"And you’re certain you found them?”

“I’m positive,” the detective said. “She and the kid are living in Conrad, Texas, a two-bit town just north of El Paso. She waits tables in a diner next door to a motel where they live. The boy stays in a back room at the diner while she works.”

“She hasn’t married?” Gabe probed.

“Nah, she’s still single,” the detective said. “Still goes by the name Sara Watson. The kid’s name is Ben.”

“Ben,” Gabe half-whispered.

Finally, he had a name.

He raked a hand through his hair, slowly processing the information. Finding them hadn’t been easy. The next step would be even harder.

“What do you want me to do now, Mr. Coulter?”

“Give me a second to get to my office,” Gabe told the detective.

Grabbing his jeans from the bottom of the bed, Gabe pulled them on. And phone still to his ear, he hurried downstairs in search of a pen and paper. He found what he needed on the massive mahogany desk that had served three generations of ranchers at the Crested-C Ranch.

What Gabe didn’t need, was looking up to find the late Monday night phone call had also awakened his ranch foreman. The old man was standing in his office doorway, a worried look on his gray bearded face.

“I finally got a few photos of the woman and the boy,” the detective said. “But everything in Conrad is already closed for the night. I’ll have to drive back to El Paso before I can fax them to you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Gabe said, jotting down the name and address of the diner. “I’ll leave as soon as I get my gear together. If I drive all night, I should be in Conrad in time to surprise her tomorrow.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Mr. Coulter,” the detective agreed. “She runs every time I pick up her trail. Conrad is nothing but a mud puddle in the middle of nowhere. It won’t take long before word gets around town that I was asking questions about her and the boy tonight.”

“You’ve earned that bonus we talked about,” Gabe told the detective. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I get back.”

“Good luck,” was the detective’s final reply.

And Gabe knew he was going to need it.

He lowered himself onto the chair behind his desk, staring at the address he held in his hand. But he purposely ignored the presence still looming in his office doorway. It should have been a subtle hint for Smitty to leave him alone and go back to bed. But Smitty never had been good at doing what other people wanted.

“You just can’t let sleeping dogs lie, can you, Gabe?”

Gabe and the old man briefly traded scowls.

“Spare me a lecture, Smitty,” Gabe warned. “I’m fully capable of making my own decisions.”

“Well, you sure can’t prove that by me,” Smitty snorted. He pulled his suspenders up and over his stooped shoulders before he pointed a gnarled finger in Gabe’s direction. “The search for that boy should have ended when your brother was killed, and you know it.”

A muscle in Gabe’s jaw clenched.

The pain of Billy’s death was still as raw as the day of the accident. Flashbacks he usually kept at bay clicked through Gabe’s mind like a horror film: Billy, waving to the cheering crowd as he lowered himself onto the back of eighteen hundred pounds of raw muscle; cheers turning to terrified gasps when the angry bull reared upward; every bull rider’s nightmare coming true as Billy fell backwards into the stall; cowboys running from every direction trying to rescue their trampled hero.

A cold shiver passed straight through Gabe.

He shook it off and forced the memories back into the shadows where they belonged. He only wished he could do the same with Smitty’s damn opinions. But the old man had more than earned the right to speak his mind, and they both knew it.

Had it not been for Smitty, he never would have been able to hold on to the ranch after his folks died. Smitty had stepped in as surrogate father when Gabe needed him most. He’d helped run the ranch, and he’d helped raise Billy. The old man just kept forgetting he was thirty-three years old now, not the inexperienced kid he’d been fifteen years earlier when his parents died.

“Billy told you himself that gal never even told him she was pregnant,” Smitty said, finally forcing the argument Gabe had known was coming from the day he took over the search for his brother’s son. “She didn’t want anything to do with Billy then. What makes you think she’ll let you near the boy now?”

“There’s a good chance the boy’s mother won’t let me near him,” Gabe admitted. “But I wouldn’t be much of a man if I conveniently forgot I have a nephew because my brother is dead.”

“Might have a nephew,” Smitty reminded him. “You don’t even know if that boy belongs to Billy.”

“Billy thought the boy was his,” Gabe said. “Unless I find out otherwise, that’s good enough for me.”

“Mark my words, Gabe. You’re borrowing trouble.”

“Maybe so,” Gabe said. “But there’s a five-year-old boy in Texas who could be my nephew. Trouble or not, I’m going to see him.”

Smitty shook his head disgustedly. “You know the type of woman you’re dealing with, Gabe. You have her whole life story in a file in your top desk drawer.”

“All the more reason to check on the boy.”

“All the more reason to let the boy go!” Smitty shouted. He frowned at Gabe again. But he lowered his voice when he added, “You’ve worked hard holding on to this ranch. And for what? To let some one night stand Billy met on the rodeo circuit lay claim to half the ranch your Pa and your Grandpa spent their whole lives building up?”

Gabe didn’t answer.

He got up from his chair, walked across the room, and took down the framed portrait of his parents on their wedding day. When he opened wall safe hidden behind the picture, Smitty let out a weary sigh.

“Don’t do this,” Smitty pleaded. “If you hand Billy’s insurance money over thinking you’ll be rid of the boy’s mother, you’re kidding yourself. She’ll be holding her hand out for the rest of your life.”

Gabe still didn’t answer. He wrote out a check to Sara Watson for fifty thousand dollars and placed the checkbook back inside the wall safe. After he hung his parent’s picture back on the wall, the old man was still blocking his path when Gabe walked in his direction.

“I shouldn’t be gone more than a few days,” Gabe said, putting an end to any further discussion.

Defeated, Smitty finally stepped aside.

But as Gabe started up the stairs to pack, Smitty called out after him, “Watch your back, you hear me, Gabe? That little gal’s liable to scratch your eyes out if you get within shouting distance of them.”

Gabe threw a hand up to signal he’d heard the warning.

But by noon tomorrow, he intended to be in Texas.

If the boy did turn out to be his nephew, Billy’s fifty thousand dollars in insurance money would be well spent if it meant bringing his brother’s son home to Colorado where the boy belonged.