“I’m like Luke Skywalker.”

Del continued, “He doesn’t have a dad, but he’s got a buddy. Han Solo. Grady’s like Han Solo. He’s my buddy.”

Tara tried not to flinch. “You have a dad.”

Del’s face went stubborn. “He doesn’t want me. And I don’t want him. I don’t need him. I got a buddy.”

She wanted to tell him that his father still loved him in his own way. It was a lie, but she believed it was a lie he needed. He was too young to deal with the truth. As the movie’s theme music welled up, Tara’s heart sank. What were her choices? Let her son sit like an automaton in front of the television screen? Or let him fall even further under Grady McKinney’s spell?

For Grady could cast a spell, a strong one. She was close to being snared herself. Del was clearly starving for a man’s company. And so, perhaps, was she.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bethany Campbell was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. One of the best things about growing up in Omaha was that, like it or not, every schoolchild was herded at least once yearly through the city’s sumptuous Joslyn Art Museum. Omaha also had a great central public library, not far from Joslyn. As a geeky teenaged bookworm, Bethany spent many a happy Saturday afternoon exploring both spots.

In college she majored in English and minored in art. Her first three ambitions were to be a cartoonist, an illustrator, or a writer. Later, as a freelancer, she worked for several greeting card companies as a writer and doing rough art. She sold her first romance novel in 1984 and has won three RITA® Awards, three Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards, a Maggie Award and the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence

Bethany loves to hear from readers. Please drop her a line through her Web site, www.bethanycampbell.com.

Home to Texas
Bethany Campbell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

“Make new friends, but keep the old;

One is silver, the other is gold.”

To Carol Dankert Stoner, who is pure and solid gold.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

GAVIN CHANCE STARED AT HIS SISTER in disbelief. “You sold the horses?”

“I didn’t sell Licorice or India,” Tara said, her gaze dropping.

She’d kept her son’s pony and her own horse. But the other three animals had been sold a week ago. She’d wanted to cry, seeing them taken off, but she had run out of tears long ago.

She sat with her brother in his hotel room at a small table covered with a linen cloth and set for lunch. His visit was a surprise—he had flown to California out of concern for her. Tara had only picked at her salad, and Gavin had pushed aside his sandwich, half-eaten.

Tara looked out the picture window, but instead of seeing the skyline of Los Angeles, she saw her pretty little ranch outside Santa Clarita. Like the horses, it must be sold. There were already two prospective buyers. Soon her home would no longer be hers.

“But why?” Gavin demanded.

Tara kept staring at the skyscrapers. “We need the money.”

Gavin swore and threw his napkin down, rising from the table to pace the gold carpet. He was three years older than Tara, an exceptionally tall man, whip-lean, with thick, sandy hair. Despite his rangy build, he had an artist’s face, with a sensitive mouth and dark, expressive eyebrows.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “I mean why didn’t you ask me for money?”

Tara toyed with a silver fork. “Del and I will get along. We’re tightening our belts, that’s all.”

Gavin came back to the table, pressed both hands on it and leaned toward her. “You’ve sold your horses. You’re selling the ranch. Good God, Tara. I’d have helped you. You know that.”

She laid the fork aside with exaggerated care. Her brother was a rich man—on paper. In real life he was risking all he had trying to develop not one, but two model communities.

Though the first, in Hawaii, was still under construction, Gavin and his partners had taken a dizzying chance on a second. They’d bought a huge tract of land in Texas, paying millions for it. They would pay millions more for its development. Their plans were as ambitious as they were original, and the gamble was enormous.

So Tara had not told her brother all that was happening to her. Gavin had been in Hawaii, desperately trying to finish that project. He hadn’t been to the mainland for months.

When they talked on the phone, she’d held back things. He had, she believed, enough burdens of his own. And she had her pride, her independence. Too much of both, Gavin had often said.

Now he glared at her in frustration. “You mean Sid still hasn’t given you one damn dime in child support?”

“No,” she said, her voice calm. She’d taken Sid to court. It had done no good. She could have him jailed, but the thought made her sick. How could she do that to Del?

“Does Sid ever come to see Del? Does he use his visitation rights at all?”

The questions hurt. Tara looked away from Gavin and out the window again. Her husband had left her and their son for another woman, a younger and very jealous woman. For her he’d given up everything: his home, his honor and, most shamefully, his son. Del, not yet five, was shattered.

Tara shook her head, unable to speak. Gavin leaned in closer to her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Sid’s still acting crazy?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. She studied how the smog made the tops of the tallest buildings hazy, how it turned the sky murky.

“Is that why you sold the horses? Because he won’t help?”

She hedged the question. “Partly.”

“And the ranch?”

“I have to be practical. I don’t know what’s ahead. We were living beyond our means. And—and—”

Gavin groaned in anger and frustration. “Don’t tell me. Is Burleigh making trouble again? About visitations with Del? About custody?”

Burleigh was Sid’s widowed father, Del’s grandfather. An imperious man, he’d disowned Sid over the divorce, but he blamed Tara for letting it happen. Del, he claimed, was now his only living kin, and he had a right to have a say in the boy’s life. A big say.

Burleigh Hastings was powerful and, when he chose, he could be as disruptive as a hurricane. He was vice-president of a huge and prosperous company, and he loved control, control of things, control of people. Tara was certain Burleigh was the reason Sid had turned out as he had, and she feared his influence on Del.

“He’s out of the country right now,” Tara said. She was grateful for his absence, but knew that she and Del were inhabiting a false and limited calm. It was as if they were in the eye of a storm.

“But he’ll be back,” Gavin supplied. “Demanding his ‘rights.’ He’ll scare Del and confuse him and do all he can to undermine you.”

“Yes. He will.” She was resigned to it. “But I’m prepared to ask for a restraining order against him if it comes to that.”

“He’ll make your life hell. Where is he? How long will he be gone?”

“He’s in the Middle East. A big government contract. It seems they needed a ‘forceful’ personality there. It’ll tie him up for two months, maybe three. I’m talking to a lawyer. I need to be ready for him.”

Gavin knelt on one knee by her side. “Tara, you should take Del and get out of here.” He took her hand between his. “Out of Los Angeles. Out of California. Away from this crazy situation.”

She shook her head. She had to face facts. “There’s no place to go, Gavin. My job is here.”

Tara had grown up with horses and now she taught riding at Santa Clarita’s Kane Stables—both regular classes and those for special needs students. She loved her job, and she was good at it. But she was also more than a little frightened. There were rumors of cuts in programs and staff.

Gavin pressed her hand more earnestly. “There’re other places. Other jobs. And there’s one that’s perfect. I know California’s always been home, but let it go. Look what it’s doing to Del. What it’s done to you. You don’t look like my Tara anymore.”

Her throat locked and her mouth went dry. Del was becoming an unhappy, nervous child, and she—she wasn’t sure what she was becoming.

Gavin reached into his back pocket, flipped open his wallet and shoved a photograph in front of her. “What happened to this girl?”

She tried not to wince. The photo was a close-up of her, snapped a few years ago at a friend’s wedding. She wore a wide-brimmed white hat, tilted low to emphasize her eyes. They were dramatic eyes, an unusual clear gray, the irises ringed by darker gray.

Her hair fell past her shoulders in loose waves. Her makeup was skillfully applied. The photo showed an elegant, even stylish, woman—she was tall, long-legged and slim.

But now that woman was gone, hidden away. Even today, meeting Gavin here in his hotel, she hadn’t dressed up. After Sid had left, she’d thrown her makeup away and defiantly left her face plain, letting her freckles show.

Sid had once loved her wealth of auburn hair, shot through with red and gold. Now she had pulled it back severely and pinned it into a tight roll. She wore black slacks and a loose black blouse. She tried to look drab, and she had her reasons, but she wasn’t sure she could put them into words to Gavin, or even to herself.

So she looked at her picture and saw someone who was both familiar and utterly foreign. She said, “Gavin, I just haven’t felt like—”

“Like what?” he asked, one hand still grasping hers.

“I’ve had so many other things to do.” She shrugged. The explanation sounded lame even to her.

He tucked the photo into his wallet and slid it back into his pocket. He put his thumb and forefinger under her chin and raised her face so she’d have to meet his gaze. “Tara, we have an offer for you. A job. It’s perfect. You were made for it.”

She cocked her head, puzzled.

“The land we bought in Texas used to be a dude ranch. Most of its buildings got torn down. But the house and lodge still stand. We want to make them the center of a special section of our development. I want one part of this project to be an equestrian community.”

Her eyes widened. An equestrian community? Gavin had spoken of such a place for years. Each house would have enough acreage for one or more horses. There would be a bridal path accessible from every yard, pastures and a communal stable.

Gavin said, “We want to refurbish the lodge, make it into a recreation facility for the community as a whole. But first fix up the house. It’s solid, but it’s been empty for months and there’s been some water damage. How about it? Think you could fix up an old house?”

She smiled in spite of herself. They’d grown up doing exactly that, time after time. Their parents had made a career of buying run-down farms and ranches and transforming them into sound, neat horse outfits. Up and down California they’d moved, from one spread to another.

Tara had loved the challenge. The family always began by camping out in some dilapidated house. There’d been a special excitement in that, like being pioneers. She’d loved the process of restoration and the satisfaction of seeing it done well.

“A house?” She was intrigued.

Gavin nodded. “The house would be your first priority. We want one wing set up for me when I’m in Texas, with rooms for corporate guests. The other will be living quarters for the stable manager. And that, Tara, would be you. The stable needs to be built. You’ll have your say-so in its design. Could you deal with that?”

She looked at him in disbelief. She’d always wanted to run a stable; she had firm ideas of how it should be done. As for building, she and Gavin had entertained themselves for years by planning the dream stable. They had built it in their minds and constructed it in conversations and sketched it on paper.

“You’re kidding,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“No. I’m not kidding. But you’ll have to go to Texas.”

She felt light-headed at the prospect, and her stomach was full of butterflies. “Texas is a big place. Where?”

Gavin looked more solemn than before. “Just outside a little town called Crystal Creek. About an hour from Austin.”

She couldn’t imagine it and laughed at her own incomprehension. “I don’t know a soul in Texas.”

“You know me,” drawled a low, familiar voice. “I grew up there. I got people there. They’ll watch out for you and Del.”

She whirled to face the second man. He’d been silent so long, and her conversation with Gavin had been so intense, she’d almost forgotten his presence. It was one of her brother’s two partners, Cal McKinney.

She stared at him as if he had just magically appeared in a puff of smoke. He was tall, but not as tall as Gavin. He was wider in the shoulders, and he carried himself like the rodeo cowboy he’d once been. He was a devilishly handsome man with thick brown hair and long-lashed hazel eyes.

In his late thirties, he still had a boyish air, even more so when he smiled and showed his dimples. He showed them now. “You’re perfect for this, Tara. You know it. Gavin knows it. I know it. And Spence goes along with us.”

Spencer Malone was the third partner. She knew him, but not nearly as well as she knew Cal. And Cal, bless him, was generous to a fault. So was Gavin, where she and Del were concerned.

“I—I couldn’t do it. And you’d just be doing it as a favor because Gavin thinks I need to get away from here. I—”

“No.” Cal’s smile faded. “You’re doing us the favor. Didn’t you study design in college?”

“Yes.” Her major was design, her minor equestrian studies. It might seem an odd combination to some, but to her it had been as natural as breathing. It was she, not Sid, who’d done most of the renovation on the little ranch outside Santa Clarita. Sid couldn’t read a blueprint or pound a nail in straight.

Cal said, “Serena and I’ve seen your ranch. You did a top-notch job on it. I know that’s true ’cause Serena tells me and that woman’s got taste.”

“In everything but husbands,” joked Gavin.

“Especially in husbands,” Cal shot back, grinning.

Cal moved to the middle of the room. He and Gavin were both horsemen, but Cal, Texan to his marrow, always dressed the part. His boots and belt were hand-tooled, his sky-blue shirt Western-cut.

He said, “Here’s our plan. I’m gonna have a ranch on the western edge of this land. Spence wants to build the main community section, small estates in sync with the environment. But he doesn’t start until the equestrian section’s finished.”

Gavin moved to Cal’s side. “Cal and I have to get to Crystal Creek, meet Spence, finalize some things. Then I need to get back to Hawaii. When I’m done there, I’ll come back to Texas to keep an eye on the start of main construction. You fix up the west wing of the house for me. Who knows what I like better than you?”

Tara looked at these two men and was staggered by their generosity, fascinated by their offer, yet at the same time wary.

“Texas is a long way off. It’s a long way to take Del.”

“I told you,” Cal said. “I got people there. My daddy’s just retired and is off gallivantin’ for a while. But his cousin Bret’s managing the ranch. Big Bret. He’ll be right next door. My sister and brother-in-law are there. You’ll love my sister—she’s horse-crazy as you. Serena and I have friends there, too, and they’ll help you out. You got my word on it.”

Tara was still uncertain. “No. It doesn’t feel right. I’m not the little match girl. I don’t want to take charity. I don’t want to go imposing on people I’ve never met. I—I—”

“You’re scared,” Gavin said. “Once you would have jumped to go. But Sid and Burleigh have knocked the starch out of you. You’re afraid to take chances.”

Confusion disappeared in a flash of indignation. “I am not afraid. Our parents raised us to take chances.”

“Then what’s the matter? You don’t think you’re up to it? Loss of confidence?”

“Certainly not!” she retorted. “Restore a house? A lodge? Get a stable put up? Damned straight I could do it.”

“You really think so?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. Yes, I could,” she said before she knew the words were out of her mouth.

“Well, then,” Gavin said, as if in philosophic resignation, “That’s that. Cal, how fast you think we could get her set up there?”

“Under ordinary circumstances, two or three months. But put my sister on the job—four weeks, easy.”

Gavin narrowed his eyes. “And Sid won’t try to stop you. You know that.”

To her sorrow, she knew.

With a certain slyness, Cal said. “Texas law’s different from California law. It’ll put another obstacle in what’s-his-name’s path.”

Burleigh, she thought. And any move that slowed down Burleigh was a good one.

“It won’t be easy,” Gavin warned. “There was a flood that did considerable damage downstream. Most construction workers are tied up there. Labor’ll be hard to find.”

“Lynn’ll help her.” Cal shrugged as if the matter were already resolved. He glanced at his plate, sitting empty on the desk, then at Gavin’s. “Gavin, if you don’t want the rest of that sandwich, can I have it? Tara, what about that salad?”

Did I just agree to go to Texas? She asked herself, dazed. Yes. I think I did.

Numbly she passed her salad bowl to Cal. “How can I settle in Texas in only a month? Things would have to be done at warp speed.”

Cal picked up a fork and speared a cherry tomato. “Just leave it to the McKinneys, darlin’.”

Gavin gave him a sardonic glance. “Texans. Always bragging.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Cal answered. “If it’s true, it ain’t braggin’.”

CAL HADN’T BEEN BRAGGING.

Exactly one month later, Tara was in Crystal Creek, Texas.

She sat, temporarily alone, in the kitchen of a kindly, cheerful stranger who was not quite a stranger—Lynn McKinney Russell.

Today Tara and Lynn had met face-to-face for the first time after a frantic month of e-mails and phone calls. Tara had smiled and chatted, asked and answered questions over coffee.

The whole time she’d pretended that all of this was normal. She’d pretended that she was the most confident woman in the world. Inwardly she still wondered how in hell she suddenly found herself halfway across the continent, a California girl in the heart of cowboy country.

She stole another glance out Lynn’s kitchen window to check on Del. He was playing lustily on a backyard jungle gym, almost wildly. After all, he’d been cooped up in the truck so long. His black-and-white terrier, Lono, released from his cage, happily chased about the yard.

This morning had seen the last leg of the journey. Tara had driven from Dallas through Austin, then to this little town and to Lynn’s house. Lynn had already done a hundred kindesses for her and Del, and she had welcomed them like family.

Del was clearly happy and excited because he had, for a while at least, what all only children most desire, a playmate.

A little black-haired boy, Jamie, also about four, clambered and swung on the bars with him. The other boy’s mother, ripely pregnant, watched them. Her name was Camilla, and she was Lynn’s next-door neighbor. She stood with her arms crossed over her round belly, smiling at the children’s antics.

Tara sat in Lynn’s cozy breakfast nook, a mug of coffee warm between her hands. From the oven wafted the spicy scent of a casserole. Lynn had insisted that Tara and Del lunch with her, and afterward Lynn would lead them to the house Tara had seen only in photographs and old blueprints.

We’re almost there, Tara thought, watching Del hang by his knees. We’re almost home.

Except it’s not home. It’s not remotely like home, taunted an inner gremlin of uneasiness.

Near Los Angeles, the hills glowed with such a vibrant, vital green that they seemed to shimmer like emeralds. Palm trees nodded and swayed, their fronds sensitive to the sea breeze.

The hills here are stony, arid. The trees are bare. They’re twisted into strange, low shapes.

Shut up, she fiercely told that treacherous voice. Hills were hills, dammit, and trees were trees. Home was where you made it, and by all that was holy, she vowed she would make a home here.

What she needed to worry about wasn’t the scenery, but if the Texas move could really slow down Burleigh’s plan to be the dominant force in Del’s life. She had sent him a letter on the day she left. She hoped it would take a while to reach him. When he read it, he would not take it kindly.

She took a sip of coffee and straightened her spine defiantly. If he wanted to fight, she’d fight. If he wanted to maneuver, she’d outmaneuver.

“Found it,” Lynn said, bustling back into the kitchen with a fat, leather-covered photo album.

Lynn was petite, and she moved with an efficient briskness and an athlete’s grace. Her hair was swept up into two pert ponytails that made her look like a teenager, not a woman with two grown stepdaughters and a ten-year-old son.

She sat down on the banquette beside Tara and began flipping through the album’s pages. Lynn giggled. “Cal would kill me if he knew I showed you this. Ha! Just let me find it…”

Lynn paused, pointing with amusement at a snapshot. “This isn’t it, but look. The gang of usual suspects.”

Tara looked and smiled. After her long journey, it was good to see familiar faces.

There, with their arms around each other’s shoulders, stood a trio of tall men, mugging and grinning for the camera. One was her brother, Gavin, another was Cal, and the third was Spencer Malone. The Three Amigos, Inc.

Lynn gave Tara a wry look. “But the real hoot is a shot I took last month. The last time they were all down here together.”

She turned the page. The same three men stood on a nearly barren lawn. They wore ludicrously large, sequined sombreros, and they held up margarita glasses in an exaggerated toast.

“Idiots,” Lynn said, but she said it fondly. “That’s the day they signed themselves into debt up to their necks. Recognize where they are?”

In the background only a portion of a house showed. Built of native stone, even that small section managed to look both elegant and on the edge of ruin. Boards barred the door and the windows gaped blankly.

Tara swallowed. She knew the place from other pictures. This was the house she had been sent to save. It was where she and Del would live, perhaps for a long time.

Again she peeped at Del, dangling by his arms from one of the jungle-gym bars. She’d known for his sake and her own, that they needed to be far from Los Angeles. But this far?

Lynn turned pages, paused and tapped another photo. “This is me and both my brothers.”

Tara looked at a slightly younger Lynn, her arms linked with those of two young men in Stetsons, one serious, one laughing. The laughing one, of course, was Cal. The more solemn one Tara had only heard about: Tyler.

Lynn’s finger moved to another picture. “And this is my whole family together.”

Cal had regaled Tara with stories often enough that to her the McKinneys were already the stuff of legend. As the founding family of Crystal Creek, they had cast their fate with that of the Hill Country.

Lynn pointed out a handsome older couple with a young girl. “This is my father, J.T.,” Lynn said fondly. “And our stepmother and little sister. Daddy just retired. The three of them are in Paris now. Believe me, it’s very hard to imagine Daddy in Paris.”

She smiled, then sighed. “This is Tyler again. And his wife and two girls. They’ve gone out to Napa Valley for the year. They’re trying to see if they can handle two wineries—one here, one there.”

Lynn shook her head pensively. “And Cal’s in Mexico, selling his brewery. Everybody’s so…far away. It’s the first time they’ve all been away at once. I feel—abandoned.”

Tara bit her inner lip, knowing how it was to be truly abandoned.

Lynn’s expressed grew abashed. “I shouldn’t complain, heaven knows,” she murmured. “And I’m not really the only one left. Daddy’s cousin’s here. He’s a cousin, but he and Daddy were as close as brothers, so he’s almost like an uncle. Big Bret. We called him that because Mama also had a cousin Bret, and he was short, so he was Little Bret. Big Bret’s managing the Double C for Daddy. I’ve got a picture here—somewhere.”

How different it must feel, thought Tara, to have roots deep and strong in one place. Her family had moved eleven times while she was growing up.

“Here he is,” Lynn said, smoothing the page flat. “Big Bret. Looks like Daddy, doesn’t he?”

Tara studied the man. In his fifties, he gazed into the camera grimly. He did not look like the sort who changed his mind or gave his affections easily.

Yet if affection didn’t show in his unsmiling face, it showed in how his arms draped the shoulders of two younger men. Although they stood close to him, their expressions were as joyless as his.

“His sons,” Tara said, knowing it must be so.

“Yes.” Lynn’s voice was quiet. “This isn’t the greatest picture. It was taken just a little while after my aunt Maggie’s funeral. She really was the glue that held that family together. Without her, it’s become a bit undone.”

She squared her shoulders, forced a smile. “You’ll meet him soon, Big Bret. He’s your neighbor, and he’ll be a good one. This son—”

She indicated a handsome, boyish young man with angel-blue eyes. “This is Jonah, the youngest. I’d kill for eyelashes like that. He came to the Double C to finish his dissertation. A sweetheart. But all he thinks of is books and cows.”

Jonah, Tara mused, was so handsome he was perilously close to being pretty. He was not as interesting as his brooding dark-eyed brother.

“The other one,” Lynn said, “is Lang. He’ll be here soon. He’s kind of at loose ends now. He’s getting a divorce.”

She must have seen Tara’s face tighten in control. She quickly changed the subject. “There’s another brother. Grady. But you won’t meet him.”

Tara looked at Lynn with mild curiosity. “Why not?”

Lynn’s smile was indulgent. “Grady’s the one with the Gypsy in his soul. We’re afraid he’ll never settle down. I wish he would. Of the three brothers, he was always the most…”

She paused, bemused.

“Most what?” prompted Tara.

“The most fun to be with,” Lynn said thoughtfully. “The hardest working. Maybe—it’s a hard call—the smartest. The easiest to talk to. The hardest to understand.”

She shrugged, patted the album cover and smiled. “Whatever. Ready for lunch?”

BRET MCKINNEY WAS GOING about his business in all innocence when he was ambushed by a godlessly seductive nightie.

All he’d done was open a closet door in an unused bedroom of the Double C. There were other clothes in the closet, but it was the nightgown that sneak-attacked him.

Then Bret realized that there was a crowd of nightgowns and negligees. They hung tauntingly empty on their satin hangers, and they reminded him of how long it had been since he’d been with a woman.

Bret slammed the closet door shut in panicky haste. He felt guilty, like an inadvertent Peeping Tom. Whose intimate, gauzy stuff was this? Did it belong to his cousin’s wife? One of his nephews’ wives?

For the first time in years, Bret felt the stirring of a long dormant sensuality. He’d thought such feelings were dead, and he hadn’t mourned them. He meant to be faithful to his wife’s memory. He was a man of iron discipline, and he’d made up his mind.

It disturbed him that his body had rebelled against his mind’s dictate. He stepped to the window and stared out at the miles of rolling Texas range.

Bret still missed his wife, Maggie, dead two years now. He had severed himself from his job in Idaho in part because he could no longer endure the ranch house so painfully haunted by memories of her.

Bret’s plan had been to come back to Texas to learn to live alone and like it. Fate, however, had decreed that solitude was not an option. First, his youngest son, Jonah, had announced he’d join him.

Bret hadn’t minded this so much. Jonah was a good man with cattle; he was serious and he was quiet. He helped work the ranch by day and wrote his doctoral dissertation at night. He was no trouble and made no demands. It was almost the same as being alone.

But now Bret’s middle son was on his way to the Double C, tangled up in money and marriage problems. At thirty-one, Lang was too damned young to be having a midlife crisis, but that wasn’t stopping him.

Bret shook his head in frustration. Lang was due tomorrow, which was why Bret was checking out the room. It was why he’d opened the closet and been bushwhacked by the nighties.

Well, the things would have to be moved, that was all. Lang didn’t need a closet full of female finery to taunt him.

Bret left the room and strode down the hall to the kitchen, from which floated an aroma of Tex-Mex beef and spices. He would ask Millie Gilligan, the Double C’s housekeeper, to move all that frippery somewhere else, anywhere else.

He found her in the kitchen, stirring a pot of chili. She was an odd little gnome of a woman, restless and given to strange pronouncements.

Mrs. Gilligan was almost as new to the ranch as Bret was, and J.T. had cautioned him about her. “She’s the best we could find. She’s a great cook and a fine housekeeper. But, dammit, I think she might be a witch.”

She indeed might be, thought Bret, for she would stir her pots, dropping in pinches of this and sprinkles of that, and produce foods that seemed too delectable to be created by a mere mortal.

“Mrs. Gilligan,” Bret said gruffly, “I need your help when you’ve got a minute. My son will be using the back bedroom. There are some women’s…things…in the closet. Could you move them someplace else?”

Mrs. Gilligan squinted at him wisely. She had eyes as green as bottle glass and wildly curling gray hair. “I’ll see to it,” she croaked. “We’ll make him comfortable. Even the finest phoenix needs its nest.”

Whatever the hell that means, Bret thought. “Yes. Well. Thanks.”

He paused. “Mrs. Gilligan, about my son—I don’t know how long he’ll stay. Looking after an extra person…you’re sure this is all right?”

“The more the merrier, or so the wind blows. I’ll tend to the closet.” She left, her gait somewhere between a scuttle and a scamper.

Bret sighed harshly and stared after her. How old was she? Fifty? Sixty? Eighty? He couldn’t tell. At least he doubted if anyone would gossip he was sleeping with his housekeeper. Wiry little Millie Gilligan seemed as sexless as a pipe cleaner.

Jonah came in the back door, quietly, of course. More leanly built than his father, he also stood taller, nearly six foot three. He had dark-lashed blue eyes like Maggie’s, intelligent and sensitive. Sometimes looking into those eyes ripped Bret with pangs of loss. She’s still here, he’d think. In him.

Jonah gave Bret his serious smile. “Hi.”

“Where’ve you been all afternoon?” Bret asked.

Jonah tipped his brown Stetson back to an incongruously rakish angle. “Riding fence,” he murmured.

Bret nodded in approval. Riding fence was a common stockman’s job, but Jonah never minded humble work. No part of ranching was beneath his interest. He was going to make somebody a hell of a manager.

“Anything new?” This was generally a useless question to put to Jonah, because he always muttered, “Not really.”

But today a troubled look crept into Jonah’s eyes. “New neighbor’s moving in.”

Bret frowned. As if he didn’t have enough to do. “The woman?”

Jonah shifted uneasily. “Yeah. Slattery told me.” Slattery was the foreman.

“Well,” Bret said impatiently, “what did he say?”

“She’s here, that’s all,” Jonah said. He shrugged out of his denim jacket and hung it on a peg beside the door. He went to the refrigerator, took out the milk jug and poured himself a full glass.

“We should pay her a call,” Bret muttered, not looking forward to it. “Cal asked us to look in on her, make her feel at home.”

“You go,” Jonah said, then drank his milk the way some men chug beer.

Bret gave a sigh of frustration. Jonah went out of his way to avoid women.

Bret would go alone. He wanted to honor his nephew’s wishes. He knew the woman was the sister of one of the partners, but nothing more.

The only clue he’d had was Cal’s request to be friendly to her. “Help her if you can. She’s had a tough time.”

Bret had been too discreet to ask what kind of tough time, and Cal had been too discreet to say. Well, maybe Bret would saddle up, ride over and get the job out of the way. He was not by nature a sociable man, and with Lang boomeranging back on him, he felt less sociable than usual.

“Might as well do it and be done with it. Maybe I’ll saddle up that big bay gelding—” Bret began.

Jonah’s blue eyes narrowed. “Somebody’s coming up the drive.”

“It can’t be Lang?” Bret said and shook his head dubiously. “Too soon.”

Lang had said he couldn’t make it to Crystal Creek before tomorrow evening.

“No sir,” Jonah said, still staring at the driveway. Something like real joy glimmered in his eyes. “It’s Grady.”

Bret felt a stab of displeasure. It can’t be him. He wouldn’t have the guts…

But hiking up the driveway came a man in faded jeans, a blue work shirt and an open denim vest, lined with sheepskin. He wore a black Stetson pulled down over his eyes. He carried a scuffed duffel bag and walked like somebody who’d hiked a long way. Yet he somehow still managed a swagger.

Bret would know it anywhere, that air of lazy swash-buckling, that easy strut. His face went rigid as he watched the too-familiar figure approach the house.

Wide across the chest and shoulders, the man was a solid six feet tall. Although the day was chill, he wore no outer covering but the vest. His shirt was grease-stained, his black hat was dusty and he needed a shave. Still, he sauntered up to the back porch like a prince.

It’s him, all right. Grady.

With a shriveling sensation in his stomach, Bret looked on his eldest son for the first time in two years. He forgot the new neighbor. He forgot any promise to Cal. He even forgot Lang. All he could see was Grady, mounting the stairs like trouble itself getting ready to cross the threshold.

Lord in heaven, Bret thought with sorrow and bitterness, just what have I done to deserve this?

He had come to Crystal Creek to be alone. But now, as if directed by malignant forces, all three of his sons were descending on him. He had welcomed Jonah. He was determined to be hospitable to Lang. But what ill wind had driven Grady to his door—the only one of his sons who was truly charming—and truly worthless?

CHAPTER TWO

TIME AND WEATHER HAD CARVED the country around Crystal Creek into an uneven land of great hills and valleys. Some of these hills were massive enough to be called mountains, but most were low and rolling.

In some places, great sweeps of rock covered the earth, like a flow of pale, hardened lava. Soil was thin. Only what was strong could survive here.

Yet the landscape had stark beauty. Even in mid-November, the scattered oaks and elms fluttered golden leaves, and the sumac and soapwood bushes flared up from the ground like scarlet torches.

But most of the trees were the scraggly, twisted ones that Lynn said were mesquite and their branches were nearly bare. They looked tough enough to suck nourishment straight from stone.

Ahead, the flashing red of Lynn’s taillights signaled that she was turning from the highway to a dirt road. Tara followed. The road led up and was so badly rutted that her truck rattled and swayed. The way grew steeper and rougher, jolting her bones.

Then, suddenly, the road leveled off, and the two trucks were halfway up a hill big enough, to Tara’s mind, to qualify as a mountain.

And there it was—their house.

She had seen pictures, but she was not prepared for the impact of the real thing. It was, she thought, magnificent. Magnificent yet sad, because it had been both neglected and abused. But she had come to change all that.

The house was a long one-story sweep of limestone that glimmered so brightly in the sun it seemed almost white. It angled into a wide V shape so it could command views of the valley beneath it and the tall hills rambling into the distance in the west.

It had once had decks and sun porches, but they’d been torn off, leaving bare patches of concrete and raw slashes on the face of the stones. Concrete blocks, stacked unevenly, formed three jerry-built steps to the back door.

An enclosed walkway attached the house to a triple garage. A vandal with a can of red spray paint had scrawled graffiti on both stone and wood. Tara bit her lip in resentment, already feeling protective toward the house.

“What do those words say?” Del ask, squinting at them in curiosity.

“Nothing,” she said. “Foolishness.”

Among the obscenities and insults, one message stood out: Fabian Go Home!!! Brian Fabian was the man who’d recently owned the property. It was he who’d had the porches torn down and most of the outbuildings razed. Gavin had told her the outline of the story, but not the details.

Lynn parked in the graveled driveway, and Tara pulled in behind her, pebbles rattling under her tires. Both women got out, and Tara unfastened Del from his seat. “Is this our new house?” he asked in a small voice.

“Yes,” Tara said. “And it’s going to be a very nice house.”

He stared uncertainly at the ruined porches. “It’s broke.”

“Yes. But we’ll fix it.”

She went to the back of the truck and unlocked the door of the kennel box. Lono bounded out, sniffed the ground with enthusiasm and lifted his leg at a cactus. He was clearly pleased with the surroundings.

Del was not. He frowned in worry. “Why’d somebody write on our garage?”

“Sometimes people do bad things. I’ll paint over it.”

He didn’t seem reassured. He put his thumb into his mouth, something he did when he was tired or anxious, and she could tell he was both. For once she didn’t tell him not to suck his thumb. Instead she picked him up, and he leaned on her shoulder, yawning in exhaustion.

Lynn nodded ruefully at the defaced garage doors. “Sorry about the graffiti. Sam was going to paint over it last Sunday, but we had an emergency. All three dogs met a skunk. Yuck.”

“It’s all right,” Tara said. “I’ll take care of it. You’ve done more than enough for us.”

“You may not feel so charitable when you see your decor.” Lynn rolled her eyes. “It’s only a mix of cast-offs and garage-sale bargains.”

Tara patted Del’s back and smiled. “It’ll be fine.”

She’d sold most of the furniture she’d had in California. She didn’t want the memories.

But the few good pieces she’d kept were coming, and their books, kitchen things, odds and ends. The man at the moving company said it was such a small lot, he’d have to squeeze it onto a truck headed that way with other loads, other stops. In the meantime, their possessions were in storage and might not arrive for weeks.

Tara didn’t mind. She’d lived in nearly bare houses before. She’d told Del it would be like camping out. He’d thought it sounded like fun—then.

Her horse and Del’s pony, their saddles and tack, would be brought by a man who moved horses for his living, Garth Gardner. Tara had known him for years and trusted him implicitly. But he, too, had a full schedule, and the horses were not due to arrive for almost a month.

When Lynn learned all this, she’d insisted on furnishing the house temporarily, even if the furnishings were few and haphazard.

“You’re going to feel like you’re living in a thrift store.” She gave a sigh. “Not even a good thrift store.”

She tunneled into the back pocket of her jeans and brought out a jingling brass ring. “Well, are you ready? Here they are, the keys to the castle.”

“I’m ready.” Tara took them, and they felt as weighty as her responsibility to her son. And to her brother.

AT THE DOUBLE C, Grady half limped up the stairs of the back porch.

He’d walked a long way and had picked up a stone bruise.

But he forgot the pain as he reached the top stair and his eyes caught the familiar vista of his uncle’s rolling land. J.T.’s spread looked good to him, mighty good.

The hills loosed a throng of memories that tried to force themselves into Grady’s mind. He blocked them expertly, as if they were gate crashers trying to storm an inner place he’d long fought to keep private.

Grady didn’t like to think much about either the distant past or the far future. He’d tried to live like a bird in flight, soaring in the present moment—but it had been harder to do of late. And he had to admit this particular present moment wasn’t so good, pride-wise.

Suck it up, he told himself. His father wouldn’t be happy to see him, but he’d take him in. Somebody had said that, right? Home is where they have to take you in.

So he raised his fist and knocked at the door. He gazed at the countryside from the top of the porch. And he remembered in spite of himself.

How many years since he’d chased Lynn McKinney up these very stairs, brandishing a garter snake at her? And she’d stopped on the top step, wheeled around and bloodied his nose—for scaring the snake. God, he’d been fond of J.T. and his wife and three kids. He’d thought the Hill Country would be home forever.

Don’t think of that. Don’t think of those days.

He started to knock again, but the door swung open. His father stood there, staring at him like he was a freshly delivered bad surprise. He supposed he was.

“Hi, Dad,” he said. A smile sprang to his lips because in his heart he was glad to see the old man, even if the feeling wasn’t mutual.

He hadn’t set eyes on his father for two years, not since the funeral. They’d had words then. They’d had few since. Grady phoned once in a while, but the old man never had much to say. Well, two years was a long time, and Grady had never been one to hold a grudge.

As for the old man, although he looked perplexed and displeased, he didn’t actually look old. He looked a lot better than he had at the funeral, where he’d been worn and ashen as a zombie. He looked strong again, like his old self.

So Grady nodded in approval and said, “You’re looking good.” He meant it.

His father’s dark eyes looked him up and down. They had a spark of their old fire. “To what do we owe this honor?”

Grady cocked his hat back. “I heard you were in Crystal Creek. I was passing through. I was going to stop and see you.” He grinned. “But my truck stopped about eight miles before I did.”

“Oh, hell,” his father said and swung the screen door open with a sort of stoic resignation. “Come on in.”

Grady entered the kitchen, lugging his duffel bag. The scent of spicy beef hit him like a whiff from heaven. “Lord, that smells fine,” he said. “Am I invited for supper?”

“I suppose,” Bret said in the same weary tone.

“Good to see you again,” Grady said and offered his hand. Bret took it and initiated a contest of who could squeeze the hardest. Grady let him win, dropped his duffel bag to the floor and turned to Jonah, who stood by the window.

For a second Grady’s heart took a strange, flying vault. Looking into Jonah’s eyes was like plunging backward in time and staring into their mother’s eyes. Nostalgia pierced him like an arrow through the chest.

“Little brother,” he said with genuine affection and embraced Jonah. Good Lord, the kid didn’t look like a kid anymore; his even features had lost their last trace of boyishness.

Jonah accepted the embrace awkwardly. Like their father, he was embarrassed by emotional displays. But unlike their father, he was not judgmental. Once you were in the circle of Jonah’s affection, the devil himself couldn’t pry you loose.

Jonah mumbled, “Good to see you.”

Grady disengaged himself and punched his brother’s shoulder affably. He faced his father again. “Okay if I spend a couple nights? I don’t know how long my truck’s gonna be out of commission.”

“I suppose.” Bret’s mouth was grim. “Where you heading this time?”

“A spread down in Florida,” Grady said. “Via New Orleans.”

“What’s in New Orleans?”

“That’s what I aim to see,” Grady said, keeping his real reason to himself. He gave his brother’s shoulder another punch. “You want to come, kid? Those French Quarter gals would love you.”

Jonah’s handsome face darkened in a blush, but he smiled.

“Jonah’s got a job here,” Bret said emphatically. “A steady job. And his dissertation to finish.”

“Dissertation.” Grady eyed Jonah with playful pride. “A doctor in the family. How’s it goin’?”

“Okay.” The same little smile stayed, playing at the corner of Jonah’s mouth. He seemed truly pleased to see Grady.

Bret wished he could feel the same easy pleasure. But his emotions were rent in two as he studied his two sons, the youngest and the eldest.

He wondered how he had gone so right with one, so wrong with the other. There was Jonah, as dependable as gravity, marked for certain success. And there, on the other hand, was Grady.

Grady wasn’t as tall as Jonah, and his good looks were more rugged. His hair was almost black, his skin was tawny, and his eyes, like Bret’s own, were as dark as strong coffee. When he flashed that killer smile of his, weak women melted. Hell, even strong ones melted.

And Grady liked to melt them. He was used to it. He had charm, and Bret believed it was his undoing. Everything had always come easy to him, so he had never had to apply himself to anything.

Grady was in his prime—thirty-five years old—and he had not accomplished one blasted thing in his life. The fates had given him every gift. He was smart—his test scores in school had proved it. But he’d dropped out of school when he was seventeen and hit the road.

Look at him, Bret thought, fighting down his disappointment. His son’s jeans were faded and dusty. His boots needed a shine. His shirt had a black smear down one sleeve. But the hat, as usual, was tipped to a cocky angle. That hat told the world, I don’t give a damn. I never have. I never will.

Bret stared at his firstborn, thinking, so much potential; so little accomplished. It had broken Maggie’s heart, though she would never admit it. “He’ll settle down someday,” she’d always say as if she could believe it.

Grady had not even made it home in time to see Maggie before she died. Oh, he had his excuses, of course, like always, but not being at Maggie’s deathbed was a lapse Bret could not forgive.

After the funeral, Bret had rebuked him bitterly, but his son wouldn’t bow and accept the blame he so justly deserved. When he’d left, Bret had been secretly glad to see him go.

Now he was back. Acting—and this was Grady’s special gift—as if nothing had happened. Oh, he could charm the pants off a duck if he tried. He was even making Jonah talkative.

“Yeah. Lang’s coming home. He should be here by tomorrow night,” Jonah said.

“No kidding?” Grady grinned. “I’ll be danged. Perfect timing. It’ll be old home week. Is he bringing Susie?”

“Just h-himself,” Jonah stammered.

“Susie left him,” Bret said, more sharply than he meant to. “Now she wants half of everything. He’d just put the earnest money down on that little horse spread. He’ll lose it.”

Grady’s dark eyes flashed. He snatched off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “Hellfire and monkey turds! How much bad luck can one man have?”

“Plenty,” said Bret.

Millie Gilligan came walking into the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, eyeing Grady as if he were something strange and out of place, like a green grizzly bear.

“You’re not the one,” she said to him.

Grady, his face still flushed with anger, stared at her without comprehension.

“He’s not the one what?” Bret demanded of the woman.

“He’s not the one you said was coming,” she replied, something akin to censure in her voice. “He’s not the one you expected.”

Now how in the hell did she know that? Bret wondered, but he didn’t have time to think about it. “You’re right. Tomorrow my middle son comes. This is an unscheduled visit. Mrs. Gilligan, this is my oldest son, Grady. We’ll need a place to put him up tonight. Grady, this is Mrs. Gilligan, the housekeeper.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Grady all but bowed to her. “Are you the little lady responsible for the savory brew I smell?”

She peered at him, uncharmed. “You were swearing in my kitchen.”

Grady blinked. “Beg pardon, ma’am. I’d just heard some bad news.”

“Ahh. You’ll soon hear more,” said Mrs. Gilligan, not taking her glass-green eyes off him. “But for every yang, there’s a yin. Many an accident happens, and many an accident will, or maybe it’s fate in a fright wig—who’s to say? I’ll go fix you a room. Don’t swear in my kitchen. Nobody swears in this kitchen but me.”

She turned and left, and the three men stared after her. “I’ll get more?” Grady asked, dumbfounded. “More bad news? Accidents? What’d she mean by all that?”

As if in answer, the kitchen phone rang.

THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE YAWNED immense and nearly bare. It smelled of dust and mildew. Yet Tara’s heart sprang up in love for it, in spite of the must and shadows.

A cathedral ceiling, beamed with oak, soared over the front rooms. No wall divided the living and dining areas. Instead they flowed into each other, separated only by a free-standing fireplace of gray-white stone.

Still carrying Del, Tara followed Lynn through the rest of the house. The west wing contained a guest room, a sitting room, an enormous master bedroom and a bath fit for an emperor. A large office came with a modestly sized library room and its own half bath. Except for its dusty fixtures and shelves, this part of the house was empty.

Lynn’s and Tara’s footsteps echoed eerily on the slate floors, and Lono’s toenails went tap-tap-tap. He happily sniffed the strange new scents. Del, breathing heavily, was falling asleep, his head on Tara’s shoulder.

This wing would be Gavin’s private living quarters when he came, and Tara was already having visions of how she could make it rich and full of comforts for him.

The east wing, which would be hers and Del’s, held three good-size bedrooms, each with its own bath. The rest of the space had been engineered into a boggling series of spacious storage closets.

True to her word, Lynn must have hit every yard sale in Claro County. She’d pulled together enough used furniture and appliances to provide bare essentials for Tara and Del—and then some—even a washer and drier. She’d had all the utilities turned on and a phone installed.

Two of the east wing bedrooms each had a single bed with faded but clean bedclothes. Each had a somewhat battered dresser. Del was growing heavy in Tara’s arms, so she lay him down on the bed in the room that was his. Next to the bed stood a scuffed toybox spilling toys.

“Stay,” she told Lono quietly. The dog wagged his tail and leaped on the bed, turned around twice, then curled up snuggling against Del’s side. The look on his face said, “Don’t worry. I’m here.”

Tara gazed down at her son. “I won’t shut the door. He has—dreams sometimes,” she whispered to Lynn. “If he wakes, I want to hear him.”

Lynn nodded. She went to the dresser and switched on a chipped little lamp shaped like Donald Duck. “This used to be Cal’s,” she said with a smile. “I think he’d like knowing it’s here.”

The two women moved softly down the hall. “I’m surprised he can sleep,” Tara said, looking back over her shoulder.

“He and Jamie played hard.” Lynn turned right from the hall, heading for the kitchen. “Come on. I put a couple of wine coolers in the fridge. Let’s drink a toast to your new house.”

The kitchen’s original appliances were gone. Next to the sink squatted an old three-burner stove. Beside it, an equally ancient refrigerator hummed and gargled, as if to prove by its noise that it was on the job.

Lynn swung open the creaking door, withdrew two bottles and uncapped them. From the cupboard she took a pair of mismatched jelly glasses and, with a flourish, filled them. She handed one to Tara, and they clinked the glasses together in mock solemnity.

“To your new house,” Lynn proposed. Each took a sip.

Then Lynn tilted her head and regarded Tara over the rim of her glass. “What do you think of the place? Are you depressed beyond words?”

“It’s wonderful,” Tara said sincerely. “And a thousand thanks for all you’ve done.”

Lynn tossed a dubious glance at the card table and wobbly chairs she’d set up in the kitchen for mealtimes. “Cal said you’ve done this before? Lived with nothing but the basics?”

Tara nodded. “My parents did it almost a dozen times. Believe me, we really roughed it a few times. This is luxury in comparison.”

“This was a beautiful house once, and it can be again. I have the feeling you’re the one to make it happen. Want to look at the main living space again?”

Tara nodded. Together they drifted through the door and back to the central living area. Lynn had created a makeshift office near the fireplace and facing the western bank of windows. She’d used a sturdy wooden table for a desk and had found a handsome old-fashioned oak swivel chair to complement it.

Nearby, she’d put a pair of cushioned lawn chaises and a cuddly looking beanbag chair in front of the small television. She’d even hooked up a VCR and placed a basket of videos beside it.

She’d put another box of toys by the television: cars and action figures and Thomas the Tank Engine characters that her own son had outgrown.

Of all Lynn’s acts of kindness, her kindness to Del touched Tara most. She was so grateful that she could not find words, and her throat knotted.

But Lynn acted nonchalant, as if readying a house for a stranger was all in a day’s work. She looked up at the oak-beamed ceiling. “This place was well-built, that’s an advantage. And another is that it wasn’t empty long. Only since June.”

But her expression changed when she moved to one of the big windows overlooking the valley. Her calm brow furrowed, the corners of her mouth tugged downward and she shook her head. “Fabian. He nearly ruined it all—damn him.”

Tara, moving to her side, followed her gaze. Gavin had sketched out Fabian’s story with professional detachment.

But Lynn simmered with emotion, and Tara saw why. Beneath them, the landscape was different from the rest of the Hill Country. The valley was as desolate as a wasteland. A huge hole gaped in the earth as if a meteor had smashed into the ground, destroying everything around it.

“This used to be a gorgeous vista.” Bitterness tinged Lynn’s soft drawl. “That’s why the Harrises built their house here—they owned the dude ranch. They were going to build out on the edge of the property, but they couldn’t resist this view…now it looks like very hell.”

The valley stretched out bare, bulldozed and eerily lifeless. Lynn’s tone changed to sadness. “In spring there used to be a carpet of bluebonnets down there—acres and acres, so beautiful you couldn’t believe it. And other wildflowers. Seas of them.”

Tara studied the dead and barren land. “Will the flowers come back?”

“It’ll take years. Unless our brothers reseed it.” The thought smoothed her brow, made her smile. “If I know Cal, he’ll want to.”

Tara nodded. So would Gavin.

Lynn pointed to the huge raw-looking pit. “That’s where that fool Fabian tried to put his lake. He never should have picked that spot, but he had to exploit the flowers. Bluebonnet Meadows he was going to call it.” She squared her jaw in resentment. “Well, the bluebonnets are gone. And so are his cheesy model homes.”

“Gavin told me,” Tara said softly. Fabian, set on his grandiose development, had tried to create an enormous artificial lake. But autumn rains had drenched the county, breaking his dam, and a wall of water had swept the valley, devastating it.

Lynn pointed to a featureless bulldozed area. “The first thing Three Amigos did was route the water back the way God intended. They had to bring in people from Dallas to do it. They’ll fill in that lake bed when they can get enough equipment here. And good riddance.”

A chill prickled Tara’s bones at the sight of so much folly. “Gavin said that’s why it’ll be hard for me to get labor for a while. That the flood destroyed so much downstream that everybody’s working there.”

“I’ve found a few people to tide you over,” Lynn said. “But yes, Fabian caused damage, especially down at Baswell. Thank God the land’s not in his hands anymore.”

“If people resented Fabian developing this land, won’t they resent Three Amigos doing it?” Tara asked. It was a dark thought, one that had nagged her.

“But this is different,” Lynn said, raising her chin. “Fabian wanted to put over a thousand houses on this land. They only want a few hundred. And to keep the land as natural as possible.”

“If they can pull it off. It’s going to take time, work—and money.” Tara was still worried over Gavin’s money, although he assured her the Hawaiian property was starting to bring in money—a lot of it.

“They’ll make it work.” Lynn clearly refused to doubt her brother. She changed the subject.

“You’re going to be isolated out here. I’m glad you have a dog. Is he a good watchdog?”

Lono wasn’t a big dog, but he had a terrier’s protective and fearless heart. He’d fling himself into the midst of a pack of jackals for loved ones. “He’s the best.”

“Good.” But Lynn looked thoughtful, almost haunted. “But eventually you’re going to have a lot of men out here on construction. And you’ll be the only woman. You can’t be too careful. Once I was…”

Her voice trailed off, as if once more she had wandered into a topic she’d rather not speak of. Tara examined the emotions fleeting across Lynn’s mobile face. “Once you were what?”

“Nothing. There was some—trouble. This roughneck—never mind. Sam’ll loan you a rifle if you don’t have one of your own.”

Tara had spent time in wild country when she was growing up. She knew guns were sometimes necessary, but she also had an instinctive hatred of them. “No, thanks. But if I change my mind I’ll let you know.”

Lynn looked Tara up and down as if she liked what she saw. “Do that. And call me for any reason. I mean that. Most of my family’s gone, and I’m not used to it. I’d love to be needed.”

Then Lynn glanced at her watch. “Oops, Hank’s going to be home from school soon. I need to get cracking.”

Tara walked her to the back door. She touched the other woman’s shoulder. “Again, I can’t thank you enough. You’ve made me feel I’m very lucky.”

Lynn grinned. “No. Hole in the Wall seems back in good hands at last. I think we’re the lucky ones.”

Tara hoped so. But as she watched Lynn drive off, the word repeated itself ironically in her mind. She was alone with her son in a strange house in a strange region.

She wondered what Burleigh Hastings would say to see his grandson in such a run-down house overlooking such a desolate view. He would claim she was insane to bring him here.

I can’t worry about him. Not now. There’s too much else to do now.

She rolled up her sleeves so that she could get to work.

GRADY FELT LIKE FORTUNE’S FOOL.

The weird little housekeeper had been right. More bad news came, and it came by phone. Accidents, she’d said.

Please understand that accidents happen, Jervis Jensen had pleaded with Grady. Please, please understand that.

Jervis owned Jervis’s Towing and Auto Repair. When Grady’s truck had broken down, he’d hiked into town and asked Jervis to haul it in. Though Jervis was a rugged man in his fifties, on the phone he’d sounded as if he was going to cry.

An accident had indeed happened. Jervis’s assistant had been towing Grady’s pickup into Crystal Creek. Jervis swore that he had been doing this task safely, gently and with all possible tender, loving care. Then something occurred that no one could have foreseen.

Both the tow truck and pickup were sideswiped by a tanker carrying yellow grease to a rendering plant in Waco. All three trucks went into a ditch, and the seams of the tanker ruptured. All three were deluged with used canola oil.

“I know how you feel—I really do.” Jervis’s voice was dangerously near breaking. “Thank God nobody was badly hurt. But my truck’s ruined, too. Do you know how much a tow truck costs? The woman at the insurance company is boggled. She’s just boggled. She never heard of such a thing. You do have insurance, don’t you? Please say yes.”

Numbly Grady said he had only minimal insurance. He hadn’t meant to keep the truck, but to sell it in New Orleans. It was an investment, a vintage 1956 Chevy.

“The tanker company’s saying it’s my driver’s fault. It’s not. I’ll have to sue, and so will you.” Jervis said in a choked voice. “I vow there will be justice done for this.”

Grady hung up, stunned. He’d sunk most of his money into buying and restoring the truck. But he’d had an offer for it and would have made a sweet profit on the sale, enough to have kept him in tall clover for the next year or more. Now what?

JONAH DROVE GRADY AND BRET to the scene of the accident. Grady felt a numbing sense of surrealism. The Crystal Creek Fire Department had sent two dump trucks filled with sand to soak up the oil in the ditch. Grady’s pickup had yet to be pried from under the glistening, dripping tanker. The whole countryside stank of old French-fry grease.

Grady truly didn’t know whether to weep or to storm up and down the highway, raging and shaking his fists at the sky. Since he couldn’t decide, he simply stared. The truck had been beautifully restored. Now probably only parts could be salvaged, if that.

“You know, I think this could only happen to you.” Bret shook his head in disbelief. “Why were you driving such an old junker?”

Grady said nothing of the truck’s true worth. He had long ago tired of trying to explain or justify things to his father. Now the truck looked only like what it was, a congealing wreck.

Jonah’s face was pained with sympathy. But then, all of a sudden, he began to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Grady couldn’t help it. Although he was filled with something close to despair, he laughed, too. Until tears came to his eyes.

“IT’S REALLY NOT FUNNY,” Jonah said that night. They were in a pink bedroom full of ruffles and teddy bears. It was where Mrs. Gilligan had quartered Grady, his bed a pink canopy with side curtains.

As he lay stretched out on this innocent confection of a bed, Grady wished he was back in the sleaze and tinsel of Las Vegas.

Jonah sat by a dressing table with a skirt on a white wrought-iron chair with a pink velvet cushion. He had his leg crossed over his knee and a somber look on his face.

“I mean,” Jonah said, “that cooking oil’s bad news. When it spills, it’s worse than fuel oil. A guy at the university said it was actually harder to get off a seabird’s feathers.”

Grady put his hands behind his head and stared gloomily up at the pink canopy. The buyer in New Orleans had cussed him out over the phone, calling him a stupid son of a bitch for not taking out more insurance. Grady had counted on his skills as a driver and a mechanic to get him safely to the Big Easy. He’d counted on his luck, too, but it seemed to have run out.

His insurance wouldn’t cover the oil damage to his truck, nobody was admitting liability and it looked like he was going to have to join Jervis Jensen in suing the tanker company. A lawsuit could drag on forever. Grady was marooned. Thirty-five years old, nearly broke and back living with his father. His depression felt bone-deep.

“Change the subject, will you? Whose room is this? It looks like something out of a damned fairy tale. I keep expecting the Seven Dwarfs to troop in.”

“It’s Jennifer’s. J.T.’s daughter by his second wife. They’re in Paris.”

“I never met them.” Grady remembered only J.T.’s first wife, Pauline, and their two sons and daughter. He supposed J.T.’s sons had done better by their father than Grady had by Bret.

“Where’s Tyler?” he asked moodily.

“California. His father-in-law died. He and his wife have to decide if they’re going to run the winery he owned out there or come back to the one they started here.”

Either choice sounded plenty cushy to Grady, but he didn’t have an envious nature. He let the thought pass. “What about Cal? Still doing fine?”

Jonah nodded. “He and his two partners just bought the old Kendell place. The one that got turned into a dude ranch. Sank a lot of money in it. Taking a big chance.”

Grady turned his head and frowned at his brother. “Sank money in that spread? It wasn’t anything special. What do they want with it?”

Jonah gave an indifferent shrug. “Couple of different things. Part of it’ll be a development. Try to pump new life into the town.”

“It needs it.” Grady stared at the pink canopy again. After Vegas, Crystal Creek looked like Podunk, U.S.A. Once he’d thought it the finest spot on earth. He’d learned a lot since then.

Jonah said, “They’re fixing it all up. They sent some woman here to be in charge of fixing up the house and lodge.”

A woman. Grady’s spirits rose slightly. “What’s she like?”

“Don’t know,” Jonah said. “She’s got a kid. She must have money. She’s sister to one of the partners. Lynn knows her.”

A rich woman with a child? Scratch that possibility. Grady had had his fill of rich women. And kids were always a complicating factor. He’d trained himself to avoid complications. He sighed in resignation. “And how’s little cousin Lynn?”

“She’s good,” Jonah said. “Married. Family. Keeps her horses here. She’s the only one of ’em around right now. Cal’s down in Mexico selling assets or something.” He paused. “Seems funny being in their house.”

Grady cast a gaze around the pink room. “You’re telling me.”

Both men were silent for a moment. Grady said, “And it seems weird, J.T. having a different wife. How long was he single?”

“Five years.”

Grady mused on this. “Mom’s been gone two.”

Jonah said nothing. Sometimes he could talk about their mother, and sometimes he couldn’t. It was like he was still sorting out his feelings about her death. So, in truth, was Grady. She’d always believed in him.

Grady asked, “You think Dad’ll ever get married again?”

Jonah stared at the carpet and shook his head. “I don’t think he even considers it.”

Grady wondered. His father must have had a sex drive once, or he and Lang and Jonah wouldn’t be here. Yet he couldn’t imagine it. No, Bret would spend the rest of his life being true to his wife’s memory. Once Bret got a notion, he hung onto it like a bulldog.

Grady settled more heavily against the ruffled, rosy pillow. “Too bad about Lang and Susie.”

“Yeah.”

“Why’s he coming here?”

“No place else to go, I guess.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Work for Dad.”

Grady set his jaw. “I’m going to have to find a job, too. I’m not going anywhere without wheels, but I’ve only got five hundred bucks and a lawyer to pay.”

Jonah’s expression became uneasy. “I don’t know that Dad can hire all three of us. I mean, the ranch needs fewer hands in the winter, and he felt funny about giving Lang a job.”

“Oh, hell.” Grady squared his jaw defensively, “I won’t even ask him. It’d give him too much satisfaction. I can find a job on my own.”

“Not much doing around here. Except over where Cal and his buddies bought. There’ll be some construction and stuff soon.”

Grady tossed him a mild look. “Hey, Professor. I’ve done construction. I’m not too proud to do it again.”

“I don’t look down on it,” Jonah countered. “I’ve done my share of grunt work.”

“Yeah, kid, I know.” Grady yawned. He’d already made up his mind. Tomorrow he’d go over and talk to the rich boss lady from California.

He didn’t know what he’d say to her, but inspiration would come to him. It always did around women. She wouldn’t know what hit her.

CHAPTER THREE

DEL DREAMED HE WAS LOST on a dark planet. Shadowy craters pitted the bleak landscape, and three red moons hung in the sky. He was all alone, his heart pounding so hard it hurt.

Behind him, he heard noises rustling wetly in the depths of the closest crater. He turned and saw what he always saw: a terrible set of tentacles reaching up from the darkness. They whipped and twisted toward him.

He wanted to run to safety, but couldn’t; there was no safety. Out of every crater, jungles of tentacles rose, writhing and glistening in the red moonlight, and they lashed, slithering toward him from every side.

Slime creatures! Surrounded by slime creatures! A dripping tentacle shot out and seized his ankle. A second wrapped around his shoulders in a crushing embrace.

He screamed while he could: “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

His eyes flew open and blearily he saw what seemed to be his room—but wasn’t. The familiar yellow night-light, shaped like a star with a smiling face, gleamed reassuringly.

His Buzz Lightyear curtains hung at the window, shutting out the night. His Buzz Lightyear bedspread covered him. His own yellow toy chest stood in the corner with his name stenciled on it in red letters.

But Del realized this was not his room. The walls were pale and dirty, the furniture was all wrong, and Lono was not in bed with him. I’ve been kidnapped by slime creatures! I’m in slime creature prison!

He took a deep breath and screamed again with all his might. “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

Then his mother was there, warm and kissing and hugging. Her hair was loose and tickled his cheek like a nice friend he had known forever. Her flannel nightshirt was soft.

Sleepiness was in her voice and the way she moved. “What’s wrong, honey? What’s wrong?”

“Slime creatures,” he moaned. “They caught me. They changed my room. They took Lono.”

She smoothed his hair. “There are no slime creatures.”

She always said this. As great as she was, for some reason she didn’t believe in slime creatures. Still, she could always chase them away. She just couldn’t keep them away.

“They got Lono,” he repeated, trying to convince her.

“Lono’s right here,” she said. And Lono himself leaped onto the bed, gave Del a sleepy kiss, then turned around and lay down next to him.

“Where was he?” Del asked. Had Lono, faithful Lono, tried to trick him? What was happening?

“He came to bed with me,” his mother said. “Let me fix your covers.”

“Why’d he do that?” Del demanded.

“Sometimes you kick in your sleep.”

“He’s supposed to stay with me.” His voice wobbled with fear and a sense of betrayal.

“He’s with you now.” His mother tucked the covers more firmly around him. “Everything’s fine.”

“They changed my walls,” he argued. He felt almost safe now, but groggy and grumpy and as if things were still very wrong but he couldn’t put it into words.

“We’re in a different house, that’s all.” She smoothed his hair again. “I put up your curtains and your own sheets and bedspread. Your toys are here. We’ll paint these walls so they’ll be just like your old ones.”

“Paint them now,” Del insisted. Suddenly he hated these walls. He blamed them for everything.

“It’s three o’clock in the morning. We’ll paint them tomorrow. I promise.” She kissed his forehead. “Go back to sleep.”

“I’m afraid.” This was true. He was afraid of the walls, he was afraid Lono would leave him again, he was afraid to go to sleep because the creatures were probably waiting to slither back and slime him to death.

“Okay. I’ll stay with you.” She settled down, soft and snuggly, beside him, one arm around him in protection. He wrapped his fingers around a soft strand of her hair because it made him feel better, like a magic charm.

Although he wasn’t supposed to, he put his thumb into his mouth. He settled more deeply into his pillow. It wasn’t just the walls; this whole place wasn’t right. It was Texas, and he hated it, and with all his heart he wanted to go home.

BY THE COLD, RATIONAL LIGHT of morning, Tara regretted her rash words. She didn’t have time to paint Del’s walls. A hundred other tasks screamed to be done. But she had made Del a promise, and she would keep it.

Of course, Murphy’s Law was operating full force. Everything that could go wrong was going as wrong as possible. The woman Lynn had hired to help Tara phoned to say that she wasn’t coming after all.

Mrs. Giddings said her husband drove a tow truck and had been injured in a terrible accident yesterday. He had a broken right wrist and could not do one single thing for himself. He was helpless as a newborn baby.

Furthermore, he’d had to be scrubbed so hard at the hospital to get the canola oil off him, he was as raw as a butcher’s bone.

“Canola oil?” Tara echoed.

Yes, and the man was traumatized by the whole accident, as well. “He’s all shook up,” said Mrs. Giddings. “He’s itching like a man on a fuzzy tree. I told him, ‘Albert, you have become an Elvis song.’ I can’t leave him alone like this.”

Tara sighed and looked at the kitchen walls, which, like all the others, needed to be scrubbed before they were painted. She’d already washed Del’s with a mixture of water and vinegar.

A man had been scheduled to come at eight to put up a temporary paddock and stalls for the horses, but he hadn’t shown, either. Although the horses might not arrive for a month or more, Tara wanted everything ready for them. Del had cried when they’d left the pony behind. Putting up the stalls and paddock would prove to him that they were coming.

In the living room, Del, settled deep in the beanbag chair, watched a video of Peter Pan. This worried Tara. If she let him, he’d watch videos day and night. Yet she could not send him out to play. This was wild, unknown country, and he could wander off as soon as she wasn’t looking.

She decided to call Lynn to ask for guidance. “I’m sorry,” Lynn said. “I don’t know where Joe Wilder is. He swore to me on a stack of Bibles that he’d be there at eight o’clock. I’m really sorry, Tara.” Then she added, “It’s hard to get help around here.”

Well, Gavin said it wouldn’t be easy, thought Tara, gritting her teeth.

Lynn went on, “It took Daddy and Cynthia forever to find a housekeeper for the Double C. As for Albert Giddings, well, he was in this really bizarre accident yesterday. Oh, I know! I’ll call the Double C and—”

Tara heard the sound of an engine in the driveway, and her heart took an optimistic leap. “Somebody just drove up. Maybe it’s Joe Wilder.”

“He’s a little fat man,” Lynn said. “With bright red hair. He drives a beat-up white truck. He’ll introduce himself as ‘Fat Joe.’ You’ll see.”

Tara peered hopefully out the window. The truck was not white, but sleek, shiny and black. A man got out, slamming the door. He was not little and fat and red-haired. He was tall. He was dark. He was—Tara swallowed—sinfully handsome.

He walked toward the back porch with an easy, narrow-hipped amble. Her heart speeded up. “I don’t think this is Fat Joe.”

She saw the stranger mounting the jerry-built steps. Lono, hearing the sound of his boots, barked insanely. He hurled himself at the kitchen door, his neck hair bristling, his voice rising an octave and a half.

“Good Lord,” Lynn said.

Above the wild barking, a knock sounded loudly at the door.

“Hang on, will you?” Tara asked. “I have no idea who this is.”

“Absolutely. You make me nervous out there all alone.”

Tara set down the receiver on the marble countertop. She seized Lono firmly by his collar with one hand and unlocked the door with the other. Lono barked even more frantically.

She swung open the door. On the other side of the screen, the stranger swept off his Stetson. The sun gleamed off hair as black as a crow’s wing. His white shirt set off his tanned face and dark, dark eyes.

“Hello, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Grady McKinney—”

Lono’s shrieks became a piercing, hysterical yodel. “Excuse me,” Tara said, struggling to subdue the dog. “Lono, down! Quiet!”

Lono quieted himself to a mere rumbling snarl, his teeth bared. His neck hair bristled more fiercely, and he was tensed and ready to spring.

The stranger grinned, an engaging blaze of white. Good Lord, thought Tara. There’s enough wattage in that smile to light the whole state of Texas.

Hat still in hand, he said again, “I’m Grady McKinney. My father’s manager over at the Double C—”

She tore her gaze from his face and looked at the gleaming truck. Now she saw the crest painted in gold on its door: two overlapping C’s within a gilded wreath. Her eyes went back to his, as if by magnetic attraction.

“Y-you work at the Double C?” Grady? This was the one Lynn had said she wouldn’t meet. Or had Tara misunderstood?

His gaze was bold, warm and slightly wicked. “No, ma’am. I just got in from Nevada. You’re Mrs. Hastings, I believe.”

Lono growled more horribly, his body shaking with suppressed rage. “Yes. I—I’m Tara Hastings.”

He put his hat back on and tilted it. “We have mutual friends, I think. My cousins. Second cousins, actually. Cal. And Lynn.”

Her breath felt trapped in her throat, but she managed to say. “Lynn? I’m on the phone to her right now.”

That smile again. Oh, Lord, he has dimples. Just like Cal’s.

He said, “That so? Tell her hello. I’ll be over to see her soon.”

“I will,” Tara said. “Just what can I do for you, Mr. McKinney?”

He hooked his thumbs on either side of his belt buckle. His belt was slung low, the buckle large and silver. It was engraved with a large cactus reaching skyward. How phallic, thought Tara in confusion.

He looked slightly rueful. “Frankly, Mrs. Hastings, I’m sort of marooned at the Double C. Meant only to be passing through, but I lost my truck in an accident. Borrowed this one from the foreman. I heard you just moved in and thought maybe you might need a hand. I’m a dependable worker, and I could use a job.”

He could use a job? Tara stared at him slightly dumbfounded. No, this would not do at all. He was far too good-looking. He was a McKinney, but unemployed? Something must be wrong with him, seriously wrong.

He seemed to see her doubt. “It’s been my experience that when people move, they need help. My father and brother’ll vouch for my honesty. So will Cal and Lynn, I reckon.”

She considered this. “What exactly do you—do, Mr. McKinney?”

“A little bit of everything, ma’am. I’m a sort of jack-of-all-trades.” He nodded at Lono. “I helped train guard dogs once. That fella’s little, but he’s a natural. Hello, boy. Good boy. Good dog.”

Grady McKinney had a low, rich, lazy voice, and amazingly, it seemed to quiet the dog. Lono stopped showing his teeth. He no longer strained at his collar. His growl lowered to a halfhearted grumble deep in his throat.

“What was your last job?” Tara asked.

“I worked with horses. Andalusans. In Nevada.”

“Andalusans?” she said, impressed in spite of herself. “What did you do with them?”

“Handled them, worked them out for Caesar’s Palace. Before that I crewed on a yacht out of Sausalito. Before that I did construction in New Mexico. I got some letters of reference if you’d like to see ’em.”

Grady reached into the back pocket of his jeans and drew out a long yellow envelope.

He’s a rolling stone, remembered Tara. That’s the problem. She looked him up and down, trying not to be distracted by his sheer male appeal. He was confident, friendly, clean-shaven, and his white shirt was ironed to perfection. His boots were worn but polished.

She put on her most professional air. “Let me talk to Lynn.”

“Fine.” His smile was close to cocky. But charming. Too damned charming.

Tara dragged Lono to the phone, though the dog was now wagging his tail tentatively.

Tara turned her back on the man and picked up the receiver. “Lynn, there’s a man here who says he’s your cousin Grady. He wants a job.”

“Grady?” Lynn practically shrieked his name in delight. “That’s just what I was going to say—I’d call the Double C and find out if Grady could help you. I just heard he was back. Grady’s the handiest guy in the world.”

Tara lowered her voice. “You mean I should hire him?”

“Is a bluebird blue?” Lynn laughed. “Grady can do anything. Your problems are solved.”

Tara gripped the receiver more tightly. “He’s—trustworthy?”

“Absolutely. He’s held down some very responsible jobs. My aunt Maggie used to keep us filled in on what he was up to. He’s a fascinating guy. He’s just got itchy feet.”

Tara repeated it mechanically. “Itchy feet.”

“It’s his only real flaw. He won’t stay put for long. But while he’s here, grab him and cherish him.”

Tara dropped her voice to a whisper. “If he’s so great, why’s he have to knock on a stranger’s door, asking for a job? Nobody sent him, right?”

“He probably heard you’d just moved and figured there’d be work. And he’s also probably too proud to ask his father for favors. Big Bret’s a good man, but with his sons, he’s—demanding. Bret’s very structured. And Grady, well, Grady’s a free spirit.”

“How long do you think the free spirit will stick around?”

“Who knows? This mess about his truck may take time to straighten out. Tell him to give me a call. Grady—I can’t believe it. And tomorrow Lang comes. They’re all going to be at the Double C.”

As Tara hung up, her heart beat hard and her palms were moist. She wiped her free hand on the thigh of her jeans and went back to the door.

Grady McKinney stood staring up at the sky. When he heard her approach, he turned to her. “You talked to Lynn?”

Tara had control of herself again. She was not a woman easily addled, but she was confounded by her own reaction to this man. It was just that he was so unexpected, she told herself.

Careful to keep Lono inside, she opened the door and stepped out on the raw boards of the porch. She was disconcerted by the gleam of sexual appreciation she saw in his eyes. He was attractive, sure of himself—perhaps too sure—and probably used to conquest. If he thought she was susceptible, she’d knock that idea out of his head fast.

She gave him a cool look of assessment. She held out her hand with a no-nonsense gesture. “I’ll see those references.”

He gave her the envelope, then stood, his hands resting on his hips, watching her skim the letters. “I hope you’ll find that my papers are in order,” he said. She didn’t miss the sarcasm, and it needled her.

But he had almost a dozen letters. One from the Parker Ranch in Hawaii, two from yacht captains, others from a startling array of people: a building contractor, a horse rancher, a security specialist, a stock manager.

“You don’t seem to stay in one place long,” she said, an edge in her voice.

“As long as I stay, I work hard,” he answered.

She thought of Del’s room and the walls that put him at the mercy of his nightmares. “Can you paint?”

“I worked for a painter in Sacramento. Yeah. I can paint.”

She thought of the fencing supplies lying in the mountain pasture up the slope. Lynn had had them delivered and waiting. But Fat Joe Wilder, the man hired to put them up, was a no-show. “Can you put up fencing? Temporary horse fencing? Set up portable stalls?”

“Done it many a time,” Grady said. “No problem.”

“I’ve got a lot of restoring to do on this house. Can you mend roofing? Do cement work?”

“All that and more.”

“And how long could I count on you being here?”

This was the first question that seemed to throw him. A shadow passed over the confident face. “I could promise you a month or two, I reckon. By then I hope to be on my way.”

A month or two, she thought. A hardworking man could get a lot done in that time. She took a deep breath. “When could you start?”

“Right now, if you want. You won’t regret it, I promise you that.”

Your problems are solved, Lynn had said. Tara thought hard, conflict still roiling deep within her.

But the prospect of a man who was strong and skilled was too tempting. She kept her voice brusque, almost cold. “All right. You’re hired. Today I want you to paint my son’s room.”

He nodded. “You got the paint?”

“No,” she said in the same tone. “I need to go into town and get it. Go home and change clothes. You’re going to get dirty before the day is over.”

He touched the brim of his hat in salute. The gleam came back into his eyes. “I’ve never been afraid to get dirty, missy.”

She stiffened involuntarily. Was he being suggestive? She’d put him in his place double quick. “Call me Mrs. Hastings. Be back in an hour. Don’t be late.”

“I’ll be here,” he said. “At your service—Mrs. Hastings.”

He sauntered back to his borrowed truck. He climbed in, backed up and touched his hat again in farewell. As he drove off, she thought, I hope I haven’t just made a really, really stupid mistake.

THE WOMAN WASN’T WHAT HE’D expected, Grady thought, driving back to the Double C.

She was from California, so he’d figured blond. Her brother was rich, so he’d figured, she’d be thin as a bean sprout, with diamonds rattling around her bony wrists. He’d thought she’d look brittle and expensive. It wouldn’t matter if nature had made her pretty or not; money would make her seem so. She would be as rigorously groomed as a prize poodle.

Wrong on all counts. Her hair was russet, not blond, pulled back from her face, and she wore no makeup. It was as if she didn’t want people to notice she had beautiful hair, a beautiful face.

At first glance, she’d seemed plain. At second glance, she had a kind of simple, almost elegant prettiness. And at third glance, she was stunning.

Best, she was stunning without trying. Her freckled skin was so perfect it was like delicately flecked silk. The mouth was full and well-shaped and innocent of lipstick. The nose was straight, the eyes a peculiar cloudy gray with darker gray around the irises. She’d been dressed in jeans, riding boots and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

At first, she’d seemed bewildered to see him. And then he’d been sure he’d glimpsed a spark of sexual interest in those smoky eyes. Hey, from a woman like that a man would gladly accept a sensual invitation.

But she’d canceled it. If he’d caught her off guard, she’d jerked back on guard with a vengeance. At first, a charge of eroticism had leaped between them. But she’d made it stop, as if she’d thrown a switch and shut down the current. She’d become so cold and businesslike that a lesser man might have felt frostbite.

But so what? She’d hired him anyway. Was Mrs. Hastings a snob, letting him know she wasn’t about to slum with a lowlife like him? Or was she basically cold? Was she one of those frigid, ungiving women? Or had she been hurt? Well, whatever the answer, she was easy on the eyes. He’d watch her.

He drove back to the Double C, borrowed a tool chest and post hole digger from the foreman, Ken Slattery, and swapped him the black truck for an older model. Grady hadn’t seen his father this morning, and there was no sign of him now. “Gone into town,” Ken said.

Grady went to the pink bedroom and found that Millie Gilligan had washed and ironed all his clothes, including the ones he’d thought had been clean. She’d even patched the knee of his oldest pair of Levi’s.

He’d awakened early this morning to shine his boots, but before he could get out the back door, she practically wrestled him down and stripped off his shirt so she could iron it. “I delight not in wrinkled raiment. Scabby donkeys scent each other over seven hills,” she’d muttered. She’d demanded to iron his good jeans, too. Then she’d scrambled him the most delicious eggs he’d ever eaten.

Now he went into the kitchen to thank her for doing his laundry. She only repeated her strange pronouncement. “I delight not in wrinkled raiment.”

He asked if he could make himself a sandwich. Her answer was sharp and to the point. “No. Sit.”

She said it with such authority, he sat. Without saying another word, she packed him a whole lunch in plastic things with lids and put them into a sack with a thermos of coffee and a bottle of spring water.

She was an odd little thing, but kindhearted in her way.

The kitchen was fragrant with the scent of freshly baked chocolate cookies; they smelled ambrosial. She wrapped a cookie and put it into the sack. She looked at him with glittering eyes.

“North, south, east, west. It’s not only the chick that needs his nest,” she murmured. “To take the woman by the heart, take the child by the hand.”

Startled, Grady said, “Say what?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, almost snappishly. “I was singing. An old, old song.”

GRADY GOT BACK TO TARA’S HOUSE before she returned from town. He looked more critically at the place. Jonah had said it was in rough shape. The kid had put it kindly.

Structurally the house seemed sound enough, but the place had an air of having been assaulted. He looked at the graffiti on the wall and garage doors with loathing. He’d get rid of that ugliness.

As for the other damage, porches had been ripped off, the patio torn up. An outdoor spigot dripped forlornly. Grady wasn’t a man who liked being idle. He found the water main, shut off the flow and hauled the toolbox out of the pickup.

Just as he was screwing the faucet handle back in place, a gray panel truck drove up. He stood up, a wrench in one hand, wiping his other on the thigh of his jeans.

Tara Hastings parked and got out. A little kid, thin and blond, hopped out on the other side. Except for his blond hair, he resembled his mother.

The kid acted shy at facing a stranger. He put his thumb into his mouth as if the act could somehow protect him. Grady had a gut instinct that the kid was deeply unhappy. He felt a surge of sympathy for him.

“Del, take your thumb out of your mouth.” Tara said it almost mechanically, as if she’d said it hundreds of times. Del pulled his thumb away. By his furtive glances at his mother, he seemed already planning on how he could slip it back.

Tara struggled to get paint cans out of the truck. Grady went to her side and took the heavy cans from her hands. His hard hand brushed her cool, smaller one. She didn’t blink or react in any way.

“Thank you.” Her voice was clipped.

“This your boy?” He nodded toward the child, who stared at him with wary eyes.

“Yes. Mr. McKinney, this is Del. Del, this is Mr. McKinney, the man I told you about. I hired him to help us.” She kept the same brisk tone. Hoisting an armful of hardware-store bags, she made her way up the back stairs and fumbled to get her key into the lock.

Grady took the key from her so smoothly that she didn’t have time to protest. With a flick of his wrist, he unlocked the door and swung it open for her. “I’ve had your water off,” he said. “To fix that spigot. It was leaking. I’ll turn it back on.”

“Thank you,” she said in that maddening cool way. “It seems like a sin to waste water in country like this.” She set her sacks on the counter and unpacked them with snappy efficiency.

The dog danced around them, and this time he didn’t bristle or bark at Grady. He sniffed at Grady’s boots, the legs of his jeans, then looked up at him, bright-eyed and wagging his tail.

“Hi, boy,” Grady said, and stooped to pet him. The dog fairly wriggled in delight. Grady scratched, petted and stroked him, but at the same time stole a look around the interior. The boy, Del, silently slipped into the living room and switched on the television. A video was already on the player, and the screen blazed into color with a ticking crocodile chasing Captain Hook.

Del sank down in a worn beanbag chair, gazing transfixed at the screen. He popped his thumb back into his mouth and sucked it solemnly. Grady rose, and Lono went to join the boy in the living room.

Grady put his hands into the back pockets of his jeans as he looked at the neglected living room. The woman and the kid were really camping in this house. No frills, no luxuries and the necessities were a hodgepodge of secondhand stuff.

Again she surprised him. Someone like her, living like this? It made no sense. She should be staying at a suite in a hotel, sending her pricey Austin decorator out to manage this mess.

She hadn’t dressed up or put on makeup to go to town. What you see is what you get, her bare face and plain clothes seemed to say. But she couldn’t disguise her natural grace.

“What do you want me to do first?” he asked, looking her up and down, trying to figure her out.

She gave him a perfunctory glance. Her eyes had long, sooty lashes, barely tinged with auburn. They seemed to look through him as if he were barely there. She started sorting the equipment on the counter.

“You said you could paint? I need my son’s room painted. That robin’s-egg-blue. With cream trim. It’s the first one down the hall. On the east side. There are tarps in the garage.”

He studied her profile. With her gaze downcast, her face seemed surprisingly delicate, almost vulnerable. His curiosity was growing.

“Those garage doors. I could cover up that spray paint first.”

“No. First, my son’s room. It’s most important.”

“All these walls look like they need cleaning,” he said. “It smells like mold. It leaked in here, right?”

She didn’t answer him directly. “I cleaned Del’s walls this morning. His room has the least damage. You’ll find a ladder in the garage, too.”

“If there’s much patching, it’s going to be a two-day job,” he cautioned. “The patching compound needs to dry—”

“I got the fast-drying kind. Paint, too,” she said. “I’ll show you the room, then let you get about your business.”

“You’ll be here if I have questions?” he said. What he really wondered was if she’d be around while he did her bidding.

“Yes. I’ve got plenty to do.” She turned from the counter, but didn’t look at him. She tilted her pretty chin up and kept her voice icy. “There’s your equipment. Excuse me now. I want to get to work on the living room. So I’ll need water. I need it now.”

He raised an eyebrow at her tone. But she’d clamped her mouth into a grim line and was ignoring him. She grabbed a bucket and a stiff brush from under the sink. He cast an appreciative glance at her derriere, knowing she’d be offended if she saw him do it. That only sharpened his appreciation. Then he went out to turn on the water.

When he came back in carrying the tarps, he caught a glimpse of her in the living room. She sat with the kid before the TV, her arms around him, her cheek pressed to his. The boy was clearly close to tears. Her face was earnest and unhappy as she tried to comfort him.

“I know how hard Scotty laughed at the crocodile last time,” she said, rubbing his back. “I know you wish Scotty could be here. But he can’t, sweetie. He’s in California.”

The intensity of her concern caught and held Grady. She was no longer the aloof creature he’d first met. She radiated love and a kind of desperation to protect the child from whatever troubled him.

She held him tighter. “I know you’re lonesome. But you’ll make friends here. You’ll get to like it, you’ll see. No, sweetie, don’t put your thumb in your mouth.”

Then she saw Grady, and her face paled, her expression going defensively blank. She looked away, but hugged the child more warmly. “Let’s just sit here and watch the end together,” she murmured and kissed his forehead. “You and me, babe.”

The boy said nothing, but he didn’t look as sad as before. Grady went into the back bedroom, revising his opinion of Tara Hastings. Coolness and control were not her true nature.

No, she was fighting fears, not only hers, but those of her child. He sensed something had gone badly wrong in their lives, and she was bound and determined to put it right again—especially for the boy. More for the boy than for herself. He sensed a kind of gallantry in her.

She clearly loved the kid; he had seen that in that brief scene in the living room. And she would protect him with her life. She was scared of something, but she was resolute, and she had valor.

A complex set of emotions stirred deep inside Grady. He didn’t know what they were or what shape they were taking. He only knew they were foreign, and he had no name for them.

CHAPTER FOUR

TARA YEARNED TO GO BACKWARD in time and start the morning over. She wished she hadn’t acted so high-handed with Grady.

True, he was a flirt, but she’d dealt with flirts before. True, he was handsome and masculine as hell. But the world was full of handsome, sexy men, especially where she’d come from in California.

Why was this one different? He’d stricken her breathless, heated her blood and shaken her thoughts. Then, because her response shamed her, she’d taken it out on him.

She had forbidden herself to have sexual urges. Some of her reasons were complex, but one was simple. In California, Burleigh Hastings had had her watched. When he learned she was here, he’d do the same. She would walk the straight and narrow path.

Grady had the air of someone who’d departed from that path long ago. He probably had a series of flings that stretched from Texas to Tasmania.

But whatever his faults, he was a demon worker. From time to time, she stole glimpses of him as she passed Del’s room.

Like a magician, Grady had spirited Del’s furniture and toys into the spare bedroom. With uncanny speed, he’d unscrewed switch plates and hardware, detached the light fixture. He taped what needed to be taped, patched what needed to be patched and covered the floor with the tarps. He did it all without wasted motion.

Tara had made it clear she wanted him to stay out of her way, and he did, almost supernaturally well. At noon, when she fixed Del lunch, Grady went out on the makeshift back porch and ate out of a paper bag, alone.

When he came in, he asked her if he could give the cookie in his lunch to Del.

Del looked at Tara, then Grady, then the cookie. Tara doubted he would take it; strangers made him bashful. But the cookie was beautiful, large and chocolate, with darker chocolate frosting, and Grady offered it with such simple generosity, that Tara found herself urging, “Go ahead, sweetie,” and Del accepted.

He bit into it, and his eyes widened. “This is good,” he said. After he finished it, he slipped off to follow Grady. This amazed Tara. She moved softly to the bedroom door and peeked inside.

Del, chocolate crumbs on his chin, was looking up at Grady with scheming interest. “Can you bring me more cookies like that?”

Grady was starting to paint the last wall. “I can try. A lady gave it to me. I’ll ask her if she’s got more. I can’t promise, though.”

“What lady?” prodded Del.

“The lady who works at my father’s house.” Grady smoothly rolled on the sky-blue color. “Her name’s Millie.”

Del frowned and pondered this. “She works for your dad—like you work for my mom?”

“That’s right, champ.”

“Do you live with your dad?” Del asked.

Tara saw Grady’s brows knit, as if he was choosing his answer carefully. “No. I don’t live with him. I’m just visiting.”

“We don’t live with my dad,” Del volunteered. “He left us for another lady. She can’t make cookies, though—”

Good grief, Tara thought in humiliation, and sprang into the room to stop any further revelations. She seized her son’s sticky hand. “Del, don’t bother Mr. McKinney. Come with me.”

But Del was a child with great powers of concentration. He wasn’t about to have his line of thought derailed. “She can’t do much but lay by the swimming pool in her bik-bik-bik—”

“Bikini?” Grady supplied helpfully.

Tara wished to die, to shrivel up and blow away like the lowliest bug.

“That’s it.” Del sounded relieved. “In her biknini.”

Pretend he didn’t say that, any of it. Squeezing Del’s hand more firmly, she tried to draw him away. “Come and wash up. Then you and I and Lono’ll go for a walk.”

Del tried to tug away. “Me and Mr. McKinley are talking.”

Tara’s grip tightened. “Mr. McKinney and I. I said don’t bother him. He’s trying to work.”

“He’s no bother.” Grady seemed absorbed in his painting. He didn’t say anything else, for which Tara was grateful.

She injected false cheer into her voice. “Come on, Del. Let’s explore. We haven’t really seen much of this place.

“I don’t want to see more of this place,” Del said with a wounded expression. “I don’t like it.”

Grady turned and gave him a mild look over his shoulder. “You don’t? I did when I was a kid. I used to love this place.”

“I want to go back to California.” Del strained harder against Tara’s hold. “Texas is no good for nothing.” His heels were dug into the tarp as firmly as if he had spurs.

Tara gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to yank the boy away as if she were a tyrant. But neither did she want him rebelling against her.

Grady, drat him, came to her rescue. “California’s fine. So’s Texas. Now, why don’t you mind your mother? A walk sounds good. There’s lots of stuff to see around here.”

“Like what?” Del demanded.

“Like you can go to the creek.” Grady had stripped off his chambray work shirt and his muscles rippled under his white T-shirt. “You can see animal tracks. Coyotes. Mountain goats. Wild pigs. I used to find arrowheads in that creek. Once I found a dinosaur tooth there.”

“A dinosaur tooth?” Del’s eyes widened in fascination.

“Only once.” Grady dipped the roller in the paint. His tanned biceps flexed and his chiseled wrist moved expertly. “Still, you never know what you might find around here. Nope, you never know.”

“How big a dinosaur tooth?”

Grady paused and held out his thumb and forefinger three inches apart. “About yay big. Now. Mind your mom. Go see what you can see. Or I don’t ask the cookie lady for any more cookies.”

Del’s decision was quick. “Come on, Mom. Let’s look for dinosaur teeth.” He practically dragged her from the room.

“You probably won’t find one the first time,” Grady called after them genially. “You have to go back and look again and again.”

Tara threw him a parting look, trying to say thanks.

Grady’s dark eyes met hers. He smiled as if to say, happy hunting. I meant it. You never know what you might find around here.

ALL DINOSAUR TEETH STAYED HIDDEN. But Del did find a broken deer antler, a perfect squirrel skull, a wishbone, a small blue feather, an enormous black feather, approximately seventeen pebbles that looked as if they might be diamonds, a dead fish and a live toad.

He wanted to take everything back to show Grady. Tara said he could take all except the fish and the toad. She used the time-honored excuse that if they carried off the toad, it would miss its mother.

Lono, whose greatest passion was rodents, chased a ground squirrel, a rabbit and some sort of bounding rat. He tried to dig up a mole, barked at a garter snake and studiously avoided confronting a lone Canada goose that patrolled a section of the creek, looking possessive and militant.

All in all it was a successful walk, although Tara ended up carrying all the rocks, tied up in the scarf she’d worn. For the last hundred yards she also had to carry Del, who’d worn himself out.

Grady must have seen them from the bedroom window, for he came out to meet her. A chill haunted the air, but he’d put nothing on over the T-shirt. It was flecked with blue paint. “Hi,” was all he said to her, then took Del from her arms. Grateful, her arms aching, she let him.

He turned all his attention to Del. “What’d you find, champ?”

Del was blinking sleepily, but he tried to tell Grady of his treasures. He proudly showed the broken antler.

“Wow,” Grady breathed. “That’s a fine one. You’ll want to save that.”

Del fumbled in the pocket of his denim jacket and produced the skull. “And this. My mom says it’s a squirrel.”

“Then it must be.” Grady nodded with conviction.

“This blue feather—”

“Ah. An indigo bunting.”

“And this e-nor-mous black one—”

“Vulture. Outstanding.”

“No,” Del insisted, fighting a yawn. “It’s a eagle feather.”

“You could be right.” Grady wiped a smudge from the boy’s chin with his thumb. “Could be. Eagle.”

Del lost his fight and yawned. “And all these rocks that might have diamonds in them—”

“I used to bring those home myself. Mighty sparkly.”

“Mom says they’re not diamonds.” Del sighed. “They’re quart crystals.”

“Quartz,” Grady told him. “That’s right. That’s why they call it Crystal Creek.”

“Not diamonds?” Del sounded disappointed.

“Quartz is good, too,” Grady reassured him.

Del sighed more deeply in resignation. Then to Tara’s surprise he laid his head on Grady’s shoulder. The gesture touched her, yet it also sent a ripple of wariness through her. Del seldom trusted people this fast, and she wasn’t sure why he’d taken to this man so quickly.

But she said nothing. She shifted the scarf filled with pebbles to her other hand. The wind had loosened her hair, and she felt it blowing, untamed, around her face. Her cheeks tingled from the cool, fresh air.

Del’s eyes fluttered shut, and he fell silent, breathing deeply. She said nothing for fear of rousing him. Grady, his hair ruffled by the breeze, also stayed silent. He walked beside her as if she wasn’t there, keeping his eyes on the house.

He held Del as if he had often carried a sleeping child. They mounted the steps and she held the door open for him.

They communicated by glances, not words. She darted a look toward the hall. He nodded. She led him to her room and again met his eyes. She looked at her empty bed. So did he, and then at her again.

Too conscious that they were together in her bedroom, she nipped at her lower lip and shook her head yes. He lowered the boy to the faded bedspread. Del sighed, stirred, then sprawled, limp with sleep. His grasp on the antler weakened. It fell silently to rest beside him on the mattress. So did the two feathers, the blue and the black.

Tara picked them all up and set them on her dresser with the wrapped pebbles. She did not want to look at Grady again. She stepped out into the hall, and he followed wordlessly. She could feel him watching her.

She didn’t let herself meet his gaze. “Thanks. He was getting heavy.”

“I could tell.” His voice was low.

“I should get back to work.” She’d tried to sound brisk. Instead she sounded breathless.

“You don’t want to take off his jacket or shoes?”

“I’ll wait till he’s sound asleep.”

His hand was on the doorknob to her room. “You want this shut?”

“No.” She could hear Lono lapping thirstily from his water dish in the kitchen. “The dog will want to go in and out of the room. And I need to hear Del. Sometimes he has—bad dreams.”

“Oh.” He left the door ajar. “I’m almost finished with his bedroom. What do you want me to do now?”

I want for you and me to get out of this narrow hallway, she thought. It’s too close for comfort. She could still feel the chill from outside radiating from his body.

Uneasily she moved to the living room. “I ordered a temporary paddock and stalls.” She pointed out the window. “The hardware store delivered them, up in that meadow. Can you set things up?”

“Sure. It’s only a two-wrench job. Where do you want it?”

She moved to the table and pointed at a map. It showed the original layout of Hole in the Wall. Grady stood right behind her and looked over her shoulder. “The dude ranch had the paddocks here.” She pointed out the spot on the map. “When you walk out there, you’ll see the outline of the foundation of the stables.”

“Yes.” His breath tingled her ear, and the back of her neck prickled. The vibrations from his body no longer seemed cold, but warm.

She tried to ignore it and pointed to a second map. “This is the way the property is now. I’ve thought and thought about it. They had it right. The stable should go there.”

“Why’s it gone?” he asked, still just as close, just as disturbing.

“It didn’t suit the man who bought the place. That Fabian person. He had almost everything torn down.”

“And it’s your job to put things back together?”

Yes. She thought of her life and Del’s shaken into pieces. It’s my job to put things back together.

She put her finger on a dotted line. “The fencing goes here for the time being. The stalls here. I have our horses coming in a few weeks. I want Del to know we’re ready for his pony.”

She moved sideways, out of the almost electric aura he radiated. “So the sooner it’s done the better,” she said with more authority than she felt.

“You want to step outside and show me, just to make sure?”

She welcomed the chance to shake off the closeness of the house. His presence was too powerful; the enclosed space seemed to sing with it.

“Yes. But we’ll have to be quick. I don’t like leaving Del alone.”

“I understand.”

They both looked out the window, saw the golden leaves falling swiftly from the oaks, the elms. The sky had turned gray. He turned to her, eyed her thin jacket. “Wind’s coming up. Will you be warm enough?”

She crossed her arms, a defensive gesture. Against the growing cold? Or against him? She didn’t know. “I’ll be fine.”

“Let me get my shirt.”

She didn’t want to wait. “I’ll meet you outside,” she said.

GRADY SHRUGGED INTO HIS SHIRT and buttoned it, standing again by the same big window. He watched her striding gracefully down the slope toward the site of the old stable.

He put on his hat and went after her, leaving the dog in the house to guard the sleeping boy.

He heaved the toolbox up from the ground near the faucet, grabbed the post-hole digger out of the truck and followed her to the big plateau where she waited. The wind had grown stiffer, and although it didn’t bother him, she huddled deeper in her denim jacket.

Her hair, so severely controlled, so perfectly in place before her hike, was growing still more tousled. More strands had slipped from the silver barrette and danced, multicolored, in the breeze.

Her oval face, left so carefully uncolored by any artifice, was burnished by the cold. Her cheeks were pink, making her unusual eyes seem more vivid. Her full mouth looked riper.

He thought, I wish I had a picture of you like that. Hair like autumn, eyes gray as the clouds. Like you came right out of the clouds, part of the sky itself…

His own fancy shook him. He was not given to poeticizing. Still he looked at her and thought, Some man left you? He was a fool.

He said, “Some guy pulled down a perfectly good stable? He was a fool.”

“He wanted something else,” she said, and he wondered if the words applied to her ex-husband as well.

“I hate to see good things abused,” he said. “I hate to see them wasted.”

He studied the play of her hair in the wind, wondered what it would feel like if he touched it, then cautioned himself, Slow down, boy.

The look in her eyes grew far off, her expression stoic. “What’s done is done,” she said. “We deal with it.”

She exhaled, burrowing her hands more deeply into her pockets. “So. Let’s pace the outline of the fence. Then I’ll let you get to your job, and I’ll get to mine.”

“Sure.” He fell into step beside her. “What kind of horses have you got coming?”

“An Appaloosa.” She kept her eyes on her boots as she paced. “And a Shetland pony.”

He found this interesting; he always found horses interesting. But there were other things he wanted to know. He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “The painting. You bought all the right stuff in town. You knew what you were doing.”

The unspoken question was you’ve done this before?

He didn’t know if she’d answer, but she did. “We grew up with our folks doing it. Buying one place after another. Fixing it up. Moving on.”

He tried another angle. “Cal? You know him well?”

She gave him the briefest of sideways glances. Her smoky eyes had the strange power to fascinate and shake him at the same time.

“Yes. Well.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then she looked at the sky and said, “I’m sorry I was so unfriendly to you earlier.”

The remark threw him a bit off balance. “I didn’t notice,” he lied.

“Yes, you did. You took me by surprise.”

I could say the same for you. He stole a glance at her profile, the straight nose, the long lashes and the untrammeled hair.

She stared off at the far horizon. “People will ask you what’s going on over here. What’s becoming of this property. Each of the partners has a different vision. But they’re working together. My brother’s going to establish an equestrian community. It’s part of a bigger development. All of it committed to preserving the integrity of the land. I don’t know much more than that.”

He stopped, and she stopped, too. He pulled his hat farther down over his eyes. “An equestrian community? For people who own horses?”

“Own. Or lease. People who want enough space in the country to live and have a horse or two. Or who live in Austin but want to keep horses. To have a weekend getaway and place to ride.”

“And your brother’s put you in charge of start-up?” he asked. It was a big job for a woman, especially for one recovering from a bad marriage, but Tara was not an average woman. She nodded and started walking again. “He’s played with the idea for years. So that’s the story. I oversee reconstruction on the house and lodge. We’ve got to get the stable up and running. In Austin, architects and landscape architects are planning the rest of it.”

He kept pace with her. “Do you want me to keep quiet about it? I mean, folks are bound to be curious. But it’s your business and your brother’s.”

“No. There’s no need for secrecy. People will know soon enough.” She paused, her eyes sweeping the hills, then settling on the house. “I’ve got to go now.”

“Yeah. Well. I’ll move Del’s furniture back in before I head home.”

“Thanks.” She said it without smiling. She turned from him and walked away with long, sure steps. She did not look back.

IT WAS AFTER SIX O’CLOCK, and Del, full of energy after his nap, had decided to shadow Grady. He was an interesting man who did interesting things.

He had put up almost a whole fence where no fence had been before. He could take the light fixture out of the bedroom ceiling, then put it back. He’d turned the dirty walls a clean and comforting blue. He was strong enough to move even a big dresser, and that’s what he was doing now.

“Why’d you put tape on the walls?” Del asked. “Did they have a boo-boo?” He stifled a snicker.

“You don’t fool me.” Grady shoved the bulky steel dresser into place. “That’s a joke. Ha. A pretty good one.”

“It is.” Del laughed and fell on his bed, still giggling at his own wit. “So why’d you tape them?”

“So you don’t smear paint. The brush smears the tape instead.”

Del thought about this. As he thought, he wriggled down to the end of the bed and rolled over on his back, staring upside down at Grady. “Are you going to paint the whole inside of our house?”

“If your mother wants me to.”

Del hung a little lower because he liked the funny feeling it gave him in his head. “Will you paint anything outside?”

“If she wants.”

“Will you do whatever she wants?”

“Just about. I suppose.” Grady pushed the dresser the final inch so that it was even against the walls.

“Will you come with us on a walk tomorrow?” Del was getting dizzy upside down, so he rolled over on his stomach. “Maybe you could help me find a dinosaur tooth.”

“Nope. Your mom pays me to work. Taking a walk is play.”

“It’s kind of work,” Del reasoned. “It is if you walk so far you get tired.”

His mother came into the room. She carried his Buzz Lightyear curtains, hanging on the rods. “Infinity and beyond!” Del intoned Buzz’s motto and stretched out his arms, wriggling his fingers. Grady straightened up and wiped his face on his forearm.

Del looked up at him. “What’s infinity? And what’s beyond it?”

“Mmm,” said Grady. “Good question. Ask your mother.”

His mother gave Grady a funny look. Del sat up on the unmade bed. “Mom, what’s infinity? What’s beyond it?”

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