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For the second time in five minutes, Tessa had to fight back tears. What’s wrong with me? A delayed reaction to everything that had happened, she figured, including the tense drive over the same road her sister had been traveling when she crashed her rental car and wound up in a coma.
“It’s okay, Mom. We’re both dealing with a lot.”
Understatement of the year.
“Have you found him yet?” “Yes, but we haven’t had a chance to talk. Too much going on. He’s playing Santa at a holiday bazaar.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Joey and I stopped at a café and I asked our waitress about Cole Lawry. We left the car at the diner and walked the couple of blocks here.”
“Must be a pretty small town if everybody knows everybody. So you talked to him? Do you think he’s the one?”
Tessa glanced toward the ornate chair where she’d openly studied the man playing Santa Claus. “He’s wearing a white beard and has a couple of pillows stuffed around his middle, Mom. It’s kinda hard to tell what he looks like. But he has blue eyes.”
Intriguing blue eyes.
“Oh,” Autumn said. “Where is he now?”
“Probably changing clothes. Joey threw up on his lap. Too much excitement, I think, although he might be coming down with something.” She put the back of her hand to her nephew’s forehead. “He feels slightly feverish.”
“Oh, my poor bubba. Can I talk to him?”
Tessa lowered her purse to the ground again, then stood Joey on his feet. She knelt in front of him. “Grams is on the phone, sweetie. Wanna tell her good-night?”
He nodded and took the phone from her.
Knowing how short his attention span was and that he tended to drop things he no longer wanted, Tessa hovered over him. The tiny respite gave her mind a chance to weigh the pros and cons of continuing her plan or trying to come up with an alternative.
She looked around the church parking lot. The people who had been wandering among the booths when she and Joey first arrived were mostly gone. Only a few cars and trucks remained. A dozen or so women chatted in small groups, some calling out to each other as they carried stock to their minivans. Tessa couldn’t see any children.
That made her realize how late it was. She looked up and saw that the stars were out. “Damn,” she muttered.
Her rental car was three blocks away and the town didn’t look as though it had made streetlights a priority.
“O…kay,” Joey said in the singsong way that meant he was done with whatever it was he’d been doing. He opened his hand.
She caught the cherry-red phone inches from the pavement, her heart racing. This was her most immediate and tangible connection to the real world. The flight to Texas had been awful—made worse by the fear that her sister wouldn’t be alive when they got here; spending hours in a hospital watching Sunny confined to a bed, wires and machines attached to her body, was too scary to be real. Her cell phone, laptop and Black-Berry were Tessa’s touchstones of normalcy.
She decided not to call her mother back to say goodbye. Instead, she’d phone from the motel. She’d booked the place online and used her credit card to pay for it, so hopefully they were holding a room even though she was late checking in. Pocketing the phone, she stood and held out a hand. “I guess we’d better head back to the car, pal. It’s getting dark. Maybe we can see Santa another time.”
Joey looked toward the dais just as a lean man with sandy-blond hair and broad shoulders emerged from behind the curtained area. Santa’s changing room, she assumed. Instead of a red suit, he wore jeans, thick-soled work boots, a gray T-shirt and zippered sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed back on his well-muscled forearms. The sweatshirt bore a logo she couldn’t make out.
“Oh, good, you’re still here,” he said, jogging toward them. His smile struck her as friendly and real. He seemed nice. Too nice to be the recipient of the news she was there to deliver.
“We were just leaving. It sure gets dark fast around here.”
“Yeah, I know. Mom said she thought she saw you walk up. Are you staying nearby?”
“The Trail’s End Motel. But we walked here from the diner. The waitress said it was only a couple of blocks away, but they were really big blocks.”
He gave her a rueful grin. “Yep, this is Texas. Everything’s bigger. I’m guessing you’re not from around here.”
“Oregon,” she said, watching for some kind of reaction.
“Wow. Long way from home. Can I give you a lift to your car? River Bluff isn’t exactly famous for its sidewalks.”
A voice in her head warned against hopping into a car with a stranger, but she made a snap decision. “Sure. Thanks.” He was the man she’d come here to find. Although he didn’t know that or he might not have been quite so kind and generous. “I take it you’re off duty?”
“Till six-thirty tomorrow. The regular you-know-who broke his hip. I’m a last-minute replacement.”
Tessa was touched by his acknowledging Joey’s presence, although she could tell Joey wasn’t paying attention to either of them. When the little boy ran out of steam, he had a tendency to drop, wherever he was.
“Is your car nearby?”
He pointed to a dust-coated silver Forerunner parked a couple of yards away. It was one of the last vehicles left in the lot, which was probably quite big when it wasn’t filled with a holiday bazaar and a fake North Pole.
“Hey, Joey, can I carry you? Your aunt looks like she’s ready to call it a day, too.” He looked at Tessa before holding out his arms to her nephew. “Um…not that you aren’t beautiful. Just tired,” he stammered. “I’ll shut up now. My sister, Annie, says I only open my mouth to switch feet.”
Tessa laughed. “It’s okay. I’m not offended. Joey, sweetheart, can this nice man carry you?”
He shook his head and plastered his body to her leg. Tessa leaned down and picked him up. Joey shyly buried his face in the crook of her neck, refusing to even acknowledge Cole.
“No problem. I’ll open the door for you.” He started away, then stopped and reversed direction. He held out his hand. “I’m Cole Lawry, by the way.”
She couldn’t quite manage to shake his hand, but she wiggled her fingers. “Tessa Jamison. This is my nephew, Joey Barnes. His mother—my sister—is Sunny Barnes.”
He repeated the name, his expression thoughtful. “Why does that sound famil—” His eyes widened. “Do you mean the same Sunny who used to work at BJM Realty?”
Tessa nodded.
“Are you kidding? I haven’t seen her in a couple of years. And you said she’s in the hospital? What happened? Is she going to be okay?”
Too many questions to answer while holding twenty-five pounds of dead weight. “Can we talk in the car?”
“Oh, of course,” he answered. “I’m sorry. You just took me by surprise.” As he hurried ahead of her, she noticed a slight hitch to his gait. A few seconds later, he was helping her into the four-wheel-drive vehicle.
“Can you hop up on the seat with him in your arms? How ’bout if I hold your purse?”
She shifted Joey to the right so she could extend her left arm. The relief was tangible as he slid the strap from her shoulder. “Thanks.”
“No problem. What do you have in here? Gold bars?” he asked, jiggling the bag with exaggerated effort.
“Spoken like a true nonparent. I was the same until Joey came along. Now, I have a standing appointment with a chiropractor every two weeks.”
He wedged the bag on the floor behind the seat. “Good to know. I’m going to be an uncle in a few months. My sister is expecting her first child.”
“Will this be your mom’s first grandchild?”
He nodded. “She’s over the moon.”
“That was my mother on the phone a minute ago. She and Joey are really close. She’s with Sunny at the hospital.”
He moved in to steady her as she settled into the passenger seat. She could smell peppermint on his breath. From the candy canes he’d been giving out, she guessed.
“Thanks,” she said, pulling up her legs. The interior of the truck appeared much cleaner than she’d expected.
He grabbed the door but didn’t close it. His sandy brows came together in a pensive frown. “Just out of curiosity, how’d you happen to wind up in River Bluff tonight?” Before she could answer, he said, “Oh wait, you’re probably headed to the commune. That’s where Sunny was living when I met her. What’s the name of her friend? Andrea… Emily…”
“Amelia,” Tessa supplied.
“Right. It’s only a few miles south of here. I could draw you a map.”
Tessa looked at him. She was too tired to get into this, but putting things off had never worked for her in the past, so she took a deep breath and said, “I do want to see Amelia to tell her about Sunny, but that’s not the reason I’m here. I came to River Bluff looking for you.”
“Me. Really? Why?”
“Because I need to know if you’re Joey’s father.”
CHAPTER TWO
COLE STRUGGLED TO make sense of what she was saying. Me? A father? To Sunny’s kid? But in order for that to be true, he and Sunny would have had to make love. Which they never did. Right?
He shivered as a thought occurred to him. There was that one night when he and Sunny had bumped into each other at the bar. A low point in his life when he’d tried to drown his troubles. He’d been too drunk to drive home. Sunny had been a friend, she’d put him up for the night. But nothing happened. He was sure of it. Almost positive.
“You think this little boy is mine?” he asked, staring at the profile of the child asleep on his aunt’s shoulder. “That’s a serious charge. Do you have some kind of proof?”
She let out a long sigh and shook her head. “None, but I have a DNA kit in my purse. And, just to be clear, I’m not accusing you of anything. Sunny came back to Texas to confront Joey’s father, but before she could talk to him—or tell me the man’s name, she rolled her car. She’s in the hospital in San Antonio in a coma. Her prognosis is… guarded.”
He didn’t like the flat, defeated way she said the word. “I don’t know what to say. Your sister was so bright and bubbly. The hospital…a coma….” He shook his head. “Wait. If she didn’t tell you about me, then how did you get my name?”
“Her diary. I brought it along and I’d be happy to show the passage that put you on the top of my list. Later. After I get Joey in bed, maybe?”
Cole hesitated. He wanted this cleared up as soon as possible and was curious as hell about what Sunny had written, but he hadn’t been kidding when he said she looked exhausted.
She took a deep breath and let it out then said, “If I’ve made a mistake, we’ll leave in the morning. No hassle, I promise. I’m not trying to pin Joey’s paternity on anybody. I only want to do the right thing for my nephew. I know what it’s like to grow up without a father.”
Grow up without a father. Same as Cole. Something he wouldn’t wish on anybody. “Where’d you say you were staying?”
“The Trail’s End Motel. We haven’t checked in, but they should be holding a room. I paid for it online with my credit card.”
“You should be okay. Things are slow this time of year and I know the desk clerk, Barney. How ’bout if I drive you there, then go after your car?”
He closed the door without waiting for an answer. By the time he started the engine, she had her eyes closed. Her chin brushed the top of her nephew’s head when they hit a pothole.
Even driving slowly, it only took a few minutes to reach the small, cottage-style motel across the street from the Medina River. He pulled up to the office and parked.
Tessa lifted her head.
“Wait here,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll get you registered.” He opened the door and got out but returned a second later. “I’m sorry, Tessa. I forgot your last name.”
“Jamison.”
“Got it. I’ll be right back.”
He dashed into the overly heated reception anteroom. As expected, the man behind the counter was hunched over his computer and barely glanced up—until it hit him that the person resting his elbows on the counter wasn’t a tourist.
“Cole. What the heck are you doing here?” Barney asked. “You know we don’t rent rooms by the hour.”
“You’re quite the joker, man, but no, that’s not why I’m here.”
“Are you gonna invite me to the poker game? You could have called. You didn’t need to stop by.”
Cole glanced out the window at the woman who was watching them. “You’re holding a room for a friend. Tessa Jamison. She said she put it on her credit card. If you give me the right price, then I’ll guarantee you a spot at the table.”
Barney returned to his computer. “I was wondering what happened to her. She’s a friend of yours?”
“Yep. Her and her boy. They stopped by the holiday bazaar and we got talking.”
“Is she staying just the one night?”
Cole had no idea. She’d suggested they talk in the morning, but he had to work. Maybe she planned to stick around, but with Sunny in hospital, more than likely she’d be heading back to the city right away.
“She’ll let you know in the morning. Her kid is asleep and I told her people in this town don’t stand on protocol. That’s not a problem, right?”
Barney frowned. “Are you trying to get me fired?”
“Your mother wouldn’t do that to you, Barn, and you know it. Besides, it’s almost Christmas.”
Barney snickered. “I heard about you playing Santa. Not exactly type-casting, was it?”
“I’m gonna be an uncle in a few months. I’m thinking of this as on-the-job training. Come on, Barney, what’s a little paperwork among friends?”
It took some more wheedling, since Barney insisted he needed her photo ID and vehicle license number, but Cole finally got a room key. He hurried back to the car and hopped in. “Straight ahead. Number five. I’ll pick up your car while you put Joey to bed.”
“Are you sure? We can walk to it in the morning. You seem to favor one foot. I hate to put you out.”
Shit. She’d noticed his limp. I must be more tired than I thought. Usually, his ankle only bothered him after a long day of car-pentry. Of course, today he’d worked all day then bounced little kids on his knee for a couple of hours. “I’m fine. Occupational hazard.”
He parked in front of the small cabin. A rustic overhead fixture gave off just enough light for him to see the lock. He opened the door then stepped inside to turn on the light. He waited while she laid the sleeping child on the double bed.
She carefully removed the toddler’s jacket and shoes before pulling the covers over him. Standing, she arched her back slightly and let out a sigh. “I didn’t realize how heavy he could get. I’m not sure I would have made it if we’d had to walk. And he’s a real bear when you wake him up to put him into his car seat.”
“No problem. If you give me your key, I’ll run after your car. Make and color?”
She sat on the bed closest to the door and opened her purse. “White Toyota Camry. With a baby seat in the back. Please don’t wreck the car. I had to sign a waiver that said only I would drive it.”
“It’s five blocks. I guarantee it’ll be fine.”
