Lone Star Baby

Gavin rubbed a hand over his face.

For the first time she realized what it must have been like for him when his parents died.

Gavin had been about to enter medical school but his twin sisters and younger brother had still been in their teens. It had been up to Gavin and his older sister, Erin, who had been married with kids of her own, to finish raising them. Plus, manage the family’s ranch and Western wear store in town. Erin had insisted Gavin continue with his education, rather than forgo his dreams, and after some initial arguing about whether that was too much for his older sister to handle on her own, he had. He’d returned every few months to help out. And done his best to keep in touch, in between visits, but it couldn’t have been easy for any of them.

Yet never once had she heard Gavin complain.

Gavin dropped his hand to his side. “Yeah. It’s just the accident talking. He’ll be okay when he calms down and comes to his senses.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

Gavin shook his head. “Thanks for offering.” He inhaled. “I better call Erin, though. Before she hears about it from anyone else.”

Violet watched him leave with newfound respect. For reasons she couldn’t really explain, she was tempted to stay around awhile anyway to make sure Gavin was really okay in the wake of the traumatic event. Offer comfort. Take him to lunch. Something. But that was ridiculous, she knew. The two of them didn’t have that kind of relationship. They were casual friends, nothing more. If Gavin needed to turn to someone for support, it wouldn’t be to her.

Meanwhile, there were places she was needed. She had things to do at McCabe House. She also wanted to check on Ava before she left the hospital.

To her relief, the newborn was sleeping peacefully.

Meg Carrigan joined her at the incubator. “Funny,” the sixty-year-old nursing supervisor mused, “how easily these little ones grab our hearts and then hold on with all their might.”

Which was considerable, Violet thought. She turned to the trim redhead, who was also a dear family friend. “It still gets to you after all these years?”

Meg nodded. She patted Violet’s shoulder. “Luckily, as each one of these little darlings leaves, another arrives, needing just as much TLC.”

That was true, Violet thought, for the nurses and doctors in NICU. It wouldn’t necessarily hold for her. And that was a good thing. Thus far, despite the fact that all her sisters now had families of their own—or in Poppy’s case, was actively planning one—she had yet to catch baby fever.

Given the fact she’d already had—and lost—the love of her life, she preferred it to stay that way.

* * *

FIVE HOURS LATER Violet opened a window on the second floor of McCabe House. She leaned out, video camera in hand, just in time to see Gavin getting out of his pickup.

He was wearing faded denim jeans, boots and an old button-down shirt, the shirttails hanging out. His clothes looked as comfortable and broken in as her favorite pair of flannel pajamas.

She let her gaze rove his tousled dark hair, broad shoulders and sandpaper hint of beard lining his handsome face. “I didn’t expect to see you again today.”

At 6:00 p.m. she’d expected him to be headed home to bed after pulling the twelve-hour ER shift the previous day, then staying on to help out through most of the afternoon.

He reached into his truck for a file folder, then flashed her a brief smile. “Mitzy stopped me on the way out of the hospital. She wants us to fill out some questionnaires on what we’re looking for in adoptive parents for Ava.”

“You didn’t have to bring it all the way out here.”

“She wants us in agreement on the answers before she sees them. I figured it would be easier to do it in person than on the phone.”

Violet wasn’t sure she understood his logic. Except that doing it in person would allow them the opportunity to gage the expressions on each other’s face to more effectively read their mood.

Not that Gavin was helping her out right now with that. His handsome face was poker-inscrutable. As always.

She sighed, not sure why the fact he was such a mystery was so frustrating to her.

Pushing aside her pique, she asked, “Do you have to work tonight?”

He shook his head. “I don’t go in until midnight tomorrow. But if this is a bad time...”

Truth be told she had nothing ahead of her that evening but finishing her current chore and trying to restore order to the mess she’d made of her Conestoga wagon bedroom that morning. “It’s not. I just need to finish what I’m doing here. You can come on up, if you want. The front door is open.”

She backed out of the window and by the time she had it shut and locked, he was standing in the room, looking like a dark angel in the fading sunlight pouring in through the glass.

As he strode closer, she drank him in from head to toe. Up close, she could see how tired he looked around the eyes. Her heart went out to him. She knew how it felt to come off a long shift. She also knew what it took to keep going and to do what had to be done, regardless of bone-deep fatigue. It was something they’d learned in med school and never forgot.

He inclined his head at the camera in her hand. “What are you filming?”

“The interior of the house, pre-renovation. My sister Callie—”

“The marketing and social media whiz?”

Violet nodded, impressed he could keep all five of her sisters straight. Not everyone could. “She’s going to put together a short film about my late grandparents. Show how they started the hospital as physician and nurse and helped build it into the state-of-the-art county medical facility it is today.”

He fell into step beside her. “I know they were active on the board of directors, even after they retired.”

Proudly, Violet admitted, “John and Lilah helped raise a lot of money to add oncology, neonatal intensive care and cardio-pulmonary care, as well as the medical residency programs for all three. Turning this ranch into living quarters for families dealing with medical crises was their last wish.” She took a breath. “And although they left enough money in their estate to redo the house, and eventually the stable-house, where I’m currently staying—which will eventually house the new director—we’ll need to raise more money if we’re to expand and keep it going as a nonprofit.”

He folded his arms in front of him, the action delineating the strong musculature of his chest. “And that is where the video comes in.”

“We’ll use it to show exactly where the money is going and how much good any donation does.” Violet moved along the hall, filming the empty rooms with the faded paint and wallpaper.

He gave her enough room to work unencumbered. “So when does the construction start?”

Determined not to let him see how much his nearness affected her, Violet raised a blind to let more light into the last room. “They’re bringing the Dumpster tomorrow morning. Once it’s set up, the teardown of the interior will begin.”

“Sounds noisy.” Finished, she turned off the camera and led the way downstairs. “That’s why they make noise-canceling headphones. Luckily—” she winked as she locked up and led the way across the yard to the stable-house “—I brought along a pair. And extra batteries, too.”

Chuckling at her sassy tone, he followed her into the stable-house.

His brow lifted at what he found. “Wow. You’ve been busy.”

* * *

ALTHOUGH WHY, GAVIN THOUGHT, she wanted to be stranded out here, away from all her family and friends, still puzzled him. Was she running away from something? Trying to get her thoughts together? Or fulfilling some cockeyed notion of the McCabe clan’s famous Texas Pioneer spirit?

Hard to say.

But whatever was going on with Violet, she was clearly determined to make it work, at least for the next few months. “It’s a big improvement over the way it looked two days ago,” he continued, impressed.

All the moving boxes had been pushed to the rear of the former stable and were neatly lined up behind the Conestoga wagon that functioned as her bedroom.

On the right side of the large space she had rolled a rug out over the painted concrete floor and arranged a sofa, armchair and two end tables to make a nice conversation area. A big packing trunk served as a coffee table.