No Getting Over A Cowboy

“The remains have been moved to the county morgue,” Clay explained, “and the CSIs will start going through the place this morning. I don’t expect them to find much, not after all this time, but you never know.”

Nicky glanced out the window again to check on Kaylee. She was no longer playing with the dog but rather was running toward Garrett. That nearly sent Nicky bolting after her because she didn’t want Kaylee to bother Garrett, but Gina was on her heels.

“As for the identity of the John Doe,” Clay went on, “he didn’t have any ID on him, and there weren’t any clothes in the immediate area that could have belonged to him. The CSIs will look upstairs, though. Did you happen to come across any men’s clothes when you were cleaning?”

“There are some in a few of the dressers and trunks, but I doubt he undressed and put his things away.”

“No. Unless he was staying there. That’s possible, of course, but it’s more likely that someone moved the clothes.”

She was glad he didn’t spell that out for her, but Nicky’s mind began to race with some really bad ideas. Like maybe the clothes had been blood-soaked or had bullet holes in them.

“If there’s no ID and you can’t get his prints, how will you figure out who he is?” she asked.

“I might not. That’s the way these things turn out sometimes. Of course, I’ll keep looking through the missing person’s database. The Ranger lab might be able to do facial reconstruction, too. Until then, I’ll keep following what little evidence I have. The guy didn’t have any unusual dental work, metal plates or prosthetics, but he was wearing a wedding band.”

That got her attention. She certainly hadn’t noticed a ring when she’d seen the body, but then she hadn’t lingered around for a long look. “He was married,” she mumbled.

“Sure looks that way. The band was yellow gold,” Clay continued. “And it had the words forever wrapped around you engraved inside it.”

Nicky felt her heart flutter. Not in a good way, either. Because those were lovers’ words. Unless it referred literally to the ring, that is. But she doubted it. No, this was likely a declaration of love.

“He was really married,” she repeated. Nicky hadn’t meant for there to be that much emotion in her voice. Emotion that Clay must have noticed.

“Are you okay?” Clay asked.

She quickly tried to regain her composure. Also quickly tried to figure out how to get this conversation back on track. A track that didn’t include transferring her own feelings onto this situation. “I’m fine. I was thinking, though, that his being married could be a motive for murder, right?”

“Could be. Maybe a jealous wife. Maybe a lover who got fed up waiting for him to get a divorce. I’m interviewing some folks today who knew Matilda. That doesn’t mean she had anything to do with this. Won’t know that until the ME can come up with a time of death.”

Yes, that would certainly help narrow down the list of people who might have had something to do with this. Unless the John Doe was just some trespasser. One who’d gone into the house, stripped off most his clothes and gone into a closet to die.

“By the way, I just told Garrett all of this,” Clay added. “He’s not giving you any updates?”

Nicky hesitated. “No.”

Even though it was only a one-word response, the chief must have filled in the blanks. “He’s still not too happy about you and the other widows being there.”

Bingo. “There are a lot of us.”

“Well, don’t take it personally. Garrett just has a lot on his mind these days. Plus, he might be having flashbacks when he sees your daughter.”

“Flashbacks?” she blurted out.

Silence. Followed by some mumbled profanity. “I’ve said too much. I’ll call you if I get any other information on the case. Oh, and first chance you get, I need you to drop by my office and sign the report on the dead guy. Loretta’s already come in, but I’ll need you to, as well.” And before Nicky could say anything else, Clay hung up.

She stared at the phone and glanced outside again. Gina was obviously trying to coax Kaylee away from Garrett, but her daughter had something in her hand that she was showing him. Nicky saw it then. The look on his face, the need to detach from this situation. Did that have something to do with the flashbacks the chief had just mentioned? If Clay hadn’t added her daughter to that slipped remark, Nicky might have thought this had something to do with Meredith’s sex tape, but it had to be more than that.

Nicky scrolled through her recent calls and texts. Two missed calls and three unanswered texts from Meredith. Maybe it was time to quit skirting around the woman, especially since Meredith might know what was going on. Nicky didn’t feel especially good about contacting the woman simply to pump her for information, but she wanted the big picture of what she was up against here. If her being here was causing Garrett real mental anguish, then she needed to find a way to get all the widows, herself included, out of there ASAP.

She made another check out the window first. Gina had Kaylee by the hand and was leading her back toward the house. Garrett was still there. Not alone, though. One of the women was talking to him.

Lady Romero, the prescription drug overdose widow, who owned a tow truck business. One that specialized in tacky slogans.

Lady was young, beautiful and, on the surface, didn’t seem to be mourning as much as her fellow widows. In fact, at the moment she didn’t seem to be mourning at all. She was smiling and touching the front of Garrett’s shirt, and even though Nicky couldn’t actually see the woman’s face, she thought maybe some eyelash batting was going on.

Oh, well. Garrett was a big boy and could take care of himself. He definitely didn’t need her to come to the rescue.

Meredith answered on the first ring, and she obviously knew who was calling. “Nicky, thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Sorry, I’ve been really busy—”

“Yes, I heard about the dead man in Z.T.’s house,” Meredith continued. Which was probably a good thing because that prevented Nicky from whining about everything that’d gone on. “You must have been terrified.”

“More shocked than anything else—”

“I would have screamed my head off.” Again, the interruption was good because Meredith didn’t need to hear about her dignity-reducing stomach issues. “It’s awful, just awful. Does this mean you won’t be opening the Widows’ House?”

“I’m still waiting to hear what the police chief has to say, but I think the widows and I will be able to move in soon. Why—?”

“Clay,” Meredith said. “He’s the police chief, and he’s engaged to Sophie. You remember her, right? Yes, I’m sure you do even though she was four years younger than us. I always felt as if Sophie was more like a sister to me than a sister-in-law.”

This time the interruption wasn’t so welcome because Nicky had been about to ask her the critical question—what the heck was going on with Garrett?

But Meredith remedied that when she continued. “Have you talked to Garrett since you’ve been at the ranch?”

“A couple of times. Not for long, though. He was at the house when one of the widows found the body.”

“Loretta,” Meredith provided. “When you didn’t answer my call or texts, I phoned one of the Ellery sisters, and she filled me in. Poor Loretta. Poor you! My God, your daughter didn’t see that, did she?”

“No.”

And this conversation was sounding a little too friendly for Nicky. Not that she minded friendliness, but it felt strange coming from Meredith. Over the past seventeen years, they’d seen each other three times. Once at a fund-raiser. Then a second time when Nicky had run into Meredith in a restaurant. That’s why it’d surprised her when Meredith had shown up at the widow’s support group.

It surprised Nicky even more, though, when she’d found out what Meredith had wanted.

The woman made a sound of relief over Kaylee not seeing the body, and this time it was Nicky who interrupted her. “Look, Meredith, I’ve considered what we talked about at the support group meeting, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay at the Widows’ House.”

Silence. For a long time. “I see.” More silence. “I know I’m a divorcée and not a widow, but I can promise you I need the therapy and quiet time as much as the rest of you. I’ve been through a lot, Nicky.”

She didn’t doubt that, and Nicky wasn’t immune to the emotion she heard in Meredith’s voice. A nasty divorce was a nasty thing. But Nicky also knew Meredith had brought some of that nastiness on herself. Unless...

Nicky went back to what Clay had said about the flashbacks.

She hadn’t exactly spent much time combing the internet for info about Garrett and Meredith. A friend had sent her the sex video, and Nicky had read some articles about the troubles with the Granger family business. Trouble that had now been resolved, apparently, but she’d purposely avoided anything personal. Maybe that had been a mistake.

“Do you think Garrett will have any trouble being around Kaylee?” Nicky came out and asked. It was an out-and-out fishing expedition, and she didn’t expect much. She got plenty though.

“Maybe,” Meredith said right off. But like before, she paused. “Garrett hasn’t said anything about our daughter?”

Daughter? “Uh, no.”

“Well, he probably won’t. We lost her, you see. Stillborn. And Garrett was never the same after that. Neither was I,” she admitted, and Nicky thought the woman might be crying or close to it. “Anyway, Kaylee and our little girl would have been about the same age.”

Mercy. Yes, that definitely explained the flashback comment. “I’m so sorry,” Nicky said.

“Now you know why I need to be at the Widows’ House. I’ve always loved Z.T.’s old place. Always felt a peace and calm there, and I’m hoping it’ll help. I need to heal. I need to get better.”

Crud. How was she supposed to say no to that? And she was about to give in. Then, she remembered Garrett and knew this would be just another thorn in his side.

“I’ll get back to you,” she told Meredith, and Nicky ended the call before the woman could launch into another tear-filled argument. One that Meredith would almost certainly win this time.

Nicky groaned and put away her phone. Her quest for peace and healing was turning into a huge poop pile. And now she needed to sign that report for Clay. Which meant she’d have to read all about the dead man. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any photos of the body to accompany the report.

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 blistered 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.