LITMIR.BIZ

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solitude be after the three weeks he needed Avery to stay? Shredded, no doubt, but the boys ranch was worth the price.

      “We stocked up at the store,” Jethro informed him. “Marlene’s baked cookies already.”

      Gabe’s stomach paid attention to those words. “Cookies?”

      “Gingerbread,” Marlene said. “You don’t want something too sugary with little ones in the house.”

      Marlene had better be more worried about her cookie jar being raided by the big guy in the house. “Better hide those cookies,” Gabe teased as he pulled open the door. “I’ve always liked gingerbread.”

      “I knew that,” Marlene declared. “Why do you think I made a double batch? No sneaking till after supper, Gabriel.”

      Gabe laughed, but detoured through the kitchen to what he knew to be Marlene’s hiding spot. He grabbed half a dozen of the delicious-smelling goodies before dragging himself to his desk. Only a fool would attack the mail on an empty stomach, he justified.

      On top of his far-too-tall stack of mail was a hand-addressed envelope from Mike Tower. Gabe smiled as he broke the seal to open an invitation to Mike’s thirty-fifth birthday party in Houston.

      That’s why I’m doing this. Mike had been a best friend during Gabe’s years at the boys ranch. They’d both had tough starts in life, but turned out fine. Gabe ran a prosperous ranch and was president of the Lone Star Cowboy League. Mike ran one of Houston’s top law firms. The boys ranch turned lives around and deserved to expand. If he had to suffer a pair of little girls for three weeks—three weeks! He surely hadn’t thought this through carefully—to ensure that the ranch could continue its good work, he could ride it out.

      He started to fill out the reply card, then changed his mind and picked up the phone. The mountain of mail could wait another five minutes.

      “Howdy there, Gabe!” The sound of a squalling baby filled the air behind Mike’s distinctive drawl.

      “Caught you at a bad time, did I?”

      “It’s Terri’s night out with the girls. Me and Mikey are just a couple of happy bachelors tonight.”

      Gabe winced at the weariness that tugged at the corners of Mike’s joke. “One of you fellas doesn’t sound too happy.”

      “Teething,” moaned the new father. “I’ll never take a set of pearly whites for granted ever again. My little buckaroo’s been miserable for days, and he’s taken Terri right down with him. She needed to get out of Dodge tonight, that’s for sure, and I’m coming to realize why.” As if to underscore Mike’s point, Mikey let out an enthusiastic howl.

      Gabe tried to imagine the halls of Five Rocks Ranch reverberating with a pair of such howls. Just the five minutes of crying on Roz’s porch had set his nerves on edge. Four-year-olds didn’t cry as much as babies, did they? “I guess I should let you go, then.”

      “No, please,” Mike begged above the wailing, “I need the human contact.”

      “Aren’t lawyers humans?” Gabe replied with a laugh.

      “Only barely. One of my cases has the staff in fits, so work isn’t as much fun as usual. Speaking of fun, how are those investigators working out? My or Phillips’s guys turned up anything on your grandfather yet?” Mike had added the best private investigators he knew to a set hired by local attorney Fletcher Snowden Phillips. All in an effort to find Theodore. All without success. After today’s complication, Gabe had a few choice words for the late Cyrus and his preposterous demands.

      Gabe tossed his hat onto the bentwood coatrack that stood in the corner of his office. “Nothing past the jail term we knew about before. Honestly, Mike, it’s like the guy disappeared into thin air. I hate having to hunt him down. The only good side to finding him is that I can finally give him a piece of my mind. What man gives his daughter the slip like that? Leaving Mom and me to scrape by in the world?”

      Gabe tamped down the burn of resentment that rose too easily these days and eased himself into the big leather chair behind his desk. Right now he could see exactly why Avery might want to put Cyrus and all of Haven behind her. Not much in life stung worse than being abandoned by the family that was supposed to love and care for you.

      He heard Mike’s sigh above the baby’s noisy cries. “Think of it this way. That’s what makes the boys ranch so important. A boy can go so wrong so fast when he’s ignored or abandoned.”

      “True, counselor.” Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose and reached for a cookie.

      “And that’s why you’ve got to find him,” Mike said. “It’s up to you to ensure the boys ranch won’t lose the chance to expand. That place can’t be sold to a strip mall and half those kids sent elsewhere. You and I both know that.”

      “I know, I know. And I’ve gone to extremes, Mike, believe me.”

      “How so?”

      “I invited the real Avery and her girls to stay here since Roz Sackett was fixing to kick them out of the boardinghouse on account of their ‘rambunctiousness.’”

      “You what?” Mike was understandably shocked at a move so far out of character for Gabe.

      “You remember Roz Sackett.”

      “I remember she can be mean.”

      “Mean enough to hand Avery a reason to head back to Tennessee and keep us from our goal. Who boots out a single mom with a pair of four-year-olds?”

      “Wait a minute,” Mike said, nearly laughing. “You mean to tell me you invited children to stay at your house? Just how pretty is this single mama?”

      Avery Culpepper was pretty, but that didn’t have anything to do with it. Even the prettiest mom, if she came with kids in tow, wasn’t for him. Gabe was many things, but a family man hadn’t ever been one of them. He’d stayed a bachelor all his years by choice, thank you. “I had to keep her from heading out of town, Mike. She’s got to stay for the seventieth anniversary party—you know it’s one of Cyrus’s cockamamy demands. I was fresh out of options.”

      “I’ll say. Boy howdy, I’d like to see you with a pair of little girls pulling on your pant legs. Sounds entertaining.”

      “About as entertaining as that opera singer you got there,” Gabe joked back. Every minute Mikey kept up the crying dug a deeper hole of doubt regarding what he’d just done in offering his own home. Little girls. What had come over him?

      “You coming to my party?” Mike asked. “I mean, if you live that long?”

      “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Gabe growled, thinking it would have been far smarter to just fill out the reply card.

      “Good,” Mike replied. “Say, when do the kiddos move in?”

      “Tomorrow afternoon.”

      Mike laughed. “I’ll call you Thursday and see if you’re still standing. Let me know if my guys find your grandpappy. Sure would be nice if this whole circus actually worked out, but then again, this is Cyrus we’re talking about. Anything could happen.”

      “Don’t I know it. Cowboy up and get through the night watch, okay? I’m worried about you.”

      “Don’t you worry about me,” Mike responded with a weary laugh. “I’m not the one about to be surrounded by females.”

      Gabe ended the call with the sinking feeling that Mike was all too right.

      * * *

      “This place is huge.” Avery stared down the long hallway that led to the pair of rooms she and the girls would occupy. They had their own wing, which was practically the size of their house in Tennessee. Back at the boardinghouse, they’d been all stuffed into one room with a bathroom down the hall. Avery felt like she hadn’t had the space to take a deep breath since she came to town.

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