Heart of Texas Vol. 3: Caroline's Child

“I realize that,” he said, “but how good are you at keeping two strong-willed ranchers out of your hair?”

“Two?”

“Laredo and Grady.” Cal knew his best friend, and Grady would be as nervous as Laredo at the birth of his first niece or nephew. Jane was going to have her hands full, and it wasn’t with Savannah or the baby, either. It wouldn’t surprise him if father and uncle made damned nuisances of themselves. “Trust me, darlin’, you’ll thank me later.”

“Oh, all right, Cal Patterson, you can tag along, too. Now I’d better go change.”

He grinned, pleased he’d been able to convince her she was going to need him. Truth be known, he wouldn’t miss this birth for anything. It was about time something good happened in that family, especially after Richard Weston’s trial and sentencing.

A baby was just what the Westons needed to put their troubles behind them. Cal was determined to celebrate the blessed event with his friends.

TRAVIS GRANT ROLLED INTO Promise at precisely the moment the storm struck. He drove down Main Street, peering out between the constantly beating windshield wipers, but he couldn’t locate a single hotel. Seeing as his last meal had been aboard a plane and hadn’t amounted to much, he decided to stop for dinner and inquire about a place to stay. By the time he found a parking space and raced to the restaurant through the pounding rain, he was soaked to the skin.

He gulped down a glass of water and started on a bowl of tortilla chips with salsa before he even looked at the menu. His stomach growled and he ordered arroz con pollo, his favorite Mexican dish.

Gazing out the window, he decided the town was just the way Richard Weston had described it. This was something of a pleasant surprise. Men like Weston weren’t exactly known for their truthfulness. Travis had interviewed him shortly after he was sentenced to twenty-five years in a New York prison. No possibility of parole, either. He wouldn’t have talked to him at all if it hadn’t been for his ex-wife, who’d been Weston’s state-appointed attorney. As far as Travis was concerned, Weston was the ultimate sleaze—an opinion that the interview only reinforced.

Knowing his interest in Western ghost towns, Valerie had told him about Weston, a man who’d hidden from the law in an abandoned town buried deep in the Texas hill country. Weston had agreed to an interview—in exchange for certain concessions. The warden of the prison, however, hadn’t approved of the idea that Weston should have a TV and sound system in his cell. Weston had consented to the interview, anyway—because it was another opportunity to be the center of attention, Travis figured. Their meeting continued to leave a bad taste in his mouth. If it hadn’t been for Valerie, Travis would have abandoned the entire project, but his ex-wife seemed to have a way with the man.

Valerie. Travis frowned as he thought about her. She’d dumped him and their marriage for another man five years earlier. His lack of malice seemed to disappoint his friends. Frankly, he considered life too short to waste on ill will. He’d loved her, still did, but as she’d so eloquently put it, she’d fallen out of love with him.

She’d remarried as soon as the ink was dry on their divorce papers and seemed content. For that matter, he was, too, although it had taken him longer to achieve peace and he hadn’t become involved in another serious relationship. Also, to his friends’ surprise, he and Valerie had stayed in touch.

The waiter, a kid of maybe eighteen, delivered a plate heaped with rice and chicken and covered with a thin tomato sauce and melted cheese. “Could you give me directions to the closest motel?” Travis asked him.

“Brewster’s got a motel.”

“Great.” Travis reached for his fork. “How far away is that?”

“About a hundred miles.”

He laid his fork back down. “You mean to say a town the size of Promise doesn’t have a motel?”

“We’ve got a bed-and-breakfast.”

“Fine.” A bed was a bed, and at this point he wasn’t picky.

The waiter lingered. “You might have trouble getting a room, ’cause of the big festivities this weekend.”

“Festivities?”

“The rodeo’s coming, and then there’s the big chili cook-off. I thought that was why you were here.”

Apparently the town was small enough to recognize him as a stranger. “Where do the rodeo cowboys stay while they’re in town?”

The youth stared at him as if the answer should be obvious. “Motor homes.”

“All of them?”

“Unless they got family close by.”

“I see,” Travis murmured. He hadn’t considered that there wouldn’t be a motel—but then that was one of his problems, according to Valerie. He didn’t think ahead.

“If you’d like, I could write you out directions to the Pattersons’ B and B.”

“Please.” Famished, Travis dug into his meal, devouring it in minutes. He’d no sooner finished when the waiter returned with a hand-drawn map listing streets and landmarks. Apparently the one and only bed-and-breakfast was off the beaten path.

Thunder cracked in the sky, followed by flashes of lightning. No one seemed to pay much heed to the storm until the lights flickered. Everyone in the restaurant paused and waited, then sighed with relief when the lights stayed on.

The storm was bad, but he’d seen worse off the New England coastline five years before. Holed up in a rented cottage in order to meet a deadline, Travis had watched storms rage as he fought his own battles. It’d been shortly after the divorce.

He thought of that sassy ranch woman who’d spoken to him today and wondered what she’d say if she knew he’d stood on a rocky bluff overlooking the sea, with the wind and rain pounding against him, and openly defied nature.

Remembering the way she’d leaped out of her truck, eyes flashing with outrage, brought a rare smile to his lips.

She’d been an attractive woman. Practically as tall as he was and full-sized, not some pencil-thin model. A spitfire, too. Definitely one of a kind. Briefly he wondered if he’d get a chance to see her again and rather hoped he would, just so he could tell her he’d managed to survive the storm.

Following the directions given him by the waiter at the Mexican Lindo, Travis drove to Pattersons’ Bed-and-Breakfast, which turned out to be a large older home. He rang the doorbell.

Almost immediately a tall, gray-haired, lanky man opened the door and invited him inside. “Welcome to Promise.” The man extended his hand and introduced himself as Phil Patterson.

“Travis Grant. Do you have a room for a few nights?” he asked, getting directly to the point.

“Sorry,” Phil told him. “We’re booked solid.”

Travis had left New York early that morning and didn’t relish the thought of traveling another hundred miles through a storm to find a bed for the night. “I’m tired and not difficult to please. Isn’t there any place that could put me up for a few nights?”

Phil frowned. “The rodeo’s coming to town.”

“So I understand.”

“I doubt there’s a room available in Brewster, either.”

Travis muttered a curse under his breath.

“Phil.” A woman’s voice called out from the kitchen. “You might try Nell.”

“Nell?”

“Nell Bishop.”

Phil sighed. “I know who Nell is.”

“She’s opening her dude ranch in a couple of months, so she’s probably got rooms to rent.”

Phil’s face relaxed. “Of course, that’s a great idea.”

Travis’s spirits lifted.