Lonestar Homecoming

by Colleen Coble

She tipped her chin up in a challenge. “I want to talk to you too.”

  He glared back. In his mood, he could stare down a grizzly. “We need to settle who’s in charge of the kids.”

  She eased into the chair and folded her arms across her stomach. “I distinctly remember being hired for that position. And I was just promoted to be their mother.”

  He muted the TV. “I’m still their dad. If I want them to go to bed, they go to bed.”

  She leaned forward. “Michael, I’m a mother who has spent every minute with my daughter. Believe me when I tell you that your kids need structure and security.”

  He moved the ice to a different position on his knee. “I get that. But it was past his bedtime.”

  “They’ve just gone through the trauma of losing their mother. Evan realized you could have died today.”

  “I’m fine,” he grumbled.

  “Thank God for that. But in their minds you could be gone at any time.You haven’t been around much.”

  He winced. “Nothing like hitting a man where it hurts,” he said. “You think I wanted to miss out on their first steps, their first tooth?”

  Her gaze locked with his. “Then why did you?”

  He gritted his teeth. “I had to work, Gracie. I was supporting a family.”

  “I think you volunteered for overseas duty because you craved the adventure,” she said, her voice quiet.

  His jaw dropped. “Do you really think that?”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” she said. She reached toward him, then her hand dropped back to her knee. “You’re a crusader and you care about others. That adrenaline can get addictive. Or so I hear.” Her smile came and went.

  As her words penetrated, he swallowed hard, realizing she might have a point. “I don’t want to be an absentee dad.”

  “You’re making up for it now, Michael. I admire that.”

  She moved her hands to her knees and leaned forward. He tried not to look at the smooth column of throat where her blouse formed a V. Her curtain of blond hair fell across her cheek, and his hand itched to tuck it behind her ear.Why did she have to be so doggone cute? Her makeup was long gone, and the dusting of freckles across her cheeks gave her a wholesome, all-American-girl appearance.The quintessential girl next door.

  “A divorce is never easy on anyone,” she said. “Right now your kids are rudderless. If you give them any hint that we aren’t united, they’ll be uncontrollable. And still rudderless.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again.Who was he to argue? The absentee father who didn’t know squat about raising kids? “So how do we present a united front?”

  “A set bedtime, especially on school nights.”

  “You just broke that,” he pointed out.

  “Not rigid,” she said. “We have to pay attention to the kids and their needs.”

  “I can do that.What else?”

  “Enforcing regular mealtimes. Time spent outdoors. Homework time.The things that give structure to their days.”

  He nodded.“We can’t let them play us against each other either.”

  Her smile came. “And they need to know that they are to mind me just as they do you.We have to be a team pulling in the harness together.”

  Even through the pain in his knee, he recognized the truth in her words. He’d always heard kids needed loving structure. Structure without love or love without structure didn’t work. In his travels, he’d often been in a Target or other store and seen how kids ruled their parents. He’d always vowed never to raise kids like that, yet here he was, challenging the very woman who wanted to help shape them.

  He gave a grudging nod. “Where does discipline fit in with that? I’m not going to raise uncontrollable hoodlums.”

  “We’ll both be spending time with them. Cuddle time, bath time, reading time. Kids can tell when they’re loved and important. But that doesn’t mean giving in to every demand. We don’t want to raise tyrants who expect to control things.”

  He leaned back against the sofa. “So what’s my role? Shut up and do what you say?” He couldn’t help the scowl that took over his facial muscles.

  She chuckled. “Of course not.We need to both be on board.We discuss bedtimes and decide what’s best together.We can talk about how their playtime is to be spent and who is interacting with them.”

  “Man, that sounds like a lot of work.”

  “No one said raising responsible kids is easy,” she said primly.

  “What if we disagree?” he asked.

  “We don’t argue about it.”

  “You run from conflict anyway, so that shouldn’t be hard.” He grinned when her cheeks flushed and she looked away.

  “I’ll try to do better about that,” she said.

  He leaned forward. “If we’re going to be a family, Gracie,we have to be able to talk, to hash out conflicts.”

  Her chin came up. “I talked to you about this, didn’t I?”

  “Touché. It’s a baby step, but I’m impressed.”

  “You were right though,” she said. “About Evan.”

  He lifted a brow. “Oh?”

  “He was asleep before I got out of the room,” she said. “The ideal thing would have been for you to be able to put him to bed.”

  “I’ll be well soon.”

  “We just have to be consistent—with the kids and with one another.”

  He shuffled the ice on his knee. “I’m sorry I’m such a bear.Thanks for the ice. It’s helping.”

  The smile lit up her face. “You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “Could you get me the laptop? The tech said the wireless was up and going.” It might get his mind off his pain. And off the delectable scent of her hair.

  14

  GRACIE FOUND MICHAEL’S LAPTOP IN HIS ROOM AND CARRIED IT TO HIM. Their talk soothed a hurt she hadn’t realized she carried. It had been years since someone listened so carefully to her. She deserved a tongue-lashing for keeping secrets from him, and instead he’d offered protection even though a lecture accompanied it.The lecture was his right, though, considering her behavior.

  “We have to talk about what happened this afternoon,” Michael said when she settled the computer on his lap.

  “Which part?” Gracie worried.With a pain pill in him, he might ask more questions than she could handle.

  He opened the laptop. “The poster. I need more information about what’s going on if I’m going to protect you and Hope.” At the stress in his voice, Caesar stared up at him and whined.

  Gracie wanted to believe Michael could protect her. He’d been in wars and faced gunfire. She knew he had no idea how fear could paralyze. If La Loma came through the door right now, she’d sit there unable to move. Knowing the cartel might be so close had sucked the will to fight them right out of her.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  His gaze left the computer screen and zeroed in on her face. “I won’t let them hurt you, Gracie.”

  His blue eyes inspired trust, but she’d trusted and been hurt before. Maybe she had a deficit of good judgment. “I trust you, Michael, but those men are evil.”A chill came over her and she hugged herself.

  “It’s going to be okay, Gracie.” He looked at the laptop. “I’ll see what I can find out about your fiancé,” he said. “I’m sure Cid doesn’t know you’re here.”

  “But the flyer. . .”

  He shrugged. “It’s a common crossing. Just because the guys came across there doesn’t mean they know you’re here at our house.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “As far as they know, you’re eighty miles away up in Alpine, so that crossing they took makes sense. From Alpine you could have gone anywhere. Now, talk to me.”

  “I’ve never known a man like you,” she whispered. “Such a protector.” Realizing her voice revealed more than she’d intended, she glanced away. “Maybe I should start at the beginning.”

  Michael set down his laptop on the cushion besid
e him.The dog lay down at his feet. “I’m all ears. First off, where did you come from? You mentioned LA.”

  She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “I was living in San Diego.”

  “You’re from there?”

  “Not originally. I grew up, um, a few hours north of here.”

  “Where?”

  She bit her lip. It was hard to open up so completely. “Pecos.”

  “Good place to grow up in. So you’re a Texan too.”

  She nodded. “My childhood seems like an idyllic life to me now, though at the time I hated the restrictions they put on me.” She swallowed hard. Could she admit the rest of it?

  “Restrictions?”

  “You know how teenagers are. I wanted to be with my friends. My parents insisted on a curfew.”

  He grinned. “We’re going to find ourselves in that equation sooner than we realize.”

  She smiled back. Maybe she could tell him. She wet her lips. “I. . . I got pregnant.”

  Michael’s lips sank back to a straight line. “With Hope?”

  She nodded. “I took a home pregnancy test and couldn’t believe it.”

  “What did your mother say?”

  “I didn’t tell her.”

  His brows lifted. “Not ever? What about your dad?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t.”

  His expression turned speculative. “When did you find out?”

  She forced out the truth. “The night I got on Diablo.” His eyes narrowed, and she wondered what he was thinking. “Say something.”

  “You said you don’t know why you got on the horse, Gracie.” His voice was gentle. “Did it have to do with your pregnancy?”

  Heat flamed over her skin. Don’t go there. “What do you mean?”

  “You knew Diablo was dangerous.”

  Unable to look at him, she closed her eyes. “I knew.”

  “What did you expect would happen?”

  Her lids flew open. Staring in his face, the truth crashed into her consciousness. She buried her face in her hands. “God help me, I think I wanted to kill my baby.” She was hot, so hot.The flush burned its way from her cheeks to her chest.

  He struggled to his feet, then pulled her into an embrace. “Don’t cry, Gracie. I can’t stand it.”

  She buried her nose in his chest. His shirt smelled of fresh air and man.The safety of his arms comforted her, even if she didn’t deserve it. She choked back the sobs. “You should be sitting down.”

  When his embrace fell away, her skin chilled and she wished she’d said nothing.Why had she never faced the truth?

  He dropped back to the sofa, then patted the cushion beside him. “Sit here beside me.”

  She settled next to him. “You know the rest of that story. How I killed my mother.” She raised her eyes to meet Michael’s. “It was punishment, I guess.”

  “God doesn’t work that way,” he said. “You left home then?”

  She nodded. “I took the money I inherited from my grandmother and moved to San Diego. I’d always dreamed of living by the ocean.”

  “Why did you keep Hope instead of giving her up for adoption? Or actually aborting her?”

  She bit her lip. “I was going to give the baby up for adoption, but I couldn’t. I kept seeing my father’s face when he was so angry with me. I. . . I thought of someday bringing Hope to see him. I thought maybe it would change things.”

  “Maybe it would.What about her father?”

  “He lived in Phoenix at the time. He moved to San Diego with me, but I soon found out he only wanted my money. Then he spent most of it on other women. I kicked him out a month later.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut a moment. Remembering was something she avoided whenever she could. “Five months later I had Hope. And I was flat broke.” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard. “I’d gone through every dime of my inheritance.”

  “You don’t have to go into all this,” Michael said. “You can jump to your involvement with Cid if you’d rather.”

  “It all ties together,” she said.At least it did in her mind. She wanted him to understand how she’d come to be in such a bind, down on her luck and a charity case.The realization made her face burn again.

  She laced her fingers together. “I had to get a job to support the baby, so I got hired at a day care.That way I got to keep Hope with me.”

  “You worked there a couple of years?”

  She nodded. “Until I got the break to do interior design, which I told you about. I rented a small cottage and was getting by.”

  “Where did Cid come in?”

  “I met him at a party a client invited me to attend. It was about six months ago. Cid was there with his sister. He was charismatic, charming.”

  Michael slipped his arm around her and drew her into an embrace. “You said you never loved him.”

  She could stay here forever. “Hope took to him right off. I liked him, but no, I never loved him.”

  His grip on her tightened. “Did he know how you felt?”

  She nodded. “He said love would come in time, and that Hope was the important one.That she needed a father. I was so tired of trying to do everything on my own, and Hope, well, she adored him. So things were fine until . . .”

  “Until?” he prompted. “Did you find out he had connections with the cartel?”

  Gracie nodded. “I overheard a conversation and realized he’d taken a bribe from them. I told him to get out of it, or it was over between us. I couldn’t have Hope exposed to that.”

  Michael pressed his lips against her hair. “You did the right thing, honey. So he cut ties with the cartel?”

  If she turned her head, her lips would meet his. She forced away the thought. “I thought so. He said he did. But when those men showed up on the day of the wedding, I knew he’d lied.”

  Michael rubbed the five o’clock shadow on his chin. “You’re sure they were part of the cartel?”

  She thought back to that day. “Not completely, no. I mean, they didn’t announce who they were, but they came in with guns and killed the federal agents the minute they exited the van. What else could they have been?”

  “They were Hispanic?” he asked.

  She nodded. “All of them. And they spoke Spanish, not English.”

  “Did you hear anything else?”

  She nodded. “One of them said, ‘Find the woman and kid.’”

  “So you were specifically targeted.Why would they want Hope?”

  Gracie hugged herself and shuddered. “That’s the scariest part. It makes no sense that they’d want her too.Why not kill me and let her live?”

  Michael’s eyes turned thoughtful. “Unless they were afraid she could identify them. Has she ever been with Cid when you weren’t along?”

  “Lots of times. He would often pick her up after school and take her to the park. She loved him.”

  “You think he genuinely loved her?”

  She nodded. “He was going to adopt her. Like I said, the marriage was all for Hope. I thought we could have a safe and happy life.”

  “Could she have seen something she shouldn’t have?”

  “I suppose so, but she’s never mentioned anything odd to me.”

  “I’d like to ask her a few questions.”

  “No!” Gracie lowered her voice again. “She’s been through enough, Michael. I don’t want her to live in fear too. Right now she thinks we’re safe, and I’d like to keep it that way.There’s no reason to question her. I’m sure she would have told me if she’d seen anything strange.”

  “Even if Cid asked her not to?”

  Gracie hesitated. “I think she’d still tell me.We’re very close.”

  “Kids can be funny though,” he said. “If she thinks she’ll get in trouble, she might keep quiet. Maybe Cid took her somewhere you’d told him not to and she was afraid to tell you.”

  Gracie forgot to breathe. “The park,” she whispered. “I told her she couldn’t go to the park
anymore.There had been too many shootings, even in broad daylight. Cid used to take her there several times a week. He argued with me about it but finally gave in.” Could they have lied to her—Cid and her own daughter?

  And if Cid had taken Hope there, had she seen something that put her life in danger now? Gracie glanced at Michael. Her story hadn’t disgusted him.That had to count for something.

  Michael sat a mere three inches away on the sofa, with the laptop open. The glare from the screen revealed the concentration on his face.Maybe she could sit here and study him without his noticing. His lashes were longer than she’d realized. His bulk was enough to make her seem like a child beside him. If she scooted closer, would he wrap his arm around her again?

  She wasn’t about to play with fire and try it.

  She scooted to the edge of the sofa and stood. “I need something to drink. How about you?”

  He nodded. “That’d be great.We have any iced tea?”

  “I’ll get it.” She escaped to the kitchen and put her palms on her hot cheeks. She was thankful he’d been oblivious to her wayward thoughts. She poured tea over ice and carried the glasses back to the living room. This time she’d sit in the chair.

  “Here you go.” She handed him the glass and moved toward the chair.

  His hand shot out and gripped hers. His gaze warmed her. “I’m sorry I was a grouch earlier.”

  “Well then, you’re forgiven.”

  “Thanks. I think.” He patted the cushion beside him. “Sit here with me. I’m going to find out what’s going on, Gracie. I might need to ask you questions.”

  Just don’t ask why my face is red. She perched on the edge of the sofa cushion and wished for a fan.The warm breeze through the screen did nothing to cool her hot cheeks. She felt like she was fifteen, having her first crush. Obsession, that’s what she was experiencing. And probably only because he’d rescued her.What woman wouldn’t develop a bit of a crush on the man who’d saved her and her daughter? Her knight in shining armor.That’s all this feeling was. And it would pass.

  “What is Hope’s father’s name?”

  She leaned closer and glanced at the screen. “Jason Wheeler.”

  Michael typed in the name Jason Wheeler and Phoenix. He surfed through a few pages, clicking in and out again when it became obvious it was the wrong person. Gracie kept her eyes glued to the screen so she didn’t watch Michael instead.