A Little Boy’s Hero

When big-city cop Grayson Wallace visits an elementary school for career day, he finds his heartstrings unexpectedly tugged by a six-year-old fatherless boy. Gray offers to mentor the child, but widowed mother Elise Lopez wants nothing to do with men in uniform. Now he can’t get the struggling Lopezes off his mind. All he can think about is what family means—especially after discovering the identical twin brother he hadn’t known he had in Grasslands. Maybe a trip to ranch country is just what he, Elise and little Cory need.

“Thank you again for going out of your way for my son,” Elise said. “But he needs to get to his homework and I need to get back to my job.”

Gray smiled down at the boy. “Can’t slack on the homework, mister. Wannabe police officers have to keep up their grades.”

The child groaned, then lifted a hand for a parting high five before trotting back to the house.

The officer turned to her, his probing gaze setting loose a truckload of battering rams in her stomach.

For a moment she thought Cory’s cop was going to say something else. But he merely motioned to her vehicle at the curb. “I’d better let you get on your way.”

She was unwilling to get too chatty with the more-than-attractive man. No, he hadn’t crossed the lines of propriety as some had done. Hadn’t asked her out. Nevertheless, she kept up her guard.

* * *

GLYNNA KAYE

treasures memories of growing up in small midwestern towns—in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois—and vacations spent in another rural community with the Texan side of the family. She traces her love of story-telling to the many times a houseful of great-aunts and great-uncles gathered with her grandma to share hours of what they called “windjammers”—candid, heartwarming, poignant and often humorous tales of their youth and young adulthood.

Glynna now lives in Arizona, and when she isn’t writing she’s gardening and enjoying photography and the great outdoors.

Look-Alike Lawman

Glynna Kaye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him

and he will make your paths straight.

—Proverbs 3:5,6

To my wonderful Love Inspired editors:

Melissa Endlich, Emily Rodmell and Rachel Burkot. Thank you for believing in me!

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Glynna Kaye for her contribution to the Texas Twins miniseries.

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 Nineteen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Chapter One

“My daddy was a policeman, too. A bad guy killed him.”

Grayson Wallace stared at the boy gazing up at him. The little chin jutted in evident pride, but the dark brown eyes searched his own for understanding. A connection. Acknowledgment. He was only a first-grader, not too much older than the son of Gray’s former girlfriend. Way too young to have lost his daddy, let alone lost him to a bad guy.

Gray massaged the shoulder of his own left arm, which was held close to his body in a sling. Hadn’t the division captain said, when asking for a volunteer, that visiting a Fort Worth elementary school’s career day was cushy duty? He could still hear the good-natured hoots and catcalls of his fellow officers when he’d raised his hand. Couldn’t blame them. He didn’t have kids of his own. Spent almost every waking moment trying to keep lowlifes off the streets. He wasn’t known for coaching T-ball, catching Disney matinees or reading bedtime stories in his spare time like many of the other guys and gals did.

But then, they weren’t aware of how close he’d let himself get to Jenna’s boy.

No, catering to kids might not be his gift, but hanging out with grade-schoolers for a few hours was better than another day sitting around the office shuffling paperwork as he’d done the past several weeks. This was a perfect task for a cop on limited duty, recovering from a shoulder injury sustained during an undercover assignment.

But now, looking into this child’s pain-filled eyes, it sure didn’t strike him as cushy.

Grayson crouched in front of the dark-haired boy, aware of other kids crowding close, and uttered the words he instinctively knew the youngster needed to hear. “It takes a lot of courage to be the son of a law-enforcement officer.”

The boy blinked back tears and nodded, his eyes reflecting gratitude that Grayson had taken notice of him.

Poor kid.

“What’s your name?”

“Cory Lopez, sir.”

Sir. Didn’t hear that a lot these days, even in the South. Gray held out his hand and clasped the small one offered. Gave it a man-to-man shake. “Good to meet you, Cory. Like your teacher said earlier, I’m Officer Grayson Wallace.”

The first-grader took a deep breath. “My dad is Duke Lopez. Did you know him?”

Cory’s gaze held steady in confident expectation.

Duke Lopez. Gray remembered the name, although he’d never met him. Lopez hadn’t been one of Fort Worth’s finest, but on a force in one of the outlying communities. Nevertheless, any time a cop went down in the line of duty, you knew about it. It impacted you. You never forgot.

“No, I didn’t know him, Cory.” The hope in the boy’s eyes dimmed, and Gray almost regretted admitting the truth. “But he was a brave man. I heard how he saved his partner.”

The boy took a step closer. “He was a hero.”

“Yes, he was.”

“When I grow up, I’m going to be a policeman hero, too.”

Gray flinched inwardly. His mother must love that. “That’s a fine thing to aspire to, Cory.”

“I’m going to be a firefighter,” a dainty African-American girl piped up, easing shyly closer to Gray. Like Cory, her outfit conformed to one of the acceptable variations of the Fort Worth Independent School District’s K-8 dress code—a collared navy shirt and khaki pants. The regulations helped keep kids from all walks of life on more even footing starting out and served to discourage gang affiliation and too-provocative clothing.

“A firefighter is a fine thing to be, too.”

The girl beamed and nudged a classmate.

“Did a bad guy hurt you, mister?” A blond boy pointed at Gray’s sling. Did he dare admit to kids this young that there were not-so-nice people in the world? Then again, in this neighborhood, that was nothing they didn’t already know.

And Cory knew it for sure.

“Okay, children.” Miss Gilbert clapped her hands to get the attention of the first-graders, her cheerful voice raised over the childish chatter. “Time to clean up.”

Gray glanced at the clock. He’d already been at the school several hours, rotating through the elementary classroom along with a fireman, doctor, veterinarian and a marine like his little brother Carter. Each told about what they did and answered eager—and sometimes amusing—questions. But it was now two forty-five on a Friday afternoon. He needed to get going. He had to report back at Division, then pack a few things and head out for a five-hour drive to a western Texas community called Grasslands.

While he’d gone there for the first time only last weekend, he’d delayed that particular trip for weeks. With his injuries to be attended to and post-assignment paperwork and court appearances filling in time until the end of September, he’d had a legitimate excuse for staying away. But truth be known, he’d needed time to digest his little sister Maddie’s news—that while he’d been away on the undercover assignment, she’d discovered they had family they hadn’t known existed.

She had a twin sister, Violet, and he an identical twin brother. He still wouldn’t believe it if he hadn’t come face-to-face with Jack Colby only a handful of days ago in a Grasslands church parking lot. The revelation that Sharla Wallace, the only mother he’d ever known, wasn’t his and Maddie’s birth mother compounded the shock. And he still hadn’t gotten his head around the fact that a woman named Belle Colby—Jack and Violet’s mother—was his and Maddie’s biological mother, as well.

But Belle was in a coma sustained from injuries when she’d fallen from a horse last summer. Which is why he’d agreed to return to the Colby Ranch this first weekend in October. There were things he and his newfound siblings needed to work through together, decisions to be made. This next trip wasn’t one he looked forward to any more than he had the first one.

“Children! I said it’s time to clean up.”

Gray stood, and the kids eagerly scattered to their workstations. All except Cory, who continued to gaze at him with what could only be described as a reverential look. Not good. Gray motioned to the other kids. “I think you’re supposed to get your stuff and catch a bus home or something.”

“My mom picks me up.”

“Then you’ll want to be ready when she gets here.”

“She’s always late.”

They stared at each other in silence. What did the kid want from him? He’d already told him he didn’t know his father, but he could feel the boy’s pain. His longing. While he hadn’t been an orphan himself, he knew what it was like to grow up without a mom. His mother—or at least the woman he had thought was his mother—had died in a car accident when he was not much older than Cory, so he knew the loss of a parent he’d loved.

He knew, too, what it was like to miss his dad. He had no idea where his missionary-doctor father might be. Gray had returned from last month’s close-call, determined to strengthen his relationship with his dad. But Brian Wallace had been reported as ill somewhere along the Texas-Mexico border and all efforts to trace him during recent weeks had been unsuccessful. No, Gray’s situation wasn’t exactly like Cory’s, but it nevertheless tugged at his heart.

“Can I touch your badge?”

Jerked back to the present, Gray couldn’t help but smile at the innocent request. What would it hurt? He squatted again and the boy tentatively reached out a finger to the panther crouched atop the shield. Symbol of Panther City, a nickname for Fort Worth since the late 1800s.

“He looks mean,” Cory whispered, stroking the big cat almost as if he could feel the animal’s thick, muscled coat under his fingertip.

“He does, doesn’t he?”

“Like he could eat bad guys.”

Gray drew a sharp breath. It had been two years since Duke Lopez had taken a bullet while drawing a gunman’s attention from his fallen partner. Cory would have been, what? Four? How well did he remember his father?

“Cory, your mom is here,” Miss Gilbert called from the doorway. “I see her coming down the hall.”

Good. The little guy’s mother wasn’t late after all.

The boy’s eyes reflected evident surprise at her on-time arrival, then he gave the panther a final pat. Their gazes met in solemn recognition of a mutual bond that caught Gray off guard.

“It’s an honor to meet the son of Duke Lopez.”

The boy nodded, then in a flash scampered to his workstation to clean up and gather his things. Gray rose and turned, preparing to give the boy’s mother a courteous nod. But his smile froze. Whoa. That was the kid’s mother? Since when did moms look like that?

Even in profile as she stood chatting in the doorway with Miss Gilbert, she was a beauty. Dark flashing eyes. Dazzling smile. A warm, flawlessly creamy Hispanic skin tone. Shiny black hair pulled into a demure bun contrasted with the spiky heels, short skirt and a molded-to-her-figure blazer.

Cory hoisted his backpack over his shoulder and raced to the door, breathlessly pointing toward Gray.

“Mom! A policeman! And he knows Daddy is a hero.”

She turned startled eyes toward him—and the open, friendly expression evaporated from her striking features. Her lustrous brown eyes locked on his for a long moment before narrowing slightly. She then put a protective arm around her son’s shoulders and ushered him from the room.

* * *

“But Mom,” Cory protested for at least the tenth time since leaving the elementary school. “I wanted you to meet Officer Wallace. He doesn’t know Daddy, but he remembers him. He knows he saved his partner. Don’t you even care?”

“Of course I care.” Elise Lopez attempted to keep her voice even, not wanting Cory to sense how upsetting his growing obsession with policemen had become for her. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she parked her compact car in front of the tiny fourplex they’d called home for the past year and a half. Far from being the most fashionable of the city’s districts—it bordered on rough—it was all she could afford right now. Close to school and her job at the clinic.

“Then why didn’t you talk to him?”

“Now, Cory, you know I never have time to chat when I pick you up. Billie Jean is expecting you and I’ve got to get back to work.”

His shoulders slumped. “You always have to get back to work.”

“I know.” Hearing his sigh as they exited the vehicle and headed across the sparsely grassed, hard-packed sand yard, she thrust aside memories of the well-cared-for landscape of their former home. She placed a hand on her young son’s shoulder. “But I go to work because te amo. Sí?”

I love you.

And she did, with every breath she’d taken since she’d first suspected she was pregnant. She’d held him even closer to her heart since his father’s murder two summers ago. Duke. Her hero, whom she’d learned not long after his death had more than a bit of tarnish smudging his shining armor.

But there was no point in rehashing that and making herself miserable. It was what it was. She could never have foreseen how his gambling debts would come back to haunt her, draining his life insurance and their savings and leaving her and Cory in dire circumstances that they had yet to dig out of. But Duke had otherwise been a good man. A loving father. A courageous cop.

“Oh, man.” Cory’s groan startled her as he jerked to a halt and dropped to his knees, frantically searching through his backpack. “Oh, man.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I left my ball glove at school.” The glove his father had given him. He looked up at her, his dark eyes reflecting panic. “We’ve got to go back and get it, Mom. Someone might steal it.”

She looked at her watch, torn. Why did he always do this to her? Forgetting things she’d reminded him about a million times. She’d even warned him that very morning not to take the baseball glove to school, but he’d apparently sneaked it into his pack.

“There’s no time. I’ll be late getting back to work again.”

“Oh, man.” But Cory didn’t cry or beg as he might have several months ago. Instead, he cut her a dirty look, snatched up his backpack and raced ahead of her into the open door of the fourplex’s miniscule entryway.

Her stomach knotted. That baseball glove meant the world to him, but she couldn’t go back to hunt it down. Last month a coworker had been let go for being late. Like Elise, she was a single mom juggling the logistics of a full-time job and kids, but chronic tardiness and absenteeism at the clinic hadn’t been tolerated for long.

With a glance at the potted pink geranium she’d set on the front step last spring—a pitiful remnant of her former lush gardens—she followed her son into the building, passing the lockboxes where residents received mail. All except her. She had a post-office box elsewhere, ensuring no friends or family members could search for her street address online and learn the truth about the neighborhood where she now resided.

Slowly she climbed the threadbare carpeted steps to their second-story apartment, a sparsely furnished space unlike any she’d ever imagined living in.

Yes, Duke had been a courageous cop. But his surreptitious penchant for playing the ponies had been his—and her—downfall.

Which brought her back to Cory’s fascination with policemen—like the well-built, good-looking guy at the school that afternoon. All spit-shined and polished in an official black uniform for his career day appearance, his dark chestnut hair neatly clipped, he exuded that quintessential cop aura. Confident. Authoritative. A bit cocky.

And a proud Texan.

She could see it all there in the flashing seconds when he’d held her gaze. He hadn’t even had the courtesy to cloak his appreciative glance as it fleetingly swept over her, his expressive eyes questioning if she returned his interest.

Which she did not.

She’d never again willingly put herself in a position to wait up late at night, anxiously listening for the garage door to signal the safe return of her hero. There would be no more haunting reminders, when embraced in the arms of a body armor-clad man, that the bulletproof vest was there for a reason. No heart-stopping moments when an unidentified police officer was reported as injured on the 5 o’clock news. She’d never again risk the nightmare of two somber officers at the door in the dead of the night, waiting to take her to the hospital. Or endure the heartbreak of not getting there in time to say goodbye.

No, never again. She hoped she’d made that plain enough when she broke visual contact with Cory’s Officer Wallace and hurried her son from the building.

“Mom?” His face still a thundercloud as he waited at the apartment door, Cory jerked past her when she let them inside. “How old do you have to be before you can be a policeman?”

The cop thing again. But at least he was speaking to her. “Much older than you are now.”

“How old?”

“Depends. Twenty-one, usually.” Twenty-one. That’s how old Duke had been when he’d moved to Texas where his bilingual fluency and three years of law-enforcement coursework were much sought after.

He hadn’t lived but a week beyond twenty-six.

Three years her senior, he’d been her childhood sweetheart in their small Arizona hometown. Which was why she couldn’t move back there, no matter how much she wanted to. Not yet. Not until she could return with her head held high, her finances restored and the weakness of Tomas “Duke” Lopez well-hidden from family and the community.

Cory flung his backpack to the hardwood floor and flopped onto the worn couch of the diminutive living room. Then, as if coming to a sudden conclusion, he scrambled to the sole end table, opened a drawer and pulled out the massive city phone book.

His reading skills were rapidly progressing, but he still had a considerable way to go. Nevertheless, he determinedly flipped through the thin-sheeted pages as she speed-dialed his sitter, their downstairs neighbor Billie Jean.

“Change out of your school clothes, Cory. Don’t dawdle.”

She glanced impatiently at her watch. It was disruptive enough to her employer that they’d accommodated her taking a midafternoon lunch hour each day. Even with the school situated between home and work, when traffic was congested there wasn’t much wiggle room to pick up Cory, deposit him at Billie Jean’s and get back to the clinic.

“Mom?”

As she waited for her friend to answer, she turned to her son, who still lingered over the phone directory spread across his lap.

“Yes?”

“I’ve got to get my ball glove back, so I need the help of a policeman. How do you spell Wallace?”

* * *

“Thank you again for coming.” Miss Gilbert, an attractive blonde in her early twenties, smiled at Grayson. “You and the other professionals made quite a positive impression on my class. On the whole school, in fact. But especially on Cory Lopez.”

“Cute kid.” With a gorgeous but stuck-up mom. “Too bad about his dad.”

“Yes. The sudden loss continues to take its toll, as is apparent from his behavior.”

“His behavior?”

“According to his former kindergarten teacher, it’s been like night and day compared to last year. Restless and distracted. Playing rough. Aggressive. Almost obsessed with following in his father’s footsteps and getting even with the man who shot him.”

Grayson frowned. “They have the guy in jail. I know it’s not been the customary swift Texas justice, but he’s awaiting trial.”

“That doesn’t mean much to a little boy.”

“No, I imagine not.”

“I couldn’t help but notice, though, how he settled down almost from the moment you arrived. Do you have children of your own, Mr. Wallace?” Her quick glance took in his left hand prominently supported by the sling, then her smooth cheeks flushed. He smiled to himself. Checking him out for a ring, was she?

“No, no kids,” he admitted. But maybe on down the road.

“Must be the uniform, then. Reminded him of his father.”

“Could be.”

“He’s a child with so much potential. Elise—his mother—works hard to provide for him, to give him love and attention. But a troubled boy that age could use a strong male influence. Have you ever thought about our district’s mentoring program?”

“What’s that?” If it was what he thought it was, he wanted no part of it. He didn’t intend to get attached to anyone else’s kid ever again.

“It’s an opportunity to connect with children in a meaningful way. Too many in this part of town come from broken homes that are struggling financially. There are few good role models.” She lifted her gaze to his in appeal. “I’d love to see a youngster like Cory have a chance, not end up like so many drawn to street gangs in order to find a place where they feel they belong.”

“I doubt I’d be much of a mentor for a first-grader. Maybe an older boy, if I had the time. Which I don’t.”

“At least please give it some thought, Mr. Wallace.” Her cheeks flushed again. “I’m sure you noticed how the children—Cory—gravitated to you.”

Yeah, he’d noticed how Cory had sidled up to him, especially when he’d crouched to his level. How the boy had moved in close, basking in the attention. Jenna’s son had been the same. He and Michael had been drawn to each other. Grown close. Closer than Gray had ever been to a little kid. Did Michael understand why Gray was no longer a part of his life? Did Jenna explain it to him at all?

He shoved away the haunting speculation. “Cory’s a friendly little guy.”

“I know it’s your job to keep the ‘bad guys’ at bay, Mr. Wallace, but what if those bad guys had once had a man in their lives who cared about what happened to them?” Miss Gilbert’s smile again encouraged, but it would get her nowhere.

His memory flew to his brother who’d been raised without a father when their parents had split and each took two kids. Jack turned out okay, didn’t he? Then again, he’d grown up on a ranch, not in the heart of a big city.

“I don’t mean to pressure you,” the teacher amended, apparently mistaking his silence for annoyance. “But I’ve come to love Cory. A policeman like you, who’s already had a thorough background check, could move quickly through the mentor screening process.”

“Thank you for putting confidence in me, Miss Gilbert, but I’m afraid it isn’t feasible right now.”

“I understand.”

Sensing her disappointment, he realized it was time he drew the conversation to a close. “I’d better gather my own things and be on my way. Let you finish up and get started on your weekend.”

He shook her hand, then crossed the room to retrieve the box of “cop props” he’d brought to show the kids. He paused to pick up a baseball glove that had been kicked under a nearby table, but when he turned to give it to Miss Gilbert, she was no longer in the room.

He glanced down at the kid-size glove in his hand and smiled. He still had his own junior-size one stashed in a box in his closet. The kid who’d left this one behind wouldn’t sleep a wink all weekend not knowing until Monday if it was safe. Memories of the years he and his younger sister and brother had lived in rural Appleton flooded back. Of the times after the woman he knew as Mom died and Dad returned them all to the city and became immersed in medical school. Times when the highlight of his day was when his dad tossed a few balls with him before burying himself in his textbooks.

Gray thoughtfully turned the glove in his hands, noticing a name printed on it with a black felt-tip marker.

C. Lopez.

Cory, whose dad had died in an attempt to serve and protect. He started to toss the glove to a nearby table, but something on the inside edge caught his eye. A label. Cornelio Tomas Lopez.

And a street address.

The boy’s eyes, hungering for reassurance, pierced Gray’s memory—followed by the remembrance of the flashing gaze of his beautiful, standoffish mother.

Miss Gilbert said Cory’s mom loved him. That she did her best to provide for him and give him the attention he needed. He knew from his experiences with Jenna and Michael, though, that it wasn’t easy being a single mom raising a boy on your own.

He tightened his grip on the ball glove, his gaze lingering on the inner label.

No, don’t even think about it, Wallace.

Chapter Two

She’d just stepped out the front door when an unfamiliar silver SUV pulled up at the curb behind her car.

Cory’s Officer Wallace got out.

Elise’s grip tightened on her car keys. What was he doing here? How did he know where she lived? Surely Miss Gilbert wouldn’t share her address with a flirtatious cop of all people. If he’d followed her home to hit on her, he could climb back into his vehicle and head on down the road.

“Mrs. Lopez?” a warm, masculine Texas twang called out as he rounded the SUV and approached. His gaze swept the apartment house and yard in one of those looks she knew quickly—and accurately—assessed the neighborhood. These were her circumstances...and he clearly found them lacking. But his smile nevertheless broadened as he held up something in the hand unfettered by a sling. A baseball glove. “Cory forgot this.”

Thoughtful on the surface, but why had he made such an effort to deliver it personally unless he had an ulterior motive? She gave him an uncertain smile as he came to stand before her. He was taller than she’d originally thought, with a strong, clean-shaven jaw. High cheekbones. Straight nose. His confident, captivating eyes were an unusual light brown, like burnished oak edged with a darker shade. Thick, dark lashes.

Eyes a woman could too easily get lost in.

Nor had she missed that the hand extending from the sling’s edge was ringless—although it wasn’t uncommon for cops on duty not to wear one.

“I’m Grayson Wallace, ma’am. I visited the elementary school today. Met your son.”

As if Cory would let her forget. Or if she could forget her brief, disconcerting encounter with the handsome lawman. “Good afternoon, Officer Wallace. This is a surprise.”

“I imagine so.” Lines crinkled around the corners of his eyes as he undoubtedly recognized the suspicion in her own—telltale lines that signaled this was a man who liked to laugh. Who enjoyed good times. “I didn’t want him to go all weekend without his ball glove. I know when I was his age, I’d have gone crazy if I’d thought I’d lost mine.”

He held out the leather glove, his gaze never leaving hers, but she mishandled the exchange and it slipped from her fingers. His hand brushed hers as he deftly caught it.

“Sorry, ma’am. My fault.”

His gaze trapped hers once more as he again handed it to her. She tucked the glove securely under her arm, then brushed back a strand of hair straying from her chignon. She’d dealt with plenty of men who’d tried to overstep their bounds since Duke’s death. Returning a beloved baseball glove was one more creative ploy to get a foot in the door of her personal life. She could send this one packing, too.

“Thank you. Cory didn’t notice it was missing until we got home. Pretty upset. He wanted to call a policeman to retrieve it because I didn’t have time to go back.” Any excuse to see his Officer Wallace again.

“So it is a special glove.” The smiling eyes sobered. “His father gave it to him?”

Perceptive man.

She nodded. “For his fourth birthday. A few weeks before...”

Her gaze faltered as her voice drifted off. Some days it was still hard to talk about. Especially uncomfortable to discuss with another police officer.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Lopez.” He studied her with a sincere respect, any hint of flirtatiousness extinguished. “I never met your husband, but I knew of him. He was a fine officer.”

“Thank you. He was.”

He broke eye contact. Like many others, he no doubt found it difficult to talk to the widow of a fallen comrade. What can you say that hadn’t already been said? Besides, what cop wanted an in-your-face reminder that some police officers, like soldiers, never come home?

“Officer Wallace! What are you doing here?”

She turned to see Cory dash out the front door, eyes aglow with curiosity and excitement. He jerked to a halt beside her, an eager gaze fastened on their visitor.

“He brought you this.” She reluctantly handed him his baseball glove, not thrilled to elevate the police officer any higher in her son’s estimation than he already was.

“Oh, man. Oh, man.” Cory thrust his hand into the glove, mixed emotions warring in his eyes. He took a step toward the uniformed man, hesitated, then moved in closer to wrap his arms around the startled officer for a hug. “Oh, man, thank you. I thought someone would steal it.”

Officer Wallace’s hearty laugh rang out as he returned the enthusiastic embrace, his gaze flickering to hers and holding it longer than necessary. “You’re welcome, Cory. I know what a favorite glove can mean to a guy.”

Flustered, she glanced at her watch. “Thank you again for going out of your way for Cory. But he needs to get to his homework, and I need to get back to my job.”

He smiled down at her son. “Can’t slack on the homework, mister. Wannabe police officers have to keep up their grades.”

Cory groaned, then lifted a hand for a parting high five before trotting back to the house, the glove held high in triumph.

Still smiling, the officer turned to her, his probing gaze setting loose a truckload of battering rams in her stomach.

“You’ve got a good kid there.”

She shot him a grateful look. “Most of the time. He’s had his moments lately.”

“It’s not easy on a boy, losing his father.”

“No.” Nor was losing a husband easy. Or discovering he wasn’t who you’d believed him to be. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, Mr. Wallace, but if you visit the school again I’d appreciate your not indulging his obsession about becoming a policeman. He talks about it nonstop. It’s not healthy for him.”

Or for me.

He squinted one eye and offered a hint of a smile. He probably thought her overly protective. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that, ma’am. He’s six, right? Today he wants to be a lawman. Tomorrow it will be a veterinarian. Or an astronaut. Or a cowboy.”

“I can hope—and pray—that’s so.”

For a moment she thought Cory’s cop was going to say something else. Make an observation. Ask a question. But he merely motioned to her vehicle at the curb. “I’d better let you get on your way.”

“I am cutting it close. Can’t afford to be late.” With a polite but dismissive nod, she moved toward her car. To her dismay, he kept up with her stride for stride.

“Where do you work?”

“Not too far from here. At a medical clinic down the street from that big used-car dealership. You know the one?”

“I do. So, you’re a nurse? Therapist?”

She noticed he didn’t ask if she was a doctor—the neighborhood alone answered that question easily enough. But the assumption that she’d have a degree beyond high school stung. Becoming a physical therapist had long been her dream. But Cory had arrived shy of a year of marriage and Duke had insisted that education take a backseat until the kids—however many came along—were in school.

“No. I’m a receptionist, medical records manager and general go-to gal.”

“So on your feet all day.” A smile tugged as he glanced down at her strappy, high-heeled sandals, the wisdom of which his amused expression questioned.

“Right.” She took a slow breath as she reached her vehicle, unwilling to get too chatty with the undeniably attractive man. No, he hadn’t crossed the lines of propriety as a few had done. He hadn’t boldly hinted that a woman alone might appreciate some male companionship. He hadn’t asked her out. Nevertheless, she kept up her guard. “Thank you again, Officer Wallace, for making a little boy very happy.”

“The name’s Grayson. Or Gray.” He held out his hand.

“Elise,” she offered reluctantly, as his big hand swallowed hers. She didn’t want to be on a first-name basis with this cop.

“Pretty name.”

“Thank you.”

He released her hand, his brown eyes again questioning—as if still attempting to gauge the level of her interest. She braced herself, preparing to share too-often-practiced words to decline coffee. Dinner. Dessert. Or other more presumptuous propositions.

But to her surprise he merely fished momentarily in his uniform shirt pocket, then handed her a business card. Was this the latest strategy in the dating game realm? He thought he’d made a good enough impression that she’d call him?

Arrogant man.

He stepped back. “Good to meet you, Elise—and Cory as well. Hope you both have a great weekend.”

With an absurd prick of disappointment, she watched him stroll to his SUV and climb in, lift his unencumbered hand in a parting gesture and drive away.

She glanced down at the business card and shook her head. Talk about egotistical. But he did have beautiful eyes and was polite.

And speaking of polite, where had her manners gotten off to? He’d gone out of his way to bring the baseball glove and she hadn’t thought to ask how he’d injured his arm. How long he’d been in law enforcement.

Or if she would ever see him again.

* * *

Grayson pulled up in front of the Colby Ranch’s sprawling main house just short of midnight. With considerable effort, he shoved aside the nagging thoughts of Elise Lopez and her son that had followed him as each mile stretched westward from Fort Worth. He could admit that if it weren’t for the romantic debacle with Jenna months ago and the severed relationship with her son, he could see himself being drawn to the attractive single mom. Maybe even offering to mentor Cory. But he’d been burned. Badly. Did Jenna’s boy feel the void of his abrupt departure as deeply as he did?

He turned off the ignition and, still gripping the steering wheel, sat staring at the two-story brick home, a few of its windows faintly aglow even at this late hour. The distinctive sweet, dry scent of western Texas wafted through his rolled-down window. The occasional low of distant cattle teased his city-accustomed ears, reminding him of his earliest boyhood years in another small rural town.

Had it been only a month since he’d returned from his undercover assignment to emails and frantic phone messages from his sister? He’d thought she’d lost her mind—Dad missing, a biological mother deep in a coma and an identical twin for both him and Maddie. But one look at their twins last weekend had settled any doubt about the blood connection. They were kin, all right. Maddie’s wild stories were true, but unfortunately Dad hadn’t been located despite his and his siblings’ best efforts.

“Lord,” he whispered, absently massaging his injured shoulder, “you’ve gotta help me out here. Every fiber of my body wants to head straight back to Fort Worth. I don’t want to deal with this.”

He squared his shoulders as he exited the SUV and stretched his stiff legs. His newfound family was counting on him to locate Dad and find answers to the thousand and one questions they all had about their heritage. Questions no one but Dad or the woman going by the name Belle Colby could answer.

But that was another worm in the apple. Belle—he couldn’t bring himself to think of her as “Mom”—lay unconscious at Ranchland Manor, a care facility a few miles away in Grasslands.

Having retrieved his duffel bag from the backseat, he’d barely headed toward the house when Maddie, Violet and Jack stepped onto the front porch to offer a warm welcome. All they needed was their baby brother, Carter—a marine on overseas deployment and still unaware of all the family drama—to make their homecoming complete.

“Grayson!” Maddie’s breathless voice warmed him as he approached. His city-gal sis sure had taken to the country life since she and Violet had stumbled across each other in Fort Worth last July. A God-engineered coincidence for sure. “We were starting to get worried. Thought you’d never get here.”

“Got a late start.” No point in telling his nosy sister that a beautiful woman had been the cause. He’d never get a moment’s peace.

Under the dim porch light, his brother Jack hung back, snatching uncomfortable glances in his direction as Violet and Maddie—both mindful of the sling—enveloped Gray in exuberant hugs. Jack’s hair was longer than his, grazing the collar of a Western-cut shirt, and it appeared he didn’t keep at that pesky five o’clock shadow as diligently as did his cop brother.

Clear, too, that he and Jack still shared an awkwardness despite efforts to get beyond the unnerving situation last weekend when they’d first met. Maddie and Violet didn’t seem to have that problem. You’d have thought they’d grown up together. They even had similar mannerisms and could finish each other’s sentences.

But he and Jack, while polite and friendly enough on the surface, were strangers. On guard. Uncomfortable with the whole situation.

When the sisters’ lively welcome calmed down, Gray’s twin thrust out his hand. “Good to have you back.”

“Good to be back.”

But from the wary look in Jack’s eyes it was apparent he, too, recognized both were parroting expected pleasantries.

Inside the house Gray again sensed, as he had at his first visit, an emptiness in the home of his birth mother. He could detect a subdued, almost reverential hush in a place he’d been told that a few months ago she’d filled with love and laughter. It was evident, too, that Jack and Violet were out of their element in her absence and grieving her tragic situation.

Out of a sense of obligation—and curiosity—he’d joined his siblings in a visit to Belle at the Grasslands care facility last weekend. It had been another surreal moment as he’d stared down at a still-beautiful woman in her early forties, auburn hair spread across a pristine white pillow.

He’d been denied the opportunity to know the woman who’d cradled him and his twin side by side in her womb for nine months, who had given birth to them so many years ago.

Why?

From all he’d picked up on since the revelation of the family’s state of affairs, she loved Jack and Violet with all her heart. Treasured them. Had she not felt the same way about him and Maddie? How could a mother choose between children?

“Gray?” Jerked from his inadvertent reverie, he turned to Maddie as they entered a spacious, warmly lit kitchen. “Kendra—I mean, Keira—and I are bunking together in the same room, so you can have mine like last weekend.”

Keira was Jack’s fiancée, a savvy blonde who’d landed on the Colbys’ doorstep last month after a car accident left her without memory. They’d called her Kendra since she didn’t have any ID on her. Thankfully, her memory eventually returned and they’d learned her real name was Keira Wolfe and she was a veterinarian. Jack had promptly staked his claim.

“I don’t want to keep putting you ladies out.” It was a five-bedroom place, but the master suite—Belle’s—remained unoccupied. “The couch in the den would suit me fine.”

His sisters made identical sounds of protest.

“It’s just for tonight.” Violet linked her arm through his uninjured one and once again he found himself staring in disbelief at her very existence. She looked amazingly like her twin, but with a country freshness all her own. A sprinkling of freckles. Auburn hair caught up in a long ponytail, she exuded a comfortable confidence no doubt born of a lifetime of ranching. “Jack’s moving out to his new place tomorrow.”

Jack had taken on a seventy-year-old house known to locals as the old Lindley place, the spread it sat on now part of the Colby Ranch.

He glanced at his brother. “That a fact? I imagine you’re considerably more motivated to complete that renovation than you might have been a month ago.”

Jack’s eyes lit up and he offered his first grin. “A little lady will do that to a man. Get ready, Grayson. Your time’s coming.”

“Don’t know about that.” He ducked his head, wary that his perceptive sis might read his mind—pick up on an image of the beautiful Elise who’d filled his thoughts in recent hours. “I’m kind of attached to a bachelor life.”

“Oh, Gray,” Maddie blurted, placing her hands on her hips, “you’re still wallowing in the after-effects of that breakup. Give yourself time.”

He shot her a warning look. He didn’t want to discuss his old girlfriend tonight. Certainly not in front of his newfound siblings—although he suspected from the way Violet nodded knowingly that Maddie had already filled her in. Dealing with one sister was challenging enough. Now he had two.

“Jack’s been there, done that.” Violet looked to their brother for confirmation. “He was crazy about a gal before she dumped him. But now that Keira’s come along, he can barely remember Tammy’s name. God knows what He’s doing, Gray. He closes one door and opens another.”

Gray managed a smile in Jack’s direction, figuring he didn’t much care for the sharing of his personal business any more than his twin did. Poor guy. He’d been dealing with two sisters for months now, but how long would it take to get used to the double-barreled powerhouse pair they’d become?

Leaning against the kitchen countertop, Gray accepted a cold glass of water from Maddie.

“You don’t see me sweating it. No rush. God can take all the time He needs.” What a lie. Sounded good, but didn’t have much substance. He was ready to settle down. Start a family. But his profession of choice was proving to be a detriment. “Besides, there are enough weddings in the works for one family.”

Not only was Jack engaged, but Maddie recently pledged herself to the Colby Ranch’s foreman, Ty Garland. And Violet had caught the eye of one of Maddie’s old beaus, Landon Derringer. A lot had happened during the months Grayson had been on his undercover assignment.

Jack held his gaze with a knowing one of his own, probably seeing through to the reality of Gray’s marital protests, his allegiance to the bachelor way of life. A guy had his pride, after all.

“Always room for one more wedding, bro.”

What his brother didn’t mention, though, is that the siblings had come to the same conclusion. Until their dad returned safely—and Belle recovered—no one would be tying any knots. As much as Gray didn’t like to think about it, how long would they stick with that vow if the weeks and months drew out? Belle had been in a coma since midsummer, with no sign of rejoining the world. Maddie and Landon had journeyed to south Texas in August to look for their dad. Keira and Jack tried again in September. Would their father turn up at Thanksgiving as he’d originally planned—or not?

While he couldn’t do anything but pray for their mother, Gray could continue the search for his dad. He’d already filed a missing person’s report and put his law-enforcement channels to good use.

But would his efforts be enough?

With so many issues about their parentage in turmoil and Belle so badly off, he needed to deliver to his family a positive outcome for their dad’s situation. That would be one step in the right direction for a happily-ever-after on all counts.

And in spite of protests to the contrary, meeting a certain pretty brunette had him admitting he wouldn’t mind settling down with a happily-ever-after of his own.

Chapter Three

“Hurry up, Cory.” Elise glanced back at her lagging son as she walked briskly to their vehicle in the dimly lit grocery-store parking lot. Purse secured. Keys in hand. Her gaze alert to their surroundings.

Normally she shopped for groceries on Saturday morning, especially in the fall and winter as days grew shorter and didn’t allow much time for after-work errands. Thank goodness for daylight savings time, but it would expire in another month. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten until this evening that she’d promised to make a red velvet cake for their youth pastor’s birthday potluck after church tomorrow. She couldn’t find a single drop of red food coloring in the kitchen cabinets.

“Mom?” Cory crawled into his seat and she locked the doors. Started the car.

“What?”

“When’s Officer Wallace coming to the school again?”

As the overhead interior light faded, she looked into her son’s hopeful eyes. He’d talked nonstop about Officer Wallace for the past twenty-four hours. How cool his badge was. How he’d brought him the ball glove. How he knew Daddy was a hero and said it was an honor to meet his son.

She offered a sympathetic smile. “Career day is once a year. It’s doubtful he’ll be back anytime soon.”

The glow in his eyes faded momentarily, then brightened. “Maybe he’ll come to visit anyway, to say hi to the kids.”

She didn’t want Cory to get his hopes up. The likelihood of Officer Wallace’s return was slim. Yes, he’d made a memorable impression on them both, but it didn’t take long for reality to set in. For her guard to go up. It was best for all concerned that Officer Wallace keep his distance. Unless she called the number on his business card, she suspected he would.

But she wouldn’t call him. Not even for Cory. Especially not for Cory. Another cop in his life was too risky.

She smiled again at her son as she put the vehicle in gear and backed it out of the parking place. “He has an important job, sweetheart, so it’s doubtful he could stop by even if he’d like to.”

“I wish he would.”

Heading into the darkened street, anxious to get home, she almost caught her own wishes echoing her son’s.

But that was stupid.

And she wasn’t a stupid woman.

* * *

Gazing down at the comatose Belle Colby, hooked up to medical paraphernalia of every imaginable kind, Grayson harbored the same frustration as his siblings at not being able to get desperately needed answers to their questions.

Although his siblings had picked up rumors from a former neighbor of the then still-intact family, what was the real reason Belle and his dad split? Why had they separated Maddie and him from their twin counterparts? The boys had been two, the girls not much beyond six months. Why had his father led him to believe Sharla Wallace was his birth mom?

Grayson gripped the black, leather-bound Bible in his hands. Did Belle know who’d sent these Bibles to him, his twin brother and two sisters? He and Maddie had received them in June, after their dad headed out on his six-month medical mission and not long before Grayson went undercover. No postmark. No return address. Later, Violet had found one on the seat of her car after church and Jack’s had turned up on the hearth of the home he was renovating.

They all held the same handwritten, anonymous note, the words of which were burned into his memory.

I am sorry for what I did to you and your family. I hope you and your siblings, especially your twin, can forgive me as I ask the Lord to forgive me.

When he and Maddie each received a Bible and identical note, they’d initially been puzzled. Then they’d laughed them off, thinking someone had them confused with somebody else. At that point they hadn’t any idea they each had a twin. But someone had known—and for some reason felt guilty about it.

Who? And why?

Gray shook his head as he continued to watch the quiet rise and fall of Belle’s breathing. Would she ever be able to answer their questions?

The most pressing question of all, however, was where was his dad? No one thought much about it when he didn’t return calls while on a mission trip. He wasn’t big on checking in and worked in remote areas with limited phone reception. Then in August it was discovered he’d left his cell phone at one of his stops in Blackstone, Texas. Probably got hundreds of miles down the road before he realized it, intending to swing back and get it later. Not too much concern at that time.

But in September when Grayson returned from his assignment, the family enlisted him to find their dad so they could get answers to their family mystery. Not long into his search he’d learned that his father appeared unwell at one location. Jack had followed up, going down to search the migrant camp where he’d last been spotted. He’d come up empty-handed except to confirm that when last seen, their father appeared feverish, coughing and maybe not quite lucid at times. Now they were greatly concerned and Gray’s own investigation had escalated.

His heart heavy, he sat down in a molded plastic chair next to the bed, placing the mystery Bible on his knee. From the moment he laid eyes on her, he’d had no doubt that Belle was his mother. All the kids including him looked like her. None of them resembled their father. Although he hadn’t yet looked into her eyes, he’d seen almost three decades’ worth of photographs of her when he’d first come to the home of his long-lost siblings.

For the thousandth time in the past four weeks, he willed himself to remember something—anything—of his first two years with his birth mom. But not even a shadow of her remained.

Incredibly, the woman he and Maddie adored and had grown up believing was their mother wasn’t their birth mother, although she was their little brother, Carter’s, mom. The whole thing seemed like a dream—or a nightmare. He still hadn’t grasped that Violet and Jack had lived separate lives, raised by this woman whose life he and Maddie should have shared as well.

He reached for his mother’s warm but seemingly lifeless hand. Ran his thumb over the back of it. Said a silent prayer, then spoke aloud. “It’s me, Grayson. Jack’s brother. Your son.”

Did that sound weird or what?

She didn’t stir.

“I, uh, understand you never wanted Jack and Violet to pursue finding their father.” He cleared his throat. “But we need to track Dad down. Let him know what’s going on here. I know he’s okay. He’s gotten caught up in his work like he often does. He’s a doctor now. A good one. Did you know that? A missionary doctor much of the time.”

He shook his head, wondering about the wisdom of pouring all this out to the woman in the bed. Could she even hear him? Understand any of it?

“I’m a police officer in Fort Worth. That’s why the others are counting on me to find him. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want us to do. We don’t mean for it to upset you.”

He gently squeezed her motionless hand. “But don’t you worry. Things will turn out fine. All of us kids are grateful we’ve found each other. Maddie’s even moved from Fort Worth and will be marrying your ranch foreman, Ty. Doesn’t that beat all?”

He paused to catch his breath, not used to rambling on in a soliloquy. “Violet and Jack are both engaged to fine folks, too. Keira’s a vet, which will come in handy at the ranch, and Landon’s an old friend of mine. So lots of weddings in the works, and we need you there to help out.”

Silence permeated the room, except for the wall clock ticking away the seconds as he breathed in the antiseptic scents clinging to the Spartan space.

“Nothing in the plans like that for me.” He chuckled, but memory flashed unbidden to the captivating Elise Lopez. Why couldn’t he get her out of his head? “So don’t go getting your hopes up. I think I’m destined to go it alone. You know, the dedicated lawman route.”

“Oh, yeah, the dedicated lawman,” a familiar female voice whispered from the doorway. His sister. The original one. Maddie. “Leaving scores of women pining in his wake.”

With a grin, he turned to look at her. Who’d have thought a polished, twenty-five-year-old former assistant at the glamorous Texas Today magazine would be standing here in Western-flavored garb, hair swept into a ponytail? She still had a stylish city flair, but what a difference a few months had made.

“Pining women, huh?” He stood, tucked the Bible under his slinged arm and quietly moved to join her in the hallway. “You know something I don’t know?”

“Hey, I have more than a few girlfriends at Texas Today who still talk about the time you escorted me to that company cookout. Believe me, they’d sell their BMWs for a chance to get their hands on you.”

“Would hate for them to make that kind of sacrifice for a sorry specimen like me.”

“Yeah, right.” Maddie grinned, then motioned to the doorway behind him. “So how’s...Belle today? Seems strange to call her Mom, doesn’t it?”

“Can’t do it myself.”

Maddie rested a hand on his arm and they moved a short distance down the hall, out of Belle’s earshot—if she could hear them at all.

“But she is our mother, Gray. You and Jack might have doubts about your male parentage, but you only have to take one look at her and know we’re hers.”

His spine stiffened. “I don’t have any doubts about my male parentage. I’m not buying into that Fort Worth woman’s tales. She sounds like a troublemaker to me. Dad’s my dad and that’s all there is to it.”

No way would he even speculate he was Joe Earl’s offspring—a guy that on the best of days you wouldn’t brag about being related to. He didn’t care that his siblings had talked to a neighbor where their parents originally lived in Fort Worth. Patty Earl, the deceased Joe Earl’s wife, seemed to know all about them. Even claimed her man had gotten a sixteen-year-old Belle pregnant with twin boys twenty-eight years ago. She said Belle had tricked Brian into marrying her, claiming they were his and all but implying that’s why Belle and Brian divorced shortly after the birth of a second set of twins.

He wasn’t buying it. Brian Wallace was his father. Period. He believed that. He had to believe it. It’s all he had to hang on to now. The one thing that kept the fragile balance of his world upright in the midst of the onslaught of family revelations.

His brother wasn’t quite as sure. He’d never had a father in his life. Didn’t understand why his abandoned him. It probably made more sense that if Brian Wallace wasn’t his biological father, that could account for his being willing to walk away from him, to let part of the family go.

Maddie’s brow crinkled. “So you don’t think—?”

“No.”

She studied him with concern and he realized his expression was likely as fierce as his thoughts.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Gray.”

“You didn’t. I’ve got a lot on my mind after what we all talked about at breakfast.” His siblings’ hopes of finding their dad—who held the answers their mother was incapable of providing—focused more and more on him.

“His being out of touch isn’t unheard of.” Maddie accurately tracked his thoughts. “But why’d Dad have to do a disappearing act in the middle of this family mess? From what you and Jack found out, he may be terribly ill. We’ve got to find him. You know, before...”

His jaw tightened as her words drifted off, but he knew where she’d been headed. They needed to find him—alive and well.

“I’m doing my best.”

She lifted her chin as if challenging her fears and gave him a resolute smile. “Then he’s as good as found.”

He wished he could reassure his sister. Tell her there was nothing to worry about. But the situation wasn’t promising at this point. He’d like to think people didn’t disappear into thin air, but from his cop standpoint he knew it happened. He didn’t want his dad becoming one of those disheartening statistics.

Maddie gazed at him thoughtfully, her voice low. “Between the two of us, how are you feeling about the rest of this? The twin thing, I mean. Finding out that Mom isn’t our birth mom. I know you dragged your feet, found every excuse under the sun not to see...Belle. Or face your brother.”

He scoffed. “Excuses? That’s what you call my job and physical therapy? My trying to find Dad?”

“You could have found a way to get here sooner than last weekend and we both know it. But I didn’t push you because I remember how it felt the first time I encountered Violet.”

So he hadn’t concealed his mixed-up feelings about the situation as well as he thought he had. He’d essentially talked himself into thinking he could only adequately conduct an investigation into his father’s status from Fort Worth. That he didn’t need to beat a path to Grasslands the moment he’d heard from Maddie. Had he thought if he delayed coming out here it might all go away? That he’d wake up one morning and none of this would have happened? It would again be just him, Maddie and Carter. Their dad and the memories of their mother.

His sister squeezed his arm. “At breakfast this morning, you still seemed a little freaked out with Jack sitting across from you wearing your face.”

Gray scowled. “Wearing my face? Not hardly. I see a family resemblance, sure, like we’re brothers. Or cousins. But I don’t get everyone thinking we’re matching bookends.”

Maddie yelped a laugh as he’d hoped she would. Get her mind off the seriousness of their family situation.

“Look at you,” a gravelly male voice intruded. “Finally got yourself a haircut, did you, boy? About time.”

Puzzled, Gray turned toward a stout, forty-something man sauntering down the tiled floor toward them. Dressed in jeans and a tan uniform shirt, a Western felt hat in hand, a smile spread across the balding man’s face. He stopped beside Gray, giving him a thorough inspection.

“Have to admit you clean up good.” He chuckled, smacking the side of his leg with the hat. “But I never figured you to be one to let that fiancée of yours dress you up like a Ken doll.”

“Pardon?” Gray glanced at Maddie, whose eyes danced with mischief.

“George, this isn’t Jack Colby. This is his twin brother, Grayson Wallace. He’s visiting from Fort Worth.”

The man drew back, squinting to give Gray a more thorough scrutiny—from the collar of his navy knit polo shirt, past neatly pressed gray trousers and down to the tips of polished leather shoes.

“I’ll be swallowed by a horned toad. Shoulda known Jack wouldn’t let a pretty little lady pry those Tony Lamas offa his feet.” Shaking his head with a lopsided smile, he thrust out a hand to grasp Grayson’s. “Good to meet you, son. Heard about the goings-on at the Colby Ranch. Two sets of twins who didn’t know the others were alive. Don’t that beat all.”

“Mighty wild,” Gray acknowledged, amazed at how well-informed a small-town grapevine could be. Must be a piece of cake being a lawman around here. No need for undercover assignments—you camped out at the local diner and kept your ears open.

“Gray,” Maddie chimed in as she looked from one man to the other, “this is George Cole, our sheriff. George, Grayson’s a police officer in Fort Worth. He’s building a respectable reputation for himself back there and his superiors have their eye on him for a move up in the ranks.”

He never should have confided in her. Put like that, it sounded like bragging, even if he wasn’t the one doing it.

“You don’t say.” George squinted again, as if sizing up Gray anew. “Don’t suppose, then, that you’ll be movin’ out this way with the rest of your kin like your sister here did?”

“No plans to, sir.”

“Think about it, young’un. Serious like. Opportunity is knockin’ at your door. We’ve got ourselves a deputy retiring come the end of the year. Lookin’ for a replacement.”

Grayson managed not to laugh. What did they do all day in this sleepy Texas Mayberry? Play checkers and arrest people for overdue library fines? No, he couldn’t see himself as a Barney Fife to this guy’s Andy Taylor.

“Thank you kindly, but home’s Fort Worth.”

George chortled as he turned his hat in his hands. “Don’t let the laid-back trappings of our little cow-town community scare you off, boy. If you’ve a mind to join the family hereabouts, we’d fit you right in. Could get that city-slicker veneer washed offa you before you can say ‘Alamo.’ What do you think, Maddie?”

She turned appraising eyes on her older brother. “I’d love for Gray to move out here. He’d look mighty handsome in boots and a Stetson.”

“See, son? Family ties trump city life and a hotshot career any day.”

“It’s tempting, but I have commitments elsewhere.”

George squinted and gave him a knowing nod. “Shoulda figured as much. Strapping young man like you must have a special lady.”

Gray’s memory flashed to Elise Lopez and at once Maddie slipped to his side and hooked her arm through his, her eyes narrowing.

“A special lady, is it, big bro?” Her tone echoed with mock accusation. “I think we need to have ourselves a private chat.”

“Sorry for blowing the whistle on you and running, son.” The sheriff’s eyes twinkled as he set his hat on his shiny pate and turned away. “But I have to make my rounds. Stopped in to check on my granny. She broke her leg chasing a calf out of the kitchen yesterday.”

Calf? Or had the man said cat? Baffled, Gray fixed his gaze on the lawman striding away, but he sensed Maddie’s eyes boring into him.

“So, Gray, let’s hear it. All of it.”

He turned to her. “All of what?”

“About that special lady.”

He adjusted the sling and secured the Bible under his arm. He didn’t want to explain Elise Lopez. What could he say? That she was one of the most intriguing women he’d met in a good long while—and she wouldn’t give him the time of day? “Sorry to disappoint you, Mad, but there’s been no lady in my life since Jenna showed me the door. The commitment I was referring to is my career.”

“When George made that little lady assumption, you got one of those deer-in-the-headlights looks in your eyes. The kind you had as a kid when you were hiding something and Dad called your bluff.”

“Contrary to your belief, the world has more than its fair share of women who aren’t keen on getting involved with a cop.”

“Jenna didn’t have the sense of a goose.”

Or maybe she was one wise woman?

Regardless, he suspected Elise Lopez had plenty of common sense on her side—and she clearly wanted nothing to do with him. Despite the fact that for some inexplicable reason he’d left his business card with her, he wasn’t accustomed to pursuing women who didn’t show obvious interest.

Maybe it was his pride, but he didn’t intend to start now.

Chapter Four

“Mom!” Cory yelled from the living room Sunday evening. “It’s Officer Wallace. And look what he brought me.”

Cory’s cop was back?

A knot twisted in Elise’s stomach as she hurried from the bedroom, wishing she had time to slip bare feet into shoes and change out of her sweat suit. As she approached the door open to the hallway, Cory’s grin widened under the brim of a Western straw hat—and beyond him she glimpsed Grayson Wallace standing respectfully off to one side, head bowed as if analyzing the worn carpet.

“Isn’t this awesome? Wait until I show Kyle. Can I, Mom?”

“It’s a school night.”

“I know, but please?” His eyes begged. “I’ll hurry.”

While it wasn’t long before bedtime, Kyle was Billie Jean’s seventh-grader in the apartment below—and she’d rather not talk to Officer Wallace in Cory’s presence. Apparently the lawman hadn’t gotten the message that only her son welcomed police officers with open arms. “Okay. But I expect you back here in ten minutes.”

“Yee haw!” Cory dashed out the door, high-fiving the cop as he went by. “This is way cool. I can be a sheriff. Or a Texas Ranger.”

Turning toward Cory’s cop, she caught his look of dismay. Had he actually believed the hat would distract her son from all things police related?

She stepped into the hallway, pulling the door partially closed behind her. She’d planned to straighten the apartment once Cory had gone to sleep, but Mr. Wallace didn’t need a glimpse of her chaotic, real-life world. “Nice try with the hat, but you didn’t need to do that.”

He smiled uncertainly, as if not sure of the reception his unannounced call would elicit. “I know I didn’t. But I figured it might get his mind off cops and onto cowboys. From the sound of that departing comment, though, I struck out.”

Was that the true reason he’d stopped by? Or did he have something else on his mind? “I’m not sure aspiring to a career in rodeo would be much safer than law enforcement.”

“But what are the chances he’ll make it to bull and bronc riding?” His eyes twinkled. “A lot of the pros started out on goats and calves before they were out of diapers. I don’t see a whole lot of opportunity for that around here.”

“True. But I’m sorry after all your effort he’s not cooperating. Thanks for going out of your way to try.”

“Easy enough to do. I was in the western part of the state over the weekend—I have family out that way—and saw the hat in a truck stop. I thought to myself, ‘Self, you know a boy who would look mighty fine in a hat like that.’ ”

His grin urged her heart into a full gallop.

“Western Texas? You’re not from Fort Worth?”

“Actually I am, but I recently discovered a branch of the family I previously didn’t know existed. Cattle ranchers.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “So you’re taking up riding and roping and making yourself at home with shirttail kin?”

He tilted his head and squinted one eye. “A tad closer than shirttail. A twin brother and a second little sister.”

She stared. “You have a twin that you didn’t know about?”

“Long story.” He grimaced as if wishing he hadn’t mentioned it, then a purposeful gleam sparked in his eyes. “But I didn’t stop by to regale you with the particulars of my family tree or just to drop off the hat.”

Uh-oh. Here it comes.

Why couldn’t men leave her in peace? She wasn’t in the market for another man. And certainly not this one. Yes, even with the sturdy sling supporting his arm, he looked like any woman’s dream standing there fit and trim in pressed khaki trousers, his wide shoulders filling out a burgundy golf shirt. But she was all too aware how innocent dreams revolving around a cop could morph into nightmares.

“Mr. Wallace—”

“Grayson.” Determination etched his features. “On Friday Cory’s teacher asked if I’d consider talking to you about mentoring Cory. I’ve considered it, and I’m here to discuss it.”

He was, was he? She folded her arms. Out of the blue this stranger wanted to spend time with her son? Become his role model? Was he out of his mind? Does he think I’m out of mine? Since Duke’s passing, she’d had men come up with doozies of excuses to worm their way into her life, but this got top honors for originality.

“You know,” the officer prodded when she didn’t immediately respond, “I could give him some man time.”

With a cop? What was Cory’s teacher thinking? That could exacerbate her son’s fixation.

“I’m sorry, but—”

He raised a hand to halt her. “I didn’t say anything on Friday, but since then I’ve had time to think about it. So if you feel it would be beneficial in any way, if it might help Cory settle down and—”

“Settle down? Exactly what did Miss Gilbert tell you about my son?” She’d have a talk with her tomorrow.

His forehead creased. “Don’t get riled up at Cory’s teacher. She said pretty much what you told me yourself. You know, that he’s preoccupied with policemen. She thinks he’s overly concerned about the man who killed his father and is aggressively acting out on his feelings.”

“That term is considerably stronger than the situation warrants.”

“Likely so. Nevertheless, Miss Gilbert is worried about him and noticed how Cory and I hit it off that day.”

“She means well, but doesn’t fully understand the situation.” Did Miss Gilbert think so little of her parenting abilities that she felt a need to push Cory off on a man she didn’t even know? The implication stung. Elise forced a smile. “Thank you for stopping by, but teaming my son with a police officer—after the loss of his father in the line of duty—isn’t a good idea.”

“I understand, but—”

“I appreciate your considerate offer, but it’s not in Cory’s best interests.”

From out of nowhere, her son galloped down the hallway to slip by her and into the apartment. She stepped back inside, as well.

“Have a good evening, Officer Wallace.”

With a quick glance in his direction, she closed the door.

* * *

Monday after work as Gray grilled supper on the enclosed patio outside his ground-floor condo, the rejection of the night before still stung.

The sole consolation was how pretty Elise had looked in her velour sweats as she delivered the dismissal, dainty pink-painted toenails peeping below the soft, shapely pants. Her hair, loose from its customary bun, cascaded down her back. She smelled good, too. Like roses in his mom’s garden back in Appleton.

He turned the steak over, its juices sizzling in the low flame as he savored the memory of Ms. Lopez attired for a relaxing Sunday evening at home, bare feet and all. Was it his fault he could almost envision her cuddled up beside him on the sofa, soft and warm, watching Sunday Night Football?

He had to admit, though, that while her curt dismissal of his suggestion to spend time with Cory rankled, he was genuinely relieved. He’d volunteered because he felt obligated, not due to a driving need to get involved with some woman’s kid again.

If this past weekend his sister Violet hadn’t told him of the challenges she and Jack faced growing up without a dad, he’d have minded his own business. If Maddie hadn’t shared the struggles her soon-to-be stepdaughter experienced when her father had been absent during her earliest years, or Gray hadn’t been reminded of the impact the church youth coach Reggie Lenard had on his own life, he’d never have considered it.

If he hadn’t seen that stupid cowboy hat in a truck stop...

So, bottom line, he was good with being let off the hook. God was looking out for him, as He had the night he’d dived off that balcony to elude an unhappy guy with a gun.

His plate was already stacked high enough, what with physical therapy to get a dislocated shoulder back in shape and trying to find his dad. He’d scheduled a few days off this week to devote time to the latter pursuit. He could only hope and pray he’d be the bearer of good news soon.

He’d pulled the steak from the grill and deposited it onto a plate when his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number as work or family related, but maybe it was someone responding to a query about his dad’s whereabouts.

“Wallace.”

“Grayson Wallace?”

The lilting, feminine tone didn’t sound like your typical telemarketer.

“Speaking.”

“This is Elise Lopez—Cory’s mother.”

Well, well, well. He eased himself into a nearby patio chair, picturing her as he’d last seen her—arms folded and dark eyes pleading with him to get lost. Sensing the armor around her from the moment their gazes first met at the school, he had no idea how he’d gotten up the nerve to hand her his business card. She’d probably thought it a mighty bold move. After last night’s send-off, he never expected she’d use it. Had she thought of yet another reason why having him around wouldn’t be in her son’s best interests and was dying to share it with him?

“I’m sorry to disturb you this evening,” she rushed breathlessly as if wanting to get the call over with as quickly as possible, “but I’m afraid I’ve underestimated the situation with Cory’s adjustment to school. Do you have time to meet with me this evening? If it’s not too inconvenient, at the coffee shop across the street from the clinic where I work?”

He gave a longing glance at his cooling dinner, but sat up straighter at the note of urgency in her voice. “I can do that.”

“Thank you.”

“Is everything...okay?” Dumb question. Of course it wasn’t or she wouldn’t be talking to him at the moment. It didn’t take a genius to figure out calling a cop for a favor—any cop—was clearly an act of desperation.

“It looks as if—” her words came softly in his ear “—I’ll be taking you up on your offer to spend time with Cory.”

* * *

“I got a call from the school early this afternoon.” Elise leaned forward in the coffee-shop booth next to a window, arms resting on the table as she took in the concerned countenance of the last man on earth she wanted to turn to for help. “He’s been suspended for two days. For fighting. And not just fighting, but for starting the fights.”

Grayson frowned. “Fights. As in plural.”

“Yes.” Could he hear the shame in her words? Know how hard she fought to keep her lips from trembling?

“The first time when playing cops and robbers during recess and he didn’t get picked to be a cop. A relatively minor scuffle. But later in the day there was an altercation in the lunchroom. Cory was showing a classmate a picture of his dad in uniform and an older boy made a comment about Duke not being too bright if he stood there and let someone shoot him.” She took a steadying breath. “I guess that was all it took. Cory bloodied his nose. Another kid joined in and the next thing you know—”

“You’ve got a brawl.”

“Yes.”

“Was Cory hurt?”

Her lips tightened. “Minor scrapes. Bruises. The other boys the same. Nothing of a serious nature...but enough to get him suspended.”

“Were the other boys suspended, too?” To her relief, he sounded as if he was in Cory’s corner, making sure he hadn’t been singled out for punishment.

“One day. Cory got two because both times he threw the first punch.”

Gray let out a gust of breath. “He must have been pushed to the max. My gut instinct is that Cory isn’t a violent-natured kid.”

So did that mean he was willing to help Cory?

She toyed with the coffee mug in front of her. She hadn’t taken a single sip. Grayson’s mug, likewise, sat neglected.

“I spent the afternoon in the school counselor’s office.”

“Does Cory understand the ramifications of what he did? That you had to miss work?”

“I explained that I have to take those hours off without pay or use vacation time that I could have otherwise spent doing something fun with him.”

“And he apologized?”

“To me? Yes. And to his principal and the lunchroom monitor.” She leaned back in the booth seat, recalling the humiliation of the meeting in the counselor’s office. “A couple of the other boys have been in trouble before. Their parents shrugged the whole thing off when I made him apologize to them. It was almost as if they were proud their kids held their own in a fight that warranted a suspension. But I’m ashamed.”

“You weren’t the one who landed a punch.”

“No, but I should have been more alert to how deeply the loss of his father has impacted him. It’s been several months since he’s cried about anything, no matter how upset. Even today, not a single tear. He’d seemed to be adjusting. Did well in kindergarten, but now...”

“Sounds like the other boys know what buttons to push.”

She solemnly traced a finger along the rim of the coffee mug. “Unfortunately.”

“So what do you have in mind? For Cory and me, I mean.”

A young, dark-haired waitress paused at their table and the conversation momentarily halted. The teenager appeared surprised that neither had touched their aromatic brew, but discreetly departed without comment.

Elise pushed her coffee aside. “Miss Gilbert and Mrs. Clifton, his counselor, suggested I take you up on your offer to spend time with him. To see if a responsible male can instill positive reinforcement before—” she paused, then forced the words “—before we seek professional help. I don’t have the financial means for a psychologist, and my insurance doesn’t cover that type of thing. Of course, I’ll do whatever it takes to help Cory, take out a loan if necessary, but—”

“Elise.” Grayson rested a palm on the table, his expression earnest. “When Miss Gilbert approached me about entering the mentoring program, I was dead set against it. I’m not a trained counselor. I’m not even involved in the youth programs at church. I’m not qualified to handle a situation like this.”

“But you offered.” Why did she have to sound so desperate? So needy? What was she doing here begging this man for assistance?’

“I know I did, but—”

“But that was before he turned—” she almost choked on the word “—violent.”

The flattened hand on the table fisted. “Decking a kid who was asking for it is unfortunate. There’s a definite anger control issue coming into play. But Cory isn’t, in my estimation, turning violent.”

She let out a soft sigh of relief. “When you made the offer last night, you must have thought you could help.”

Gray grimaced. “It’s a long story which I won’t go into, but I know of a situation... I learned over the weekend how growing up without a father can affect someone.”

The recently discovered brother and sister he’d mentioned earlier?

“So you see,” he continued, “I’d come back home with my Superman cape on, thinking I could make a difference for Cory by bringing him the hat and hanging out with him. But I’m not educationally qualified for something like this.”

“You need a degree to hang out with a six-year-old? Play games? Help with homework? Just talk?”

“No, but—”

She leaned forward, swallowing her pride as she appealed on her son’s behalf. “He admires you. Looks up to you. Maybe he’ll open up and tell you why he’s angry with the world.”

Grayson tapped a finger on the table, his frank gaze meeting hers. “I can already tell you why he’s angry with the world.”

He knew? It was so simple and she’d missed it?

“Why?”

“Because the world he trusted betrayed him. Turned itself upside down. Took his dad away from him and probably took you away from him in a number of ways as well.”

There had to be more to it than that. A reason why his anger was coming out now instead of in kindergarten. She quietly studied him, then took a stab in the dark. “For someone who isn’t degreed in kid psych, you seem sure of your assessment. Personal experience?”

He glanced away to stare out the window, beyond his own reflection, at the passing traffic headlights penetrating the last dregs of twilight. “I didn’t lose my father, but my mom died in a car accident when I was seven.”

“I’m sorry.” She shouldn’t have probed into his painful past. “That had to have been difficult.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“But you still remember.” She sensed it. Suspected it might play a role in his final decision on Cory’s behalf. “You weren’t much older than Cory. Maybe you can make him understand what’s going on down deep inside.”

“Maybe. But it sounds as if he needs someone to step in immediately, before things escalate.” He paused, his expression grave. “I don’t know what it entails for training and all, but it could easily take a month or more for me to get approved for the school’s mentoring program.”

“Then we don’t go through the mentoring program.”

Something she couldn’t decipher flickered through his eyes.

His words came carefully. “It’s a standard—and wise—practice to conduct a background check. Which could take—”

“I did my own background check.” She met his intent gaze with a challenging one of her own. “I contacted an old buddy of my husband’s who contacted someone in your division. You passed with flying colors.”

A brow quirked. “You didn’t waste any time.”

Did he approve? Disapprove? It didn’t matter. She’d done what she had to do. “I’ve already wasted too much time because I didn’t see this coming. Cory is too important to me to wait for weeks to go through official school district channels.”

“I’m still not—”

“Please? A few nights a week? Even a single hour this weekend?”

“I’ll be out of town this weekend.” He must have seen the disappointment in her eyes, for he cleared his throat and continued. “But I’m taking a few days off. Tomorrow and Wednesday.”

“I can’t impose on your vacation.”

“Personal business, not a true vacation. But I might have time available later in the afternoon.”

She could tell by the still-uncertain look that he had lingering concerns, but she pressed for a firm commitment. “So you will spend time with him? See if he’ll open up to you?”

He settled back in the booth, his eyes locked on hers. “I’ll give it a shot. Tomorrow? Three-thirty?”

Impulsively she reached across the table to grasp his hand, an unexpected bolt of awareness darting through her as skin touched skin. “Thank you.”

He gazed at their clasped hands a long moment, then back at her. “You’ll tell Cory I’m coming?”

She hesitated. It might not be a good idea to get her son’s hopes up. What if it didn’t work out for him to come after all?

Grayson shifted, turning his hand in hers to give it a reassuring squeeze. “You can tell him, Elise. I promise I won’t be a no-show.”

Relieved, she self-consciously withdrew her hand. Took a calming breath. “I’ve arranged for him to stay all day with his after-school sitter, Billie Jean. She lives in a ground-floor apartment directly below mine. I’ll let her know you’re coming.”

“Don’t expect any miracles, okay?” Grayson frowned as he massaged his injured shoulder. “We’ll hang out. Get to know each other. But you’ve got to be prepared that he could change his mind about me. May not want anything to do with me. Or it could backfire entirely—ramp up his anger or what you call his cop obsession.”

“That’s a risk I have to take, isn’t it?” She reluctantly drew her eyes from his too-magnetic gaze and stood, noting uneasily that the sky had fully darkened. “I have to go. I left Cory with Billie Jean. But I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Wallace...Grayson.”

She quickly turned away, hurried out the door and onto the street. Filling her lungs with the still-warm night air, she offered a silent word of thanks.

God was answering her tear-filled prayers.

But what was she getting Cory and herself into, allowing another police officer into their lives?

Chapter Five

What did he know about what went on in a little kid’s head?

Gray stared at himself in the bathroom mirror Tuesday morning as he readied himself for the day. Wallace, you may be known for having a cool, clear head on the job, but you’re not even thinking straight.

He’d agreed to spend one-on-one time with Cory. But how much of his decision was based on the hopeful glow in Elise’s eyes last night at the coffee shop? The grateful sincerity in her voice touched a chord deep within. Had he agreed to help because he thought he could make a difference for Cory—or because it would be an excuse to spend time with the boy’s mother?

He had to come up with something he could do with the kid. He couldn’t sit across the table and interrogate him to get to the heart of his anger issues. Trying to force a confession for an easily resolved happily-ever-after would be bound to fail.

With his bum shoulder he couldn’t even play catch like he used to do with Jenna’s boy. What do you say to a kid whose dad died? And violently at that. People meant well enough when his own mom was killed on that long-ago, stormy night, but “your mother is in heaven” hadn’t done a whole lot for him. It only served to upset his dad when his oldest child wakened in the night crying and begging God to return her.

After that, he didn’t cry. Not in front of his father. Not in front of anyone. Is that why Cory didn’t cry? He didn’t want to upset his mother? Maybe he kept it all bottled up inside and when the opportunity came to unleash it in physical form—like knocking some smart aleck’s block off—it wasn’t worth the effort to try to restrain himself.

With a shake of his head, Gray reached for the razor. He had all morning and into the afternoon to decide what to do with Cory. Today he had to make headway on the search for his father, so he couldn’t devote a lot of time obsessing about the boy’s situation. Maybe God would have mercy on him and the kid would flatly tell his pretty mom he didn’t want to see Officer Wallace today. Or ever.

* * *

Elise eased up on the gas pedal. She’d been keyed up all day wondering how things would go between Grayson and Cory during their hour together. What they would do. What they would talk about. Was this a wrong choice on her part? Would it appear to Cory he was being rewarded for yesterday’s misbehavior?

At twenty till six, she rounded the final corner and pulled up in front of the apartment house behind a now-familiar silver SUV. Grayson was still here? Yes. Sitting on the concrete porch talking to a rapt Cory.

She’d no more than stepped out of her vehicle when a diminutive Volkswagen pulled in behind her, the logo of a popular pizzeria adorning its roof. A teenage boy dashed by her, carrying a paper bag and large flat box. Grayson rose to pull out his wallet as Cory welcomed the pizza with open arms. By the teen’s euphoric smile, she imagined the tip made the delivery worthwhile.

As the pizza guy jogged back to his car, she approached the twosome again seated on the concrete porch steps, checking out the contents of the box. Cory looked up, grin widening.

“Mom! Officer Wallace bought us pizza! My favorite, pepperoni. And part ham and pineapple, your favorite!”

“What’s the occasion of this celebratory feast?” She turned an inquiring eye on Grayson who was casually dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a gray zippered sweatshirt, looking even more handsome than he had last night. She hoped the pizza didn’t mean she had to invite him in, though. She hadn’t cleaned up the breakfast dishes before dashing off to work this morning. The bathroom and kitchen were in need of a deep cleaning, too. Why couldn’t she keep up with the simplest of chores?

“Cory said he hadn’t had pizza in a while and I realized I hadn’t either, so we decided to give the cook a break tonight.”

She glanced at her son, hoping the reality wasn’t that he’d begged his new friend for takeout. Mother and son might have a generic frozen pizza when on sale, but rarely a fresh, popular pizzeria variety. So this was a treat for both of them. “Thank you. What a nice welcome home.”

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