“The Sandbur…it’s a big place?” he asked.
Raine nodded. “The property consists of several thousands of acres. It runs around two thousand mama cows. A hundred head of bulls and two hundred and fifty head of horses.”
Not quite the size of the T Bar K back home, Neil thought, but damn close. “You never wanted to move away?” he asked curiously. “Like up here to San Antonio? A young, beautiful woman like you could have most any job you set your sights on.”
It was an effort for Raine to keep her mouth from falling open. She wasn’t used to men calling her beautiful. Especially not a sinfully handsome lawyer who looked like he probably jetted around the world with any exotic creature he wanted on his arm.
Stop it, Raine scolded herself. This man was here in San Antonio with her because of business and nothing else. Quit thinking about his personal life. Quit thinking about him period.
Struggling to focus her attention on the slice of pie in front of her, she said, “I love the ranch. It’s where I’ve always wanted to work. I’m not a—city-type girl.”
“Oh. Then you must be happy on the Sandbur,” Neil replied, but actually that wasn’t all he wanted to say about the matter. In fact, he wanted to go a step further and ask her why she wasn’t married and if she had a special guy in her life at the moment. But that was none of his business. And what this woman did in her spare time shouldn’t interest him at all. But it did, he realized. Even though she was far, far too young and innocent for the likes of him.
Beware those green eyes, Neil.
Even as Neil looked across the table at Raine Crockett and felt a little part of him melt like a warm candy bar, he could hear Quito’s warning in his head.
Chapter Three
Clearing his throat, Neil sipped his coffee and decided it was past time that he brought their conversation down to the real nitty-gritty of this meeting. He hadn’t flown all the way down here to Texas just to enjoy the charms of a beautiful ingenue. Not that he wouldn’t fly a thousand miles to lunch with an attractive woman. Neil had been known to do plenty of extravagant things to capture the hand of a fair lady. But Raine Crockett was off-limits. He expected she would be the sort that would leave a lasting impression on a man’s heart. And Neil definitely wasn’t in the market for heart problems.
“So tell me,” he ventured, “have you tried to hunt for your mother’s past before?”
A grimace tightened Raine’s lips. Just the memory of that time still had the power to hurt her. She’d been so confused and angry with her mother for not understanding her need to find the identity of her father. And since then, not much had changed with their stilted relationship. That was one of the main reasons Raine had decided to follow up on the photo in the newspaper. If she could discover the truth of Esther’s past and where her father might be, then maybe it would tear down the terrible wall between her and her mother.
With a single nod, she said, “Shortly after I graduated college I hired a private investigator, but Mother eventually found out about the whole thing and put a quick stop to it. She was furious with me. In fact, none of us on the ranch had ever seen her so angry. If I’d been living with her at the time, she would no doubt have thrown me out of the house. But by then I’d moved into an apartment of my own in town.”
“Oh. You don’t live on the ranch, but your mother does?”
She glanced at him and saw that he was surprised. No doubt he’d been thinking her mother tucked her into bed every night, she thought ruefully.
“That’s right. Esther has worked for the Sanchez and Saddler families ever since I was a baby. She lives in one of the smaller houses on the property. If she had her way, I would still be living there with her. But the two of us get crosswise with each other from time to time,” she admitted regretfully. “It’s best we’re not together too much.”
Neil held the same attitude about sharing a house with a woman. Too much togetherness was a bad thing. Tempers flared and cross words were flung until all the pleasure was taken out of having a companion in the first place. All too often he’d watched his mother and father go at it as if they were bitter enemies rather than husband and wife. He didn’t want that for himself. Ever. Just give him a few sweet, intimate hours with a woman and then he wanted to be left on his own, before all the fighting had a chance to start.
Shifting on the small, uncomfortable chair, he tried to push the sad memories of his parents from his mind. “So you still haven’t mentioned any of this to Esther?”
“No. Why borrow trouble?” she asked glumly.
He studied her thoughtfully as one question after another popped into his head. He wasn’t a detective, but, more often than not, a lawyer had to think and act like one. Asking the right questions meant success or failure in the courtroom. With Raine, Neil figured he was going to have to go gently. In more ways than one.
“It doesn’t bother you to go behind your mother’s back like this?”
Her gaze slid from his face but not before he saw a pained expression fill her green eyes.
“Actually it breaks my heart. Mother worked hard and raised me single-handedly. She loves me,” she told him in a quiet, strained voice. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt her. But I…more than anything, I want to find my father. I want him to be a part of my life. She can’t tell me anything about him. And she refuses to help me. So I have no other choice but to search on my own.”
Neil could feel her pain and he realized he wanted to help this young woman as much as he wanted to help his old friend Linc.
“I have to be frank, Raine,” he began in a thoughtful tone. “It strikes me as very odd that your mother doesn’t want to search for her past life. Most any woman would want to know if she still had a husband, a family somewhere. Isn’t she curious? I sure as heck would be.”
Raine turned back to face him and Neil could see the hopelessness etched upon her soft features.
“I realize it’s strange, Neil. That’s why we’ve argued so many times over this thing. The only reason she’ll give me is that she’s afraid there could have been something wrong in her past life and she doesn’t want to uncover it. In other words, fear of the unknown.”
“Hmm. Well, we know one thing. There was a man in her life. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been pregnant with you.”
Raine thoughtfully traced her forefinger around the rim of her coffee cup. In Neil’s newspaper article it had stated that Darla Carlton’s husband, Jaycee, had been found dead in a wrecked car between Progreso, Texas, and the Mexican border. Ever since Raine had read that bit of information she couldn’t help but wonder if the man might have been her father.
“Maybe this Jaycee could have been my father,” she mused aloud. She looked at him, her green eyes full of skepticism. “But how would I ever know? With him buried—” The doubts in her eyes vanished as she stared at him with sudden excitement. “DNA,” she blurted quickly. “If Jaycee Carlton had other children, I could have my DNA tested against theirs!”
Neil looked at her with regret. “I’m sorry, Raine. Jaycee didn’t have any children. As far as I know, Darla was the only woman he was ever married to.”
“Oh.”
