No Getting Over a Cowboy

by Delores Fossen

  “The cop said you recorded our conversation,” Doris said to Garrett. “He even played it for me. That proves nothing.”

  “Yeah, it does. It proves you asked me for money to leave Kaylee alone. I think they call that extortion.”

  “I didn’t demand it. I only mentioned that it would be nice if I had some extra cash.”

  “So you can try to take my daughter,” Nicky supplied at the same moment Garrett said, “So, you can get custody of Kaylee and then maybe have enough left over for a fling with some guy who’ll dump you after a couple of months. Then, you could come back to Nicky and extort more money from her if she wants Kaylee back.”

  Doris’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t dignify that with a response. Did Nicky tell you about the insurance fraud?”

  “You mean your daughter’s insurance fraud? The one you probably knew about because after all, Shanda was your daughter. Nicky never met Shanda before Kaylee was born.”

  Doris moved to the edge of her seat. “Prove it.”

  “I will. That’s what good PIs are for.”

  Garrett wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “That’s what I’m worth, give or take a million or two. And no, I’m not offering you another penny of it. That’s just to let you know what you’re up against. I have lawyers on retainer. Good ones. That fifty grand I gave you will run out very fast when you butt heads with them. I will have them tie you up in court for so long that the stick up your ass will petrify.”

  Clay came back in the room, lifted an eyebrow because he’d likely heard that, and he dropped an old thick phone book on the desk next to her.

  “You’re threatening me,” Doris said to Garrett. “He’s threatening me,” she repeated to Clay.

  Clay only shrugged. “No crime against a man mentioning petrified ass sticks.”

  Nicky wrote down her own figures on a note and slid it toward Doris. “That’s what I’m worth.” It was a drop in the bucket compared to Garrett’s, and even that drop was exaggerated.

  Nicky went closer. Doris stood, towering over her, but Nicky didn’t let her size intimidate her. She was fighting for her daughter here.

  “I’ll use that money and every lawyer friend I have to stop you,” Nicky assured her. “I didn’t survive a dickhead of a father just for my little girl to end up with the likes of you.”

  “The likes of me!” Doris shouted.

  Clay dangled the cuffs. “Remember that part about not looking like you’re about to commit an assault.”

  Doris didn’t calm down, but she didn’t come closer, either. She volleyed her gaze among the three of them. No doubt trying to figure out her next move.

  “I want that recording destroyed,” Doris finally said.

  She might as well have asked for the moon. “Lackey cowboy cops don’t destroy evidence in a criminal investigation. Now, Nicky and Garrett are going to leave so they can get some rest. You’re going to stay and give me a statement. I’ve already got theirs, and the recording, of course. Seems to me I’ve got a very easy case to prove.”

  Doris just stood there.

  “Let me spell this out for you,” Nicky told her. “You will never—never—get your hands on my daughter.”

  Doris glanced at the cuffs that Clay was still dangling. She then looked at the two notes with the money figures that Nicky and Garrett had written down.

  “We lackeys stick together,” Nicky added, staring down the woman.

  Nicky managed a smile, and she took hold of Garrett’s arm and walked out. Her father might not have been proud, but even he would have had to admit something.

  That tonight, she’d finally grown a pair.

  * * *

  SEX WITH NICKY—one of Garrett’s favorite things. And he was really into the best part of the favorite thing. Just a few more thrusts inside all that heat and he’d be whistling Dixie.

  Whatever the heck that meant.

  He frowned, not liking that the whistling metaphor was interrupting this. So were the sounds. It was like a dozen footsteps coming at him at once. And that’s when Garrett realized this was a dream.

  His eyes flew open, and he jackknifed to a sitting position. Not a good idea. Not with a raging hard-on. Also not with real people making those real footstep sounds. There was a group of women coming at him, and none of them was Nicky.

  He looked around for her but realized he’d been sleeping on the chaise in the library at Z.T.’s house. His back hurt. Butt, too. His erection wasn’t feeling especially happy, either, at being interrupted by, well, whatever the devil this was.

  There was Lady, Ruby, Ginger, D.M. and his mother. All of them pattering their way toward him.

  “I told you he’d be up by now,” his mother said. “He never sleeps this late. Garrett is always up with the chickens.”

  Well, he was up all right, but there were no chickens involved. He fumbled around, located a blanket and pulled it over his lap. It probably didn’t hide what he wanted hidden, but it was the best he could do since he couldn’t stand up and walk out of there.

  “Where’s Nicky?” he asked.

  His mother smiled at the others. “Told you he’d ask about her right off. Ah, young love.”

  Garrett didn’t smile, though. That was because he remembered Nicky telling him she loved him. No, not that she loved him but rather was in love with him.

  Big difference.

  “Last I saw Nicky she was in the kitchen,” Ruby said. “Say hello to Herman.” She thrust the box toward him, and he saw the crab inside. Both the crab and Ruby’s maternal expression looked creepy.

  Lady scowled at the crab before turning to Garrett. “I just wanted to pop in to say goodbye before I left. Yes, I’m leaving,” she added as if everyone would be upset about that. The Garden Guild certainly wouldn’t be.

  “Why’d you decide to go?” he asked. And he wondered if he could talk her into leaving sooner. Talk all of them into leaving so he could locate a cold shower and then see Nicky.

  “Well, all that towing last night made me remember how much I love doing that. It works out the sexual frustrations, you know. I think that’s why I’ve been so horny since I’ve been here.”

  His mother and Ginger groaned. D.M. was cleaning her fingernails with a pocketknife.

  “Bullshit,” D.M. said, followed with a tic motion of her head. “Breathing makes you horny.”

  Lady gave them the same look she’d given the crab before she continued with Garrett. “Anyway, I’m also expanding the towing business to include roadside repairs. I’ve already got ideas for signs and logos.” She fanned her right hand in the air. “‘Let’s Hook Up’ with a picture of a tow hook. Then, on the other side, I could put ‘Panties in Your Crack over a Flat Tire?—I Won’t Jack You Off.’” Lady grinned. “What do you think?”

  Garrett didn’t want to endorse crappy advertisements like that, but if he tried to dissuade her, it would only lengthen this conversation. “Those work for me.”

  Lady aimed smirks at the other women who clearly had done the right thing by attempting to dissuade her, and she moved in on Garrett as if to kiss him goodbye. But he waved her off.

  “Morning breath,” he said.

  That seemed to satisfy Lady, perhaps a first since her arrival at the ranch, and she gave him a smile before leaving. One down, too many to go.

  “That crab looks hungry or something,” Garrett told Ruby, and after she glanced down at it, she nodded and hurried off.

  “Bullshit,” D.M. grumbled. “But it was a good use of bullshit,” she added before she left.

  He was thinning the herd and looked at Ginger next. “Could you please give me a moment alone with my mom?”

  “Oh, of course. You want to talk about being in love with Nicky.”

  “Uh, no. But w
e have other things to discuss.” Hopefully something that would soften him up enough so he could stand. But it did make him wonder where they’d gotten this notion of him being in love with Nicky. He doubted Nicky had said anything, so maybe it was just wishful thinking on their parts.

  “The sisters are gone,” his mother said after Ginger had left. “I think they’re going to try to work things out with their husbands.”

  “Really?” Garrett hadn’t thought much more could surprise him. “You believe the sisters can get past the fact that the men faked their deaths so they wouldn’t have to be around their wives?”

  Belle shrugged. “It’s either that or divorce, and those women don’t look like the divorce type to me.”

  Yeah, she was right about that. “Are you okay about how things turned out with Loretta?” he asked.

  She gave another sigh, sank down on the chaise next to him. “No. I don’t like that she sneaked around and saw that man in this house, but I forgive her, and I’m hoping she’ll come back.”

  “You think she could be here after everything that happened?”

  She shrugged. “People stay lots of places where unpleasant things happened. Well, everyone but your brother. Roman ran away from home and didn’t come back.”

  Roman hadn’t exactly run, but anything that Garrett said would only cause his mother to go on the defensive. Deep in her heart she had to know that it’d been a mistake to judge Roman for not marrying the mother of his son. But maybe she’d lived with the mistake for so long that it was hard to admit it.

  “Anyway, Jake let us know that he got Loretta back to her house safe and sound. He did seem a little worried about her, though. It’s a big house, and she’s all alone there. Poor dear never was able to have kids, you know.”

  “You should call her and talk to her,” Garrett suggested.

  His mother eyed him with suspicion in a way that only a mother could do. “Is this about Nicky?”

  Garrett couldn’t see much of a correlation between his comment about calling Loretta and Nicky, but he nodded anyway, kissed his mother’s cheek. “I should check on her.”

  “Yes, you should.” His mother stood. “She needs cheering up. She was all down in the dumps this morning, I could tell. It’s as if something didn’t go her way. Any idea what?”

  “No,” he lied. But it put a knot in his stomach to hear she was down. Of course, after everything that’d happened, that was probably normal.

  “Well, if she truly wants to leave,” his mother went on, “please tell her that I’ll run the place for her. I don’t want to give up on the widows who need help.”

  That hit him like a bag of bricks. “Leave? Did Nicky say she was leaving?”

  “I’m certain I heard her mention something about that,” Belle said while she was walking away.

  Well, hell.

  When had she come to that decision? When they’d gotten back to the house the night before, she’d been wiped out and headed straight for bed, but she hadn’t said a thing about either L word.

  Love or leaving.

  That got Garrett off the chaise, and he went in search of an unoccupied bathroom. There were five in the house, and maybe because so many of the widows had left, the first one he tried was empty. He hurried in, showered in record time and nearly ran into Kaylee when he opened the door.

  “Gare-if. I got a boo-boo.” She held out her arm for him to see the scratch. It was small, barely visible, but clearly it was causing her distress. She was looking at it as if her arm might need to be amputated.

  “I’m sorry. Does it hurt?”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “It hurts a little bitty.”

  Well, that was some hurt that he didn’t want her to feel. He went through the medicine cabinet, not sure what he would find, but it had obviously been stocked. He took out some antiseptic cream and a Band-Aid and doctored it. He kissed the top of the bandage when he was done.

  “All better,” she said, hugging him.

  There it was again. That raw emotion, except it no longer felt as raw as it once had. It felt somewhat sweet, warm and gooey. Which made it sound a little like a cookie straight from the oven. But he also felt something else.

  Fiercely protective of this little girl.

  Yeah, he’d use every penny of his Granger money to make sure she stayed with Nicky.

  Kaylee didn’t let go after a few hugging moments so Garrett scooped her up in his arms. She might need some mommy TLC, as well, so he went in search of Nicky.

  She wasn’t in the kitchen so he tried her room. Not there, either. And she wasn’t in the parlor.

  “There you are,” Gina said when he came out of one of the rooms. But her comment was clearly meant for Kaylee because she reached out her hands for the girl. Kaylee, though, shook her head and tightened her grip around Garrett.

  “She’s got a boo-boo,” Garrett explained.

  Gina peeked beneath the bandage and saw that it was okay. “Cowboys say boo-boo?” she asked, her mouth quivering a little.

  “This cowboy does. My manhood can withstand that kind of hit.”

  Gina didn’t smile, and he could feel the tension between them return. It was nothing like that sweet, warm and gooey vibe he’d gotten from Kaylee.

  “One of the sisters found rusty pliers before she left,” Gina whispered. “If you make Nicky cry again, I might consider using them on you.”

  “Nicky cried?” Garrett obviously said that louder than he’d intended because he noticed alarm on Kaylee’s face. He was certain there was alarm on his face, too, because first his mother had said Nicky might be leaving and now he heard she’d been crying.

  Gina nodded. “She’s on the front porch.”

  Since he didn’t want Kaylee there for a crying/leaving conversation, he kissed her cheek and handed her to Gina.

  “I love you,” Kaylee said.

  “I love you, too,” Garrett answered without thinking.

  “See?” Gina asked. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  No, it wasn’t. And he’d meant it. But what he felt for Kaylee had nothing to do with Nicky. Well, almost nothing.

  Garrett headed for the porch, trying to prepare himself for Nicky’s tears. And he found her all right. But she wasn’t crying.

  His mouth went dry.

  And where the hell had all the air gone?

  She was sitting on the top step, leaning against the porch railing. Barefooted and wearing shorts and a sleeveless top that exposed a lot of the skin on her arms and legs. The morning sun was hitting her just right, haloing all that blond hair that fell loose on the tops of her shoulders. She looked like some kind of nature goddess who’d stopped for a bite to eat.

  And what she was eating was a snickerdoodle.

  She not only looked amazing, but she smelled that way, too.

  Nicky was also smiling, and that smile stayed on her mouth even after she saw him. “You’re up,” she said, and she patted the spot next to her.

  Well, if this was her way of saying goodbye, then she seemed darn happy about it. Which pissed him off a little. Garrett tried not to show that, but crap on a cracker, he didn’t want her to be happy about going.

  “Clay just called,” she continued. “It’s official. He’s arrested Doris, and she wants to work out a plea deal. He says the only way he’ll agree to that is for the charges to stay on her record. That should make it next to impossible for her to win a custody suit.”

  Maybe that was why Nicky was smiling. It was good news. And maybe that good news had temporarily dried up her tears.

  “Doris didn’t have the money on her,” Nicky went on. “And she claims she’s already spent it so you might be out fifty grand. I’ll pay you back, of course, but it might take a while.”

  “I don’t want you
to pay me back. I spent that much on bull sperm last month.”

  She made a face.

  “Hey, cows need sperm,” he added.

  Nicky smiled again. “You should suggest that slogan to Lady.”

  “I would, but she’d probably like it enough to use it.” He paused, took the piece of the cookie she offered him. “By the way, I don’t want any damn space.”

  Garrett certainly didn’t smile. Good grief. It was as if he needed Language 101 when he was around Nicky. Best to give her more of a reference for that.

  “I heard what you said to Gina when you were on the phone in Clay’s office,” he explained. “Someone should tell him he needs thicker walls.”

  Well, she sure as hell wasn’t smiling now. “What else did you hear?”

  “Every word,” he admitted. “Not Gina’s words, though, because you didn’t have it on speaker, but I’m sure she was bad-mouthing me because of the way I acted when you told me you loved me. I acted that way because I really did remember the recording on my phone, and because...well, because I didn’t know what else to say.”

  Her next smile didn’t quite make it to her eyes. She brushed a kiss on his lips, but it was too chaste for a Nicky kiss. “By not knowing what to say, you said it all.”

  “Say what?” He apparently needed Language 101 interpretation skills, too.

  “If the answer wasn’t obvious...”

  Oh.

  That.

  He heard the movement behind him and saw that they now had an audience. Most of the women, including his mother, were now watching from the windows. No doubt listening, too, because D.M. had raised the window a few inches. Plenty of space for the group to find out just how he was going to fix this. The only ones missing were Gina and Kaylee.

  “My granddaddy used to say if you find yourself in a hole, then quit digging,” Garrett told Nicky, and he leaned in and kissed her. Not one of those pecks, either. This was a hole-getting-out-of kiss. At least he hoped it was.

  It did leave Nicky a little breathless, and it gave him the beginnings of another hard-on. So it was a good kiss after all. It was a start, but he knew he needed more.

  “You know that answer you just mentioned?” he asked. “Well, I didn’t know the answer last night, but I do now. First, though, I want to ask you out on a date. Several of them. In fact, I want to ask you out for Friday and Saturday nights for the next six months.”