Gambling On A Dream. Sara Walter Ellwood
grin on Wyatt’s face as he, Talon, Lance and Dylan stood behind the younger kids. Back then, they’d all been friends, cousins or siblings. Who would have thought so many of the friends would end up as lovers? She laughed and turned the page as she wiped at a stray tear.
Several more family photos passed by--Christmases, Easters and the family trips to Oklahoma to visit her mother’s family. Other pictures were of Talon and Wyatt, sometimes with their other friends, and several of them were of her and Zack Cartwright at the various rodeos they’d participated in as teenagers.
She turned the page to a picture Wyatt’s mother had taken the night of her senior prom. Zack and Rachel talked her into going, despite her not wanting to. She never had a boyfriend, partly because her mother had always discouraged her from dating white boys, and because the boys had been too scared of her brother, Talon, and her father to ask her out.
Wyatt had learned of her lack of a date and asked her to the prom. That night had been a dream come true for her, and the big bright smile on her eighteen-year-old self positively glowed. She wiped away another tear as she stared at the tall, lanky boy who’d stolen her heart so many years ago.
She turned to the last page in the album and touched the grainy, black and white sonogram photo. Her baby boy on his last day of life. On the morning she’d been shot in the chest, she’d gone for her checkup and had a sonogram done.
“Let’s see what’s going on. This might feel a little uncomfortable.” Dr. Rice smiled and rubbed the transducer over Dawn’s lower belly.
The cold slimy feeling tickled, and the pressure on her full bladder hurt. The static cleared, and the fast beat of a heart echoed through the room. On the monitor, the outline of her baby materialized, and she stopped breathing, forgetting about the discomfort.
“Oh, God.” She gasped. Until then, her pregnancy hadn't seemed real. She hadn’t been sick more than a few times and had started to get a little rounding in her belly. “It’s so different from the last sonogram.”
“You’re further along than you were during the last one.” The doctor nodded and grinned as she glanced at Dawn. “Everything looks normal. Would you like to know the sex?”
She stared at the whitish outline of the baby and fisted her hand over her heart. A hundred different emotions chased through her--love, awe, hope, fear. Would Wyatt want to know? What would he do when she told him she was pregnant? Would he want to marry her? Or would he bail like Jock Blackwell had on her mother when she found out she was pregnant with Talon?
So many questions with no answers. But she couldn’t go on without telling Wyatt he was going to be a father.
She nodded and met the doctor’s expectant gaze. “Yes. I’d like to know.”
“You’re going to have a son, Dawn. Congratulations.”
Dawn touched the small face of the only photo she had of her baby. Although the world would never see his features, in her mind, he had Wyatt’s blue eyes and her dark hair. “I love you, angel baby. Please forgive me for what I’ve done to you.”
She closed her eyes. No matter what, she had to find out who was dealing drugs and killing kids in her town. She owed it to her baby for the life he was denied.
To do so, she’d even put up with the man who broke her heart.
* * * *
Wyatt sat across from his childhood friend at the conference table in the sheriff’s department. Talon Blackwell stared over Wyatt’s shoulder with a hard glower at Dawn, who stood behind him against the large map of Texas on the wall.
“If you aren’t formally charging me with Larson’s murder, I don’t have to answer your questions.”
Wyatt let out a breath. He’d been questioning Talon for an hour. They didn’t know any more than they did before.
Dawn moved forward and leaned over the table beside him. Her fragrance of honeysuckle and citrus filled his senses with memories of having her lying beside him, and of the pillow he’d kept long after they’d broken up just to keep her scent around.
“Talon, be reasonable here. We don’t think you were involved, but we have to close this loop.” Dawn sat beside Wyatt as she spoke. “Just tell us what you were doing on Main Street Monday morning at four AM and if you saw anything that can help us find the killer.”
“I told you.” Talon huffed out between his teeth and leaned back in the chair. “I didn’t see anything. I was on Main Street, but I don’t know anything about that boy.”
It was useless to keep up the questioning. Talon wasn’t telling them anything. Wyatt hated to admit it, even to himself, but Talon acted like a man with something to hide. He closed his notebook and glanced at Dawn. She tried to cover the tired dark circles under her eyes with makeup, but it had long ago worn away. Her shoulders sagged under the starched tan uniform blouse.
“I think we’re done here.” Wyatt stood to stretch his back.
Talon rolled out of his chair onto his feet and picked up his old straw cowboy hat. “Good. I’ve got work to do.”
Before he reached the door, Wyatt stepped into his path. “I hope I don’t have to remind you to let us know if you feel the need to leave the county.”
Talon cocked a dark brow and tipped his head as he put on his hat in a gesture Wyatt hoped was acquiescence, but could have as easily meant screw you. As Talon shoved past him to head for the door, he didn’t so much as look at his sister.
When the door closed with a resounding click, Dawn pounded a fist onto the table with enough force to rattle their coffee mugs. “Dammit, who is he protecting?”
He glanced back at the door. Talon had always had it rough, but no worse than his sister or younger brother. Sure, being one of Jock Blackwell’s ill-begotten sons wasn’t something he’d wish on a rabid coyote. However, Tom Madison had treated Talon like a son all his life, even giving him a third of his ranch when he retired.
Talon had changed, and not for the better. His problems didn’t come from how he was raised, or even the occasional bullying. He was a troublemaker, and nothing would have changed him.
He sat in the chair Talon had vacated. “Or the question could be what is he hiding?”
She ran her hands over her dark hair to the tight bun at the base of her skull. With jerky movements, she pulled out the band holding the twisted braid captive. As she ran her fingers through the long mass of raven silk, heat coursed through him at the memories of all that hair covering him like a blanket while they’d made love. When she bent over the table and scratched her scalp in pure frustration, all he could think about was her hair hanging down her back to brush and tickle his thighs as she rode him--her favorite position--to orgasm.
The erection was fast and furious and nearly had him groaning. Thank God, he was sitting. He forced his numbed mind to focus on the case.
“We have to find someone else who may have seen or knows something.” She glanced across the table at him and straightened. If there was ever the perfect picture of a beautiful Indian maiden, it was Dawn with her hair down. Had she ever had the stuff cut? He swallowed hard and shifted in his chair as his jeans strangled his cock. How long had it been since he’d had sex? He couldn’t remember, but refused to believe he hadn’t been with someone since Dawn.
With swift, practiced motions, she broke the trance he was under by daftly braiding her hair and wrapping it into a bagel-sized knot at the back of her head. She snapped the hair band over the bun.
He cleared his throat. “When are we talking to Chris’s friends?” His voice came out sounding a bit husky, even to his ears.
She stood, taking their coffee cups with her, and refilled them. After she dumped that god-awful crap pretending to be creamer into hers, she handed him a mug of black joe. Sipping her coffee