Texas Ranger Dad. Debra Clopton

met her eyes. “Mom, what’s wrong? You look like you’re about to cry,” he said, and the smile immediately faded from his face. “Mom?”

      Rose inhaled and glued her eyes to the road. How was she going to tell him what was really wrong with Zane?

      “Mom, please tell me you aren’t fixin’ to tell me we’re leaving.”

      

      “You okay?” Applegate asked. His loud voice added to the pounding in Zane’s head. It brought him back to his surroundings and he became aware of Norma Sue and Esther Mae whispering to each other while Applegate and Stanley openly stared at him. They’d seen exactly what he’d seen. But, obviously, they didn’t know the truth of it.

      They didn’t understand that it wasn’t some uncanny fluke that Max and him looked so much alike. In reality if it hadn’t been for the eyes and the smile they would have only resembled each other like people do. But it was the Cantrell eyes and smile that had them speechless. They didn’t know that the genetic pool had been passing that same magnetic smile and glittering, amber eye color to Cantrell men for generations.

      He had a son.

      Rose hadn’t said so—she didn’t need to. Max was his. It had been like looking at a teenage version of himself. How could this be?

      His head was pounding like it would explode. For nearly fifteen years he’d believed that Rose was the most honest woman he’d ever met and her integrity was above reproach. How could she have kept this from him? He focused on the group around him. Focused on covering up the emotions that were raw and exposed.

      “I’m fine,” he said.

      Stanley scratched his head. “That thar is jest plain somethin’. It’d been a shock to me, too, ta see somebody wearin’ my face.”

      “’At’s the truth,” Applegate grunted. “I told ya him and Max looked alike. It’s the eyes and that thar smile.”

      “The two of you could be related,” Esther Mae said. “Me and Norma Sue were speechless there for a minute.”

      “And that’s saying a whole heap.” Applegate cocked a bushy gray brow at him. “It jest don’t never happen.”

      Stanley wagged his head to and fro. “Esther Mae’s right, though.”

      “Son, did you and Rose—” Norma Sue began, then slammed her mouth shut and colored slightly. “Forget I said that.”

      Zane was already walking off, heading for his truck. He had a son.

      A half-grown son. And it was obvious that Max was as clueless as he was.

      

      “The witness protection program,” Max said, clearly confused.

      They were sitting in lawn chairs next to the house. It had been as far as Rose’s legs could carry her. In the car she’d assured him that they weren’t leaving but that she had something very important to tell him, but that it had to wait until they got home. She’d finally forced herself to just say it. Now, she nodded, giving him a moment to process the information.

      “But that’s for mobsters, isn’t it?”

      “Not always. Sometimes, innocent bystanders see something that puts them in danger and then they have to go into the program for the protection of themselves and their family. That’s what happened to me.”

      “Wow,” he said, interest replacing the confusion in his words. “You saw a murder? Were you scared?”

      She nodded again and swallowed the lump forming in her throat.

      “And then they saw you and tried to kill you? Like in the movies? Did you have to run? Did they shoot at you?”

      His questions flew at her like buckshot. She had to hold her hand up to get him to pause. “It wasn’t like that,” she said. “The man didn’t actually see me. I went to the police and picked him out of a police lineup.”

      “Cool,” Max said. “But how did he know it was you if he didn’t see you?”

      “He was a very bad man. He had connections. The police had already explained to me that I might have to go into the witness protection program.”

      “Wow,” he said again. “It’s just like an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger!”

      Though Max had loved that popular TV show, she’d never been able to sit through a full episode because it always caused bad memories of Zane to surface. “Sort of,” she said, and then answered some of his questions.

      “But why didn’t Grandma come with you?”

      Rose’s mother had gotten pregnant just out of high school and died giving birth to Rose. She’d never known who her dad was. The only people she had in her life were her grandmother and grandfather, who had passed away when she was ten. Though Max hadn’t been born before her grandmother died, Rose had told him many stories. She just hadn’t told him all of them.

      “She couldn’t bring herself to leave the house she’d lived in for almost fifty years. It was the home she’d shared with your grandfather. And all of her friends were there.”

      “But didn’t she love you? Didn’t she want to be with you?”

      “That’s the hard part. Yes, she did. But she had health issues, too. And she feared that somehow medical records could lead the man I was hiding from to me.”

      “Oh. But don’t they protect you from all of that?”

      “Yes, they do, but things happen. When there is a chance that you’ve been located they hide you somewhere else. Gram couldn’t have handled all the moving. But she wanted me to be safe. Leaving her behind almost killed me. Even now, thinking about it is hard. But the Texas Ranger who helped me explained all of this to us and that was the decision we had to make. We shared letters. They were passed through the Justice Department and when Gram got really ill I was able to see her before she died.”

      He looked stunned by the information overload. Poor kid had no idea that it only got worse.

      “So, are we still in it?” he asked. “I mean, is somebody out there still trying to kill you?”

      She shook her head. “Oh, no. We’re safe now. All that was before you were born. The man I sent to prison was killed there and so I was able to take back my real name. When I married David I’d been out of the program for about four months.”

      He studied her and she could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. “So, us always moving—we were really hiding from my dad? All that is real?”

      She nodded. She’d had to be honest with him when he was young about the fact that they were hiding from David. He’d had to know not to trust him and not to go anywhere with David if he showed up trying to snatch him. “Unfortunately, that was true, too. Everything about your past is authentic.” Rose’s panic stole her breath. “Except…”

      He straightened, locking his shoulders back and looking so much like his dad. Over the years every time he’d made this move she’d pictured Zane. One day that chest would be wide and strong and those shoulders would look as if they could take on the world.