In Search of the Long-Lost Maverick

by Christine Rimmer

  Her skin felt too tight, her face kind of clammy, and her heart pounded like she’d just run a couple of miles uphill. “It’s only, well, I hadn’t heard from you and I was wondering if you were okay and...everything.” Inside, she was cringing. Could she possibly sound more desperate, more lame?

  “I’m fine, really. Everything’s fine.” He did sound bored. Yes. Definitely. She was boring him.

  “Okay. Well, great. I just thought I’d, y’know, check in, thank you for the other night, which was beautiful—I mean, until I brought up the diary thing. If I’ve upset you with anything I said, I wish you would just tell me and let me try to make amends. I really didn’t mean to be intrusive. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked to meet your great-grandfather. I totally get why you’re protective of him. I should have given the situation more thought before dragging an innocent old man into something that probably has nothing to do with him and might very well be a wild-goose chase, anyway. I apologize if I, well, stepped over the line, you know?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Gabe.” She wanted to reach through the phone and shake him—or maybe strangle him. “You don’t sound fine.”

  “Look, Melanie...”

  Melanie? It was down to him calling her Melanie now? That did it for her. “You know what, Gabe? Never mind. Just delete my number. Pretend we never met. You won’t hear from me again. Goodbye.” She disconnected the call.

  She was standing there, vaguely stunned, feeling terrible about what had just happened, when the phone rang in her hand. For a fraction of a second, her heart lifted. She dared to hope it was Gabe, calling her back to apologize for acting like a coldhearted jerk. But then she looked at the screen and the flare of hope died. She didn’t recognize the number.

  Answering calls from unknown numbers was rarely a good idea. But right at that moment, she was so upset over the way Gabe had just blown her off that she swiped up without thinking.

  “Yes?”

  “Mel. My God. At last.”

  “Todd,” she muttered grimly.

  “Oh, Mel. It’s so good to hear your voice. I’ve missed you so much. Mom and Dad have missed you, too. I need you. They need you. Spurlock’s needs you. The numbers have really dropped since you’ve been gone. It’s bad. I’m a wreck. Mom and Dad are on my case. They love you so much, honey. I love you so much. Where are you, Mel? Up in Rust Creek Falls? I’ll come to you, right away. If we could just talk, face-to-face, I’m sure you’ll see reason and come back to me, to us, to the good life we’ve made together.”

  “Todd,” she said again, taking great pains to keep her tone even and reasonable.

  Todd let out a long sigh. “Ah. At last. There’s my girl—yes, Mel. Anything. Whatever you want.”

  “I want you to quit trying to contact me, Todd.”

  “I can’t quit. I love you.”

  “I don’t love you, Todd. I’m not your girl.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “Because it’s true. Whatever I might have felt for you once, well, you killed that, Todd. Killed it stone dead. I am completely and totally through with you. I want nothing to do with you. When are you going to accept that it’s over and move on?”

  “It’s not over. I need to talk to you. Just give me an hour, you and me, face-to-face. I’ll make you see—”

  “I’ve seen all I needed to see—a naked woman who wasn’t me in our bed. With you. There’s no coming back from that, not in my book. You need to let it be and move on.”

  “Just tell me where and when to meet you. Just let me—”

  “Not a chance. It’s over. Deal with it. I never want to talk to you again. I’m going to block this number and any other number you try to call me from. Stop wasting your time. Nothing you can do or say will change my mind. Give it up. Let it go. Move the hell on. Goodbye.” She ended the call and blocked the number.

  On the bed, Homer was still watching her. She sat down next to him. He rose from his haunches to crawl into her lap. She petted him slowly, soothed by the motorboat sound of his sweet purr. “Men,” she said glumly to the kitten, since nobody else was there. “When you’re done with them, they won’t go away. And when you want them, they’re no longer interested.”

  * * *

  Mel was wrong about Gabe.

  He was very interested. And acting uninterested had been a bad idea. He realized that now. He’d freaked and tried to tell himself he needed to forget her.

  Unfortunately, forgetting her wasn’t happening. She filled his mind and heart.

  So sue him. He’d never been in love before. He had a right to be bad at it at first. Didn’t he?

  Would Mel understand if he tried to apologize after not calling for four days, and then being a hopeless jackass when she’d called him?

  No. She wouldn’t understand. Why should she understand? Mel was a proud woman. She wasn’t going to put up with a guy who treated her like she was wasting his time when she called to ask if he was okay. He would hate it if she put up with a guy like that.

  Even if the guy was him.

  He’d lost her without having ever really had her.

  What was he, thirteen again? He was certainly acting like it. Gone on a girl, being an idiot about it.

  Disgusted with himself, he went to the stables and spent a few hours mucking out stalls with only his dog, the gruff head groom and the horses for company. The dirty job didn’t improve his attitude any.

  He returned to the house, cleaned up and put on a suit. He had a business dinner at the Association. Over good whiskey and a blood-rare porterhouse steak, he tried to keep his mind on the prospective project at hand: two blocks of luxury townhomes in Bronco Heights, which could be very lucrative for everyone involved.

  But keeping his mind on business wasn’t easy. His thoughts kept wandering to Mel. Had he totally blown it with her? If he showed up at DJ’s again, would she even speak to him? If he knocked on her apartment door, would she refuse to answer?

  He really didn’t need a damn broken heart—and that had kind of been why he’d behaved so coldly when she’d called.

  It was a case of seriously flawed reasoning. He was already in love with her. Being rude to her, trying to push her away, wasn’t going to make his love go away. It only made her go away, which didn’t help in the least.

  He was miserable. Heartbroken already. And he’d brought it on his own damn self. He needed to do something to make things better, somehow.

  Even if Mel would never give him a real shot at winning her heart, that didn’t stop him from stepping up and apologizing for acting like a jerk when she’d been nothing short of a sweetheart, calling to find out if he was all right, trying to clear the air between them, wanting to let him know she wouldn’t push him about the diary if he wasn’t willing to go there with Gramps.

  And as far as that whole thing with the diary, well, why not help the woman he loved clear up an old mystery if he could? What if the impossible turned out to be true and Gramps actually was the Josiah she was looking for?

  Yeah, his first response to the story in the diary had been a defensive one—defensive for Gramps, for the family name, for the history of his family as he understood it.

  But wasn’t the truth supposed to set everyone free?

  It had all happened decades ago. A baby had been lost, stolen from her rightful parents. What if that baby—older than his own grandfather now—still lived? What if he had a great-aunt he’d yet to meet who’d lived her whole life never knowing the family she’d been born to? What if a very old woman in Rust Creek Falls could be reunited at last with the daughter she’d lost at birth?

  Gabe got home from his business dinner at a little after midnight. He felt edgy, uncomfortable in his own skin. For a while, he sat at his laptop in his study, trying to go over the numbers on the townhome project. His heart wasn’t in it, though. He
mostly just stared at the columns of figures and thought about how he’d messed up with Mel.

  He didn’t go to bed until after two.

  And he was up before dawn. When he woke, he realized he’d made a decision.

  Mel wanted to meet Gramps. And even if she was never going to let herself love him, Gabe loved her.

  Real love equaled trust. And he needed to trust her enough to take her to his great-grandfather, to give her that shot at finding out the things she longed to know about the past. Whatever did or didn’t happen between the two of them, Gabe could at least be the man who helped her get what she wanted.

  But there was still Gramps to consider. Would it be damaging to Josiah, somehow, to bring Mel to Snowy Mountain and let her quiz him about what could be the most painful secrets of his past?

  Hell if Gabe knew. When he’d brought the subject up Friday, Gramps hadn’t responded in any way—beyond a deep sigh, which might or might not have had anything to do with what Gabe was telling him. Chances were high Mel wouldn’t get anywhere with the old man, either.

  And really, what did Gabe know about his own family in the distant past, anyway?

  Not a lot, now that he thought about it. Offhand, he couldn’t even recall the names of his great-great-grandparents—on his father’s or his mother’s side. To him, the family history began with Gramps and Great-Grandma Cora.

  Maybe he ought to start with lunch at the main house. He could ask his dad and grandfather about Gramps’s parents and find out how the Abernathys had come to settle in Bronco.

  Unfortunately, though the spread Malone put out was delicious as ever, information-wise, lunch was a bust. Both his dad and Grandpa Alexander said that the Abernathys had “always” lived in Bronco. Grandpa Alexander did at least recall his own grandmother and grandfather. Josiah, Sr. and his wife, Noreen, had both passed away in their fifties.

  “I hardly knew them,” said Alexander. “They weren’t the kind of grandparents who get down on the floor and play with the kids. They always seemed kind of distant. And strict. We all had to be on our best behavior when Grandfather Josiah and Grandmother Noreen were around.”

  So much for learning about the family from his dad and grandfather. Gabe considered approaching Malone, seeing if the cook knew anything. Malone really was like a member of the family, and he did seem to know things about the Abernathys that no one else had a clue about. But Malone had only been around for a couple of decades. To Gabe, twenty-plus years might seem like a long time. But the events that concerned him now had happened long before Malone became a fixture at the Ambling A.

  Not knowing what else to do, Gabe decided to try again to talk to Gramps before taking the big step of bringing Mel to visit him. Maybe this time, his great-grandfather might show him some kind of sign that he heard and understood...

  Gabe arrived at Snowy Mountain at a little past three that sunny Sunday afternoon.

  Gramps was in the exercise room with several other residents. A fit-looking gray-haired lady led them through a simple routine of chair stretches followed by basic balance exercises and a few modified push-ups and sit-ups. Gabe waited near the door until the class ended. Gramps didn’t really participate, but neither did some of the others. Nobody seemed to mind either way.

  When the session was finished, Gabe led Gramps back to his room, settled him in the recliner and took the love seat for himself.

  He wasn’t much encouraged that this visit would go anywhere. It was another of Gramps’s “far away” days, as Gabe had come to think of them. Lately, most days were of the “far away” kind.

  Josiah stared off toward the family portrait across the room, his eyes vacant, his expression unreadable. Gabe talked to him about everyday stuff to begin with, filling Gramps in on what had been going on with him since his last visit two days before.

  Did any of it register with the old man? Hard to tell.

  Gabe needed to keep his attitude on straight. If nothing came of this visit, so be it. He reminded himself that it was good, just to be here, him and Gramps. Together.

  He leaned in. “I got a problem, Gramps. That woman I mentioned the last time I was here, the one I can’t stop thinking about? The one who...” Why the hell was he stalling? He needed to just come out and say it, for God’s sake.

  He tried again. “Mel. Her name is Mel and I really am in love with her, Gramps. It’s finally happened for me and I’m kind of freaked about it, if you want to know the truth. I’m in love with Mel and Mel has had a bad experience with a cheating douchebag ex-fiancé and she says she’s through with men. She’s got a job waiting for her in Austin at the first of the year. She says she’s taking that job, moving on, not coming back. I’ll probably have to learn to let her go, Gramps. Plus, I kind of treated her coldly when she called yesterday, which only made my chances worse with her.”

  Gabe paused for a breath and to judge Josiah’s reaction. What he saw wasn’t encouraging. Gramps was still staring off into nothing, his face an empty mask.

  “Okay, so I’ll get to the iffy part. I mentioned this last time, but just in case it didn’t register with you, or whatever...” That sentence wandered off into nothing. He started again. “It’s like this, Gramps. Mel has this idea that you’re originally from her hometown of Rust Creek Falls. She thinks that maybe you loved a woman named Winona there, that Winona had your child and, somehow, Great-Great-Grandpa Josiah and Great-Great-Grandma Noreen arranged to take the baby, Beatrix, away from her mother and to arrange for a secret adoption.”

  Nothing. Zero response.

  Josiah stared into space, same as Friday.

  Who did Gabe think he was kidding? There was no point in continuing this one-sided conversation. He wasn’t going to get any answers from Gramps.

  He reached across the coffee table and gently clasped his great-grandfather’s bony shoulder. “It’s okay, Gramps. I love you.”

  It would be wrong to bring Mel here. Gramps was lost somewhere inside his own mind and he couldn’t say yes or no to a visit from anyone.

  Gabe got up, circled the coffee table and bent to give the old man an awkward hug. Gramps sat passively as Gabe wrapped his arms around his thin shoulders, gave a gentle squeeze and then straightened. “I’m letting this whole crazy story go now. I won’t bring it up again, I promise you.”

  Easing back around the coffee table, Gabe turned for the door. When he got there, he paused with his hand on the knob. “I’ll be here again next week, just to check in, visit a little, see how you’re doing.” He pulled the door wide.

  And right then, his great-grandfather said in a rough, rusty voice, “Don’t give up on love. Bring her to me.”

  * * *

  Gabe stayed for another hour. He spent the whole time trying to coax a few more words out of Josiah. He got nowhere. Gramps had reverted to a silent, staring shell of himself.

  It hurt to give up, but what could Gabe do? He left reluctantly.

  At the Ambling A, he sat at his desk in the study for a while, feeling kind of low about everything.

  When he picked up the phone to call Mel, he wasn’t at all sure she would answer.

  She didn’t. He hung up without leaving a message, though he was pretty confident she would call back if he admitted he was ready to take her to Gramps. A visit with Josiah was probably all she wanted from him now. And that grated.

  Yeah, he had no one to blame but himself that she wouldn’t take his call. He wanted to fix that—before he said anything about taking her out to Snowy Mountain.

  And it had occurred to him that there was one solid clue he could probably track down as to when the Abernathy family might have first come to Bronco. He would follow through on that before trying to reach out to Mel again.

  * * *

  For the rest of the day, Mel constantly reminded herself that she was not returning Gabe’s call.

  He hadn’t
even left a voice mail. If he wanted to talk to her, he could damn well do her the courtesy of leaving a message, giving her at least a clue of what he needed to talk to her about.

  But no. The prince of Bronco was above leaving voice mails explaining himself. He simply called and hung up and his loyal subjects fell all over themselves calling right back to beg for a chance to do his bidding. Whatever that might be.

  She was buttoning up one of her many white shirts, getting ready for work, when her phone, on the dresser, pinged with a text. She was on it like a shot.

  It was from Gabe: I was an ass when you called. I’m sorry. Give me a chance to explain myself?

  Her shirt half-buttoned, her ridiculous heart doing something resembling a happy dance inside her chest, she stood holding the phone, her fingers itching to reply.

  Nope. Uh-uh. Not happening. She dropped the phone back on the dresser—and it lit up again.

  Please?

  Somehow, she managed not to grab the damn thing and start typing an answer. It was just better not to go there. They’d had one glorious night and she refused to regret that.

  But as for giving him another shot, no. He was much too attractive for her peace of mind and he ran hot and cold. If she accepted his apology this time, how long would it be before he blew her off again?

  She just didn’t need that kind of grief.

  * * *

  “It’s a minute of your time, Mel,” argued Gwen. It was seven thirty that night. Mel and her assistant manager were huddled in the hallway between the kitchen and the dining room. Waiters and other staff bustled past them going in both directions, carrying orders and dirty dishes back and forth. “And he is Gabe Abernathy...”

  “Of course, he is,” Mel muttered angrily.

  “Give the guy a smile and a quick hello. It’s not going to kill you. You’ve had no trouble dealing with him the other times he’s stopped by.”

  “Yeah. Don’t remind me.”

  Gwen was frowning, confused at Mel’s change of heart when it came to the Abernathy heir. But then she shrugged. “Okay. You’re the boss. I’ll tell him you’re in the middle of something important and can’t be disturbed.” She turned for the dining room.