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all excited and happy and accepted it from him. She told him yes. He

saw the whole thing and overheard part of it.”

Ash thought Teresa looked like she was about to start cussing.

Normally, she was such a sweet, placid person, but there was fire in

her eyes as she stared at him now. Whatever it was, it was really bad.

“Stupid man. Randall heard enough to take the whole thing out of

context and probably couldn’t wait to get back to tell you. Isn’t he the

one who hooked up with that crazy woman, Brenda? He probably

couldn’t wait to get back and slip the knife in and turn it a few times

after you barred his free supply of pussy from the Divine Creek

Ranch. What he saw, he misconstrued, you big, dumb…freaking

redneck.”

“Well, now, wait just a second. There’s no need for name calling,”

said his overprotective sister Debbie. Ash put his hand on her

shoulder and shook his head. He didn’t take offense at Teresa’s

words, because he had a feeling she was about to prove the truth in

them.

“What did he get wrong?” one of his sisters, Dana, asked

sympathetically. Dana was the peacemaker in the bunch.

Teresa continued, “Juliana came to you today, hoping for a strong

shoulder to lean on. The ring that all this confusion centers around

belonged to her grandmother, Lila. It was her inheritance. And the

man who offered it to her was her cousin, Allen Jacobs, the sheriff in

Tillman.”

“Oh, fuck.” Ash groaned, hating the sinking feeling in his gut.

“Her cousin.”

“But there is more, Ash,” Teresa began, and the sympathetic

gleam of unshed tears in her eyes flat out scared him. “I talked with

Allen a few minutes ago, and he told me what she said to him at

lunch. Juliana wanted you to know she loved you, and she felt silly

for waiting so long to tell you.”

The stricken look on Juliana’s face and his response to her words

raced through his mind. “She told me, and I turned it around on her.



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I…oh fuck, what I said! I insulted her for telling me she loved me. I thought she meant something completely different.”

Spunky little Donna put her fists on her hips and demanded,

“Dumbass, how do you misunderstand when someone tells you they

love you?” The four Peterson women rounded on him, all talking at

once. None of them were over five and a half feet tall, all their heads

tilted up at him, fussing at him at the same time, their sandy blonde

curls bobbing animatedly, their matching piercing, turquoise-blue

eyes drilling him angrily as they gave him the dressing down he so

richly deserved.

Joaquin and Angel guided the group out the front door, and

thankfully, there weren’t any customers approaching from the parking

lot.

“That poor girl!” His baby sister, Denae, hauled off and kicked

him with the pointed toe of her little cowgirl boot.

“Ow!”

Teresa spoke up again, once the sisters had finished giving him

hell as he rubbed his shin. “There’s more, Ash. Not only did you

reject her love when she offered it, you sent her away telling her you

already knew her news and that she didn’t have a commitment from

you and that you were fine with whatever she did, right?” she said as

she ticked each point off on her fingers.

He cringed when he heard his words paraphrased but basically

regurgitated for him. “Yeah, I suppose that’s what I said, or

something like it.”

“I want you to think about what you told her, based on your

assumptions, when I tell you what her news actually was.”





* * * *



Eli could hear the women fussing all the way from outside. He

went to the door and was met by an unusual sight. The women with

Ash were yelling at him, and then one kicked Ash in the shin. There



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was more talk, and since Rachel and Teresa seemed perfectly safe, he

didn’t join them but merely observed from inside.

Teresa looked thoroughly pissed with Ash as she spoke in an irate

tone, though Eli couldn’t hear her actual words. She must’ve dropped

one hell of a bomb because there was a moment of stunned silence.

All eyes got big, all jaws dropped. Then the women, who all bore a

striking resemblance to Ash in coloring, went completely apeshit on

him, right there on the sidewalk. Screaming, punching, kicking, and

cursing at him. The tallest one actually whapped the big cowboy

upside his head before they all started crying.

Eli noted that Rachel looked as though she wanted to egg the girls

on, to beat on Ash some more. She happened to glance up and see

him standing at the glass door and blew him an air kiss. He grinned