An Honorable Texan. Victoria Chancellor

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      RAVEN HAD INVITED CHRISTIE to the casual family “welcome home” party for Cal, but she’d declined. For one thing, she had no one to watch Peter. For another, she didn’t think springing “Hi, welcome home, you’re a daddy” would be the right approach in the midst of a family get-together.

      So she’d wait. She’d already waited a year and a half since she’d discovered, to her great surprise, that she was pregnant.

      During her marriage, while they’d lived in Europe, she’d been told she couldn’t get pregnant. The Italian doctor had been so wrong, she thought, as Peter pulled himself up on the ottoman.

      They were staying about ten miles away in Graham since Brody’s Crossing had no hotel, motel or bed-and-breakfast.

      “All that’s about to change,” Christie told her grinning son. “Yes, it is.” She smiled back at him and stroked his soft, downy hair. Light brown, like his father’s. But he had blue-green eyes, like hers.

      “We’re going to open a motel, aren’t we?” she asked as he held on and wobbled, trying to stay upright on the carpet. The idea of running her own business still astounded her, and yet felt so right.

      She’d bought the Sweet Dreams Motel in Brody’s Crossing just yesterday, paying with a cashier’s check from her bank in Fort Worth. The place was a run-down mess, with broken windows, horrid bathrooms and a parking lot so patched it looked like a crazy quilt. The stucco and concrete block walls were cracked in places, and the roof had to be replaced before the next big rain. During the walk-through with the Realtor, they’d disturbed a surly opossum and a family of mice living in the maintenance shed. Birds had flown out of gaps in the siding over the office.

      Other than that, it was perfect.

      “It will be great,” she told Peter, and she believed it. Because despite the neglected motel’s problems, it had one thing going for it: retro appeal. The old sign alone had made her want to own the darn thing. A crescent moon and sleeping baby, the name and vacancy sign all outlined in—currently inoperable—neon lights. The style was pure late fifties/early sixties, with a low roof and colored, painted doors and metal railings with geometric shapes. The motel had never been remodeled before it closed in the 1980s, so it was still authentic.

      Christie wasn’t a remodeler or a decorator, but she knew what she liked. And she absolutely loved the decrepit Sweet Dreams Motel.

      She’d already hired a contractor. Brody’s Crossing mayor Toni Casale was the best, Christie had been told by several people, and she’d hit it off with the other woman, who was near her age and also a blonde. As a matter of fact, they’d shared a laugh at the fact that two blondes were doing what no men had attempted—opening the old motel, which, according to Toni, was sorely needed in a town with no rooms to rent.

      She glanced at the clock. “Aren’t you getting tired?” she asked Peter, who had grown bored with standing and had crawled over to his favorite toy, a plastic piano that played the most irritating electronic tunes when he hit the big, primary-color keys. To answer her question, he grinned and began pounding.

      Christie hoped they didn’t have any close neighbors tonight who objected to her baby’s piano music.

      She was going to call Cal at the ranch later and arrange a meeting. There was no sense in putting off the news any longer. Perhaps they could have lunch in a public place, like that steakhouse she’d gone to with Toni. Or the cute little café in town, although that would be much more public and people might be able to hear their conversation.

      That was her big fear—that Cal would find out about Peter from someone else. That’s why she’d been very careful to mention she was a widow, and not to act too interested in Cal when she’d talked to others. She’d developed a friendly relationship with Troy’s fiancée, Raven, although she’d never told the other woman about Peter. They’d only talked on the phone. She’d tried to be very careful and respectful of Cal’s privacy, just as she would have wanted had she been in the same situation.

      Not that she’d ever expected to be a single parent. Or to have her own biological child.

      Peter quit banging on the piano and rubbed his eyes.

      “Time for your bottle? Ba-ba?” she asked, pushing up from the chair and scooping him off the floor. With Peter on her hip, she went to the little kitchen area of the motel room. As soon as he saw the bottle of powdered formula, he waved his arms and started saying, “Ba-ba-ba.” That was his word for bottle. He also said, “Ma-ma-ma,” but Christie wasn’t sure if that was a true mama word or just sounds.

      Maybe someday soon he’d learn to say “da-da.”

      She fed Peter, changed his diaper, then sang to him a little until his eyes closed. Within minutes he was sound asleep in his portable crib.

      And Christie had no more excuses to keep her from calling Cal.