The Rancher's Texas Twins. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      It was becoming clear that Avery Culpepper rarely minced words. In that way, she was a lot like her grandfather—not that he’d be foolish enough to point that out at the moment. “Sure, some parents are lousy,” Gabe replied. “Some are just gone. And some just plain don’t have it in them. More helpless than mean.”

      “No one has the right to abandon a child. I’d bleed to the last drop before I’d walk away from my girls.” She didn’t say “like their father did,” but Gabe felt it hang in the air just the same.

      “That’s the way it should be. Only it doesn’t always happen that way, does it? The kids at the ranch did nothing wrong—well, some of them have acted out in bad ways, but you know what I mean. They didn’t set their lives up badly, but things haven’t worked out for them just the same. And that’s not fair.”

      “I suppose not. I never felt much of life was fair, to tell you the truth.”

      “It isn’t. That’s what keeps me working for the boys ranch. Every boy we house and counsel is one less man who grows up hauling a ball of hate around.” Even as he spoke the words, Gabe wondered if he really believed them. After all, he’d been a resident at the ranch some twenty-odd years ago, and the ball of hate was still following him around like a lead shadow.

      Avery leaned up against the thick porch column, her arms still wrapped around her chest. “I didn’t ask to be the only thing saving the Culpepper land from becoming a strip mall. I can’t say for certain that I can stay all the way until the twentieth.”

      “I understand you need to do what’s best for you and your girls. But that doesn’t change how much we need your cooperation. Think about it this way—if you’d had a girls ranch to go to instead of that long string of foster homes, would things have turned out differently for you?”

      She didn’t reply, which told Gabe he’d perhaps made his point, so he went on. “The boys ranch is a good thing. It’s worth expanding.” Gabe planted his hands on top of the porch rail and looked out in the direction where the ranch lay beyond a line of trees. If he could just get her there, even once, it would help to convince her.

      “And while I wish old Cyrus would have been nice enough to help that without all these hijinks, I’ve got to take his help the way it came.”

      Avery’s dark laugh returned. “‘Hijinks.’ That’s one way to put it.” She ran one hand through the neat fringe of brown hair that framed her round face. “You know, those messages and emails from Darcy Hill just about knocked me over. I didn’t know what to think. It’s a crazy scheme, even you have to admit that. I only decided to come on the hopes I’d get some answers. Or maybe I came half out of curiosity. Or amusement.” She paused for a long moment, then added, “I didn’t count on it hurting so much, you know?”

      Gabe shifted his gaze to her, startled by the admission. “How so?”

      “To walk around here and see this picture postcard of a little town. To know I could have been here rather than those dumps of foster homes if only he’d...” Her words fell off and she turned away. “Like I said, I know it’s not very Christian of me, but I hate him.”

      Up until this moment, Gabe hadn’t been able to fathom what would allow Avery to walk away from a possible inheritance. Here he’d thought it was just the frustration of living under Roz Sackett’s glare, that getting her here would solve everything and be worth the chaos he’d just launched upon his household.

      That wasn’t the half of it. What was eating Avery Culpepper was so much more than just squirrelly twins. Cyrus Culpepper cast a long, cold shadow here in Haven, and he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to spend any time in it. Neither her nor her girls. It was, as Pastor Walsh would put it, “a God-sized problem” of history and pain.

      History and pain. The world was flooded with it. He’d lived it, she’d lived it. The boys ranch fought against it, one young life at a time. How do I solve this, Lord? How can I override twenty years of a dead man’s neglect? I’ve got to find a way. Gabe pleaded to the heaven he’d once imagined hid behind the veil of stars. Somehow he’d have to convince this woman to set aside the mountain of pride and pain she clearly carried while trying to make his own grandfather appear out of thin air.

      A God-sized problem indeed.

      * * *

      Avery groped her way toward the kitchen coffeemaker Wednesday morning, every bone aching from lack of sleep. How had the girls managed to be so sleepless and fidgety well into the wee hours after such an eventful day?

      “Oh, dear,” said Marlene as she stood slicing bread at the counter. “You don’t look like you’ve slept a wink.”

      “I think it was three...four, maybe, by the time the both of them finally nodded off for good.” Avery didn’t even have the energy to stifle her yawn. “I thought they’d be exhausted. I sure am.”

      Marlene looked crestfallen. “They didn’t like their beds?”

      “Oh, they love them. I think the changes of location keep knocking them for a bit of a loop. By one a.m. I had both of them crawling in bed with me, all kicking and sprawling and fidgety.” She spooned sugar into the strong-smelling brew. “It was like sleeping with a pair of mules on espresso.”

      That made Marlene laugh. “I was sure Jethro and I had worn them out. We tried.”

      The older couple really had gone out of their way to play with Dinah and Debbie, especially after supper, when Avery felt drained from the stresses of the day. “At least they’re still out cold, the little darlings. My bed is up against the wall, so when I smelled coffee, I propped up a few pillows on the open edge and slipped out. I’m hoping that will buy me at least five minutes to grab a cup.”

      “Oh, honey, the way you look I ought to send you out to the porch swing with a thermos and a blanket. Young ones take so much out of you, don’t they?”

      Avery sipped the coffee, letting the bracing hot brew pull her toward clarity. The coffee at the boardinghouse was passable, but this coffee was marvelous. And not all the way down a flight of stairs, where she didn’t feel right leaving the girls. She wrapped her hands around the stoneware mug and breathed a sigh of gratitude. A cup of morning coffee in quiet felt like the grandest of luxuries. “I wouldn’t trade them for the world,” Avery answered the housekeeper, “even when they stomp on my last nerve.”

      “And we all know little ones can surely do that.” Marlene put a compassionate hand on Avery’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here. Truly.”

      “I hope Gabe can say the same.” Avery ran her hands through what must be a bird’s nest of bed hair. “Where is he?”

      “Off into Waco on business bright and early this morning. That man has risen before the sun every day I’ve known him. If you like the coffee, you can thank him—he makes it before the rest of us even open our eyes.”

      Her mind concocted a vision of Gabe vaulting into his truck and peeling down the gravel road, eager to escape the girlish invasion. It would have been smarter to refuse his offer. He must be regretting it after yesterday’s chaos, but he’d been a gentleman and hidden any sign of it. Either that or the boys ranch must be truly desperate to win her compliance.

      The discomfort must have shown on her face, for Marlene squeezed her shoulder. “Oh, I know Gabriel can look like a stiff old bull sometimes, СКАЧАТЬ