work his way through a jumbo box of condoms.
“And speaking of the divorce, Meredith called, too, when she couldn’t reach you on your cell phone,” his mother continued before he could speak. “She said she needed to see you about something. Wouldn’t say what exactly. Needless to say, I don’t approve. I don’t think it’s right for your ex-wife to want to get into your pants.”
He’d been wrong. This was the last thing he wanted to talk to his mother about.
Garrett finally managed to get a word in edgewise. “Mom, I’m calling about Loretta Cunningham. I’m out at Z.T.’s house now, and she’s here.”
“Loretta’s there?” She sounded overjoyed about that. And static-y. Since the static was only getting worse, he stopped walking, hoping that would help with the signal. “She used to watch you kids for me when I needed a break. She’s the one who gave me that homemade ointment that cleared up the rash on your tushy.”
He would have groaned again if it’d do any good. “Please focus, Mom. Did you tell Loretta she could stay at Z.T.’s place?”
“No, of course not.”
Instant relief. He could be the asshole after all and demand that the women leave. He could even pay them for the cleaning they’d done. Then, he could get that work crew in to deal with the pond and fence.
“Any idea why Loretta thought you’d told her she could stay here?” Garrett pressed.
But the line went dead. While it would have been nice to hear what his mother had to say about that, it wasn’t necessary.
“Garrett Granger?” someone said. It was a woman, and she stepped out from the last bedroom at the end of the hall.
Because of the shot lights, Garrett couldn’t see her that well, but she started walking toward him. “Yeah. And you are?”
“Nicky Marlow.”
Ah, finally. “There’s been a misunderstanding.” On your part, Garrett wanted to add. “My mother didn’t give Loretta permission to stay here.”
“No,” she calmly agreed, and she took something from the canvas bag she had in her hand. It was still hard to see, but it looked like some papers. “But she gave me permission. Actually, she gave me a one-year lease.”
Shit. His stomach landed near his kneecaps. No. This couldn’t be true.
She came closer, thrusting that paper at him. The lease, no doubt. The one that his mother better not have signed. Garrett snatched it from her and had a look for himself.
His stomach flopped down to the dusty floor. Because that was indeed a lease, indeed his mother’s signature.
He looked up to tell the woman that one way or another, the lease had to be broken. But the argument died on his lips when he looked at her face. That’s because this wasn’t Mrs. Marlow. This was Nicky Henderson.
The cute blonde flute player Garrett had deflowered seventeen years ago. And then dumped.
Not exactly good memories.
Apparently not for her, either. Judging from the way Nicky’s mouth tightened, this was one woman in Wrangler’s Creek who had absolutely no desire to get in his pants.
IT WASN’T EASY for her to stare down the man with whom she’d made her awkward sexual debut, but Nicky managed it. It helped that Garrett wasn’t exactly giving her the smoldering looks he had the night of said debut. In fact, once he got past the initial shock of seeing her, he started glaring.
All in all, he was a good glarer, too. Sharp, precise and with a smidge of I’m in charge here so get lost.
Nicky hadn’t seen him in seventeen years, not since they’d graduated from high school, but he hadn’t changed that much. By some measures anyway. He still had the thick dark brown hair that looked as if he’d just climbed out of bed after having sex. The same sizzling blue eyes that coordinated well with the smoldering looks. But there was something different about him, too. Something she knew a little too well.
Life had smacked Garrett Granger upside the head with a proverbial two-by-four. She recognized the world weariness, the impatience. The slight F-you attitude.
“My mother was wrong to give you that lease,” he growled. Speaking had to be hard with his jaw muscles that tight.
“She signed it,” Nicky pointed out, and she took the lease from him because he looked ready to vaporize it with his glare. She had other copies, but she didn’t want to have to go back to San Antonio to get them. That would mean a forty-five-minute drive.
He cursed. Stopped. And Nicky thought maybe he’d remembered that he was the “nice” Granger brother, but she followed his gaze over her shoulder where she spotted her daughter, Kaylee, who was coming out of the bedroom that Nicky had just been cleaning.
“Gar-if,” Kaylee greeted. She went to Garrett as if they were best buds and took his hand. “See my room.”
“How do you know my daughter?” Nicky asked at the same moment, Garrett said, “This is your daughter?”
Nicky nodded. Garrett gave her another dose of stink eye that he thankfully didn’t aim at Kaylee. Because if he had, Nicky would have let her own F-you attitude kick in, and she would have shown him the door. It didn’t matter that he was a Granger because he wasn’t her landlord. His mother, Belle, was.
“I met Kaylee outside earlier,” Garrett snarled. “She was poking a stick in a cow pie.”
Nicky groaned, immediately tugged Kaylee away from Garrett and checked her daughter’s hands. There was no visible poop, but she’d need the hand sanitizer. She should buy stock in the company as often as she had to use it.
“I thought Mrs. Ellery and her sisters were watching her,” Nicky explained.
Later, she would need to give Kaylee a lecture about cow pies and staying closer to her since the Ellery sisters apparently weren’t the stellar babysitters they claimed to be. Ironic since they were named for various goddesses of protection: Aradia, Diana and Hera.
Kaylee led Garrett back to the room. “It’s pink,” her daughter declared.
It wasn’t. Well, except for one dust-coated doll in a pink dress sitting on top of the chest of drawers. Everything else was gray, drab and probably festering with mold and things Nicky didn’t want to identify. She’d need the full year of the lease just to get the place clean.
Garrett looked around, managed a semi nod and equally semi smile for Kaylee. “You can’t stay here,” he added to Nicky.
Nicky made a show of running her hand like a magician’s assistant over the lease. “This says differently, and I should know because I drew up this lease myself. Since I’m a lawyer, I can promise you that it’s all in order.”
That seemed to distract him or something, and he gave her a funny look. “You’re a lawyer? You said you were
