The Heiress and the Sheriff

by Stella Bagwell

  Money and the social status that went with the name would be rightfully hers. Once she had time to absorb what it meant to belong to one of Texas’s richest families, she probably wouldn’t be interested in a regular Joe like himself. But he’d been wrong about his mother all these years. Maybe he was wrong about Gabrielle, too. He desperately wanted to think so.

  The telephone beside the bed shrilled loudly in the quiet bedroom. Frowning, he squinted at the digital clock, then lifted the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Wyatt, it’s Matthew.”

  Expecting to hear one of the deputies on the other end of the line, the sound of Matthew’s voice brought him straight up off the bed.

  “Where are you?” he asked at the same time as he was reaching for his jeans.

  “At home. On the ranch. I went to check on Gabrielle a few minutes ago and found her gone.”

  Wyatt’s heart suddenly lodged in his throat. “Gone? What the hell do you mean ‘gone’?”

  Matthew breathed heavily. “After you left, she went to bed, and I medicated her for a severe headache. I told her to let me know if it didn’t get better. A few minutes ago, I got a phone call from Rosita—something about a dream she’d had of Gabrielle running down a dark road. She wouldn’t hang up until I promised to go check on her. That’s when I found Gabrielle gone from her room.”

  “Have you searched the whole house? If she was ill, she might have collapsed.”

  “She didn’t collapse, Wyatt. She left a note and the money Dad had given her. All the clothes and things Maggie bought for her—they’re still here.”

  “She might have left hours ago!” Wyatt said hoarsely.

  “What did the note say?”

  Matthew read the few short words. As Wyatt listened, fear and regret twisted through him like a dark tornado. “How did she leave?”

  “On foot. There are no vehicles missing.”

  “On foot! My God! Doesn’t Ryan still have a guard posted to the house?”

  “She must have given him the slip.”

  Wyatt cursed again in Matthew’s ear. “If she’s on foot, she can’t have gotten too far.”

  “Unless she caught a ride once she reached the highway.”

  Wyatt didn’t even want to consider that possibility. “I’m leaving the house now to search for her. If she does show up back at the ranch, call my personal cellular number. You have it.”

  “Yes. Yes, we will. Find her, Wyatt.”

  “I won’t stop until I do,” he promised, then hung up the phone and reached for the rest of his clothing.

  Sixteen

  Where the hell was she? Wyatt desperately asked himself. She couldn’t have gone far. Not on foot. Dear God, he hoped she hadn’t been foolish enough to accept a ride.

  As his eyes searched the shadows along the highway, he cursed himself for leaving the Double Crown earlier tonight. He should have stayed and reasoned the whole thing out with her. He should have tried to listen to her side, rather than accusing and berating her. But he’d never dreamed she would leave without letting anyone know. He’d left the ranch believing he still had tomorrow with her.

  That’s the trouble with you, Wyatt. You’ve always wanted to avoid matters of the heart. You’ve always wanted to wait about loving and needing. Now you might have waited too long.

  The ominous voice was swirling through his head like a dark cloud, when he suddenly spotted the silhouette of a person several yards ahead on the side of the highway.

  He sped up, then braked the pickup to a screeching halt as he came alongside the weaving figure.

  Before Gabrielle could summon the energy to run or hide in the woods that bordered the highway, Wyatt jumped out of the truck and grabbed her.

  “Gabrielle! What in God’s name are you doing out here?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. With shaky hands she tried to pull her torn blouse back onto her shoulder.

  “What’s happened? Are you hurt?” he demanded urgently.

  Before she could answer, he took her by the shoulders and led her into the glare of the headlights on his truck. The sight of her wild, tangled hair and torn clothing warned Wyatt something terrible had occurred. Then he saw the glazed terror in her eyes.

  “My Lord, Gabrielle,” he whispered roughly, “what caused this? Are you all right?”

  She finally managed to nod, then speak. “I caught a ride with a trucker. He…told me he’d let me off at the bus station. But he…”

  “He what?” Fear rushed through him with such force that he was certain every bit of air had been knocked from his lungs. Giving her shoulders a little shake, he urged her to tell him. “Did the bastard rape you?”

  “No,” she said on a broken sob. “I managed to fight him off, and somehow I got out of the cab of the truck. I thought he would chase me down. But I guess I must have kicked him pretty hard. He drove off, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  Relief flooded through Wyatt. He grabbed her to him and cradled her head against his shoulder. “Thank God, you’re not hurt.”

  This wasn’t the same Wyatt who’d stalked out of the ranch house a few hours ago, Gabrielle realized. She didn’t know what had caused the change, and right now it didn’t matter as long as he kept holding her like this.

  Fear for her safety still lingered in his voice as he gently scolded, “Don’t you understand you could have been killed? I’ve been out of my mind searching up and down the highway!”

  She tried to swallow her emotions. “I didn’t…think the man would be crazy! I thought he was just a friendly trucker who was happy to give me a ride.”

  “I’ll bet he was happy,” Wyatt muttered. “Do you have his tag number? Or a description of the truck? The Texas Highway Patrol will be only too happy to stop him.”

  Gabrielle shook her head. “I couldn’t get the number. I was too busy running. And I don’t remember exactly what the truck looked like.”

  He let out a long breath. “Well, don’t worry about it. The main thing is, you’re okay,” he said. Taking her by the arm, he led her around to the door of the truck. Once the two of them were inside, he found an old denim jacket behind the seat and draped it over her shoulders. “Here. This will help warm you up while I call the ranch and let them know you’re safe.”

  Wyatt started the truck and drove to a wide pull-off where he could safely park. While he was on the telephone with the ranch, Gabrielle tried to pull herself together. He was going to want answers and explanations, and she very much doubted he would accept the truth of the matter.

  The conversation with Ryan lasted less than two minutes. When it ended, Wyatt placed the cellular phone on the dash, then turned to Gabrielle. After pushing the tousled hair away from her face, he studied her stricken features beneath the dim cargo light. A red welt ran diagonally across one cheek and greasy dirt was smeared on her chin, but he spotted no other external injuries.

  “You know, since you first came to the Double Crown, I’ve thought many things about you, Gabrielle. But I never once imagined you as a fool. This stunt you pulled tonight was worse than foolish. Why? Why did you leave like that?”

  He was far more bewildered than angry, and that took Gabrielle by complete surprise. From the moment he’d found her, she’d expected him to unleash a whip of fury. So far it was yet to come.

  “I—because I had to,” she answered. “There was no other way.”

  “No other way? That doesn’t make sense. You had a plane ticket for tomorrow. Even if the Fortunes didn’t want you to leave, you could have used it in spite of their wishes. Why were you trying to go to the bus station?”

  His face was so dear, so beloved, that she had to drop her eyes from him and wait for the pain to ease in her chest. Drawing in a bracing breath, she lifted her gaze back to his. “I wanted to be gone before anyone noticed I wasn’t on the ranch. Especially you,” she added in a choked voice.

  He stared at her as though she were speaking in a foreign language. �
��Gabrielle, you don’t understand. Yes, I was angry—about the pictures, the birthmark. Everything! I didn’t want to believe you were a Fortune. But I’ve been thinking—”

  “Wyatt,” she was compelled to interrupt, “I have to tell you something. I’ve remembered. When I woke up, my memory was there. Just as though it had never been gone.”

  He went stock-still and then his brows inched upward ever so slowly. “You know who you are? At least, who you were back in California?”

  She nodded, her heart pounding with anticipation. Did she dare try to explain? If he didn’t believe her now, her hopes and dreams—her very life—would be over.

  “I know it sounds phony and crazy. And if I were in your place, I probably wouldn’t believe it. But that’s the way it happened. I woke up and for a moment I wondered why I wasn’t in my apartment. And then, as everything started coming back to me, I realized you and the Fortunes would never believe I came here to Texas simply to find out if I was related to them. So I decided to leave without telling anyone. And then you would all know I—I wasn’t a gold digger.”

  He winced and told himself he’d paid for his mistake a thousand times over while he’d been searching the highway for her, gripped with fear.

  “What did you remember?” he asked. “What made you suspect you might be related to the Fortunes in the first place?”

  A wondrous expression slowly transformed her beleaguered face. “You mean—you actually want to know? You…believe me?”

  With a tortured groan, he tugged her into the tight circle of his arms. “I have to believe you, Gabrielle. Because tonight I’ve learned I sure as hell can’t live without you.”

  Joy exploded within her, and she leaned back and gathered his face with her hands. “Oh, Wyatt! Are you sure? When you hear about my past—well, you might not feel that way.”

  “Tell me everything,” he urged softly.

  He couldn’t know how sweet those three words sounded to her. “Well, there’s so much, I don’t exactly know where to start. My father was a rodeo cowboy—Lloyd Carter. My mother was very young when she fell in love and married him. He left when my brother Kane was about a year old and Mother was pregnant with me.”

  “He never came back or tried to contact your mother?” Wyatt asked.

  Gabrielle shook her head. “Never. My mother raised us alone. We always just managed to scrape by on what she made at odd jobs. What Ryan said about Miranda wanting to be a movie star was right. She’s never given up on that dream. But the closest she’s ever come is a couple of minor parts in some terrible, low-budget films.”

  “The address we found for you in California—it isn’t with your mother?” he asked.

  Gabrielle sighed. “No. As soon as I graduated high school, I moved out and got a place of my own. You see, Mother is—well, she likes men. She’s had a string of affairs. Most of the time she thought of me as her nursemaid, and someone she could pour out all her troubles to. And the troubles were always men and money. I couldn’t stand living with her. But I do live close enough to keep an eye on her. God only knows what she’s gotten into while I’ve been gone.”

  “Did she know you were coming to Texas?”

  Gabrielle nodded. “She was livid about it and forbade me to come.”

  A puzzled frown pulled his dark brows together. “I don’t understand.”

  She rested her palms against his warm chest, loving the feel of him, the beat of his heart against her fingers. “I’ve never understood her. But I’m beginning to now. You see, all these years I wanted to know my family. I wanted to know my grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts. I didn’t have anybody but my brother and a mother—a mother who’s never really been a mother in the proper sense. But she always refused to tell me or my brother about the family. Except that she’d come from a ranch in Texas and that her parents were really mean to her so she’d run away to save herself.”

  “Dear God. From what I’ve heard, Miranda was so spoiled by her father it was sickening. Kingston gave her anything she wanted.”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense. But for as long as I’ve been old enough to realize the truth, mother has never been the sensible sort.”

  “And she never mentioned being a Fortune to you or your brother?”

  Gabrielle’s lips twisted as she recalled the many times she’d begged her mother to tell her about her family. Miranda had always refused. “No. If I had waited on her to tell me, I would never have known. Instead, I just happened to pick up a newspaper in the diner where I worked as a waitress, and I noticed an article about Bryan’s kidnapping. The family lived on a ranch in Texas. The name was Fortune and the child had a birthmark just like the one my mother and brother and I have. I thought it was more than coincidence, so I had to come and find out for myself.”

  “The pictures and the document with Miranda Fortune’s name on it—how did you happen to have those?”

  “I’ve had those for a long time. When I was a teenager, I snooped through some of my mother’s things, trying to come up with clues to my family’s whereabouts. I thought they might eventually lead me somewhere.” Her hands slid upward and curved around his shoulders as she studied his face for any sort of reaction. “I realize this whole thing sounds incredible, and that it looks like I really did come here wanting money. But that was never my intention. From the time I was old enough to work, I’ve supported myself. I’m proud of that. I don’t need anything else.”

  Suddenly a wry smile lifted the corner of his lips. “I hope that’s not true, Gabrielle. I hope now that you’re a Fortune, you’ll still need me.”

  His words stunned her, and for a moment all she could manage to do was stare at him. “Do you really mean that?” she finally whispered. “Are you—trying to tell me you love me?”

  With a needy groan, he buried his face in the side of her neck. “I don’t know much about loving or needing, Gabrielle. If I’m not saying it right, it’s because I’ve never felt like this before. But I have an ache in the middle of my chest that won’t go away unless I have you in my arms. If that means I love you, then I do.”

  Tears were suddenly sliding down her cheeks. “Oh, Wyatt, I didn’t think you’d ever give me a chance to explain. And I never expected you to believe me.”

  His arms tightened around her as he leaned his head back far enough to look into her eyes. “I made you feel cheap. I made you doubt yourself as a person,” he said in a voice tight with regret. “That’s the way I am, Gabrielle. I’m no good. Especially no good for you. You’re a Fortune now. We both know you can do much better than me.”

  Sniffing, she pressed her cheek against his. “Darling, in my eyes there is no one better than you. I’m going to love you for the rest of my life, whether you want me to or not.”

  “Oh, God, Gabrielle, I want you—your love—for always. I never dreamed I would say that to any woman. I never imagined I would want to.” He cradled her face between his palms. “Will you marry me? Give me the family I’ve never had?”

  “You—you want children?” she asked, her voice filled with wonder. “I thought you were dead set against having a family.”

  “I was scared to admit my wants to myself, much less to you. I’ve lost too many times in the past to think I could win with you now.”

  “Oh, Wyatt, Wyatt.” She breathed his name, anguish and joy threaded through her voice. “You have won. We’ve both won. Before I came here I was working on a college degree to teach special education. Do you think I could raise our children and be a teacher, too?”

  “I’m more than sure you’re woman enough to handle both jobs,” he murmured.

  His lips came down on hers, and as he tenderly kissed her, Gabrielle couldn’t help thinking that although in the Fortunes she’d found her lost family, in Wyatt she’d found her love, her true home.

  On the way back to the ranch, Wyatt stopped by the old Grayhawk homestead and showed her the place where he’d lived. He admitted to Gabrielle how much he wanted to
build them a home there and raise cattle and horses.

  “And children,” she added with a happy sigh as he stood with his arm curled around her shoulders. “I think we’ll have a good crop.”

  A sly smile on his lips, he glanced down at her. “Of children or livestock?”

  She laughed and so did he, and as their eyes met they both realized how close they’d come to losing something precious, something that would last their whole lifetime together.

  “Both,” she said.

  He slipped his hand around hers. “Are you ready to go back to the ranch and give the Fortunes the good news?”

  Smiling she nodded. Then, just as quickly, the smile was gone and a frown puckered her forehead. Seeing it, Wyatt asked, “What is it, Gabrielle? Lord, your amnesia isn’t coming back, is it?”

  “No. Actually, I was wondering…what will I do if the Fortunes don’t believe me? You do, but that’s because you love me. They might think—”

  He broke in before she could go any further. “And you think the Fortunes don’t love you?” He chuckled with disbelief.

  Her head swung back and forth. “I’m not sure how they feel. They’re basically kind, generous people. But when they hear about Miranda, they might believe she sent me here to try to extract money from them. If they think that…”

  Seeing the turmoil on her face, he gathered her against his chest and stroked the back of her head. “Darling, whatever they think, just remember I’m standing firmly behind you. But I promise, they aren’t going to judge you by your mother’s behavior. And speaking of mothers…I talked to mine earlier tonight,” he said happily. “She’s coming to town next week.”

  Gabrielle’s head reared back from his chest and she stared at him with shock. “You talked to your mother? How?”

  He smiled. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way to the ranch,” he said. “But right now we need to get going. We have a lot of news to give the Fortunes.”