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Lauren watched as Gray smiled down at the child, the tenderness on his face almost more than she could bear.

“Mommy! Mommy, did you see me ride the horse?” Sarah glowed with excitement.

“I sure did, sweetie.” Lauren met Gray’s eyes only briefly. Even that contact sent an unwanted tingle up her spine.

Gray dismounted and lifted Sarah off the horse.

“I had this much fun!” Sarah exclaimed, holding her arms wide. “I want you to ride, too!” She looked expectantly from Lauren to Gray. “Please, Mommy?”

“I’d be happy to take you,” Gray offered.

Lauren glowered at him, which only made him grin. “All right, all right.”

Once Lauren settled on the saddle, Gray slid in behind her. His palm flattened on her abdomen and pressed her closer to his hard male body. She trembled at the feel of him. His fingers knotted in the cotton of her T-shirt, then relaxed.

He felt it too, she realized.

Gray Longwalker might like to pretend he was in control, but when it came to this attraction between them, he was as defenseless as she was.

Longwalker’s Child
Debra Webb

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Thanks to a friend and fellow author Tina Leonard for keeping me straight on my Texas facts.

This book is dedicated to the light of my life, my little girl, Melissa. God gave me a very special gift when he sent you to me. Be sweet always, and remember that I will always love you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Debra Webb was born in Scottsboro, Alabama, to parents who taught her that anything is possible if you want it badly enough. She began writing at age nine. Eventually, she met and married the man of her dreams, and tried some other occupations, including selling vacuum cleaners, and working in a factory, a day-care center, a hospital and a department store. When her husband joined the military, they moved to Berlin, Germany, and Debra became a secretary in the commanding general’s office. By 1985 they were back in the States, and finally moved to Tennessee, to a small town where everyone knows everyone else. With the support of her husband and two beautiful daughters, Debra took up writing again, looking to mystery and movies for inspiration. In 1998 her dream of writing for Harlequin came true.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

“I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

Lauren Whitmore looked up at the tall raven-haired man filling her doorway. Wearing a black Stetson and duster, he all but blocked the bright morning sun, casting an ominous shadow across her threshold. His dark hair fell well past his broad shoulders, lending an even more roguish quality to his appearance. His face, all shadows and angles, was undeniably good-looking.

At first Lauren considered that maybe the handsome stranger who’d knocked on her door was lost, but one good look into his eyes changed her mind and stilled her heart.

Eyes that Lauren looked into every day of her life—the same intense gray eyes of her soon-to-be-adopted daughter. Fear slid through her veins.

“I’m sure you’re mistaken, sir,” she finally managed to say despite the rush of hysteria crowding her throat. Lauren grasped the tarnished brass knob more firmly and prepared to close the door. Please God, she prayed, just let me get this door closed and locked so I can get to the telephone and call Don. He will know how to handle this.

The man flattened one wide palm against the door, halting its movement. “Wait. You are Lauren Whitmore.”

Lauren knew he wasn’t asking. This was the kind of man who calculated every move, every word. He knew exactly who she was before he stopped at her ranch and knocked on her door.

“Yes,” she said, her voice strained with the effort of maintaining her composure. “I’m Lauren Whitmore.” Panic snaked around her heart as she groped for some kind of plan—any kind of plan to get rid of him until she could make just one call. “But there’s nothing here that belongs to anyone but me,” she hedged. Technically it was the truth—she was alone in the house.

“This is your ad.”

Another statement. He thrust the crumpled newspaper he held in his left hand in her direction. His expression determined, the angular features of his face slashed in granite.

Lauren moistened her dry lips and tried to swallow, but she couldn’t. Her gaze dropped from his watchful gaze to the newspaper he offered. Concentrating hard to keep her hand steady, she took the paper and stared blankly at the ad circled in red. She didn’t have to read the printed words…she knew what they said because the ad did belong to her.

Ice-cold dread formed in her stomach. This was the nightmare Don, her good friend and trusted attorney, had assured Lauren would never happen.

Never, he’d emphasized.

Lauren drew in a shaky breath and met the man’s piercing gray gaze once more. “Who wants to know?” she asked in the bravest tone she could muster. Her heart pounded wildly as she waited for the answer she didn’t want to hear.

“Gray Longwalker,” he said roughly, as if accustomed to a particular reaction to the announcement. A muscle flexed in his deeply bronzed jaw.

“I’ll need to see some sort of identification,” Lauren insisted. The delay tactic would prove futile, but she had to try. Though fear whittled away at her resolve not to run as fast as she could away from him, Lauren held her ground. She needed some inkling of his immediate intent.

One corner of his mouth lifted in a patient but weary gesture that wasn’t quite a smile. She had the distinct impression that he had not smiled often during his thirty or so years. Somehow that thought disturbed her. Lauren tamped down the reaction. She would not feel anything even remotely related to sympathy for this man. This was the man who held the power to devastate the life she had built since coming to this town.

Lauren squared her shoulders and met his searching gaze. Taking his time so that he could analyze her more thoroughly, he reached into the back pocket of his faded jeans and removed his wallet. The March wind ruffled the duster around his legs, the flapping sound loud in the otherwise stark silence.

He flashed a Texas driver’s license. “Gray Longwalker,” he repeated, his tone wary now, as if he’d read her last thought. He shoved the worn leather wallet back into his pocket. “I’ve come for my daughter.”

The words, though expected, echoed all the way through Lauren’s soul. She blinked twice. Her skin felt clammy, and the hasty breakfast she’d wolfed down less than half an hour ago threatened to make a reappearance. She knew the symptoms and what would follow. She willed herself to calm, taking a slow, deep breath to fight the light-headedness already overtaking her. This was not the time to lose control. She focused on blocking the disabling sensations clawing at her.

“She’s not here,” Lauren informed him with surprising strength. She would not allow him to destroy their little family. Surely the man could be persuaded to see reason. But right now she had to get to Don’s office.

“You’re sure about that,” he pressed, easing a step closer, putting himself in her doorway.

Lauren suppressed the desperate words she wanted to blurt out and struggled to think rationally. Gray Longwalker didn’t know his child’s name or what she even looked like, yet he had come to claim her. He had to be reacting on impulse. How could he expect to just take her away? His gaze shifted to the hall behind her, then settled intently back on her.

“I said she’s not here.” She resisted the urge to retreat a step from his stare.

“I’d like to know where she is, then,” he said quietly, too quietly. “Please,” he added stiffly.

Lauren was certain that word hadn’t come easily. Something resembling the same desperation she felt glimmered from the gray depths that marked this man as the father of the child Lauren had called her own for almost a year now. He was every bit as anxious as she was, but beneath the surface a storm was brewing. She could feel it emanating from him in waves. Gray Longwalker was holding back, restraining something that felt very much like rage. Lauren knew with complete certainty that she should be afraid. She should be very afraid.

“I told you she’s not here.” Lauren lifted her chin in defiance of her own emotions. She had to be strong. She had to fight this man. He would not take her child away.

Something changed in his eyes then. The anger she’d felt simmering overrode his restraint. “Patience is not one of my strong suits, Ms. Whitmore,” he warned, his voice low, lethal. “I’ll ask you again, where is she?”

Her heart banged painfully against her chest, but Lauren ignored the ache. “I’ll get my keys and you can follow me into town to my attorney’s office.”

He shook his head slowly from side to side. “I don’t want to see your attorney. I want to see my daughter.”

“Mr. Longwalker, if you have no consideration for my feelings, at least consider the child’s.” Lauren blinked back the sting of tears. “How do you suppose she would feel if you burst into her classroom and announced that you were her father?”

Realization dawned in his eyes.

Oh, God! Lauren realized at that same instant that she had just told Gray Longwalker where his daughter could be found. She could well imagine him roaming the halls of Thatcher Elementary, looking for a child he’d never seen and asking for a daughter whose name he didn’t even know. Somehow he didn’t appear the type to be thwarted by mere technicalities.

“Thank you for your kind assistance, Ms. Whitmore,” he said tightly, then turned and strode away.

Not a single doubt existed in Lauren’s mind that he fully intended to go straight to the school. He had already made it across the porch and down the steps before Lauren found her voice.

“Wait, please,” she called after him. By the time he turned back to face her, Lauren stood on the bottom step, practically at eye level with him. She shivered when his gray gaze collided with hers. A strange spark of awareness arced briefly between them, and Lauren felt oddly violated, as if he had looked right through to her soul.

“What?” he demanded, seemingly oblivious to the zing of electricity that had passed between them.

Lauren dismissed the unfamiliar sensation as a part of the lingering shock of finding Gray Longwalker at her door, not to mention the monster headache threatening. “Think,” she pleaded. “We both want what’s best for Sarah—”

“Sarah…that’s her name?” His features relaxed just a fraction, an almost-imperceptible vulnerability crept into his wary eyes.

“Yes.”

He looked away. Lauren watched the smooth movement of muscle beneath dark skin as he swallowed hard. However cold and ruthless this man was rumored to be, hearing his child’s name for the first time touched something deep inside him. That knowledge only served to increase Lauren’s mounting anxiety. God, why had he come? He couldn’t possibly love Sarah the way she did.

“Does she know anything about me?” His penetrating gaze locked back on Lauren’s. All signs of vulnerability had vanished. Those gray depths were like hard, metallic points probing past her defenses.

“No,” she said simply, and braced herself for his response.

Gray closed his eyes and then dropped his head. Lauren heard the heavy breath he released. She had expected him to explode into a rage, but he didn’t. For one fleeting moment she wanted to reach out to him…to tell him she was sorry about the whole situation. That maybe they could work something out, then Lauren remembered the promise she had made Sarah’s mother.

“Mr. Longwalker, I love Sarah. I must warn you that I’ll do whatever is necessary to keep her happy and safe.”

His head shot up, and his eyes blazed with a rage probably as old as he was. Startled, Lauren drew away from his fury as far as her precarious perch on the step above him would allow.

“Then we both want the same thing,” he said harshly.

Lauren shook her head, unsure as to how he would react to the words about to tumble from her mouth, but they had to be said. He had to understand. “I made a promise to Sarah’s mother on her deathbed that I would never let you take her child away and I intend to keep it.”

Pain and betrayal flashed in his eyes. Gray adjusted his black Stetson and gave her one last heated glare from beneath the brim. “You’d better get to your attorney’s office then, because you’ll need one if you think you’re going to keep my daughter from me.” He turned away and continued toward his truck. His movements were graceful and sleek like a cat’s, but at the same time more dangerous and determined than any animal’s, domesticated or otherwise, she had ever seen.

Lauren wasn’t a coward, but neither was she one to pick a fight—that fact didn’t stop her from bounding down that last step and grabbing Longwalker’s arm. She pulled him around to face her, which would have been impossible had she not taken him by complete surprise. He glared down at her, impatient and irritated by her lack of cooperation.

With a single lift of his shoulder, he shrugged off her hand. “You have something else to say before we go to your attorney’s office?”

“How can I be sure that you’ll follow me? What’s to keep you from going to the school and trying to find Sarah instead?” Lauren set her hands on her hips and glared back at him, though she trembled inside. Every vicious story she had ever heard about the man flashed through her mind during the brief pause before he answered. Stories that would make the bravest woman fear for her safety in his presence. Especially alone.

“I’ll be right behind you, Ms. Whitmore,” he assured her. “You have my word.”

Lauren almost laughed at the absurdity of his statement. “I’m afraid your word doesn’t mean much around these parts, Mr. Longwalker.”

He made a mirthless sound in his throat. “Tell me something I don’t know.” His somber gaze punctuated his words. “You have my word,” he repeated then turned away once more.

Lauren watched as Gray Longwalker took the last few steps to his truck and seated himself behind the wheel. He made no move to start the engine; he just sat there and stared at her. Waiting, Lauren supposed, for her to get in her own car and lead the way.

Maybe she was a fool, but she believed him. Contrary to the rumors she’d heard, Longwalker didn’t strike her as the sort of man who gave his word lightly. Deliberately Lauren turned her back on the man and went inside the house to get her keys. Despite the display of trust, she listened for the roar of his truck’s engine as she searched for her forever-misplaced keys. The sound never came.

Lauren finally located her keys, grabbed her purse and headed for the door. In an hour she had a teleconference with a client and his building contractor, but she would just have to miss it. Maybe she could call Rosemary from Don’s office and have her reschedule the conference. She didn’t have time to leave her a note. What would her assistant think when she returned from her run to the post office and found Lauren gone? And what about lunch? Lauren swore silently as she locked the door behind her. Buck had asked her to lunch today. The man was obsessing about a reconciliation. But he would just have to wait, as well.

Lauren’s one and only concern right now was Gray Longwalker’s return.

GRAY WATCHED the hushed exchange between the Whitmore woman and her lawyer. He vaguely remembered Don Davis. The best he could recall, the man was at least ten years his senior. When Gray had left the small Texas town of Thatcher six years ago, Davis had been practicing law with his father. Gray supposed the older man had retired or passed away since the storefront window now read The Law Office of Don Davis. Gray remembered the elder Davis as a fair man. He only hoped the son would prove as just.

Had it only been six years ago that he had left this godforsaken place? It seemed like a lifetime. Yet nothing had changed. The people in this town would still think of him as nothing more than a half-breed bastard. An outcast. He wasn’t blind. He had seen the stares as he walked down the sidewalk to Davis’s office. The difference between six years ago and now was that Gray no longer cared. He frowned as the hushed conversation on the other side of the room jerked him back to the present. Whatever Davis was trying to get across to the woman, she didn’t seem to be taking it very well.

Lauren Whitmore was a transplant—a northerner, Gray had assumed from her accent even before Davis had mentioned Chicago. From the discussion they’d just had, Gray had learned that she had moved to Thatcher about three years prior and befriended another of the town’s outcasts, Sharon Johnson.

Gray closed his eyes and summoned Sharon’s image. A slight woman with fiery-red hair and eyes like a clear summer sky. As much as he hated to admit it, he hadn’t thought of her in years, though she had been a friend to him for most of his life. Sharon had been the only person who had tried to understand him or the emotions that drove him. Emotions or ghosts? Gray wondered. It had taken him many years to come to terms with what he was and the hand fate had cruelly dealt him.

He and Sharon hadn’t been in love with each other, but their feelings had been strong just the same. Those last few weeks before Gray had hit the road and left his sorry past behind, Sharon had been his only source of emotional support. He hadn’t meant to make love to her—it had just happened. It grieved him immensely that she hadn’t called on him in her time of need. She had died alone, save for the Whitmore woman and the child whom she had kept hidden from Gray.

Gray opened his eyes and forced the painful memories away. He had left Sharon with child, and she obviously hadn’t considered him worthy of the knowledge. He supposed he couldn’t really blame her. He had been a bitter, mixed-up hothead back in those days. Still, the fact that she hadn’t told him didn’t sit right in his gut. He knew Sharon. Or at least he thought he had. Things had gotten a little crazy those last couple of weeks before he left. Leaving Thatcher had been the only thing that had kept him sane and out of trouble with the law—at least the law according to the Buckmasters.

Enough, Longwalker, he ordered. Gray turned his attention back to the Whitmore woman. A thick mane of blond hair fell around her shoulders. Her eyes were the greenest Gray had ever seen. Like jade. She had long, shapely legs to which the navy leggings she wore clung like a second skin. The thigh-length matching sweater did nothing to conceal the lush curves underneath. Gray felt a stirring in his loins and averted his gaze.

She might look like a million bucks, but he already knew that Lauren Whitmore would treat him just the way everybody else in this town did. Not to mention the fact that she stood between him and his child. The child he had only recently learned existed.

Gray set his jaw and willed the rage to retreat. Rehashing the past would serve no purpose, but he would not allow history to repeat itself. Gray had been called a half-breed all his life. No one who wanted to continue breathing would ever call a child of his half-breed. And no child of his would ever be called a bastard.

He glanced at the Whitmore woman again. No one would stop him from claiming his child.

No one.

Since Gray’s whereabouts had been unknown, an ad announcing the Whitmore woman’s intent to adopt the daughter of Sharon Johnson and Gray Longwalker had been placed in the local newspaper of his last-known city of residence.

Gray knew without a doubt that no real effort had been made to find him. Davis had merely fulfilled the necessary legal technicalities to proceed with the adoption. Neither he nor Lauren intended for Gray to find out about Sarah. If they had known that Gray still had connections in Laredo, the ad would never have been placed in a newspaper there. Still, he’d had to give her the benefit of the doubt. But when he had gone to Lauren’s door, her attitude had told him she wasn’t interested. And now, here they were, sitting in her attorney’s office getting nowhere.

Lauren and Davis had apparently reached some sort of decision and both returned to their seats. Davis settled behind the big oak desk and Lauren sat in the chair adjacent to Gray. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on Davis, not giving Gray so much as a sideways glance.

Gray’s pulse picked up. Now he would find out just how serious Lauren Whitmore was about keeping his daughter from him.

“Mr. Longwalker,” Davis began, “the law clearly gives you the right to demand custody of your child—”

Lauren gasped, but quickly cleared her throat and clasped her hands in her lap. Gray saw the tremendous effort she required to compose herself once more. She evidently didn’t want to hear what her attorney had to say now any more than she had a few moments ago.

“As I was saying,” Davis continued. “If you are, in fact, Sarah’s biological father, then you have every right to petition the court for custody.”

“Is there any question that I’m the father?” Gray straightened in his chair and leveled his full attention on the round face of the stocky attorney. “I thought Sharon named me as the father on the birth certificate.” And with his Navajo heritage there couldn’t be much question as to whether the child had inherited his Native American features. That part would be obvious. With her Irish-American background, Sharon certainly couldn’t have passed those traits onto the child.

“That’s true. Ms. Johnson did name you as the father, however, that alone won’t stand up in court.”

Gray’s hackles rose at the implication. “Sharon Johnson might not have been one of Thatcher’s more prominent citizens, but she would never have lied about something like this.” Gray had no intention of sitting here and allowing some spit-polished, college-educated snob to sully Sharon’s name, even though she hadn’t seen fit to let Gray know about his child.

“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Davis clarified quickly.

“Good,” Gray said, and glared at the man behind the desk. He forced his fury back to a manageable level. He had worked long and hard to learn to control his temper, but this new turn of events was testing those limits.

“Ms. Whitmore was given full custody of the child by the biological mother. If you choose to contend her adoption proceedings, then it’s up to you to prove your right to do so in a court of law.”

Gray shrugged. “I have no problem with that. Just tell me where to go and what to do.”

Davis eyed him skeptically. “The test and court costs will be quite expensive, Mr. Longwalker. Since it is up to you to prove paternity, then the burden of cost for both you and the child will fall on your shoulders.”

“Whatever it takes,” Gray responded without hesitation. His own attorney had warned him to expect this stall tactic.

Lauren darted a nervous glance in his direction. Gray smiled to himself. He may have left Thatcher as poor as dirt, but he hadn’t been as dumb as dirt. Don Davis would probably faint dead away if he knew just how much money Gray had growing interest in a Dallas bank account.

“Well, then.” Davis jotted a few notes on his legal pad before looking up again. “I’ll see that the arrangements for the test are made as soon as possible. Leave a contact number with my secretary and I’ll be in touch. Once the paternity issue is resolved in the eyes of the law, Mr. Longwalker, you may petition the court for custody.”

Gray had a bad feeling about the custody part. Lauren Whitmore probably had the whole town on her side—including the judge. “How long will the test results take?”

“Two weeks at least,” Davis answered smoothly.

“The custody battle, however, could go on for months—” he peered self-righteously at Gray over his wire-rimmed bifocals “—or years even,” he finished smugly.

Gray restrained the anger that skyrocketed inside him. He didn’t care how long it took. Sarah was his child, and he fully intended to have her. “Fine,” he relented, his patience holding on by a thin thread. “When can I see Sarah?”

“Don,” Lauren protested. She clutched the arms of her chair, her knuckles white with the effort.

“We won’t discuss visitation until after paternity has been established,” Davis stated, as if the issue was closed to further discussion.

Gray rose to his full height of six feet two inches. He leaned over and placed his hands palm down on Davis’s gleaming desktop and settled a gaze Gray hoped communicated the seriousness of his words to the man staring up at him. “Discuss visitation or don’t discuss it, it makes no difference to me. But I will see my daughter. Is that clear?”

“You will have absolutely no contact with Lauren unless it comes through me, Mr. Longwalker. I hope that’s clear,” he said cautiously. “And threatening me won’t do you any good,” he added carefully.

“It’s not a threat,” Gray offered without apology. He straightened and picked up his hat from the table that separated his chair from Lauren’s. “It’s a promise.” He met Lauren Whitmore’s gaze for the space of two heartbeats before turning away.

Gray strode out of the office without a backward glance. As angry as he was, he knew one thing for sure—he would never be able to forget the look on Lauren Whitmore’s face. As pale as a ghost, her eyes full of fear, she had looked ready to break down and cry.

He hardened his heart against the sympathy that arose immediately. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t given her the opportunity to resolve this thing between the two of them. But she wanted no part of a negotiation. She had made up her mind long before laying eyes on Gray. She intended to keep his daughter from him, that much was evident. Gray clenched his jaw. He had no doubt that the woman cared deeply for his daughter. Lauren Whitmore would suffer as this battle played out. But her pain was inconsequential, Gray reminded himself. His only concern was claiming his daughter—Sarah.