LITMIR.BIZ

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shouldn’t take long,” Jane promised. She hurried over to the hall phone.

      Cal cupped his hands behind his head and watched his wife move through the room, bathed in firelight. Her hair was mussed and her bathrobe hastily tied—and he couldn’t recall a time she’d looked more beautiful. It never ceased to amaze him that Jane had agreed to be his wife.

      Cal had begun to wonder if someone had spiked the water supply last summer. In less than a year most of his friends had married. First, Savannah Weston had met a stranger to Promise named Laredo Smith and subsequently married him. His own brother had married Ellie Frasier, owner of the local feed store, last September. No sooner had that wedding taken place when Grady Weston asked the postmistress, Caroline Daniels, to marry him—all within the space of a few short weeks. Even Sheriff Hennessey had married his longtime sweetheart, Dovie Boyd.

      It hadn’t been long before Cal fell in love himself.

      At one time Cal, Glen and Grady had been confirmed bachelors. With Cal, it had been a form of self-protection, he realized now. He’d been jilted by a former fiancée and the experience had left him bitter, determined never to fall for a woman again.

      But that was before he’d met Jane. Their first date was arranged by Ellie. At the time Cal had been annoyed and frustrated that his brand-new sister-in-law was matchmaking. By the end of the evening, however, Jane had managed to pique his interest. To his surprise he discovered he was looking forward to seeing her again. Before he could help himself, he was deeply in love with her.

      A city girl. Worse, one from California. If anyone had told him six months ago that he’d marry a woman like Jane, he would have run screaming into the night. Now he couldn’t imagine living two minutes without her.

      With the phone against her ear, Jane caught her husband’s eyes and blew him a kiss. He grinned, content to wait. Relaxing on the rug, he listened to one-half of the conversation.

      “Don’t worry,” Jane was telling Laredo, “you didn’t interrupt anything important.”

      Cal sat upright at that, raising his eyebrows. Didn’t interrupt anything important? He saw that his wife could barely hold in her laughter at his expression.

      But her smile faded as she continued to listen to Laredo. “No...no you were right to phone. How long ago did you say her water broke?”

      The smile left Cal’s face, too. This was more serious than either of them had anticipated.

      “How far apart are the contractions?” Jane reached for a pad and pencil and noted the information.

      Cal had delivered enough calves to know the signs of imminent birth. Savannah and Laredo were about to have their baby during the worst storm of the year.

      “I’ll be there within the hour,” Jane promised, and replaced the receiver. “Savannah’s in labor,” she told Cal.

      “So I heard.” He stood and she walked over to him and caressed the side of his face. “Looks like we’ll have to put our romantic interlude on hold.”

      “I’m a patient man,” he reminded her. He caught her fingers and pressed a kiss into her palm. “What time are we leaving?” he asked, snapping his shirt closed as he spoke.

      “We?” Jane asked, arching her brows expressively. “I’m perfectly capable of delivering this baby.”

      “I never doubted it for an instant.” He opened her bathrobe, kissed the valley between her breasts and refastened it.

      “I can drive in a storm, too.”

      “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.

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