Page 2 of Everyone Loved Her

And the divorce, too.

Yikes. Lord knows what this man knows about me.

He eyed the dishes, before stepping to the side. “You can sit them on the table.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Or you could just take them and not be lazy.”

“You sound just like your old man,” he chuckled, though his voice dropped off a little. “It’s gonna be real weird without him tellin’ me what to do all dang day.” His thin lips sank into a deep frown that tugged at my heartstrings.

“Yeah, probably so,” I cleared the emotion from my throat. “He was really good at bossing people around.” I held out the pans,stillnot taking the invite into his apartment as he motioned for me to come in. If there was anything I had learned after being a criminal defense attorney, it was tonotbe dumb.

And going into a strange man’s apartment was dumb, even if it was the ranch manger who’d been there forthreeyears. You never really know someone, and I definitely didn’t know this guy.

A smirk grew across his face and shaking his head, he finally took the dishes from my arms. “How long are you planning on staying here in town?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged, relaxing a little and letting out a sigh. “I haven’t figured that out yet. I know Mom wants me to deal with Greg, the family attorney, on Dad’s will. Beyond that, I don’t know what I’m doing—but I’m not staying here long term.”

“Huh, interesting. You got any reason to go back to the Windy City then?” he asked, setting the casserole dishes downon the entryway table and eyeing me. “Because rumor has it that you had to quit up there at your big fancy firm with that hot shot—what’s his name? Jason? Jared? Jimmy?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s Jared, but I guess not everyone likes working with their ex-husband day in and day out. It can be a little...”

“Tense?” The amusement on his face grated my already fried nerves.

“Yeah. Let’s go with that.” I folded my arms across my chest, not really wanting to stay and chat, but also not wanting to go back in the house, which felt suffocating. “You know, for someone I’ve never met, you sure know a lot about me.”

He smiled playfully, biting his lower lip. “Your dad was just itching for you to come back here and meet me, ya know. He was never happy with that ex-husband of yours. He didn’t think he was the right one. Told that to anybody who asked about you.”

I laughed dryly, trying to cover the ache in my chest. “He made it known more than once—about my ex-husband. I think he expected me to marry someone here in town and stick around.” The words were salt in a deep internal gash, one that had never quite healed, but I pushed it away. “It never panned out for me.”

Blaze leaned against the doorway, his cologne filling my nostrils. “Someone break your heart here?”

I hesitated, my stomach growing nauseous. “Yeah, something like that, I guess.”

Chapter 2

Garrett Myers stareddown into the bottom of his whiskey glass, a haze hanging heavy over his mind. He preferred it that way, functioning with a constant buzz in his head. It made the days drudge by a little faster, and the pain feel a little more dull.

“Can you believe it?” a voice drawled on behind him. “Old man Young done in by a wasp. Talk about a freak accident, and to think, inOctober.” Garrett stilled, his body rigid against the bar as he tried to process what he was hearing—and if he had even heard the last name right.

“I heard Beth Young is back in town for the funeral,” a woman chimed in. “My mom said it’s the first time she’s shown face in years. Takes someone dying for some to come home, I guess. Kind of sad, I think. I don’t know why everyone wants to hurry up and get outta this town like it’s gonna kill ‘em.”

You ain’t got a clue, lady.He squeezed his eyes shut, his vision immediately filled with the sight of the only Beth he could remember anymore; her wild green eyes boring into his, filled with anger and tears as she punched his chest, screamingprofanities at him. He cleared his throat, raising a hand to catch the bartender’s attention.

“I think I’ll have another…Please.”

Lauren, who happened to be Beth’s old best friend and someone he saw on the regular these days, frowned at him. “Really, Garrett? Another? You’ve been here all night. Why don’t I just call your daddy and have him?—”

“No,” he cut her off, shaking his head beneath his beat-up Stetson. “Just pour me another. Straight.”

She cocked her full hip out to the side, appearing to ready herself to protest, but then rolled her eyes, giving in. “Onemore, then I’m cuttin’ you off. I don’t want to hear it from the sheriff next time he’s in here.”

“That’s fine,” Garrett muttered under his breath, once again searching for the voice he had heard behind him. However, he couldn’t find it, even after angling his body to the thick crowd filling the historic honkytonk.Outlawshad been around for a hundred years, so the old timers said, and on a weekend night, it was filled to the brim. Nobody had anything better to do, unless they were ranching, and even then, lots of the farmers, old and young alike, still showed up before closing time.

“Here,” Lauren set his drink down. “This isit,Garrett. I mean it. No more. I?—”

“Beth’s in town,” he muttered, meeting her baby blue eyes. “And her dad’s dead.”

Lauren’s brows raised, and she gave another customer her index finger, cuing them to wait as she leaned across the bar, lowering her voice. “What did you just say?”

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