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“What? You think I’m being judgmental?”
“She’s doing what you would do. She and her mother can’t both be in Sunny’s room, because one of them has to keep the kid busy. How do you entertain a toddler in a strange town?”
Annie’s eyes went wide. “You like her. And feel sorry for her.” She stepped back, a hand at the small bulge in the waistline of her brightly flowered cotton pajama bottoms. “No, Cole. No. This isn’t a hawk with a broken wing. Or a three-legged cat. Or a cowardly dog who barks at his own shadow. You’ve got the biggest heart in Texas, but you can’t save everybody who falls into your life with a sad story. Didn’t you learn your lesson with Crystal?”
“I learned a lot of lessons from Crystal, but this isn’t the same. Tessa doesn’t want anything from me but a little swab of DNA, and frankly, I’m not worried about that. If it turned out the kid—Joey, his name is Joey—is mine, then I’d be okay with that. Your baby would have an older cousin.”
“That’s not how it works, Cole. You don’t just open your mouth and give them spit because they ask. First, you protect yourself. You call a lawyer and—”
“My lawyer won’t talk to me until I pay off my bill.”
“Oh, stop. You’re being obtuse. This is your future, Coley-boy, and I’m not going to let some stranger trash it when you’re just now getting back on your feet. I’ll go see her in the morning and—”
Cole recognized that particular tone. He called it her crusader voice. He took Annie’s shoulders in his hands and made her look at him. “No, you won’t. She’s going back to San Antonio in the morning, and I told her I’d come see her at the motel where she and her mother are staying. I want to visit Sunny. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that there’s a beautiful young woman who might be dying. The rest of this will shake out. Got it?”
Annie closed her mouth in a pout that her husband claimed to find endearing but Cole knew meant trouble. “I’m going home now, Annie. Leave it alone. Promise?”
He squinted at her sternly until she nodded, but he had an uneasy feeling she was going to spend the rest of the night figuring out a way around her promise.
“Where’s Blake, by the way?”
“Had an early meeting. Decided to stay in the condo.”
Annie and Blake were still working out the logistics of their complicated lives, but Cole had no doubt they’d figure it out eventually. They loved each other and that was what counted.
“Your ankle’s bothering you again, isn’t it?”
“Nothing an ice pack and a couple of painkillers can’t handle.”
She frowned. “Cole. When are you going to see that orthopedic specialist I recommended?”
Never. “I’m busy. I have to work, remember?” He could tell from the concern in her eyes that she didn’t buy his excuse for a minute. She knew the circumstances around the injury. She knew too much. “I’m leaving now.”
She followed him to the edge of the porch and watched him walk to his car. “You have a right to live without pain, Cole. Dad would hate it if he thought you were suffering because of him.”
He pretended not to hear. Nobody could say what Tim Lawry thought, and the man sure as hell wasn’t here to set the record straight.
TESSA AWOKE at dawn and managed to work a good hour at her laptop before Joey woke up. She and Marci had rewarded themselves with a month’s vacation each to celebrate
A.R.E. Consulting’s successful year. Marci and her husband had spent November in Scotland and England. Tessa had planned to use a few of her abundant frequent-flier miles to head to Hawaii the first week in December then return home to paint her spare bedroom. That had been before she got the call about Sunny. Autumn and Tessa had had to pack up and leave so quickly Tessa hadn’t been able to clear everything off her calendar. She’d rescheduled her final couple of follow-up appointments during an extralong, weather-related layover in Denver, but she hadn’t gotten a chance to firm up her first-of-the-year contact list before she left town.
A.R.E. was an acronym for what Tessa and Marci believed was an ongoing process needed to keep any business—big or small—solvent, growth oriented and viable. Assess, Reassess and Evaluate. Their partnership was a perfect model. Every quarter, they set aside one afternoon to go over their records and reports. As she often told clients, “Taking a cold, hard look at your company can save a lot of heartache down the road.”
Tessa and Marci had already set the date for their fourth-quarter review. December twenty-sixth. The day after Christmas. Tessa had planned to have her January clients in the queue, contracts in hand, but now it appeared Marci would have to handle January.
The least Tessa could do was provide a nice, neat contact sheet, complete with payment schedule. If each of these potential jobs panned out, she and Marci would be looking at doubling their income over the year before.
Unfortunately, the contact list was quite spread out geographically. Las Vegas. Baltimore. Anchorage. Houston.
“Houston.” She closed her eyes and tried to picture a map of the state of Texas. She’d been to Dallas twice, once to attend a small-business seminar and a few years later to teach a workshop at the same seminar. She had a vague recollection that Houston was farther south and east.
“I wonder how far Houston is from here—”
Why? Because if she were in the state on business, she’d have an excuse to look up Cole Lawry again?
Her eyes blinked open and she quickly closed her program and logged off. Ridiculous. Wouldn’t happen. Ever.
She stood up and stuffed her lightweight VIAO into its carrying case. She’d already wasted way too much time going over every aspect of their meeting. The compassionate way he’d handled Joey’s vomiting. His pique when he thought she was a stooge working for his ex-wife. The dichotomy of his upper-body strength juxtaposed with his slight limp.
He was intriguing, but so not her type.
“Stop it,” she muttered. “I don’t do intriguing, remember?”
She didn’t normally talk to herself, either.
She nestled the computer in a spot in her suitcase and zipped the bag shut, not caring how noisy she was. It was time for Joey to wake up. After she got him dressed, she would settle her bill then they’d walk someplace for breakfast. Maybe the same diner they’d eaten in the night before. With any luck, they’d be on the road by ten.
“Joey—” She gently touched the child’s shoulder. Some mornings he woke up swinging, duking it out with imaginary villains. Sometimes he’d cry for five or ten minutes, as if his whole world were ending. When he woke up on his own, he tended to be happier.
“Mommy,” he cried, eyes squeezed tight, arms out.
“Oh, honey boy, I’m sorry. It’s me, Auntie Tessa. Come here, love. Let me hold you till you wake up.”
He sobbed against her shoulder, but only for a few seconds. Blinking sleepily, he mumbled, “Brecky?”
Sunny’s word for his favorite honey-sweetened cereal. Tessa had learned not to leave home without it. It dawned on her that he must be famished since he’d lost his dinner on Santa’s lap. She fished a small bag out of her purse.
“Sure. You can nibble on some while I get you dressed, then we’ll go have some pancakes. Or eggs. You can pick, okay?”
The morning sped past, the way time does when you’re dealing with a toddler. The older woman behind the desk of the motel had been perfectly agreeable with Tessa leaving her car while they went to breakfast. The slight overcast of early morning had given way to bright sunlight and Tessa regretted leaving her sunglasses in the rental.
By the time they got back to the motel, her head was pounding. Fortunately, whatever had caused Joey’s upset stomach the night before hadn’t returned. Still, she bought an extra package of wet wipes at the drugstore, just in case.
“Come on, sweets, we have to get going. Grandma is waiting for us.”
“Uh-uh. Play more.”
She’d promised him ten minutes in the sandbox at the playground across the road from their motel. That had been a good half an hour ago.
Not that she blamed him. She wasn’t in any hurry to get back in the car, either. There was something very peaceful and uncomplicated about this town, she decided, staring at the leafless trees standing guard over the aquamarine-colored stream. The Medina River, the motel woman had called it, but it wasn’t a river like the ones in Oregon.
Oregon. A world and a half away.
Home.
But was it home without her mother and sister? There had been times growing up when they hadn’t had a roof over their heads, but Tessa had always had her family.
“Okay, sweets, time’s up. We gotta go see Grandma.”
Joey let out a squeal and took off running as fast as his pudgy little legs would carry him. Laughing, Tessa chased him, stealthily herding him closer to the parking lot. When he realized his mistake, he started to pitch a fit, but Tessa scooped him up in her arms and tickled him until he was laughing again. “Grandma, Grandma, Grandma,” she repeated as she tucked him into his well-cushioned car seat.
He wiggled like a newly caught fish as she tried to clip the two ends of the belt together. “Hold still, kiddo. You’ve already broken most of my nails. There,” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Here’s your juice cup and your tractor.”
Once he seemed content—for the moment, at least—she closed the door. Her purse and the bag from the pharmacy were on the front passenger seat. She reached through the open window to get her sunglasses. As she searched for the case, she heard a horn honking and glanced up to see a woman with long curly hair round the corner on a bicycle.
The driver of the car yelled something Tessa couldn’t make out then kept going as the bicyclist careened into the motel parking lot.
“Goodness. Automobiles think they own the road, don’t they? Oh, hello. I was hoping I’d catch you,” the stranger hailed as she came to a stop a few feet away. She quickly hopped off the bike and engaged the kickstand. With an efficiency that bespoke years of practice, she whipped off her backpack and snatched out a slim, lined notepad before approaching Tessa with her free hand extended. “I’m from the local paper. I thought maybe we could do a piece to rally some support for your predicament.”
Tessa shook her hand, but not because she wanted to. “My predicament? You mean my sister’s accident? Well, thank you for the offer, but I’m not interested. How’d you hear about us?”
“Small town. Strangers in our midst. Word gets around.” She held up her notepad. “This won’t take long. I promise. Just a quote or two. People tend to be generous at this time of year.”
Tessa was definitely put off by the woman’s persistence, plus Joey wasn’t a patient waiter. “Thank you, but no. We’re doing fine. Sunny’s hospital bills are being covered by health insurance and there’s really nothing anyone can do at the moment.”
“Are you religious? We could organize a prayer chain. My mother’s church would be all over that.”
Religious? Does going to sleep at night praying that you’ll have food to eat the next morning count? “I appreciate the thought, but we’re not members of a church. We’re private people, and I’m sure my mother would be uncomfortable with anything intrusive.”
That seemed to have the desired effect. The reporter stopped scribbling and lowered the pad to stare at Tessa a moment. Then, in a stern, serious voice, she said, “You don’t think accusing a person of fathering a child he’s never heard about qualifies as intrusive?”
Tessa looked at her more closely, noticing details she’d missed. Like the subtle bulge at her waistline that said she was several months pregnant. “You must be Cole’s sister.”
“You’re right. I am. My name is Annie Smith. Cole came to see me last night. He told me about your accusation.”
“Well, get your facts straight. I didn’t accuse him of anything. I’m just trying to find out the truth—for Joey’s sake.” At that moment, a loud wail emanated from the car. Tessa turned to the backseat window. Joey had kicked off his shoes and was jamming his feet against the passenger-seat headrest. Obviously, he was fed up with being locked in his car seat while his aunt was standing around talking.
She felt Annie’s presence and turned to face her. “We have to go. I promised my mother I’d be back in San Antonio for the second shift of visiting hours. The nurses have been extremely conscientious, but it’s exhausting for one person to be there 24-7.”
Annie moved closer to the window and Tessa had to restrain herself from pushing Cole’s sister away. What if he was Annie’s nephew, too? The idea made her light-headed. She’d honestly never extrapolated the family factor. Joey’s father would have a family of some kind, maybe even additional children who would be Joey’s half siblings.
“What a cutie.” Annie wiggled her fingers against the window. “Look at that blond hair and blue eyes. I used to know a kid with the same blond hair and blue eyes.”
Tessa took that to mean her brother.
“Well, if you ever met my sister, you’d know Joey looks just like her. Now, if you don’t mind, we need to leave. When you see your brother, tell him…never mind. I’ll tell him myself.”
She got in the car and drove out of the parking lot without looking back, her heart beating double time, palms damp against the steering wheel. She didn’t appreciate having Cole’s sister imply that she had some kind of ulterior motive.
She remembered all too well what it was like to have people make assumptions about her—assumptions that were only true because of circumstance. Once she’d been old enough, she’d been able to change circumstance.
Annie Smith was wrong. Tessa didn’t want anything from Cole. Not his money, if his ex-wife had left him any. Not his busybody sister publicizing their plight. And definitely not his DNA.
She had one stop to make before returning to San Antonio. Sunny’s friend Amelia had been responsible for inviting Sunny to Texas in the first place. According to Sunny’s journal, Amelia had been there when Sunny met Cole Lawry for the first time.
With luck, Amelia would not only provide third-party confirmation that there was no way in hell Cole could be Joey’s father, but she’d be able to give Tessa a lead on the other two names that appeared in the journal. Mr. Big and someone Sunny called the G-man.
CHAPTER FOUR
COLE GLANCED AT his watch. Time seemed to be crawling. He’d come to work two hours early to make up for an afternoon of wages he planned to miss, but even so, the morning just wouldn’t end.
Maybe he was tired. After leaving Annie’s, he’d worked around his place until nearly one. His mind had refused to shut off thanks to the minute-by-minute replay of his encounter with Tessa. And sleeping pills weren’t an option. He’d relied on them too much when he lived in San Antonio and had thrown out every OTC package and prescription before moving back to River Bluff. Instead of tossing restlessly until dawn, he’d turned his attention to hooking up the sink in the guest bath.
One more thing to check off the list, he thought, grabbing his tape.
He measured the placement for the next stud then reached for the precut two-by-four. He had to use his hammer to knock it into place, then he grabbed the pneumatic nail gun.
Carpentry had been his first job out of high school. On-the-job training with a framing company working on custom homes for BJM Reality. That was how he met his future wife. Big Jim McNally’s daughter, Crystal. Hot. Gorgeous. Spoiled.
But for reasons he never completely understood, she picked him and the whirlwind began. He should have known better. He knew better now.
“Yo, Cole,” Ron said, tapping Cole on the shoulder. “Your phone is ringing. Third time in ten minutes.”
Cole turned to face his boss. Ron Hayward, whose red hair, freckled nose and boyish grin had earned him constant comparisons to a certain child actor growing up, now looked more like a young Andy Griffith than Opie. He pointed to Cole’s Carhartt vest on a stack of wallboard.
Cole dropped his hammer handle-first into its holder on his tool belt and tugged on the plastic tie that kept him from losing his earplugs when they weren’t in his ears. “Sorry, boss,” he said.
Who? he wondered. Tessa? He’d left her his cell number the night before in case anything changed in Sunny’s condition.
Frowning, he picked up the phone and scrolled down to view his missed calls. Brady Carrick, NFL wide receiver turned cardsharp turned horse trainer. Luke Chisum’s number came up second. Cole was relieved to have his friend, career army, back and out of harm’s way. The last number belonged to Blake Smith, his brother-in-law. Three of the five Wild Bunch brethren all calling within fifteen minutes of each other?
“What the hell could be so important?” he muttered, hitting Blake’s number first.
“A kid, Cole? You have a kid?”
Cole’s expletive made all of his fellow workers stop what they were doing and look at him. Muttering, he walked down the plank ramp to the ground. “She promised to keep that between us.”
Blake laughed. “Your sister is a reporter, Cole. It’s in her blood. And, for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure she hasn’t told your mother.”
But she would. Eventually. Cole swore again. The problem with living in a small town was nobody respected your boundaries.
“So, you called to give me a hard time about this?”
“No, actually. I just did that for fun. I called because I heard something I knew would interest you. It’s about Jake. Turns out you’re not the only one with a secret.”
“This particular secret isn’t mine. At least, I don’t think so. Although Mom would point out that this is the season for immaculate conceptions.”
His brother-in-law roared. “Well, until we learn otherwise, can I call him Cole Jr.?”
“Tell me why you called or I’m hanging up.”
“Spoilsport. Okay. You know Jake’s been low-key about what he’s been doing since he left town, right?”
Yeah. So low-key he’d never even found time to drop by and say, “How y’all doing?” “You’re not going to tell me you found out he’s been in jail the whole time, are you?”
“Nope. Just the opposite. I bumped into a guy at a meeting yesterday who said he knew Jake from his dealings with a West Coast company called TellMell.com. I checked on the Internet last night and sure enough, Jake’s name is at the top of the masthead of one of the hottest stocks on the market.”
“You’re shittin’ me. Why wouldn’t he say something?”
