Once a Cowboy

Alex watched the man who was her father. With his crew cut hairstyle, shaggy gray eyebrows, slant for a mouth and sagging features, Buck Donovan was as hard as they come. Naddy had a part in making him that way but Alex wondered what kind of feelings he had for her, his own daughter. Buck probably couldn’t define them himself. And asking him would be a mortal sin, she was sure.

She caught his eyes. “She was there for me when my mother died. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Maybe. Might be the only reason she’s still in my house.”

That comment was like a crumb to a starving person and she savored it as such. Those crumbs were few and far between.

“I’ll see you at home.”

Was she pathetic or what? Thirty-four years old and still living at home with her father and her grandmother. She needed a life. Bad.

SHE NEGOTIATED the Dallas traffic the same way she’d handled her father—with a large dose of patience and gritted teeth. She turned off US-75 and headed for the Lake Highlands suburb where they lived, her body greedily soaking up the coolness of the car’s air-conditioning.

She had a love-hate relationship with the Texas summers. She loved them when she was relaxing on the beach in Galveston or Padre Island, but she hated them in the trenches of Dallas. There weren’t many opportunities to get away for a weekend—Buck believed in her keeping her nose to the grindstone—but if she could find one, she’d take it. All her girlfriends were married, though, and had families. Her relationship with her cop boyfriend, Clay, had ended about a year ago.

Single, unattached and feeling my age. Maybe she should have that made into a bumper sticker. Or, better, single and available. That would certainly draw attention.

She turned into the driveway with a smile. Getting out, she glanced at the rows of brick houses built in the sixties. Buck and her mother Joan had bought their house right after they’d married. They had a large corner lot and Buck had a shop in back where he kept his boat and fishing paraphernalia.

White Rock Lake wasn’t far away and when she was younger she’d spent a lot of time hanging out at the lake with her friends. This had been Alex’s home all her life, but she knew it was time for her to move on—perhaps to find that elusive happiness she’d always been searching for.

Placing her purse and briefcase on the hood of her Jeep Wrangler, she turned on the sprinkler for the wilted Saint Augustine grass, making sure the water reached the blooming crepe myrtles. Alex took care of the yard. Any calls for help from Buck or Naddy she found to be a waste of her time. The sun beat down on her bare head and after the heat of the morning she did something she wouldn’t normally do. She ran through the sprinkler, laughing not caring if the neighbors were watching.

By the time she entered the house, her skin was almost dry. Her clothes were damp from sweat so the extra water didn’t make a difference. The air-conditioning felt wonderful on her wet skin. Pure bliss.

Laying her things on the kitchen table, she saw Naddy sitting at her computer through the open door of her bedroom. Buck’s bedroom was on the right side of the house and Naddy’s on the left, a house clearly divided. Alex occupied the bedroom upstairs and had her private space.

“Hey, Naddy, I’m home,” she called, grabbing a Popsicle out of the freezer.

“Come here, honeychild. I want to show you something.”

Alex walked to Naddy’s bedroom, licking on the icy treat. It was her favorite snack in the summertime, cool, refreshing and… She stopped in Naddy’s doorway. Her bedroom was a disaster. She really shouldn’t be surprised because Naddy tended not to pick up anything.

Buck, on the other hand, was neat and organized. A gene he obviously got from his “low-life loser father” as Naddy often said.

Alex stepped over a pile of dirty clothes. Trying to change her grandmother would be like trying to change the course of the wind or the Texas heat.

“What?” Alex asked, trying to ignore the dirty clothes hanging off of chairs and lying all over the floor. The tumbled sheets partially hid an empty Doritos bag. A couple of empty beer cans stood on the nightstand beside a jar of nuts.

“Look.” Naddy pointed to the screen, squinting at it through the glasses perched on her nose. A tall, big-boned woman, Naddy once had sandy red hair. Now it was completely white, short and stuck out in all directions, mainly because Naddy always forgot to comb it. Her skin was leathery and wrinkled, the skin of a smoker. An unlit cigarette dangled from her lip.

“Why is there a cigarette in your mouth?” Buck had strict rules about smoking in the house. Joan had made them when Alex was born and Buck kept to them, even though he smoked. He always smoked outdoors and Alex had a feeling he adhered to the rule to annoy Naddy.

“Keep your britches on, honeychild. I was going outside to light up when I found this. Tell me what you think. The baby on the left disappeared fourteen years ago in Houston. The girl on the right was found dead in an alley in Vegas last week. Look at the faces. I think it’s the same girl.” Her voice was excited.

Alex studied the faces. “Very similar.”

“I want to contact the authorities in Vegas, but I need a drag first.” Naddy stood and brushed crumbs off of her flowered housedress. “What are you doing home this time of the day and why are you all wet?”

Alex took a bite of the Popsicle. “The air’s out again.”

Naddy smiled. “Biting that Popsicle reminds me of when you were six years old. I’d tell you not to eat them so fast that they’d give you a headache, but you never listened.”

“I think I’m always going to be six years old,” she replied in a melancholy voice. Living at home and yearning for love.

“Bite your tongue.” Naddy rummaged through a stack of papers on her desk. “Ethel’s grandson is in town and I told her you’d go out with him.”

Alex shook her head. “No. You are not setting me up for another date. Never again will I do that. I can get my own dates, thank you.”

Naddy looked indignant. “What was wrong with the last date I got you?”

“He brought his mother with him.”

Naddy grimaced. “Oh, yeah. That was out of the ordinary.”

“And stupid, insane, weird, creepy and…”

“Okay, okay. I’ll stay out of your affairs. I don’t have good taste in men anyway.”

“Amen.”

They eyed each other and laughed, then Alex hugged her grandmother. That was one of the things she loved about Naddy. She brought laughter to Alex’s life.

Naddy drew back. “Your skin is hot.”

“I’ve been sitting in a oven, which is what the office is at the moment.”

“That cheapskate son of mine needs to put in a new unit.”

Alex shrugged. “You know Buck.”

Naddy pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Hmmph.”

“Good luck identifying the girl.” Alex glanced around the room. “Tonight we’re doing laundry and maybe we’ll fumigate this room.”

“Yeah. Whatever. But first I have to keep digging on the Vegas case until I annoy the hell out of somebody, then they’ll pay attention to me.” Naddy hurried out of the room to smoke her cigarette.

Naddy had bulldog instincts, just like her son, and most of the time she got results. Alex had a feeling she got her caring gene from Naddy. Her grandmother was always trying to help people.

Alex retrieved her briefcase and purse and headed upstairs to take a shower and to work. By late afternoon she had a lot of information on Brodie Hayes. He’d earned lots of accolades. His bull-riding career started in high school. Even while attending Texas A&M University he kept riding and winning. At nineteen he went professional. All sorts of endorsements came his way including Wrangler, Budweiser and Ford trucks. Brodie Hayes seemed to have it all. He retired years ago and now owned a ranch, like Helen had said. He was single and had never been married.

Staring at his picture, she found that fact more than interesting. Why was a handsome hunk like that still unattached? One answer came to mind, but she pushed it away. He was too masculine and… That meant absolutely nothing. She kept searching.

His father was a general in the U.S. Army and his mother was an army wife who followed her husband all over the world. Nothing about his life looked out of the ordinary, but one thing caught Alex’s attention. Travis Braxton was born five days after Brodie Hayes in the same hospital in Dallas. How weird was that? Could that just be a coincidence?

She mulled this over for about thirty minutes, then she knew what she had to do. She had Brodie Hayes’s address and somehow, someway she would get a DNA sample from him.

Chapter Two