Page 49 of Heart Like a Cowboy

Much as Tilly had done earlier, Alana’s aunt scowled at him. That was Loralee’s default response, though, when it came to him, so it wasn’t unexpected.

“I saw Tilly at the hardware store, and she seemed a little upset,” Loralee said as she approached him. “When I spotted all your vehicles parked here, I thought I’d check to see if anything was wrong.”

Egan was about to come up with something, anything, that would get Loralee to back off while Alana and Tilly talked, but Loralee’s attention shifted to the toothpick avatars.

“Good gravy, no wonder Tilly’s upset,” Loralee muttered, shaking her head. “This is all bringing back memories of Jack. I was worried this would happen. You can’t celebrate a dead person’s life without remembering that the life is over.”

There wasn’t any “pointing the finger” blame at Egan in that remark since Loralee didn’t know the truth about that. But some blame quickly sprang to the woman’s eyes when she spotted Colleen’s avatar.

“Who put that there?” Loralee asked.

“Tilly,” Egan provided.

Loralee raised an eyebrow, clearly questioning why the woman had done that, but this time Egan didn’t even try to come up with a response.

“Right across from you,” Loralee muttered, pointing out the obvious. “I’m not sure who’ll be more uncomfortable about that. You or her.” She turned to him. “Considering you won’t want to spoil the day for Tilly, I expect you’ll be on your best behavior. By that, I mean you won’t use the occasion to hash out your differences with my niece.”

Egan nearly pointed out that the differences had already been hashed out, by Colleen walking out on him, but it would only start an argument with Loralee. Instead, he turned to leave, but Loralee stepped in front of him.

“What’s going on between Alana and you?” she whispered in an angry, accusatory tone.

Obviously, this was yet something else that Egan didn’t want to discuss, and his silence should have clued Loralee into that.

It didn’t.

“I can’t stand by and watch you break another of my niece’s hearts,” Loralee snapped.

This time, Egan ditched the silent approach because it clearly wasn’t working. “Excuse me, but I wasn’t the heartbreaker for Colleen,” he insisted.

“Of course, you were,” Loralee insisted. “You pushed her away from you by bottling everything up and keeping things to yourself.”

“Things that were often classified,” he inserted. “And I’d say Colleen is the winner of keeping things to herself since I didn’t know she was seeing anyone else before she announced she wanted a divorce and left.”

Loralee huffed and folded her arms over her chest. “You didn’t fight for Colleen,” she muttered.

At first, Egan thought he’d misheard her so he mentally replayed it. Nope. He had heard it just fine. “Excuse me?” he challenged. “You told me often that you didn’t think I was worshipping your niece enough. And I believe you used that exact word,worshipping. You paired it with other words likethe ground she walks on.”

Loralee’s mouth tightened. “I said that because I believed it. But I also believed you loved her and had her best interest in mind.”

“I did.” And he hoped she picked up on the fact that those two things were past tense because he no longer loved Colleen and didn’t care about her interests.

“Then, you should have fought harder for her. Instead, you let her walk out with that weirdo.”

It was the first time he had heard her say anything negative about Colleen and her man. Then again, it was possible that Loralee didn’t make a habit of complimenting anyone involved with her nieces. Egan recalled the woman had often been critical of Jack, too, and she certainly hadn’t known the worst about him.

“Anyway,” Loralee muttered a moment later. She checked her watch and added under her breath, “I have to go. I have an appointment for a checkup.”

But she didn’t go. She turned to Egan, staring holes in him. “Don’t diddle around with Alana. She puts on a brave face, but she’ll fall apart if she’s broken again. Don’t be the one to break her, Egan. Please. Don’t be the one to break her.”

Now Loralee did leave, and Egan stood there, wishing she’d delivered that last warning with her usual venom. She hadn’t. It had come from the aunt who loved her nieces and wanted the best for them.

Egan was absolutely certain that he didn’t qualify as the best for Alana.

With that dismal thought running circles in his head, he watched Loralee drive away, and for a third time, he started for his truck. Just as he heard something that stopped him in his tracks.

A loud gasp.

Egan whirled around, his attention zooming straight to Tilly and Alana who were still beneath the oak. But something had obviously happened. Something bad because the color had drained from Tilly’s face, and the woman was staring at Alana as if she were a hired assassin there to finish her off.

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