as he needed her.
Gray blew out a weary breath. There was no point in wasting energy trying to analyze her motivation. The fact was she hadn’t wanted him to know, and she had made the Whitmore woman promise to keep the child from him. He could not bring himself to hold that mistake against Sharon. God knows he’d made his share. What was done was done.
The sound of a vehicle pulling to a stop next to his truck tugged Gray’s attention in that direction. It was an older model sedan, its dark-blue paint dusty from the gravel road. He squinted to make out the face of the driver. The door opened and an elderly woman slowly emerged from behind the steering wheel.
Mrs. Jennings.
Gray removed his hat and waited silently as the old woman approached the cemetery gate.
She hesitated when she noticed him. Gray saw the instant recognition flare. She eyed him another long moment. Then, using her cane for assistance, she closed the distance that separated them.
“I’d heard you were back,” she said in a voice rusty with age. Faded-blue eyes studied him with surprising sharpness. “Causing trouble already, too, they say,” she added, pointedly.
“Is that what they say?” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Maybe he did have one good memory or two. Marilee Jennings was one little old lady who had a stubborn streak herself. She liked nothing better than to put a cocky young man with a smart mouth in his place. No fifth-grader ever dared defy her authority. Not even Gray.
She nodded sagely. “Of course I set them straight about that.” She leveled her gaze on his and thrust out her thin chin for emphasis. “I told them that to my knowledge Gray Longwalker never started any trouble in his entire life, but he sure as blazes would end it if anyone started it with him.”
The smile won the tug of war with his lips. “It might not be so easy to end this time.”
She lifted a sparse gray brow. “You may be right on that one. That city gal’s mighty sweet and extra good to that little girl of yours.” Mrs. Jennings leaned on her cane for support. “She’ll give you a run for your money. Have you got yourself one of those fancy lawyers?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gray assured her. “The best. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to that though.”
The old woman shook her head. “Don’t count on it, Gray.”
Gray glanced back at the sedan she had arrived in. “How is Mr. Jennings?”
She pointed to the far side of the cemetery with her cane. “He passed on last year.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “The ranch hasn’t been the same without him.” She glanced back up at Gray. “You should stop by while you’re in town. I still put dinner on the table at the same time every day.”
“I’ll try to do that,” he promised. It was probably the only place in the whole county where he was halfway welcome.
“You paid your respects to your momma yet?” she demanded in that once-a-schoolteacher-always-a-schoolteacher tone.
“I was about to do that.” It was a lie. He had no desire to visit his mother’s grave. He didn’t want to be reminded of her final days. But Mrs. Jennings still wielded an unexplainable power over him. Since fifth grade some deeply entrenched habit took over whenever she rattled off an order, and he found himself responding positively.
“Well come along, then, and we’ll see my Fred, too.”
Gray stepped back for her to lead the way. “Do you know Lauren Whitmore well?” he asked as he followed Mrs. Jennings’s slow progress down the long center aisle that separated the two sides of the cemetery.
“I know she won’t give up that little girl without a fight.” Mrs. Jennings turned back to Gray, her gaze connecting with his once more. “She loves the child like her own. She’s done a fine job since Sharon, God rest her soul, passed on.”
Though he appreciated what the Whitmore woman had done for his daughter, renewed anger twisted inside him that she somehow thought a few months of baby-sitting made the child hers. “That may be, but Sarah is my daughter, not hers.”
“Watch your step, Longwalker,” she warned.
“Things are not always as cut-and-dried as they seem. Lauren isn’t the only citizen of Thatcher who has an interest in little Sarah.”
Gray considered her words for a long moment. “Sharon had no living relatives,” he countered. There was no one, except him, that would be related by blood to Sarah.
“Let’s just say that blood isn’t always thicker than water. Buckmaster himself told me just before he left this world that he intended to make things right with you. I doubt his boys liked that idea very much.”
“They can rest easy,” Gray told her. “I never heard from the old man.”
LAUREN PACED the long entry hall that separated her living room and dining room, then peeked out the window for the umpteenth time. Nothing, only pastures quickly turning a rich-green spread out as far as the eye could see. Bluebonnets added a punch of color to the sea of green. Though Lauren’s small ranch only included fifty acres, she loved every square foot of it. Five years ago she would have laughed had anyone told her that very soon she would be living in the middle of nowhere on a former horse ranch. Lauren had loved the energy of the city. Loved the hectic pace of her job. But things changed.
Pushing the thoughts of the past away, she paced in the other direction, her fuzzy pink house slippers soundless on the polished oak floor. Otherwise Sarah would have wondered why her mommy was behaving so nervously.
Fluffy, Sarah’s huge black-and-white Persian, sauntered to the door and yowled. Lauren smiled and reached down to scratch the feline’s furry head. Like Spinner, the old horse left on the ranch she had inherited from her aunt, Fluffy had come with the place. It hadn’t taken Lauren long to realize that life on a ranch wouldn’t be complete without at least one cat and one horse. While most folks around here felt lost without a dog sleeping on the porch, Lauren had yet to make a trip to the pound in Dallas to adopt one. Something always came up. But she had her heart set on a big old Labrador. Fluffy voiced her irritation with Lauren’s slow reactions.
“Okay, girl, you can go outside even if the rest of us are stuck in the house.” Lauren opened the door just far enough for an impatient Fluffy to squeeze out, then closed and locked it. She immediately resumed her pacing.
This is ridiculous, she fumed silently. She couldn’t keep worrying that Gray Longwalker would show up at her door again. Don’s parting words echoed inside her head. You need a restraining order.
“Yeah, right,” Lauren huffed to the empty hall. She knew all about Longwalker’s reputation. If he wanted to drop by, it would take more than a legal document saying he couldn’t to stop him.
“Mommy!” The shrill little voice pierced the tense gloom shrouding Lauren, bringing a smile instantly to her lips despite her worries.
Lauren stepped into the living room to see what Sarah wanted this time. Five minutes ago, she thought, affection widening her smile, it had been Leah. Sarah hadn’t been able to find the special doll she’d had since the day Lauren brought her home to live with her. After searching every nook and cranny of the house, they had finally found the doll under the dining table.
“What’s
