Texas Hope: Sweetgrass Springs Stories (Texas Heroes Book 16) Read Free Page A

where I grew up. Everyone in my neighborhood was obsessed with fancy.”
    She glanced out at the dual-cab pickup he’d parked. Lots of wear on that, so maybe the fancy life hadn’t worked out for him.
    Then a head popped up in the back seat window. “That your dog?”
    “Yeah. Monroe. I had to amputate one leg, and the owner didn’t want him anymore, so we sort of adopted each other.”
    “You cut off his leg?”
    A rich, deep laugh, one he seemed to grant easily. “I’m a vet.”
    “From around here?”
    “Only lately. I was filling in for a friend in Austin while he took care of his dad in his final months.”
    “No practice of your own?”
    “I’ve done a lot of different gigs since I graduated—wildlife conservation, large animals and small. Did some time in Kentucky with racehorses.”
    “We could use a vet here in town. Closest one is in Fredericksburg. Folks have to tend their own animals, mostly, if it’s not life-threatening. My grandson Ian raises horses—cattle, too, but horses are his passion.”
    She could swear she saw a spark in his eye when she mentioned Ian.
    She didn’t have to wait long. “Ian? McLaren? He’s your grandson? Is Gordon your son?”
    She cocked her head. “Ian married my granddaughter Scarlett, but he was already like family to me and everyone else in Sweetgrass. This town wouldn’t know what to do without him. You a friend of his?”
    “No, ma’am. I’ve never met him. But I sure would like to, except…” He exhaled. “It’s complicated.”
    “Why is that?” But she was almost sure now that she knew. The resemblance was there if you’d known all the parties involved, as she had.
    “Well, first of all, it took me a while to find him.”
    “He’s never lived anywhere else. How hard could it be?”
    A smile, rueful now, but still with the dimple. “See, that’s the thing. I didn’t know he existed until my father died not long ago, but—” His brown eyes, so much like Ian’s, bored into hers. “Turns out Ian is my brother, but I’m doubtful that he knows about me either, and best I can tell, he has reason not to want to. He has every right to hate my very existence.”
    “You’re Sophia’s child.”
    She felt as much as heard Harley rise from his chair and turned on him. “Not one word, Harley Sykes. For Ian’s sake, you don’t breathe a word of this until we get things sorted out. I have never been more serious.”
    “You know her?” Michael asked.
    Ruby shook her head. “No one knew her well. She kept to herself.” Ian’s heart had been broken as a little boy when his mother had abandoned him. He was fiercely devoted to the father who’d never really looked at another woman since Sophia had abandoned them both.
    Ian was a good man, the best, but he had deep wounds, and there was no telling how he’d react when a brother popped up from the blue.
    “Worse than that,” Harley spat. “She had no use for any of us. Thought Gordon should leave this land his forebears bled for. Died for.”
    The man before them looked miserable.
    “That’s enough, Harley. This boy wasn’t even born then.” Harley might top her by a foot, but she pinned him with a fierce glare. “I mean it. You don’t even tell Melba. This is going to be hard enough on Ian, dredging all that up.”
    “I would never hurt Ian.” He turned to the man who bore such a resemblance to his brother. “And you’d better not either. Folks would stand in line to defend Ian McLaren. Better man was never born.”
    Michael Cavanaugh only nodded soberly. “I mean him no harm. I’m furious with my mother myself—I can only imagine how he must feel. I don’t know how a mother could do such a thing.”
    “Sit down in that booth next to the kitchen,” she ordered him, then glanced at Harley.
    Harley settled back into his booth across the room and took up the paperback he’d been reading.
    “Let’s have us some coffee and pie while you start telling me everything.”
    “Yes,