A South Texas Christmas

The waitress arrived with their pie and coffee. Once the woman moved away and the two of them were eating, she answered, “I have a degree in accounting. I’m the bookkeeper for the Sandbur Ranch.”

So she’d gone through the long, arduous task of college, only to take a job back home. Maybe she hadn’t cut as many of those parental strings as she believed, Neil mused. Or maybe the Sandbur was where she felt most comfortable. If that were the case, he couldn’t blame her. After working those first few months in Farmington, he’d thought he was going to end up on a psychiatrist’s couch

“The Sandbur…it’s a big place?” he asked.

Raine nodded. “The property consists of several thousands of acres. It runs around two thousand mama cows. A hundred head of bulls and two hundred and fifty head of horses.”

Not quite the size of the T Bar K back home, Neil thought, but damn close. “You never wanted to move away?” he asked curiously. “Like up here to San Antonio? A young, beautiful woman like you could have most any job you set your sights on.”

It was an effort for Raine to keep her mouth from falling open. She wasn’t used to men calling her beautiful. Especially not a sinfully handsome lawyer who looked like he probably jetted around the world with any exotic creature he wanted on his arm.

Stop it, Raine scolded herself. This man was here in San Antonio with her because of business and nothing else. Quit thinking about his personal life. Quit thinking about him period.

Struggling to focus her attention on the slice of pie in front of her, she said, “I love the ranch. It’s where I’ve always wanted to work. I’m not a—city-type girl.”

“Oh. Then you must be happy on the Sandbur,” Neil replied, but actually that wasn’t all he wanted to say about the matter. In fact, he wanted to go a step further and ask her why she wasn’t married and if she had a special guy in her life at the moment. But that was none of his business. And what this woman did in her spare time shouldn’t interest him at all. But it did, he realized. Even though she was far, far too young and innocent for the likes of him.

Beware those green eyes, Neil.

Even as Neil looked across the table at Raine Crockett and felt a little part of him melt like a warm candy bar, he could hear Quito’s warning in his head.

Chapter Three

Clearing his throat, Neil sipped his coffee and decided it was past time that he brought their conversation down to the real nitty-gritty of this meeting. He hadn’t flown all the way down here to Texas just to enjoy the charms of a beautiful ingenue. Not that he wouldn’t fly a thousand miles to lunch with an attractive woman. Neil had been known to do plenty of extravagant things to capture the hand of a fair lady. But Raine Crockett was off-limits. He expected she would be the sort that would leave a lasting impression on a man’s heart. And Neil definitely wasn’t in the market for heart problems.

“So tell me,” he ventured, “have you tried to hunt for your mother’s past before?”

A grimace tightened Raine’s lips. Just the memory of that time still had the power to hurt her. She’d been so confused and angry with her mother for not understanding her need to find the identity of her father. And since then, not much had changed with their stilted relationship. That was one of the main reasons Raine had decided to follow up on the photo in the newspaper. If she could discover the truth of Esther’s past and where her father might be, then maybe it would tear down the terrible wall between her and her mother.

With a single nod, she said, “Shortly after I graduated college I hired a private investigator, but Mother eventually found out about the whole thing and put a quick stop to it. She was furious with me. In fact, none of us on the ranch had ever seen her so angry. If I’d been living with her at the time, she would no doubt have thrown me out of the house. But by then I’d moved into an apartment of my own in town.”

“Oh. You don’t live on the ranch, but your mother does?”

She glanced at him and saw that he was surprised. No doubt he’d been thinking her mother tucked her into bed every night, she thought ruefully.

“That’s right. Esther has worked for the Sanchez and Saddler families ever since I was a baby. She lives in one of the smaller houses on the property. If she had her way, I would still be living there with her. But the two of us get crosswise with each other from time to time,” she admitted regretfully. “It’s best we’re not together too much.”

Neil held the same attitude about sharing a house with a woman. Too much togetherness was a bad thing. Tempers flared and cross words were flung until all the pleasure was taken out of having a companion in the first place. All too often he’d watched his mother and father go at it as if they were bitter enemies rather than husband and wife. He didn’t want that for himself. Ever. Just give him a few sweet, intimate hours with a woman and then he wanted to be left on his own, before all the fighting had a chance to start.

Shifting on the small, uncomfortable chair, he tried to push the sad memories of his parents from his mind. “So you still haven’t mentioned any of this to Esther?”

“No. Why borrow trouble?” she asked glumly.

He studied her thoughtfully as one question after another popped into his head. He wasn’t a detective, but, more often than not, a lawyer had to think and act like one. Asking the right questions meant success or failure in the courtroom. With Raine, Neil figured he was going to have to go gently. In more ways than one.

“It doesn’t bother you to go behind your mother’s back like this?”

Her gaze slid from his face but not before he saw a pained expression fill her green eyes.

“Actually it breaks my heart. Mother worked hard and raised me single-handedly. She loves me,” she told him in a quiet, strained voice. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt her. But I…more than anything, I want to find my father. I want him to be a part of my life. She can’t tell me anything about him. And she refuses to help me. So I have no other choice but to search on my own.”

Neil could feel her pain and he realized he wanted to help this young woman as much as he wanted to help his old friend Linc.

“I have to be frank, Raine,” he began in a thoughtful tone. “It strikes me as very odd that your mother doesn’t want to search for her past life. Most any woman would want to know if she still had a husband, a family somewhere. Isn’t she curious? I sure as heck would be.”

Raine turned back to face him and Neil could see the hopelessness etched upon her soft features.

“I realize it’s strange, Neil. That’s why we’ve argued so many times over this thing. The only reason she’ll give me is that she’s afraid there could have been something wrong in her past life and she doesn’t want to uncover it. In other words, fear of the unknown.”

“Hmm. Well, we know one thing. There was a man in her life. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been pregnant with you.”

Raine thoughtfully traced her forefinger around the rim of her coffee cup. In Neil’s newspaper article it had stated that Darla Carlton’s husband, Jaycee, had been found dead in a wrecked car between Progreso, Texas, and the Mexican border. Ever since Raine had read that bit of information she couldn’t help but wonder if the man might have been her father.

“Maybe this Jaycee could have been my father,” she mused aloud. She looked at him, her green eyes full of skepticism. “But how would I ever know? With him buried—” The doubts in her eyes vanished as she stared at him with sudden excitement. “DNA,” she blurted quickly. “If Jaycee Carlton had other children, I could have my DNA tested against theirs!”

Neil looked at her with regret. “I’m sorry, Raine. Jaycee didn’t have any children. As far as I know, Darla was the only woman he was ever married to.”

“Oh.” She tried not to be disappointed, but she knew the emotion was most likely showing on her face. “Then maybe I have wasted your time by having you to come down here.”

Neil grimaced. He wasn’t about to tell her that there was an offspring of Darla’s that could supply genetic testing. But before he suggested such a thing to Raine or Linc, he wanted to gather concrete evidence that this was a case worth following. Besides, a blood test would clear up the matter much too quickly for his liking, Neil suddenly decided. Raine Crockett was one sexy female. Now that he was down here, he wanted to enjoy himself and get to know her much better. And the easiest way for him to do that was to stick around for a few days and pose a few personal questions, he thought with wicked pleasure. As long as he kept things light and playful, there shouldn’t be any harm come to either one of them.

“Don’t be so negative,” he told her. “I’ve only just gotten here. There’s lots of research we need to do before we think about throwing in the towel. Are you up to telling me some of the story right now?”

His question prompted her to straighten her shoulders, as though to tell him that she wasn’t one of those weak-willed women who swoon over the least little stress. Neil wondered if he’d managed to stumble onto one of those rare women who happened to be strong as well as beautiful.

“Of course, I am,” she said with renewed conviction.

“Okay,” he said as he shoveled another bite of pie into his mouth. “Then lay it out to me.”

Raine took a bite of her own pie in hopes it would calm her jumping stomach, but even before she swallowed the sweet concoction, she knew the only thing that was going to ease her nerves was to put miles and miles between herself and Neil Rankin.

“Since we talked on the phone, I’ve tried to think of anything and everything that might be important. But I really don’t know where to start. At the beginning, I suppose. When Mother woke in the hospital.”

Neil nodded. “When was this?”

“The latter part of October, I think, 1982. It was Halloween, she’s said, but with all her injuries she was feeling more tricked than treated.”

“Tell me about her injuries.”

As Raine sliced off another bite of pie, she answered, “I’m not exactly sure what the extent of her injuries were. I do know she suffered some sort of trauma to the head, maybe due to a car accident, but maybe not. One leg was broken and several of her ribs. Obviously the head injury was the reason for her amnesia. At first, the doctors believed whatever caused her injuries would surface in her memory. But it didn’t,” she added regretfully.

“How do you know her memory hasn’t returned?” Neil asked pointedly.

Raine’s brows rose to two high peaks as she stared at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” he told her, then reiterated his question. “How do you know that your mother hasn’t remembered and is keeping the fact from you?”

Raine sputtered with disbelief. That idea had never crossed her mind. To even think such a thing about her mother swamped her with guilt.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said stiffly. “Mother would never lie to me!”

His direct gaze didn’t waver from hers and Raine shivered inwardly. This man was not only doing strange things to her body, but he was also turning her thoughts in a frightening direction she didn’t want to go.

“You’re certain about that?” he asked softly.

Anger sparked her green eyes. “I’m very sure,” she answered. “Mother would never lie to me. Unless she—” Raine broke off as an idea struck her. Then she finally said in a choked murmur, “Unless she was trying to protect me from something. Then she might hide the truth.”

Neil stifled a sigh. The last thing he wanted to do was upset this woman. No matter how painful the possibilities, she needed to look at this matter with open eyes.

“I haven’t met Esther yet, but in most instances, it’s the general nature of a mother to protect her young.”

Horror, confusion and finally disbelief traipsed across her face and Neil realized he was giving her a lot to chew on in just a brief short of time. Besides, no child wanted to believe a parent would deliberately lie to them.

Feeling unusually soft, he decided to let that subject rest. “Well, let’s set that notion aside for the moment and go back to her time in the hospital. Have you ever seen the police records on this case? Where did they find her? How?”

“No to the police records. But I did search the newspaper archives in Fredericksburg for a story.” Raine reached for her purse. “I brought a copy just in case it might be helpful to you.” She handed the photocopy to Neil and waited while he read the short article posted in the Fredericksburg Standard:

Two weeks ago, a local rancher, Louis Cantrell, discovered an injured woman lying at the edge of Highway 87 approximately three miles south of Cherry Spring. At first it was believed the woman had been involved in a vehicle crash, but the police verified to the press today that the woman had been beaten with a blunt object and tossed onto a grassy shoulder of the highway.

Presently the woman, whose age and name have yet to be determined, remains in a coma in a Fredericksburg hospital. The Gillespie County sheriff’s department is asking the community for help in solving this case. If anyone thinks they can identify this woman, please contact Sheriff Madison at—

A telephone number ended the piece, and after Neil scanned the whole story one more time, he placed the paper onto the tabletop and tapped it with his forefinger.

“You implied there wasn’t any reason Esther might be afraid to find her past.” He shot her a challenging look. “What do you think this is? If she was beaten and left to die, someone obviously had it out for her.”

Refusing to believe that anyone would want to harm her mother, Raine quickly shook her head. “Wait a minute! You’re jumping to conclusions. The police couldn’t positively determine what caused the injuries to my mother. She could have fallen from a car.”

Neil couldn’t relent, even though it was obvious that the idea of Esther being beaten was torturous to her. “Then why didn’t the driver of the vehicle stop, pick her up and rush her to the hospital?”

The logical questions caused Raine’s shoulders to slump with despair. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Why are you trying to make something sinister out of this?”

Hating the pain on her face, he reached across the table and touched her hand in an effort to reassure her. “I’m not trying to be mean, Raine,” he said gently. “We have to look at all sides of this case. And a beating is definitely sinister.”

Neil’s suggestions about her mother’s accident were shocking to Raine. But not nearly as surprising as the warm touch of his hand upon hers. True, he’d held her arm as the two of them had walked here to the restaurant, but that had been the action of a gentleman. This was far more intimate and inviting and the fact that he was touching her in such a way was enough to make her whole body quiver with awareness.

“But we don’t know if it truly was a beating,” she argued while carefully avoiding his gaze. Neil Rankin didn’t miss anything and she didn’t want to give him the chance to look into her eyes for very long. If he did, he just might see how much upheaval he was causing inside her. “Mother could have been in a car accident.”

“Then where was the car? Did they find any sort of broken-down vehicle near the area where she was found?”

She shot him a brief glance, then fixed her gaze on a bougainvillea bush growing a few feet beyond his left shoulder. “No. The police found nothing. Not any sort of clue.”

Desperate to ease the fire licking up her bare arm, Raine eased her hand from beneath his and cradled it around her coffee cup.

Watching her, Neil wished she hadn’t pulled away from him so quickly. Her hand had been incredibly soft and he’d found that touching her, even in that simple way, had given him a rush of male excitement far above anything he’d felt in years. What could that possibly mean? he wondered wryly. His taste was turning toward young innocents? Lord, help him.

“Okay. Let’s try another angle. Where did she go once she recovered enough to leave the hospital in Fredericksburg?” he asked with more patience than he was actually feeling.

“Down here to San Antonio. She stayed in a Catholic convent until I was born. After that, she found a job clerking in a bank. Eventually she put enough savings together to rent her own apartment and make a home for herself and me. She says the past was gone. She had to focus on the future.”

“Hmm. I can understand that. To a certain point.” Neil swallowed the last of his pie as his gaze slid over Raine Crockett’s lovely face. Her skin was on the pale side, but sun-kissed enough to tell him she didn’t hibernate indoors. He could only wonder what shade she would be beneath her blue dress. “So when do you think I can meet with your mother?”

Raine stared at him as her mind worked furiously. She’d not been expecting him to suggest something like this. She’d thought he would take the information she’d given him and go on about the investigation on his own.

“I—I don’t know…it couldn’t be wise,” she finally managed to get out.

Rolling his eyes with impatience, he said, “Look, Raine, I understand that you don’t want to step on your mother’s toes, but you can’t just tie my hands. If that’s the way you plan on doing things, then I might as well head back home.”

Anger tightened her lips. Who did he think he was? she asked herself, someone who could just barge into her private life whether she wanted him to or not? “Maybe you should do just that,” she said with slow deliberation. “Now that you’re here, I’m not so sure I’ve done the right thing.”

Neil leaned across the tiny table so that their faces were only inches apart. Raine clasped her hands together in her lap to prevent them from trembling.

“I thought you were serious about this. I didn’t travel a thousand miles just to hear you say you’ve changed your mind!”

It was easy to see that she’d angered him, Raine thought. His blue eyes sparked and his voice was as taut as a guitar string. But the idea certainly didn’t distress her. From the moment he’d walked up and introduced himself, he’d been upsetting her.

“I haven’t changed my mind…exactly,” she corrected him. “When you asked to see my mother…well, I didn’t realize that would be necessary. Can’t I show you a photo instead?”

His brows lifted. “You have a recent one with you?”

Nodding, Raine reached for her handbag. “It’s not an extreme close up of her face, but I think you’ll see the resemblance.”

She rummaged around in her small black handbag until she found what she was looking for. Neil watched as she pulled a snapshot from a long white envelope and handed it to him.

Taking the photo from her, he turned it right side up. The woman staring back at him appeared to be in her sixties. Her hair a light color somewhere between blond and gray. She was a tall woman with a figure that he suspected was once a real head turner, but now there were extra pounds around her waist and on her hips. She was dressed casually in slacks and a short-sleeved blouse that could have been purchased off any discount store rack. If this was truly Darla Carlton, then she’d lost her taste for the finer things.

Neil had only been a young teenager when Linc’s mother, Darla, had left the T Bar K, but he still carried memories of the woman. For one thing, she’d been very pretty with a sort of delicate air about her. One day he and Linc had entered the house to grab colas from the fridge when they’d come upon her weeping. She’d been wearing a lavender satin robe edged with Spanish lace. The scent of roses had clouded around her as she dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes and tried to smile at her son and his friend. He’d thought she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.

Linc had been embarrassed that they’d caught his mother still dressed in her robe at one o’clock in the afternoon. But Neil had been intrigued and had thought about the woman for days afterward.

“Neil?”

The sound of her voice calling his name caused Neil to push away his old memories and glance up at her. She gave him a wan smile that was full of nerves and in that moment, Neil knew he had to come up with a perfectly viable excuse to follow Raine to the Sandbur.

“I was wondering what you think?” she persisted. “Do you think it might be her?”

Neil placed the photo on the tabletop while promising himself he would never purposely lead this woman on just so he could spend time with her. Hell, he had all sorts of girlfriends back in San Juan County. He wasn’t that desperate for a woman. Only this one, a little voice whispered in his head.

“I can’t be sure,” he answered truthfully. “There are some similarities about the two women. The height and the shape of the face. Your mother is a heavier person than Darla Carlton was when she went missing.”

“Twenty-five years usually adds some pounds to a woman,” Raine replied with a grimace, then added, “You don’t think it’s her, do you?”

Neil gave her his brightest smile. “There’s always a chance it could be her. We need to do more investigating. If I could see your mother and talk to her it would be a big help.”

It was all Raine could do to keep from jumping up from her chair and running as fast and as far as she could from this smooth-talking lawyer. He was going to be trouble. Not only with her mother, but with her. Just looking at him made her feel like a simpleton. How could she possibly keep her senses in check around him?

“She’d chase you out of the house if she had any sort of suspicion that you were an attorney or private investigator.” Raine chewed on her bottom lip as she contemplated the situation. “We’ll have to be more subtle than that.”

Neil let loose a wry chuckle. “Subtle. You mean we’ll have to lie to her, don’t you?”

The frown creasing her forehead grew deeper. “Don’t try to make me feel any guiltier than I already do,” she answered. “There’s no other way to handle it. You’ll have to come to the house as—” She broke off as her mind searched for some feasible excuse to invite him into her mother’s home.

“Your love interest,” Neil finished for her.

Raine’s mouth fell open as her heart thumped loudly in her ears. “My…what?” she asked with a gasp.

Neil laughed softly. “You heard me. I’ll be your new sweetheart. Anything wrong with that?”

Chapter Four

“Just about everything is wrong with that!” she blurted out loudly.

Neil glanced around him to see if Raine Crockett’s outburst had garnered any attention. Thankfully there was no one sitting near them, except for an elderly couple, who was grinning at Neil as if to say they understood all about lovers quarrels. Well, at least the two of them had already fooled someone, Neil thought wryly.

Bending his head toward her, he said with hushed sarcasm, “Since you’ve protested so loudly, I suppose you have a better plan. You still want me to be a computer salesman?”

Neil a salesman? Now that Raine had met him in the flesh, the idea was laughable. And how in heck could she ever explain her association with a man who came across as an American version of 007?

She regarded him thoughtfully. “That would never work. Mother doesn’t own a computer. She hates the things. Besides, you don’t look like a computer geek.”

“Thanks,” he said with dry humor. “Then maybe I should rent a spray truck and pretend that I’m a termite exterminator.”

Raine waved a dismissive hand at him. “That wouldn’t work, either. She had the house checked recently for termites.”

Neil had only made the suggestion as a joke, but she’d taken it seriously. She was taking everything about this matter way too seriously and that worried Neil. In spite of his eagerness to spend more time with this beautiful Texas rose, he didn’t want to get himself mixed up in some sort of family squabble. There was nothing more dangerous than standing among fighting relatives.