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“He mentioned it,” Gray verified.
She didn’t want to know the exact details of the spin that Melvin had put on it, but the gist had almost certainly been that her cattleman father and her socialite mother thought a job as a schoolteacher was way beneath her Parkman name. And that definitely wasn’t something she wanted to get into with Gray. Besides, he’d dealt with plenty of her parents’ disapproval when they’d been together.
“Anyway, taking a photo of Sadie Jo’s tombstone is step one,” Alana added in case Melvin had glossed over that part. If Melvin had, indeed, told Gray about the drawing and the tombstone picture, then was that the reason he was here?
Because Gray had expected to see her?
Alana stopped. Did some rethinking. No. If Gray had wanted to see her, he could have just gone to her house. Unlike when they’d been in high school, she didn’t live with her parents any longer, thank God, but she owned a little cottage on the other side of town. Melvin and everyone else in town knew her address and could have given that info to Gray had he wanted it.
Maybe, though, Gray hadn’t asked blabbermouth Melvin since it would have stirred up plenty of gossip.
Oh, that got her heart and body revving, and she got vivid sensations and images of their past make-out marathons that had gone on pretty much everywhere in Last Ride. The revving and the tingling that followed were starting to eat away at her common sense.
And her memories.
Memories that ended when Gray had indeed stomped on her heart. And she’d only endured more heart stomping since. It was one of the reasons Alana had sworn off relationships. Not in a general “it’s the wine talking” kind of way, either. She’d made a pact not to get involved with anyone for at least a year since her last breakup. She still had five days to go.
“You knew Sadie Jo Walker?” Gray asked, snapping her attention back to him. Not that it’d strayed too far. He certainly had a way of latching on to her thoughts and not letting go.
Alana shook her head. “I never met her. She only lived in Last Ride for a few months before she died, and she mostly kept to herself, not venturing into town much.”
Maybe Sadie Jo had done that lack of venturing because of her celebrity status. In her younger days, she’d been a somewhat successful country music singer with a few songs that had hit the charts. So wherever she went, people would have noticed and might have asked for photos, autographs and such. However, it was just as possible the woman hadn’t felt well enough to get out and about.
Even though Alana had barely scratched the surface on the research she needed to do, she knew Sadie Jo had suffered from some form of leukemia that she’d battled for years. A battle she’d lost shortly after moving to Last Ride. What Alana didn’t know was why Sadie Jo had moved here, but she figured that would all come out when she dug into the woman’s life, and death.
Alana fluttered her fingers toward the general vicinity of the west of town and shared something she did know. “Sadie Jo owned Nightfall Ranch. She named it that after her first big song, called ‘Nightfall Heartbreak.’”
She studied his face—no hardship for that particular task, either—and she looked past all the hotness, and the broken heart memories, to see that something was troubling him.
“Hey, I’ve heard some talk that someone is interested in buying Nightfall Ranch now that Sadie Jo’s estate has been settled,” she threw out there. “Is that why you’re back in Last Ride, to buy it?”
That might explain why Gray was here at the cemetery. Well, it would explain it in a roundabout way if he’d wanted to pay his last respects to the ranch’s former owner.
According to the rumor mill, Gray certainly had the funds to make a big purchase like that because he, too, was somewhat of a celebrity. He’d used his rodeo rankings and wins to land some endorsements, everything from jeans to manly scented aftershave, and those endorsements had given him the funds to build his cattle-broker business. Ironically, that hugely successful business was her father’s main competition these days.
“Well?” she prompted. “Is that why you’ve come back?”
Gray made a sound that could have meant anything. He certainly didn’t answer her question. He stared out at the headstones, the very same pose he’d been in when she’d first spotted him.
“I’m not sure why I’m back,” he finally said.
There was a mountain of emotion in that short comment, and more emotion followed. He groaned, scrubbed his hand over his face and turned to her.
“You want to have a drink or get something to eat?” he asked.
Alana now understood the old adage of being so surprised you could be knocked over by a feather. Ayesnearly flew right out of her surprised mouth before she recalled another old adage.
Think before you leap.
She hadn’t done a whole lot of thinking when she’d been with Gray. That had been all about her feelings. About her wanting him. About her spinning a golden dream that they would get married and have their forever-after.
Obviously, that hadn’t happened.
It hadn’t happened with her marriage to Elliot Dayton, either. Nor with her two engagements. And that’s why she couldn’t do any more leaping without a bunch of thinking first.
“Uh,” she started and then cleared her throat, trying to figure out the best way to say this. But Gray spoke before she could come up with anything.
“You’re turning me down because of that support group you’re in,” Gray provided.
