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“A couple, but only a couple, and they’re usually pretty busy. Besides, it’s only about twelve miles, and I know just the person. My sister-in-law. She has today off, since my brother Sean and his wife are watching their son today.” He grinned. “Elena can’t help herself when it comes to babies.”
“I’m sure she’s got better things to do—”
“Than give Jackson Thorpe a ride? I doubt it. But fair warning, she used to be a reporter.”
His long-conditioned wariness sprang to life. “Used to be?”
Slater nodded. “Now she just does human-interest stuff. So I can’t say she won’t ask questions, but she won’t be pushing youfor a gossip column or anything. She’s not a small-picture kind of woman.”
He made the call before Jackson could stop him, and he couldn’t see any way out of it after that. And when the woman walked into the saloon, he realized he should have guessed; it was the woman he’d seen coming out of the newspaper office.
It only belatedly hit him that Slater had said his sister-in-law. And he’d looked at the saloonkeeper, who was nonchalantly drying a glass. “Which brother?” he asked dryly.
“I think you already guessed.”
“The police chief is married to a reporter?”
“Ex-reporter.” The woman’s voice was cheery as she came up behind him. “I don’t do news anymore. Kind of a conflict of interest when you’re married to one of the biggest newsmakers in the county.”
He remembered the story he’d seen in the window of the paper. “And one of the biggest heroes?”
The look that came across her face then made his throat tighten. It was so full of not just love, but admiration and respect. Leah had looked at him that way, even when he didn’t deserve it, when they’d been struggling just to get by. She’d never, ever given up on him.
“Yes,” she said simply. “Lily Highwater,” she added, holding out a hand.
He took it, just for a moment. “Look, you don’t need to—”
“I have an errand in Fredericksburg I’ve been putting off, so you’ll actually be doing me a favor by making me do it.”
“I…thank you.”
And so he ended up in a car with the chief of police’s wife, who happened to be a writer of human-interest stories. He’d expected a barrage of questions, but Slater hadn’t lied. She didn’t push. At all. It didn’t take him long to figure out that Joey hadn’t told only her husband about his situation. Or herhusband had told his brother, who had told his wife. But back home, his situation wouldn’t have stopped any reporter, ex or otherwise, from grabbing this chance to batter him with prying inquiries. In fact, it would have resulted in even more pressure, more paparazzi hiding behind every tree and bush and wall, hoping to catch a shot of either him or Jeremy in some kind of emotional state of trauma.
But Lily Highwater hadn’t. She’d asked only one question, after a few minutes in silence as they worked their way out to the highway that would take them to Fredericksburg. She’d glanced at him and said honestly, “As a new mother myself, I greatly respect anyone who would do this for their child, Mr. Thorpe. I know who the nexus of the local grapevine is, and if I tell him to put the word out onwhyyou’re here, I can promise ninety percent of Last Stand will back off and give you the room and time to see to your son. Shall I do it?”
“In exchange for what?”
She gave him another glance, her expression almost sad now. “Is everything a trade-off in that town?”
He didn’t have to ask what town she meant. “Pretty much.”
“Well, this is Last Stand, Texas, Mr. Thorpe. And I give you my word we’re not that way.”
He didn’t know what to say. Finally, with a sideways look at her as she drove, he asked, “Is that a word with your husband’s position behind it?”
She didn’t deny it. “If necessary. To borrow a cliché, his word is law in Last Stand.”
“I can see why,” he said, thinking again of that story in the window, and the plaque on the statue.
“So, yes or no, Mr. Thorpe?”
He took a deep breath. It was all in or get out of the pool, as Tucker was wont to say. “Yes. On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Stop calling me Mr. Thorpe.”
She laughed, and it was a lovely sound. And he had the feeling that Shane Highwater had found a woman worthy of him. Which was saying something.
