LITMIR.BIZ

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was a picture of a woman in tight white pants sporting a camel toe, complete with arrows pointing to it as if making sure no one missed it.

      No one could. Garrett Granger was certain of that.

      Garrett tried to call his sister and mom to see if they knew what was going on. No answer from either of them, but he left messages for them to call him back. Then, he got off his horse and walked closer to get a better look at things and make sure he hadn’t misread the sign on the flamingo-pink tow truck.

      Nope, no misreading.

      And his eyes hadn’t deceived him about the other things he was seeing, either. The person who’d driven that truck to the Granger Ranch had apparently not only trespassed but had also broken into his great-grandfather’s house.

      Such that it was.

      Garrett had always thought of the place as more of an ancestral eyesore than an actual house. But hell in a big-ass handbasket, it was his eyesore. Or rather his family’s.

      His great-grandfather, Z. T. Granger, had built the monstrosity nearly a hundred years ago and had chosen it as his final resting place. Z.T.’s grave was in the backyard. The old guy probably hadn’t counted on the place becoming a mecca for squatters or whatever the heck this was.

      It wasn’t as if the eyesore had a welcoming appearance, either. It was painted a dull shade of purple, the color of an old bruise, and the shutters were urine yellow. To complete the god-awful curb appeal, there was a slime-green front door rimmed with milky red stained-glass panels.

      The place didn’t scream “Y’all, come on in now and make yourselves at home.”

      Garrett went even closer to see if he could spot a familiar face or anything that would help him make sense of his trespassing-squatter-mecca theory. There was a woman sweeping the porch, another raking the yard, and he could see yet a third woman in a window on the second floor. She had a feather duster and appeared to be clearing out cobwebs. A little girl was playing in the area by the open gate.

      They weren’t sneaking around, weren’t trying to hide, so if these were indeed squatters or run-of-the-mill trespassers, they were either bold or stupid. Or maybe this was some kind of cleaning fetish cult.

      Still, why had they driven here in a tow truck?

      Garrett heard the galloping sound behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see his cousin Lawson. Lawson dismounted before his horse had even fully stopped, and he made a beeline toward Garrett.

      Together, Lawson and he ran the Granger Ranch, another of Z.T.’s legacies, and now the two of them stood side by side studying the Gothic house and the people meandering around it.

      “What the hell’s going on?” Lawson asked. “And why is that kid poking at that cow shit with a stick?”

      Garrett didn’t have the answer to the first question, but as for the second, he knew from experience that kids poked at shit. Even kids who wore pink overalls and had their hair in pigtails.

      “I just got here,” Garrett explained. “I came out to look over things for the work crew, and I saw them. I have no idea who they are or why they’re here.”

      “Maybe they’re from the historical society?” Lawson added. “They could be sprucing up the place since it’s obvious we suck at doing that.”

      It was a good guess, but Wrangler’s Creek was a small town by anyone’s standards, and Garrett knew every female for miles around. Every kid old enough to poke at a cow patty, too. He didn’t recognize any of these folks. Plus, there wasn’t a woman in the historical society under the age of seventy. These “visitors” were all much younger. And then there was the tow truck. No one in Wrangler’s Creek, possibly the entire state of Texas, would drive a vehicle like that.

      “Or they could be those ghost groupies,” Lawson offered.

      Another good guess. Since the house looked like something out of a bad horror movie and because there were rumors of Z.T.’s spirit haunting the place, it had indeed attracted ghost hunters over the years. But as far as Garrett knew, they’d never resorted to trespassing. Or cleaning.

      “Looks like they got here using the old ranch trail.” Lawson, again.

      His cousin tipped his head to the tow truck and the SUV behind it, both of which were parked about ten yards from the house. Once there’d been an actual dirt and gravel road leading to the place, but the pasture had long claimed that. Now, the only way to get to it was on horseback, walking a half mile from the main house or by driving on the trail. The last time Garrett had checked it out, there’d been more potholes than trail surface, and there were bushes growing in spots. It wouldn’t have been a smooth ride to get here.

      “How many of them are there?” Lawson asked.

      “Four.”

      But Garrett was being optimistic. That was only the number he could see. Since the old three-story house had over twenty-five rooms, it was possible that the entire population of a small country had taken up residence there.

      On his land.

      All right, it wasn’t all his exactly, but Garrett had always thought of the ranch as his domain. His sister, Sophie, ran the family business, Granger Western. His brother, Roman, owned a rodeo promotion company, and Garrett ran the ranch. He made all the key decisions and knew everything that went on here.

      Everything except for this.

      “As soon as I spotted the visitors, I tried to get in touch with Sophie and my mom,” Garrett went on as he walked closer to the house. “Maybe they’ll call back soon.”

      Unfortunately, there were dead zones for cell service out here, but Garrett didn’t intend to wait for any more info. He could find out what these women, and the child, wanted and then send them packing. He had a work crew arriving first thing in the morning to expand the nearby pond, and he didn’t want any hitches with that. Having people parked in the very spot he intended to dig would definitely qualify as a hitch.

      The women had obviously spotted Lawson and him because the two outside were now huddled together, talking and pointing at him. A third woman came out of the house and joined them. The only one who ventured to meet him was the little blond-haired girl.

      She still had hold of the crap-coated stick, but she also caught his hand as if he were a long lost friend. “I Kay-wee.”

      Garrett had no idea how to respond to that. None. But he kept walking toward the house with the hope that she’d let go of him. He wanted to put a quick end to this, and it might somewhat diminish his air of authority if he was holding hands with a toddler.

      Plus, there were the other feelings that came. They always did when he saw a baby or a young child. It’d been three years since he’d lost his own daughter. Three years, two months and six days. He could have provided the hours if someone had asked. And yes, he was still counting.

      Always would.

      Some aches just didn’t go away no matter how much time had passed.

      “Cows,” Kay-wee pointed out as they got closer to the house. Or rather t-ows.

      She used the stick to point and point and point. She could have pointed for a long time since there was a herd just on the other side of the picket fence that surrounded the house and grave.

      The cows were forever breaking through that fence, and that was probably why there’d been a patty so close to the porch for the girl to poke. They would continue to break through, too, and that’s why these folks had to go. Once the work crew had expanded the pond, they could reinforce the fence so he could bring in the new shipment of cattle.

      “I’m Garrett Granger,” he said to the women.

      They stayed huddled, their heads together like conjoined triplets, and they continued to whisper.

      “Gare-if,” the girl attempted. She finally tossed the stick.

      “This

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