Grayson by Delores Fossen

he said that, and if Eve hadn’t known him so well she might have thought that was a jab at her decision to go through with this insemination. But since she did know him, she figured he was talking about his family duties. For Grayson, family came first, and that hadn’t always been easy for him.
    “Mason put a bullet in his concho,” Grayson said under his breath. He drove out of the parking lot and onto the road that would take them out of town and to the highway. “Then he nailed it to the wall directly in front of his bed so he could curse it every morning when he woke up.”
    Eve sighed. So much hurt caused by one man. Their father, Boone Ryland. “I remember Dade told me that he threw his away.”
    “Yeah.” And for a moment, Grayson seemed lost in those bad memories. The dark ages. However, his cell rang, and he morphed from the wounded son to steely sheriff.
    “Sheriff Ryland,” he answered. He put the phone on speaker and slipped it into a stand that was mounted to the dashboard. He also kept watch around them as they passed the last of the town shops.
    “It’s me, Dade. I just got off the phone with the Ranger lab. They got a match on the photo.”
    “Already?” Grayson questioned.
    “It wasn’t that hard. Her name is Nina Manning, age twenty-two, from Houston, and she had a record for drug possession and prostitution. There’s also a year-old missing person’s report complete with pictures.”
    “Nina Manning,” Eve repeated. It didn’t ring any bells.
    “Is Eve still with you?” Dade asked.
    Eve looked at Grayson and waited for him to answer. “Yeah. I have to drive her, uh, somewhere. But I want to know everything that’s happening with the case. Any sign of the gunman?”
    “No. But Mason’s out here. If the guy’s still in the area, Mason will find him.”
    Eve doubted the gunman was still around. Heck, he’d probably parked his car on one of the ranch trails and was now probably long gone. Or maybe he was looking for her. Despite the importance of Dade’s call, that caused her to look in the rearview mirror. No one was following them. The rural road behind them was empty.
    “Were the Rangers able to identify the other man in the picture who had hold of Nina’s arm?” Grayson asked.
    “There was no immediate match.”
    Grayson shook his head. “I think he’s the guy who tried to kill us today so we need an ID.”
    “The Rangers are still trying,” Dade assured him. “But they did get a match on the man to the woman’s right. His name is Sebastian Collier.”
    Now, that rang some bells. Eve had seen the surname many times in the newspaper, mainly in the business and society sections. “He’s related to Claude Collier, the San Antonio real estate tycoon?” Eve asked.
    “Sebastian is his son,” Dade answered. “And sonny-boy has a record, too, for a DWI and resisting arrest. Guess his millionaire daddy didn’t teach him to call the family chauffeur when he’s had too much to drink.”
    Eve picked up the photo that Grayson had brought along, and she zoomed in on the man to Nina Manning’s right. Sebastian Collier looked like a preppy college student in his collared cream-colored shirt and dark pants. It certainly didn’t seem as if he was with the woman with multicolored hair.
    But then Eve looked closer.
    Sebastian’s attention was certainly on Nina. His eyes were angled in her direction, or rather in the direction of the grip the other man had on Nina’s arm. Sebastian looked uncomfortable with the encounter.
    “Keep pushing the Rangers,” she heard Grayson tell his brother. “I want that other man identified. I also want someone out to question this Sebastian Collier.” He looked at his watch, mumbled something in disgust. “I’ll try to get to San Antonio myself as soon as I’m sure Eve will be safe.”
    Dade assured Grayson he would do everything to get a name to go with that face in the photo, and he ended the call.
    Eve hadn’t missed Grayson’s