A South Texas Christmas

Even as Neil looked across the table at Raine Crockett and felt a little part of him melt like a warm candy bar, he could hear Quito’s warning in his head.

Chapter Three

Clearing his throat, Neil sipped his coffee and decided it was past time that he brought their conversation down to the real nitty-gritty of this meeting. He hadn’t flown all the way down here to Texas just to enjoy the charms of a beautiful ingenue. Not that he wouldn’t fly a thousand miles to lunch with an attractive woman. Neil had been known to do plenty of extravagant things to capture the hand of a fair lady. But Raine Crockett was off-limits. He expected she would be the sort that would leave a lasting impression on a man’s heart. And Neil definitely wasn’t in the market for heart problems.

“So tell me,” he ventured, “have you tried to hunt for your mother’s past before?”

A grimace tightened Raine’s lips. Just the memory of that time still had the power to hurt her. She’d been so confused and angry with her mother for not understanding her need to find the identity of her father. And since then, not much had changed with their stilted relationship. That was one of the main reasons Raine had decided to follow up on the photo in the newspaper. If she could discover the truth of Esther’s past and where her father might be, then maybe it would tear down the terrible wall between her and her mother.

With a single nod, she said, “Shortly after I graduated college I hired a private investigator, but Mother eventually found out about the whole thing and put a quick stop to it. She was furious with me. In fact, none of us on the ranch had ever seen her so angry. If I’d been living with her at the time, she would no doubt have thrown me out of the house. But by then I’d moved into an apartment of my own in town.”

“Oh. You don’t live on the ranch, but your mother does?”

She glanced at him and saw that he was surprised. No doubt he’d been thinking her mother tucked her into bed every night, she thought ruefully.

“That’s right. Esther has worked for the Sanchez and Saddler families ever since I was a baby. She lives in one of the smaller houses on the property. If she had her way, I would still be living there with her. But the two of us get crosswise with each other from time to time,” she admitted regretfully. “It’s best we’re not together too much.”

Neil held the same attitude about sharing a house with a woman. Too much togetherness was a bad thing. Tempers flared and cross words were flung until all the pleasure was taken out of having a companion in the first place. All too often he’d watched his mother and father go at it as if they were bitter enemies rather than husband and wife. He didn’t want that for himself. Ever. Just give him a few sweet, intimate hours with a woman and then he wanted to be left on his own, before all the fighting had a chance to start.

Shifting on the small, uncomfortable chair, he tried to push the sad memories of his parents from his mind. “So you still haven’t mentioned any of this to Esther?”

“No. Why borrow trouble?” she asked glumly.

He studied her thoughtfully as one question after another popped into his head. He wasn’t a detective, but, more often than not, a lawyer had to think and act like one. Asking the right questions meant success or failure in the courtroom. With Raine, Neil figured he was going to have to go gently. In more ways than one.

“It doesn’t bother you to go behind your mother’s back like this?”

Her gaze slid from his face but not before he saw a pained expression fill her green eyes.

“Actually it breaks my heart. Mother worked hard and raised me single-handedly. She loves me,” she told him in a quiet, strained voice. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt her. But I…more than anything, I want to find my father. I want him to be a part of my life. She can’t tell me anything about him. And she refuses to help me. So I have no other choice but to search on my own.”

Neil could feel her pain and he realized he wanted to help this young woman as much as he wanted to help his old friend Linc.

“I have to be frank, Raine,” he began in a thoughtful tone. “It strikes me as very odd that your mother doesn’t want to search for her past life. Most any woman would want to know if she still had a husband, a family somewhere. Isn’t she curious? I sure as heck would be.”

Raine turned back to face him and Neil could see the hopelessness etched upon her soft features.

“I realize it’s strange, Neil. That’s why we’ve argued so many times over this thing. The only reason she’ll give me is that she’s afraid there could have been something wrong in her past life and she doesn’t want to uncover it. In other words, fear of the unknown.”

“Hmm. Well, we know one thing. There was a man in her life. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been pregnant with you.”

Raine thoughtfully traced her forefinger around the rim of her coffee cup. In Neil’s newspaper article it had stated that Darla Carlton’s husband, Jaycee, had been found dead in a wrecked car between Progreso, Texas, and the Mexican border. Ever since Raine had read that bit of information she couldn’t help but wonder if the man might have been her father.

“Maybe this Jaycee could have been my father,” she mused aloud. She looked at him, her green eyes full of skepticism. “But how would I ever know? With him buried—” The doubts in her eyes vanished as she stared at him with sudden excitement. “DNA,” she blurted quickly. “If Jaycee Carlton had other children, I could have my DNA tested against theirs!”

Neil looked at her with regret. “I’m sorry, Raine. Jaycee didn’t have any children. As far as I know, Darla was the only woman he was ever married to.”

“Oh.” She tried not to be disappointed, but she knew the emotion was most likely showing on her face. “Then maybe I have wasted your time by having you to come down here.”

Neil grimaced. He wasn’t about to tell her that there was an offspring of Darla’s that could supply genetic testing. But before he suggested such a thing to Raine or Linc, he wanted to gather concrete evidence that this was a case worth following. Besides, a blood test would clear up the matter much too quickly for his liking, Neil suddenly decided. Raine Crockett was one sexy female. Now that he was down here, he wanted to enjoy himself and get to know her much better. And the easiest way for him to do that was to stick around for a few days and pose a few personal questions, he thought with wicked pleasure. As long as he kept things light and playful, there shouldn’t be any harm come to either one of them.

“Don’t be so negative,” he told her. “I’ve only just gotten here. There’s lots of research we need to do before we think about throwing in the towel. Are you up to telling me some of the story right now?”

His question prompted her to straighten her shoulders, as though to tell him that she wasn’t one of those weak-willed women who swoon over the least little stress. Neil wondered if he’d managed to stumble onto one of those rare women who happened to be strong as well as beautiful.

“Of course, I am,” she said with renewed conviction.

“Okay,” he said as he shoveled another bite of pie into his mouth. “Then lay it out to me.”

Raine took a bite of her own pie in hopes it would calm her jumping stomach, but even before she swallowed the sweet concoction, she knew the only thing that was going to ease her nerves was to put miles and miles between herself and Neil Rankin.

“Since we talked on the phone, I’ve tried to think of anything and everything that might be important. But I really don’t know where to start. At the beginning, I suppose. When Mother woke in the hospital.”

Neil nodded. “When was this?”

“The latter part of October, I think, 1982. It was Halloween, she’s said, but with all her injuries she was feeling more tricked than treated.”

“Tell me about her injuries.”

As Raine sliced off another bite of pie, she answered, “I’m not exactly sure what the extent of her injuries were. I do know she suffered some sort of trauma to the head, maybe due to a car accident, but maybe not. One leg was broken and several of her ribs. Obviously the head injury was the reason for her amnesia. At first, the doctors believed whatever caused her injuries would surface in her memory. But it didn’t,” she added regretfully.

“How do you know her memory hasn’t returned?” Neil asked pointedly.

Raine’s brows rose to two high peaks as she stared at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” he told her, then reiterated his question. “How do you know that your mother hasn’t remembered and is keeping the fact from you?”

Raine sputtered with disbelief. That idea had never crossed her mind. To even think such a thing about her mother swamped her with guilt.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said stiffly. “Mother would never lie to me!”

His direct gaze didn’t waver from hers and Raine shivered inwardly. This man was not only doing strange things to her body, but he was also turning her thoughts in a frightening direction she didn’t want to go.

“You’re certain about that?” he asked softly.

Anger sparked her green eyes. “I’m very sure,” she answered. “Mother would never lie to me. Unless she—” Raine broke off as an idea struck her. Then she finally said in a choked murmur, “Unless she was trying to protect me from something. Then she might hide the truth.”

Neil stifled a sigh. The last thing he wanted to do was upset this woman. No matter how painful the possibilities, she needed to look at this matter with open eyes.

“I haven’t met Esther yet, but in most instances, it’s the general nature of a mother to protect her young.”

Horror, confusion and finally disbelief traipsed across her face and Neil realized he was giving her a lot to chew on in just a brief short of time. Besides, no child wanted to believe a parent would deliberately lie to them.

Feeling unusually soft, he decided to let that subject rest. “Well, let’s set that notion aside for the moment and go back to her time in the hospital. Have you ever seen the police records on this case? Where did they find her? How?”

“No to the police records. But I did search the newspaper archives in Fredericksburg for a story.” Raine reached for her purse. “I brought a copy just in case it might be helpful to you.” She handed the photocopy to Neil and waited while he read the short article posted in the Fredericksburg Standard:

Two weeks ago, a local rancher, Louis Cantrell, discovered an injured woman lying at the edge of Highway 87 approximately three miles south of Cherry Spring. At first it was believed the woman had been involved in a vehicle crash, but the police verified to the press today that the woman had been beaten with a blunt object and tossed onto a grassy shoulder of the highway.