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  “Not really.” He finally gave in and just handed her the entire box of tissues.

  Even though he looked so ready for this conversation to be over, Sophie continued. “Well, it’s hard. I’ve had to fight and scrape for every ounce of power and responsibility I have, and if they see me like this, I’ll lose that. They’ll walk on eggshells. They’ll treat me like a hurt woman.”

  “Uh, aren’t you a hurt woman?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want them to know that.”

  More ceiling glancing, more huffing. “Follow this through. If we pretend we’re dating, the pretense will continue because there’ll have to be a fake breakup. Your family will definitely look at you as a hurt woman then. And what kind of example would that make of me? I’ve got two nephews, and I don’t want them to think I’m the kind of guy who’d carry on with an engaged woman.”

  He was making sense, but Sophie still wasn’t giving up on this plan just yet. This was one of the things she had to do often at Granger Western—she had to tweak sales proposals, marketing plans and personnel assignments. This was just another situation in need of a tweaking.

  But what? How?

  Sophie was asking herself those very questions when she heard something she didn’t want to hear. Voices that she recognized.

  Oh, God. They’d found her.

  “Is my sister here?” someone barked. Garrett, her oldest brother.

  Garrett sounded both concerned and pissed. Not a good combination. He was the one most likely to kick Brantley’s butt, but he would also berate her forever about getting involved with the man he’d always said was all wrong for her. Of course, any man who wasn’t a cowboy would have been wrong for her in Garrett’s eyes.

  “Is my baby girl all right?” Voice number two.

  Her mother, Belle. The one most likely to coddle her, but the coddling would quickly turn to smothering. Then nagging. Then she’d go after Brantley with a vengeance.

  “We know she’s here. We followed her muddy footprints.” Voice number three. Lawson. Her cousin. He’d berate her, coddle her and then assist Garrett and her mother when they gave Brantley that serious butt kicking.

  The only Granger missing was her other brother, Roman. He’d been invited to the wedding, of course, but he hadn’t shown and probably wouldn’t. Too bad, because if Roman had come, it would have taken some of the ugly spotlight off her. A black-sheep brother could do that.

  “We need to see her.” Voice number four. Her best friend, Mila Banchini. There’d be no nagging or butt kicking and only minimal coddling from her, but for the next decade Sophie would have to listen to Mila’s attempts to find her a suitable husband.

  “I’m sorry,” Sophie said to the chief.

  “For what?”

  “This is the only tweak I can think of.” And despite its being a stupid tweak, Sophie launched herself into Chief McKinnon’s arms.

  From the corner of her eye, Sophie watched her family and friend trickle in. She also felt the chief’s muscles go statue stiff and expected a similar reaction from the others.

  That didn’t happen.

  They were standing there. Three Grangers and Mila, who was wearing her champagne maid-of-honor dress. Each of them looked at her not with sympathy, exactly. There was something else. Something that caused her to go still.

  They didn’t rush to coddle her. Didn’t issue death threats about Brantley. And they especially didn’t ask what she was doing in Chief McKinnon’s arms. The chief remedied that, though. He backed away from her, staying by her side and studying her family.

  “We know about Brantley,” Garrett said. “He came and talked to us right after he spoke to you.”

  Oh. Sophie hadn’t expected that from the man she was now thinking of as freshly dropped cow dung.

  “I know it’s hard,” her mother added. “You’re crying.”

  It was the right thing to say. The right tone, too, but the four were still standing in the same spots as if someone had glued their feet to the floor. And Lawson and her mother were dodging her gaze. Definitely not a good sign.

  “Did someone die?” Sophie came out and asked. Then, she had a horrible, gut-twisting thought. “Did one of you kill Brantley?”

  “No,” Garrett answered. He didn’t add more because his phone buzzed. He mumbled something about having to take the call and walked out.

  That knot in her stomach got worse. Because here she was jilted and broken, something Garrett would have almost certainly realized, and yet he’d taken a call.

  “Did Brantley do something to harm himself?” the chief asked.

  Evidently, he was also aware that something wasn’t right about this visit. Something other than the obvious, that is, since she’d just been jilted and her family had seen her with her arms wrapped around the police chief.

  “As far as I know, Brantley’s okay,” Lawson said.

  There was a huge but at the end of that. Sophie could hear it. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Her mother, Mila and Lawson volleyed glances at each other, but they didn’t say a word. They appeared to be waiting for Garrett to return, which he did a couple of moments later.

  “Anything?” her mother said to him.

  Garrett shook his head and drew in a long breath as if he would need it. He went to Sophie, taking her by the shoulders. “I know this is a shitty day, but I’m about to make it even shittier.”

  Not possible.

  But a moment later, Sophie learned she was wrong about that. A whole new level of shitty had been added to her life.

  Find out what happens when Sophie’s life takes a drastic turn and Clay is there to help pick up the pieces in the first installment of the WRANGLER’S CREEK trilogy, THOSE TEXAS NIGHTS, by USA TODAY bestselling author Delores Fossen, available January 2017 from HQN Books!

  Copyright © 2016 by Delores Fossen

  ISBN-13: 9781488023231

  Lone Star Cowboy

  Copyright © 2016 by Delores Fossen

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