To my husband, Tom. Thanks for all you do for me.
Delores Fossen
SOPHIE GRANGER WIPED her eyes with the back of her hand and squeezed her mud-splattered Elie Saab wedding dress into the Wrangler’s Creek Police Department.
It wasn’t easy getting ten yards of ivory tulle through the doorway, especially while crying and being light-headed. Sophie had to gather up the sides of the dress into puffy balls and turn sideways to manage it. Even then she stumbled, and her big toe got caught in the netting so she stumbled again. With all the mumbled cursing that accompanied the stumbling, it was no surprise that she got everyone’s attention in the squad room.
Everyone in this case was Ellie Stoddermeyer, the weekend dispatcher/receptionist, and the two deputies—Rowdy Culpepper and his sister, Reena. What she got from them was silence.
And stares.
“I need to see Chief McKinnon,” Sophie said with as much dignity as she could muster. Which wasn’t very much.
Reena had her mouth open so wide that Sophie could see the quarter-sized wad of pink chewing gum on her tongue, but she hitched her thumb in the direction of the office all the way at the back of the squad room.
“He’s in there,” Ellie added once she got her mouth working. “But he’s not officially the chief until his trial period is up and Lordie knows when that’ll be. Right now, he’s just the interim ’cause the mayor and city council haven’t given him a permanent contract yet. Is, uh, there anything I can do for you?”
Since Ellie was one of the biggest gossips in town, Sophie considered asking the woman to refrain from mentioning this visit, but Ellie had already gotten herself unfrozen from the shock and was taking out her phone. No doubt to text every single human being she knew to let them know that Sophie Granger was having a breakdown along with looking like something the cat had dragged in.
That meant Sophie didn’t have much time.
Her family would find her.
Sophie declined Ellie’s offer of help, and she made her way through the squad room. Again, not easily. Like a white fluffy plow going through a farmer’s field, Sophie cleared the edges of desks and toppled over trash cans. Ink pens pinged to the floor, rolled. So did a plastic bottle of Diet Coke, and the cap gave way to the pressure of the fall and started spewing.
She tried to do a cleanup, but there was no way she could fully bend down in the dress, not with the overly cinched corset bodice vising her ribs and stomach. However, she did grab a Kleenex from one of the desks, and she put it to good use wiping away a fresh round of tears.
The door to the interim chief’s office was even narrower than the front so Sophie wadded up the dress again. Squeezed. Turned. Grunted. Until she finally broke through to the other side. She must have looked like a vanilla custard oozing through pie crust.
And there he was.
Clay McKinnon. Or the cute cowboy cop as folks called him.
Even though she didn’t make it back to Wrangler’s Creek very often, Sophie had seen him around, but she’d never seen him quite like this. Sweet heaven. There was blood in his cocoa-brown hair, a cut on his forehead and scrapes and scratches on his knuckles.
“Are you all right?” She used her bouquet to point toward the first aid kit on his desk. Little bits of petals and leaves fluttered through the air and fell to the floor.
He nodded, slid his gaze from her tiara headpiece to her muddy bare feet, before he got back to dabbing his knuckles with some hydrogen peroxide.
“I’m having a bad day,” he confirmed. “But something tells me yours is worse.”
“Possibly.”
He didn’t really look at her, but he lifted an eyebrow. “Possibly?”
“Grading on a curve here, but at least I’m not bleeding.” Sophie wasn’t a fan of tears or mud, but the sight of the blood made her queasier than she already was. “Were you attacked?”
This time he lifted his shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Sophie was sure she’d hear the details of the incident soon enough. Well, maybe. Her situation was likely such a hot topic that folks wouldn’t bother to jabber about a puny altercation where the interim Chief of Police had been injured.
“I need a date,” she said, wiping back more of the blasted tears.
Judging from the look he gave her, he was either about to call the mental hospital or laugh at her attempted joke. Nope, no laugh. She hoped this idea of hers sounded better than it was. Actually, she hoped it not only sounded better, but that it was better. Because it didn’t sound very good in her head.
“Date as in the fruit or a date?” he asked.
“Date.” Which, of course, would require some clarification. Chief McKinnon had moved to town several months ago, but their paths hadn’t crossed enough for an actual introduction. “I’m Sophie Granger. I’m head of marketing for Granger Western.”
“I know who you are. You’re getting married—” he checked his watch “—in about fifteen minutes. But judging from your dress and the fact that you want a date, I’m figuring things didn’t go as planned.”
“No.” And that single-word answer was a huge understatement. It also brought on more crying. “My fiancé, Brantley Barnwell, came by the dressing room at the church and said he couldn’t marry me after all.”
Sophie was sure she was still in shock. Exhausted, too. And hungry since she’d been dieting for two months to fit into this breath-choking dress. Maybe she should have asked for a date of the fruit variety after all. But sadly that shock wouldn’t last, and she needed to fix this before she fell into a puddle of despair and more tears.
And anger.
Really, really pissed-off-bad anger.
Anger that she hadn’t aimed at Brantley since he’d hightailed it out of there only minutes after delivering the worst news that Sophie had ever heard.
I don’t love you.
He’d added a whole bunch of I’m sorry’s, I’m an asshole, I can’t believe this happened. Which hadn’t helped. But then that was asking a lot of mere apologies and ramblings. Nothing would have helped except his saying this had all been just a prank and that he loved her after all.
“I didn’t want my family to see me like this,” she went on. And she just kept going on and on. “Right after Brantley left, I wrote a note saying that I needed a little alone time and hung it on the dressing room door so my family would see it. Then, I climbed out the window of the church. It’s muddy from all the rain and I landed in a new flower bed. My shoes got stuck so I had to walk here barefooted.”
“And no one stopped to give you a ride?”
She shook her head, dabbed at the tears again. “The streets are empty. Nearly everyone in town is already at the church waiting for the wedding.”
Just saying that punched away at some of the shock. Punched at her gut, too. Thankfully, she hadn’t eaten anything or she would have driven down her