Glynna Kaye - Look-Alike Lawman

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.”