The Cowboy's Accidental Baby. Marin Thomas

into his pants pocket and returned the gas nozzle to the holder, then went into the store and examined the souvenirs on display by the drink machine.

      The options for birthday gifts were limited to bags of pecans, a faux-leather wallet with an image of the Texas state flag stamped on it, an Alamo snow globe, a wooden rattlesnake and an armadillo key chain. The rattler won—it fit his grandfather’s personality.

      “Eight dollars and sixty-six cents,” the clerk said after Gunner set the snake and his fountain drink on the counter.

      “Throw a pack of Marlboro on there.” Gramps had quit smoking years ago but lit up on special occasions. Maybe the lung darts would settle the old man down.

      Back in the pickup, he flipped on the radio and Johnny Cash’s voice came through the speakers. The town of Stampede was only ten minutes up the highway. Three songs later he moved over to the shoulder, then turned onto the dirt road that led to Paradise Ranch, a.k.a. Ornery Acres. Gunner and his siblings had nicknamed the homestead after their grandfather’s sunny disposition.

      Grandpa Emmett had always been cantankerous, but he’d grown crabbier after Grandma Sara had passed away from cancer and then five years later Gunner’s father had been struck by a car and killed while changing a flat tire on the side of the road. From that day on, Gramps had become almost impossible to live with.

      Since Gunner and his brothers didn’t have a mother—they had one, but she’d taken off before Grandma Sara had died—their father and then grandfather had been saddled with riding herd over three rowdy boys and Gramps had never been good at herding.

      After he parked in front of the sprawling one-story wood-and-stone ranch house, he entered through the back door and stepped into the kitchen. Shuffling sounds came from the hallway and he quickly stuffed the bag with the cigarettes and wooden snake in it beneath the kitchen sink. Seconds later his grandfather walked into the room.

      “The last time you looked that angry, I broke the handle on the upstairs toilet,” Gunner said.

      Gramps hitched his pants. “That woman’s determined to shove me off the wagon.”

      Grandpa Emmett was an alcoholic—Gunner’s father had been one, too. So far he and his brothers hadn’t followed in the family tradition and Gunner planned on keeping it that way. Hoping to cajole his grandfather out of his bad mood, he said, “You want to eat out tomorrow for your birthday?”

      “I’m too damned old to celebrate birthdays.”

      “Eighty-five is hardly old,” Gunner teased. “You’re practically a spring chicken.”

      “My private parts ain’t sprung in years, boy.”

      “They’ve got little blue pills for that, Gramps. I can call Doc Jones and have him write you a prescription.” His suggestion earned him another glare.

      “What has Amelia Rinehart done this time to get your dander up?” The old woman had been best friends with Gunner’s grandmother, but she rubbed Gramps the wrong way and no one knew why.

      “That wackadoodle gets an idea in her head and she can’t let it go.”

      “What idea?”

      “She says the town needs a makeover.”

      “What kind of makeover?”

      “She wants to spruce up the Moonlight Motel—” the old man’s pointer finger wagged in front of Gunner’s face “—because you’ve let it fall into disrepair.”

      “It doesn’t make sense to give it a face-lift.” Tourists had quit visiting Stampede years ago, instead bypassing the town and spending their money in nearby Mesquite and Rocky Point.

      “If you ran the motel better, Amelia wouldn’t be sticking her nose into our affairs.”

      Gunner admitted that his management skills could use a little work, but flirting with buckle bunnies, singing karaoke and riding Diablo were a heck of a lot more fun than babysitting a dumpy motel while waiting for a wayward traveler to rent a room. “Amelia can think it needs fixing up all she wants, but you own the property, so you can tell her to bug off and pester someone else.”

      “No, I can’t.”

      Gunner started at the serious tone in the old man’s voice. “Why not?”

      “I never paid back the money I borrowed from Amelia to buy the motel for your grandmother.”

      “I thought the bank loaned you the money.”

      “The bank wouldn’t give me a second loan.”

      “Second loan? What was the first?”

      Gramps waved his hand in the air. “Never mind that. I owe Amelia $130,000 for the motel and I don’t have the money to pay her. She says she’ll forgive the loan if I let her fix it up.”

      “Who’s footing the bill for the improvements?”

      “She is.”

      “A waste of cash if you ask me,” Gunner said.

      “There’s nothing I can do to stop her.” His grandfather narrowed his eyes. “And you’re going to help her.”

      “Help Amelia how?”

      “Not Amelia. You’re helping her niece renovate the motel. The sooner you get it fixed up, the sooner that old woman quits pestering me.”

      “What about my rodeo schedule?”

      “You can chase the girls after you finish with the motel.”

      Gunner raised his hands in the air. “Why does everyone think I rodeo for the buckle bunnies and not for the broncs?”

      “Maybe because you don’t make any money at it.”

      He ignored his grandfather’s quip and asked, “Which niece am I helping?” Amelia Rinehart had three nieces close to Gunner and his brothers’ ages.

      “Lydia Canter.”

      His memory recalled the unfriendly blonde at the gas station with Wisconsin plates on her car. No wonder he’d felt a sense of déjà vu at the Valero. He’d seen Lydia in church at her uncle’s funeral years ago. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen, but her hair had been the same pale blond and just as long.

      Suddenly Gunner was thinking that the Moonlight Motel might need a face-lift after all.

      * * *

      “I CAN’T BELIEVE it’s been nine years since I last visited Stampede.” Lydia sat on the front porch of her great-aunt’s brick Victorian. The home looked out of place in a town comprised mostly of single-story brick homes.

      “A funeral is hardly considered a visit, dear.”

      Lydia’s smile dimmed as she studied her grandmother’s eldest sister. “Are you lonely, Aunt Amelia?”

      “Sometimes, but Robert and I had fifty-two years together. More than many couples get these days.”

      “Mom sends her love,” Lydia said.

      “How is your mother?”

      “Busy with work.” Lydia’s mother was always busy. Her career came first before family. Every once in a while Lydia suspected her mother was disappointed that her only child hadn’t followed in her footsteps and become a lawyer, instead choosing a career in interior design.

      Aunt Amelia was the eldest of the four Westin daughters and the only one living. Her three sisters had passed away in their seventies, each leaving behind an only child—a daughter. Lydia and her cousins, Scarlett and Sadie, had been named after their grandmothers. Aunt Amelia had never had children and Lydia thought it was sad that her great-aunt didn’t have a granddaughter named after her.

      Lydia reached inside her purse for a tissue and her aunt asked, “Are you feeling any better?”

      “A