Into His Keeping Read Online Free PDF

between them. “I’m not old enough to hear this crap. We’ve all got whatchamacallits. So can we just figure this out right now? I mean what we’re gonna do in the next hour. Mom, you need to lie down somewhere.”
     
    Holdin chuckled in a deep rumble. His hazel eyes crinkled with new lines around them that Jill had never seen. She was fascinated. Lean cheeks had always creased with his grin, but the changes of time hadn’t detracted a thing from his heart-stopping good looks. It’d just added to it.
     
    “Whatchamacallits?” he asked Drifter.
     
    “You know, that stuff talk-show people are always bleating about. Issues. Discussing those seems to take way too much time. Getting to what needs doing is more important. The deal is, we came here to meet you. That looks to be done. The reasons for doin’ it are on the table. Mom has to have the surgery and she’s scared of forgetting again so now I know who you are and there’s nothing wrong with my head. I’ll remember. I’m taking her to the motel so she can rest. The damn issues will be the same when she wakes up. No need to sling them around now.”
     
    “Agreed, your mother needs some rest. The ranch is twenty minutes away.” Holdin stood up. “And you can meet your grandparents while she naps.”
     
    “No.” Drifter slid out of the booth and stood to face Holdin. Almost six feet already, Drifter still had to look up to his father. “She wants the motel. That’s where she goes. In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s already stressed. Goin’ out to your place will add to that.”
     
    Identical hazel eyes sized each other up. The younger set in a defensive face while the older one’s bland expression was a mask. Jill almost held her breath. The unexpected confrontation between these two was a bit surprising. She’d known there would be tension, but the maturity of her son’s arguments was unexpected.
     
    Holdin nodded curtly and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. Looking out the soda fountain window and down Main Street, he obviously dialed the motel’s number off the huge sign clearly visible from there.
     
    “Mrs. Parkman?” he said politely as someone answered. “This is Holdin Powell. Is the room on the end, farthest from the road available? Excellent. Does it have two beds? Good. Please open it and leave two keys on the dresser. I’ll be up to fill out the paperwork. Yes I know. No, of course not, ma’am. I have a friend in town and she’s feeling ill. It will be her and her son staying. Correct. Yes. See you then.”
     
    Drifter turned and held out a hand to help Jill out of the booth. “Let’s go, Mom.”
     
    Jill scooted out. “You’re still doing the ‘take charge’ thing, Holdin. I can rent my own room.”
     
    “Oh Lord, get over it, Mom. He compromised. Don’t you know anything about guys?” Drifter asked in mild male disgust.
     
    Holdin’s brows went up and he grinned at Drifter. Jill snorted and turned to exit the soda fountain and stopped abruptly. There were at least eight people standing near the entrance watching them. Some of the faces she vaguely recognized and names flashed through her mind but mostly embarrassment washed over her.
     
    “Geez,” Drifter murmured beside her.
     
    “Time to go.” Holdin stepped up between them. He slid an arm around Jill’s waist, his other hand rested on Drifter’s shoulder as he stepped forward. They swept through the little throng with Holdin nodding and smiling as if it were nothing to see him walking out of the department store with a boy who matched him feature for feature and the woman who’d disappeared fifteen years ago.
     
    The motel was a long strip of rooms that opened to the parking lot. The garish orange and teal paint was a bit more faded now and still begging for a new coat. When it was new, the hotel court was supposed to have a tropicana feel to it. But the planters had been dirt holders and nothing more for quite some time. It was exactly the