No Getting Over A Cowboy

CHAPTER TWO

IT WASN’T EASY for her to stare down the man with whom she’d made her awkward sexual debut, but Nicky managed it. It helped that Garrett wasn’t exactly giving her the smoldering looks he had the night of said debut. In fact, once he got past the initial shock of seeing her, he started glaring.

All in all, he was a good glarer, too. Sharp, precise and with a smidge of I’m in charge here so get lost.

Nicky hadn’t seen him in seventeen years, not since they’d graduated from high school, but he hadn’t changed that much. By some measures anyway. He still had the thick dark brown hair that looked as if he’d just climbed out of bed after having sex. The same sizzling blue eyes that coordinated well with the smoldering looks. But there was something different about him, too. Something she knew a little too well.

Life had smacked Garrett Granger upside the head with a proverbial two-by-four. She recognized the world weariness, the impatience. The slight F-you attitude.

“My mother was wrong to give you that lease,” he growled. Speaking had to be hard with his jaw muscles that tight.

“She signed it,” Nicky pointed out, and she took the lease from him because he looked ready to vaporize it with his glare. She had other copies, but she didn’t want to have to go back to San Antonio to get them. That would mean a forty-five-minute drive.

He cursed. Stopped. And Nicky thought maybe he’d remembered that he was the “nice” Granger brother, but she followed his gaze over her shoulder where she spotted her daughter, Kaylee, who was coming out of the bedroom that Nicky had just been cleaning.

“Gar-if,” Kaylee greeted. She went to Garrett as if they were best buds and took his hand. “See my room.”

“How do you know my daughter?” Nicky asked at the same moment, Garrett said, “This is your daughter?”

Nicky nodded. Garrett gave her another dose of stink eye that he thankfully didn’t aim at Kaylee. Because if he had, Nicky would have let her own F-you attitude kick in, and she would have shown him the door. It didn’t matter that he was a Granger because he wasn’t her landlord. His mother, Belle, was.

“I met Kaylee outside earlier,” Garrett snarled. “She was poking a stick in a cow pie.”

Nicky groaned, immediately tugged Kaylee away from Garrett and checked her daughter’s hands. There was no visible poop, but she’d need the hand sanitizer. She should buy stock in the company as often as she had to use it.

“I thought Mrs. Ellery and her sisters were watching her,” Nicky explained.

Later, she would need to give Kaylee a lecture about cow pies and staying closer to her since the Ellery sisters apparently weren’t the stellar babysitters they claimed to be. Ironic since they were named for various goddesses of protection: Aradia, Diana and Hera.

Kaylee led Garrett back to the room. “It’s pink,” her daughter declared.

It wasn’t. Well, except for one dust-coated doll in a pink dress sitting on top of the chest of drawers. Everything else was gray, drab and probably festering with mold and things Nicky didn’t want to identify. She’d need the full year of the lease just to get the place clean.

Garrett looked around, managed a semi nod and equally semi smile for Kaylee. “You can’t stay here,” he added to Nicky.

Nicky made a show of running her hand like a magician’s assistant over the lease. “This says differently, and I should know because I drew up this lease myself. Since I’m a lawyer, I can promise you that it’s all in order.”

That seemed to distract him or something, and he gave her a funny look. “You’re a lawyer? You said you were going to be a doctor.”

Nicky gave him a funny look right back because she was surprised he had remembered that. “My plans changed. I learned the hard way that I tend to vomit at the sight of blood, guts and bones.” Not a very professional reaction, and her instructors agreed. “I see you’ve become what you’ve always said you’d be—a rancher. But you’re also a business owner. Granger Western.”

Or Cowboy Mart as most folks called it since it sold Western supplies in bulk and at a discount.

Nicky guessed that the business was making the Granger clan even richer than they already were. Especially now that they’d worked through the kinks of a recent setback and investigation.

“My sister, Sophie, runs the business,” he provided.

She listened for any hint of his disapproval about that. There wasn’t any. Interesting because she’d read an article about a codicil to his father’s will that had ousted Garrett and turned the reins of Granger Western over to Sophie. Things like that could tear a family apart, but it appeared there’d been no tearing involved in their case.

Apparently his idea of “small talk” was over because Garrett took the lease back from her and pointed to the bottom line. “My mother doesn’t have permission to sign this. The ranch belongs to my brother.”

“Roman.” She nodded. “Yes, he owns the ranch, but he doesn’t own this house. I researched it, and according to your great-grandfather’s will, he left the house itself to his wife who then left it to your grandfather. He left it to your father, and since your father didn’t stipulate in his will who was to inherit the house, ownership passed to your mother.”

The look he gave her could have flash melted sand, and it had no sexual components to it whatsoever. Not that she’d expected anything sexual from Garrett. After all, he’d rid her of her virginity and promptly dumped her. Still, it was impossible for him to be completely nonsexual since he was still physically hot.

“I’ll have my lawyers look into the will, too,” Garrett added, “because I can’t believe my father didn’t spell that out.”

Neither could she, especially since his father had apparently spelled out everything else. It was possible he’d simply not cared enough about the place to bother with it. In fact, judging from the state of disrepair, none of the current Grangers had cared much about it.

Unlike her.

Just like that, the bad stuff came. Memories that Nicky wished would die the death they deserved. But at the end of that memory tunnel was this place.

This house.

She’d escaped to this place too many times to count.

That was something the Grangers didn’t know. But she’d used it to recoup and in some cases to heal, mentally and physically. No way, though, did she want to share all of that with Garrett. It was one of her many secrets, but if she was labeling them, that was secret number one.

Apparently, Garrett had no plans to share anything else with her, either. He took out his phone, no doubt to call his lawyers, but he mumbled something she didn’t catch when he saw that he had no cell reception.

“Why would you care if we’re here or not?” Nicky asked. “Other than the current dead bug population, the place has been empty for decades.”

“I care because tomorrow there’ll be workers here to expand the pond. I care because I plan to use every inch of this pasture for cattle. And I care because this is Granger land.” He’d gotten a little louder with each word, and by the time he made it to the last one, he wasn’t shouting exactly, but it was close.

“Well, I care, too,” Nicky argued. “And our being here won’t interfere with your workers or the pasture.”

She hoped. Though the place would be a beehive of activity. Temporarily, since she didn’t need any literal or metaphorical beehives in her life. Neither did the other women.

“Dolly-baby,” Kaylee pointed out, leading him farther into the room. “And boogs.”

She meant bugs. And, yes, there were some dead ones on the floor. Yet something else that needed to be cleaned. Nicky had decided to start with the highest points in the room and work her way down.

“Aydee.” That was Kaylee’s attempt at lady, and she pointed to the painting over the bed. Nicky had no idea who the woman was, but she was coated with dust, too.

Garrett glanced at the other things Kaylee was showing him—the bed, the lamp, the cobweb Nicky had missed when she’d cleaned the window. Even the trunk of old clothes that Kaylee had discovered. Then he snapped back toward Nicky.

“Who are those women downstairs and in the yard, and why are you here?” he demanded.

“Widows. We’re all widows.”

His gaze drifted to Kaylee.

“Well, with the exception of her,” Nicky clarified. “No child-bride arrangements in Texas. And you know Loretta Cunningham. She said she used to change your diaper.”

His nostrils flared a bit, and they flared even more when she glanced at the front of his jeans. An unintentional glance, but Loretta wasn’t the only woman in the house who’d seen that part of Garrett’s anatomy.

“As I’ve already told you, the other women are the Ellery sisters,” Nicky went on. “Drowning. All three husbands went when their fishing boat capsized.” Mentioning the cause of the widowhood was something that she and the others had gotten accustomed to doing when they made introductions to new members in the support group. “Then, there’s Mrs. Batson. Heart attack. But you might not have seen her. She’ll probably be skittish around you.”

A term that described every woman currently in the house but Loretta and her. Perhaps because she and Loretta were the only ones who’d seen Garrett without his underpants.

“Lady Romero is taking a walk,” she added. “But she’ll be back soon to help clean. Ginger Carson, respiratory failure, is in town getting some supplies.”

His jaw tightened even more. “Why? Are? You? All? Here?”

Apparently, he was getting impatient for more answers, but he probably wasn’t going to like anything she had to say.

“Because we’re all in a support group for widows and divorcées, and we thought it would be a good idea for us to have an actual retreat for those who need it.”

Retreat was such a tidy little word, but Nicky thought Garrett might not like to hear that it could turn into a place where women could fall apart. Women like her. A place where no one would be around to see them if they went bat-shit crazy.

No one except for Garrett, that is.

“Widows?” he repeated. That seemed to be a prompt for her to provide more. More as in personal stuff, but Nicky had no intention of getting into that with him. Not in front of Kaylee. Maybe not ever.

“Most of us are young widows,” Nicky emphasized. “With the exception of Loretta, we lost our spouses or significant others while in our twenties, thirties and forties. The women need this house,” she added, hoping it would help. It obviously didn’t. Since Kaylee was volleying glances between them and hanging on every word, Nicky tried to make those words sound as pleasant as possible. “Some have rented out or sold their homes to come here. They’ve quit their jobs. They’ve rearranged their whole lives so they could have this experience and take the time to heal.”

Of course, not all would be able to come here and do that. Those widows with school-age children hadn’t been able to take off that kind of time. Others simply hadn’t been able to come because it would have meant a loss of income that they couldn’t afford. Nicky had been able to help some with that by covering all the expenses of the house itself, but it still wasn’t enough to allow some of the widows to be here.

“This isn’t a healing place. It’s a pasture on a working ranch.” Garrett didn’t follow suit in the pleasant department. “I’m sorry, but you can’t stay.” It sounded like some kind of monarch’s decree, and he headed out of the room and into the hall. Since Kaylee followed him, so did Nicky. “My lawyers will be in touch with you about negating the lease.”

Nicky caught up with Garrett and stepped in front of him. “You’d really throw out a group of widows and a three-year old? How will that make you look? It’ll tarnish that ‘good guy’ image of yours.”

She perhaps should have held off on mentioning the image thing. But then again, he probably wouldn’t have been pleased with anything she told him right now. Like about the furniture that was being delivered any minute. And the movers she’d hired to put some of the existing furniture and knickknacks into storage rooms. Or the painters or repairmen.

Nicky definitely wouldn’t mention the cocktail/ice breaker party she was throwing and that his mother would be attending.

“You’ll never even notice we’re out here,” Nicky added.

“Trust me, I’ve already noticed. No way can you have people living here with all the work going on,” he said. “And as for my image, it’s already tarnished.”

A polite woman would have pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about. But she did know.

Man, did she.

And it was best not to mention the firsthand knowledge she had of that situation. That was her secret number two. Besides, she still had an argument to win with Garrett.

“Your work crew won’t be coming into the actual yard,” she went on. “So, there’s really no problem—”

“They’re tearing down the fence and replacing it with a new one. There won’t be much of a yard left when they’re finished. In fact, it’ll be more like a barrier to keep the cattle from getting in and trampling Z.T.’s grave.”

Since the grave was practically at the back porch steps, it was possible for the newly designed backyard to extend less than six feet from the house. That definitely wouldn’t give them much outside space.

“What would it hurt to keep the yard area as is?” Nicky asked. “I mean, you’re getting by with the pasture you have now—”

“I’m bringing in more cows, and I need every inch of this land. It’s taken me months to work out the deals to get the land surrounding the ranch, and the expansion of the pond is the next step.”

Clearly, she was getting nowhere. “I’ll talk to your mother about this.” She headed for the stairs so she could find a spot where she had phone reception. “I’m sure we can work out a solution.”

Nicky wasn’t sure of that at all, but Belle Granger had to be more reasonable than her son.

“Mrs. Marlow?” Loretta called out. “Uh, I think you should come down here.”

“In a minute,” Nicky answered. She finally got some reception bars about halfway down the stairs so she stopped to make the call. Kaylee, however, bolted down the stairs, heading in the direction of Loretta’s voice.

“It doesn’t matter what my mother says,” Garrett went on. He huffed and took out his phone again, too. “I’ll look for a place for all of you in town. There are several shops that have gone out of business, and you can maybe use one of those buildings.”

She didn’t want a shop in town. Nicky wanted the privacy and quiet that she thought she’d get at the Granger Ranch. She’d healed here before, and she could do it again.

“Mrs. Marlow?” Loretta, again. “You really, really, really need to get down here right now.”

Nicky froze for a moment. One really would have alarmed her, but the trifecta of reallys meant something was wrong. Maybe it was nothing more than a spider or a repair that needed to be done.

Garrett stayed on the stairs to make his call, but Nicky didn’t press in his mother’s number. Instead, she hurried to the kitchen. She immediately got confirmation that this was more than a spider issue or a repair. Loretta was even paler than she usually was, something Nicky hadn’t believed possible. Kaylee obviously hadn’t thought this was anything worth waiting around for because she was already playing on the back porch.

“What’s wrong?” Nicky asked the woman.

Loretta shook her head and pointed to one of the rooms off the kitchen. Nicky hadn’t been in this one yet, and the door was shut.

“It’s in there,” Loretta said.

So, maybe a critter sighting and nothing major after all. Well, unless the critter was a grizzly bear. Pushing that uneasy thought aside, Nicky threw open the door. It was a small butler’s pantry with cabinets and countertops on both sides. Loretta’s flashlight was on the floor, and it was still on, blaring light around the narrow space.

In the center of the cabinet rows was yet another door. That one was open. And Nicky picked up the flashlight so she could aim it at whatever had spooked Loretta.

“Holy shit!” flew out of her mouth before Nicky could stop it.

“What is it?” Garrett asked. Until he spoke, she hadn’t even known that he’d walked up behind her, and Nicky nearly knocked him over when she ran back into the kitchen.

“There’s a skeleton in the closet,” she managed to say. “A real one,” she had to add when Garrett stared at her.

Nicky felt her stomach lurch. That was the only warning she got before she puked on the freshly mopped kitchen floor.

CHAPTER THREE

GARRETT NOW KNEW there was something worse than having a body buried in the yard. It was having a second body in a closet. Unlike Z.T.’s, Garrett figured this one wasn’t there by choice.

It was certainly something he hadn’t planned on encountering when he’d started his day. Ditto for the widows and the toddler. Just one of those things would have been bad enough, but the shit storm had provided three all at once.

Along with some sobs, tears and a few oh my Gods.

Garrett had to admit that he’d contributed to the oh my Gods. And he’d had some serious unsettling moments. That unsettling had eased up just a little though when he realized the dead body wasn’t exactly fresh. It was a skeleton, an old one from the looks of it, and he was wearing men’s clothes. Specifically, boxers with hearts on them and a straw hat. At least this wasn’t someone who’d died recently.

Garrett didn’t know anything about this man, but the sick feeling continued to roll through him. Not enough to vomit as Nicky had done, but close. A guy was dead. And it didn’t help that his last minutes on God’s green earth had been in this house on Granger land.

“Everybody stay back,” Chief Clay McKinnon called out.

The widows, minus Loretta and Nicky, were peering into the kitchen from the back door. Thankfully, Loretta had had the good sense to take Nicky and Kaylee upstairs so they wouldn’t have to be near the corpse.

Garrett stayed back, too, in the dining room. Far enough away from the puke smell but still close enough if Clay needed anything from him. Not that he probably would. Clay was not only his soon-to-be brother-in-law, he was also an experienced cop and knew what he was doing.

“I’ll get the medical examiner in here,” Clay said. “Along with a photographer. Did anyone touch the body after it was discovered?” he added to Garrett.

“No, I’m pretty sure no one did.”

Even though Garrett hadn’t actually been side by side with Nicky when she’d seen the skeleton, he knew from her reaction that she’d gotten out of there as fast as she could. He would have the bruise to prove it, too, since her head had slammed into his shoulder. As the high school quarterback, he’d been hit by two-hundred-and-fifty-pound football players who hadn’t rammed into him as hard as Nicky had. And as for Loretta, well, she definitely didn’t look like the corpse-touching type.

“Any idea who the guy is?” Clay asked.

Garrett had to shake his head. “No one’s lived here for nearly fifty years, since my great-aunt Matilda.” He paused, frowned. “You think he’s been dead for that long?”

Clay lifted his shoulder. “Hard to tell without some testing. The fabric on the boxers and hat are rotting, but they’re still mainly intact. There don’t appear to be any signs of trauma to the body. No bashed-in skull, broken neck or bones busted from bullet wounds. There’s also no dried blood around him, but over the years the rats and insects could have eaten that.”

That brought on some more oh my Gods from the widows.

Maybe this would get them all out of there. Fast. Garrett cursed himself. These women had already had their spouses die so this was probably hitting them harder than it was him. Still...they had to go.

He hated to think about something like that now, but having them there wouldn’t make this easier. Plus, Clay wouldn’t want them hanging around while he was conducting an investigation.

“This is a clusterfuck,” Garrett heard Lawson say as he walked up behind him. “And it’s about to get more clustered. Belle and Sophie are on their way. They’ll be here any minute.”

Garrett groaned because his mother didn’t usually make situations better, but she might know something about this. It was more than a little unsettling to think that, but it was equally unsettling to realize that over the years he’d camped out in this house. Had brought two girls here. Hell, once Roman and he had had a party. All while there’d been a dead guy in a closet.

“Your great-aunt was married?” Clay asked Garrett.

“No. Not that I ever heard anyway. She didn’t stay here long. According to what my mother told me, my great-aunt moved off after only being here a few months, and then she passed away in the seventies.”

Clay lifted an eyebrow, and Garrett immediately figured out why. Maybe the reason Aunt Matilda had moved was because she’d killed a man and left the body behind. Hell. Not exactly a good thought to settle his stomach.

“I’ll search local records and ask Belle about it,” Clay went on, “but since I haven’t lived around here that long, maybe you can help fill me in. Are there any longtime missing persons that the older townsfolk have mentioned?”

“No,” Lawson and Garrett said in unison. “Anything like that would still be gossiped about,” Garrett added. “Maybe the guy was a repairman or something. He could have slipped and fallen, and Matilda might never have even known.”

Yeah, he was reaching, but he didn’t want to consider the worst. That a man could have been murdered.

“Decomposing bodies stink,” Clay said. “If she was here when he died, she would have definitely known.”

Another round of oh my Gods from the widows.

Garrett heard the footsteps behind him, and for a split second, he thought his mom and Sophie had already arrived. But it was Kaylee making her way into the dining room.

“Mommy puked free times,” she said, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she took hold of Garrett’s hand.

He glanced around to see if Loretta or Nicky was with her, but the toddler was alone. “Where’s your mom?” he asked.

“Puking,” Kaylee quickly answered.

Well, Nicky had said something about having stomach issues when body parts and blood were involved so he guessed this wasn’t a surprise. Still, he didn’t want the little girl around all the talk of rats eating blood or rotting bodies. Heck, he didn’t especially want to be around it, either.

Garrett led Kaylee to the foyer, intending to take her back upstairs to leave her with Loretta, but he didn’t even make it to the steps before his mother and sister came hurrying in. Both looked alarmed and were out of breath.

“I tried to keep Mom at home,” Sophie said to him right off.

Garrett silently thanked her, knowing there was nothing she could have done if their mother was hell-bent on coming here. Which she clearly was.

“It’s true?” his mother asked. “Did Matilda really murder someone and put the body in the kitchen closet?”

Maybe his mother hadn’t noticed Kaylee, and Garrett put his hands over the child’s ears for part of that, but Kaylee had no doubt heard things a three-year-old shouldn’t have heard.

“Either hold your questions or speak in pig Latin,” he told his mother.

His mother’s gaze finally landed on the girl. Landed, too, on the way Kaylee had latched on to Garrett’s hand. “Who is she?”

“Kay-wee,” Kaylee answered.

Garrett provided his mother with more information. “She’s with the widows. You know, the ones you gave a lease? A lease that can’t happen because of the expansion I’ve got going on.”

If his mother was bothered by anything he’d just said, she didn’t show it. She stooped down, smiled at Kaylee. “Well, you sure are a pretty little thing.” She gave Kaylee’s pigtail a gentle tug. “And look how you’re holding Garrett’s hand. That’s so sweet. She obviously likes you.”

That was code for his mother letting him know that she wanted a grandbaby. She already had one. Roman’s son, Tate, but he was almost thirteen now so her mother was apparently getting grandbaby fever.

“No,” Garrett said to his mother, and he figured she knew what that no meant. There’d be no kids in his future. Not after... Well, just not after. If he wanted his heart ripped out again, he’d do it himself.

His mother stood, meeting his gaze. “You didn’t used to be so negative, Garrett. Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

Really? He wasn’t about to rehash the last three years and two months of his life. Not when there was something new that needed to be dealt with.

Garrett’s phone rang, and he glanced down at the screen to see Roman’s name. Since he had the lease-signing culprit in front of him, a conversation with his brother could wait. He pressed the button to send the call to voice mail.

“Matilda,” Belle repeated before Garrett could say anything. “I should have known she could k-i-l-l someone.”

That got his attention. And he was thankful his mother had spelled out the key word. “You really think she could have done this?”

“Absolutely. Agoraphobia, my f-a-n-n-y. That woman had secrets, I tell you, and I’m betting the d-e-a-d f-e-l-l-a was one of those.” Belle leaned in to whisper the rest. “Matilda had h-o-t p-a-n-t-s.”

Garrett hoped that was a fashion comment, but he doubted it was. “Did she have men visit her here?”

“Well, of course she did. That’s what women with h-o-t p-a-n-t-s do. Now, mind you, I don’t know the names of those men, but Loretta might remember one or two of them. She was still living in Wrangler’s Creek when Matilda was here.”

Then, Clay would need to talk to both Loretta and his mom. And speaking of Loretta, that was Garrett’s cue to turn this conversation in a different direction. Yes, the body was top priority, but Garrett had a priority of his own.

“Why did you give these women a lease?” he asked Belle at the same moment his mother asked, “Are the widows upset because of the d-e-a-d b-o-d-y?”

He huffed. “Of course, they’re upset,” he verified. “I’m upset. And you’re not getting out of explaining to me how you could sign a lease without talking it over with me first. These women can’t be here.”

His mother patted his arm in a “there, there” gesture. “It was the right thing to do. They needed a place to stay, and it’ll be so nice to have someone living here again. The house needs that. It needs some cleaning and repairs, too,” she added, glancing around. “That cleaning crew I hired should have been here by now.”

It took Garrett a moment just to form words and rein in his temper. He loved his mother, most days anyway, but this was not one of those days. “You’ll have to break the lease. I’ll pay—”

But that was as far as he got because his mother’s attention was no longer on him. Smiling, she moved away from him and walked to the stairs. Kaylee did, as well, and that’s when Garrett saw Nicky making her way down the steps. Judging from the tight grip Nicky had on the railing, she still wasn’t feeling too steady.

“There you are,” his mother said, and the moment Nicky reached the bottom, Belle hugged her. “Nicky Henderson, you look beautiful as always.”

It shouldn’t have surprised Garrett that Belle felt as if she knew Nicky well enough to hug her. After all, they’d probably talked face-to-face to make arrangements for the lease. Later, Garrett was sure he’d hear all about how those arrangements had come to pass, but now that he had both of them together, he could get this sorted out.

“This has to be so upsetting,” Belle said. She broke the hug but kept her hands on Nicky’s shoulders. “I had no idea about the b-o-d-y being here.” She shuddered. “But Clay will sort this all out. He’s the police chief, and he’s marrying Sophie, you know? You remember Garrett’s sister, Sophie, right?”

“Yes.” Nicky’s voice sounded as unsteady as she looked. “Congratulations on your engagement.”

Sophie scrounged up a smile, nodded, thanked her and then excused herself so she could make her way to the kitchen, no doubt to check on Clay. Garrett would have liked for her to stay as his ally, but he could remedy this on his own.

Kaylee finally let go of Garrett and hurried to her mother. Or rather to Belle. She caught Belle’s hand.

“You and your daughter are both pretty as pictures.” His mother glanced around. “Where’s Loretta?”

“Upstairs, cleaning. She’ll be down in a minute.”

“Can’t wait to see her. We’ve got so much catching up to do.”

“Catching up will have to wait. Clay is bringing in a medical examiner,” Garrett explained to Nicky and his mother. “All of us are going to have to clear out.”

“Of course,” Belle agreed.

Finally, they were getting somewhere. But it wasn’t the direction Garrett needed them to go.

“Look at you,” his mother added to Nicky. Heck, Belle was smiling again. Definitely not a good sign. She leaned in, put her mouth closer to Nicky’s ear. “There’s a bond between people who were as close as Garrett and you were. I can see the way you look at him.”

Everything inside Garrett went still. He wasn’t sure how his mother had known about Nicky and him, but obviously she did. Things suddenly got a whole lot clearer. This wasn’t about providing a place for widows.

Belle was matchmaking.

And he was about to stop it.

“I’ll call some of the hands to get out here and help move the women’s things,” Garrett offered. Actually, it was more than an offer. It was a demand. There weren’t any hotels in Wrangler’s Creek, but there were some on the interstate back toward San Antonio. They could make their way there.

“No need. I’ve already taken care of that,” Belle assured him. “The men are on the way here now.”