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“It is, but I’m desperate.”
“Why did you want to take Autumn if it was going to be such a big deal to you?”
“It’s a long story,” he replied, “but I’ve told you the main reasons—I didn’t think she should become a ward of the state and her mother should be able to take her very soon. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.”
“Here comes Manny,” Marissa said, and then smiled. “Hi, Manny.”
“Hi, there, Marissa,” he said, wiping his hands on his apron, wearing his customary white undershirt that revealed his bodybuilder’s muscles. “Look at you. Aren’t you cute today.”
“Thanks, Manny,” she answered, her dimple showing again.
“Hi, Manny,” David said.
“Hi, David.” Manny looked at the baby. “This is the baby from last night, isn’t it?”
“Yes, little Autumn,” David said, still marveling how news circulated in the small town. He pulled out his wallet. “Let me pay you for the chili and for the other guys’ dinners.”
Manny waved his hand. “Forget it. It’s on the house. You earned a free dinner last night. The chili is on me,” the man said gruffly.
“Thanks, Manny, but you don’t need to do that.”
“Forget it. Did you see me on the tube last night?” Manny asked.
“No, I missed that. I was probably still at the hospital.”
“Yeah. I got interviewed by a Midland station, too. Wanted to know all about the woman and baby.”
So much for keeping a low profile, David thought. “How did Midland pick up the story?”
Manny shrugged muscled shoulders. “You know how news gets around in this part of the world. How’s the mother?”
“I don’t know,” David replied. “I’ll probably go by the hospital this afternoon.”
“Yeah, well, hope she recovers real quickly. It’s good you’re helping her out. Good Samaritan Sorrenson. What are you folks having? I’ve got a breakfast special—eggs, grits, sausage, biscuits and gravy.”
“Sounds fine,” David said. “Okay, Marissa?”
“I think just eggs and toast for me,” she replied.
“Aw, come on, Marissa. You need to put some meat on your bones,” Manny urged. “I’ll send out two specials plus some toast. You eat what you want.” He turned and left, passing Sheila at the counter and giving her a pat on the behind. Sheila giggled and sashayed away with platters of steaming bacon and eggs.
“Where do you live, David? You have a house in Pine Valley, don’t you?” Marissa asked, mentioning an exclusive gated area in Royal.
“That’s where my dad lives—when he’s in Texas and when he’s not traveling somewhere. Right now, he’s out of the country. I live on our ranch, just west of town.”
They talked about the job until Sheila brought platters of eggs, sausage, pale yellow grits with cheese and fluffy golden biscuits.
“I need to get some supplies for Autumn—she has very few clothes,” David said, putting salt and pepper on his eggs.
“I can help you select some clothing,” Marissa volunteered.
“Can we go back to the store from here and you show me what to get for her?”
“Sure. With your powers of persuasion, maybe you can talk my boss into letting me use my employee discount,” Marissa teased.
“That’s no problem.” David waved away her suggestion. “You just pick out what we need, including diapers and a crib.”
Marissa sat back and daintily wiped her mouth. David idly noticed that her mouth was delectable. He glanced at her platter.
“You didn’t eat much,” he said.
“I couldn’t possibly eat all that. I only ordered eggs and toast.”
“Yeah, well, Manny has never been known for small helpings. Ready to go?” he asked.
“Yes.” She paused when he picked up the bill. “I can buy my own breakfast, David.”
“You’re my employee now, and I’ll pay for your breakfast,” he said, picking up the carrier. He glanced at Autumn. “She’s sleeping better now than she did any time last night.”
“She may be more relaxed now. Babies can sense when someone is tense, I think.”
“Yeah, well, I was tense, all right, and so was she,” David admitted.
They left the Royal Diner and drove back to the store, where Marissa made selections. David bought far more than she thought was necessary, but he insisted that he didn’t want to have to come back and do this again. As soon as they finished making selections he arranged to have everything delivered to his house.
Outside in the parking lot, she turned to face him. “I’ll go home and pack. Would you like to come meet my grandmother?”
“I’d like to and I will sometime soon. I don’t want her to worry about your new job, but I have a meeting at noon and we shopped longer than I thought we would.”
“That’s because you almost bought out the store. Well, I’ll be at your ranch at four o’clock.”
He looked into her eyes, and he wondered if she had ever told a lie in her life. She didn’t look as if she possibly could. Idly, he wondered how Grandma Wilder dressed. She couldn’t be one degree more eccentric than her granddaughter. What was the house like? Visions of a gingerbread house danced in his mind.
“Okay, Marissa. See you at four. And thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, giving him one of her big smiles. She turned and walked away, pigtails bobbing and her full skirt and petticoat flouncing with each step. She wore some kind of striped stockings and what looked like pink ballet slippers, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to see her start skipping to her car. Before he climbed into his vehicle, he glanced over his shoulder again and saw her behind the wheel of a very ordinary-looking four-door sedan.
“Well, little Autumn, you have a nanny now. One I think you like and whom I certainly like,” David told the sleeping infant. “Tonight ought to be livable. Now, just keep sleeping, please. I have to go to the club to meet the guys, and babies aren’t usually allowed in the clubhouse. You sleep through that and I’ll buy you a rocking chair on the way home.”
In minutes David parked in the Texas Cattleman’s Club lot. The simple exterior of the clubhouse belied the elegant interior. With the carrier in hand, David entered the sprawling clubhouse, which was built in 1910 by Henry “Tex” Langley.
David strode through the familiar foyer, where walnut paneling was lined with oil paintings of past members. He continued through a lounge that held crystal brandy decanter sets, leather chairs, mounted animal heads and cases of valuable antique guns.
He finally entered a smaller room, reserved for their meeting. He was the first to arrive and settled down in a maroon leather chair, placing Autumn and her carrier on a chair next to him. Sunlight spilled through the long windows across the lush oriental carpet and over the pool table that stood on one side of the room. Along the opposite wall was a credenza holding another crystal brandy decanter set. A waiter quietly entered the room.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said, smiling at David. “Ah, and how’s the little one?”
“She’s fine at the moment, Jimmy.”
“Can I bring you something to drink?”
“You might as well bring us some coffee and probably some pop.”
“Fine. Anything else? Lunch?”
“Not for me. You can ask the others when they get here.”
“Fine,” the tall, graying man said, and left the room. No sooner had he disappeared through the door than Alex Kent came striding in. One look in his green eyes and David knew that Alex was bringing bad news.
Three
They shook hands, and Alex’s solemn look disappeared as he eyed David. “Good grief, man! What happened to you?”
David rubbed his whiskered jaw. “I didn’t have time to shave.”
“Yeah, so I see. Try buttoning your shirt right, too.”
“Oh, hell,” David mumbled, looking down at himself. “I just grabbed something to put on.”
“Rough night, huh? Did you have someone over and party after the wee one went to sleep?”
“Alex, you’re pushing your luck now. Hell, no, I didn’t party. I was up all night with her.”
Alex leaned over the sleeping baby. “She’s quiet enough now. I find it hard to believe that this little doll kept you up through the night.”
“You want to trade jobs?”
Alex grinned. “Nope.” He touched the baby’s arm lightly. “She’s a cute little thing.”
“Yeah, well, it was a hellacious night. And don’t you wake her,” David snapped.
Alex grinned, turning to look at David. “Good thing it was you. I don’t have a clue about kids.”
“You think I know anything about them?” David demanded. “I just hired a nanny. Have you heard anything about the mother?”
“No, I haven’t. Here’s our man now.”
Wearing the same clothes he had worn the night before and needing a shave, Clint strode into the room and shook hands with his friends. The waiter returned, bringing drinks and snacks, taking sandwich orders and then leaving.
With a long, purposeful stride, Ryan Evans entered and greeted them, and David shook hands with his quiet friend who, at thirty-two, was a few years younger than the rest of them. All the men clustered around the baby to look at her.
“I’ve got a nanny,” David announced again for the others.
“You may need her for a while,” Clint said solemnly as the men sat in leather chairs and David sat in a chair by Autumn. Curiosity was in Ryan’s brown eyes. “All right, guys, fill me in. Sorry I missed our usual chilifest.”
“I’ll bet you are,” Alex teased. “Who was she this time?”
Ryan grinned and shrugged. “I had a good time. Now, what happened last night?”
“You missed a lot,” David answered, relating the events starting with the woman’s rush into the Royal Diner the night before. When he finished he asked, “Ryan, you didn’t give this woman a Texas Cattleman’s card, did you?”
“Me? No, I didn’t.”
“Just checking. You get around.”
“I’ve been contacting members,” Alex said, “to see if I can find who might have known her and given her the card. So far, nothing.”
“I saw Manny this morning,” David informed them, “and he told me about being interviewed for television last night.”
“That was inevitable in a town this size,” Ryan said. “Anything unusual happens here and it’s all over town within the hour, much less something happening in the Royal Diner.”
“It’ll pass, though,” Alex remarked, taking a swig of pop.
David turned to Clint. “Now you need to bring us up to date on our mystery woman. Is she without a guard right now?”
“No, our Jane Doe has a guard. I called Aaron Black, and he said he could come into town and stay while I meet with y’all. He told me to take a few hours and get some sleep.”
“Aaron’s a good one to call,” David said, thinking of the tall Texas Cattleman’s Club member and fellow rancher.
“That’s the great thing about our members,” Alex said, stretching out his long legs. “They’re always willing to help.”
“That’s what we all want to do,” David added quietly. “Tell us about the woman, Clint. How is she?”
“Her condition doesn’t look good. She’s still in a coma. She’s malnourished and dehydrated. She just gave birth not long ago and she’s had a bad blow to her head,” Clint replied.
“Thank goodness I hired a nanny this morning,” David said, his hopes disappearing that the mother would be able to have her baby returned to her right away. He glanced at Clint, who had one jeans-clad leg propped up with his booted foot on his other knee. “What else?”
“She’s in ICU and they told me they’ll run tests all the rest of the week and probably into next week if she doesn’t come around. They did an EEG, an electroencephalogram, to check her brain because there’s some swelling.”
“It doesn’t sound good,” Ryan said.
“We better say some prayers that she survives,” Clint said, looking grimly at the baby. “That little girl can’t lose her mother,” he added, with worry in his blue eyes, and David was reminded of Clint’s loss of his wife when fire claimed her life. Clint always seemed to have the hurt bottled up inside him, and David knew Clint carried scars from the fire. David looked down at the two crooked fingers on his left hand, knowing that he had his own scars. Perhaps every man in the room did.
“We have to do all we can for both of them,” Alex said, bringing David’s thoughts back to the problem at hand.
“The hospital is concerned. They’re giving the mother a lot of attention, and we have an excellent staff here,” Clint added.
“That’s right,” David agreed. “With all the wealth that people in Royal have poured into Royal Memorial, it rivals big-city hospitals.” He shifted and looked at Alex. “Alex, what’s your report? Any information on her identity?”
“None,” Alex replied grimly. “There was a list of names in the bag she carried and I’ll investigate them. This morning I checked with Wayne Vicente and there’s no one on the missing person’s report who fits her description. So far I haven’t found out anything about her. Except one thing.” His green-eyed gaze circled the room as he looked at each man. “She was carrying about half a million dollars in that bag. Most of it in large bills.”
“Damn, that’s a lot of money,” Ryan remarked.
“I’d say it sounds like she’s in a lot of trouble,” David said, and the others nodded agreement.
“Half a million—what in blazes can she be mixed up in?” Ryan asked, and the men gazed at one another.
“Something dangerous,” Clint said grimly.
