Gambling On A Dream. Sara Walter Ellwood

interstate mess around Dallas and Fort Worth.”

      “He may have seen something.” Wyatt put voice to her thoughts.

      She glanced at him, and for a beat, she went back in time, before she’d lost the baby, before he’d left her. They broke the spell at the same time when they turned away. She shifted in her seat to lean over her arms, and in the process, brushed his arm. “Do you have surveillance video?”

      “Yeah.” Murphy leaned back in his chair.

      Wyatt stood and moved to the other end of the table where he folded his arms in front of him. The meeting was over. “We’ll need to see those CDs.”

      Gene nodded his head. “Sure. I’ll bring them by later today.”

      * * * *

      Wyatt parked his Silverado beside his mother’s Ford Focus in the gravel driveway, leaned his head back against the rest, and closed his eyes.

      He should have known taking this case would bring back memories he’d long ago tried to forget. Dawn was still as driven as she’d always been. Four years ago, they’d been paired together on the Dallas PD, after his partner took a job with the DEA. Wyatt had worked in vice for about two years, and Dawn had been on patrol a little over a year.

      They’d been friends since they were kids, he’d even taken her to her senior prom, but working together as police partners had required a deeper relationship. Some cops claimed it bordered on a marriage, especially among vice cops who were constantly working in dangerous situations where undying trust and strong commitment to each other were important.

      Dawn had been a great undercover cop. Since she was young, and all but full-blooded Native American with a little African-American and Spanish blood mixed in, she could infiltrate gangs rather easily. He’d loved to watch her work.

      Then one night while they’d been on a stakeout, they’d let their mutual attraction get away with them. The moment they were off duty, they’d gone back to his place and made love for hours.

      He’d just come off a bad breakup with a local TV news anchor he’d dated off and on since college, and Dawn had dumped a loser whom she caught cheating on her. There had been no regrets after that night. If anything, they’d wondered why they hadn’t ever gotten together before then. For five months, they’d spent every moment together. She’d maintained her apartment for appearances, but had moved in with him.

      He’d wanted more, but she wanted to become a detective. His dream had been to buy a ranch somewhere and raise a family with her. However, all she ever wanted had been to work her way up the ranks and eventually run for sheriff of Forest County. For her, settling down and family weren’t even on the radar.

      He’d fallen in love with her, and he’d been confident she felt the same about him, but she’d never mentioned having a future with him.

      He opened his eyes and straightened in the seat, shutting down the memories before they dragged him down into the sewer of pain and betrayal. Revisiting the night his world came to an end wasn’t something he willing did.

      In the distance, a car alarm went off, drawing his attention to the east and beyond the old split rail fence where the pastures used to be. Now, a bunch of Dallas and Waco middle management types and soccer moms populated the housing development that had sprung up over the past three years.

      Considering Leon Ferguson was in jail for his numerable crimes, who would take over building the city-slicker cookie-cutter houses?

      With an ounce of luck, no one would take over. He was glad the construction had halted. Thank God, the mall was on the other side of what used to be a five-hundred-acre ranch. He grew up on the Circle M, working with his grandfather, and his younger shithead brother, Kyle.

      Kyle was also staring down a long stint as a resident of the state pen for his conspiring with Leon Ferguson against Wyatt’s cousin, Dylan Quinn, and his new wife, Charli Monroe Quinn.

      What a waste, not only of Kyle’s life, but of the land, too. Would his grandfather still have sold the place to the developer if he’d known what would have come of his home? What if he had known Wyatt had come to his senses and wanted to become a rancher?

      Wyatt’s father never had any interest in the ranch. So, when the time came for Granddad to hang up his branding iron, he figured it would be best to sell the place. At the time, Wyatt had been a big city vice cop, and his younger brother was about as responsible as a horsefly. While his sister Audrey already lived on a twenty-thousand-acre ranch with her fancy divorce lawyer husband, and his other sister had been working her way up the ranks in the United States Army and rarely came home.

      Besides, his grandfather figured the money from the sale would be a wonderful chunk of change for all of them. Having a few million in the bank was nice, but damn, Wyatt missed the ranch.

      He got out of the SUV and headed up the front porch steps to enter the home he grew up in. His parents had built the ranch-style house after their wedding. His grandparents had lived about a quarter mile down the road. Now, a bank sat where the house had been, his grandmother moved to Phoenix with her best friend, and his grandfather resided in the Ferguson family plot in the Colton cemetery.

      Goddamn, he hated change.

      He wanted his life the way it had been before things were all fucked up because he failed to protect what was important.

      Thinking about Dawn was as crazy as remembering his life on the ranch way back when. Neither one could be changed.

      Inside the foyer, Crystal Gayle’s Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue drifted to him from the direction of the kitchen. His mother was frying chicken and baking homemade bread and maybe apple pie, if his nose could be trusted. He hung his hat on the rack in the corner by the door and followed the smells into the kitchen.

      Jeannie Burton McPherson looked up from the electric frying pan she only used to fry chicken. A cheerful smile brightened her still-pretty face. From the tight curls her graying red hair was wound into, she’d visited their cousin’s beauty salon earlier that day and gotten a perm.

      He rounded the counter and bent to kiss her on the cheek, the odor of the perming solution lingering in her hair, and the delicious aroma of the foods wrinkled his nose as they mixed. He pulled away and smiled. “Ma, Dad’s gonna have to keep an eye on you. You keep getting prettier. I like your hair.”

      She laughed and swatted at his shoulder, but he didn’t miss the slight blush. “You’re such a charmer.”

      With a grin, he looked into the frying pan at the batter dipped chicken pieces frying in what was undoubtedly lard and butter. “You’re gonna make me as big as a linebacker if you keep up all this cooking.”

      She flipped a crispy drumstick. “You could use some more meat on your bones. You always look half-starved when you come home. I swear you don’t eat when you’re living on your own. I remember that time before you quit the police in Dallas, when you were so skinny, I could almost see through you.”

      He didn’t want to think about that time in his life. After Dawn took a bullet meant for him, he stopped caring about much except going after the thugs who had almost killed the only woman he’d ever loved. But it went deeper than that, she hadn’t only put her own life in jeopardy, she sacrificed the child he hadn’t known she’d carried.

      His son.

      Goddamn, now wasn’t the time to take a trip down that particular rocky memory lane.

      The last thing he wanted was his mother noticing the searing pain he was sure reflected in his face. He picked up a lid on one of the pots to find boiling potatoes. “I eat. I just take after the Ferguson side of the family. I’m tall and lean, but I’ve never been skinny.”

      He carried the hundred-ninety pounds of hard muscle on his six-foot, two-inch frame to prove it.

      A timer went off, and she opened the oven door to pull out a golden brown apple pie. She set it on a cooling rack. The rich apple and cinnamon scents filling