“Monte?” Jo Lena’s eyes were not deceiving her. It was Monte—all cleaned up and looking better than he ever had a right to.

“May I come in?” he asked.

“You’ll have to if you want to talk to me,” she snapped. “I was expecting the new buyer for this place.” She turned on her heel and headed back to the kitchen.

Monte’s boot heels sounded on the hardwood floor right behind her as she went into the kitchen. They were still uneven—he was still limping. But he seemed to be getting around much better. He sat down as she filled a mug of coffee.

It occurred to Jo Lena that he must’ve changed his mind about selling the horse. “So let’s talk about the horse.”

“We’ve said all we have to say.”

Had he come here to talk about them? About six years ago? About now?

“Then what do we have to talk about, Monte?”

“I’m the new buyer.”

GENA DALTON

wanted to be a professional writer since she learned to read at the age of four. However, she became a secondary school teacher and then a college professor/ dean of women instead, and began to write after she was married and a stay-at-home mother. She entered an essay contest that resulted in a newspaper publication, giving her confidence she could achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a “real writer.”

Gena lives in Oklahoma with her husband of twenty-four years. Now that their son is grown, their only companions are two dogs, two house cats, one barn cat and one cat who belongs to the neighbors but won’t go home.

She loves to hear from readers. She can be reached c/o Steeple Hill Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017.

Long Way Home
Gena Dalton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

But it was only right we should celebrate and

rejoice, because your brother here was dead and

has come to life; he was lost and is found.

—Luke 15:32

This book is for my friends,

Jill and Sheila

Dear Reader,

This story of Monte, the third McMahan brother and Bobbie Ann’s prodigal son, is one we can all relate to from our own experience. Who among us hasn’t felt separated from those we love by our choices and actions? At those times when we are farthest away, we all long to go home.

Monte takes the long way home, for he not only has stayed away for six years while rarely communicating with his mother, brothers and sisters, but he has also denied his yearning to see Jo Lena Speirs, the only woman he has ever loved. He believes he is past redemption, in God’s eyes and in Jo Lena’s, because of the death of her brother, Scotty. He bears a burning guilt that he has not been able to escape, even by traveling thousands of miles and putting himself in constant danger.

From the instant that Monte gets thrown from a bull and is hurt too badly to ride, he knows that he can no longer bear to be so alone. He sneaks onto the Rocking M, and dreads seeing anyone there, especially Jo Lena, but from the moment he arrives on the ranch, he knows that at last he has come home.

If you haven’t read the stories of Monte’s brothers, Jackson and Clint, please look for Stranger at the Crossroads and Midnight Faith, both also published by Steeple Hill. I would love to hear from you. You can reach me c/o Steeple Hill Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017.

All warm wishes,

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

For maybe half of his ride on the brindle bull, Monte McMahan believed.

That he could stay on for the whole eight seconds.

That he could score high enough to put him back in the running.

That his injured back had healed enough to let him keep going on down the rodeo road.

Then the wily old Brahma dropped his head, shook his ugly horns and spun hard to the right when he’d definitely been looking to the left ever since the first jump out of the chute.

Pain clamped on to Monte’s spine like a coyote’s teeth around a rabbit. It twisted the breath out of his lungs one second before it sucked the strength from his arms and legs and tore the rigging from his hand.

He flew through space with the bright lights sparkling and the dust shimmering across his vision. He couldn’t close his eyes. He would not. If he closed his eyes, he’d be giving up and if he gave up, he’d be dead when he hit the ground.

The impact made him believe he was. But then the pain exploded inside his head and took the place of his last gasp of precious air. He decided a man could live without breathing because a dead man wouldn’t be hurting.

A dead man wouldn’t be hearing the true concern in the announcer’s voice. Good old Butch, he was worried about Monte.

“Folks, put your hands together for Monte McMahan,” he boomed. “He’s one tough Texas bull rider and he’s been ridin’ through the pain for a lot of months now. Y’all may’ve just had the privilege of seeing his last ride, right here in Houston tonight.”

The applause started, but it didn’t grow. It was hesitant, it died and the fear-filled hush fell over the arena again.

“He’s not moved a muscle since he hit,” Butch said. “Let’s hope Old Brindle hasn’t sent him back to the Rocking M for good. As you all know, Monte’s one of the fourth or fifth generation of McMahans from that famous ranch in the Hill Country.”

Good old Butch needed to get another line of patter. It was nobody’s business where Monte was from.

Faces, blurry and worried, bent over Monte.

“Boys, get that ambulance on out here,” Butch called. “And we need a big thank-you, friends and neighbors, for our brave bullfighting clowns. They’ve got Old Brindle outta here, now. There he is, joggin’ down the run, already lookin’ for his next victim.”

Monte cringed inside, in spite of the fact he couldn’t move a muscle. Victim. Butch coulda talked all night without calling him that.

Fool, maybe. That’d be more like it. And now he was a crippled fool.

No, he was not. He would not be.

Calling on the raw willpower that had carried him through many a scrape, he tried once, twice, then he caught his breath and he could force his arm to move. He lifted his hand. He waved to the crowd. Their noise returned, instantly surged into a roar.

He would come back. It might take him a little while, but he’d come back.

All the time the guys from the sports medicine trailer worked on him and examined him and then clamped the stabilizer around his neck and slid him onto the backboard, he held that thought.

Jo Lena Speirs sat her horse on top of the hill and let him blow. She loved this spot overlooking the entrance to the Rocking M. The river bridge glinted in the dying sunlight, far up the narrow highway, and the bluffs on the other side of it lifted green trees to the sky.

“This is getting to be our routine, isn’t it, Scooter?” she said, patting his sweaty neck. “Prayers at the old chapel, and then a nice run across the Rocking M before dark.”

Which, to be honest, was what was keeping her sane. Trying to be a mother without a husband, a business owner without employees and a daughter without siblings kept her busy every minute.

She’d already prayed this prayer at the chapel, but she said it again, her heart filled with gratitude.

“Bless Bobbie Ann, Lord. Bless her for offering this horse and this place of peace to me.”

An old truck and trailer slowed on the highway and turned off onto the Rocking M road. Idly, she watched it. Dexter Hawkins, Bobbie Ann’s old neighbor.

Strangely, Dexter didn’t follow the road toward the house. He pulled across the entrance and stopped. He must be having trouble. With a truck that old, anything could be wrong.

Jo Lena touched the cell phone she wore on her belt—Dexter, famous for his stinginess, certainly wouldn’t have one. She’d ride down there and offer to call for help.

But as she picked up her reins and started to turn, the passenger door to the truck opened. The instant the man stepped foot on the ground, even though he wore a battered hat pulled down, she knew him.

Monte. Monte McMahan. The only man she’d ever loved.

Even though he was stove up and stiff, she’d have known him by the way he moved. She’d have known him in a dust storm, in the dark or in a blizzard.

She’d have known him by the way her heart left her body.

Her eyes strained toward him painfully through the gathering dusk, hungrily watching him limp toward the back of the trailer. Her whole body had gone weak as water.

But the real trouble was her heart. It was pounding like hoofbeats at a gallop—except that her heart had really leapt out of her chest and left her far behind.

It had wrapped itself around Monte. He looked so sore and so completely defeated that she couldn’t stand it. Just the sight of him was breaking her apart all over again.

Dear Lord, You’re going to have to help me now. Please, please, help me remember everything Monte did wrong.

He had done her mightily wrong and she had done everything right. Her mind knew that. But there went her heart, anyway, welcoming him home as if her choice had been wrong and his had been right.

Yes. There went her heart.

And then, when he painfully held on to the trailer and pushed himself up onto the fender so he could crawl onto the horse, he wrenched her very soul. He took her hard-won peace that had been six years in the making.

It wasn’t just that he was physically hurt. Or that it killed her to see the hopeless set to his shoulders.

It was simply that he was Monte and she loved him.

She’d thought the fire was long since cold, but there were embers hidden in the ashes. She still loved him.

Dear Lord, give me strength. With Your help, I can handle that. What I can’t handle is getting involved with him again.

But that, too, was a forlorn hope. At that instant she recognized the horse he was riding at that painfully slow walk.

The mare was heavier—maybe pregnant—and scruffier, but she knew her, too, by the way she moved. It was Quick Way Annie, favorite friend of her childhood. The horse she’d been trying to find.

Her mind raced in circles. Had Monte heard, somehow, that she was searching for Annie? Had he bought her for Jo Lena, maybe to apologize, to try to make amends for leaving her without a word of goodbye?

All breath left her body. Monte had brought back her long-lost mare. He intended to get involved with her.

Monte gritted his teeth against the slight jarring of the mare’s soft steps and gripped her mane to stay on. His body ached to fall forward and stretch out along her neck, but riding that way would hurt even more. He’d just have to hold on.

He tried to get his mind off his pain.

Soon as he rested up a little, he had to get back in shape. Why, Dexter, old and slow as he was, had had the mare out of the trailer before Monte could even get to the door.

And he’d be in the back room at Hugo’s playing dominoes with the rest of the old men if he didn’t watch it. However, right now, with the pain pounding him like a hammer on an anvil, that sounded pretty good. Maybe he should’ve stayed in the hospital until the doctor let him out.

He was stiff as starched jeans and hurting like crazy. All he wanted was to crawl into a cool, dark place, ease his wreck of a body down and sleep for a week.

He jerked his mind away from that. Not yet. Not yet. He’d be horribly sore tomorrow if he slept out on the damp ground. If only he could avoid seeing anyone tonight.

Dexter never had been much of a talker. He’d been a neighbor to the Rocking M since before Monte was born, but he’d not be likely to call Bobbie Ann or Clint tonight to tell them about Monte being home.

Of course, sometime tomorrow they’d hear by the grapevine that he was back in the Hill Country. By then, he might be able to handle it, but not now.

Tonight all he wanted was to get into a bed of some kind, unheard and unseen.

A prodigal son needed to face one thing at a time when he returned, and for today this prodigal had already dealt with old friends and neighbors at the Bandera Cutting Horse Sale, the surprising sight of Jo Lena’s old mare, Quick Way Annie, on the auction block, and the shock of the feelings roused in him by being even this close to home.

Tears stung his eyes. The arched sign with the Rocking M brand in the middle had torn at him, but this familiar long, curving road with the pecan grove on his left and the bluffs rising to the right ripped away all his defenses. He was home.

For the first time in six years, with dusk falling around him, he was home.

Here he was, the great Monte McMahan, four-time champion of the Professional Bull Riding circuit, sneaking into his lair to recuperate from these injuries that had taken his life away.

Unsure of his welcome from his brothers, loaded with guilt at the sorrow he’d caused his mother and sisters, he was home.

Well, if he had to, he could camp out by the river and eat fish. Anything. Anything but more motels and more greasy spoon diners. Those he could not face anymore.

At the last curve before he could see the main house, he reined the mare off the road. They cut across behind the indoor arena and Manuel’s house, headed for the river. Everything was quiet. Evening feeding was done, everybody had gone to supper.

The thought of food repelled Monte’s stomach, which was sick from the pain. The mare didn’t need to be fed, either, since she was used to being on pasture, the seller had said. He would put her in that five-acre lot behind the old bunkhouse and put himself inside it, assuming there were no hired hands staying there.

A door slammed somewhere and the faint sound of voices floated from the direction of the main barn on the still evening air, but no one saw him and he and Annie plodded on through the shadows of the trees to the river. Its murmuring soothed him a little as they moved upstream, passed behind the guest house and then saw that the old bunkhouse stood dark. At its back door, he dropped the bag to the ground, eased one leg over and carefully dismounted, his teeth clenched against the pain of the landing.

When Annie was safe in the fenced lot with grass and water, he walked stiffly to the bunkhouse, opened the back door and dragged his gear bag inside. He flipped a switch on the wall of the old, added-on bathroom and used the light to find a bunk. The place was bare. All the mattresses were rolled and tied.

He went to the closest one, took out his pocketknife, cut the twine and waited for the mattress to unwind and fall flat on the wooden bed frame. That was the last of his strength.

Miraculously, he managed not to fall. He sat down on the side of the bunk, eased himself back until he lay full length and fell asleep with his boots on.

Bobbie Ann finally gave up her fight for sleep and got out of bed at five the next morning. Something was happening or going to happen with Monte—she’d known that since early yesterday.

True, he’d been on her mind constantly since he got hurt again and every sportscaster on every PBR telecast had to speculate about whether or not he’d ever be able to ride again, but this was different. This was even different from that wild, clawing need that had tormented her—the need to go to Houston, to find his hospital room, to take him in her arms and beg him to come home and let his mother take care of him.

She hadn’t done that because it would make Monte do just the opposite. If pushed, Monte would go to Brazil before he came home. So she had only called him and had kept her voice under control. Prayer and only prayer had given her the strength to do that.

Only prayer had sustained her since yesterday when the hospital operator had told her he was no longer there.

The phone rang as she was padding barefoot to the closet. She knew as she ran to get it that it was about Monte.

And it was. It was Jo Lena, the girl who used to love him, speaking in her husky voice, made even more husky by sleep. Jo Lena, the girl who could’ve made his life so different if he had let her love him.

“Bobbie Ann? Have you seen Monte yet?”

The phone froze to her ear.

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s what I thought. He’s on the ranch somewhere. When he didn’t let Dexter drive him to the house, I figured he wanted to lay low for a while.”

Quickly, Jo Lena told her what she’d seen and what she’d found out from a friend who’d seen Monte make the high bid for Annie at the Bandera sale. To which he had apparently hitchhiked from Houston.

“I would’ve told you last night, Bobbie Ann, but I was so…shook up, myself. And I knew he was too tired to face anybody.”

Bobbie Ann brushed her hair back from her face with a hand that trembled.

“I did try to call him yesterday and the hospital people said he was gone.”

Her voice was trembling, too, and she couldn’t seem to stop it.

“Is it all right if I come over there this morning?” Jo Lena said.

“Of course! Anytime!”

“Please don’t misunderstand,” Jo Lena said. “It’s the horse I’m interested in. I want her back. I wouldn’t trust Monte as far as I could throw him.”

The quick, sharp hope died, the hope Bobbie Ann hadn’t even realized had been born until then.

“Sweetie, I understand,” she said. “You have every right to feel that way.”

They hung up, with no need to say any more.

Immediately, Bobbie Ann went through the house, the apartment in the barn and the guest house, seeing with the quickest glances that everything was undisturbed. She didn’t see an extra horse anywhere. Only when she was headed back to the house, ready to call Manuel and tell him to go look for a campsite, did she think of the old bunkhouse.

She ran across the dew-laden grass, knowing in her heart what she would find. So, when she got there, she opened the door as quietly as the pink sun was rising on the new day.

Monte lay sprawled on his back on the bare, striped-ticking mattress, one arm outflung above his head, the way he’d always slept as a child. His face was empty in sleep but the sunlight showed lines in his forehead, crow’s feet beside his eyes and creases at his mouth. In fact, he was frowning a little bit—probably from a dream.

His open pocketknife lay where it had fallen from his dangling fingers to the floor.

Bobbie Ann sighed. Thirty-one years old and worn to a nub. Hard living and soul-racking pain had made her darling son old before his time.

But had they made him any wiser?

He was a feast for her eyes, though, no matter what.

He was home!

At least for this moment. Well, this moment was the only one she knew she had to live.

Thank You, Lord.

She leaned against the doorjamb, hugged her joy to her and watched him sleep.

Jo Lena Speirs leaned against the doorjamb, watching the baby sleep. No… Lily Rae. She had to quit calling her “the baby,” had to quit even thinking of her as “the baby.” Good heavens, the child would be five years old in the fall and she’d be going to kindergarten.

That old, familiar feeling clutched the pit of her stomach. Lily Rae was growing up, fast. Someday she, too, would leave her, the way Monte had done.

No, not the same way. Lily Rae would surely tell her goodbye.

The hurt stabbed her through to the bone, just as it had done on that day six years ago. She closed her eyes against it.

Dear Lord, please take this hurt away. Please help me know that what I feel for him now is sympathy and Christian love, not the kind of love I used to have for him. Give me Your strength and help me feel nothing at all when I see him today.

Jo Lena opened her eyes, shook her head and tried to banish the memories. What had happened to her vow not to give Monte any more power over her? Just because he was back in the Hill Country was no reason to backslide into thinking about him all the time.

If she’d married Monte, she would’ve only been settling just as she would have been if she’d married any of the other half-dozen men who had asked her over the years. She didn’t need a husband. She had her faith in God, her child, her friends, her home, her work, her horses, and she didn’t need anything else.

Except Quick Way Annie. She would get that taken care of today and then she would avoid Monte. The Rocking M was a huge place. She could ride Scooter and Lily Rae could ride Annie and sometimes Bobbie Ann would ride with them. Annie would be perfect for Lily Rae. Nothing like a seasoned, settled mount for a child to learn on.

It took all her self-control not to cross the room and wake the child up. She couldn’t wait for Lily Rae to see her horse.

Monte had had a lot of nerve, anyhow, to even think of buying that mare. Whatever he intended to do with her.

Monte woke in a haze of hurting. His right arm lay above his head and a direct line of fiery pain ran from it down into his back. Every other part of his body either ached, agonized or tortured him.

The pills the doctor had given him in the hospital had worn off long ago and he had no prescription, since he’d snuck away on his own. He would have to tough it out except for the over-the-counter stuff he always carried in his gear bag for the usual aches and pains from bull riding.

For one long moment, he dreaded moving and creating greater pain, then, without stopping, he lowered his arm and began to try to sit up. He wouldn’t think about it; he wouldn’t let the pain into his mind.

It flowed in anyway, but he got to his feet in spite of it and staggered to his bag and to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, his face and hair wet by hasty ablutions performed while unable to bend over the sink, he stepped outside. He stood on the stoop and squinted in the sunlight.

Time to go up to the house. Time to face the music. Time to see his mom. He’d feel guilty at the sight of her, but she’d welcome him anyway.

Carefully, he stepped down onto the grass.

“Mommy, Mommy, look at me!”

The trilling cry of a child’s voice stopped him. It was close, within a stone’s throw. None of his siblings had a child, did they? A wave of disorientation swept through him.

Did they? How long had he been gone, anyhow?

He turned around and saw a golden-haired little girl, maybe four or five years old, standing on the bottom railing of the old wooden fence, leaning over, offering a handful of grass to Annie, who was ambling over to investigate it.

“She likes me already!”

Probably the child of one of the hired hands.

“I see you,” a woman said. “Be sure to hold your hand flat and don’t let her get your fingers by mistake.”

Jo Lena. It wasn’t some woman, it was Jo Lena. The irresistibly husky voice was unmistakable.

Well. Chalk one up to the Hill Country grapevine. He’d expected word to get around, but not this fast—not Jo Lena Speirs on his doorstep first thing in the morning.

His breath stopped as she walked into his view.

Hair the color of honey, hair that felt like silk in his hands, hanging down her back in one thick braid. Hair pulled back from her beautiful face, tanned just a little from the sun. She was too fair to go without a hat, but today she wasn’t wearing one.

She saw him then. Saw him and stopped dead in her tracks.

“Monte!”

Her voice vibrated with his name.

His heart racketed in his chest. Did she still care for him?

Cold reality killed that thought as the miserable guilt washed over him.

How in the world could she? He had left her without a word.

She remembered that at the same time he did. Her big, blue eyes narrowed and she turned away from him to check on the little girl.

Mommy. The little girl had called her Mommy.

The strangest sense of loss came over him.

No, Jo Lena didn’t still care. She hadn’t cared for a long, long time. This child had to have been born within a year of when he left the Hill Country.

Now Jo Lena had her arm around the little girl and she was looking at him again.

“Monte, come and meet Lily Rae,” she called. “We need to talk to you about Annie.”

He walked toward them.

“Can you believe she just came through the sale?” he said.

“No, and I can’t believe you bought her,” she said, in a warm, cordial tone.

A tone that clearly said they were fine acquaintances and nothing more.

He walked up to them.

“Monte, I’d like you to meet Lily Rae,” she said.

Lily Rae held out her hand like a grown-up and gave him a straight look from her deep blue eyes. The very same shade of blue as Jo Lena’s.

“Nice to meet you,” she said in her piping little voice.

Well, her voice wasn’t anything like her mother’s. At least, not yet.

“Same here,” Monte said.

Her smile was that of an imp. Her hand was tiny.

“Are you LydaAnn’s brother?” Lily Rae seriously wanted to know.

“Yes,” Monte said.

The little girl looked at him, considering.

“She already has two brothers.”

Great. Even this kid who didn’t know him thought he was unnecessary. He was home, all right.

“You don’t think she can use another one?” he asked the child.

Lily Rae shook her head.

“Clint and Jackson are enough,” she said decisively.

Then she flashed him a smile that looked so much like Jo Lena’s—which he had not seen for years—it brought back a world of hurt.

“You can be my big brother,” Lily Rae announced. “I don’t have any and I need one.”

He was so busy thinking about Jo Lena’s smile from six years ago that it didn’t quite soak in. And then it did. And it warmed a tiny cockle of his heart.

“Why do you need one?” he foolishly asked.

“To give me a hard time,” she said. “LydaAnn says that’s what brothers are good for.”

A hole like a crater opened inside him. What had he missed in six years? He didn’t even know his brothers and sisters anymore.

“It takes one to know one,” he said, his voice suddenly rough with emotion. “LydaAnn can give a person a pretty hard time herself.”

At least she used to. She must be a grown woman now. Had her personality changed, too?

“I know,” Lily Rae said happily. “She’s my big sister.”

Then she turned back to the mare, stroking her nose and crooning wordlessly. Jo Lena had raised a happy little girl.

“How much are you asking for this mare, Monte?” Jo Lena said.

“She’s not for sale.”

Two pairs of blue eyes with identical expressions—worried, but mostly surprised—fixed on him.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am.”

Jo Lena smiled. Lily Rae glanced at her, then went back to petting the mare.

“Everybody knows what you paid for her, Monte. Don’t try a horse trade with me.”

“I’m not,” he said flatly. “I bought her to keep.”

“Why? You’re a bull rider, going down the road.”

Used to be. I don’t know what I am now.

“Bought ’er to look at,” he said.

“Once every six years?”

“You sound downright sarcastic there, Jo Lena. It doesn’t become you.”

“As if I’m worried about your opinion,” she said tartly.

Six years and motherhood seemed to have put a little edge on Jo Lena.

“You’re trying to buy a horse from me that’s not for sale,” he pointed out.

“Look, Monte,” she said earnestly, “I’ll have to take out a loan to pay you what you paid for her. I’ll do it and add a five-hundred dollar profit.”

Her eyes were so blue. A deep, bluebonnet kind of blue. But she still hadn’t smiled at him since the moment she saw him. Not a real smile, the way only Jo Lena could smile.

Suddenly, he wanted to see that smile. He needed to see it.

“Think about it,” she urged. “You make five hundred overnight, and you aren’t even out the gas money to haul her home.”

“Remember when we helped Dexter vaccinate his goats for gas money?”

He got his reward. She smiled then, just like she used to.

For one, two, then three long beats of his heart, they looked at each other and Jo Lena smiled at him.

The smile made him feel like king of the world, just the way it always used to do. But she was different now. He didn’t know her anymore. Deep down, she probably hated him.

If he had one grain of good sense left in his body, he’d let her have this mare and be rid of Jo Lena. Never see her again.

But the smile gave him a flash of power he hadn’t felt for a while. Since before he got hurt and became a “victim” the first time.

He wanted, more than anything, to reach out and brush back the strand of straight, silky hair that had come loose from the braid. Like in the old days.

“So, Jo Lena,” he drawled, teasing her, “exactly what is it you like about this horse?”

She lost her smile but she didn’t break the look. The serious, no-nonsense expression came back into her eyes.

“I have some good memories and some bad ones,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Oh, like when we had so much fun playing bareback tag in the pecan orchard in the twilight.”

The memory hit him like a blow. It nearly stopped his heart.

“And the bad ones?” he said through the tightness in his chest.

“I hate it when somebody runs off from me,” she said calmly. “Horse or man.”

He wouldn’t let himself look away. He made himself hold her gaze. He deserved that and more.

She was a woman now, Jo Lena was, with all her girlishness gone. A strong, beautiful woman he didn’t know.

Give her the mare. He should give her the mare so she’d go.

“Jo Lena,” he said. “This mare is not for sale. For any price.”

“Bobbie Ann! Bobbie Ann!”

Lily Rae jumped off the fence and ran toward the house.

Monte and Jo Lena turned to see his mother on the back porch. And a vehicle coming down the road from the highway.

“Big family breakfast!” Bobbie Ann called. “Jo Lena, will you stay?”

Well. Forget the poor prodigal needing to face one thing at a time. First Jo Lena and now his brothers.

Lily Rae turned, yelling, “Please, Mommy, can we stay? Please?”

Jo Lena nodded yes.

Then she looked at Monte.

“Annie’s my mare and you know it. Until we make a deal, I’m staying.”

Monte looked at her straight.

“Well, I hope you brought your suitcase,” he said. “I own her now and I’m not selling.”

Chapter Two

The look she gave him then was enough to make him flash back through the last six years in a heartbeat. It was Jo Lena’s famous, mule-stubborn, I-will-not-give-up-or-give-in look.

“I already have clothes here,” she said. “In fact, I have my own room.”

She turned her back on him and started for the house. He stared after her for a moment, then he caught up with her as fast as he could with his leg stiff and his back hurting like crazy.

His head was hurting worse, though. And he was losing his mind. Was this jealousy he felt, jealousy that she evidently was in his family and he was out?

No, it was irritation. Was he never going to be rid of her, even if he sold her the mare?

“You live here? Why? What about your husband?”

Jo Lena flicked him a glance and walked faster.

“I don’t have a husband.”

He was losing his mind. He knew that because suddenly, he knew what he was feeling—and it was fury. Some no-good rounder had left Jo Lena, who was a fine person in every respect, alone with a child to raise.

“Who is he, Jo Lena?”

She threw him another, more irritated, look and lengthened her stride. Jo Lena wasn’t as tall as he was, but she had long legs and had always been able to match him, stride for stride.

“Who is who, Monte?”

“The bum who left you…”

Without slowing a bit, she turned and gave him another, sharper, more significant look. It stopped his tongue.

It nearly stopped his feet.

Well, yes, he himself had left her. But he hadn’t married her and given her a child and then left her.

“Monte,” Bobbie Ann called. “It is so good to see you, son.”

He was close enough now to see the joy in his mom’s face. His mother loved him. Even if Jo Lena had thrown him out of her heart before he got to the county line six years ago, and even if his brothers and sisters were still mad at him, his mother loved him.

“It’s good to see you, too, Ma,” he said.

Suddenly, it was true. So true he didn’t know how he’d lived all those long days without seeing the love in her sparkling blue eyes. He went to her and hugged her, kissed her on the cheek. She held on to him for a minute.

The car drove into the yard behind him and the engine shut down.

“Here’s your brother,” she said. “Everybody’s so glad you’re home.”

Warily, he turned to look. It really didn’t matter which brother. Neither of them had any use for him.

Clint and Cait were getting out of a big, white SUV. He’d never met her, because he hadn’t come home for John’s funeral, but this must be Cait, who was his sister-in-law twice over.

Monte couldn’t help but watch. Cait, clearly, was pregnant and Clint was positively tender as he helped her step from the running board to the ground.

He lost his tenderness, though, when he looked at Monte.

“Hey,” he said. “Here’s the prodigal son.”

Cait gave Clint a quick look, almost like a warning, then she smiled at Monte.

“Are we ever glad to see you,” she said. “I’ve been craving Bobbie Ann’s biscuits and I hate to show up on her doorstep every single morning without an invitation.”

They all laughed, Clint introduced Cait and she gave him her hand, then Clint shook with him, muttering, “It’s about time you came home.”

Monte thought about that as they all moved across the back porch and into the kitchen, milling around, trying to make small talk. It made him bristle. No doubt Clint and Jackson both would soon let him know, in no uncertain terms, where he stood with them, but he didn’t care. He had a legitimate gripe about each of them, too, and if they didn’t know what it was, he’d tell them.

Fortunately, Bobbie Ann took charge. She shooed Monte upstairs to his old room to shower and change, saying that breakfast would be ready in thirty minutes, and then she gave everybody else, including Lily Rae, a job to do.

Monte escaped gratefully. A shower would help clear his head and he would love the feel of clean clothes. Not to mention a chance to calm his heart about Jo Lena.

How could she have let go of him so soon? Let go enough to marry someone else and have that someone’s baby within a year? It was still hard for him to believe.

Because that wasn’t like Jo Lena. She had always been as loyal as she was stubborn.

Guilt stabbed him. He had hurt her enough to drive her straight into the arms of another man.

He must put the past out of his mind and deal with Jo Lena here in the present. Or not deal with her. He needed to get himself together and just ignore her. Avoid her.

His old room surrounded him peacefully. He sat down on the chair at the side of the bed, kicked the bootjack out from under it and stuck one heel into it, pulling carefully. Boots finally off, he began to peel the dirty clothes from his battered body, focusing on keeping his mind blank and all regrets and memories at bay.

This physical pain was enough to keep him busy. He had no need to dwell on his emotional hurts, too.

He levered himself up and went straight into the shower, standing for a long time in the tingling sluice of hot water, letting it relax some of his muscles and wash some of the ache out of his back. Soaping every inch he could reach without yelling in pain, shampooing his thick hair and rinsing took a long, blank time, and he was thankful for it.

Finally, he made himself shut off the water, step out and towel off. Cleaning up had made him feel a lot stronger.

And it actually made him smile to find that he still fit into his old, battered Wrangler jeans. He put on the most worn pair because they were the softest, and then, after clean socks and boots, his favorite, faded T-shirt he’d bought long ago when Billy Joe Shaver had played Gruene Hall and he and all three of his brothers had gone to hear him together.

Long ago and far away.

That opening line from one of the songs they’d heard started running through his head. Yes, that night seemed decades ago and thousands of miles away. But today it was now and he was here. On the Rocking M. Back home.

He had to go downstairs and face them—all but John, who was gone forever. John wouldn’t be mad at him for not going to his funeral. John would take up for Monte if he were here this morning, even if they had been on opposite sides of the religion question.

He walked to the window and looked out over the ranch. John had been closer to him than to the others because for so long they’d been the young ones, bossed around by the big brothers. They’d staged their little rebellions, though.

Monte grinned to himself. Thinking about John was driving away that shaky feeling inside him. He could hold his own with Clint and Jackson.

But then, while he walked carefully down the stairs and through the entry hall and the great room, he wasn’t so sure of that. He just needed peace. And time alone. And an empty head.

And an empty heart. He didn’t want to look at Jo Lena and see the girl he used to know and the woman he might never know all rolled up into one magnificent package that made his heart skip a beat.

She was the first thing that met his eye, though, when he crossed the threshold into the dining room. Jo Lena. And the rest of the women and babies. It didn’t even seem like home, there were so many women and babies.

None of them belonged to him.

It was as unsettling as walking into a whole herd of unpredictable bulls to try to find his place at the table. There was a baby in a high chair on one side and Lily Rae on the other. His father and John were gone. Their absences screamed at him.

“Monte,” Lily Rae called, the minute she saw him. “I want to sit by Monte.”

Monte’s jaw tightened. He ignored her.

Jackson looked up, saw him and they limped toward each other to shake hands.

“Looks like you’re about as bunged up as I am,” Jackson said. “That must’ve been a whale of an argument you had with that bull.”

“Ah, but you oughtta see the shape he’s in,” Monte said, and everyone laughed.

He felt himself relax a little as Jackson introduced him to his wife, Darcy, and Maegan, their curly-haired, red-headed baby girl with wide blue eyes the very color of Jackson’s. Then Delia and LydaAnn were hugging him.

“Careful, girls, careful. Remember he’s hurt,” Bobbie Ann said, coming in from the kitchen with a big pan full of hot biscuits.

His sisters were careful with him. And they were telling him they were glad he was home.

But, as they let him go, they gave him looks that let him know they were pretty put-out with him for taking so long to get home. That was all right. They were truly glad to see him, even if they were probably going to give him a piece of their minds later on.

“Monte,” Lily Rae said again. “I want to sit by Monte.”

Bobbie Ann jumped right in, spoiling her rotten.

“Of course you can sit by Monte,” she said, as she waited for Jo Lena to move one of the gravy bowls and a platter of sausage to make a place for the biscuits.

She looked up at Monte, her blue eyes sparkling with happiness.

“Son, will you sit at the end of the table? You’ve made a new young fan this morning.”

“Monte’s my big brother,” Lily Rae, beaming, announced to the world in general.

“You better watch him,” LydaAnn said, teasing her. “That Monte’s full of tricks.”

“Not as much as I am,” Lily Rae said firmly.

Everybody laughed but she ignored that. She didn’t care about getting attention right then because, small as she was, her whole purpose was to help hold the chair as Monte maneuvered his painful body into it.

Great. This was the final humiliation—being taken care of by a child.

“If that bull broke your leg, Monte, don’t walk on it,” Lily said, her piping voice cutting through all the rest of the conversation in the room. “I’ll get you my grandpa’s wheelchair.”

“It’s not broke,” he snapped, much more harshly than he intended.

He clamped his mouth shut. This was ridiculous. Why wouldn’t Jo Lena distract the child?

“But then, what would poor Grandpa do?” Jo Lena said softly.

“Use his walker,” Lily Rae said earnestly, “’cause he needs th’ zexercise.”

Bobbie Ann chuckled with the others, then she said, “My heart’s so full this morning, I need to be the one to say the blessing.”

Everyone bowed. Except Monte. He stared straight down the length of the table. He still was no hypocrite. And, six years later, it was still a fact that nobody was going to tell him what to believe.

“Monte! Bow your head,” Lily Rae rasped in a loud whisper.

Startled, he shot her a fierce look. She glared right back at him.

Jo Lena gently laid her hand on the back of Lily’s head and the child bowed it then, but before she closed her eyes, she gave Monte one last, sharp glance upward from beneath her long lashes.

In spite of his irritation, he had to suppress a grin. The kid had spunk—just like her mother.

Bobbie Ann said the blessing, thanking God for the food and for Monte’s homecoming. Asking God to heal his body. Monte stared out the window behind his mother’s chair and tried not to think about her words.

He would just as soon not be called to God’s attention. Look at the shape he was in. His whole life as he’d known it was gone. God wasn’t interested in him.

As soon as Bobbie Ann was done, Lily Rae piped up. “Monte didn’t bow his head.”

Everybody turned to look at him. He scowled at Lily Rae, which made everybody laugh but her.

Lily Rae, frowning worriedly, turned to Bobbie Ann.

“We have to teach him manners,” Lily said.

That brought an even bigger laugh.

“Monte never did have any manners,” Clint said. “We tried to teach ’em to him, didn’t we, Jackson?”

“Sure did.”

Bobbie Ann smiled at the little girl, then threw Monte one of her famous looks.

“Yes, we do, sugar,” she said. “We’ll work on his manners.”

“Monte, why didn’t you close your eyes during the prayer?” Lily Rae asked.

He busied himself crumbling biscuits and drizzling gravy onto them. Maybe if he ignored her, she’d go away.

Maybe all of them would forget about him and talk about something else.

No such luck.

“Yeah, Monte,” Clint drawled. “I’d think you’d want to bow your head and close your eyes and thank God for showing you the way home.”

Monte’s stomach tightened.

But not so much that he couldn’t eat. This was the first home-cooked food he’d had for months. The gravy smelled heavenly.

“Ma,” he said, “I haven’t had a decent biscuit since I’ve been gone and no restaurant in the world can make sausage gravy like yours.”

“Well, at least you remember Ma’s cookin’,” Jackson said. “For the last several years we were star-tin’ to think you’d lost either your map or your memory.”

Monte shot a defiant glance at him and then one at Clint.

He’d have to have it out with his brothers before too many days went by. But then, he had known that for six years now.

“Why do you have my mommy’s horse?” Lily Rae said, attacking from another direction.

She was just like her mother. Same determination. She was going to make him talk to her, one way or the other.

He looked at her then, and tried his fiercest glare. Her wide, blue eyes never wavered. She took a big bite of a biscuit oozing with honey.

“Annie’s my horse,” he said finally. “I bought her at a sale.”

Lily stared at him thoughtfully while she chewed.

He could feel Jo Lena’s amused eyes on him. Delia’s, too. Everybody was listening.

“Annie was my mommy’s horse since she was a little foal,” Lily Rae said as soon as she could talk again.

“Yeah,” Delia put in, “she was. I remember when Annie was born, and when she was two I remember Jo Lena used to ride her.”

Delia’s voice was full of suppressed laughter.

Suddenly, aggravated as he was, Monte felt he was really home. Delia, at least, was going to treat him the same way she used to.

Well, to be truthful, so were Jackson and Clint, even if their baby brother was now thirty-one years old. Great irony in that.

He threw his sister a warning glance but, as always, she only laughed at him and raised her eyebrows, demanding an answer as Lily Rae asked another question.

“Are you going to sell Annie to us?” Lily said.

If Jo Lena thought this mouthy little girl was cute enough to make him change his mind about that horse, she had another think coming. He hadn’t bought the mare just so Jo Lena could own her again.

Matter of fact, at this moment, he couldn’t quite remember the reason he had bought her. Maybe for old times’ sake—memories had flooded through him like a river when he saw Annie come up the ramp onto the sale podium.

No. He had bought her for the foal she carried. The Quick Tiger and Sunny Meridian bloodlines could be a better cross to get a great cutter than most people might think.

“No,” Monte said shortly. “There’s no reason to sell her to you. You live on the same place with Annie and I’ll let you ride her anytime you want to.”

This shocked Lily Rae, who looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Nuh-uh! Mommy and me don’t live here. We live at our house!”

She turned to Jo Lena for confirmation.

Reluctantly, Monte stopped eating. Thoroughly annoyed, he glared at Jo Lena.

“You said…”

“You jumped to conclusions,” she said coolly. “I have my own room here—to change in. I ride nearly every day.”

“’Cause I like to play at Lupe’s,” Lily Rae said, naming the wife of Manuel, the ranch foreman. “She takes care of me and Maria.”

She took a long drink of milk, holding the glass with both hands.

Then she smiled at Monte with her milk mustache shining above her lip.

“I can ride, too,” she said, “and Mommy says Annie is a perfect horse for me.”

His whole family was watching and listening as if this was a movie.

Well, too bad. Let them think whatever they wanted. They already judged him as selfish to the core, so he’d just prove them right.

“I’ll let you ride Annie but I won’t sell her,” he said firmly. “Annie’s a good mare and I have plans for her.”

As those words left his mouth, he knew why it was that he’d bought the mare and why he was hanging on to her so fiercely.

It wasn’t that he wanted to keep Jo Lena hanging around him from now on, begging to buy her.

Annie was nine years old and she’d never had a foal. She was possibly a great mare who’d never been taken to her full potential. She’d never even competed in a big cutting futurity. He could train her for that and he could see what he could do with her first foal.

She might prove to be the nucleus of a broodmare band he could build up—one that would be the best in the industry, bar none. He had a lot of winnings in the bank that he’d never had time to spend.

Yes, the reason he had bought the mare and the real reason he had come home was the same: he needed to prove himself where somebody who mattered could see it.

That realization was all Monte could think about after breakfast, when Bobbie Ann shooed her three sons out onto the back porch and firmly shut the kitchen door behind them. He did care what his brothers thought of him, much as he hated to admit he did.

And his sisters. And his mother. And Jo Lena.

He cared what all of them thought, even though he’d give anything if he didn’t.

“Let’s go over to the barn,” Clint said. “Show Monte some winning horses.”

“Good thing you didn’t say winning bulls,” Jackson said, but his tone was light enough that Monte knew he was teasing, not taunting, him.

“Yeah,” Monte drawled. “I’ve seen enough winning bulls to last me for a while.”

“When did the doctor say you could ride again?”

That was Clint. Always wanting to plan ahead, needing to get everything under control.

“That depends,” Monte said evasively, “on a lot of things.”

They walked toward the barn with him in the middle, carefully keeping to his slow pace, as if they aimed to keep him under control. Of course, Jackson couldn’t walk much faster than him.

Which certainly wasn’t fast enough to outrun the other subject on his mind.

“Say,” Monte said casually, “who did Jo Lena marry, anyhow?”

They both looked at him.

“She didn’t,” Clint said, “far as I know.”

Jackson shook his head.

“Jo Lena’s never even dated much,” he said. “Not since you left the county.”

A whole new shock raced along Monte’s nerves.

“No! That can’t be.”

“Why not?” Clint snapped. “Some women take things to heart. Maybe she can’t trust any man after the way you did her.”

Monte stopped in his tracks.

“Who is Lily Rae’s daddy?” he demanded.

“Ray Don Kelley,” Jackson said.

“Jo Lena’s brother-in-law?”

“Yes,” Clint said, exasperated now. “And her sister’s child, you goober. Jo Lena’s Lily’s aunt.”

“She calls her Mommy.”

“Because Jo Lena’s the only mother she’s ever known,” Clint said.

He gave Monte a narrow-eyed look.

“Are you still in love with her?”

Monte held the steady gray gaze with a hard one of his own.

“Not a chance,” he said. “Just wonderin’, that’s all.”

Jo Lena wished, for the hundredth time, that she’d never stayed for breakfast at the Rocking M.

“Can Monte come and see my room?” Lily Rae asked, as she crawled into her bed. “He can play with my Breyers horses if he wants.”

If she could have ten minutes without hearing Monte’s name, she’d be happy. It didn’t even have to be ten minutes of silence.

“That’s sweet of you, Lily Rae,” she said. “Now, let’s read a story and you get to sleep. Tomorrow’s Sunday school.”

Lily Rae sat right straight up again.

“Is Monte coming to Sunday school?”

“I doubt it, sugar.”

“Why not?”

Because Monte refuses to go to church at all.

“Well,” she hedged, “Monte’s in pretty bad shape, don’t you remember? He can hardly walk, he hurts so much.”

It hurt her, too, to think how much pain he was in. Even if she couldn’t bear to hear his name one more time today.

“Monte could pray at Sunday school for God to make him all better.”

“True,” Jo Lena said. “But we can’t decide for him what he should do. Monte has to decide for himself.”

“We can help him, Mommy. We can teach him manners and bring him to Sunday school.”

She had to decide what to do about Lily Rae’s total infatuation with Monte McMahan, for heaven’s sake. Like mother like daughter—it must be a female thing. What a mess!

“And we’ll pray for him at Sunday school!”

Now the child was wringing her hands, she was so excited by this new thought. She had been in a total fit ever since they left the Rocking M and Monte behind.

“Lovey, stop talking now, lie back on your pillow and listen,” she said. “I’m going to read to you now.”

It took two stories for Lily Rae to relax and two more for sleep to come. Jo Lena was totally exhausted by the time she bent over to kiss the fragrant little face once more.

In spite of being so tired she could drop, she had made her routine last call of the day to the senior citizens’ home to check on her father. Now, at last, she could relax. With a last glance in at Lily Rae, she eased the screen door open and went out onto her porch. She leaned against a post and looked up at the stars.

The way she and Monte used to do. Looking at the stars had reminded her of him every single night for six long years. If she hadn’t had Lily Rae, she guessed she would’ve gone crazy.

No, she wouldn’t have. Because God was the One who’d kept her sane.

And given her peace.

Now here was Monte come back, stirring up all the old feelings again.

Except that she wasn’t going to let him do that. No matter how silly Lily Rae was about him.

Chapter Three

Sunday night Monte stretched out his aching body flat in the sweet-smelling grass and stared up at the stars. It was weird. It almost felt as if he hadn’t seen the night sky since he left home all those years ago. When he used to look at it with Jo Lena.

He slammed his mind shut against the memories. He wasn’t going to think about her, much less be around her anymore. He’d already enjoyed more of that than he could stand—especially with little Miss Mouth, Lily Rae, putting his personal life right out there on the breakfast table for everyone to see.

No, the reason being outside after dark was strange territory to him was the road. With all those weeks and years on the road, at night he was either riding in some indoor arena, falling exhausted into a motel bed, or driving or flying to the next place, readying his mind to get on the next bull.

Or else he was just so caught up in going down the road that he never even thought to look up.

The river murmured along over its rocky bed a few yards away. Monte listened to it and let his gaze wander from star to star.

He himself had been a star. The commentators had talked about him on ESPN, the announcers had loved him and the crowds had chanted his name as soon as he’d climbed up the wall of the chute and started getting ready.

Monte! Monte! Monte!

Now he was nothing but a has-been.

A broken-up, broken-down has-been.

His only comfort was he wasn’t broke. He’d been shrewd with his winnings, unlike ninety percent of the other guys on the circuit and he wouldn’t have to ask his brothers for anything. Plus he had invested his inheritance from Grandpa Clint.

He grinned. Delia had always said Monte was wild in every way but with his money.

The Big Dipper blurred suddenly and he closed his eyes. Once again, he listened to the river run.

It was good to be on the Rocking M again, it was great to see his family again. But all of them, at different times, had been in and out of the big house, talking to him, asking him questions, expecting him to talk to them.

He had to have some space. He had to have some silence. He had to have a chance to get a grip on himself.

His life was gone. Life as he knew it, barring a miracle, could never come again.

Ever since he’d barely been a grown man he’d been a wild, wandering bull rider, living on the challenge, living on the danger, living on the satisfaction of staying on one of the crafty beasts until the whistle blew. The thrill of beating a bull somehow felt, every time, like one more little bit of revenge against the ugly, vicious one that had gored Scotty Speirs to death.

That had been a night with no stars, even though they’d been riding in an outdoor arena. That had been the night God turned his back on Monte. Monte had done the same to Him, and even Dad couldn’t make him turn back again.

The thought of his father and his old friend stirred up grief and guilt that made his mind as bruised and sore as his body. It was too much to deal with tonight. He couldn’t wait any longer for the oblivion of sleep.

Slowly, carefully, he rolled over onto his elbow and pushed with the other hand against the ground until he was in a sitting position. Laboriously, he inched on up to his feet and started toward the bunkhouse.

Good thing he’d told his mother he was going straight to bed. After the fit she’d thrown because he wasn’t sleeping in the main house, she’d never get through scolding him for exposing his battered muscles to the dew-damp ground.

Which had been a major mistake.

Well, just as long as Bobbie Ann didn’t see him right now, he was okay. Just as long as she and his sisters let him have a little peace, he might be able to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

They did let him sleep until he woke up on his own.

But they must’ve been peeping in at him every fifteen minutes because he had no more than pulled himself up and out of that last dream of being stomped by a bull and staggered out of bed to the bathroom than he heard the door to the bunkhouse bang open.

It was Delia and LydaAnn, judging by the giggling voices.

He did not feel one bit like giggling. Or listening to it, either.

“Throw me my jeans,” he yelled through the closed door. “Looks like y’all could at least let a man get his pants on before invadin’ his privacy.”

“Looks like you could at least be pleasant to the women who brought your breakfast,” LydaAnn yelled back.

He heard the slap of the rivets against the door as they hung his jeans on the knob. He opened it and reached around to get them.

“You didn’t used to be so modest,” Delia said. “I remember when you never would wear a shirt, even in the wintertime.”

“When I was six years old!”

Carefully, very slowly, he began to lift one foot and try to fit it into one leg of his jeans. He caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror and nearly scared himself with his scowl. This was insane. If he didn’t want to see his family, why had he come home?

Because he’d wanted a place to heal, not a party.

“Go on and wash up and try to pull yourself together,” Delia called. “We took a thermos cup for ’em to put your coffee in, so it’s still good and hot.”

He heard rustling noises.

“I think your main surprise is still warm, too,” LydaAnn said. “Can you smell what it is?”

He couldn’t, but he realized then where they’d been. They were happy he was home and this was another welcome—they’d gone down the road to Hugo’s to get the cinnamon rolls he had always loved. He ought to be ashamed of himself for being such a sorehead.

But the hard knot in his stomach only tightened and he took his time with his morning ablutions. He didn’t have a choice about how long it took, did he? He couldn’t move fast enough to catch a snail.

Finally, he raked his hands through his hair, tried to contort his face into some semblance of pleasantness and went out to meet them.

The sight did make him smile. There sat his sisters, each cross-legged on either end of his bed with a picnic of cinnamon rolls and coffee set out between them on a towel spread between the paper wrappings and the bare mattress. Bobbie Ann’s daughters. No, if they truly were, they’d have brought a tablecloth and the good silver from the house. Then he noticed that they had real mugs for the coffee.

They’d dragged one of the old straight chairs out of the bunkhouse kitchen for him and set it on the floor halfway between them, facing the bed.

“So,” he drawled, as he limped toward them, “I’m supposed to sit here in the hot seat?”

“Relax,” Delia drawled back at him. “We won’t jump on you too hard yet—we’ll wait ’til you’re able to defend yourself.”

“Well, that’s mighty good of you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“Everybody at Hugo’s said to tell you ‘hey,’” LydaAnn said. “Bill Ed Traywick wants to talk to you about when you rode The Twister.”

Monte’s scowl came back.

“What about it?”

“Bill Ed rode him, too, one time at the Mesquite Rodeo.”

“Rode ’im or got on ’im?”

Both girls laughed.

“Got on him,” Delia said. “Bill Ed said he never knew a man could spin so fast and not have his head torn off his body.”

That made Monte laugh, too. A little. But he wasn’t going to start hanging out at Hugo’s, jawing with the boys. The very thought made him want to crawl in a hole.

Delia, who like Bobbie Ann was able to read a man’s mind, watched him as he carefully sat down.

“Don’t worry, Mont,” she said, “we told them all that you aren’t receiving visitors at this time.”

“I don’t know if Jennifer Taylor will exactly respect your wish for privacy, though,” LydaAnn said, grinning widely. “She was remembering you fondly to everyone there. Something about a nighttime swim in the Guadalupe River.”

“Jennifer Taylor was married before I ever left here,” Monte growled.

“Well, she’s not married anymore. And she told us twice to tell you ‘hey.’”

Delia nodded.

“Jennifer would love even just one date so everybody could be talking about it,” she said. “Her sister, Carrie, has gotten all the attention for so long.”

“How’s that?” Monte asked, just to be halfway polite.

But as long as his sisters were talking, he didn’t have to.

“The money,” LydaAnn said. “Did you hear about that embezzlement scandal at the courthouse? A year ago. Lots of people think it was Carrie who got the money, but if she did, she let Larry Riley go to prison for it.”

“Yeah, Monte, surely you heard about that,” Delia said. “The trial was on TV all over Texas. Remember—Carrie was married to Larry’s cousin, Steve. That’s how she got the job in the first place.”

Monte got that swimming feeling in his head again. He reached for the coffee mug LydaAnn was filling.

“Too much gossip,” he said. “Y’all’re makin’ me dizzy. Give me a break, okay?”

They both frowned at him.

“Don’t you even care?” LydaAnn said.

“No! And how come you even told everybody I was here?”

Delia shook her head and gazed at him with pity in her eyes.

“I could’ve kept you undercover if you’d called me to come and get you,” she said. “But appearing out of nowhere at the Bandera sale and hitching a ride home for you and your horse did sorta put you in the public eye, brother dear.”

He took a great gulp of the steaming strong coffee and immediately felt a little bit better.

“My mistake,” he said, shaking his head. “What was I thinking?”

“We’d love to know,” said LydaAnn.

The silence grew as she poured another cup of coffee and handed it to Delia.

“For the last six years we’ve wondered that very thing,” LydaAnn said.

Monte’s gut turned to concrete but he kept on drinking coffee.

“Hey, I thought y’all said I could get my strength back before I had to defend myself.”

“We did,” Delia said with a sharp glance at her sister. “And we will.”

She folded back the foil that covered each huge cinnamon roll and passed them out with handfuls of napkins. Then, to his great amusement, she did hand around the good silver forks with the Rocking M brand on them. Monte relaxed a little and set his coffee on the towel so he could eat.

“A little bit of a social life will be good for you, though, Mont, whenever you’re feeling a little better,” LydaAnn said encouragingly.

He just let that slide. No way was he arguing with them about that now. These two were into music and barrel racing and cutting horses and fun of all kinds. They knew everything about everybody for miles around, and they’d be trying to drag him into all of their lives, too, just to make him feel at home.

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind,” he said.

What he had to do was feel human again.

In the middle of the morning, he was out in the pen behind the bunkhouse brushing Annie when his mother appeared at his elbow. He startled.

“If I’d been a snake…” she said, her smile bright.

It made him smile back at her, even though he didn’t want any company—not even his mom.

“If you’d bit me, you’d have a bad taste in your mouth,” he said. “I’m pretty sour.”

“You’re a sweet sight to me,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

He liked to hear it but it made him feel guilty, too. And trapped.

“The place looks good,” he said, and walked around the mare to work on her long, tangled mane.

As always, his mother sensed his mood.

“Well, I’ll leave you to enjoy the sunshine and your new horse,” she said, stroking Annie’s neck. “I just came out to get your dirty clothes and put a load on to wash before I run into town. Can I bring you anything?”

It made him mad for her to start doing his laundry. Meddling in his business. Smothering him half to death. But he hated to hurt her feelings.

“No, thanks,” he said, setting his jaw against telling her to let him take care of his own stuff. “I’m fine.”

“When I get back, want me to help you move your things into the house?”

It sent a new jet of hot resentment through him. Why couldn’t they all just leave him alone?

“No, Ma,” he said shortly, “the bunkhouse is great. I need some time to myself.”

“Well, I don’t want you to just sit out here and brood,” she said. “Plus you shouldn’t be alone right now. You’re just starting to heal, Monte. You might get down and not be able to get up.”

He gave a short bark of a laugh.

“Don’t waste any of your worry on that. I’ve got so many visitors I can’t get dressed in the mornings. I’m gonna have to start sleeping in my clothes.”

She didn’t say anything. Finally, even though he didn’t want to, he met her searching, blue gaze.

“It’s all right, Ma. Don’t worry about me.”

“We–ell,” she said, “okay.”

She turned to go.

“Sure I can’t bring you anything?”

“Can’t think of a thing I need,” he said with a cheerfulness he didn’t feel. “Thanks, anyway.”

“All right,” she said. “If you change your mind, call me on my cell.”

With a final pat for Annie, she left.

Monte moved the currycomb in dust-raising circles along the mare’s back. He might as well get ready for it—Bobbie Ann would never give up. She’d be after him again, later in the day, to move to his old room.

His resentment grew. Wasn’t it enough that he’d come home? Did he have to live right in the family’s pocket every minute, so they could make him feel guilty every second?

By noon Monte was in the main barn, hunting for his favorite old saddle while Annie stood tied to the hitching post right outside the door. It had to be somewhere in one of the narrow tack/feed rooms built off the main aisleway, but Daniel didn’t know where and Monte wasn’t going to ask anybody else. Daniel could be counted on to answer a direct question and go about his business. Clint or Jackson would have to hassle Monte awhile.

Saddles were stacked two and three deep on some of the racks, but he managed to lift them off each other and move them around until he found the one he’d always favored. He picked it up, snagged a pad to go under it, stepped awkwardly out into the aisle and headed toward the door.

He set his jaw against the pain. No way was he going to sit around and get so stiff and stove up that he couldn’t do anything. No way was he going to let his body crater until he couldn’t ride anything at all.

Bulls were one thing. He’d admit that. He might never be able to ride bulls again.

But horses were something else. And he had ridden Annie bareback in from the road yesterday, so he could certainly ride her in a saddle.

In a saddle, it might not hurt so much.

He made it to the door after having to stop and rest only once, and stepped out into the sunlight. Right into the path of Clint and Jackson.

“Well, hey, here’s Monte,” Clint said. “Up and at ’em at noon.”

His tone was light, though, not derisive, and it held a note of… Was that pity?

Monte kept going, trying not to limp as much, hoping they wouldn’t notice that the simple effort of carrying a saddle was making him break out in a cold sweat.

“Gonna ride your new mare?” Jackson asked.

He came straight to Monte and reached for the saddle. Clint glanced around, saw Annie and veered toward the hitch rack to get her.

That made Monte’s gut tighten.

“I’ve got it,” he said sharply. “I don’t need any help.”

His voice sounded weak, even to himself, and slightly out of breath. Too much, too soon. He ought to sit down for a minute, but he’d been hurt worse and done more, and he could do it again.

Especially to avoid accepting help from his brothers.

Especially Jackson, who was more permanently injured than he was.

Jackson took the saddle anyway, even though Monte tried to hold on to it, and limped toward the mare with it. Clint led her to meet him and they met just as Monte reached them with the saddle pad.

“Look, guys, thanks,” he managed to mutter, around the knot of fury and humiliation in his throat. “I can take it from here.”

“Hold on,” Clint said, saddling the mare with swift efficiency. “You tryin’ to put us crossways with Ma? Daniel’s over there by the indoor seeing every bit of this. We don’t want him telling Bobbie Ann we let you saddle your own horse.”

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