Those Texas Nights

When she struck out with the next two calls, Sophie looked at Marcum Gentry, their legal advisor, to see if he’d had any better luck. Judging from his body language that would be a no. He was pacing while having an intense conversation with someone at Austin PD. Marcum’s pricey shoes clicked and tapped on the hardwood floors as he went from one side of Garrett’s office to the other.

Her brother wasn’t pacing, though. Garrett was seated behind his desk, looking very much like a troubled cowboy rather than a concerned CEO. He was in his usual jeans, his Stetson sat on the corner of his desk and he’d ditched the two items he rarely wore—a jacket and a bolo tie. Sophie hadn’t even tried to talk him into wearing dress pants for the wedding because she was reasonably sure that her brother didn’t own dress anything. However, he had put on his good boots to attend the ceremony, which he’d also already swapped out for his usual ones.

The boots and his clothes were the only thing usual about this day, though. Garrett was having his own intense conversation with one of their accountants he had managed to reach. Sophie watched Garrett’s mouth move, and she was hearing him say the words. But her brain just wasn’t processing what he was saying. Perhaps it was the tequila aftermath or maybe her mind just couldn’t handle two major shocks like this in the same day.

At least she wasn’t having to deal with this shock while wearing her wedding dress. Once they’d arrived at the Granger Western building in downtown Austin, Sophie had made a beeline to her office and changed into one of the spare business suits she kept there. Thankfully, none of their employees had been around to see her.

Of course, having their employees see her was the least of their problems.

If the initial reports were true, then Billy Lee had basically screwed them six ways to Sunday by embezzling a fortune. And after doing that, he’d disappeared.

Much as her ex-fiancé had done.

Too bad her heart hadn’t done a vanishing act along with them because she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. The panic was rising inside her. The pressure in her chest, too, and if this was some dream, she prayed she’d wake up from it soon.

Sophie forced herself to her feet, and while dodging Marcum’s pacing pattern, she walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in Garrett’s office. It was identical to hers, which was just next door. The view of downtown Austin was one of the best in the city, and it normally gave her a jolt of pride.

This was theirs.

The company their great-grandfather Zachariah Taylor Granger had built from the ground up. To remind them of that, there was a massive twelve-foot-high oil portrait of Z.T. on the wall of Garrett’s office. Not an especially good portrait, Sophie had always thought, what with his stern gaze, slightly narrowed eyes and a “don’t screw this up” sneer.

Garrett and she hadn’t screwed it up. They’d nearly doubled the size of what customers affectionately called Cowboy Mart, had put it on the Texas financial map. It’d made them wealthier. Happier. It’d made them who they were.

It had to stay that way.

Marcum finished his latest call, but he didn’t stop pacing. He kept moving until he was right in front of Garrett’s desk. That cued her brother to make a quick end to his conversation.

“You want the good news or the bad news first?” Marcum asked them.

“Bad,” Garrett and she said in unison.

Despite their quick agreement, Marcum still took a couple of moments to answer. “Billy Lee robbed you blind. We don’t know how exactly, not yet, but he embezzled nearly ninety percent of the company’s operating funds.”

Sophie decided it was a good idea to sit down, but since there wasn’t a chair nearby, she just sank to the floor.

“Fuck,” Garrett growled.

Sophie wanted to growl something, too, something equally as bad as the f-word, but she couldn’t get her mouth working.

“How?” Garrett added. It was also growled.

Marcum shook his head. “That will take some time to unravel, but Billy Lee must have had the pieces in place for a while to do this. I don’t suppose you had any checks and balances on him?”

“No,” Garrett and she answered in unison again.

“He’s my godfather,” Sophie added. “Our late father’s best friend.”

Garrett had his own adding to do. “Billy Lee’s worked for the company for forty years and never gave us any reason not to trust him.”

Until now.

God, until now.

“What’s the good news?” Sophie asked Marcum.

“I don’t think Garrett and you will have to go to jail.”

Sweet baby Jesus in the manger. “Is that stating the obvious, or was there actually a chance of that happening?” she pressed.

“A chance,” Marcum answered without hesitation. “It appears that over the past couple of months, Billy Lee might have dabbled in some money laundering with the funds he was embezzling.”

Sophie thought she might not be able to stave off that puking any longer. Her stomach balled up into a knot, started dribbling like a point guard on the basketball court and she got to her feet in case she had to make a run to the bathroom.

“Billy Lee must have snapped,” Garrett mumbled.

That stopped her for the time being, and she latched on to that like a lifeline. Yes, that had to be it. Because with the stomach knot and crushed heart, Sophie couldn’t grasp that a man who was part of their family had done this to them.

“Maybe someone set Billy Lee up?” she suggested.

Both Garrett and Marcum made sounds of agreement. Weak agreement, though. But it was another lifeline that Sophie was choosing to grab.

“What do we do now?” Sophie asked.

“Get drunk,” Marcum readily answered.

“Will that help?” And she was serious.

Marcum shrugged. “Only if you drink enough to pass out.”

Sophie decided to keep that as an option.

Her phone buzzed at the same time that Marcum’s rang, and Marcum stepped into the hall to take it. Maybe because he didn’t think it would be wise for them to get another dose of bad news so soon after the last one.

But it was too late for that.

Brantley’s name was on her phone screen.

She debated letting it go to voice mail. Debated answering it just so she could curse him. Debated the getting drunk option again. But after five rings, Sophie hit the answer button.

“Are you all right?” Brantley blurted out before she could curse him.

No, she wasn’t, but her pride prevented her from saying that. “If you’re calling to grovel, it won’t work. I won’t take you back after what you did to me. How could you do this to me? How?” Now, she added some of that profanity.

“I’m not calling to ask you to take me back,” Brantley interrupted. His words sounded a little slurred or something. “I meant it when I said I can’t marry you.”

That stomped on her pride and her heart some more. “Then why the heck did you ever propose to me?”

Silence. Which was just another form of heart stomping. The least Brantley could do was apologize and call himself some of the names she’d just called him, but the silence dragged on and on.

“Look, I’m busy,” she finally said in the same moment that Brantley said, “I thought I loved you, Sophie. But I was wrong.”

Mercy. Each word was like another little dagger. He hadn’t loved her? “You did a darn good job of faking it, then.”

“I know. I’d fooled myself, too. It’s because we’d been together so long. I kept thinking it was time for the next step, but the next step should have been for me to break things off.”

That stomach ball started to bounce against her other internal organs. She was definitely going to puke.

“I should have never let things get as far as they did,” he said. At least that’s what she thought he said, but he was slurring.

“Are you drunk?” she snapped.

“Uh, no. It’s nothing. I’m fine, really.”

“I don’t care a rat’s butt if you’re fine or not. And I have to go,” Sophie insisted.

Brantley blurted out something just as she hit the end call button. Something about a belt. She probably should have been concerned that he was about to hang himself, but her concern meter for him was tapped out. Besides, Brantley had plenty of faults, but he wasn’t the sort to kill himself.

Sophie put her phone in her pocket, looked at her brother, and that’s when she realized he had his attention nailed to her. Marcum did, too, though he was still talking on his phone.

“Anything about Billy Lee?” she asked Garrett as a preemptive strike. Sophie definitely didn’t want to talk about Brantley and what he’d just said to her.

He hadn’t loved her.

The anger ripped through her. A better feeling than the soppy tears because she didn’t need to blow her nose, but she needed to blow off some of this rage. She yanked off her two-carat engagement ring and threw it against the wall. Probably not the smartest idea she’d ever had because it hit the oil painting of their great-grandfather and made a dent in the canvas just below his left nostril.

“I’m guessing that call didn’t go well,” Garrett said on a heavy sigh.

“But please tell me your call went better.”

Garrett lifted his shoulder. “It was Chief McKinnon. He was checking on you.”

Great. Now, her date was chiming in on this. She didn’t want anyone checking on her. Especially anyone who’d seen her make a fool of herself. At the moment, though, that included pretty much everyone in Wrangler’s Creek. Later, in a day or two, she’d need to call him and apologize. Perhaps blame what she’d done on the tequila and temporary insanity.

Marcum finished his call, glanced at the two-carat ring that was now on the floor, before his gaze volleyed between Garrett and her. “You want the good news or the bad news first?” he asked again.

“Bad,” Garrett and she said in unison for a second time.

Marcum nodded. “The company’s assets will be frozen while the feds investigate the money laundering charges.”

Sophie’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

“Frozen?” Garrett snapped. “For how long?”

“I’m not sure. These things can take awhile.”

“Define awhile.” Garrett’s snap was even snappier that time.

“Months. Maybe years. And it’s possible everything will be seized if Billy Lee really was using this company as a money laundering operation.”

Still no sound. Her breath had vanished, and she figured it was a good time to sit back down on the floor again. Good thing, too, because the bad news just kept on coming.

“The frozen assets include both your apartments here in Austin since they’re company holdings,” Marcum added. “Your cars, too.”

No car, no apartment. It wouldn’t be as great of a loss to Garrett as it was for her because he split time between Austin and Wrangler’s Creek. And she doubted he’d ever even started the company car since he still drove their late dad’s truck. But for her, the apartment was, well, home.

“The investigators will be going through everything in the offices,” Marcum continued. “The vehicles and apartments, too.”

They wouldn’t find anything. Well, they wouldn’t unless Billy Lee had truly gone bonkers and stashed some stuff there. Though with the way her luck was running, there’d be a counterfeiting machine, a kilo of cocaine and Jimmy Hoffa’s body beneath her bed.

“Your personal bank accounts are also frozen for the time being,” Marcum went on. “But I feel that’s something we can resolve faster than the company assets.”

There was no way for the ball in her stomach to get any tighter or bounce any harder.

“So, basically everything we own, including where we live, has just been taken away from us, and we might never get it back?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” Marcum agreed.

“I’d like to hear that good news now,” Sophie grumbled.

“The ranch.” And apparently Marcum thought that was enough of an explanation. It wasn’t. Sophie motioned for him to keep going. “The ranch and the operation there aren’t part of the company or your own personal assets. That’s because Roman legally owns it, and he has no connection to the company.”

She gave Marcum a very blank look.

“So, you know what this means, right?” Marcum asked.

Sophie thought Marcum might be trying to tell them something more than the obvious here. “We won’t lose the ranch,” she concluded.

“It’s more than that. It means you’ll have a place to live. I just got the okay from Roman, and you and Garrett will be closing things down here in Austin and moving back home.”

* * *

HOME SUCKED.

This was not what Clay had in mind when he’d moved to Wrangler’s Creek. He’d come here to take over for the retiring sheriff. Also for some peace and quiet and to keep an eye on his kid sister, April. At the moment, neither was happening.

There was a toilet in the corner of what was supposed to be his living room. The bathtub was where he’d hoped to have a sofa. The toilet was obviously hooked up to some sort of plumbing because it was making a loud gurgling sound that Clay could hear even over the tile saw that was screeching in the kitchen.

“Yeah, I know,” Freddie said, scratching his head. Freddie Shoemaker was the only contractor in Wrangler’s Creek, and that’s the reason Clay had hired him to renovate the old house he’d bought.

Freddie was clearly an idiot.

“The guest bathroom’s not right,” Freddie conceded. “They put the plumbing in the wrong place so they just hooked it up where the fittings stopped. I left instructions with my crew, but they musta read it wrong.”

Yeah, or else they were idiots, too. Since the crew consisted of Freddie’s two sons and a nephew, that was a strong possibility.

“I don’t guess you could get used to having it this way?” Freddie asked. “It’d save you a lot of money if we didn’t have to undo all of this.”

No one had ever accused Clay of having a friendly face. It was a by-product of having been a cop for twelve years. First in Houston. Then, here in Wrangler’s Creek. And Freddie got a whopping big-assed dose of that nonfriendly face.

“Put the guest bathroom fixtures in the guest bathroom,” Clay snarled. “And no, it won’t cost me a lot of money because I’ll only pay for the work you do right.”

Freddie mumbled an “okay, you’re the boss” and headed toward his rust-scabbed truck parked just outside. Apparently that meant he was done for the day even though it was barely 3:00 p.m.

Clay tried to call April again. Again, no answer. He wasn’t ready to sound the alarms just yet because April wasn’t the most reliable person, but it’d been two days since he’d heard from her. Her boss at the hair salon where she worked had said April had asked for time off. She hadn’t been at her house, either, when he’d dropped by, which meant something was up. With April, something was up usually went hand in hand with trouble. She was twenty-three, eleven years younger than Clay, but plenty of times she still acted like an irresponsible teenager.

Clay growled out another voice mail for April to call him, and he followed the sound of the tile saw into the kitchen. The saw was going all right, but no one was cutting the backsplash tiles. In fact, no one was in the kitchen at all. Clay unplugged the saw to kill the noise and went in search of any signs of progress or intelligent life.

He found neither.

There was still a hole in his bedroom floor marked with a scrawled sign that said hole. No windows, just tarp where they should be. And there was a fridge in the master bathroom, something that hadn’t been there that morning. That didn’t qualify as progress.

The fridge door was open, and one of Freddie’s sons—Mick—was peering inside. Not foraging for food apparently but rather using it as a makeshift air conditioner to stave off the already sweltering April heat. He looked to be having an orgasmic moment with his eyes closed and his head going back and forth like an oscillating fan.

Clay cleared his throat, and Mick jumped nearly a foot off the floor. It was the fastest Clay had ever seen the man move.

“Shit,” Mick repeated a couple of times. “You scared the dickens out of me, Chief.”

Ditto. But Clay wasn’t afraid of Mick. He was afraid he was going to have to live with these clowns for the rest of his life.

And learn the meaning of dickens.

Mick didn’t close the fridge door. He just stood there enjoying the cool air on his backside and was seemingly oblivious to the fact that Clay wanted to rip off his arm and beat him with it.

“Why’s the fridge in here?” Clay asked.

“Oh, it’s temporary,” Mick said as if that explained everything.

Clay decided to give very specific instructions and use small words. “I want the fridge in the kitchen, and the toilet and bathtub out of the living room and into the guest bath.”

Mick looked at him as if that were a tall order but then nodded.

Even though Clay figured this was going to be just another exercise in frustration, he still wanted some answers. “Why exactly is the fridge in here anyway?”

“The plug.” Mick hitched his thumb to the outlet.

“Did the electrical plug in the kitchen quit working?” Clay pressed when Mick didn’t add more.

“Nope. I needed it for the saw, and since I wanted to keep my Pepsi cold, I brought the fridge in here. Didn’t think you’d want it in your bedroom.”

“I don’t want it anywhere but the kitchen.”

Again, Mick made it seem as if that would be a tall order. “Say, in case you didn’t notice, the phone next to your couch is blinking. Guess that means you got a message or something.”

Yeah, or something, but Clay didn’t want to deal with that right now. The landline had come with the house, and while he hadn’t given the number to April and didn’t use it as his contact information, his neighbors sometimes called him on it. Along with one other person who’d managed to get hold of it.

And that particular person did leave messages.

Apparently, this was Clay’s day to receive one. But not now. He’d listen to it when he was alone.

“Your face and hands are healing,” Mick remarked. “Those chickens messed you up real good, didn’t they?”

Yeah, and it pained Clay to admit it, but he’d actually checked for the feathered critters to make sure they weren’t around before he got out of his truck and went into the house. The chickens weren’t his. They’d sort of come with the property, but as soon as Clay could catch them, he was having a barbecue.

Clay shut the fridge door, hoping it would spur Mick to get back to work, and the man did follow Clay back into the living room. But apparently it wasn’t to work. It was to chat.

“Guess you heard all about Sophie and Garrett having to move back a couple of weeks ago?” Mick went on.

Clay nodded. Hard not to hear what was the number one gossip topic. It had even surpassed Sophie’s jilting and the talk about Sophie showing up at his office and asking him on a date. Of course, it was possible the date-thing was still the hottest topic, but the townsfolk were keeping quiet about that around him.

“I heard the FBI fellas took all their money and stuff.” Mick followed him when Clay went out the back—after he checked for the feral chickens.

Apparently, they were still on the topic of the Grangers, but Clay ignored him and walked to the pasture fence. Now, here was why he’d bought the run-down place that folks called the old Pennington ranch. The land and the barn. No more boarding his horses, Sal and Mal. The pair were in the pasture and looked a lot more content than Clay did at the moment.

But Clay did have plans for the place. Plans that included a house where everything was in the right room. That way he could get on with the peace and quiet part of his life.

Man, he needed it bad.

“Don’t know how their cousin, Lawson, is taking Sophie and Garrett coming back and being right under his nose,” Mick continued. “Guess you heard about all the bad blood there?”

“I heard,” Clay settled for saying, and he hoped that put an end to this conversation.

It didn’t.

“Sophie and Garrett’s great-grandpa was Zachariah Taylor Granger, or Z.T. as people called him,” Mick explained. “Lawson’s great-granddaddy was Jerimiah, Z.T.’s brother. Both of ’em made a fortune to pass onto their kids and grandkids. Z.T’s kin live here on the Granger ranch. Jerimiah’s kin live nearby, but they don’t come into town much at all. The two families own so much land that it almost bumps right up against each other.”

“Are you telling me this for a reason?” Clay asked. He used the same tone he did when interrogating felony suspects.

“Sure am. I’m telling you because there might be trouble with Lawson. Ever since he had a falling-out with his brothers about five or six years ago, he’s been working the Granger ranch on Roman’s behalf. Roman doesn’t want to work it because of a falling-out he had with his mom and on account of him being so busy.” He paused. “A lot of the Grangers have falling-outs.”

“And you’re telling me this for a reason?” Clay repeated.

“Yeah, it could be real important that you get the whole messy picture when it comes to the Grangers. Roman won’t be trouble. He lives in San Antonio and owns a rodeo business. But Lawson’s a different story. He might not be so happy now that Sophie and Garrett are back to take over things.”

Maybe that was true, but Clay still couldn’t find any angle that connected him to this situation. This all sounded like gossip.

“You figure Sophie Granger and you will get back together now that things are off with Brantley and her?” Mick asked.

So, that was the angle.

Clay gave him an annoyed glance. “Sophie and I were never together.”

Mick made a yeah right sound, and Clay didn’t bother to set him straight since it wouldn’t do any good. Because Mick, like most other people, believed that Sophie and Clay had had a “thing,” and that’s why her ex-fiancé had called off the wedding. Apparently, Brantley was still well liked in town, and Sophie was getting the blame for ruining things with Mr. Perfect.

Other than Sophie launching herself into his arms the day of the jilting, Clay had never laid a hand on her. And wouldn’t. Sophie wasn’t exactly the peace-and-quiet-inducing type.

Plus, there were her eyes.

Clay figured a lot of men looked at Sophie and saw an attractive woman. And she was. But Clay just couldn’t get past those eyes because they reminded him, well, of things he didn’t want to be reminded of.

He mentally put those eyes back in the memory box in his head that he’d marked as “shit to forget.” It worked, but in those couple of seconds that it took him to move it there, the images came. He felt the sick feeling of dread in his stomach.

And he saw her.

Hell. He saw her, her face way too clear for just a tiny piece of a nightmare.

“Say, are you okay?” Mick asked.

“Fine,” Clay lied, and he tried to look normal. Whatever that was. Maybe he needed to create a normal box in his head that he could pull out and use to fool people. Of course, it probably wasn’t hard to fool an idiot like Mick because he seemed to buy right into Clay’s “fine” lie.

“They haven’t found Billy Lee.” Mick again. He paused. “Since you’re a cop, you’ll probably know the answer to this, but what would make a fella run off with all that money?”

“Greed.” And you didn’t need to be a cop to know that.

Even though Billy Lee didn’t exactly fit the profile of an embezzler and money launderer. The man didn’t have so much as a parking ticket, and from what Clay could gather from the gossip, Billy Lee had been a father figure to Sophie and Garrett since their dad had passed away about ten years ago.

If Clay were leading the investigation, he would look for mitigating factors. Like maybe Billy Lee was being blackmailed or something, but this wasn’t his rodeo, wasn’t his bullshit to shovel.

Peace and quiet.

And a job where someone around him didn’t get killed because of something he’d screwed up.