Buch lesen: «Lone Star Blues»

CHAPTER ONE

THE FIRST THING that Dylan Granger saw when he opened his eyes was the woman’s naked butt. It was impossible to miss it because he’d been using it for a pillow.

Hell, not again.

It was one thing to face an unfamiliar butt when he was twenty, but he was thirty-four now and too old for this.

He glanced around, trying to get his bearings. He was in his own bed. Well, sort of. He was in his own room anyway at his family’s ranch, but only the bottom half of his body was actually on the mattress. The rest of him was angled off the bed, his arms dangling, and his face was squished against the woman’s left butt cheek.

At least it was soft.

Groaning and grunting, Dylan lifted his head. It wasn’t easy. He felt every one of the tequila shots he’d downed the night before. All for a good cause—it had been his brother’s bachelor party. At least it’d seemed like a good cause when the celebration was in full swing. Right now, Dylan could just add it to his too old for this shit list.

He managed to scoot back on the mattress so he could sit up, and that’s when he realized he was fully clothed. In fact, he still had on his cowboy boots, and his jeans were even zipped. Those were good signs.

The naked woman on the floor, however, wasn’t a good sign in any way, shape or form.

She was on her stomach, her face turned away from him, and she was snoring. He couldn’t tell who she was. But she was blonde, and there was a bumble bee tat on her lower back. That was hardly enough info for Dylan to make an ID so he gave her arm a little shake to wake her so he could ask her name.

“Go away,” she grumbled without moving, and within seconds she was snoring again.

Not exactly a friendly reaction, but maybe she, too, was feeling the effects of multiple tequila shots.

Dylan made himself stand up. Again, there was nothing easy about it. All the livestock in the entire state of Texas were clomping in his head. The room was spinning, and every strand of his hair was hurting. That’s why it took him a good minute, maybe more, to make it a couple of steps to the other side of the woman so he could get a look at her face.

And after that look, he still didn’t know who she was.

It was hard to tell with her cheek squished from her awkward sleeping position. At least there was no wedding or engagement ring, thank God.

He forced himself to try to remember what had happened at the party. It’d been at the Longhorn Bar here in his hometown of Wrangler’s Creek. There’d been strippers and skimpily dressed cocktail waitresses. His brother Lawson had been there, of course, since it was his bachelor party, and plenty of their friends had shown up, as well.

Dylan’s other brother, Lucian, had even made an appearance. The only other things Dylan could recall with any accuracy were the tequila shots and the limos he’d hired to make sure everybody got home safe and sound. That included him. He remembered coming into the house. Even recalled staggering into his bedroom, but there sure as heck hadn’t been a naked woman when he’d arrived.

Dylan blinked hard a couple of times to get his eyes to focus, and he glanced around the room, looking for the snoring woman’s purse so he could find out her name. But no purse. No clothes scattered around, either.

That was another bad sign.

He went into the bathroom, took a quick shower, and after he dressed, he headed downstairs to go all Sherlock Holmes and look for clues. He soon found one, too. The housekeeper, Marylou Culver, was in the hall heading toward his room, and she had a heap of women’s clothes gathered up in her arms. Dylan saw a devil-red lace bra and what appeared to be a strappy black dress. Two equally strappy silver shoes dangled from Marylou’s fingers. Since Marylou was in her sixties and usually dressed like a 1950s schoolteacher, the clothing probably didn’t belong to her.

“Uh, these things were on the stairs and on the front porch,” Marylou said. “I’m guessing you have...company.”

It was no guess, and Marylou’s slightly disapproving look told him that. The woman had only worked at the ranch for a month or so, but Dylan knew his reputation preceded him. It wasn’t the first time a housekeeper had found women’s clothes on the stairs. Or even the porch. And that kind of information wouldn’t have stayed secret for long in a small town like Wrangler’s Creek.

“There was a pair of panties, as well,” Marylou went on, “but the dog got to them before I could.”

Great. The dog was Booger, the persnickety Yorkie that his mom had left at the ranch while she went to a yoga retreat in Costa Rica. Booger had failed multiple obedience programs, and he was finicky about what food touched his mouth. Everything else was fair game, though. Manure-caked boots, table legs, toilet paper. He’d probably chewed the panties to shreds by now.

“How did the dog get out of the house?” he asked.

“Beats me. Maybe he got out when you and the naked woman came in.”

That was possible. After all, if he couldn’t remember the woman, then he might not have noticed a dog the size of his foot making an escape. “Was there a purse or wallet with the clothes?”

Marylou shook her head. “I can keep looking, though. What do you want me to do with these?” She tipped her head to the clothes.

“Just put them outside my bedroom door for now.” Best not to have Marylou actually witness the bare butt for herself. She already had enough gossip to fuel the town for a week or two.

Dylan started down the stairs on a mission to find some strong coffee, the naked woman’s ID and perhaps a large rock that he could use to hit himself on the head for drinking too much.

“Oh, and your brother wants to see you,” Marylou added. “He’s not in a very good mood.”

Before she’d tacked on that last part, he was about to ask which brother, but Lucian was the most qualified for the bad mood award. That meant Dylan would avoid him. At least until he’d tanked up on coffee and got the naked woman clothed and wherever she should be.

He made a beeline for the kitchen, hoping it was empty. No such luck. But at least it wasn’t Lucian, Booger or another naked woman. However, it was a female.

Lucian’s assistant, Karlee O’Malley.

She was pouring herself some coffee, but she took one look at him and handed him the quart-sized mug that’d been meant for her. “Are you already regretting the vow of celibacy you took last night?” Karlee asked.

Since Dylan had been in midmumble to thank her, it took him a moment to hear what she’d said. As bad as he needed the coffee—and he needed it—he didn’t gulp any down just so he could say, “Wh-what?”

Karlee whipped out her phone from her pocket and pulled up a video. Of him.

“I, Dylan Granger,” he slurred on the video, “do hereby take a vow of celibacy for the next month.” He’d only pronounced two of those words correctly. “No form of sex whatsoever. If I fail, then I agree to carry out the donation.”

“I’m guessing lots of alcohol was involved in this,” Karlee said. It wasn’t a question. “Especially since you sent it to me shortly after midnight.”

Oh yes, alcohol had been involved. He’d been drunk, and Lucian hadn’t been, which meant his turd-head brother had likely been the one to come up with this stupid idea.

“Do you remember doing this?” Karlee pressed.

Unfortunately, he did. Now that his head was clearing some, more of what’d happened was coming back to him. But it was coming back as impaired, jumbled memories that Dylan wasn’t especially eager to remember.

“The last time you got drunk was what...three years ago?” Karlee went on. “That’s when you ended up staying in a hotel in San Antonio, and you called me to come and get you. You didn’t remember much of anything then.”

He had indeed ended up in a hotel after a party and had called Karlee the morning after when he couldn’t find his truck. But that hadn’t been because of tequila shots but rather a bad reaction to some prescription cold meds. The pills had knocked him on his butt.

“What’s the donation?” Karlee, again. Her forehead bunched up. “It’s not like to a sperm bank, is it?”

No, thank God. This didn’t involve anything that would require him to lower his zipper. “Fifty grand to be donated to the Wrangler’s Creek Charity Rodeo.”

Karlee’s mouth quivered as she fought back a smile. She lost that fight. Smiled. Then, she laughed. And she kept on laughing until Dylan glared at her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, but she was clearly still trying to hold back a giggle. “But you’ve never come close to lasting a month. What will the rodeo committee do with all that extra money?”

Dylan wanted to believe that was a dilemma that the committee would never face, but Karlee was right. He’d never lasted that long. Still, it was probably time he took on this challenge. Time he gave up booze completely, too.

“Where’s Lucian?” Dylan asked after he got some more coffee in him.

“He’s here at the house, in his office.” Karlee checked the time on her phone. “He wants to see you, but he’ll be leaving in about a half hour for San Antonio.”

There was nothing unusual about any of those three things she’d just told him. Lucian only lived part-time at the ranch, which meant he was always coming and going. Though there’d likely be no going today until he’d seen Dylan. Which was fine because now that he had seen the video and had some coffee, Dylan wanted to confront his big brother about what part he’d played in that vow.

“When I came in earlier, I saw what appeared to be bits and pieces of a pair of shredded red panties by the back porch,” Karlee added. “Should I ask about them?”

“Only if you can tell me who they belong to.” He saw the concern flash through her eyes so he added, “There’s a naked woman in my bedroom.”

The concern vanished, and she had a fight with another smile. “Your celibacy didn’t last long.”

“I think it did. I woke up like this.” He fanned his hands over his fully clothed body, and then pointed to his closed zipper.

Of course, if Lucian knew about the naked woman, and Dylan was betting he did, then there was no way his brother would believe that sex hadn’t happened. That meant Lucian would try to hold him to the stupid celibacy agreement.

And to that rodeo donation.

Lucian might have even planted the naked woman in Dylan’s room. Though this kind of prank seemed more suited to a teenager than a grown man.

Dylan didn’t mind giving the money to the rodeo. It was for a good cause since they used the profits to fund the hospital library and such. In fact, he made an anonymous donation every year. He just didn’t want the money tied to his sex life or a drunken vow.

Karlee gave his arm a pat. “Have you actually thought about the wacky notion of giving up on all this frat boy behavior and settling down?”

Even though Karlee hadn’t meant for it to happen, that gave him some instant bad memories. He’d tried settling down, once, and he had the wedding band in his dresser drawer to prove it.

Since there was no way Dylan wanted to talk about that, he just flashed Karlee one of his grins. The kind that made men smile back and women blush. Karlee didn’t blush, but she did shake her head.

“Just hang in there,” she said. “Once Lucian is back in San Antonio, I’ll try to keep him as slammed as I can with meetings and such so he’ll get his nose out of the ranch business.”

Dylan wanted to kiss her. Not in the way he wanted to kiss most attractive women. And Karlee was indeed attractive. But he didn’t feel that way about her.

Plus, she was also in love with Lucian. Or in strong “like” anyway.

She had felt that way about Lucian for as long as Dylan could remember. Why, he didn’t know. Apparently neither did Lucian because Dylan was positive that his thickheaded big brother had no idea whatsoever how his assistant felt about him.

“Oh, and when you see Lucian,” she added, “it’s okay to talk about the celibacy-donation pact, but it’s best not to bring up anything about the rodeo itself.”

Since that was an event Lucian looked forward to every year, her words surprised him. “Has he actually decided not to compete since he loses every year anyway?”

Karlee shook her head. “Not a chance that he’d drop out of it. But first thing this morning, he was practicing his bronc riding skills and got thrown hard. His family jewels and pride took a bruising.”

Dylan would definitely rub that in. It was the brotherly thing to do.

He topped off his quart of coffee, thanked Karlee again and made his way to Lucian’s office, which was at the other end of the house from Dylan’s. Instead of feng shui, Dylan had gone with the “out of sight, out of mind” approach when choosing his work space. He got along best with Lucian when they weren’t in the same general vicinity.

Lucian’s door was open, and before Dylan could even step inside, he heard his brother growl, “There was a bra and a dress on the front porch this morning.”

Obviously, Lucian had missed the strappy silver shoes. “They’re mine.” Dylan said it with as much cockiness as he could manage. It also had more than a smidge of anger since he wasn’t especially happy with Lucian right now.

“You’ve started cross-dressing?” Lucian managed some cockiness of his own.

“Yeah, I started it right about the time you decided to get me to take a vow of celibacy when I was drunk.”

“A vow you’ve already broken. There’s a naked or seminaked woman in your bedroom, isn’t there?”

Since Lucian almost certainly knew the answer to that, Dylan went with the truth. “Yeah, but I don’t know who she is, and I didn’t have sex with her. I’m figuring you planted her there. Maybe even paid her.”

Lucian gave him a flat look. “I wouldn’t have to plant or pay. Naked women gravitate toward you and your bed. I’ve even heard there’s a Dylan Granger Sex Bingo Game being played around the county.”

Sadly, that last part was true.

Tiffany Kelly, a cocktail waitress at the Longhorn Bar, had indeed started a bingo game that involved sex categories—specifically sex categories with Dylan—and she had distributed variations of the cards to women around town. The one card he’d seen had things on it like give Dylan a BJ, Dylan gives you a thigh hickey and a double orgasm from Dylan to you. Apparently, once a woman had her card filled, Tiffany would give them a drink on the house.

So far, there’d been four winners.

Okay, there were five, but one of them had cheated. No way had Susan Finkley had two orgasms since he’d had to work for nearly an hour to give her just one.

While Dylan wasn’t especially proud of those winners or the game itself, it was obvious Lucian was only bringing it up to take the attention off the fact that he’d been a dick. A busy one. Because while he was riling Dylan with this conversation, he was also answering an email. And ignoring the three lights that were flashing on his office phone. Apparently, Dylan wasn’t the only person who wanted to have words with Lucian this morning.

“I didn’t have sex with the woman in my bedroom,” Dylan repeated once he got his teeth unclenched. “But even if I had, there’s no way in hell I’d let you hold me to a promise that I made while I was drunk.”

“You didn’t just make the promise to me. You sent a copy to Mom and your lawyer.”

Well, shit. Dylan didn’t care about his lawyer knowing. He’d sent her drunk texts before. Heck, he’d had sex with her, too.

But their mom, Regina, could be a problem.

She was always nudging him to quit sleeping around and find Ms. Right. This was despite her own failed marriage that’d happened nearly two decades ago. Apparently, his mother wore a pair of massive invisible rose-colored glasses when it came to love and such. Dylan tended to see things a lot clearer than she did. Ironic because her marriage had been to an asshole. Dylan’s had been to, well, a woman who wasn’t an asshole.

Jordan.

Dylan hated how she just kept popping into his head. Even the remnants of the booze-haze didn’t stop it. Neither did sleep. Time. Or anything else he’d tried.

He went closer to Lucian’s desk and leaned in so that his brother wouldn’t miss a word or any of the ice-ray glare he was giving him. “I don’t care if I sent that text to Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, it’s not a binding agreement. And it was pretty low-down and dirty for you to come up with it.”

Lucian quit typing on his computer keyboard only long enough to spare him a glance. “It wasn’t my idea. It was yours.”

Dylan just rolled his eyes because there was no way he would believe that.

“It started off as a friendly conversation between Lawson and you,” Lucian continued after he huffed. “And Lawson mentioned your reputation around town and the sex bingo. Folks call you the cowboy rake, you know?”

Yeah, he was well aware of that, too, though Dylan always tried to make sure that a commitment was never on the table, or in the bed, when it came to sex. He always hoped that would lessen the chances of a broken heart, but he knew it had happened a time or two.

“How the heck did all of this lead to my celibacy?” Dylan pressed. He actually remembered snippets of the conversation from the night before, but the logic behind it—if there had ever been logic, that is—was lost in the clomping stampede that was still going on in his head.

“I tried to convince Lawson that you could give up sex if you really wanted to do that,” Lucian went on. “He laughed. Actually, everyone in the Longhorn laughed. A lot. That’s when you got mad and said you’d show them, that you’d make a celibacy vow. Lawson’s the one who pressed for the vow to have consequences when you failed.”

Clearly, he needed to have a chat with Lawson for egging him on to do something this stupid.

“So, who came up with the charity donation?” Dylan demanded. “And are there any other specifics that I don’t know about?”

Another shrug. “You’d have to ask Lawson. That’s about the time I left, and Lawson and you were still hashing things out.” Lucian’s huff was louder and more impatient this time. “Look, I’ve got three hours of work that I need to do in the next twenty minutes. Just finish sobering up, deal with the woman in your bedroom and don’t miss the meeting you’ve got first thing tomorrow morning with the new feed supplier.”

Oh, he was sober all right, and Dylan didn’t need a reminder about the meeting since he had been the one to set it up. Lucian never seemed to remember that he didn’t run the ranch 95 percent of the time. Dylan did. But that was an annoyance for another day. Today, he needed to deal with the naked woman right after he spoke to Lawson.

Dylan took out his phone, called Lawson, but it went straight to voice mail. Not really a surprise. After all, it was the morning after his bachelor party, and Dylan was betting Lawson had gotten as shit-faced as he had. Also, it was possible Lawson would be unable to recall what’d actually happened. If so, Dylan might never discover if the rodeo payout held some other special level of hell he didn’t know about. He wanted any and all specifics that he could pass on to his mother when she called.

Which she’d already done.

That’s when Dylan saw the five missed calls from her on his screen. He’d had his phone on silent, but it had only been three minutes in between the time when he’d sent out the celibacy video and her first call.

“Remember, you’ll need to apologize to Walter Ray,” Lucian threw out there. “Maybe send him a bottle of scotch to smooth things over. He favors single malt.”

Dylan only knew one Walter Ray. “Judge Walter Ray Turley?”

“That’s the one,” Lucian verified with a layer of smart-assery in his tone.

Dylan got a jolt of more memories, and these were the clearest yet. Walter Ray had shown up at the bachelor party, but things had gotten a little ugly when the subject of the Dylan Granger Sex Bingo had come up.

Because Walter Ray’s daughter, Melanie, was one of the winners.

The judge hadn’t approved. Dylan hadn’t approved of the threats that Walter Ray had doled out. Threats involving neutering or a shovel to the head if Dylan didn’t “put a ring on it.” His brother Lawson and his cousins Garrett and Roman had broken things up before they got ugly, and Walter Ray had stormed out.

“We do business with plenty of Walter Ray’s friends and family,” Lucian went on. “Best not to let this sort of thing fester.”

It was already past the festering point. About three months ago, Dylan had gone out with Melanie, and they’d run hot and heavy for a couple of weeks. Longer than most of Dylan’s relationships. That length of time was probably why Melanie, and therefore the judge, had got the notion that it was serious between them.

It hadn’t been.

And even though Dylan had long since ended things with Melanie, he wasn’t sure that she truly believed it was over between them. Walter Ray certainly didn’t believe it.

“Oh, and you might have to take Booger to the vet,” Lucian added just as Dylan headed for the door. “He might have eaten the elastic from your guest’s red panties.”

Great. Now, he could add possible canine intestinal issues to this already-shitty day. But there was a silver lining in this. At least there was if he believed in the old wives’ tale that bad luck came in threes. Booger was number three since Dylan had already gotten the naked woman and the riled judge. So, maybe the bad luck was all finished.

“Where’s Booger now?” Dylan asked.

“The sunroom. Karlee chased him down and left him with Bertha, the housekeeper.”

For a man with his pulse on the business, Lucian didn’t bother keeping up with the daily workings of his family home. Bertha had quit weeks ago, during Lucian’s last visit, and now they had Vera and Marylou. Dylan knew Lucian hadn’t meant Marylou because Booger hadn’t been with her when she was upstairs. So the dog had to be with Vera.

Since it was obvious Lucian already had too much on his plate, Dylan would keep the family jewels’ injury ribbing for later. Instead, he tried to call Lawson again, but when he got no answer, he decided to drive over and see him in person. His house wasn’t far, less than a half mile away, but he wasn’t going to walk there today. Best to get back here fast and take care of getting the naked woman home.

He walked the maze of halls that zigged and zagged through the house and came out the back door where he kept his truck. When he stepped out onto the porch, Dylan spotted their cook, Abe Weiser, who was stretched out, napping, in one of the wicker lounge chairs. He was a lousy cook, not especially good at managing the house, either, but he tolerated Lucian. That was Abe’s sole asset and the reason he’d stayed employed at Heavenly Acres for the last twenty years.

“One of the hands said I’m supposed to tell you that a longhorn broke fence,” Abe said without sitting up. Or even opening his eyes. “It made it to your truck, and its horn hooked your radiator. Busted it. The radiator, not the horn. The horn’s all right, I reckon. You’ll have to take one of the other trucks if you’re going anywhere.”

There went the old wives’ tale of three. Maybe old husbands’ tales had four bad things going wrong. If so, then he’d fulfilled that quota, too.

Downing some more coffee, Dylan headed off the porch and toward the large detached garage for another vehicle. However, before he could even make it there, he saw something sparkly on the stone path. A silver purse that was smaller and flatter than the palm of his hand. It had some chew marks on it and was wet, possibly from dog slobber.

Since this likely belonged to the naked woman, he opened it to see if he could find her ID. And there it was—her driver’s license along with a credit card and some lipstick. There was also one of those stupid Dylan Granger Sex Bingo cards folded up inside.