Tangled Up in Texas

by Delores Fossen

Avoiding date requests and the men who were trying to make them had also meant her not answering the door because some of them hadn’t taken their unanswered calls and texts as brush-offs. That was where Bernice came in handy. The woman didn’t relish visitors or door openings, which came through loud and clear when she greeted the men and then sent them on their way.

  It wouldn’t last, of course. Sunny knew that eventually she’d have to venture out if for no other reason than to get this latest round of stitches removed. Maybe by then she’d be on a better mental footing and could dissuade the date askers without sounding like Bernice or, better yet, Hadley.

  Badly Hadley would have had some stinging comebacks strong enough to cause balls to shrivel. Sunny didn’t aspire to be her sister, but she figured sometimes a ball-shriveling skill set could come in handy.

  Especially when dealing with Tonya, the reporter.

  Tonya had called Sunny, too, after wheedling her phone number from one of Sunny’s friends. The reporter had probably called Shaw, as well. What Tonya hadn’t done was print the picture she’d taken or a word about what was going on with Sunny’s return to the scene of her childhood. Maybe Tonya had lost interest in doing an article. Or maybe she wasn’t going to print anything until she had more of a story. If so, that’d be an easy fix because Sunny had no intention of giving the reporter more.

  There was only a handful of people who Sunny wanted to hear from. Ryan, Em and Shaw. The first two hadn’t been an issue since they were either in the house with her or just outside. In between checking on her and working on an online course, Ryan had been doing some horseback riding, and Sunny had even seen him helping Em in one of the gardens.

  Not a whiff of contact, though, from Shaw.

  Sunny didn’t doubt for a minute that he would come through on the favor of getting men like Bennie off her scent, but Shaw almost certainly had his hands full. From what Em had been able to gather from gossip—gossip that she’d then passed on to Sunny—Shaw was busy dealing with his most recently found sibling.

  Shaw might also be giving her some time to rest, something Sunny would have appreciated if she’d actually been able to rest. So far, her body and brain didn’t seem fond of the idea.

  Hour after hour, minute after minute, her mind kept circling around the surgery. What could have happened. What could still happen. And if it wasn’t that particular dose of worry, the thoughts were of her latest botched engagement. And Ryan’s future. Heck, her own future.

  Swishing a woody tail feather was a lot easier than wallowing in all of that.

  Her phone flashed again, and unlike the other texts, a familiar name popped on the screen. McCall. Call me.

  Sunny reached to do that and then paused. McCall was a counselor, and Em had likely got in touch with her to press her to send that text. If she phoned her sister back, then McCall would try to pull her out of this dark place. And she might help, too. McCall was just that good. But Sunny wasn’t ready to dump all of this on her.

  Before Sunny could continue that mental debate with herself, there was a soft knock on the door. It was likely Ryan. He knocked. Em tapped. And Bernice just threw open the door wherever delivering news about the latest suitor she’d been forced to turn away.

  “Come in,” Sunny said, and Ryan opened the door and stuck his head in.

  “Persimmon sesame rice goulash,” he threw out there.

  Most folks would have had at least a little trouble deciphering a greeting like that, but Sunny figured it out right away. “Lenore Jameson sent over more food.”

  It wasn’t really even a guess. No one else in town fixed dishes like that, and besides Lenore had already sent over two other meals with notes that encouraged Sunny to eat up and enjoy. Sunny wouldn’t eat up, but she would enjoy simply because Lenore had been kind enough to think of her.

  “Working?” Ryan asked, stepping in. He looked at the sketch pad in her lap. Normally, Sunny worked on an easel, but the stitches tugged and pulled when she lifted her arms.

  She nodded. “Slackers wakes up in the Amazon jungle. There’ll be toucans and other jungle stuff.”

  As always, she’d keep it simple. As did the author when he sent her instructions for each of the scenes she needed to illustrate. The story before this one had been Slackers waking up in a Halloween spook house. And before that, Slackers snoozed his way into Venice.

  “Uh, that fireman dropped by again,” Ryan said. “Bernice threatened to let him in the next time he comes if you don’t talk to him and tell him to knock it off.”

  Sunny sighed. She was betting Bernice hadn’t said it so politely. “If Bennie comes by again, let me know.” She wasn’t good at telling someone to get lost, but that’s what she’d have to do.

  Sunny’s phone lit up with a call. “Dad,” Ryan muttered when Hugh’s name popped up on the screen.

  Crud. This was a call she’d have to take, and it didn’t seem right to make it a private one. Not with Ryan looking as if he was starved for any info about his dad. Pulling in a quick breath, she set the sketch pad aside, answered the call and put it on speaker. She was about to tell Hugh that their call wasn’t private, but he spoke before she could say anything.

  “If this is your way of making me feel sorry for you, it won’t work,” Hugh blurted out. “You walked out on me, Sunny. You ripped me to shreds, and I’m not going to feel sorry for you.”

  Sunny considered how to respond to that and settled for, “Excuse me?”

  “I won’t feel sorry for you,” he emphasized. “‘When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.’”

  Even though she was confused about the call, Sunny wasn’t confused about the last thing Hugh had said. “That’s a quote from one of the Game of Thrones books.”

  “So? It applies.”

  Sunny doubted that, but it was a bad habit of Hugh’s to start spouting book quotes, especially when he was angry, and she got more proof of his anger when he continued.

  “Your grandmother tried to make me feel sorry for you. She called and told me you’d had surgery and some kind of accident.”

  No sigh this time. Sunny groaned. “Em shouldn’t have done that. How’d she even get your number?”

  “I’d emailed it to her when we were planning our wedding.” Oh, the bitterness was practically seeping through the phone line at the mention of the wedding. “Is it true? Was there some kind of accident?”

  “I’m fine,” she said to avoid an explanation she didn’t want to get into. “There was no reason for her to call you.”

  “Of course, there was. She wants me to feel sorry for you so I’ll ask you to come back. That’s not going to happen.” The bitterness went up a few significant notches. “You walked out on me at the worst time possible. ‘I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.’”

  “Alice in Wonderland,” she and Ryan muttered in unison.

  Hugh must not have heard them because he continued. “The investors in my new stores were coming to the wedding, and I had to tell them that you’d called things off. Do you know how that made me look?”

  Sunny couldn’t help feeling just a little guilty about that. Those investors had been important to an expansion that Hugh wanted—three new stores. That’s why she’d wined and dined them with Hugh and tried to put on a good front. But a front was still just a front, and in the end, it was like trying to make a quote from a book fit a specific situation.

  “Your grandmother has to stop her matchmaking,” Hugh ranted on. “We’re done.”

  Something about this didn’t make sense, and she didn’t think that last comment was a quote. “Em actually said she wants us to get back together?”

  “She didn’t use those exact words, but I could tell that’s what she wanted.”

  “What did Em say?” Sunny pressed.

  Hugh’s huff was loud enough to extinguish candles
on a senior citizen’s birthday cake. “Em said that Ryan was worried about you and that she in turn was worried about Ryan.”

  Bingo. That’s why Em had called. She’d wanted to remind Hugh that he had a son.

  “Ryan’s here now, and I’ve had this entire call on speaker,” Sunny said. “If you want to talk to him.”

  Silence. And it went well past the awkward stage. “I can’t do this now, Sunny,” he finally responded. “You tore out my soul, and I have nothing left to give.”

  Sunny wanted to press it, to tell him that even parents with torn souls shouldn’t give up on their kids, but she doubted Hugh was going to say anything that would make Ryan feel better. And it was possible Hugh could say something to make him feel a whole lot worse. Good thing she didn’t have to figure out a way to end the call because Hugh hung up.

  “I’m okay,” Ryan said, while she was still staring at the phone screen. “That was about what I’d expected him to say. Though I figured he’d quote Tolkien at least once,” he added.

  That was true on both counts. Ryan had expected it, and Hugh liked to quote Tolkien. But it was Hugh’s non-quotes that tore at her soul. She’d crushed Hugh, and in turn he’d crushed Ryan. Now, along with her commitment phobia, Sunny had a shiny new guilt trip.

  Sunny eased off the bed. “I’ll go downstairs and tell Em not to call Hugh again.”

  “I can do that,” Ryan offered.

  “No. Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it.” She couldn’t help herself. Risking the stretch that would do a number on her stitches, Sunny came up on her toes to kiss Ryan’s cheek. “You deserve better,” she murmured.

  “Who says I don’t have it?” He mustered up a smile. “Not every teenager can eat all the persimmon sesame rice goulash he wants.”

  And that was why she loved him, why she had wanted him here with her.

  Sunny was well aware that Ryan kept his steps shorter than was usual for his six-foot-tall body. That was his way of making sure she took it easy. Which she did. Even though she wasn’t hurting as much as she had been earlier, it was best not to push things, because she’d end up worrying Em and Ryan.

  They found Em in the kitchen at the window, and as she had the day before, she was peering through the binoculars. There was a large casserole dish on the counter next to her, and the gooey contents—an unappetizing mix of orange and gray white—was oozing over the sides and onto the tiles.

  “Josiah brought his cousin with him today.” Em looked back at them, her mouth set in a line that was as much of a frown as Em ever had. “I’m going to buy those boys some underpants. I think showing that much hiney is scaring off the bunnies and ladybugs. Want to take a look at them?” Em asked, offering Sunny the binoculars.

  It was probably a sad day in a woman’s life when she didn’t want to ogle two hot guys, but she wasn’t up to it. Sunny shook her head and thanked Em.

  “Granny Em, Hugh said that you’d called him,” Sunny said.

  “Yes.” She didn’t add more about that. “McCall’s been trying to get in touch with you,” Em added almost casually, and she started to get out plates and silverware.

  “She probably just wants to check on me.” Sunny went to the fridge to look for something other than the goulash.

  “Sounded like more than that to me,” Em said. “It sounded important. She said I was to get you to call her right away.”

  That sent a curl of alarm through Sunny. McCall wasn’t the sort to blow things out of proportion, so maybe there was some kind of emergency and this wasn’t just a checking-on-her-sister kind of thing. Sunny took out her phone and returned her sister’s call, which went straight to voice mail. After leaving a message, she was about to put her phone away when the screen lit up with another call. Not McCall.

  Shaw.

  It was a good time for her to step out of the room and take this. Especially since Em was dishing up three servings of the goulash. Sunny threaded her way through the rooms and into the parlor.

  “You might have saved my stomach lining,” Sunny said the moment she answered his call.

  “My mom sent over a casserole,” Shaw said without her spelling it out for him. “Sorry about that. Other than the risk of possible digestive failure for life, how are you?” His voice was a lazy drawl. Like foreplay. Something she wished she hadn’t remembered.

  “Better. Better-ish,” she amended because, hey, this was Shaw. They had a favor pact, which meant she didn’t have to fudge the truth with him. “I got a call from Hugh that shook me a little, that’s all.”

  “Oh?” A little less drawl and foreplay now. She knew concern when she heard it.

  “I was just hoping to convince him to see Ryan or at least talk to him. It didn’t work out. How about you? Any luck with Kinsley?”

  “Yeah, if you count bad luck. It sounds as if your ex and her mom have a lot in common when it comes to their kids. She’s left town and isn’t answering her phone.”

  Oh, mercy. Poor Kinsley.

  Poor Shaw.

  “Look, I just wanted you to know that Em called me,” Shaw said, and before Sunny could groan and apologize about that, he continued. “She invited me over for dinner tomorrow night.”

  Great day, her grandmother had certainly been busy. “She’s worried about me.”

  “Yeah, got that.” He paused. “There’s more.” And he paused again. “Tonya did the story, and she apparently plans on doing more.”

  Sunny didn’t groan because she’d suspected they hadn’t dodged this particular bullet. “Did she use that picture of us she took in the ER?”

  “No. Dr. Mendoza threatened to sue her if she did that.” Shaw hesitated once again, causing her to get a tingle. Not a good sexual one, either. “Tonya just called me though to give me a heads-up about something else.”

  “You actually took her call?” Sunny asked.

  “Purely an accident. I was doing paperwork and didn’t check the screen before I hit Answer.” He paused. “According to Tonya, she somehow got her hands on a diary, Sunny. Your diary,” he emphasized. “Tonya said the cover was purple, and the date on the outside was for the last year you lived in Lone Star Ridge. She said the article and excerpts from the diary will be published tomorrow in a tabloid called Tattle Tale.”

  Sunny felt as if a concrete block had dropped from the sky and landed on her head. Thoughts and memories of that particular diary came flying at her. Pages and pages of private ramblings, and one particular rambling soared right to the front of the others.

  Hot Dreamy Shaw and the account of her deflowering.

  “That diary’s in the attic,” she muttered with something she didn’t actually feel. Hope. Hope that it was indeed still there and that the box it was in had a thick layer of dust to let her know that no one had gotten inside.

  Risking the pain from jiggling because she wasn’t wearing a bra, Sunny ran upstairs and practically skidded into the hall to go to her brother’s room. The closet door was open, which wasn’t unusual since Ryan was using it.

  “You still there?” Shaw asked. “You didn’t faint, did you?”

  “No fainting.” Not yet anyway, but all bets were off if she didn’t find that dusty box right in the far corner where she’d put it. “I’m checking the attic now.”

  His sigh was loud enough to let her know that he wasn’t feeling an ounce of the hope she was clinging to.

  Sunny climbed the steep wooden steps and flicked on the light. As it had been the last time she’d been up there, it was cluttered and creepy. Old Halloween costumes dangling from wire hangers, spiderwebs galore, and the multitude of boxes and old furniture where Hayes had told her monsters lived. Of course, he’d said that to keep her out of his secondary sanctuary, but she felt the old chill go up her spine.

  The footprints turned that chill into a January Montana blizzard.

  Speci
fically, footprints in the dust-covered floor. Footprints that led past the creepy stuff and all the way to the back corner.

  “Still there?” Shaw repeated. “It sounds like you’re breathing funny.”

  A surprise since Sunny wasn’t sure she was breathing at all. She thought maybe the blizzard had frozen the air in her lungs. Frozen her feet to the floor, too, because she stopped when she saw the corner. And the box with “Sunny’s Stuff” written in black marker on the side. No dust on the top of this box because it was wide-open.

  Oh, God. “Hot Dreamy Shaw,” Sunny muttered.

  “Yeah,” Shaw verified. “That’s the title of Tonya’s article.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “‘HIS MOUTH WAS so hot, kissing me in places I’d never been kissed before. He kissed my mouth, my neck...and then he got to the good parts.’”

  That’s what Shaw heard when he stepped into the barn to grab a saddle, and he heard it coming from the mouth of a ranch hand, Zeke Mayhew, who likely didn’t know that he was about to have his ass kicked six ways to Sunday.

  Shaw turned into the tack room where Zeke was in the process of reading Tonya’s article to two other snickering ranch hands. Those two were up for ass kicking, too.

  All reading and snickering stopped when Shaw stepped into the tack room, and the two listening hands practically mowed him down trying to get out of there. That likely had something to do with the rock-hard scowl that Shaw knew was on his face, but they wouldn’t get off scot-free. Shaw’s mood was bad enough to last for hours. Days, even. Plenty enough time to spread the ass kicking around.

  “Just doing some reading,” Zeke said, lifting the dog-eared tabloid that had published Tonya’s article.

  Because he was clearly stupid, Zeke smiled. It faded when Shaw’s glare and the silence cut through the room. Shaw wasn’t staying quiet because it was part of some grand plan. It was because he couldn’t unclench his jaw muscles enough to speak.

  “Sorry, boss,” Zeke finally muttered. “I didn’t mean any harm. It’s just everybody’s reading this, and it’s kind of funny.”