Chapter Two

 

Sloane stayed at the back of the Lofton First Christian Church while the minister and others delivered Rams’ eulogies.

Close to half the town had to be inside the building, offering condolences to one of the most prominent families in the county. Everyone had liked Rams. Most had loved him. Tears threatened again.

How much harder must it be for his family? Sloane hadn’t been to the main house since Rams died. She hadn’t wanted to intrude on the family’s grief. And she hadn’t wanted to face Rams’ son. The doctor. Holden.

He’d held her and wept. They’d cried together over the man they’d both loved, until Rams’ oldest son, Gresham, had knocked on Sloane’s office door. Then he’d stepped away from her and looked at her with those accusing eyes, and said the words that still frightened her. “I have questions.”

He’d left, not giving her time to say anything in response. The man absolutely terrified her. Sloane had no difficulty knowing that. She hadn’t been negligent, and she’d bet her medical license on that.

And wasn’t that essentially what she was doing?

She knew his kind, intimately. They threatened, bullied, and dominated to get what they wanted from people. Combine that with the arrogance that a lot of male doctors naturally possessed? Sloane wanted to stay as far away from Dr. Holden Royle as possible. Was he really that different from his parents? Was that why she’d never met him before?

Once he left—and she knew he would eventually—she’d check on Ella every day. Make sure the older woman had everything she needed.

She owed Rams that much and more.

After the service Sloane made a point of speaking with Ella and Gresham when he wasn’t around. That took some serious maneuvering as he rarely left his mother’s side. Sloane watched Ella with her family throughout the service and graveside dedication. The bonds in that family were so strong that once again Sloane envied Gresham and his siblings.

She’d had no such closeness with the couple who had adopted her as an infant. They’d focused on providing her with an excellent education and a good home in a nice neighborhood, but they’d felt that emotional ties meant unnecessary bonds between them and the child they’d felt obligated to take on in the first place.

That had left a lasting impression on the anxious child Sloane had been.

What would it be like to be at the center of such a loving family?

She studied Ella and her daughter. Aderyn, the youngest of the Royle children, was tall and blonde, while her mother was short and blonde. An agronomist or something like that? Rams had been so proud of his only daughter Sloane had envied the younger woman she’d only met once or twice. Aderyn worked out of the University of Evansville studying the farms and soils of the region. Sloane wasn’t entirely certain what that entailed, but she knew that Aderyn had spent a good portion of her time alone or on site. Rams had worried about her safety.

No one had worried about Sloane in a long time.

Aderyn was dwarfed by her tall, strong, dark brothers. The four men were so much alike physically that had Sloane not known Gresham and Garrett—Lofton’s sheriff—she could easily have gotten confused. And Holden. She knew him, now. That left the one brother, the veterinarian, Leith. They were dressed in somber, dark suits, but that didn’t disguise the power that each man possessed. They were tall, strong, rugged, and fit.

Any other woman would have found all of them attractive. But not Sloane; she’d gotten her fill of strong attractive men long ago. Gresham and Garrett were extremely nice men, though. Gresham, especially. She’d spent some time with him, both on his parents’ property and in the capacity of physician.

Gresham’s youngest son, Cade, had high functioning autism, and she’d been the one to recommend further evaluation when the boy was two. Gresham was a single father—his wife had left three years ago—and he’d been filled with questions on what to do for his son. Sloane had answered his questions to the best of her ability, then referred the family to a specialist in Evansville for more extensive treatment. Cade was thriving now, at the age of four, and with the help of speech therapy was beginning to talk.

Her gaze took in Ella again, noting how frail she appeared. Ella was the one Sloane had worried about. She was diabetic, and though she tried to keep on top of her insulin numbers, Sloane had suspected the woman’s condition was worsening as she approached sixty. Her son hovered at her side, helping her over the uneven ground between the graveside and the parked cars. Holden.

Sloane didn’t know what to think about him. He looked up and his gaze landed on her. Sloane drew in a tight breath, unable to look away.

What was it about his eyes?

 

***

 

He didn’t know why his attention landed on Dr. McLean, but it was her sympathetic expression that stood out among a sea of people he’d once known. Was it because she was one of the few people he hadn’t met before?

He kept one arm around his mother’s waist, leading her back to the sedan. She’d said very little during the funeral service, just kept staring at his father’s casket. He knew she didn’t believe it was real, that it had happened. When would it hit her?

His mother had always been strong, emotionally—probably stronger than his father—but his father had been the largest part of her world since she was twenty years old. How was she going to cope without him?

Gresham and Garrett still lived in Lofton—Gresham within easy walking distance. But was it fair to burden either of his brothers with the care of their mother? Gresham had a full plate as it was, raising his two boys alone. And with Cade’s special needs...

Garrett was one of the busiest men Holden had ever seen—probably due to the town only having him and two deputies to police the entire eighty something square miles of county. It was the smallest county in the state, but still, three people meant that they were working long hours with little off time in between. Garrett couldn’t add taking care of a grieving parent to his handful.

He certainly couldn’t add caring for the largest farm in the county to his plate. And neither could Gresham, or Leith. Definitely not Aderyn. She was too busy driving all over the state to various farms and agricultural businesses for her job.

Should they sell the farm? Would the rest of the family agree to it?

What in the hell were they all going to do now?