Derringer returned over an hour later. He hadn’t meant to be gone that long, but when he’d arrived at the Lattimores’ place he had encountered more drama. Ashira had given her father the impression things were serious between them and he had to first break the news to Phillip Lattimore that they weren’t. And then he had to let Ashira know that he didn’t consider her a candidate as a wife, at least not for him since there was no way in hell he would ever get shackled with someone as spoiled and selfish as she was. Those words hadn’t been too well received, and Derringer had found himself stranded on the Lattimore land. He’d had to call Pete to give him a lift back here.
The moment he got out of Pete’s patrol car he knew something was wrong. He could understand everyone staring at him, probably wondering why Pete, instead of Ashira, had brought him back. But they weren’t just staring at him. They were openly glaring.
“Looks like your family is pissed off at you for some reason,” Pete said.
“Yes, looks that way,” he responded. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
Once the patrol car had driven off, Derringer’s gaze roamed over the group that were outside in the yard cleaning up from today’s activities. He looked for one person in particular, but he didn’t see her. “Where’s Lucia?”
It was Canyon who answered in a belligerent tone, “Oh, so now you remember that she does exist?”
Derringer frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Dillon folded his arms over his chest. “You invited Lucia here, yet you took off with another woman without giving her a backward glance. I expected better of you, Derringer.”
Derringer’s frown deepened. “That’s not the way it was.”
It was Ramsey who spoke up. “That’s the way we saw it.”
“And that’s the way Lucia saw it,” Bailey snapped, losing her cool. “I can’t believe you would leave here with one of those ‘silly’ girls—in fact, the silliest of them all—deserting Lucia and then showing back up an hour later expecting her to still be here waiting on you. You are so full of yourself.”
“Like I said, that’s not the way it was,” he said, glancing around at all his family circling around him.
“You’re going to have a hard time convincing Lucia of that,” Chloe said, not with the same snappish tone Bailey had used, but there was no doubt in everyone’s mind that if given the chance she would clobber this particular brother-in-law right about now.
“Especially when just a couple of weeks ago Ashira paid Lucia a visit at Simply Irresistible and warned her that she could get you back anytime she wanted, and that the two of you have an understanding and that she would be the one who would eventually become your wife,” Chloe added in disgust.
“Like hell,” Derringer snarled.
“Doesn’t matter. Ashira came here today to prove a point and in Lucia’s eyes, she did.”
“But like I said, it wasn’t that way,” Derringer implored. He then outlined everything that had happened once he’d left with Ashira and the reason that he’d left with her in the first place. “And I won’t let that sort of misunderstanding come between me and Lucia,” he said, moving toward his truck. “I need to go see her.”
She wasn’t home when Derringer got there, but according to her neighbor, Mrs. Noel, she had been there, rushing in and then leaving with an overnight bag. Derringer had no idea where she had gone. And she wouldn’t answer her cell phone, although he had left several messages for her. He knew her parents were still in Tennessee and wouldn’t be returning for another week or so. Thinking she’d possibly driven out to their place to stay for the night, he had gone there too, only to find the Conyers’s homestead deserted.