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Because Alana’s arm was touching Gray’s, she felt him stiffen. She took hold of his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Gray squeezed back, but he kept his attention pinned to Callie. “Sadie Jo loved me.” There was plenty of skepticism in that short comment.
“Damn straight.” No skepticism for Callie. “Never seen any woman love a kid as much as she loved you.”
“Then why did she give me away?” Gray snapped.
Callie blinked and then sighed. “Oh, I just figured Sadie Jo had left you some kind of letter or something that explained everything.”
“Nothing I can find, and she didn’t leave anything like that with her lawyer.” Gray paused a heartbeat. “If you were with Sadie Jo before I was born, then you know why she gave me up and who my father is.”
Callie dropped back a step. “Yes, I do.” She groaned. “I’m guessing nobody told you?”
“No.” Gray didn’t add more, didn’t press the woman to confess all, but there was no doubt in his tone and body language that it was exactly what he wanted her to do.
“Gray deserves to know the truth,” Alana insisted.
Callie stared at them both and made a sound of agreement. “You do deserve the truth, but it shouldn’t come from me.” She patted Gray’s arm. “Call your dad, Gray. Anything about your father and your adoption should come from him.”
CHAPTER FOUR
GRAYDIDN’TFIGUREhe could groan loud enough to express his frustration over what Callie had just said. “I don’t want to call my father,” he informed her. “I want the truth, and you can give me that.”
Callie sighed again and patted his arm. “I promised Sadie Jo that I’d keep a lid on what I knew. The lid’s staying in place.” She went to the costumes, gathering them up, and for a moment, Gray thought Callie would just head out without saying another word. But she stopped in front of him and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Sadie Jo loved you. Hang on to that.” Callie glanced around the room. “Hang on to this place, too, because I know how much she wanted you to have it.”
Gray followed her to the door, but he didn’t press her to remove the lid that Sadie Jo had put into place by swearing Callie to secrecy. Part of him admired the woman’s loyalty. Another part of him wanted to curse Sadie Jo, Callie and his parents for wanting to keep that secret in the first place.
He watched Callie leave, and this time he locked the door. Not because he thought Alana and he would dive back into another make-out session. Nope. She wasn’t looking at him with lust but rather sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling him into a hug. Not a heated one, either. This one was all comfort. “I’m sorry,” she repeated when she pulled back to meet his gaze. “What are you going to do?”
Gray refused to saythe hell if I know. He was a successful businessman and a former rodeo champion who’d worked hard to build what he had, and he hadn’t achieved those things by waffling. He took out his phone and called his father. Or rather that’s what he tried to do. But it went straight to voice mail.
“We need to talk,” Gray said when he left his dad a message. “And you will tell me the truth.”
There. That was one thing ticked off his to-do list. If his father refused to tell him anything, then Gray would consider it a done deal. Yes, it would eat away at him not to know, but it would eat away more if he didn’t try to come to terms with this.
Nightfall Ranch was next on his to-do list, and he glanced around the foyer while he debated his options. “I’ve considered selling the place and donating the profits to various charities.”
Alana glanced around, too. “You don’t intend to own the ranch?” Thankfully, she didn’t bring up what Callie had said about Sadie Jo wanting him to have the place. Gray didn’t need that playing into this.
“I do want to own a ranch,” Gray verified. “A place like this is what I had in mind for expanding my business. Minus the guitars, of course. The location is right.Was right,” he amended, when he’d been thinking about living closer to his dad. “It has the right amount of acreage and water supplies for times when I’d need to pasture some livestock I’m brokering. Right number of outbuildings and a ready supply of help to keep the place running.”
Alana nodded. “But?”
Oh, yeah. There were somebutsfor him owning the place, and they weren’t just limited to the possibility that things were so strained between him and his father that he might not want to live anywhere near him. But his father wasn’t the only parental unit in this.
“My business already competes with your family’s,” he pointed out. “It might make things tough for you if I’m right here in the same town with them.”
Alana smiled. Not the reaction he’d expected her to have. “It’ll only make things tougher for me if I let it. Trust me, I won’t let it.”
Now, he smiled. This definitely wasn’t the girl he’d left behind so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout. Alana was obviously a grown woman with enough confidence to deal with her parents.
Well, maybe.
Gray immediately rethought that notion. “Are you in that support group for them or for you?”
