Candy Halliday - A Ranch Called Home

A cold shiver passed straight through Gabe.

He shook it off and forced the memories into the shadows where they belonged. He only wished he could do the same with Smitty’s damn opinions. But the old man had more than earned the right to speak his mind, and they both knew it.

Had it not been for Smitty, Gabe never would have been able to hang on to the ranch after his folks died. Smitty had stepped in as surrogate father when Gabe needed him most. Smitty had helped run the ranch, and he’d helped raise Billy. The old man just kept forgetting Gabe was thirty-three years old now, not the inexperienced kid he’d been fifteen years earlier when his parents died.

“Billy told you himself that gal never even told him she was pregnant,” Smitty said, finally forcing the argument Gabe had known was coming from the day he took over the search for his brother’s son. “She didn’t want anything to do with Billy then. What makes you think she’ll let you near the boy now?”

“There’s a good chance the boy’s mother won’t let me near him,” Gabe admitted. “But I wouldn’t be much of a man if I conveniently forgot I have a nephew because my brother is dead.”

“Might have a nephew,” Smitty reminded him. “You don’t even know if that boy belongs to Billy.”

“Billy thought the boy was his,” Gabe said. “Unless I find out otherwise, that’s good enough for me.”

“Mark my words, Gabe. You’re borrowing trouble.”

“Maybe so. But there’s a five-year-old boy in Texas who could be my nephew. Trouble or not, I’m going to see him.”

Smitty shook his head in disgust. “You know the type of woman you’re dealing with, Gabe. You have her whole life story in a file in your top desk drawer.”

“All the more reason to check on the boy.”

“All the more reason to let the boy go!” Smitty shouted. He frowned at Gabe again. But he lowered his voice when he added, “You’ve worked hard holding on to this ranch. And for what? To let some one-night stand Billy met on the rodeo circuit lay claim to half the ranch your pa and your grandpa spent their whole lives building up?”

Gabe didn’t answer.

He got up from his chair, walked across the room and took down the framed portrait of his parents on their wedding day. When he opened the wall safe hidden behind the picture, Smitty let out a weary sigh.

“Don’t do this,” Smitty said. “If you hand Billy’s insurance money over thinking you’ll be rid of the boy’s mother, you’re kidding yourself. She’ll be holding her hand out for the rest of your life.”

Gabe still didn’t answer. He wrote out a check to Sara Watson for fifty thousand dollars and placed the checkbook back inside the wall safe. After he rehung his parent’s picture, the old man was still blocking his path.

“I shouldn’t be gone more than a few days,” Gabe said, putting an end to any further discussion.

Defeated, Smitty finally stepped aside.

But as Gabe started up the stairs to pack, Smitty called out after him, “Watch your back, you hear me, Gabe? That little gal’s liable to scratch your eyes out if you get within shouting distance of them.”

Gabe threw a hand up to signal he’d heard the warning.

But by noon tomorrow, he intended to be in Texas.

If the boy did turn out to be his nephew, Billy’s fifty thousand dollars in insurance money would be well spent if it meant bringing his brother’s son home to Colorado where the boy belonged.

GABE PULLED his truck to a stop in front of a shabby diner called Dessie’s at exactly ten minutes past noon on Tuesday, May twenty-ninth. The irony of the date wasn’t wasted on Gabe. Had Billy lived, it would have been his brother’s twenty-sixth birthday.

The fact that the motel beside the diner was nothing but a string of rundown buildings in an equally rundown town gave Gabe hope. Offering fifty thousand dollars to a woman stuck in a place like Conrad could be the big break he needed.

He grabbed his Stetson sitting on the bench seat beside him and jammed it onto his head. The second he stepped out of the truck, the unbearable Texas heat took his breath away. Why anyone would choose to live in such a dry, hot and desolate place was something Gabe would never understand. But then, he suspected most people wouldn’t understand why he chose to endure the bitter cold mountain winters on the West Elk Slope in Colorado.

Different strokes for different folks, Gabe decided and nodded politely to the two old men sitting outside the diner beneath a faded awning. A small table and a checkerboard between them, these two Conrad citizens didn’t appear to be affected by the sweltering heat at all.

“Dessie’s is always packed for lunch,” one of the old men told him. “But the home cooking is worth the wait.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Gabe said, and opened the diner door.

The second he stepped inside, Gabe saw her.

She was on the flashy side just as he’d expected. Bleached-blond hair. Too much makeup. Her sexy figure more than emphasized by the tight-fitting uniform she wore.

He walked past her, heading to a booth in the back—the only empty seat in the place. By the time he slid into the booth and placed his Stetson on the seat beside him, she was busy taking orders from three men sitting at a table near the diner’s front window.

Gabe watched as she openly flirted with each of the men, a come-on smile on her cherry-red painted lips. He smiled inwardly, knowing, if his gut instinct was correct, she’d hand the boy over the minute he flashed the money in her direction.

And thinking about the boy, Gabe took a quick look around the diner, surveying the situation. The detective had mentioned a back room. The best Gabe could tell, a sign pointing down a hallway to the restrooms was the most likely place for this room.

He’d give this Sara Watson a chance to let him see the boy first. If she refused, Gabe had already decided he was not leaving Texas without seeing the child who could very well be his nephew. Despite Smitty’s doubts, he’d know if the boy belonged to Billy the second he saw him—Coulter genes were hard to hide.

She glanced in his direction and gave another come-on smile. “Be with you in a minute,” she called out.

Gabe nodded.

He watched as she clipped the order she had just taken to a revolving wheel above an open window separating the diner from the kitchen. A skinny old woman with gray hair grabbed the order and pushed two plates back through the window at her. The blonde took the plates and placed them in front of a man and a woman sitting at the counter. Next, she walked to the register to take another customer’s money.

“Give me just a few more minutes, honey,” she called out to Gabe again, holding up a finger to signal she would be right back.

Don’t worry, honey. I’m not going anywhere, Gabe thought as she disappeared down the hallway.

He’d been waiting over a year for this moment.

He could wait a few minutes longer.

SARA PEEKED around the storage-room door and smiled when she saw her son sitting on the folding cot happily playing with his favorite toy—a plastic horse he’d named Thunder—and his constant companion. Being able to check on Ben every few minutes was a huge relief. In fact, Sara sometimes wondered if her guardian angel had been responsible for making her worn-out car break down in Conrad, Texas.

She and Ben had been shown nothing but kindness here.

She’d sold the car for parts when the mechanic at the town garage broke the news that the vehicle wasn’t worth what it would take to fix it. The mechanic had also sent her to see Dessie McQueen, a woman in her sixties who had seen her own share of hard times.

Dessie owned the town’s only diner and motel.