Longwalker's Child

Enough, Longwalker, he ordered. Gray turned his attention back to the Whitmore woman. A thick mane of blond hair fell around her shoulders. Her eyes were the greenest Gray had ever seen. Like jade. She had long, shapely legs to which the navy leggings she wore clung like a second skin. The thigh-length matching sweater did nothing to conceal the lush curves underneath. Gray felt a stirring in his loins and averted his gaze.

She might look like a million bucks, but he already knew that Lauren Whitmore would treat him just the way everybody else in this town did. Not to mention the fact that she stood between him and his child. The child he had only recently learned existed.

Gray set his jaw and willed the rage to retreat. Rehashing the past would serve no purpose, but he would not allow history to repeat itself. Gray had been called a half-breed all his life. No one who wanted to continue breathing would ever call a child of his half-breed. And no child of his would ever be called a bastard.

He glanced at the Whitmore woman again. No one would stop him from claiming his child.

No one.

Since Gray’s whereabouts had been unknown, an ad announcing the Whitmore woman’s intent to adopt the daughter of Sharon Johnson and Gray Longwalker had been placed in the local newspaper of his last-known city of residence.

Gray knew without a doubt that no real effort had been made to find him. Davis had merely fulfilled the necessary legal technicalities to proceed with the adoption. Neither he nor Lauren intended for Gray to find out about Sarah. If they had known that Gray still had connections in Laredo, the ad would never have been placed in a newspaper there. Still, he’d had to give her the benefit of the doubt. But when he had gone to Lauren’s door, her attitude had told him she wasn’t interested. And now, here they were, sitting in her attorney’s office getting nowhere.

Lauren and Davis had apparently reached some sort of decision and both returned to their seats. Davis settled behind the big oak desk and Lauren sat in the chair adjacent to Gray. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on Davis, not giving Gray so much as a sideways glance.

Gray’s pulse picked up. Now he would find out just how serious Lauren Whitmore was about keeping his daughter from him.

“Mr. Longwalker,” Davis began, “the law clearly gives you the right to demand custody of your child—”

Lauren gasped, but quickly cleared her throat and clasped her hands in her lap. Gray saw the tremendous effort she required to compose herself once more. She evidently didn’t want to hear what her attorney had to say now any more than she had a few moments ago.

“As I was saying,” Davis continued. “If you are, in fact, Sarah’s biological father, then you have every right to petition the court for custody.”

“Is there any question that I’m the father?” Gray straightened in his chair and leveled his full attention on the round face of the stocky attorney. “I thought Sharon named me as the father on the birth certificate.” And with his Navajo heritage there couldn’t be much question as to whether the child had inherited his Native American features. That part would be obvious. With her Irish-American background, Sharon certainly couldn’t have passed those traits onto the child.

“That’s true. Ms. Johnson did name you as the father, however, that alone won’t stand up in court.”

Gray’s hackles rose at the implication. “Sharon Johnson might not have been one of Thatcher’s more prominent citizens, but she would never have lied about something like this.” Gray had no intention of sitting here and allowing some spit-polished, college-educated snob to sully Sharon’s name, even though she hadn’t seen fit to let Gray know about his child.

“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Davis clarified quickly.

“Good,” Gray said, and glared at the man behind the desk. He forced his fury back to a manageable level. He had worked long and hard to learn to control his temper, but this new turn of events was testing those limits.

“Ms. Whitmore was given full custody of the child by the biological mother. If you choose to contend her adoption proceedings, then it’s up to you to prove your right to do so in a court of law.”

Gray shrugged. “I have no problem with that. Just tell me where to go and what to do.”

Davis eyed him skeptically. “The test and court costs will be quite expensive, Mr. Longwalker. Since it is up to you to prove paternity, then the burden of cost for both you and the child will fall on your shoulders.”

“Whatever it takes,” Gray responded without hesitation. His own attorney had warned him to expect this stall tactic.

Lauren darted a nervous glance in his direction. Gray smiled to himself. He may have left Thatcher as poor as dirt, but he hadn’t been as dumb as dirt. Don Davis would probably faint dead away if he knew just how much money Gray had growing interest in a Dallas bank account.

“Well, then.” Davis jotted a few notes on his legal pad before looking up again. “I’ll see that the arrangements for the test are made as soon as possible. Leave a contact number with my secretary and I’ll be in touch. Once the paternity issue is resolved in the eyes of the law, Mr. Longwalker, you may petition the court for custody.”

Gray had a bad feeling about the custody part. Lauren Whitmore probably had the whole town on her side—including the judge. “How long will the test results take?”

“Two weeks at least,” Davis answered smoothly.

“The custody battle, however, could go on for months—” he peered self-righteously at Gray over his wire-rimmed bifocals “—or years even,” he finished smugly.

Gray restrained the anger that skyrocketed inside him. He didn’t care how long it took. Sarah was his child, and he fully intended to have her. “Fine,” he relented, his patience holding on by a thin thread. “When can I see Sarah?”

“Don,” Lauren protested. She clutched the arms of her chair, her knuckles white with the effort.

“We won’t discuss visitation until after paternity has been established,” Davis stated, as if the issue was closed to further discussion.

Gray rose to his full height of six feet two inches. He leaned over and placed his hands palm down on Davis’s gleaming desktop and settled a gaze Gray hoped communicated the seriousness of his words to the man staring up at him. “Discuss visitation or don’t discuss it, it makes no difference to me. But I will see my daughter. Is that clear?”

“You will have absolutely no contact with Lauren unless it comes through me, Mr. Longwalker. I hope that’s clear,” he said cautiously. “And threatening me won’t do you any good,” he added carefully.

“It’s not a threat,” Gray offered without apology. He straightened and picked up his hat from the table that separated his chair from Lauren’s. “It’s a promise.” He met Lauren Whitmore’s gaze for the space of two heartbeats before turning away.

Gray strode out of the office without a backward glance. As angry as he was, he knew one thing for sure—he would never be able to forget the look on Lauren Whitmore’s face. As pale as a ghost, her eyes full of fear, she had looked ready to break down and cry.

He hardened his heart against the sympathy that arose immediately. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t given her the opportunity to resolve this thing between the two of them. But she wanted no part of a negotiation. She had made up her mind long before laying eyes on Gray. She intended to keep his daughter from him, that much was evident. Gray clenched his jaw. He had no doubt that the woman cared deeply for his daughter. Lauren Whitmore would suffer as this battle played out. But her pain was inconsequential, Gray reminded himself. His only concern was claiming his daughter—Sarah.

Chapter Two

Gray stood in the middle of Thatcher’s only cemetery. The March wind whipped around him and through the branches of the old oak trees, the sound breaking the deathly silence. He felt cold and uncharacteristically lost inside. In the distance the small town that was supposed to be his home sprawled across the flat landscape that seemed to go on forever. The place had never actually felt like home to him, not even when he was a small child. No pleasant memories sprang to mind, no old friends he longed to visit. Nothing remained for him but pain and bitterness, and enough anger to last three lifetimes. But he’d been born and raised here.

And that made this place home.

Gray had always been an outcast. A half-breed bastard who worked like two men for half the pay of one. Gray swallowed the anger that accompanied that memory. Old man Jennings had at least given him a place to sleep, and three meals a day. No one else would have taken him in after his mother died, leaving him alone at sixteen, with no money or place to go. Gray drew in a deep breath and scanned the wide-open blue sky. It was during that eight-year stint on Jennings’s ranch that Gray had discovered his God-given talent with horses and how to use it. But it wasn’t until he left this hate-filled place that he had learned to utilize his skills to their fullest extent.

Horse training required great patience and the ability to open himself completely to reach the animals, and before Gray could do that he’d had to learn to control the rage that had driven him from the age of ten. Self-discipline had been hard earned and long in coming. But he had mastered the art four years ago. Oh, he had the occasional relapse, like today in Davis’s office, but he’d grabbed back control swiftly enough. He wasn’t the same man who left here all those years ago. Despite the indifference and taunting he had suffered growing up, he held no true grudges, except one.

Gray glanced beyond the rows of typical headstones until he found the one of the man who had sired him. A massive monument loomed over the family plot. He gritted his teeth and tamped down the churning emotions that threatened now, even after all this time. His father—the word turned his stomach—had taken advantage of Gray’s mother, turning her into his mistress. Then he’d killed her one inch at a time. Never once had the man spared one iota of concern for the illegitimate child born of their infidelity. By the time Gray had reached school age, the man had turned his back on both of them. Covered up his wrong doing, making their lives miserable in the process.

Determined not to be undone by his past, Gray shifted his gaze back to the small headstone that marked Sharon Johnson’s final resting place. Tiny blue flowers blanketed the year-old grave. A frown furrowed his brow as he tried to think why Sharon would hide the existence of his child from him. They had been friends. It was true that he’d made a mistake by taking her to bed that last night, but she seemed to need him as much as he needed her.

Gray blew out a weary breath. There was no point in wasting energy trying to analyze her motivation. The fact was she hadn’t wanted him to know, and she had made the Whitmore woman promise to keep the child from him. He could not bring himself to hold that mistake against Sharon. God knows he’d made his share. What was done was done.

The sound of a vehicle pulling to a stop next to his truck tugged Gray’s attention in that direction. It was an older model sedan, its dark-blue paint dusty from the gravel road. He squinted to make out the face of the driver. The door opened and an elderly woman slowly emerged from behind the steering wheel.

Mrs. Jennings.

Gray removed his hat and waited silently as the old woman approached the cemetery gate.

She hesitated when she noticed him. Gray saw the instant recognition flare. She eyed him another long moment. Then, using her cane for assistance, she closed the distance that separated them.

“I’d heard you were back,” she said in a voice rusty with age. Faded-blue eyes studied him with surprising sharpness. “Causing trouble already, too, they say,” she added, pointedly.

“Is that what they say?” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Maybe he did have one good memory or two. Marilee Jennings was one little old lady who had a stubborn streak herself. She liked nothing better than to put a cocky young man with a smart mouth in his place. No fifth-grader ever dared defy her authority. Not even Gray.

She nodded sagely. “Of course I set them straight about that.” She leveled her gaze on his and thrust out her thin chin for emphasis. “I told them that to my knowledge Gray Longwalker never started any trouble in his entire life, but he sure as blazes would end it if anyone started it with him.”

The smile won the tug of war with his lips. “It might not be so easy to end this time.”