past ten minutes or so that he’d had to do some math. He was thirty-five, but when he was a teenager, Marty had taken him to meet some of his “women.” Because Marty was at the height of his music career then, there’d been a long string of them. However, by the time Marty had met Kinsley’s mom, Shaw had long given up on wanting to spend time with his dad.

 
“Fifteen,” Shaw repeated. “And you what...ran away from home and hitchhiked your way here?” He didn’t wait for her to confirm that. “Does your mom know where you are?”

  “No, and I don’t want her to know. I never want to see her again.”

  “Yet you want to see Marty, the A-hole sperm donor who hasn’t bothered to get in touch with you at any point in your life?”

  Shaw let that hang in the air as Lenore came in with the...whatever the hell it was. It looked like crushed Cheetos on top of cloudy lemon Jell-O.

  “Here you go, sweetheart,” Lenore said, setting the dish in front of Kinsley. “It’s a recipe I got off the computer, but I had to make some substitutions.”

  Kinsley definitely lost some of that surliness when she poked at the food and it jiggled, sending the Cheetos crumbs spilling off the top.

  “So, have you worked out everything with Kinsley?” his mother asked him.

  “Pretty much.” That wasn’t anywhere close to the truth, but Shaw had decided to try to finish this fast so that it would indeed be worked out. “Kinsley will tell me her address, and I’ll take her home so her mother, she and I can talk about all of this.”

  Of course, talking wasn’t going to help, not with the anger coming off Kinsley in hot greasy waves. Using quick jabs, she was taking out some of the anger on the salad surprise.

  “I told you I’m not going back to my mom’s,” Kinsley insisted. Her eyes shifted to Lenore. “You can understand that, right? I mean, she lied to me, never had any intentions of telling me. I wouldn’t have ever known that Marty Jameson was my sperm donor if I hadn’t found some old letters in her dresser drawer. They were like some stupid kind of fan mail.”

  “Oh, dear.” Lenore reached over and patted her hand. “What a terrible way to find out.”

  “Yeah, it was. Then, she gave me this bull crap story about not knowing how to get in touch with Marty after they broke up. Well, all it took was a little poking around on the net. I tried to call his manager, but I couldn’t find the number. Then, I read about Marty Jameson being raised on this ranch way back when, that it’d been in his family for a long time. The stories said his son, Shaw, was running the place now. So, I left and came here.”

  Lenore muttered, “Oh, dear.” She added, “But I’m sure your mom’s worried about you.”

  “She’s not worried,” Kinsley argued. “She’s just pissed because I found out she’s a big fat liar.”

  “Your mother’s probably already reported you missing, and she’ll figure out that you’ve made your way to the ranch,” Shaw supplied. “The cops will come here looking for you. They’ll force you to go back home.”

  That finally seemed to sink in, and Shaw had another oh, crap moment when Kinsley started blinking back tears.

  “Going home’s not a bad thing,” Shaw continued. “You don’t have to forgive your mom, not right off anyway, but you can wait there until Marty comes to see you.”

  That sure didn’t help with Kinsley’s tears, and one spilled down her cheek, cutting its way through the layers of makeup.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Lenore said, getting up to go around the table to Kinsley.

  Shaw was always amazed that his mother could feel no resentment for her ex-husband’s love children who kept showing up. Lenore would have had the girl in her arms if Kinsley had also stood, but she backed away from his mother.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” Kinsley blurted out. She did a fast swipe with the back of her hand to remove that tear.

  “I’ll show you where it is,” Lenore volunteered, and she led the girl out of the dining room and toward the hall powder room.

  Sighing, Shaw took out his phone to call his brother Leyton. This was one of those times when it was good to have the town sheriff in the family. It was also good when Leyton answered right away.

  “Another of Marty’s kids showed up,” Leyton said before Shaw could speak. “I just heard she was at Fred’s asking for directions to the ranch.”

  “Yeah. Her name’s Kinsley Rubio, and it’s possible she’s been reported as a runaway.”

  “I’ll check.”

  Lenore came back into the dining room, and her right eyebrow was already arched in a questioning expression. Shaw just shook his head, hoping he’d have answers for her soon.

  “Her mother, Aurora Elmore Rubio, reported her missing about four hours ago,” Leyton verified several moments later. Shaw heard his brother sigh, too. “Is she looking for money or just for Marty?”

  “So far only Marty. You’ve got her mom’s address in San Antonio?”

  “I do.” He rattled it off to Shaw. “You want to drive her home, or do you need me to do it?” Leyton asked.

  Shaw thought of all the work he had on his plate today. A meeting with a cattle broker and tax paperwork, and he wanted to spot-check some fence repairs that were being done by a new ranch hand. All of those things were important but were outweighed by the single tear on Kinsley’s cheek. The girl was hurting, and he needed to step in and clear up yet one more of his father’s messes.

  “I’ll take her,” Shaw answered. “But you call Marty. If he doesn’t answer, call his friends and his manager until you track him down. Then tell him to get his ass out to Kinsley’s house and fix this.”

  Leyton grumbled some profanity, followed by a sound of agreement. Shaw figured it would take his brother much longer to locate Marty than it would for him to drive the girl home. One hour to get to San Antonio. Another couple of hours to try to smooth things over as best he could. Another hour to get back.

  “I’ll get my purse from the living room so I can go with you to take her home,” Lenore volunteered after Shaw had ended the call.

  He didn’t nix that even though he doubted it would help with the smoothing. Still, if Kinsley started crying again, it might be a good thing to have his mom there with them.

  Shaw put his phone back in his pocket and waited for Kinsley. And waited. When too much time had passed, he went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. It swung open.

  No Kinsley inside.

  He was about to call out for her when he heard his mother’s hurried footsteps coming from the living room.

  “My purse is gone,” Lenore blurted out. Her eyes widened when she looked into the empty bathroom. “You don’t think that sweet girl stole it, do you?”

  Well, shit on a stick. This smoothing over had just gotten a lot more complicated.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SUNNY HATED TO state the obvious, but having surgery hurt. So did the ill-advised Brazilian she’d let her former almost-stepdaughter talk her into getting the day before she’d gone under the knife. Now she was hurting in two places.

  Two intimate, personal places.

  She pushed the red leather bra to the side in the back of the SUV so she could make room for the groceries. But Sunny kept her attention on the garment for several moments. Considering it. Considering her sister, too. She’d often been puzzled over Hadley’s costume designs, but she wondered in this case if she could modify the bra to suit her own needs.

  Specifically, as a way to cut down on potential boob pain.

  If she sanded down the sharp spikes, the cups wouldn’t rip her clothes or impale anyone who happened to hug her. And the remaining metal padding could act like a shield over her incision. Still, that was probably the extreme way to go. An easier solution would be to just avoid hugs. And accidental contact. And moving or excessive breathing.

  She tried not to wince when she opened the back of her SUV. She failed and not only winced but wasn’t able to bite off the throaty grunt of pain that escaped. A grunt that immediately got her traveling companion’s attention.

  “Are you all right?” Ryan asked, hurrying to take the bags from her. His forehead bunched up when her gaze drifted down to her left breast.

  Boob pain wasn’t a comfo
rtable subject for a sixteen-year-old boy. Especially when the pain was connected to the boob of his stepmother.

  Well, his almost-stepmother anyway.

  Sunny hadn’t actually married Ryan’s father, Hugh Dunbar, but she’d been with him for two years before breaking off the engagement. Ending the relationship had only added more fodder to her runaway fiancée reputation, but a little gossip was a small price to pay for not making the mistake of going through with the marriage. And Sunny was positive it would have been a mistake.

  Ryan, however, definitely wasn’t a mistake.

  He was a good kid. The best part of the deal when it came to Hugh.

  “I’m okay,” she assured him, and that was true—if she discounted the pain. Which she would do since she didn’t want Ryan to worry about her. The stitches had come out that morning. According to her doctor, her recovery was fine and dandy, and she would soon be right as rain.

  Sunny had decided that if she needed a surgeon again, she’d look for one who didn’t speak in overly cheerful clichés.

  At least Dr. Sanchez was correct about her physical recovery. Her body would get to the dandy stage soon enough. Perhaps even the fine stage. However, as far as the mental stuff, it was going to take her a while to get over the scare of coming face-to-face with the possibility that a part of her body could have killed her.

  Death by left breast.

  It hadn’t been a joking matter, of course, but joking about it even to herself helped stave off the darkness. Sometimes. Maybe being back here in Lone Star Ridge would help, too. After all, Granny Em had a knack for chasing away the bad stuff.

  “Sunny Dalton?” a man shouted from across the street. “Or is it McCall? Definitely not Hadley.”

  Even after all these years, fifteen of them to be exact, she had no trouble recognizing that voice. It belonged to none other than Carter Bodell. This time the sound she made was a groan of a different sort. Not from boob pain. But more of a reaction to someone who was a pain in the rear.