No Getting Over A Cowboy. Delores Fossen
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and her obituary. She says it’ll take weeks, maybe even months to finalize.”
Yeah, definitely matchmaking. He could add another chat with his mom to his to-do list. He had to nip this in the bud before it bit him in the ass. He didn’t want his mother throwing him together with Nicky—and Kaylee.
Nicky lifted the suitcase onto the bottom step, and Garrett didn’t miss the slight grunting sound she made. The grunt got louder when she hoisted it to the next step. With eight more steps to go, she was going to give herself a hernia before she made it to the back door.
Of course, he helped by carrying it up all the steps and onto the porch. Thankfully, the suitcase had wheels so she shouldn’t have any trouble getting it inside. After that, though, she was on her own.
“You’re leaving?” she asked, tipping her head at the clothes he had draped over his arm.
“Moving to the guesthouse. I figure the house will get pretty crowded what with Mom, our housekeeper, a toddler and six widows.”
Nicky got a strange look. A cross between “deer in the headlights” and “oh, crap.”
“About that...” she said.
But that was all she managed before he heard sounds he darn sure didn’t want to hear. Car engines. And they were all converging on the house like some kind of funeral procession. Garrett watched as they drove in one by one, and they just seemed to keep on coming. Trucks, cars and SUVs. Someone even drove up on a motorcycle.
“About that,” Nicky repeated. She opened the back door, pushed in her suitcase. “There are more than six of us.” And she ducked inside.
For a few seconds Garrett was stunned into silence. “How many more?”
“Twelve. Maybe thirteen. Fourteen, tops.” Nicky walked away, repeating the biggest lie of all. “You’ll never even notice we’re here.”
IT WAS LIKE a metaphorical intestinal disorder. The widows just kept coming.
When Nicky had first thought of this idea, she’d envisioned a The World According to Garp type of haven for women like her who needed mending. Peace, quiet, space. She had none of those things. And even in a house as big as the Grangers’, it was hard to find a place where she could go and silently scream.
Like now, for instance.
“Two bathroom toilets are clogged,” Loretta reported, reading from a list like the town crier. The woman had a canvas bag filled with heaven knew what looped over her wrist and a small box tucked beneath her arm. “And the Ellery sisters and Lizzie bought the wrong kind of groceries. Did you know they were all vegan when you sent them to the store?”
No idea, but Nicky did have an idea that someone, probably her, would be making another grocery run first thing in the morning. Not that she had time. Apparently, she had toilets to unclog, room assignments to finish not just for here but for the Widows’ House once they had the all-clear to return. She also no doubt needed to smooth things over with the housekeeper, Alice, because someone had almost certainly managed to piss her off by now.
“Lizzie’s little boy, Liam, was running through the house, playing ninja, and he broke some stuff,” Loretta continued.
That didn’t surprise Nicky. She’d only caught glimpses of the four-year-old, but Liam always seemed to be running. Lizzie needed to try to get him under control or there were going to be even more problems. “Keep a list of the broken items, and I’ll replace them,” Nicky said.
The only bright spot in this day was that Kaylee was napping and hadn’t wandered off to pester Garrett. But even that silver lining was tarnished. Since it was 6:00 p.m., it was too late for a nap and too early for her normal bedtime, which meant she’d be up half the night. That meant no sleep for Nicky at a time when she desperately needed it.
No one would certainly accuse Nicky of wearing rose-colored glasses right now.
It didn’t help that she was in Garrett’s office. Even though he wasn’t there, she was still surrounded by his things and could almost feel those things scowling at her. Kaylee hadn’t seemed to mind, and that’s why she’d fallen asleep on the small sofa beneath the window.
“Ruby Billings,” Loretta went on. “Suicide,” she added in a whisper to indicate that it was what had made Ruby a widow. “She’s already complaining about her roommate.”
Nicky checked her list. There were five available bedrooms and a family room with a pullout sofa, which meant people had to triple up in some cases. In Ruby’s case, she was sharing with D. M. Arnison—surgical complications—who’d arrived on a Harley. Nicky didn’t know D.M. that well, but the woman did have Tourette’s which caused her to let curse words fly without warning. That might offend some of the other widows, but someone had to room with her. And it wasn’t as if the woman could help what came out of her mouth.
“Ruby wants you to check with Mrs. Granger to see if we can use her kids’ rooms,” Loretta added. “Since they’re not using them and all.”
Nicky was shaking her head before Loretta even finished. “No. We’ve disrupted the family enough, and those are their own personal spaces.”
Something she didn’t have at the moment, but she would hold her ground on this. They would make do with the six rooms they had. Even if they had to cram sixteen widows and two children into them.
Nicky checked her bed assignment list again and grabbed a pencil to make the changes. She’d given up using a pen because the change requests were coming in on an hourly basis.
“Put Ruby in with Lizzie and her son,” Nicky instructed. “Ask D.M. if we can move a cot for her in the big bedroom with the Ellery sisters. The sisters have said they’ll share the king-size bed that’s in there. If that doesn’t meet their approval, then I’ll start calling hotels.”
It was something Belle had insisted she not do, but Garrett’s mom maybe hadn’t realized the logistical and plumbing issues involved with having eighteen houseguests.
She gave Loretta the revised list, and Loretta handed Nicky the list of things yet to be done. Some needed help getting luggage upstairs, dinner had to be fixed, and there’d be cleaning up after that.
“You’re not on the bedroom list,” Loretta pointed out.
“Kaylee and I will sleep in here. Garrett moved his office to the guesthouse.”
Loretta eyed the sofa, which was smaller than a twin bed, and there wasn’t exactly a lot of floor space, either. It didn’t matter. As exhausted as Nicky was, she could sleep on the desk. But exhaustion would have to wait.
“Oh, and this came for you,” Loretta said just as she was about to leave. She took the box from beneath her arm and gave it to Nicky.
There was a white satin ribbon wrapped around it, making it look like some kind of gift. But Nicky instantly got a bad feeling about it. “I’ll open it later,” she told Loretta, mainly to get the woman moving.
Loretta did, but only after Nicky started mumbling to herself as she looked over the new to-do list. The moment Loretta was gone, however, Nicky slipped off the ribbon, lifted the lid a fraction and looked inside.
Oh, God.
Two yellow roses.
Her stomach went into a spin, and for a couple of seconds, it felt as if someone had sucked all the air from the planet. But the oxygen was there, and Nicky took several deep breaths, hoping they would steady her. That was asking a lot of mere air, but it helped some. It helped even more when she tossed the box in the trash bag that she’d been using as a garbage can.
The roses were nothing, she reminded herself.
Nothing.
It