Home To Texas. Bethany Campbell

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.”

      “You know me,” drawled a low, familiar voice. “I grew up there. I got people there. They’ll watch out for you and Del.”

      She whirled to face the second man. He’d been silent so long, and her conversation with Gavin had been so intense, she’d almost forgotten his presence. It was one of her brother’s two partners, Cal McKinney.

      She stared at him as if he had just magically appeared in a puff of smoke. He was tall, but not as tall as Gavin. He was wider in the shoulders, and he carried himself like the rodeo cowboy he’d once been. He was a devilishly handsome man with thick brown hair and long-lashed hazel eyes.

      In his late thirties, he still had a boyish air, even more so when he smiled and showed his dimples. He showed them now. “You’re perfect for this, Tara. You know it. Gavin knows it. I know it. And Spence goes along with us.”

      Spencer Malone was the third partner. She knew him, but not nearly as well as she knew Cal. And Cal, bless him, was generous to a fault. So was Gavin, where she and Del were concerned.

      “I—I couldn’t do it. And you’d just be doing it as a favor because Gavin thinks I need to get away from here. I—”

      “No.” Cal’s smile faded. “You’re doing us the favor. Didn’t you study design in college?”

      “Yes.” Her major was design, her minor equestrian studies. It might seem an odd combination to some, but to her it had been as natural as breathing. It was she, not Sid, who’d done most of the renovation on the little ranch outside Santa Clarita. Sid couldn’t read a blueprint or pound a nail in straight.

      Cal said, “Serena and I’ve seen your ranch. You did a top-notch job on it. I know that’s true ’cause Serena tells me and that woman’s got taste.”

      “In everything but husbands,” joked Gavin.

      “Especially in husbands,” Cal shot back,