LITMIR.BIZ

      Three

      Bailey leaned against the desk for a full three minutes after Gil left the room, her legs like spaghetti. She had wanted to know if he had felt it, too, the heated connection between them. Now she had irrevocable proof. It was a wonder the tiny room full of aging paper hadn’t gone up in flames on the spot.

      Fanning her hot face with one hand, she reached for her briefcase and pulled out her laptop and portable scanner. It was one thing to contemplate seducing the steely-eyed rancher, but another entirely to realize that all he had to do was touch her and she melted.

      She was here to do a job. Before she contemplated any hanky-panky, she needed to get her priorities in order. Fortunately, she had made a plan already, so even though her concentration was shot, she was able to follow through with her agenda.

      The method of attack was fairly simple. Using a list of interviews from her earliest days in Royal, she pulled file folders methodically, keeping them in alphabetical order. Though she hadn’t anticipated the complication of not having anything digitized, she would cope. As long as she didn’t do something stupid like knocking a pile of paper off the desk, she should be able to proceed with relative efficiency.

      Thirty minutes later she had finished reading through three folders and had developed a throbbing tension headache. She banged her fist against her forehead. Not only was much of the information not typed or organized in any discernible fashion, but the handwritten portions were barely legible.

      To call this mess record-keeping was generous. It was impossible to compare one file with the next, because every member’s information was different. Other than an initial sheet that documented simple details such as name, address and date of initial membership, all the other pages were a hodgepodge of business deals, sporting records and family connections.

      It took her another half hour, but she finally managed to come up with a spreadsheet that allowed her to input the pertinent items that might be of use in the investigation. Her stomach growled more than once. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, too nervous about meeting Gil again to be very interested in food.

      She glanced at her watch and sighed. The minutes crawled by. Perhaps she was bored with the job, or maybe she was looking forward to lunch with Gil and his precocious son. Her distraction didn’t bode well for the days ahead....

      * * *

      Gil prowled the familiar halls of the club, pausing again and again to greet and chat with men he had known for years, many of them since he was a child at his father’s side. He was comfortable within these walls, centered, content. The Texas Cattleman’s Club had suffered a few growing pains lately, but it would survive and thrive.

      Tradition and stability were important. Which was why Gil had passed the day-to-day running of his ranch over to other hands so he could concentrate on his son’s well-being. One day, everything Gil owned would go to Cade. Cade would get married, settle down and hopefully have better luck in the romance department than his father had.

      What really stuck in Gil’s craw was the knowledge that the genesis of his unease sat not far away, her beautiful head bent over a stack of dull club papers, trying to find dirt on someone who might be Gil’s friend. Perhaps the real problem wasn’t that Gil didn’t trust Bailey. Perhaps what bothered him the most was the notion that someone in Royal could have committed such a terrible crime.

      Alex was back home, true. But a man with no memory was as vulnerable as a baby in the middle of a busy city street. How would Alex know if the perpetrators came at him again? How would anyone ever know what evil roamed the streets of Royal if Alex never remembered?

      For years, Royal had been a great place to live, to raise a family. Occasionally the sheriff was forced to contend with cattle rustlers. And once in a while a two-bit drug dealer might try to set up shop. Of course, there were the usual domestic disturbances, or teenagers letting off steam on a Saturday night. But all in all, Royal was a pretty safe place.

      At least it was until Alex Santiago had disappeared. The local and state authorities had crawled all over the town in the beginning. There were rumors of a potential drug war or maybe even bad blood between Alex and Chance McDaniel, who had appeared interested in the same woman. But since that time, everyone Gil knew intimately had been marked off the suspect list.

      Which was all well and good except for the fact that still no one knew who the kidnappers were.

      Maybe Gil should be more helpful to Bailey. He wanted his town back to normal, and Bailey wanted to close her case. So perhaps it was in Gil’s best interest to help her. The sooner she was finished, the sooner she would leave town and go back to Dallas. That would be the smartest thing that could happen.

      Gil didn’t need the complication of an uncomfortable sexual attraction that was not likely to go anywhere. Already, Gil’s son liked Bailey. Which meant that soon Cade would be weaving scenarios where Bailey became his new mom. Gil had seen it happen before. The boy’s unwavering fixation on finding a mother meant that Gil no longer dated in Royal.

      Not that he ever had dated much. When his physical needs became too demanding, he either dealt with them via a cold shower, or he met up with an old female friend in another town who was as uninterested in a serious relationship as Gil was. Those encounters left him feeling empty and oddly restless. But Gil had yet to find a woman who came even close to what he thought his son needed.

      Bailey was a career woman whose job involved a lot of travel. Though Bailey and Cade had clicked at their first meeting, Bailey didn’t strike Gil as the nurturing type. Cade had lost so much. If and when Gil ever remarried, it would be to a woman with traditional values, a woman who believed in the importance of being a full-time parent.

      Gil had played that role for a very long time. And never once regretted his decision. Cade’s sweet spirit and outgoing personality were proof that Gil had at least done something right. But Cade would soon be going to school full time. As much as Gil would miss his son, he was looking forward to once again taking an active role in the management of the Straight Arrow.

      What he and Cade needed was a down-to-earth woman, one who would supervise the domestic staff, plan meals for the housekeeper to carry out and organize social events...tasks Gil had no interest in at all.

      That paragon of a woman was out there somewhere. Gil had to believe she was, because the prospect of spending his entire life as a single parent and a single man sounded very lonely indeed.

      At ten after twelve, he gave up the pretense of being busy and headed back to his office. Bailey

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