Sophie remembered the call that had come in while she’d been at the office. She’d hung up on Brantley but not before he’d said something she hadn’t caught.
“You mentioned a belt,” she offered.
Brantley shook his head and seemed confused before an aha look went through his eyes. “I didn’t say belt. I said bolt as in lightning bolt. Because that’s the way I felt when I first saw April. It was love at first sight. Real love,” he tacked on as if it might help.
It didn’t. It didn’t help Sophie with her anger, and judging from the way Clay looked, it didn’t help him, either.
“Real love?” Clay repeated. His voice had a dangerous edge to it that sent Sophie’s pulse skittering. “My sister’s barely out of one bad marriage. She doesn’t need another one. Her boys don’t need another one.” The edge in his voice had gone up a notch.
“This isn’t a bad marriage,” Brantley argued. He huffed. “Look, I didn’t think this news would be such a shock. In fact, I thought it’d be welcome now that Sophie and you are seeing each other. Sophie has moved on, and that’s a good thing.”
Oh, if only that were true. Then again, she had moved on from the raging anger to wanting to throw that turdy turkey at him. But that probably wasn’t the direction Brantley was looking for her to go. Nor was it the direction Clay was taking.
Clay’s index finger landed on Brantley’s chest. “If you hurt my sister or my nephews, this badge will come off and I will make you pay. In fact, I might make you pay even if you don’t hurt them.”
It didn’t sound like a bluff, but Brantley didn’t have time to call him on it. Garrett came strolling out of one of the nearby barns, cursed, his profanity waffling on the air so they caught every word, and made a beeline toward them.
Great. Now, he’d get involved. At least she wasn’t crying, though. Maybe it would stay that way.
As Garrett got closer, Sophie caught his usual scent. A mixture of bullshit from his boots, sweat and the woodsy aftershave he sometimes remembered to use on the days he remembered to shave. It was hit or miss, but he’d hit today, and there was the added aroma of leather from his saddle. Heaven knew where he’d been riding, but he was always looking for any excuse to be anywhere but inside his office.
“It’s true?” Garrett snarled, looking not at Clay or her but at Brantley. “You’re married? Meredith told me,” he added to Sophie before she could ask how he’d found out.
Meredith, Garrett’s wife. Apparently, the gossip flow had taken the direct route to her. Ironic since Meredith spent more time at her dad’s house in Austin than she did at the ranch, but she did spend more time on the phone than Sophie did.
Brantley bobbed his head in a series of nods, a motion that mimicked the movement of his Adam’s apple. He lobbed some very concerned glances between her brother and Clay as if debating which of these two were about to end his existence on Earth. It was a toss-up, but since she didn’t want either to go to jail, she stepped between them.
“Yes, Brantley is married,” Sophie volunteered. “And he was just leaving.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Clay argued. “Not until he explains to me what the hell he was thinking by marrying my kid sister.”
“And when the shit bag is done explaining that, he can tell me why he jilted my kid sister.” That from Garrett. “You’ve been dodging me. Lawson, too. And it’s high time you grew a pair and manned up about why you did this.”
Brantley looked at her as if she might have the answers to prevent him from getting a butt-whipping. She did. Well, she had answers to her brother’s question. Brantley hadn’t loved her. Not enough, anyway. But while that was true, it might not stop said butt-whipping.
This was what she’d tried to avoid that day at the police station, and part of her knew she had to grow her own pair and stop it from happening now.
“I have moved on with my life,” Sophie said to no one in particular and hoped they didn’t ask for proof of that. She also hoped this next part didn’t stick in her throat. “Brantley did me a favor by breaking things off.”
Clay and Garrett stared at her, and both looked about as unconvinced of that as anyone could.
“See?” Brantley added. “It’s all okay. Sophie and Clay are together, and April and I will start our lives as newlyweds.”
“We’re not together,” Sophie said.
Clay talked right over her, though, so she wasn’t sure anyone heard her. “You’re not starting anything,” he warned Brantley. “Where’s April?”
“My house here in Wrangler’s Creek. Our house,” Brantley corrected. “I just moved her and the boys in.” And despite Clay’s intense glare, Brantley managed to hike up his chin and look as if he’d located his backbone.
The backbone display didn’t last long, though.
The color bleached from Brantley’s face when Clay took hold of his arm. Hard. The kind of grip he no doubt used when making an arrest. “Come on. You, April and me are about to have a little talk.”
* * *
TALKING SUCKED, TOO.
At least it did when a big brother was talking to a knot-headed kid sister. After an hour of trying to drill home why marrying Brantley was a stupid idea, Clay had left to regroup and try to come up with an argument that might get April to come to her senses and annul the marriage. Or at least rethink it.
In the meantime, he hoped Brantley didn’t a) break her heart b) stunt the emotional development of his nephews or c) knock April up. Just in case of the latter, Clay made a mental note to send April a jumbo box of condoms.
That hadn’t worked with Spike and her, but maybe this time April would remember to have Brantley use them. Even though he wouldn’t trade his nephews for the world, his sister needed another kid to raise even less than she needed another dickweed husband.
Clay walked into the police station, and of course, all eyes immediately went to him. Ellie’s, Rowdy’s and Reena’s. The gossip had probably already reached them, and they might be concerned that he’d assaulted Brantley.
“Brantley’s alive and in one piece,” Clay greeted to put their minds at ease and to stop them from asking him anything. But it was clear that it eased nothing.
“Uh, you got another of those envelopes,” Reena said, scrubbing her hands down the sides of her jeans, and she immediately looked away. “I put it on your desk.”
Clay didn’t ask for any details because he knew what she meant by those envelopes. Reena and the crew had no idea what was in them, though. They only knew he got one on the first of each month and that he only opened them behind closed doors. They also knew the envelopes put him in a shit-kicking mood. Since his mood was already at the shit-kicking level, it didn’t bode well for workplace morale.
He made his way to his office, and right off he spotted the large document-sized envelope in the center of his desk. Hard to miss it since it was Pepto-Bismol pink. Like the others, it was addressed to Detective Clay McKinnon, care of the Wrangler’s Creek PD and was postmarked from Houston. Also like the others, the sender had made a heart of the o in his surname.
Because he needed a minute—he always did when it came to these deliveries—Clay sank down into his chair and considered a drink. He kept a bottle of cheap Irish whiskey in his bottom drawer. It was on top of a copy of his resignation papers from Houston PD, which in turn was on top of his last case file when he’d worked there. Beneath that were more pink envelopes, one for every month he’d been at Wrangler’s Creek PD.
Just opening the drawer was like going into his “shit to forget” box in his head