“I knew better than that. I’d be more apt to make sure you hadn’t worked yourself to death.” Roger lifted his battered black Stetson, then raked a hand through his thinning gray hair.
The fact that he hadn’t returned Graham’s smile was cause for concern. “What’s up?”
Roger paused for a beat, then said, “Sasha-Marie just called. She’s on her way here.”
Graham nearly dropped the hammer he was holding. Roger and his niece had once been close, but they’d drifted apart after her marriage. “Is she still living in California?”
“I don’t think so. But I’m not sure.”
When Sasha-Marie had been in kindergarten, she lost her parents in a small plane crash. Her maternal grandparents, who lived in Austin, were granted custody, but she spent many of her school vacations with Roger, her paternal uncle.
Since Roger and his late wife had only one child, a son who’d been born to them late in life, Sasha-Marie became the daughter they’d never had and the apple of her doting uncle’s eye.
Roger had been proud when she went off to college, but he hadn’t approved of the man she’d met there and started dating. After she married the guy and moved out of state, Roger rarely mentioned her.
Graham hadn’t met her husband. He’d been invited to the wedding, although he hadn’t attended. He’d come down with a nasty stomach flu and had stayed on the ranch.
According to Roger, it had been a “big wingding,” and most likely the sort of elegant affair that Graham’s family usually put on, the kind of function he still did his best to avoid whenever possible.
On the morning of the wedding, as Graham had gone to replenish a glass of water, he’d met Roger in the Galloping G kitchen. Roger had been dressed in a rented tuxedo, his hair slicked back, his lips pursed in a scowl. His job was to give away the bride, but he hadn’t been happy about it.
“This ain’t right,” he’d said.
Graham thought he might be talking about the monkey suit he’d been asked to wear. “You mean all the wedding formalities?”
Roger shook his head and clucked his tongue. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she won’t hear it. Just because she’s gone off to college, she thinks she’s bright. But she’s been so blinded by all the glitz and glamour she can’t see what a louse her future husband really is.”
Having grown up in tech mogul Gerald Robinson’s household, Graham had experienced plenty of glitz and glamour himself. He knew a lot of phony people who flashed their wealth, which was one reason he was content to be a cowboy and manage the Galloping G for Roger.
The other reason was that he wanted to look out for the old rancher and his best interests. That’s why the news of Sasha’s return today was a big deal.
“Is Sasha’s husband coming with her?” Graham asked.
“Nope.” Roger placed his hat back on his head, adjusting it properly and shading his eyes from the afternoon sun.
Graham wondered if the older man would offer up another comment, but he kept his thoughts to himself. That really wasn’t surprising. He’d been pretty close-lipped about Sasha since the wedding, which must have been eight or more years ago. Graham had tried to get him to talk about his anger and disappointment, thinking that might help. But he respected the man’s silence. He also sympathized with him.
After Sasha gave birth to a baby—a girl, if Graham remembered correctly—Roger had gone to visit her in California. He’d not only wanted to see his great-niece, but he’d also hoped to mend fences. Two days later he’d returned to the ranch, just as quiet as he’d been before. Graham’s only clue to what had transpired was the response to his single question about how things went.
“Not well,” Roger had said. And that had pretty much been the end of it.
Graham stole a glance at the man who’d become more of a father to him than his own dad. But then again, they’d weathered Peter’s death together, leaning on each other so they could get through the gut-wrenching, heartbreaking grief.
Bonds like that were strong. And they lasted a lifetime.
Roger stared out in the distance at the two-lane highway that led to the big ranch house in which he now lived alone. Was he looking for Sasha’s car?
Or was he just pondering the blowup that he’d had with her husband? Graham wasn’t privy to all that had happened on Sasha’s wedding day, but he did know that Gabe had, in so many words, told Roger to butt out of Sasha’s life.
So the rift had always weighed heavily on his mind—and it probably still did.
“It’s a good sign that she felt like she could call and talk to you,” Graham said.
“I agree.” Roger heaved a heavy sigh. “She didn’t tell me what brought about the sudden change of heart, but that doesn’t matter.”
“Either way, for your sake, I’m glad she’s coming without her husband.”
Roger snorted. “I always figured Gabe for a fast-talking womanizer who’d end up breaking her heart down the road. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to be proven wrong.”
“You won’t hold any of that against Sasha, will you?”
“Hell no. I’d never do that. But I’ll tell you, Graham, it hurt like a son of a gun when she left Texas. And while I’m glad she reached out to me just now, I’m leery about pushing myself on her too quickly.”
Whatever had gone down between Roger and the groom at the church had nearly destroyed the relationship Roger once had with his niece.
“How long is she going to be here?” Graham asked. He assumed it’d be for a few days to a week.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea, but I told her she could stay as long as she wanted.”
Sasha had been a cute kid. She’d tagged along after Graham and Peter when they were teenagers, wanting to be included—and being a pest more times than not. She was probably close to thirty now, but Graham would always remember her as a skinny young girl with braces and a scatter of freckles across her nose.
Roger glanced out to the road again, squinting as he scanned the empty stretch of blacktop.
“Do you know what kind of car she drives?” Graham asked.
“Nope.” The older man turned, sporting a wry grin. “I guess it’s pretty obvious that I’m watching for her to arrive.”
“Just a bit.”
When a car engine sounded in the distance and grew louder, both men turned and spotted a white Honda Civic heading down the road. A blonde woman was driving, although the car was too far away to get a glimpse of her face.
“That might be Sasha-Marie now,” Roger said.
It was hard to know for sure, although Roger was clearly eager to have her back on the Galloping G, no matter how short her stay.
“I’ll finish up here,” Graham said. “Why don’t you go back to the house so you can greet her?”
“Nope. I want you to come with me. You can get those tools later. Mount up.”
Graham scanned the fence he’d been working on, realizing it wasn’t going anywhere. And apparently, neither was that Escalade if he enclosed it in the pasture before the owner came to claim it.
“All right,” he said, “but why do you want me to be there?”
Roger scowled and rolled his eyes. “Because I never have been able to keep my opinions to myself. And if I slip up and say ‘I told you so’ or something negative about that jerk she’s married to, I’ll probably make