“That’s our Rosie,” he said, staking claim with one hand on Rissa’s hip.
Gib nodded his understanding that she was off limits. “Gib Douglas.”
“Yeah, I heard. Randall Mackey. Call me Mackey. I’m a horse guy myself, but I’ve heard a lot about you. Congrats on the latest championship.”
“Thank you. Rissa and I went to school together the last two years of high school. But I heard all about the Four Horsemen from the day I arrived.” Mackey, Jackson Gallagher, Ian McLaren and David Butler had been inseparable and as famed for their mischief as their athletic exploits.
Mackey grinned. “Any of it good?”
“We all wanted to be you guys. Heroes and hell raisers.”
Mackey chuckled. “Glad you’re here. I know Raymond and Nita have been looking forward to your visit. We’d like to have you out to the ranch if you have time.”
“I can’t stay in town as long as I wish, but I’d like that. Got to get ready for the new season, I’m afraid.”
“Ris and I travel a lot ourselves, so I hear that.”
“Mackey used to do film stunts after he left the SEAL Teams,” Rissa said, “And now he trains horses for the movies, in addition to building our own herd.”
“I’m not half the trainer Red here is,” he said. The mutual admiration would be too saccharine to tolerate if Gib couldn’t see the deep devotion between them.
“Thank you for your service.”
“Appreciate that. We won’t monopolize you anymore.” They nodded and moved off.
“Did you know when you made the call for two tires and a splash at Phoenix that it would lock you into the points lead?”
Gib glanced over at the speaker, a young girl of maybe twelve or thirteen, he’d guess, wearing his team’s cap with her dark ponytail sticking out the back. Pretty insightful question for a kid. “No,” he admitted. “But we needed to get off pit road ahead of the 87 car.”
“Is it true that all the teams in your shop get victory bonuses, no matter which team wins?” Her eyes were blue and slightly tilted up at the corners. Somehow they seemed familiar.
He nodded. “I think it’s a good policy.”
“It seems odd to me. You’re racing against the others in your shop.”
“It’s not an easy balance,” he admitted. Tempers could fly in his very competitive business, and no one was more driven to win than him, but he couldn’t lead a team if he couldn’t control himself.
“So after a race, when your team loses and—”
“Torie!” A younger African-American boy skidded to a halt beside her. “Mom says come eat. The rest of us are nearly finished.”
The girl named Torie looked exasperated. “Not yet, Andre,” she whispered fiercely.
“You’re gonna be in trouble,” Andre said. “We have to get Bobby home soon, you know.”
“I know, but I just need to—” Her cheeks were fiery red. “Don’t you know who this is?” she muttered.
Gib crouched down to the boy’s level. “It’s my fault,” he said, extending his hand for a shake. “Hi, Andre. I’m Gib Douglas, crew chief of the No. 91 car. Your sister and I were just talking racing.”
The boy took his hand but rolled his eyes. “That’s practically all she ever talks about.” Then his gaze widened. “The 91—wow! You’re the champions!”
“We are,” Gib agreed.
“That’s really cool,” Andre said. Then he frowned. “But I’m supposed to bring her back. It’s a school night, so we have to get home. Our mom’s right over there.” He pointed behind Gib.
“Well, I don’t want to get Torie in trouble.” Gib rose. “You suppose it would help if I explained?”
Torie’s eyes were the wide ones now. “Would you?”
Gib glanced at his aunt and uncle. They nodded and smiled. “You go right ahead, son,” his Uncle Raymond said. “We’ll get a booth but wait to order.”
“I won’t be a second,” he promised. “Andre, how about you lead us?” He glanced at Torie and winked.
“Sure!” Andre took off like a shot.
“Slow down—” Torie ordered, then sighed as the boy did exactly the opposite.
“So you follow racing,” Gib began. “When did you start?”
She ducked her head shyly. “I can’t remember when I didn’t. I watched with my dad when I was little. I’ve seen nearly every one of your races.” She smiled up at him. “I want to be in NASCAR someday.”
“As a driver?” he asked. “There are more women on the track now than ever.”
“Drivers aren’t the most important part of the team,” she insisted. “They come and go. I’d like to own a team.”
Gib’s eyebrows flew upward. “That’s quite a goal you’ve got there.”
She slanted him a decidedly sassy look. “You don’t believe I can?”
Gib laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. “I’d be a fool to bet against you, I’m beginning to think.” They traded smiles. “So do you go to the races much?”
Those eyes that seemed so familiar darkened. “I’ve never been to one.” She shrugged. “My mom can’t afford it.” Her features grew determined. “But I’m saving my money for the spring Texas race. Mom doesn’t like racing, but she won’t let me go alone. If I can save enough for all of us to have tickets, I’m hoping I can change her mind.” She glanced ahead. “Uh-oh.”
“Young lady, you know we have to go soon.”
That voice. Gib went very still.
“But Mom—” Torie protested. “This is—”
Even as Gib was turning to face the woman who’d spoken, something deep in his gut was telling him her identity before he ever took a look.
And when he did, his heart stumbled, even as the ashes of anger and hurt sparked to life again. The curly brown hair was shorter now, but the eyes—her daughter’s eyes—still possessed the power to level him. To strike straight at his soul.
She stood there, holding the hands of a small Asian girl and an undernourished little boy. Her face had lost all color. “Gib.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He wanted to hate her for breaking his heart. Wanted to make her explain why she’d betrayed him.
But “Hello, Dulcie,” was all he could manage.
Dulcie Langley Maguire was a schoolteacher, and a good one. She talked for a living, but not one word would come from her mouth except his name.
Gib. Dear mercy, but the lanky, somewhat shy boy who was so good with engines had grown into a heartthrob. She’d seen his pictures, of course—it was difficult to avoid them since Torie followed his career the way most girls idolized rock stars—but in person, he was even more handsome.
Of all the people in the world she didn’t want her daughter within miles of, why had fate brought him here? After she’d been widowed, she’d moved back to Sweetgrass, needing the familiar even though she had no family left. Gib never returned to Texas except for races—she’d checked that out before moving back. She’d given up so much to see that he could have the career he’d dreamed of, and he’d more than lived up to the steep goals he’d set for himself. He’d made it to the top, and she was happy for him, honestly.
She just didn’t want him anywhere near Torie. She hadn’t doubted the wisdom of her decision, the toughest one she’d ever made, not for years.
But now she wondered. Torie was literally glowing in his presence, and Dulcie had seen, in those seconds before his identity had come crashing in on her, that he’d been good with her daughter. Hadn’t patronized her but seemed truly interested in what Torie had to say.
Couldn’t he see? More frightening, could Torie?
Her husband Tom’s only condition for the marriage was that everyone believe that he was Torie’s biological father, that Dulcie would never tell anyone otherwise. At the time, it had seemed the right thing to do for all of them. Gib had held such hopes, and a teenage marriage with a baby on the way would have destroyed every one of them. She’d loved him to her marrow, and he’d sou
nded so thrilled every time he’d called from Charlotte that she couldn’t bear to end those dreams. She didn’t doubt that Gib would have returned to Sweetgrass Springs and gone back to work in the garage where he’d been employed all through high school, in order to support her and their child.
She’d loved him too much to put him in that position.
So she’d left Sweetgrass and gone to live with relatives while she had the baby. She’d been supposed to give her up for adoption, but she’d known all along that she couldn’t part with Gib’s child, no matter what that demanded of her. When she’d met Tom, a decent guy whose family lived next door to her relatives, he’d fallen for her even though she was pregnant. They’d spent more and more time together, and one day he’d proposed marriage to her. Offered to raise her child as his own. Though she’d been heartbroken over Gib, she’d appreciated Tom’s steady solidness…had eventually come to care deeply about him.
But she couldn’t love him the way she’d loved Gib.
“Listen, it’s not Torie’s fault. We got to talking—” Gib began.
Exactly what Dulcie couldn’t let happen. Wrong decision or not, Gib’s life was now lived in the fast lane. He traveled, dated gorgeous women, had a demanding career. His world was light years from her own simple country existence. Anyway, he might not even want to know about Torie. Or might not believe her.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t lied to him before. I’m sorry, Gib, she’d said, though the words had literally nauseated her. Our dreams are different. I’ve changed my mind; I won’t be coming to Charlotte after all. When she’d gotten off the phone, she’d cried until she’d gotten sick. Then she’d lain in her bed for days, too depressed to eat or sleep—until she’d realized that she might be harming her baby.
Their baby.
“Torie can be a bit headstrong,” she admitted, which was like calling the Pacific a pond.
“Moo-oomm—” Torie complained, her face a study in devastation to be denigrated in front of her hero.
Torie was her heart. Dulcie found a shaky smile for her daughter. “Pot calling the kettle black?”
Torie’s smile was her reward. “You said it, I didn’t.” Her smile was also her father’s, and seeing it tore at Dulcie’s heart. Rattled her faint grip on her composure.
She had to get out of here. She summoned every last bit of poise she possessed to sound impartial. “Well, Gib, it’s been nice to see you. We’d better be moving along, since it’s a school night.” She nodded behind him. “I know other people are wanting to visit with you.”
Gib’s forehead creased at her dismissal. Just for a moment, their eyes met, and she could see questions she couldn’t afford to answer.
She could also recognize that he was weary and troubled. A treacherous part of her wanted to reach out and take care of him.
“Dulcie—” he began.
“I told you, Bob. That is Gib Douglas. Gib, over here!”
“Mr. Douglas, could I have your autograph?” A little boy held out a piece of paper.
“Bye, Gib,” Dulcie said. “It was—” Her voice cracked a little, and she prayed he hadn’t heard it. “It was good to see you.”
“Dulcie—” But he was rapidly swallowed up in a crowd.
“Mom, can’t we wait?” Torie asked.
Dulcie could see her daughter’s heart breaking, but she had to hold firm or she would fall to the ground and weep herself. “Honey, it’s way past the little ones’ bedtime, and we all have school tomorrow. We’ll take your food with us.” She wanted escape more than her next breath.
Oh, Gib… Her heart ached in torment at all she’d lost. All she’d given up.
Fortunately, Torie was a good child, if headstrong. Reluctantly, she followed. Dulcie picked three-year-old Bobby up and held tight to six-year-old Lily’s hand. “Andre, you hold onto Torie,” she ordered. At eight, Andre took his role as eldest male in the house seriously, however much she wanted him to be free to be just a kid.
Bobby fell asleep on the way home, and Lily was drooping.
In the passenger seat, Torie asked softly. “He said your name. Does that mean you know him?”
Oh, please, no. Dulcie prayed silently for deliverance. “He went to high school in Sweetgrass Springs.”
“You never told me that.”
“It’s been a long time.” Dulcie shrugged, hoping she wouldn’t have to out and out lie to this child of her heart, adding one more black mark to her record. She held her breath as Torie’s busy mind clicked almost audibly beside her.
“He was really nice,” Torie said at last. “He didn’t treat me like a kid.”
Dulcie’s relief made her head swim. She was beyond exhausted, with a great deal of work still ahead of her tonight, and what she wanted more than anything was a little space to be very still and try to absorb the impact of seeing again the only man she’d ever loved.
But she’d take this respite. “I’m glad,” she said simply, and concentrated on the drive home.
“Well, well, Gib Douglas…” veteran waitress Jeanette Carson mused from the kitchen. “Television doesn’t do him justice. Knew he wouldn’t be the skinny gearhead from high school, but my oh my…”
Ruby stared into the dining room where Gib still stood after Dulcie and her children had gone. “I always wondered…”
When she didn’t continue, Jeanette spoke up. “Wondered what?”
Secrets didn’t last long in Sweetgrass, but Ruby didn’t care to be the one who exposed them. The air had practically crackled with chain lightning, however, once Gib and Dulcie came face to face. She hadn’t given the past much thought when Dulcie had returned with her family, only the eldest being her natural child, but surely anyone with eyes in their heads could see…
“What is it?” Jeanette prodded.
“Nothing.” Ruby scrambled to cover for her preoccupation. “Just enjoying how happy Nita looks. Gib has been real good to them, but having him here is making her glow like she swallowed the sun or something.”
“Wonder if he’ll be here for the community Christmas?” Henry Jansen asked from the grill beside her. “The more the merrier, right?”
“That’s true. Speaking of which, the supply order for the cookie-making should be delivered tomorrow mid-morning. Could you check it in for me, Jeanette?”
“Don’t I always take care of the details? But Henry placed the order, so you know it will be right.” Jeanette was a little snappish, and Ruby wondered if she’d just flat have to boot the girl out of town to get her to do what was best for herself. She was the most gifted seamstress Ruby had ever known, with a real talent for design that was completely self-taught. She had an opportunity in L.A. that she was sure slow about capitalizing upon. Ruby was tempted to bring up the topic again, but now wasn’t the time. The dinner rush had barely begun. “I do. I appreciate both of you. I don’t know what I’d have done all these years without you, young lady.”
What was keeping her here, when she had yearned for the wider world all her life and now had a chance to make her mark out there? What was holding her back?
“What is it?” Jeanette asked.
“Nothing.” Ruby shook off her worries. Jeanette had been grown for a long time.
And alone even longer.
“Just wondering if I should have ordered one more turkey and a couple more hams.”
“Bridger and Tank are barbecuing. How much meat can one town eat?”
“A lot,” Henry offered. “And this year we have more geeks.”
“Those wiry little guys can eat their weight and half again, I swear,” Jeanette remarked. “Spike spends more time trying to fill their hollow legs than creating pastries.”
“Mostly she just never sleeps,” Henry said. “But speaking of pastries, you should see the marzipan she created for Dreams this weekend, special for the season. They’re all based on the Nutcracker. She blows my mind with her skills. And based on how people react to her desserts, I think she mixes magic in them.”
>
Jeanette laughed. “Love has done something to your brain, Henry. I can practically see the little lovebirds twittering above your head.”
Henry blushed, but he also cast his gaze out into the dining room in search of the object of his affections. “If my brain is messed up, all I can say is I like crazy.”
Ruby saw sorrow shadow Jeanette’s features, and she waited for Jeanette to say something caustic, her usual defense.
“I don’t blame you,” Jeanette said softly instead. “Love looks good on you and Brenda both. More power to you.” Then her mouth quirked. “So is an engagement ring going to show up under the Christmas tree for her?”
It was Henry’s turn to sigh. “Not yet. Brenda’s got too much going on with managing the flower farm and getting ready for spring, plus we’ve been cleaning out the space Jackson is providing for her flower shop on the square. It’s too soon.”
“Lord love a duck, Henry, you’ll both be older than Ruby if you don’t get a move on.”
“Jeanette…” Ruby cautioned before turning to the young man who’d made himself indispensable to her. “Surely you’re not still stuck on that notion that Brenda’s too young?” she asked him.
“No. I know what you said about people waiting so long these days to marry and have children, but I just—” He exhaled. “She is young, and she hasn’t had many choices in her life. It won’t kill me to be patient. She’s still getting used to having her mother in her life, and she’s spread pretty thin between waitressing, the flower farm and the shop.”
“Do I need to fire her?” Ruby asked. “For her own good?”
His eyes went wide with alarm. “Would you do that?”
“It looks as though I might have to. Along with shipping Jeanette out the door to spread her wings.” But Jeanette had already returned to the dining room, so the threat went unheard. “If only both of them weren’t such a big help to me. I don’t want them staying for me, though.”
“They love you, Ruby. We all do. You can’t help it that this place is the town’s heart.” He glanced over. “Do you ever think of retiring?”
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