No Getting Over A Cowboy

“Yes. I heard your mom mention something 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.

“Anything new on the John Doe?” Garrett immediately asked him.

“Not really.” Clay stood, poured Garrett and himself some coffee. “It might be a week before the CSIs can go through the whole place. Did you know there were secret rooms?”

“Yeah. There’s one off the library. Another in the master bedroom.” Garrett was about to take a sip of the coffee, but he got a bad feeling. “Please don’t tell me you found another body.”

“No, but it just means there are more places the CSIs will have to examine and maybe process.”

“Process? You’re not talking about collecting fingerprints, DNA and things like that?” Garrett’s mind went straight to a bad place.

He’d obviously seen too many crime shows, and a little porn, because he thought of all the possible DNA in the place. His DNA and Nicky’s. Of course, it wasn’t as if everyone didn’t already know that Nicky and he had been together like that. Still, he doubted she would want that old water, old bridge brought up again.

“They’re looking for the John Doe’s clothes and anything else that will help us identify him,” Clay explained. He lifted his eyebrow as if he’d known what Garrett was thinking. “If he was murdered, the killer could have removed them. But if something else happened, the clothes might still be around.”

“Right. Of course.” And Garrett hated that he sounded relieved about it.

“They’ll collect DNA from the body. From his boxers, hat and wedding ring, as well. And his clothes, if they’re found. Here’s the report,” he added.

Clay slid it in front of Garrett, and Garrett sat down so he could look it over. Everything was there. Everything that they knew so far, that is.

“By the way, Nicky seemed upset when I mentioned the guy might be married,” Clay told him. “I think all of this might be getting to her.”

Clay seemed to be asking Garrett to check on her. Which he had when he’d seen her SUV parked at her old house. Judging from what he saw there, she might need to be checked on again. First though, he’d like to know what he was dealing with.

Garrett read through the report, signed it and passed it back to Clay. “You don’t happen to have any old files on Nicky’s folks, do you?”

Clay pulled back his shoulders. “Not that I know of. Why? You think they could be connected to our John Doe?”

“No. It’s not that.” But he couldn’t say what it was exactly. “It’s just I remember some rumors about her father getting drunk, maybe even arrested. And her brother, Kyle, ran off when he was just a teenager. I figure that couldn’t be a sign of a happy household for him to have done that.”

Clay stayed quiet a moment, but Garrett could almost hear the guy thinking. And he was thinking like a cop. “Are you looking for something to help you evict Nicky?”

“No.” Garrett huffed. The truth wasn’t going to make this sound any better, but he went with it anyway. “I just saw Nicky out at the old house her folks once owned, and it seemed as if she didn’t have good memories of the place.”

Nope, the truth didn’t sound better, and that’s probably why Clay gave him a cop’s stare. One where he was no doubt trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“She was crying,” Garrett added.

That got rid of the cop stare and, cursing under his breath, Clay sank down into the chair behind his desk. “Am I going to need to be concerned that Nicky’s come back to dole out some kind of payback to her parents?”

Garrett had to answer no for a third time. “Her father’s dead, and her mother doesn’t live here so no payback. Could you please just check and see if her dad, Walt Henderson, had a police record? Since the guy’s dead, you wouldn’t be violating his privacy.”

Of course, Clay would probably be violating other things like rules about sharing official information with someone whose argument was that Walt’s daughter had been crying. Still, Clay started typing on his computer keyboard.

“Not all the files have been digitized,” Clay explained. “So, even if he had a record, it might not be...” He stopped, started reading something he’d pulled up on the screen. “It’s here. Drunk and disorderly.” He made some more key strokes. “DUI. Two of them,” he added. “He also had his driver’s license revoked.”

This certainly wasn’t painting a pretty picture, but Nicky hadn’t mentioned anything to him about it. They’d only dated for a month, though, and while that had been enough time for sex, it apparently hadn’t been enough for her to share with him the junk going on in her life.

“There’s more,” Clay continued a moment later. “He was brought in and questioned about a domestic violence situation after the cops were called to his house. That happened about seventeen years ago.”

Even though Garrett had just taken a sip of hot coffee, he felt the chill go over him.

“Nothing came of it,” Clay added, “because the person refused to file charges against him.”

“Nicky’s mother,” Garrett mumbled.

“No.” Clay looked up from the screen and met his gaze. “The person he assaulted was Nicky.”

CHAPTER EIGHT (#uae2c159f-6e9b-5cff-a007-ef738a91a632)

GARRETT READ THROUGH the monthly financial report on the ranch that their bookkeeper had just emailed him. It was important because he needed to know if the changes he was making to the livestock inventory were causing the ranch to grow or if he was sending profits in the other direction. Normally, he scrutinized each line of the report, made notes, calculated adjustments that needed to be made.

Not today, though.

He’d read the report twice now, and the info just wasn’t sticking in his head. That’s because he had a distraction.

Nicky.

Not only because he was thinking about her and what he’d learned from Clay, but also because he could see her. She was sitting outside the loaner RV, working on her laptop while watching Kaylee play. It was something he’d watched her do for the past two days. What he hadn’t done was talk to her. That was because he felt like a dick.

Hell, he was a dick.

Here, she’d almost certainly come home to deal with a shitload of old baggage. Some newer baggage, too, since her husband had died and left her a single parent. Dealing with all of that wasn’t easy, and he’d made it hard on her.

“Are you aware you’re mumbling?” Lawson asked.

Garrett had known his cousin was there, of course, since he was using his laptop to read the same financial report that Garrett had been. It was something they did together every week, but Garrett figured he was usually more attentive and not prone to mumbling.