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 almos
t 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.”
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