Those Texas Nights. Delores Fossen

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       CHAPTER TWO

      A FAILED WEDDING. Now a funeral.

      Not a literal funeral, but to Sophie it certainly felt like another sucker punch of fate. This couldn’t happen. It had to be a mistake.

      “It’s a mistake,” she repeated, this time aloud, but Garrett didn’t react. Probably because she’d already repeated it a dozen times, and he’d likely gotten tired of telling her that it wasn’t.

      That something very bad had indeed happened to Granger Western.

      Just how bad, they didn’t know yet because they didn’t have answers. Answers they needed from their chief financial officer, Billy Lee Seaver, who’d seemingly taken money and lots of it from the company.

      Sophie held on to the seemingly part, figuring this was all some kind of banking error or a computer glitch, and she made a call to the next person on her contact list. The first sixteen calls hadn’t produced much, and this one was no different. Saturday evenings apparently weren’t a good time to reach business associates who would perhaps know Billy Lee’s whereabouts.

      When she struck out with the next two calls, Sophie looked at Marcum Gentry, their legal advisor, to see if he’d had any better luck. Judging from his body language that would be a no. He was pacing while having an intense conversation with someone at Austin PD. Marcum’s pricey shoes clicked and tapped on the hardwood floors as he went from one side of Garrett’s office to the other.

      Her brother wasn’t pacing, though. Garrett was seated behind his desk, looking very much like a troubled cowboy rather than a concerned CEO. He was in his usual jeans, his Stetson sat on the corner of his desk and he’d ditched the two items he rarely wore—a jacket and a bolo tie. Sophie hadn’t even tried to talk him into wearing dress pants for the wedding because she was reasonably sure that her brother didn’t own dress anything. However, he had put on his good boots to attend the ceremony, which he’d also already swapped out for his usual ones.

      The boots and his clothes were the only thing usual about this day, though. Garrett was having his own intense conversation with one of their accountants he had managed to reach. Sophie watched Garrett’s mouth move, and she was hearing him say the words. But her brain just wasn’t processing what he was saying. Perhaps it was the tequila aftermath or maybe her mind just couldn’t handle two major shocks like this in the same day.

      At least she wasn’t having to deal with this shock while wearing her wedding dress. Once they’d arrived at the Granger Western building in downtown Austin, Sophie had made a beeline to her office and changed into one of the spare business suits she kept there. Thankfully, none of their employees had been around to see her.

      Of course, having their employees see her was the least of their problems.

      If the initial reports were true, then Billy Lee had basically screwed them six ways to Sunday by embezzling a fortune. And after doing that, he’d disappeared.

      Much as her ex-fiancé had done.

      Too bad her heart hadn’t done a vanishing act along with them because she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. The panic was rising inside her. The pressure in her chest, too, and if this was some dream, she prayed she’d wake up from it soon.

      Sophie forced herself to her feet, and while dodging Marcum’s pacing pattern, she walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in Garrett’s office. It was identical to hers, which was just next door. The view of downtown Austin was one of the best in the city, and it normally gave her a jolt of pride.

      This was theirs.

      The company their great-grandfather Zachariah Taylor Granger had built from the ground up. To remind them of that, there was a massive twelve-foot-high oil portrait of Z.T. on the wall of Garrett’s office. Not an especially good portrait, Sophie had always thought, what with his stern gaze, slightly narrowed eyes and a “don’t screw this up” sneer.

      Garrett and she hadn’t screwed it up. They’d nearly doubled the size of what customers affectionately called Cowboy Mart, had put it on the Texas financial map. It’d made them wealthier. Happier. It’d made them who they were.

      It had to stay that way.

      Marcum finished his latest call, but he didn’t stop pacing. He kept moving until he was right in front of Garrett’s desk. That cued her brother to make a quick end to his conversation.

      “You want the good news or the bad news first?” Marcum asked them.

      “Bad,” Garrett and she said in unison.

      Despite their quick agreement, Marcum still took a couple of moments to answer. “Billy Lee robbed you blind. We don’t know how exactly, not yet, but he embezzled nearly ninety percent of the company’s operating funds.”

      Sophie decided it was a good idea to sit down, but since there wasn’t a chair nearby, she just sank to the floor.

      “Fuck,” Garrett growled.

      Sophie wanted to growl something, too, something equally as bad as the f-word, but she couldn’t get her mouth working.

      “How?” Garrett added. It was also growled.

      Marcum shook his head. “That will take some time to unravel, but Billy Lee must have had the pieces in place for a while to do this. I don’t suppose you had any checks and balances on him?”

      “No,” Garrett and she answered in unison again.

      “He’s my godfather,” Sophie added. “Our late father’s best friend.”

      Garrett had his own adding to do. “Billy Lee’s worked for the company for forty years and never gave us any reason not to trust him.”

      Until now.

      God, until now.

      “What’s the good news?” Sophie asked Marcum.

      “I don’t think Garrett and you will have to go to jail.”

      Sweet baby Jesus in the manger. “Is that stating the obvious, or was there actually a chance of that happening?” she pressed.

      “A chance,” Marcum answered without hesitation. “It СКАЧАТЬ