Those Texas Nights. Delores Fossen

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       CHAPTER THREE

      CLAY PULLED TO a stop in the circular drive that fronted the Granger ranch. To say he was dreading this visit was like saying it got a little bit hot in Texas during the summer.

      This was his first trip here, but he’d driven past the place plenty of times. Hard to miss it with the sprawling house, sprawling pastures and miles of white fence. It looked the way he wanted his own place to look one day. Scaled down, of course, and with a real house with stuff in places where stuff belonged.

      He was betting the Grangers didn’t have a toilet in their living room.

      Clay got out of his truck, taking his time and hoping this went better than the scenarios playing out in his mind. Of course, there weren’t any good scenarios in this situation except that maybe Sophie had already moved on with her life and didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything.

      He certainly did, and in Sophie’s and his case, they had a rat in common.

      Brantley.

      Sophie needed to know that Brantley had proposed to April. That didn’t mean the marriage was going to happen. For Clay, this qualified as one of those “over my dead body” situations. Brantley was only a month out of a long-term relationship with Sophie. A relationship he’d apparently ended because of some “love at first sight” shit with April.

      Yeah, definitely over Clay’s dead body.

      He made his way up the porch steps but before he could ring the doorbell, Clay heard something he didn’t want to hear. It sounded as if someone was crying. He went to the end of the porch and looked in the side yard and spotted the crier.

      Sophie.

      She was standing beneath a massive oak while she brushed down a bay mare. A tabby cat was coiling around her legs. No wedding dress today. She was wearing jeans and a white top. But like the day of the failed wedding, tears were streaming down her face.

      Hell.

      That wouldn’t make this visit any easier, and he got out his handkerchief and went to her. She must have heard him coming because when he was still several yards away, her head snapped up, and she immediately started wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. He spooked the cat, too, because it jetted out of there as if Clay had scalded it.

      “Don’t tell Garrett,” Sophie said, moving away from the horse.

      He handed her the handkerchief. “Don’t tell him what?”

      She motioned toward her face. “He feels I should be over this by now, that my ex isn’t worth the tears.”

      He’s not.

      But Clay kept that to himself for now.

      “It’s stupid,” she went on. Since she didn’t ask him why he was there, it was obvious that Sophie had some things she wanted to get off her chest. “I’m over him. I really am. And I hate him. But sometimes, things close in around me like a dark cloud, you know?”

      He did know. Clay had a dark cloud of his own. One even darker than Sophie’s.

      She looked at him then, her gaze connecting with his. He glanced away but not before practically getting lost in those deep blue eyes. The color of a fancy stone in an equally fancy ring.

      The color of her eyes.

      Until he’d seen Sophie’s, Clay had been sure there’d been only one pair of eyes like that. He’d been wrong.

      “I went to the old gypsy lady who lives in the trailer just up the road,” Sophie continued. “You know about her?”

      Clay nodded, made sure he didn’t make direct eye contact with Sophie. The woman’s name was Vita Banchini. She was a local legend, like Big Foot, except she supposedly doled out curses and love potions. She was also Clay’s nearest neighbor.

      “Vita’s my best friend’s mom,” Sophie went on. “Mila. But if you see Mila, don’t mention I went there. Don’t mention you saw me crying, either.”

      “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Besides, he doubted Mila and he would ever have a conversation about anything, especially СКАЧАТЬ