“He said he wanted to be a top like his Nunk Cay,” Brantley provided, followed by a laugh. “It was cute as all get-out.”
Cute, maybe, but also confusing. Clay got the Nunk Cay part because that was Hunter’s attempt at Uncle Clay. But it took him a second to realize that top was cop.
“No,” Clay snapped, a little sharper than he’d meant to. “You talk him out of that.” It made his stomach twist to think of a grown-up Hunter going through what he’d been through.
April rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. As if I’ve ever been able to talk Hunter out of anything. He’s like a mini version of me.”
He was, and that was even more reason to steer Hunter in another career direction. The next time he was at the bookstore, Clay would pick him up some kiddie doctor books. Lawyer books, too, if they published such a thing. Even books about cowboys. Anything but a cop.
“I’ll put the cake in the kitchen,” April volunteered. “We can cut it when the boys wake up. Oh, and we bought some steaks and burgers to grill for dinner.”
Clay thanked her and would have gone into his room to change if Brantley hadn’t caught onto his arm. “Can we talk?”
Hell. That was yet something else he hadn’t wanted to hear. “You’d better not be about to tell me that you’re dumping my sister.”
Brantley’s eyes widened to the size of salad plates. “No. Of course not. I love April. I love the boys, and I love our unborn child.”
“Good. And you’d better keep on loving them, or I’ll kick your ass into the next county.”
Brantley stared at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re scary?”
“All the time. And I also carry through on my threats.”
Clay waited. When Brantley didn’t say anything he asked, “Was that what you wanted to talk about—the threats?”
“Uh, no.” Brantley glanced into the kitchen as if to make sure April was still there. She was. “This is about Sophie.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I was, well, hoping you’d ask her out.”
Clay huffed. “First a dating site subscription and now this? I can handle my own love life.” Or lack thereof. “And didn’t you hear what your wife just said? She doesn’t want Sophie anywhere near her gene pool.”
Brantley huffed, too. “I’m not saying to ask Sophie out for your sake but for her own. She could be headed for some trouble.”
Until Brantley added that last part, Clay was about to tell him to mind his own business, but that got Clay’s attention. “Explain that.”
“Shane.” And Brantley must have thought that was enough of an explanation because he paused.
“Shane, the guy she’s got a date with tonight. Yeah, I know about it.” Clay had heard it from at least a dozen people who doled out sympathy over his and Sophie’s breakup. Apparently, Sophie was meeting this guy in a couple of hours at the Longhorn Bar at the end of Main Street.
“Shane Whitlock,” Brantley provided. He made another of those kitchen glances and leaned in closer. Clay was reasonably sure there was nothing Brantley could say that would interest him about Sophie’s date.
But Clay was wrong.
SOPHIE HADN’T KNOWN there was a level of Hell below the internet dating sites, but she could say for certain that there was.
It was the date itself.
She’d been so hopeful about seeing Shane. Or at least curious. And eager to get on with her life and dipping her toes back into the dating pond so that her mom and Mila would get off her back. But what she hadn’t counted on was that she didn’t have much in common with a boy she’d crushed on in middle school. A boy she hadn’t even actually known that well.
Shane looked pretty much the same. An older version of the blond, blue-eyed kid who had first stirred her girl parts. He still had that little gap in his front teeth, a tiny flaw that she’d once thought of as a perfect imperfection. It was around the time she’d started reading Jane Austen books so she had been in somewhat of a romantic phase. In fact, maybe she should credit Jane’s books for helping stir those parts.
Her parts weren’t stirring now though, unless she counted her butt going numb from sitting so stiffly on the hard leather seat in the booth.
“And so after I got back from Italy, I moved in with a modern artist in Soho,” Shane went on. He was forty-five minutes into answering her question: So, what have you been up to for the past seventeen years?
From what Sophie could tell, he was on year seven or eight now.
“You know modern art?” he asked, gobbling down one of the nachos they’d just been served. It was the best one on the plate, loaded with jalapenos and dripping with cheese. Sophie had had her eye on it, but she apparently wasn’t fast enough because Shane had moved the plate closer to him.
“Not really.”
“Well, you should study up on it. Interesting stuff. There’s nothing like seeing a really good painting and just looking at it for hours to try to see what the artist saw.”
She made a noncommittal sound, reached way across the table to retrieve a less generously topped nacho. She also checked the time again on her phone. It wasn’t even eight yet.
Time had apparently stopped in this level of Hell.
“Anyway, after Soho,” he went on and on and on, “I moved to Merida down in the Yucatan. Hooked up with another artist there. Man, she was amazing.” He paused only long enough to drink some of his beer to wash down that nacho and move the plate even closer to him. “You’re sure you’re not into art?”
“Not really,” she repeated, and she prayed for an earthquake or something. Nothing major, just enough to shake things up so she could say she needed to leave to check on the ranch.
At least Shane hadn’t brought up the family business and their financial troubles with Billy Lee. Maybe because he already knew all the details from the gossips. Maybe because he didn’t want to bring up such a sour subject on a date. Or perhaps because her life in no way interested him.
“Merida was incredible,” he continued after wolfing down another nacho. He talked around the crunching and the swipes of his napkin to get the cheese drippings off his mouth.
Sophie listened in case she had to grunt in response or something, and she looked across the bar at the back booth where Mila was sitting. As planned.
Well, as Mila had planned, anyway.
She’d told Sophie that she wanted to be there for moral support, but Sophie figured Mila had also wanted to make sure she stayed put and went through with the date.
The door opened, bringing in a gust of the October wind. Not cold exactly, but since she was wearing a thin top—which she’d chosen because it was flattering—with her jeans, Sophie shivered a little. Her shiver turned to a shudder when her mother walked in.
Belle didn’t own any bar/clubbing clothes and had perhaps never been in the Longhorn, but she’d tried to dress to fit in. She had on mom jeans, one of Sophie’s work shirts and cowboy boots that she’d likely taken right out of the box. She smiled at Sophie, gave her a toodle-do wave and made her way to Mila’s booth. Apparently, her mom was there for moral support, too.
“...and after a year in Merida,” Shane was saying, “I stayed a while in LA. Great place. You know LA?”
Sophie caught enough of that so she could answer, “I’ve been there a couple of