Branded as Trouble

Of course, he’d also gotten “Valerie baggage” since she’d skipped out on both of them shortly after Tate was born. Too bad that baggage wasn’t just his and only his, but this crap always got on his son.

His phone rang again as the microwave dinged. Not Sophie this time but his brother, Garrett. This would be about ranching business, so he also let it go to voice mail. Apparently, though, his brother wasn’t taking no-answer for an answer because Roman’s phone rang again right away.

But it wasn’t Garrett. It was Tate’s school.

Everything inside Roman went still, and he hit the answer button. “Mr. Granger?” a woman said after Roman greeted the caller. “This is Principal Wilson.”

Yeah, Roman recognized her voice. That was because he’d been called in for chats with the woman about Tate’s sullen behavior and slipping grades. “Is Tate all right?” Roman immediately asked.

He heard something he didn’t want to hear. The principal’s heavy sigh. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Tate got in a fight at school. He got a cut on his lip. He’s fine physically. The nurse is treating it now.”

“I’ll be right there.” Roman grabbed his keys and headed for the door.

“Good. I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to come. Tate said you were away on business again.”

Roman didn’t miss the again, and he couldn’t argue with it. He was gone a lot. That’s why he’d hired Anita, but a live-in housekeeper couldn’t fix something like this.

He tried to tamp down the emotions that bubbled up inside him. And failed. His boy was hurt. “Who gave him that busted lip?”

“A classmate. But you should know that Tate punched him first. The other student has a cut lip and a bruised face. Since we weren’t sure if anything was broken, that student’s being sent to the hospital.”

Roman bit back the profanity, barely, and he hurried out the door. Not walking, but rather running, which wasn’t exactly easy in cowboy boots and with his side throbbing like a bad tooth. He got in his truck and took off, heading for the school.

“Why did this happen?” Roman asked her. “How did the fight start?”

“Neither boy will say, but Tate might talk to you about it.”

Roman doubted it. He wasn’t his son’s go-to person for any form of communication.

“You should know that this is very serious,” the principal went on. “Tate will be expelled for this.”

Now Roman cursed, and judging from the sound of disapproval the principal made, she was convinced that Tate’s cursing, badass, black-sheep father was the reason for this mess he was in.

And the principal was probably right.

“Expelled?” Roman questioned. “That seems pretty extreme for a schoolyard fight.”

“We have a zero tolerance policy for this sort of thing when injuries are involved. Mr. Granger, you’ll need to find Tate another school. I also think you should get him some counseling. We can talk about that when you get here.” And the principal ended the call.

He’d tried to coax Tate into counseling, and hadn’t succeeded in doing that, either, but Roman would try it again. He would also somehow convince Principal Wilson into nixing the expulsion so Tate could stay in school. Tate had several friends there, and Roman didn’t want the kid to have to re-create his life.

Roman pulled into the school parking lot, took the first spot he could find and hurried into the building. The principal’s office was just off the main hall so he headed there and immediately spotted Ms. Wilson standing next to another woman.

Both turned to him when he came through the door.

Roman instantly knew something was wrong. Something more than the obvious.

“Mr. Granger,” Principal Wilson said. “This is Mandy Rodriguez, the school nurse.” The two women exchanged glances.

Uneasy glances.

This was where Roman’s experience created some very bad scenarios in his head. He’d been in bar fights. Had had his face punched and his lip busted. But not once had those injuries been serious enough to send him to the hospital.

“Is Tate okay?” Roman asked.

The nurse nodded but then shook her head. “I left him alone for only a couple of minutes when I went to get some cotton swabs to clean his lip.” She paused, swallowed hard. “When I came back, Tate was gone. Mr. Granger, I think your son ran away.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ue2624a61-937f-5731-bb4f-ac9624daaae2)

MILA BANCHINI KNEW there were few advantages to being a virgin over the age of thirty. Especially not in a small ranching town like Wrangler’s Creek.

One of those nonadvantages was waiting for her when she stepped outside her bookstore to close up for the day.

Ian Busby.

He was in his early twenties, as skinny as a zipper, and his pinched, flushed face reminded her of a rooster. He also had horny written all over him. Literally. Well, it was printed on his T-shirt, anyway.

Me So Horny was emblazoned above a picture of a rhino.

She doubted the shirt was a bad gift from a friend. Or that he’d lost a bet and been forced to wear it. No, he’d probably picked it out himself and was proud of not only the sentiment but also the butchered grammar.

Mila didn’t acknowledge he was there. She locked up and started walking home. Normally, she drove the quarter of a mile or so to her house, but the spring weather had been so nice that morning that she’d decided to walk. Bad idea. Because now she had to walk back, and with each step Ian was trailing along beside her.

“Did you give any more thought to going out with me?” Ian asked.

“No. Because I told you when you asked that it wasn’t going to happen.” She didn’t try to sound even remotely pleasant because Mila had learned the hard way that pleasantness only encouraged Ian and the rest of his brothers. Of course, ignoring them seemed to encourage them, as well. Her breathing did, too.

The Busby boys, and apparently every other eligible male in town, were on some kind of quest to rid her of her virginal condition. Maybe because they thought that since she was thirty-one she was desperate. And that she had therefore lowered her standards to rock bottom.

She hadn’t.

Just the opposite. It was those high standards that had left her in this condition in the first place, and if she were to loosen those standards, it wouldn’t be with somebody like Ian.

“But I really like you,” he went on. “And you’re one of the prettiest women in town.”

If that was true, which it wasn’t, then she could have pointed out then that her beauty gave her far better options than his gene pool. The Busby brothers’ claims to fame were cow-tipping, peeing on electric fences and wearing T-shirts with horny written on them.

“I won’t go out with you,” Mila stated, and kept walking. She couldn’t get home fast enough. Then she could change into yoga pants and watch one of her favorite movies. She was in a Titanic sort of mood, but she only watched the romantic parts.

Ah, Jack.

Now, why hadn’t he survived, moved to Wrangler’s Creek and frozen time so she could meet him?

Of course, time had frozen in a different kind of way. Not just because it was taking forever for her to get home, but because she was walking down Main Street, which looked almost identical to the way it had over three decades ago when Mila was born. No big-box stores here. In fact, no chain stores of any kind. This was the mom-and-pop business model where everybody knew everybody and bought local as much as possible. That was good for her bookstore, but there were times when Mila dreamed about ditching everything and starting fresh.

“I wish you’d change your mind about going out with me,” Ian went on. “I got a real nice date planned. Friday is two-for-one corn dogs at the Longhorn Bar. Two-for-one beers, too, if we get there early enough. Then I could take you to that pretty spot out by the creek where we could look at UFOs.”

She mentally stumbled over that last word. He probably thought he was being cute by not saying something expected like stars or moonlight on the water. Then again, UFO could be code for his penis. Maybe Uncovered F-ing Object or Unzipped Firehose Organ.