Heartsong. Sara Walter Ellwood

side of the grave drew his attention. If Lemont Finn mourned his eldest daughter’s untimely and tragic death, he hid the emotion well. Gabe squared his shoulders and met the man’s steady gaze with one of his own. Finn may be the richest man in the county, but Gabe’s bank account wasn’t as empty as it had been when he had lived here. He was never getting Jesse, who he wanted to bend and mold into the ruthless heir his daughters never could be.

      Jesse sniffled again and Gabe glanced at his brother. Gabe’s heart bruised a little more every time he thought about the loss of Sam and Frankie in Jesse’s young life.

      When the preacher tossed a handful of dirt onto each of the caskets, Michaela let out a loud sob. She’d held it together fairly well until then. She hugged Jesse and her back curved in with the weight of her grief. Before he thought his actions through, Gabe wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her to him with Jesse between them. She stiffened and stepped away when Jesse wrapped his arms around Gabe’s waist. Shaking from her tears, she turned to her mother. Michaela and Loretta held on to each other and sobbed.

      Gabe held the boy as the preacher finished the final prayer.

      Jesse pressed his face into Gabe’s chest and murmured too low for anyone else to hear, “I will always love you, Momma and Daddy.”

      Gabe looked down at Jesse as he held him close. Emotion crashed over him so fierce and blinding, Gabe fell to his knees. Memories of his own childhood with his father hammered at the shell he’d built around his heart. Gabe had once loved Sam McKenna as much as this sobbing boy in his arms did.

      The first tear Gabe had shed in public since his mother’s death dropped off his lash. “They know.”

      Jesse met his gaze and hiccupped. “We’re orphans now, aren’t we?”

      Gabe stroked his brother’s unruly black curls. He looked so much like Gabe had as a boy, except Jesse had inherited his mother’s blue eyes. “Yeah.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “We are, buddy. But you will always have me.”

      Michaela rested her hand on Jesse’s shoulder, and he turned to look up at her. “And you’ve got me and Grandma. We won’t let anything ever happen to you.”

      As Gabe stood, he glanced at Lemont. The man’s challenging glare sent a shiver down his spine. Lemont put his hands into his pockets, turned away from the grave, and headed toward the social center where a meal had been set up by the church ladies.

      Jesse watched his grandfather walk away, and a tremble ran through the boy’s lean body.

      “C’mon.” Gabe squeezed Jesse’s shoulders and turned toward the church. “Let’s go.”

      Micki followed with her mother into the cool interior of the social hall. In her motorized wheelchair, Loretta stopped beside Gabe and Jesse. Gabe glanced at the older woman’s tear-streaked face as a grimace pinched her lips. Micki had told him yesterday that Loretta was in constant pain. A symptom of her multiple sclerosis.

      “You okay, Loretta?” Gabe lightly touched her shoulder.

      “I’ll be fine. Stop fussing over me.” Loretta’s speech was slightly slurred and slow. She closed her eyes and sniffed before moving away from him.

      Michaela shook her head and held back the moisture he saw in her eyes. “Jesse, please help Grandma.”

      He nodded and quickly caught up with her as an older couple stopped to offer their condolences. Jesse held Loretta’s hand and nodded at something Mrs. Owens said to him.

      Michaela cleared her throat and folded her arms in front of her. “I hate all of this.”

      “Yeah.” The tension tightened around Gabe like a belt binding his chest. “It’s got to be hard on you, seeing your momma like this all the time.”

      She took a deep breath raising her shoulders; then she met Gabe’s eyes. “Usually she has a sensation of pins and needles, but recently her trigeminal neuralgia has been worse.”

      He raised a brow. “What’s that?”

      “Facial pain.”

      “Can’t something be done about it?” They moved farther into the room. Although people observed them, quietly sending their sympathy, they kept their distance. They seemed to understand Gabe and Michaela’s need to be alone.

      “There’s a surgery, but it’s expensive and Momma’s Medicare would only pay a very small part of it.” She glanced toward her mother. “I’ll get something worked out.”

      Near a table set up for drinks, Loretta talked to an older woman he recognized as Mary Nelson. The woman poured Loretta a plastic cup of Seven Up, which she took with shaky hands. Jesse helped her hold the drink to her lips.

      Before he had a chance to say anything on the matter, Michaela squared her shoulders and stared at him. “When are you leaving?”

      Michaela had never been anything but direct.

      Gabe shrugged and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow after the will reading. I have meetings with my record company and a show in Cheyenne next week.” He nodded an acknowledgement to a guy he’d gone to high school with. “I haven’t told Jesse yet.”

      “He knows you live in Nashville. He’ll be okay with Momma and me.”

      “About that…” He met her eyes again, the sparkling blue hauntingly deep and inviting. And scared. She’d had the same frightened look the day she’d given him the ultimatum--either he chased his dream or he stayed and married her, but he couldn’t have both.

      “You can’t take him with you.” She stepped closer and dropped her arms to her sides, fisting her hands. “Gabe, dear God, he just lost his parents. You can’t rip him from everything he knows.”

      “I know.” A terrible pain twisted his gut. The road wasn’t the place for a kid. There was only one thing to do. He took a deep breath and glanced at Loretta and Jesse. “If you need anything, Michaela, let me know. I could help you out.”

      Her face became a storm cloud ready to burst as she stiffened her back. “We’re fine. And I most certainly don’t need your money to take care of my family. Excuse me.”

      She spun away and shifted through the crowd and around the long tables filling with people. A younger man approached her and sat down beside her at the table in the back. He looked to be in his early twenties and was dressed in a dark Western-cut blazer and slacks. Something about him seemed familiar; then he recognized him. He was Mary and JP Nelson’s youngest son, Cash. He worked part-time on the Lazy M. Hadn’t he become a high school history teacher or something?

      Michaela bit her lip and nodded to whatever he said. Cash pulled her into a one-armed embrace, and she laid her head on his shoulder.

      Gabe wasn’t ready for the sudden jolt of jealousy zipping through him when she snaked her arm around Cash’s waist. Why did he care if they were an item?

      “Aren’t they a handsome pair?”

      Gabe turned to face the man behind him. Lemont watched him with calculating blue eyes, reminding Gabe of a rattlesnake before the strike. Gabe didn’t justify his question with an answer. Straightening his shoulders, he unlocked his back teeth. “I’m sure you aren’t here to offer your condolences. So, what do you want?”

      Lemont’s grin never reached his cold eyes. “You know what I want.”

      “Jesse is not living with you. I believe DFPS made that clear.”

      Lemont chuckled and rested his hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “My dear boy, hadn’t your daddy told you anything about me?”

      Gabe glanced at the big, age-spotted hand on his shoulder. “He told me plenty, and so have Michaela, Frankie, and Loretta.”

      Slowly nodding with a smirk Gabe wanted to knock off the bastard’s face, Lemont said, “Then you should know I usually