Texas Lullaby. Tina Leonard

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      LAURA FROWNED AT THE NOTE that had been stuck to the front door of her small house. Hey, baby, be by to see you later.

      Chills ran through her. Nobody baby’d her—no one except her father. She didn’t want to see him. Didn’t want him near her children. The fact that he’d found out where she lived made her want to move far away, as fast as she could.

      He was her father by blood, but Mr. Morgan had acted more fatherly toward her. There was something wrong with the man whose genes she bore—Ben had problems with thinking the world owed him something. A chip on his shoulder kept him from being the responsible human he might have been.

      Laura wanted no part of him.

      She took her children inside and locked the door. Penny went straight to her stuffed animals, so Laura put Perrin in his playpen before she sank into a chair at the kitchen table to think.

      There was a reason Ben had chosen this moment to filter back into her life. Months ago, Ben had claimed Mr. Morgan had done him a disservice, which the old man had denied. Ben had told her that Mr. Morgan had cheated him out of money. She didn’t think Mr. Morgan was the cheating type but after Dave died, he had put that money into trust for her kids. Was it guilt money? At the time, tired and grief-stricken, she’d assumed it was exactly what he’d said it was, a gift of college education for kids whose company he’d enjoyed. As a teacher, she’d certainly appreciated the gesture. A lot of people had been very generous after the funeral. In fact, the Jeffersons had helped pay down the mortgage on this house so that Laura wouldn’t have to struggle so much. It was just the type of caring thing Laura had seen done many times over in this town.

      She hadn’t thought about guilt money. And Ben had always been the kind of man who whined. It was part of the reason she was determined to shoulder her burdens without complaining, without relying on other people. She wanted independence and that didn’t come by whining and blaming.

      She thought about Gabriel. He seemed very independent, too. He wouldn’t blame other people for any misery he incurred. She’d heard from Mr. Morgan that none of their family was close, a fact that disheartened him. In his twilight years—he’d started to say he was feeling his age—he had hoped to knit his family back together.

      He’d never said exactly what the problem had been.

      Laura wanted a family for her children, though. If she ever remarried, she would want a man who was close to his kin. Penny and Perrin deserved a father who didn’t have skeletons rattling in his closet; they had enough bones with Ben. Although they’d never met him, it was only a matter of time before that family skeleton made a nuisance of itself with some whiny rattling.

      She tore up the note and threw it into the trash, pushing it down deep before closing the shutters and checking the locks on the doors.