Sweet Texas Kiss (Sweet Texas Secrets)

by Monica Tillery

  “What can we do about this?” Gavin asked. Asking the same question repeatedly wasn’t getting him anywhere, but the shock was too great. Losing the house was bad enough. Losing it to his high school rival was unthinkable. Surely, any minute now, Rodney would realize that he’d read the wrong file or misunderstood something. This simply couldn’t be the last word.

  “Nothing, I’m afraid. Your father was completely of sound mind and not under any duress when he made these changes. Everything is legal and indisputable. I’m sorry things didn’t work out the way you expected.” The way you expected? The understatement of the year. Not only were the will’s contents unexpected, they were unbelievable.

  “So just like that, we’re done?” Grayson was almost shouting. Gavin couldn’t blame him. His younger brother had received nothing in return for his years of dedication to the company, a betrayal he wouldn’t take lightly. “This isn’t a case of things not working out the way we expected. This is a serious betrayal and three huge broken promises. We are talking about our very legacy being doled out to strangers. This can’t be final.”

  “It is, and I’m sorry.” Rodney spread his hands apologetically, but he glanced at the door, likely ready to move on to his next appointment. For an attorney, he seemed awfully uncomfortable with the awkward exchange. Gavin thought Rodney would’ve had more experience with these situations. Surely, they weren’t the first people to be surprised by what their loved ones didn’t leave them in their wills.

  He had time to go to the bank and check out his father’s safe-deposit box before he was expected back at the veterinary clinic. Maybe he’d find some answers there. He stood and tucked the envelope holding the key into his pocket. “All right, then. Maybe there’s a clue in the safe-deposit box to explain all of this. Thanks for your help, Rodney.”

  “Let us know what you find. I’ll be at the office, though I don’t know why I even care,” Grayson said. “I can’t imagine I’ll actually get anything done today.”

  “Let’s meet for drinks tonight before I go home, okay?” Gage would head back to Houston now that the inheritance was sorted out. Anything they did to change it could be done over the phone and through e-mail. “I want to know what’s in the safe-deposit box, and if it’s anything like this morning’s news, it’ll go down better with a few beers.”

  “That sounds great. See you at Silver Spurs around eight or so? We can have dinner and maybe I’ll have some answers.” Gavin would have time to close up the clinic and get cleaned up before meeting his brothers for the much-needed drinks and debriefing.

  The three paused in the parking lot, squinting in the bright late-morning sun. “That sounds perfect—see you tonight.” Gage opened the door to his shiny sports car and dropped onto the leather seat.

  “Keep your fingers crossed.” Gavin opened his truck door and climbed in.

  • • •

  Gavin kept his head down and hurried through the Sweet Ridge Bank and Trust lobby. The spacious lobby was full of people standing in line for the tellers, waiting on the plush couches for personal bankers, or holding quiet conversations in small groups. Blessedly, he didn’t see anyone he was close with as he wound through the crowd. His dad had screwed him on the inheritance—the last thing he wanted was to make small talk or give out free veterinary advice to someone worried about their pet. Fortunately, the available banker was one he didn’t know well; it helped to not have to pretend everything was fine while he made conversation.

  With no more than the requisite exchanged pleasantries, Gavin was left alone in the bank’s vault with his father’s safe-deposit box. The old bank’s heady scent of wood and paper surrounded him, reminding him of his father’s home office, where he’d spent countless hours sitting in the old wingback chair, watching his dad work. He’d now have to trash his plans to set up his own home office in the space, a place where he could research new veterinary treatments and brainstorm marketing ideas for the clinic—if he couldn’t figure out a way to reverse his father’s decision. The Coopers were one of the first families to settle Sweet Ridge, their legacy a piece of the town’s backbone, and Gavin would be forced to watch a woman he never thought he’d see again, one who cared so little for the town that she hadn’t returned in years, own the house that was his birthright. And all because his own father had betrayed him.

  Macy had a huge career as a country music singer, so chances were she wouldn’t even take possession of the house. She was a star, a judge on a wildly successful singing competition show. It seemed highly unlikely she would give that up for some piece of small-town Texas real estate. After high school, she’d moved to Nashville with Tori and hadn’t returned to Sweet Ridge except for funerals as far as he knew. He’d finally cancelled all his celebrity gossip magazine subscriptions after seeing her face on one too many covers in his clinic’s waiting room and hearing her voice every time he listened to the radio. He’d lost so much because of her.

  Keeping in touch with Tori was difficult after the Young and Wilde duo hit it big, but they did their best with e-mail and phone calls. He’d been so happy for his best friend, glad that she’d achieved the success she so richly deserved and had worked so hard for. Hell, he blamed Macy for taking that away from Tori, too.

  And now she owned his house? The house he’d been assured would be his for years. The house where he’d sneaked downstairs on a dozen Christmas mornings to see what Santa had left, and where Gage had done his chores for a solid month so Gavin wouldn’t rat on him for sneaking out. What had his father been thinking? Macy wouldn’t want to live in Sweet Ridge, much less in the Cooper house. She’d never see the marks on the utility room wall where each boy’s height and age was dutifully recorded every year and notice where the handwriting changed from their mother’s to their father’s. Surely for her the house was just a piece of real estate, not the last place the family lived together under one roof. She could sell it to a stranger, or worse, keep it for herself so he wouldn’t even have the chance to buy it. The contents of the safe-deposit box had better yield some answers, give some rationale to explain his father’s behavior. Gavin refused to accept that their father had taken everything they’d known and turned it upside down without any explanation.

  He turned the key. The box was full of papers, nothing more, and it didn’t look like any of them were personal letters. No deeply personal mementos, nothing that would make this mess make any sense, and nothing to make him feel better about what his father had done. With a deep breath, he resisted hurling the box against the wall. Instead, Gavin scooped out the stack of documents and rifled through birth certificates, death certificates, a truck title, and old family pictures.

  Except they weren’t all the familiar family pictures he had seen before. In some, a young Jack Cooper smiled for the camera, arm in arm on the edge of a beach with a beautiful stranger. That same woman appeared with his father as they embraced each other in front of a fountain in a busy town square. She stared into the camera, a loving smile lighting up her delicate features. Yet another one was just of her, leaning against the hood of a car Gavin didn’t recognize, skirts swirling around her legs as she squinted into the sunlight. She was photographed with love; that much was obvious.

  Who was this woman, and why did his father have these pictures? Of course Gavin’s mother wasn’t the only woman his father had ever been with, but he hadn’t had a serious relationship since she passed away. Nor had he ever mentioned the mystery woman, and to keep her pictures locked away made no sense. They were young in the yellowing photographs, probably—hopefully—younger than when Jack and Gavin’s mother had married.

  His father had disappointed them today, grievously, but Gavin hoped against everything that they wouldn’t find that he’d been an adulterer, as well. If he and this woman had known each other before he got married, why hadn’t they reconnected when he was single again?

  And perhaps most perplexing, why had he specifically sent Gavin to empty the box? Did he want him to find the p
hotos, or had he forgotten they were there? The request could have been nothing more than the housekeeping involved in wrapping up a life, or it could hold the answer to why their inheritance had been parsed out to strangers.

  • • •

  Cold air-conditioning and a heavy shot of raucous country music hit Gavin when he opened the door to Silver Spurs. The Friday night crowd was already chugging beers and swirling around the parquet dance floor. Gage and Grayson waved to him from their table and poured a third beer for him from a half-finished pitcher. He took his seat and a long pull from the mug, the cold beer a welcome pleasure after his long day.

  “Hey, Gray, I thought you liked that tie.” He set his icy mug on the cardboard coaster.

  “What do you mean?” Grayson touched the silky fabric of his navy tie, one of a large collection.

  “You know Sally’s going to cut that thing right off your neck if she sees it.”

  Gavin nodded toward the pretty young waitress making a beeline for their table, and sure enough, the handles of her scissors peeked out of the pocket on her apron. Silver Spurs prided itself on being casual and rowdy, and ties were absolutely verboten. No exceptions. Grayson loosened the tie and whipped it off his neck before Sally reached the table. She grinned as he shoved it in his pocket.

  “I’ll get you one of these days, Grayson. You boys eating tonight? Or will it be more of a liquid dinner?” Sally leaned closer to the men to make her honey-smooth voice heard over the music and crowd.

  They ordered burgers and another pitcher of cheap beer and waited for the waitress to get out of earshot before getting back to the business at hand. Gavin took the envelope out of his pocket and shook the pictures onto the table. “I emptied the safe-deposit box like Dad wanted. For a second, I thought I’d found something that would explain why he screwed us on the inheritance, but there wasn’t really anything unusual, except for these.” He set the pictures in the middle of the table.

  Gage snapped them up and started flipping through the stack, examining each one. “They’re just family pictures.” He slowed his pace, his expression softening from irritation to a faint smile at some of the memories captured in the images.

  “Yeah, at first I didn’t know why Dad had locked them up instead of just putting them in the photo albums, but then it became pretty clear.” Never one to wait patiently, Grayson leaned sideways to see the pictures over Gage’s shoulder. Gavin watched his brothers’ faces as they examined the pictures. “You’ll see what I mean in a second.”

  They reminisced and teased each other as pictures of them as babies and kids gave way to more awkward adolescent images. There were pictures of the boys at Guac Olé’s first offices, a few of the kids sitting around the table peeling avocados in the family home’s kitchen, each brother’s prom pictures, graduation pictures, Gavin with the family’s old dog Jasper, a handful of Gage’s football team photos—the usual family memories.

  And then there were the pictures of their father with the mystery woman.

  “Who the hell is this?” Gage demanded, as though his brothers might know something he didn’t. Typical Gage, barreling forward as though he and Gray had some information they were hiding. And, just like Gavin knew he would, Gage flipped the pictures over, finding no writing. Dad hadn’t left them any clues—no name, place, date, nothing.

  “She doesn’t look familiar.” Grayson peered at the picture.

  “She and Dad look awfully cozy, and I think it’s damn strange that we’ve never seen her before.” Gavin paused to let Sally place their food on the table, and shook salt onto his fries. “And that Dad left these pictures for us to find, and not just by chance. It’s pretty obvious that he wanted to make sure we found them. It’s got to mean something, but I have no idea what.”

  “Maybe she’s one of the women in his will? Macy’s the only one I know. Maybe this is Charlotte or Rebecca?” Gage took a big bite of his burger and chewed thoughtfully.

  “It’s not Rebecca. She goes by Becca, and she’s a line supervisor at the plant. Plus, she’s much younger than that woman would be now. Maybe it’s Charlotte.” Grayson shot mustard onto his burger and furrowed his brow.

  Gage took another look at the fresh-faced, happy woman in the picture with their father. “You know, this could be Charlotte, but I don’t think so. I wouldn’t completely rule it out, but this woman would be Dad’s age now. I get the impression that Charlotte is probably middle-aged. And miserable. This lady looks way too pleasant.”

  “Why would he leave the pictures with no names or explanation? Does he want us to figure it out, or did he just forget they were in there?” Grayson stacked the pictures neatly.

  “And these pictures don’t have anything to do with the glasses, the key, or the strawberry. What is going on here?” Gage stabbed a French fry into the ketchup.

  “I have no clue, and honestly, the pictures make it even more confusing,” Gavin said. Between losing his dad, losing the house, and discovering that their father wanted them to play some strange guessing game, he wanted to do little more than go home and see his dog. Merle’s loyalties and affection were never in question. Everything with him was straightforward and easy, as long as he got plenty of food and ear scratches.

  Too many things didn’t make sense anymore in Gavin’s world.

  Chapter Two

  Across the bar, Garth Brooks’s voice wound through the air, and peanut shells crunched beneath cowboy boots as the Friday night crowd two-stepped around the dance floor, bathed in flecks of light from the overhead disco ball. Waitresses navigated the swirling bodies with the grace of ballerinas, balancing trays of longnecks and pitchers, stopping at the tall tables to deliver refreshment and big Texas smiles. Sweet Ridge hadn’t changed one bit. Same music, same crowd, same Friday night.

  Not for the first time, Macy Young wished she’d let her attorney handle her strange inheritance, either figuring out a way she could sell the Cooper house or at least renting it out for her. With her talent competition show, America’s Next Country Star, on a brief break before the new season started, the distraction was welcome and necessary, though. With nothing and nobody waiting for her at home, work was the only thing keeping her sane most days. Being alone with her thoughts too long was dangerous and could lead to some really self-destructive behavior if she wasn’t careful.

  Macy paid the bill for her solo dinner of a basket of foods fried beyond recognition and worth every calorie, and drained the last of her beer. Tonight she’d sleep in her clean and cozy room at Sweet Ridge Inn, the town’s charming, and only, hotel, and check out the Cooper house in the morning. It was hers, but it didn’t feel like it, and it didn’t seem right to spend the night there yet. Maybe seeing it would help her decide what to do with the property.

  Either the Silver Spurs patrons were enjoying themselves too much to fawn over a celebrity, or they thought of her as nothing more than Macy Young, the girl they grew up with, but nobody was giving her a second look. Their lack of enthusiasm for her was positively glorious, and she enjoyed her walk through the crowded bar with a freedom she rarely felt. Genuine fans approaching her for a moment of real connection was something she enjoyed, but lately it seemed that people either openly stared and said nothing or approached her only for a picture opportunity and didn’t actually want to engage with her.

  When she and Tori first started out, being famous was fun. Nothing else in life could compare to the feeling of standing on a stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, seeing their names in lights, and watching their albums blast up the charts, hitting number one every time. It was different in the beginning, when people were excited to meet them and would stop them to talk about their music. Macy never tired of finding out that their songs had gotten someone through a breakup, or provided the soundtrack for a couple falling in love. That their ballad “So in Love” was the first song couples danced to at their weddings never got old, either. Women in their twenties used to approach them all the time to share how much they
related to the duo’s girl-power song, “Take That.” Meeting the real people who loved their music was so much more satisfying than snapping a quick picture with someone so they could share it on Facebook. The explosion of smartphones and social media made everything so fake and impersonal, and Macy couldn’t remember the last time she had a meaningful conversation with a fan. Being a sideshow was tiresome, and Sweet Ridge was turning out to be a welcome reprieve. Everyone in her old hometown already knew her story, and apparently they didn’t care.

  Anticipating a great night’s sleep in the quiet hotel room waiting for her, Macy tucked a generous tip under her empty beer mug and headed for the door. Three handsome men, apparently missing the memo about pretending she wasn’t a hugely famous country star, stared as she sidestepped dancers and pool players. Before she had a chance to shut down their gawking with a direct look of her own, they stood, and she realized that they weren’t fans. They were Jack Cooper’s sons.

  Gage Cooper left the trio and met her as she approached their table. “Macy Young! We haven’t seen you in years. We were just talking about you.”

  His bear hug surprised her, but there was no time to wonder what it meant as he led her over to his brothers. Grayson picked up where he left off, wrapping her in a quick hug and giving her a split second to breathe in his expensive cologne. “Hey, girl. It’s good to see you. It’s been a long time.”

  Gavin Cooper stayed in his seat, making sure she knew he noticed her and wasn’t happy to see her. Pity, because they’d been friendly enough in high school, and he’d been Tori’s best friend for a long time. He’d been angry enough when Macy ended up as valedictorian of their class instead of him, but now he blamed her for everything bad in the world, including the state’s epic drought, New Coke, and Deadwood being cancelled after season three, before the loose ends were tied up, so there was no way they’d ever be friends again. Finding out that she’d inherited his dad’s house probably hadn’t helped endear her to him.