Home To Texas

She laid the fork aside with exaggerated care. Her brother was a rich man—on paper. In real life he was risking all he had trying to develop not one, but two model communities.

Though the first, in Hawaii, was still under construction, Gavin and his partners had taken a dizzying chance on a second. They’d bought a huge tract of land in Texas, paying millions for it. They would pay millions more for its development. Their plans were as ambitious as they were original, and the gamble was enormous.

So Tara had not told her brother all that was happening to her. Gavin had been in Hawaii, desperately trying to finish that project. He hadn’t been to the mainland for months.

When they talked on the phone, she’d held back things. He had, she believed, enough burdens of his own. And she had her pride, her independence. Too much of both, Gavin had often said.

Now he glared at her in frustration. “You mean Sid still hasn’t given you one damn dime in child support?”

“No,” she said, her voice calm. She’d taken Sid to court. It had done no good. She could have him jailed, but the thought made her sick. How could she do that to Del?

“Does Sid ever come to see Del? Does he use his visitation rights at all?”

The questions hurt. Tara looked away from Gavin and out the window again. Her husband had left her and their son for another woman, a younger and very jealous woman. For her he’d given up everything: his home, his honor and, most shamefully, his son. Del, not yet five, was shattered.

Tara shook her head, unable to speak. Gavin leaned in closer to her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Sid’s still acting crazy?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. She studied how the smog made the tops of the tallest buildings hazy, how it turned the sky murky.

“Is that why you sold the horses? Because he won’t help?”

She hedged the question. “Partly.”

“And the ranch?”

“I have to be practical. I don’t know what’s ahead. We were living beyond our means. And—and—”

Gavin groaned in anger and frustration. “Don’t tell me. Is Burleigh making trouble again? About visitations with Del? About custody?”

Burleigh was Sid’s widowed father, Del’s grandfather. An imperious man, he’d disowned Sid over the divorce, but he blamed Tara for letting it happen. Del, he claimed, was now his only living kin, and he had a right to have a say in the boy’s life. A big say.

Burleigh Hastings was powerful and, when he chose, he could be as disruptive as a hurricane. He was vice-president of a huge and prosperous company, and he loved control, control of things, control of people. Tara was certain Burleigh was the reason Sid had turned out as he had, and she feared his influence on Del.

“He’s out of the country right now,” Tara said. She was grateful for his absence, but knew that she and Del were inhabiting a false and limited calm. It was as if they were in the eye of a storm.

“But he’ll be back,” Gavin supplied. “Demanding his ‘rights.’ He’ll scare Del and confuse him and do all he can to undermine you.”

“Yes. He will.” She was resigned to it. “But I’m prepared to ask for a restraining order against him if it comes to that.”

“He’ll make your life hell. Where is he? How long will he be gone?”

“He’s in the Middle East. A big government contract. It seems they needed a ‘forceful’ personality there. It’ll tie him up for two months, maybe three. I’m talking to a lawyer. I need to be ready for him.”

Gavin knelt on one knee by her side. “Tara, you should take Del and get out of here.” He took her hand between his. “Out of Los Angeles. Out of California. Away from this crazy situation.”

She shook her head. She had to face facts. “There’s no place to go, Gavin. My job is here.”

Tara had grown up with horses and now she taught riding at Santa Clarita’s Kane Stables—both regular classes and those for special needs students. She loved her job, and she was good at it. But she was also more than a little frightened. There were rumors of cuts in programs and staff.

Gavin pressed her hand more earnestly. “There’re other places. Other jobs. And there’s one that’s perfect. I know California’s always been home, but let it go. Look what it’s doing to Del. What it’s done to you. You don’t look like my Tara anymore.”

Her throat locked and her mouth went dry. Del was becoming an unhappy, nervous child, and she—she wasn’t sure what she was becoming.

Gavin reached into his back pocket, flipped open his wallet and shoved a photograph in front of her. “What happened to this girl?”

She tried not to wince. The photo was a close-up of her, snapped a few years ago at a friend’s wedding. She wore a wide-brimmed white hat, tilted low to emphasize her eyes. They were dramatic eyes, an unusual clear gray, the irises ringed by darker gray.

Her hair fell past her shoulders in loose waves. Her makeup was skillfully applied. The photo showed an elegant, even stylish, woman—she was tall, long-legged and slim.

But now that woman was gone, hidden away. Even today, meeting Gavin here in his hotel, she hadn’t dressed up. After Sid had left, she’d thrown her makeup away and defiantly left her face plain, letting her freckles show.

Sid had once loved her wealth of auburn hair, shot through with red and gold. Now she had pulled it back severely and pinned it into a tight roll. She wore black slacks and a loose black blouse. She tried to look drab, and she had her reasons, but she wasn’t sure she could put them into words to Gavin, or even to herself.

So she looked at her picture and saw someone who was both familiar and utterly foreign. She said, “Gavin, I just haven’t felt like—”

“Like what?” he asked, one hand still grasping hers.

“I’ve had so many other things to do.” She shrugged. The explanation sounded lame even to her.

He tucked the photo into his wallet and slid it back into his pocket. He put his thumb and forefinger under her chin and raised her face so she’d have to meet his gaze. “Tara, we have an offer for you. A job. It’s perfect. You were made for it.”

She cocked her head, puzzled.

“The land we bought in Texas used to be a dude ranch. Most of its buildings got torn down. But the house and lodge still stand. We want to make them the center of a special section of our development. I want one part of this project to be an equestrian community.”

Her eyes widened. An equestrian community? Gavin had spoken of such a place for years. Each house would have enough acreage for one or more horses. There would be a bridal path accessible from every yard, pastures and a communal stable.

Gavin said, “We want to refurbish the lodge, make it into a recreation facility for the community as a whole. But first fix up the house. It’s solid, but it’s been empty for months and there’s been some water damage. How about it? Think you could fix up an old house?”

She smiled in spite of herself. They’d grown up doing exactly that, time after time. Their parents had made a career of buying run-down farms and ranches and transforming them into sound, neat horse outfits. Up and down California they’d moved, from one spread to another.

Tara had loved the challenge. The family always began by camping out in some dilapidated house. There’d been a special excitement in that, like being pioneers. She’d loved the process of restoration and the satisfaction of seeing it done well.

“A house?” She was intrigued.

Gavin nodded. “The house would be your first priority. We want one wing set up for me when I’m in Texas, with rooms for corporate guests. The other will be living quarters for the stable manager. And that, Tara, would be you. The stable needs to be built. You’ll have your say-so in its design. Could you deal with that?”

She looked at him in disbelief. She’d always wanted to run a stable; she had firm ideas of how it should be done. As for building, she and Gavin had entertained themselves for years by planning the dream stable. They had built it in their minds and constructed it in conversations and sketched it on paper.

“You’re kidding,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“No. I’m not kidding. But you’ll have to go to Texas.”

She felt light-headed at the prospect, and her stomach was full of butterflies. “Texas is a big place. Where?”

Gavin looked more solemn than before. “Just outside a little town called Crystal Creek. About an hour from Austin.”

She couldn’t imagine it and laughed at her own incomprehension. “I don’t know a soul in Texas.”