Gambling On A Dream. Sara Walter Ellwood

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СКАЧАТЬ have sold the place to the developer if he’d known what would have come of his home? What if he had known Wyatt had come to his senses and wanted to become a rancher?

      Wyatt’s father never had any interest in the ranch. So, when the time came for Granddad to hang up his branding iron, he figured it would be best to sell the place. At the time, Wyatt had been a big city vice cop, and his younger brother was about as responsible as a horsefly. While his sister Audrey already lived on a twenty-thousand-acre ranch with her fancy divorce lawyer husband, and his other sister had been working her way up the ranks in the United States Army and rarely came home.

      Besides, his grandfather figured the money from the sale would be a wonderful chunk of change for all of them. Having a few million in the bank was nice, but damn, Wyatt missed the ranch.

      He got out of the SUV and headed up the front porch steps to enter the home he grew up in. His parents had built the ranch-style house after their wedding. His grandparents had lived about a quarter mile down the road. Now, a bank sat where the house had been, his grandmother moved to Phoenix with her best friend, and his grandfather resided in the Ferguson family plot in the Colton cemetery.

      Goddamn, he hated change.

      He wanted his life the way it had been before things were all fucked up because he failed to protect what was important.

      Thinking about Dawn was as crazy as remembering his life on the ranch way back when. Neither one could be changed.

      Inside the foyer, Crystal Gayle’s Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue drifted to him from the direction of the kitchen. His mother was frying chicken and baking homemade bread and maybe apple pie, if his nose could be trusted. He hung his hat on the rack in the corner by the door and followed the smells into the kitchen.

      Jeannie Burton McPherson looked up from the electric frying pan she only used to fry chicken. A cheerful smile brightened her still-pretty face. From the tight curls her graying red hair was wound into, she’d visited their cousin’s beauty salon earlier that day and gotten a perm.

      He rounded the counter and bent to kiss her on the cheek, the odor of the perming solution lingering in her hair, and the delicious aroma of the foods wrinkled his nose as they mixed. He pulled away and smiled. “Ma, Dad’s gonna have to keep an eye on you. You keep getting prettier. I like your hair.”

      She laughed and swatted at his shoulder, but he didn’t miss the slight blush. “You’re such a charmer.”

      With a grin, he looked into the frying pan at the batter dipped chicken pieces frying in what was undoubtedly lard and butter. “You’re gonna make me as big as a linebacker if you keep up all this cooking.”

      She flipped a crispy drumstick. “You could use some more meat on your bones. You always look half-starved when you come home. I swear you don’t eat when you’re living on your own. I remember that time before you quit the police in Dallas, when you were so skinny, I could almost see through you.”

      He didn’t want to think about that time in his life. After Dawn took a bullet meant for him, he stopped caring about much except going after the thugs who had almost killed the only woman he’d ever loved. But it went deeper than that, she hadn’t only put her own life in jeopardy, she sacrificed the child he hadn’t known she’d carried.

      His son.

      Goddamn, now wasn’t the time to take a trip down that particular rocky memory lane.

      The last thing he wanted was his mother noticing the searing pain he was sure reflected in his face. He picked up a lid on one of the pots to find boiling potatoes. “I eat. I just take after the Ferguson side of the family. I’m tall and lean, but I’ve never been skinny.”

      He carried the hundred-ninety pounds of hard muscle on his six-foot, two-inch frame to prove it.

      A timer went off, and she opened the oven door to pull out a golden brown apple pie. She set it on a cooling rack. The rich apple and cinnamon scents filling the kitchen made his belly grumble with hunger.

      “We’ll be eating in a few minutes. Why don’t you go get your sister? She hasn’t been out of her room all day.” He didn’t miss the sadness in her voice or the pleading in her faded denim eyes. “You’ve always been good with her.”

      He left the kitchen and headed down the hall to stop before the door across from his. He’d packed up his dive of an apartment in Waco, sent his stuff to storage, and moved into his parents’ home temporarily to help with Rachel, but he wanted a place of his own.

      He took a deep breath as the day his parents brought Rachel home from the hospital drifted into his mind. He and Audrey were only three, but they had both been excited to have a real live baby in their midst. Audrey wanted to dress her up like her favorite doll. He’d wanted someone else to play with, but to be honest, he’d been a little disappointed she wasn’t a boy. He’d never dreamed he’d become her protector. Although he loved his twin sister, and technically, was her older brother too--if you can count a whole four and a half minutes as being older--Rachel held a special place in his heart.

      Sounds of his father chatting with his mother from the kitchen brought him out of his thoughts, and he knocked on his sister’s door. “Rach, Ma’s got dinner ready.”

      “I’m not hungry.” Her voice sounded muffled and distracted.

      He looked to the ceiling and sent a prayer to heaven to give him the strength and the knowledge to help his baby sister. “I’m coming in.”

      When she didn’t respond, he turned the knob and entered the room. A modern-looking pine queen bed and Rachel’s sophisticated styles had replaced the twin canopy beds and white girly furniture. Everything that had been Audrey’s was long gone. After all, the few times Rachel came home from her stints as an Army nurse, this was where she’d come.

      She sat huddled under an old crocheted blanket in a stuffed chair and stared out the window. What he could see of her face behind her short auburn hair was pale and splotched red, as if she’d been crying. Her hands were curled into fists and tucked in close to her body. Her prosthetic lower left leg sat in the corner with her crutches.

      He let out a long breath and sat on the edge of her unmade bed. When he glanced up, he noticed what had her riveted outside the window. In the yard on the other side of the rail fence, two young children played on a swing set while their father and mother worked in the yard. A picture of the perfect family. He closed his eyes and hung his head low.

      God, how much more can she take?

      “All I ever wanted was a family of my own.” Her voice rasped as if coming from her soul.

      Yeah, me too. He swallowed hard, but his voice still came out sounding like a frog’s croak. “Ladybug, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t know how to make this better.”

      She turned red-rimmed blue eyes on him. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

      He’d given her the nickname when she was only a baby because, with her bright red hair, she reminded him of a ladybug. For years, the whole family called her by the nickname. He sniffed and swallowed again. Damn, his sinuses burned.

      “Everyone thinks it’s because of Audrey and Lance that I’m such a mess.”

      “I know it has to be hard seeing them…”

      She СКАЧАТЬ