Life After Wife (Three Magic Words Trilogy, #3)(2)

“That was strange,” Kate said.

“My worst nightmare has come true. I had no idea that man was Elijah,” Sophie said.

“You knew him before?”

Sophie wiped sweat from her brow with a tissue and nodded. “I think I did, but I didn’t know he was Elijah. Aunt Maud called him Bud, and I knew he was related to Uncle Jesse, but I didn’t know how.”

“Well, you do now, and he doesn’t seem like he’s in a mood to sell his half. You might have a problem,” Kate said.

“He hasn’t met determination, but, honey, it is right up in his face. Before the year is over, he’ll be signing away his half just to get away from me,” she said.

Kate chuckled. “And there, ladies and gentlemen, is our Sophie, clad in her black armor and ready for the battle that lies ahead. Aunt Maud would be proud. She can rest easy now.”

“I’m going to miss her so much.” Sophie’s chin wobbled.

Kate touched her arm. “We’ll fight him for you. He might whip one of us, but, darlin’, he ain’t got a chance against all three!”

“Yes, we will,” Fancy said.

“He’d best bring his dinner because it’ll be a long affair,” Kate said.

Kate had been sworn to secrecy on her wedding day back in April and had to bite her tongue to keep from spitting out what she knew. Aunt Maud had purposely left half the ranch to Elijah and was playing matchmaker after her death. However, after meeting Elijah, Kate believed the old girl’s brain tumor had affected her judgment. Elijah Jones and Sophie McSwain were as suited as a rabid coyote and a jackrabbit. Elijah would know before the first day was over that he was the jackrabbit and had better hop on his cycle and get his sorry rear end on down the road. Sophie would have to stiffen up her backbone even more if she was going to hoodwink that ranch out from under him and that big, black motorcycle, but Kate had no doubts that she was up to the task.

The three women rode back to the ranch in the funeral-home limousine along with Sophie’s mother, Ellen; her father, Donnie; and her two sisters, Layla and Sandy. Kate’s husband, Hart, drove their pickup truck behind the limo. Fancy’s husband, Theron, and Tina, his daughter, rode in the truck behind Hart. The rest of Maud’s neighbors and church family filed in behind them, creating a long procession moving slowly north from the cemetery to the ranch. The cars drove past Angus and longhorns, mesquite trees, rolling hills, ranches, and barbed wire. All a part of Maud’s world; things she had loved and cussed all in a day’s time. She’d left big boots behind, and Sophie wasn’t sure she could fill them, but she’d never let Elijah Jones know she had a doubt in her mind.

It scarcely seemed like a year since she’d moved to Baird, Texas, population less than eighteen hundred. With her sass and frankness, Aunt Maud had turned Sophie’s life around at a time when it was spiraling downhill at a dizzying speed. Sophie’s preacher husband had just been killed in a plane crash—the same week that she’d found out about his affairs. As a widow she walked away with a bundle of insurance money, and he was buried with his little secrets intact.

Kate patted Sophie’s knee. “We’re here for you, chère. You’ve stood beside us and supported us this last year. It’s our turn. You need anything, you call and we’ll come running.”

“And if you let that red-haired temper get ahead of you and do something drastic, just call and say that you need us to bring the shovels. We’ll be there in half an hour and no one will ever find Elijah’s body,” Fancy whispered.

Sophie smiled.

Kate and Fancy had been her best friends since they’d started school more than twenty years before up in Albany, Texas, though the summer they were fifteen their parents all moved away from the area. They’d kept in touch through those long, dry years when they didn’t see each other at all, but it wasn’t the same as seeing one other every day. Kate’s parents had taken her to Louisiana. Fancy’s mother had moved her to Florida. And Sophie’s dad had followed the oil business. First they went to the Texas Panhandle; moved to Cushing, Oklahoma, after that; and finally to Alma, Arkansas. She met her husband, Matt, in college in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Fate had brought the three friends back to the same area the year before Maud died. Kate’s father had died, and her mother came back to Breckenridge, Texas, where her family was located, so Kate made the move with her. Fancy’s grandmother had fallen and broken her hip, and Fancy returned to Albany to take care of her. Sophie’s world had fallen apart, and Aunt Maud insisted she come to her ranch to put it back together.

The three towns made a triangle on the map. Albany, where they’d grown up, was the uppermost point. Breckenridge was twenty-four miles to the west. Baird was twenty-five miles to the south. They met in Albany once a week on Sunday afternoons at Fancy’s place to visit and kept in touch by phone or e-mails on a daily basis.

“What are you thinking about?” Kate asked.

“How lucky I am to have you two beside me,” Sophie answered honestly.

“Ah, shucks,” Fancy said in a slow, southern drawl.

“Don’t make light of it,” Sophie said. “I mean it.”

Kate patted her on the shoulder. “We know you do, and we feel the same way about you.”

“What am I going to do about that overbearing, insufferable hippy? You think he actually has the money to buy out my part of the ranch? I figured he’d take my more-than-generous offer and run with it,” Sophie moaned.