Chasing Trouble in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  “I don’t think Avery and Gracie should be exposed to someone like McCall or her family,” Edith went on.

  That crossed a huge line, and it caused Howie to huff. The man would have no doubt interceded at least in some small way, but Austin beat him to it.

  “My brother Shaw is engaged to McCall’s sister,” Austin quickly reminded her. “Sunny will definitely be part of the girls’ lives and mine. From time to time, McCall might be, too.”

  “But her brother and other sister are on the cover of those trashy tabloids,” Edith snapped.

  He couldn’t argue that. Her brother, Hayes, and other triplet sister, Hadley, had definitely gotten into their share of trouble. But Austin was pissed now that Edith had taken up McCall bashing.

  “I didn’t know you read the tabloids,” Austin remarked.

  Oh, Edith didn’t like that, and Austin instantly regretted not putting a gag on himself. After all, many would see what’d happened tonight at his place as a scandal. One that had gotten some news coverage. One that would fuel the gossips for a decade or two. While none of it would actually hurt Gracie and Avery, it wouldn’t help.

  There was fire in her eyes when Edith walked closer to him. “All of this should prove that you can’t raise the girls on your own. Our granddaughters,” she emphasized. “For once do what’s best for them because if you don’t...”

  She trailed off when Howie took hold of her arm. “Edith.” It was a mild warning for her not to say something she might regret.

  But Edith said it, anyway. And there wasn’t regret in her voice.

  “It’s time for Howie and me to visit our lawyer,” Edith insisted. “I want to make it legal and petition for custody of Gracie and Avery.”

  * * *

  MCCALL WOULD HAVE kicked herself if she’d thought she could do it without tripping over her own feet and damaging the fairy dress even more than it already was. If she could get out the grass stains from the scuffle in Austin’s yard, she could still donate the dress and maybe get some money to add to the Saddle Up for Tots Foundation.

  Maybe.

  And it was just as likely that anything connected to that would be as toxic as typhoid and that potential donors would want zilch to do with it.

  Damn Cody Joe. Damn Miss Watermelon.

  And McCall had to damn herself, too.

  Because she was ultimately the one guilty of round two of this ugly fiasco. She’d been the one to get the harebrained idea of running to Austin’s. She’d been the one who told Boo where she was heading and that made it possible for Cody Joe to overhear the conversation and go after her. That, in turn, had set the events of the night into a terrible motion, including the news vans and Cody Joe’s arrest.

  McCall could only hope that Austin would forgive her and that this wouldn’t cause any trouble for him. Howie and Edith certainly hadn’t looked pleased, but maybe once he explained that none of it had been his fault, they wouldn’t give him grief about having a tawdry ruckus right in front of his and his daughters’ home.

  “Hey, I recognize that mailbox shaped like a little red barn,” Boo said, getting her attention as McCall made the turn onto the road that led to Granny Em’s ranch. “It was in some of the episodes of Little Cowgirls.”

  “Pretty much everything you see will have been in the episodes,” McCall remarked.

  After all, the show had been on for twelve years, following the sisters from age three to fifteen when the show had thankfully gotten canceled. Of course, at the time there hadn’t been much thanks because it’d ended in yet another scandal when Hadley had gotten caught joyriding in a stolen car.

  “Yep,” Boo agreed. She pointed to the two-story yellow Victorian just ahead. “The house looks just like it did on TV.”

  It did from what McCall could see with the headlights of her car, and it was a reminder that it’d been over a year since she’d come back. Unlike Hadley and her brother, Hayes, McCall hadn’t left Lone Star Ridge with a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas and vowing to stay gone. McCall loved Em and, yes, loved the ranch, too, but life—and the mess that it had become—had gotten in the way.

  McCall groaned when she stopped in front of the house and saw Granny Em in the doorway, clearly waiting for her. The gossips had already gotten out the word, and McCall was reasonably sure “word” would continue. Ready to face the music, and Granny Em’s questions, she got out and went up on the porch.

  “I hope you aren’t scared of bats,” Em greeted. She pulled McCall into a hug and kept her there in her arms.

  If McCall had been given a thousand or more tries, she wouldn’t have guessed Granny Em would say that. Not with all the other juicy bits of news there was to discuss.

  “Uh, bats are kind of creepy,” McCall said when she realized Granny Em was waiting for an answer.

  “They are.” Em let go of her at the exact moment McCall saw a bat flutter past the house. “But they’re good for eating mosquitos so I bought two dozen and had them delivered.”

  McCall knew all about Granny Em’s mosquito hatred, but the topic of conversation had her worrying. Was Em in denial? Or, heaven forbid, was she getting senile? A third possibility was that she simply hadn’t heard about what had gone on at Austin’s, but that theory was dispelled when Leyton pulled into the driveway. He didn’t stop. He merely gave them a wave and headed on out.

  “He’s just checking to make sure you got here from Austin’s,” Em remarked in a discussing-the-weather tone. So, if Granny Em knew that, then she likely knew the rest.

  “Cool. I love bats,” Boo said, coming up on the porch. “They’re like little black dragons.”

  That was McCall’s cue to make introductions. “Boo, this is my grandmother, Em. Boo is my assistant.”

  Em pulled Boo into a hug, too, and some of the tension in McCall’s stomach started to settle. It would come back when she started to deal with the aftermath of Cody Joe and Miss Watermelon, but for now she could be in a place where she wouldn’t be judged.

  Well, maybe she wouldn’t be.

  “Boo and I need to stay the night,” McCall said.

  “Of course you do. I just tidied up your rooms.” Em stepped back into the foyer, tugging them in with her. “You know you can stay as long as you like. You being here might help Austin, too. He’s still down and blue about losing Zoey. I’m betting once he’s had a good night’s sleep, he’ll be glad you’re here.”

  McCall figured there was zero chance of that, and stopping by Austin’s was on her to-do list for tomorrow. Not so she could try to help him with his grief but because she wanted to apologize again and see if there was anything she needed to do for the Shetland that Cody Joe had left behind.

  “You two go on up to your rooms and get settled while I make us a snack,” Em instructed. She looked at Boo. “I’ve put you in my grandson’s old room, but you’ll have to be on the lookout for magazines with naked people in them. Even though he hasn’t lived here in seventeen years, every now and then we still find some of his old stash of Playboy.”

  “Oh,” Boo said, and wisely left it at that.

  “If you do find some,” Em went on, “bring it to me because sometimes there are good articles in them.”

  Boo settled for a nod.

  After getting kisses on their cheeks, Boo and McCall started up the stairs. It wasn’t late, but McCall was suddenly exhausted and wished she could just shower, find something comfortable to put on and fall into bed. But she owed Granny Em some time. And besides, Em might be able to help level her out so that she could actually fall asleep without rehashing the events of this memorable night.

  “Your room’s down there,” McCall said once they were in the upstairs hall. “But we need to talk before we see Granny Em again.” She motioned for Boo to follow her, and they stepped into McCall’s childhood bedroom.

  Aka Purgatory. At least, that’s
how McCall thought of it.

  The large loft-style area was divided into three sections, one for her and each of her two sisters. It was more than a mere bedroom, though. It was a display of the labels the producers had put on them. Sunny was Funny Sunny with her posters of boy bands and comedians. Her area was bright and fun, just as they’d wanted Sunny to be.

  And the polar opposite of Badly Hadley.

  Her area was painted black, though Hadley herself had done that, and her boy band/comedian alternative was a stack of science fiction graphic novels. What many people didn’t know was that Hadley never slept here after the show had been canceled. She’d made a “nest” in the attic and even the storage closet, leaving her bedroom space as a warped time capsule.

  “Wow, just like on TV,” Boo remarked, her gaze skirting around the room and settling on McCall’s area.

  Unlike her sisters, McCall hadn’t gotten any fun or edgy props. Her posters were of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, and the stack of books had authors like Jane Austen and Emily Brontë.

  “Wow,” Boo repeated. “You left it just like it was when Little Cowgirls was still on.”

  Yes, McCall had. That’s because at the time she hadn’t realized that it was just that—props. She’d been so brainwashed by her mother, the greedy over-the-top Sunshine, that McCall had thought this was her true self instead of some image that the show’s producers wanted the viewers to see.

  “Prissy Pants,” Boo muttered.

  That had indeed been McCall’s nickname. And for a while, Pissy Pants, when she hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time during preschool. McCall had sworn off apple juice ever since.

  “Uh, before you go look for porn, which I know you’ll do...” McCall started. She sat on her bed. “There are some things I don’t want my grandmother or anyone else in Lone Star Ridge to know.”

  Boo nodded and dropped down next to her. “You mean you don’t want anyone to hear about your relationship with Cody Joe being staged because you thought it’d get more donations for Saddle Up?” Relationship went in air quotes. “Because that would be bad for Saddle Up’s reputation.”

  Reputation could have gone in air quotes, too, because McCall was afraid there wasn’t much of that to salvage. Still, she’d try.

  “Yes, I don’t want anyone to hear that,” McCall agreed. And Cody Joe likely wouldn’t spill it, either, because he had apparently developed feelings for McCall. A weird twisted set of feelings that involved cheating on her while still intending to ask her to marry him.

  “And you don’t want your grandmother or anyone else to know that your therapy practice is basically talking to old people who can still get it up,” Boo went on.

  McCall frowned. Then sighed. She hadn’t talked over any details with Boo about her counseling sessions, but one of the clients, Mr. Bolton, had shared plenty with Boo while he’d been waiting for his appointment.

  “Yes, we should probably keep that between us, as well,” McCall agreed.

  However, it was true that the bulk of her clients came from the Peaceful Acres Retirement Village that was next door to her clinic. And yes, the majority of those clients seemed to want relationship and sex advice. Some were just lonely and wanted her to listen.

  “Oh, and I thought of something else.” Boo clapped her hands as if she’d won a prize. “You don’t want Em to know about my past because she might not approve of me having worked at a strip club.”

  McCall realized she should have written down a list instead of just believing there was one thing she didn’t want to get out. But yes, Boo’s past career should probably stay hush-hush because if it came out, then McCall would get questions about how she’d met someone in that profession.

  And that led her to the main point of this conversation.

  “Whatever you do, don’t mention Peekaboo,” McCall told her.

  “Got it.” Boo made a locked lips motion over her mouth. “I’m guessing folks around here wouldn’t understand, huh?”

  No, they wouldn’t, and she didn’t especially want to explain that Peekaboo was a strip club.

  And the former Prissy Pants McCall owned it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “WE COULD NAME him Rose,” Gracie said as she studied the pony through the slats of the stall.

  Austin studied the Shetland, too, but not with the same gleam in his eyes. Heck, his sister, Cait, was sort of gleaming, too.

  Crap.

  He definitely hadn’t planned on becoming the owner of Cody Joe’s failed bribe to McCall. But here it was the morning after the fiasco, and the pony was not only still there, his girls were also trying to come up with names while it chowed down on the remainder of the flower garland that was on the floor of the stall.

  Even more, Austin was holding ownership papers that Cody Joe had couriered over. Ownership papers with a handwritten “I’m sorry about what happened, man” sticky note attached.

  That was one apology Austin had no intention of accepting. It might not be the adult thing to do or serve as a good example to his twins, but Cody Joe had done the unforgivable and caused a crapload of trouble. Not only for McCall but also with Edith and Howie.

  Thanks to the idiot’s antics, Edith might carry through on her threat to try to get custody of the girls.

  Austin had to believe that she wouldn’t win, that he hadn’t done anything that would warrant losing his kids. But a battle like that would put a wedge between Zoey’s parents and him, and the girls would end up being the biggest losers. Austin would never ban Edith and Howie from seeing Gracie and Avery, but talk about a major strain to have to be civil to the people who were trying to rip his heart to pieces.

  “How about Charley Horse?” Cait suggested, drawing Austin’s attention back to the pony naming. “Or Unicorn?”

  Neither Gracie nor Avery showed any enthusiasm for those choices, but Avery’s eye gleam got gleamier. “We could name him Poopy Head.”

  Austin gave her a warning glance that shifted to more than a glance to Cait when Avery added, “Aunt Cait called somebody that.”

  Cait looked remorseful for about half a second. Then she shrugged. “Hey, it could have been worse.” She patted Avery’s arm. “But it’s best not to use words like that until you’re at least six.”

  Austin didn’t want her saying things like that at six, either, but for Avery three years from now was a lifetime away. Besides, if that was the worst thing that came out of her mouth, he could live with it. Edith, however, would use it as fodder to prove what a bad father he was.

  “It’s nearly time to go to preschool,” Cait announced, glancing at her watch. “You can work on pony names when you get back home. You need Leyton or me to pick them up after school?” she asked Austin.

  And this was one of the many reasons why he loved his sister—despite her poopy head language. Cait stepped up to the plate to try to make things easier for him. Leyton, Shaw and his mother, Lenore, did, too. But Cait had gone above and beyond, and it wasn’t as if she didn’t have her own life. In addition to being a deputy sheriff, she also raised and boarded horses and gave riding lessons. Still, she worked it into her schedule to drive the girls to preschool at least once a week.

  “No, I’ll be able to get them,” Austin told her. He didn’t have any meetings today. He did have some paperwork and training to do with a couple of the horses, but he could work that in while the girls were gone for these four hours.

  Cait took hold of Avery’s and Gracie’s hands to get them moving away from the pony and out of the barn. “Go inside and get your backpacks,” she instructed. “Make as much noise as you can doing that so I’ll know how excited you are.”

  Normally, the girls loved preschool, but it was obvious they didn’t want to leave the unnamed pony. Yep, they’d be keeping the Shetland.

  Groaning and grumbling a little and not looking anywhere on the excited sca
le, the girls started out of the barn. “Can we play cops and bobbers on the way to school?” Avery asked Cait.

  Bobbers, not robbers. A little change that Gracie had made when she’d mispronounced it, and it’d stuck. The game didn’t entail fake guns, nor equally fake violence or even any running around. It was more of a bossy dialogue that involved lots of giggling and role playing phrases like “You’ll never get away with this” and “I was born ready.” Occasionally, there was even a “Book ’em, Danno,” something they’d gotten from Cait, who loved watching reruns of the old Hawaii 5-0.

  Of course, any and all phrases used would be peppered with more mispronounced words or made-up ones that could only come from a three-year-old’s vocabulary.

  “Sure, we can play,” Cait agreed. “I’ll be the bobber.”

  Avery frowned. “But you’re the cop. And I wanta be the bobber. It’s more funner.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Cait patted her head. “But in every life, a little rain must fall.”

  Even though it was highly likely that Avery didn’t have a clue what that meant, she got the gist of it and rolled her eyes. Eyes that were a genetic copy of Cait’s and Austin’s.

  Gracie had already started to walk to the house for her backpack, and Avery ran to catch up with her. “We could all be bobbers,” Avery concluded.

  “Don’t worry,” Cait assured him. “Next week, she’ll want to be something else. Like be a lion tamer or a flamethrower.” She paused until the girls were out of earshot. “You want to talk about the poopy head bull rider who might have screwed you and McCall six ways to Sunday?”

  Austin hadn’t believed for a second that Cait wouldn’t have heard about that. Heck, it was probably all over social media. For certain, it was all over town, and he hoped the girls wouldn’t get wind of any of it at preschool. Of course, the big topic for three-year-olds would be the pony and not the poopy head bull rider who’d almost nailed Miss Watermelon and then made an ass of himself.