The lock finally gave in to his impatient twisting of key Number Four and he swung the door open. The first thing he realized was how hot the house was—like an oven.
The smell was the next thing to register. Musty, unused, closed-up. The ladies peered around his shoulders to the dark interior.
“Girls, we’ve got our work cut out for us,” an older lady pronounced.
“That won’t be necessary,” Gabriel said as they brushed past him. Laura smiled at him, swinging her grocery sack to the opposite hip and taking her daughter’s hand in hers.
“It’s necessary,” she said. “They can clean this place so fast it’ll make your head spin. Besides, we’ve seen worse. Not much worse, of course. But your father’s been gone a long time. Almost six months.” She smiled kindly. “Frankly, we expected you a lot sooner.”
“I wasn’t in a hurry to get here.” Neither were any of his brothers. During their curt e-mail transmissions, exchanged since their father’s letter had been delivered to them, Dane had said he might swing by in January if he’d finished with his Texas Ranger duties by then, Pete said he might make it by February—depending upon the secret agent assignments he couldn’t discuss—and Jack hadn’t answered at all. Jack was the least likely of them all to give a damn about Pop, the ranch, or a million dollars.
His chicken brothers were making excuses, putting off the inevitable—except for Jack, who really was the wild card.
“Well, we’re glad you’re here now.” She didn’t seem to notice his grimness as she set her grocery sack on the counter. “Hope you like chicken, baby peas and rice.”
“You don’t have to do that.” He heard the sound of a vacuum start up somewhere in the house, and windows opening. The fragrance of lemon oil began to waft from one of the rooms. The little girl clung to her mom, her eyes watching Gabriel’s every move. “Really, I’m not hungry, and your little girl probably needs to be at home in bed.” It was six o’clock—what time did children go to bed, anyway? He and his brothers had a strict bedtime of nine o’clock when they were kids, which they’d always ignored. Pop never came up the stairs to check on them, and they used a tree branch outside the house to cheat their curfew. Then one year, Pop sawed off the limb, claiming the old live oak was too close to the roof. They devised a rope ladder which they flung out on grappling hooks whenever they had a yen to meet up with girls or camp in the woods.
Or watch Jack practice at the forbidden rodeo in the fields lit only by the moon.
“Oh, Penny’s fine. Don’t worry about her. You’re always happy, aren’t you, Penny?”
Penny beamed at Gabriel. “Morgan,” she murmured in a small child’s breathy recitation. He felt his heart flip over in his chest as he returned the child’s gaze. Heartburn. I’m getting heartburn at the age of twenty-six.
“I have a smaller version of Penny who is being watched for me right now.” Laura smiled proudly as she unloaded the grocery sacks the ladies had loaded onto the kitchen counter. “Perrin is nine months old, and looks just like his father. You love your baby brother, don’t you, Penny?” She looked down at her child, who nodded, though she didn’t break her stare from Gabriel.
Gabriel felt his heart sink strangely in his chest. This woman was married, apparently happily so.
He was an idiot, and probably horny. The house was swarming with women and he had to get the preliminary hots for a married mom.
Good thing his yen was in the early stages—one pretty face could replace another easily enough. “Listen, I don’t want to be rude, but I just got in. I appreciate you and your friends trying to help, but—”
“But you would rather be alone.”
He nodded.
“I understand.” She flicked the oven on warm and slid the casserole inside. “I would, too, if I was you.”
She knew nothing about him. He decided a reply wasn’t needed.
“You know, I really liked your father,” she said, hesitating. She stared at him with eyes he felt tugging at his desire. “I hated to see Mr. Morgan go.”
“Josiah,” he murmured.
“I didn’t call him by his first name.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t know him too well, then.”
“Because I didn’t call him by his name or because I liked him?”
He looked at her, thinking both, lady.
“Mr. Morgan was fond of my children.”
His radar went on alert. Here came the your-father-wants-you-to-settle-down chorus. He steeled himself.
She ran a gentle hand through Penny’s long fine hair. “Of course, he dreamed of having his own grandchildren.”
Gabriel frowned. That topic was none of her business. His family was too raw a subject for him to discuss with a stranger.
“You’re going to hear this sooner or later.” She gazed at him suddenly with clear, determined focus. “I’d rather you hear it from me.”
He shrugged. “I’m listening.” He reminded himself that whatever she had to say didn’t matter to him. What Pop had meant to the town of Union Junction was not his concern.
“Your father put a hundred thousand dollars into a trust for my children.”
She’d caught his attention. Not because of the amount, but because Pop had to have lost his mind to have gone that soft. Pop was as miserly as he was stubborn, even complaining over church donations. All he was interested in was himself.
Or at least that had been the Pop of Gabriel’s youth.
Truthfully, it astonished him that this tiny woman had the nerve to tell him she’d managed to wheedle money out of his father. Maybe Pop had finally begun to crack, all the years of selfishness taking their toll. More importantly, Laura was obviously the kind of woman with whom Gabriel should exercise great distance and caution. “Congratulations,” he finally said, trying not to smirk. “A hundred grand is a nice chunk of change.”
“Each.”
He stared at her. “Each?”
“Each child got their own trust. Penny and Perrin both received a hundred thousand dollars. Your father said it wasn’t a lot, but he wanted them to have something later in their lives. He doesn’t want them to know about his gift, though, not until they’re grown up.” She smiled, and it seemed to Gabriel that her expression was sad. “They won’t even remember him, then.”
He had no idea what the hell to say to this woman. He was suspicious. He was dumbstruck. Perhaps he was even a little envious that she’d gained some type of affection in his father’s heart, when he and his brothers had struggled for years and had received none.
She picked up Penny. “I just thought you should know.”
He watched as she turned, heading for the front door. Over her mother’s shoulder, Penny watched him with wistful eyes. What had been
