Wishes At First Light. Joanne Rock
for housing a kid, and the girl would be better off out from under the Yancy influence. Clayton credited any success heâd had in life to his foster family and their encouragement in settling him down.
Hunting for his missing half siblings had been the start of his PI career. To this day, reuniting families was his specialty. But heâd failed Mia Benson when heâd stopped looking for his own brothers and sisters, assuming his father was done sowing his seed. Apparently failing eight times over at parenthoodâwith five different womenâhadnât been enough for the old man.
After shaking hands with his host, Clayton walked out of the huge Craftsman-style house and fired up his motorcycle in the damp November fog. With his duffel strapped to the seat and his guitar on his back, he wasnât the most aerodynamic of riders, but his old Harley wasnât that kind of ride anyhow. Roaring out of the driveway and heading toward the interstate, he planned to play his six-string for as many hours as it took to unkink the knot in his gut.
He didnât want to see his father. But he damn well wanted to know his half sister, if only to see with his own eyes that she was okay. The firstborn of Claytonâs parents had died of crib death while the two so-called adults drank themselves into a stupor. Their next kid was Clayton, and it had taken him half his childhood to get into the foster system, a golden ticket out that heâd only learned about after his drunken, jobless, abusive parents had birthed kid number three, a boy Clayton loved with all his heart. When Eddy was four years old, child protective services took him away after a neighbor called to complain about seeing him unattended on the playground.
Of course, Eddy hadnât been unattended for any moment of the day when Clayton was around. But the neighbor probably hadnât considered a seven-year-old brother to be adequate supervision. Why CPS claimed Eddy at that time and not Clayton remained the biggest injustice of Claytonâs life. It had separated them for the next twelve years until Clayton figured out how to find people. By the time heâd gotten himself taken out of his homeânot that difficult to do, but still, there was a processâheâd bounced to a different foster home every year, finally winding up at the Hasting house, where heâd graduated school and aged out of the system.
His life had ended up better than Eddyâs. And on that sobering note, he ground his teeth together.
Now, with the wind plastering his jacket to his chest, he tried not to think about his brotherâs fate, his long-dead older sister and the smattering of other kids his parents had brought into the worldâsome as a couple, others with equally crappy partners as parents. It bothered Clayton to think heâd missed Mia, but sheâd lived with her mother until a two-year stint in foster care, during which sheâd lobbied her birth father to spring her from the system. Somehow Pete had gotten clean and sober enough to fool the social worker into giving him one last chance to be a dad.
Mia was sixteen now, heâd heard, and had been living with their father for the last eight months, helping to care for the old man as he grew weak from cirrhosis and heart disease.
Clayton planned to make sure she knew she had a way out of her fatherâs house. That alone was worth going to see Pete Yancyâaka the negligent jackassâone last time. Clayton would have gone as soon as heâd arrived in Heartache, but heâd been tapped for bodyguard duty by his friend. He would put in an appearance at his dadâs place after school that day and cross his fingers sheâd show up, too, so he could fulfill his obligations in Heartache and head back to Memphis once the reunion was done.
Steering his vintage low rider along the road that ran parallel to the interstate, Clayton slowed down as the Owlâs Roost came into view, a diner he remembered from when heâd lived in town. Nostalgia and hunger lured him off the road and into a parking spot to grab some breakfast since it was early to book a motel room anyhow.
The figure of a woman walking across the Roostâs front porch flagged his attention as he locked up the bike and his bag. Keeping the guitar strapped to his back, he turned to watch the slender form half covered by a big, black hoodie that hid her profile. He wasnât sure what it was that caught his attention. The quick, sharp walk. Long, elegant legs that a pair of loose pants couldnât fully conceal in the late-autumn wind.
Something about her made him pay attention.
So it happened that he was staring right at her when she stopped and turned to look out into the parking lot, her pale blue eyes landing on him.
The delicate features hadnât changed. A wisp of dark blond hair fluttered across her cheek in the breeze.
âClay.â She said his name softly.
Or he imagined she did. Her mouth moved with some comment before she raised her hand to cover her lips. As if she could retrieve whatever she had murmured.
âGabriella Chance.â His feet were already heading toward her, his gaze not able to let her go. âI wondered if Iâd ever see you again.â
CLAYTON TRAVERS STOOD in front of her, like a vision conjured out of a dream.
Seeing him hit her, whoomp, a thump to her chest, robbing her of air for a split second. Over the years his long, lanky body had filled out into a manâs lean frame, his shoulders wider than she remembered. Brown hair tinged with gold grazed the collar of his dark leather motorcycle jacket. Worn-in jeans suited him well, as did the scuffed boots. But it was his face that intrigued her most, his deep brown gaze roaming over her with interest that warmed her even in the crisp bite of a November wind.
With his high cheekbones and a cleft chin, he had become an extremely attractive man. The furtive look in his eyes that she remembered from his teens had been replaced with an easy confidence. A half smile curved his full, sensual lips.
And just like that, the attractiveness worked on her with a strange alchemy that drew her even as it chilled her again. Her feelings for him had grown oddly complicated over time.
âClay,â she said semi-awkwardly. She might have hugged him if there hadnât been a wooden porch rail between them. And, on second thought, that probably wasnât the appropriate greeting for an old high school friend whoâd been the recipient of her earliest flirting attempts. She wasnât some starry-eyed teen anymore. âItâs great to see you again after all these years.â
Actually, it was sort of terrifying given the role heâd played in her past. A role he was completely oblivious to.
But sheâd wanted to face him and here he stood.
âGood to see you, too. Time has been...really nice to you, Gabriella.â
Before she could recover from that latest whoomp to her lungs, he continued, âAre you meeting anyone for breakfast?â He nodded toward the Owlâs Roost. A couple of guys in bright orange vests lumbered past, to-go cups in their hands as they emerged from the diner.
âNo. Iâm staying at the motel next door and was lured by the scent of coffee and bacon. The in-room coffeepot left something to be desired.â She stuffed her fists deeper into the pockets of her hoodie, trying to separate the past from the present and focus on the moment. âAre you, uh, free to join me?â
No time like the present to get over the butterflies with him. Sheâd be leaving Heartache as soon as Jeremy Covington was in jail and she had the chance to check on Mia Benson.
âSounds like my lucky day.â His grin was completely disarming. âLetâs get inside where itâs warm.â
Half an hour later they sat across from one another at a big wooden booth in one of Heartacheâs best-known eating establishments. The owner, Rodney, was on the town council, and he and his wife had been running the place for as long as she could remember. There was a comfort in that, a place with