“Everything’s a choice.”

“Like the way I chose to take the blame for the fire when the deputy came to question me,” Rio said. “I knew the consequences, Meg, but I did it because I wanted to protect you. I loved you.”

An acrid thickness welled up inside Meg’s chest, pushing tears into her throat, her eyes. She took a deep breath, holding on by the fingernails she dug into her palms. “I appreciate that, Rio. Really, I do. But I wish you’d told them the truth.”

“I didn’t know the truth,” he said quietly. “You were gone.”

Dear Reader,

In Cowboy Comes Home, the hero and heroine both return to Wyoming after many years away. So have I—fictionally speaking. Eight years ago, I wrote my very first Harlequin Superromance, The Maverick, with the small-town setting of Treetop, Wyoming. A good creation never dies—at least in my imagination—so when I decided to write a story featuring a reformed bad girl, a cowboy hero and a ranch named Wild River, I knew I had to return to Treetop.

To refresh my memory, I revisited The Maverick for the first time since it was published. Fun research. (Though slightly scary, since it was way too late to revise!) Then I reread parts of Mary O’Hara’s Wyoming-set “Flicka” series, which are among my favorite books from my horse-crazy years. Even more fun. Sometimes being a writer is the best job in the world.

I hope you enjoy this Wyoming reunion story. Cowboy Comes Home is my ninth Harlequin Superromance book—with more to come. And it all started in Treetop….

Happy reading,

Carrie Alexander

P.S. Visit me on the Web at www.carriealexander.com, where you can also find my backlist and drop me a line.

Cowboy Comes Home
Carrie Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carrie Alexander lives and writes among the birches and pine trees in Upper Michigan, where she enjoys gardening (sporadically), swimming (when it’s warm enough), collecting sticks and stones (they breed in her yard), and waiting for football season (Go Pack!).

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

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

MEG LENNOX HELD OUT one hand, offering a palmful of sweet feed to the balky gelding showing her his hind-quarters. Behind her back she clutched the rope attached to the halter hung off her shoulder. The way the horse had reacted to her previous attempts to catch him, she might as well have been throwing a rattlesnake around his neck.

The chestnut lashed his tail. He wasn’t easily fooled.

“Quiet now.” She chirruped, shaking her palm like a gambler with hot dice. “Don’t you want your dinner?”

Sloop’s ears flicked back and forth. His head turned as if he might be persuaded, but the one visible eye rolled with suspicion, showing a white rim.

She stood still, even though the temptation to sidle closer was strong. The horse was almost within touching distance, the closest she’d come to catching him during their half-hour battle of wills.

“Hey, Sloop. Good fella. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Don’t run away.”

Don’t run away? The words pinched Meg’s conscience. She’d always been good at running away.

She gazed past the fence and the weather-worn barn to the rolling pastures of Wild River Ranch. It was early October in Treetop, Wyoming, and the rich grassy greens of summer had faded to tan and ochre. The upright stands of high-country aspen marched up the foothills in golden epaulets.

She’d loved the ranch, but not her life here. Ten years ago, at barely eighteen, she’d left behind her home and contentious relationship with her gruff, uncaring father. Forever, she’d thought.

But in all the years she’d searched, she hadn’t been able to find the good life she’d expected. When times had gotten really tough, she’d instinctively fled back to Wyoming. To the ranch. Even though it hadn’t been home for a long time, even in her heart.

Especially in her heart.

Meg turned her sigh into another crooning overture to Sloop. Some days, her hopes for the ranch—and herself—seemed as unattainable as the stubborn gelding.

She’d returned too late. Both parents were dead, the land neglected. Her prospects were as bleak as the metallic-gray sky.

But I’m home at last, even if it’s only half a home. That’s something.

She chirruped again. “Sloop. Please let me catch you. It’s gonna rain.”

The horse didn’t mind being out in the rain, but she hadn’t hammered and nailed the box stalls into shape for her own amusement. Renny and Caprice were already inside, pulling at the hay nets, their grain long gone. Only Sloop was being stubborn. His owner had warned her that the horse could be hard to catch. Meg had been certain she’d have no trouble. Once upon a time, she’d had a reputation for being good with horses.

Sloop swung around, his nostrils fluttering. The delayed dinnertime was finally getting to him.

She opened her hand. The feed was moist and fragrant in her palm. “There you go,” she soothed him. “One more step and you’re mine, you ornery old rat-tailed nag.”

Ears twitching, the horse extended his nose to inhale the grain. She raised her other hand to his neck, sliding the halter rope across his flaxen mane.

She was just reaching around to catch it into a loose lasso when a truck burst around the bend, frame rattling, gears grinding. The flock of starlings that had been pecking along the fence line rose suddenly. Sloop flung up his head and wheeled away with a snort.

Meg threw the halter on the ground. “Dammit!”

She strode to the fence, calling a surly “What do you want?” at the driver of the pickup truck.

The door opened. A man stepped out. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

Meg stopped with one leg slung over the top railing. Everything inside her had seized into one tight, hard lump. Her shock felt an awful lot like pain.

The voice was deeper, rougher. But she recognized it, even if the face and physique were a stranger’s.

Rio Carefoot.

Her first love. The boy whose life she’d carelessly ruined on the night she ran away.

The man she’d most dreaded facing up to, even ahead of her dad.

Meg dropped back down into the dirt, keeping the fence between them. As if Rio had any chance of getting close to her. She’d wrapped barbed wire around her heart.

“Rio,” she said flatly. “You’re not supposed to be in Treetop.”

“Neither are you.”

“I’ve been back since July.”

“Three days for me.”

Meg grabbed the fence rail to steady herself. She didn’t want Rio to know how badly she was thrown. “What brings you here?”

He glanced away. “My mother’s still around.”

She understood the underlying implication. “Around” meant living in as a housekeeper for William Walker Stone on his multimillion-dollar spread east of town. Any Treetopper asked would have said that Rio returning to the Stone ranch was about as likely as Meg coming back to her father’s place.

Well, look at them now. There must be some fine skating in hell.

“I heard that,” she said. He was glowering. Still holding a grudge? “But I meant here. Wild River.”

“You wrote an ad. Help Wanted.”

The classified ad for a stablehand had been running in the Treetop Weekly for the past month. She’d had two applicants, a kid who could only work after school, and the town drunk who had a history of holding odd jobs only long enough to fund his next bender. She’d taken the kid’s number.

Rio rested his hands on his hips, face turned to follow Sloop, who was prancing at the far end of the pasture. Rio wore jeans and a chambray shirt beneath a new-looking leather jacket lined in fleece. The black hair she’d once braided down his back barely reached his collar. He’d filled out some during the past decade, but the weight was all broad shoulders and lean, hard muscle. He’d be twenty-nine now. One year older than herself. Only one, yet even when they were kids he’d been the wiser and nobler one. He’d already known that love could mean sacrifice.

She still hadn’t looked into his eyes. Her gaze was fixed somewhere near his left shoulder.

Rio’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Room and board, the ad said, plus a small salary.”

“You’re applying for the job?”

“You’re shocked.”

“What—” She bit the inside of her lip. “My dad passed away. It’s just me here now.”

“So I heard.”

“Right. Even though I swore I’d never return.” With all the fervor of a hot-blooded teenager who had no idea of how rough life could really get.

Rio’s eyes narrowed. “Why did you?”

“I had nowhere else to go,” she said before she could stop herself. Rio didn’t have to know that she’d retreated here, a failure. If he realized how barren her life had become, he might get the idea that she was looking for more than help with the horses.

He nodded perfunctorily. “I know what that’s like.”

Meg could sympathize. While her dad had been a hard, emotionless man with no idea how to raise a daughter, Rio’s father had never even acknowledged him. Of course he’d understand what it felt like to be homeless. Her estrangement had been her own choice.

She cleared her throat, hoping to keep the shakiness out of her voice. “You’ve been in the army all this time.”

“Yeah. Until five weeks ago.”

He’d been deployed to heavy action in Afghanistan several times, she’d heard around town. There were old acquaintances eager to fill her in. Stop-lossed the last time, they’d said, called back to action just when he’d thought he was out for good. His mother had been devastated.

Meg’s eyes squeezed shut. My fault.

She certainly owed him a job, at the least. Why he’d want work as a stable hand was a mystery she’d have to consider later. Right now, the prospect of having Rio live on the ranch with her was almost incomprehensible. Only in a small, hidden place deep inside had she ever considered seeing him again. Making it up to him.

She wasn’t ready for any of that.

“I don’t think it’s going to work out,” she said. The part-time kid would have to do.

Rio didn’t question her. He moved along the fence. Sloop had stopped showing off and was watching them with his head hung low, his ribs bellowing. The bucket of grain she’d been using to lure him was parked nearby.

“How many horses?” Rio asked.

“Just three.” Her training and boarding business wasn’t off to a flying start. “But I’ve got two more coming to board for the winter—” maybe “—and I thought I’d pick up a few green prospects at the fall auction in Laramie. Work with them through the winter, sell for a profit in the spring.”

Rio shed his jacket. “Make you a bet.”

“What?” Once she’d have taken up any challenge, but she’d lived in Vegas the past six years. Wagering was a losing game.

“If I can get that horse into the barn within ten minutes, you’ll hire me on a trial basis.” He didn’t wait for her assent, just climbed the fence and picked up the bucket and the halter. He coiled the rope neatly, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Much like the stubborn chestnut, except his whites barely showed.

Rio had dark eyes, a deep midnight blue that was nearly black. Her reflection in them used to make her feel beautiful, though the girl she’d seen in the mirror had been anything but.

Meg looked at her grimy hands. She wiped them on her equally grimy sweatshirt. “His name’s Sloop.”

Rio didn’t play coy. He walked directly to the gelding, cutting a swath through the fawn-colored field. She heard him murmuring—a soft, velvety sound that brought back memories of teenage trysts in the tight, enclosed space of his pickup truck. Lying together in the cool grass by the river. Their bodies tangled and wet in the hot golden light of the haymow.

She closed her eyes. They’d been sixteen and seventeen. Too young to know that they were playing with fire.

“Sloop,” Rio said softly, making her look again. He might as well have said sweet, the way he used to when he kissed her.

The horse’s ears were on a swivel, flicking back and forth. He’d thrown up his head. His flanks quivered as Rio approached. But he didn’t move.

Rio held out the bucket. Sloop lunged for it. The halter went on so fast the feat seemed almost a sleight of hand.

“That was no fair,” Meg called. “I wore him down for you.”

Rio’s sandpaper chuckle drifted across the pasture. “You ought to know, Meggie Jo. All’s fair in love and war.”

She flinched. She hadn’t been called Meggie Jo in a very long time. Only her mom and Rio had been allowed to use the nickname, though her father had often said Margaret Jolene Lennox in his most forbidding tone, when he’d been calling her to his study for another dressing down.

Rio rubbed a hand along the horse’s neck, giving Sloop a moment with the grain before he took the bucket. Meg got her emotions in check and went to push the corral gate open wider, then the Dutch door to the box stall, even though both were already ajar.

Rio, living on her ranch. That couldn’t possibly work.

But why not? First she could make it clear that she wasn’t looking for any sort of romantic reunion, and then she could make amends. If that even mattered anymore, so many years after she’d made a wreck of both their lives.

Rio led Sloop into the stall. The horse was docile now that he’d been caught, nickering hello to his stablemates, then nudging his nose at Meg to prod her into fetching his feed.

She ran her hand along the gelding’s flank, moving slowly only because Rio stood on the horse’s other side and suddenly the stall seemed smaller than before.

He looked at her over the chestnut’s withers. “Flashy horse. Registered?”

“AQHA.” American Quarter Horse Association. “Bonny Bar’s Windrunner, which somehow got translated into the stable name Sloop. He belongs to a woman from town. She’s a beginner, but she hopes to show him next summer. I’m going to work with them till then.”

“Look at me, Meg.”

Her throat ached. “I can’t.”

“I’m only me.”

“It’s been ten years and then some.”

“We’ve both changed. But I still know you. You know me, too.”

She met his eyes. A searing heat sliced through her, the arc of a flaming arrow. She pictured Rio, bare chested, bronzed and beautiful as he pulled back the bowstring.

She forced out the words. “That’s why it won’t work.”

“Or why it will.”

She was afraid of that, too.

“Why do you want this job? It’s nothing. Not challenging or rewarding. Hardly any pay. And isolated.”

“Exactly what I’m looking for. See, it’s the room and board that’s valuable to me. I can do the work easily and still have time for…other things.”

“Like what?”

The horse shifted between them, curving his neck around to nuzzle at Meg.

“That’s personal,” Rio said.

She eyed him.

“Nothing sinister,” he said. “Just a project I’m working on.”

“All right, if that’s the way you want it.” She ducked beneath Sloop’s neck and took the bucket from Rio. His fingers brushed against hers, but she jerked away, trying to make it look as though she’d only been moving toward the stall door. She went to the feed bins and dipped out a couple of scoops, then returned to tip the bucket into Sloop’s feed pan.

Rio was already filling the hay net. “Give me a week,” he said. “A trial.”

Her head snapped back. Trial. He’d used the word twice now. On purpose? To remind her what she owed him, after almost putting him on trial for a crime he hadn’t committed?

She secured the bottom half of the Dutch door. No, Rio wouldn’t taunt her with the past. Her guilty conscience was talking again, a voice she’d managed to drown out for the past ten years with a loud life that had ultimately said nothing at all.

At Wild River, the silence spoke. Too loudly. She’d be grateful to have another person around. They might even be able to reestablish their old friendship.

But never their status as lovers. Never.

“I’ll show you the bunkhouse,” she said abruptly. “You might change your mind.”

RIO REMEMBERED the bunkhouse. Even back then the one-room cabin had been run down, as dark as a cave. The Lennoxes had had a hired man, an old cowboy named Rooney. He’d chewed tobacco, tied flies that never caught fish, kept a string of sleazy paperbacks in his back pocket that he’d read in the barn in between chores. Meg had been the bane of his existence, with her mischief making and harum-scarum horseback riding.

Rio lifted the limp curtain that hung at the cabin’s only window. The view was of the river that cut through the property, deep, black and turbulent. Rooney had fished there, futilely. Rio and Meg had shot the rapids on their backsides.

“Do you remember the time you put cayenne pepper into Rooney’s tobacco tin?”

Meg almost smiled. “He’s dead now.” She bent over a small square table, wiping a thick layer of dust with her sleeve. “He’s dead, too,” she added to herself.

“He must have been seventy when I knew him.” Rio tried the lamp. “There’s electricity.” He crossed to the bathroom, outfitted with a rust-spotted claw-foot tub and cast-iron sink. The pipes clattered before blatting a brown stream into the bowl. “And water.”

Meg had pried a book from beneath the table leg. The table wobbled when she dropped the curled paperback on top of it. “The place needs work. I’ll clean it out and get a new mattress. Set some mousetraps.”

Rio moved over to examine the faded cover of the book. A buxom blonde with a gun winked up at him. Jezebel’s Revenge. Cover price forty-five cents.

“Are you saying I have the job?”

“If you want it.”

“I want it.”

She let out a breath, clearly exasperated with him. “Have you turned crazy in your old age, Rio Carefoot?”

He’d been crazy for her. Crazy for a green-eyed girl with rebellion streaming through her veins. The Meg of his youth hadn’t given a flying fig that he was a rootless outsider, halfway Crow, who’d never had a home of his own.

No real father either. But there’d always been his mother, who’d wanted him only to be good and get along. Virginia Carefoot hadn’t approved of her son’s fatal-attraction friendship with Meg, but after sending him away to one failed summer at the Montana rez with his grandparents, she’d run out of ways to keep them apart.

“What about you?” he asked Meg abruptly, not willing to acknowledge that, for him, the attraction hadn’t faded. She was still a part of him, even though he’d been sure he’d never see her again. “Where have you been all this time?”

“Around.” She circled the room, poking at the secondhand furnishings, as restive and uneasy as the young Meg. “Vegas, mostly. I arrived on the back of a motorcycle and left in a thirdhand Camaro with bad brakes, so you can guess how well I did there.” She rubbed her palms, drawing his eyes to the tattoos encircling her wrists. On the right, a ring of flame. The left, a blue band of waves.

“What did you do there?”

She pulled at her sleeves. “A little bit of everything—waitressing, clerking, answering phones at a call center. Pink-ghetto jobs. Then for nearly two years, I was on the city crew that did nothing but change lightbulbs. It was nice to be outdoors.”

“Huh. And how many does it take to change a lightbulb?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not the first to ask that eternal question. The guys’ standard answer was that now that they had a woman on the crew, the screwing had become a spectator sport. They were a rowdy bunch.”

Rio wanted to leap to her defense, even now. “You should have found a new job.”

“Eventually I did. There was some trouble and I was let go. So long, cushy city benefits.” Shadows shuttered the expression on her downturned face. “My dad always said I’d amount to nothing.”

“But he left you the ranch.”

“No one else wanted it. If he’d ever had friends, he’d chased them away long before he died.”

“Were you here at the end?”

She nodded behind a curtain of hair. “I came home. A neighbor—Mrs…. um…Mrs. Vaughn—she tracked me down off a Christmas card I’d sent the old man. But he didn’t want me. He told me to leave, to come back only after he was six feet deep.”

Rio looked at her, the bed between them. He’d have liked to go to her, but again he stopped himself. Even the young Meg had been prickly about accepting affection. This Meg had Hands Off branded across every inch of her.

“That was three years ago.” She brushed her hair over her shoulders. It was the same—long and straight, the color of pecans dipped in taffy. With her slim body and tawny skin, she’d always been camouflaged, easy to lose among the tall reeds and saplings of their endless summers. But she’d been free-spirited then. Now her camouflage seemed like the stillness of a wild creature frightened of capture.

Rio gave a soft grunt. “Don’t worry. We’ll set the old place to rights.”

Meg had moved to the door they’d left standing open. “I want this clear from the start—there is no ‘we.’ That’s over. I’m not looking for…you know. I don’t need a partner. You’d be just the hired hand.”

He gazed at her. “Of course.”

Her wide mouth pulled taut. “I’m sorry if that was harsh.”

“No, it’s good to know where we stand. This is only a job for me.”

“Then we’re clear.” Her eyes darkened despite what she’d said.

“Clear enough for now.”

“I mean it, Rio. I’m done with men.”

He followed her out the door. She’d always been a man’s woman. Never interested in girlie things when there were horses to ride, fast cars to drive, dares to take.

But someone had hurt her badly.

He hoped it wasn’t him.

CHAPTER TWO

AS SOON AS the rattle of Rio’s retreating truck had died, Meg slammed into the house. Tears welled in her eyes. She dashed them away impatiently. She didn’t cry.

But, oh, sometimes she really wanted to.

She pressed her knuckles into her abdomen. If only she could have had every organ removed after the last miscarriage, instead of just getting her uterus scraped. Maybe then she’d feel nothing except emptiness.

“For God’s sake,” she sneered after catching sight of herself in the cloudy mirror near the front door. “What a load of melodrama.”

Her mother had been a fine melodramatist, according to her dad. Meg remembered her as being sweet, fanciful and loving. But also weak. Emotional. Needy.

“Not fit for ranch life” had been the common diagnosis after Richard Lennox’s wife, Jolene, had slid from the occasional bleak mood into a deep depression. The townspeople had clucked over the way their daughter had been allowed to run wild.

They hadn’t known the worst of it. Not until, at age eleven, Meg had found her mother cold and lifeless in her bed, bottles of pills scattered across the blankets. In the community, there’d been whispers of suicide. Her father had refused to accept the possibility. The autopsy had come back as an unintentional overdose.

Meg didn’t remember much from that time, except that she’d made up her mind never to be weak like her mother. She’d been too young to realize how difficult her mother’s life had been.

Lately, she’d begun to understand.

Meg went into the kitchen, took a look at the clock, then inside the refrigerator. Nothing seemed appetizing. Still, she had to eat. Keep up her strength.

She rubbed at one of her wrist tattoos. Weakness was insidious. It had grown inside her mother until she’d rarely left the bedroom. During Meg’s own bad times, she’d battled against the same urge to retreat. And given in far too often.

Not this time. She had nowhere left to run.

She took out the platter of leftover roast beef, added an overripe tomato, a stick of butter. The last of the lettuce had gone to brown slime. A plain sandwich would do, if the bread wasn’t moldy.

Room and board. Good Lord. She’d have to cook halfway-decent meals for Rio. Sit with him, eat with him, converse with him.

Incredible.

She reached beneath her sweatshirt, laid her hand against her flat stomach. Her hip bones were prominent. The waistband of her jeans gapped.

Rio, she thought again. Still stunned. Rio.

She shouldn’t have agreed to give him the job, no matter how much she owed him.

Too uneasy to sit, she carried the sandwich around the house, nibbling at it as she went from space to space. The little-used dining room. The study she avoided whenever possible. The front room, with a river-rock fireplace, her father’s dumpy chair and a carpet worn to the nub.

The entry hall was ill lit and gloomy. On her mother’s good days, she’d kept it swept and tidy. She’d send Meg out to pick wildflowers for the pitcher on the side table. Now the space was strictly utilitarian. There remained a heap of her father’s boots, a tangle of his outdoor clothing. Fishing rods and garden tools leaned haphazardly against the wall. Clods of dried mud had collected where she’d kicked off her own dirty boots.

The sight was dismaying. She’d have to do better. Tomorrow, she’d clean it all away. She’d open the doors and windows.

Meg took a voracious bite of her sandwich. Everything would be better.

The thought came unbidden: now that Rio’s home.

THE NEXT MORNING, at a window booth in Edna’s Eatery, long Treetop’s busiest diner, Virginia Carefoot made an unusual fuss over her son. Rio was self-conscious about the curious glances thrown their way, but he put up with the motherly concern. Virginia claimed she had ten years of separation to make up for.

She’d already coaxed him into ordering fruit and granola on the side of his Belgian waffle. She’d stolen a sausage off his plate, since the nitrates weren’t good for him. Now that they’d finished their meal and ordered refills on the coffee, she’d moved on to his appearance.

“I can’t get used to you with short hair,” Virginia said with her head cocked to one side. Her gaze was intense, as if she was memorizing his features. He supposed, like her, he looked older. “You’ll let it grow, won’t you?”

“I’ve had short hair for ten years, Ma.”

“But now you’re home. The army has no more say.” For someone who had kowtowed to a boss for as long as Rio could remember, Virginia was a proud woman with definite opinions. Although she tended to be as cautious with words as she was with actions. “You’re yourself again.”

“Maybe I want short hair.”

She shook her head. Most Crow men wore their hair long.

Rio couldn’t resist teasing her. “I thought I was myself. Making my own decisions.”

“Of course.” With a decisive click, she set her cup on the saucer. “But you’re also my son, and one of the Carefoots.”

Because it was easiest, Rio agreed. As a full Crow, she’d never really got his sense of estrangement. To her, he was a Crow first and a Carefoot second, and that was what was important. Having an Anglo father was merely a detail, best forgotten. Try as he had, Rio couldn’t compartmentalize his life the way Virginia did with her own. For as long as he’d known what was what, Rio’s parentage had remained an unspoken rift between them.

“When are you going to retire?” he asked abruptly.

Virginia drew back. “Why should I retire?”

“You’ve been working for the Stones for thirty years. Isn’t that enough?” He didn’t know how she’d lasted so long.

“Still, I’m only fifty-six.” She remained a good-looking woman, rounded but vigorous and tough from years of physical labor. Her hair was as much gray as black now, typically pulled back in a low ponytail or wrapped in a bandanna or scarf of some sort. There were a few more lines in her face than he remembered, but Rio didn’t really see them unless he looked. She was his mother—the rock-steady cornerstone that had kept him straight, growing up.

He’d shaken her only once, when he’d been arrested for arson that terrible night. Ten years later, after he’d been honorably discharged and had come home for good, she’d hugged him fiercely at the airport, and told him she was finally at peace.

He hadn’t had the heart to tell her that his days of lobbing grenades weren’t over yet.

“Is it money?” he asked. “Soon, if this book deal works out for me, you’ll finally be able to retire. I’ll help you out with expenses.”

He had to make the offer, even though he knew that money wasn’t what kept her at the Stone ranch. Every month of his time in the service, he’d sent her a portion of his paycheck, hoping she would use the extra cushion to gain her independence. But she hadn’t wanted that for herself. He had.

Virginia set her mouth so that deep lines carved brackets at either side. “I live very well, thank you. I have what I need.”

“You don’t have a home of your own.”

“No, but I’m at home.”

He scoffed. “The ranch.”

Her resolve didn’t waver. “I’ve loved it there, Rio.”

“Ma, there’s no guarantee—”

“Hush.” She gave him a warning glance.

Edna’s was half filled with breakfast lingerers. Rio, being new back in town, had already drawn a good amount of interest and conversation, including, to his chagrin, an impromptu “Support our troops” rally from four ancient members of the Treetop VFW who held down a corner table every a.m. Better that, he supposed, than a rehashing of the old scandal that had converted him from local success story to just another kid who hadn’t managed to rise above his so-called station in life.

Yet.

“I have all the guarantee I need,” his mother said stolidly.

“You have—” Nothing, he wanted to say, but that would upset her. Virginia truly believed that her place on the Stone ranch was secure.

“You have me,” he amended. “I’m your guarantee.”

“Yes, and I’m grateful for that. Having you home is all that’s important. If only…” Virginia paused, and Rio saw that she was considering how much to say. She was the practical type. She didn’t fight losing battles. Even when he’d signed up for the army, forgoing the college education she’d put such faith in, her disapproval had been muted by resignation.

“I just wish that you hadn’t agreed to work for that woman.” His mother looked down at her capable brown hands, unadorned except for a plain gold band she wore on the ring finger of her right hand. Her “wedding” ring, he’d always assumed. “Are you sure that’s necessary?”

“I need a place to stay and an undemanding job.”

“There’s the money market account.” She’d taken every cent he’d given her and invested it. She called the account her grandchildren’s college fund.

“No, I’m not touching that.” He had his own savings. He’d already dipped into the money to buy a state-of-the-art laptop computer. Although he could have also covered the cost of a room and meals for the next several months, he hadn’t been able to resist Meg’s ad. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

His mother tried again. “You could stay at the…”

The invitation died on her lips, withered by Rio’s hard stare. He’d sworn he’d never step foot on the Stone ranch again. Not without an invitation. Definitely not as the bastard son of the boss’s housekeeper.

Virginia gave in with a grim nod, though she wasn’t happy about it. “All right. But keep your distance from her, if you can.”

“I intend to,” he said forcefully, much too aware of the old saying about the road to hell. “Remember, I have work to do.” Work that would keep him apart from Meg even if his intentions didn’t.

“Writing. I can hardly comprehend that, either. It doesn’t seem like a real job to me.”

“You’ve read the blog?” A couple of years ago, he’d begun writing entries for a soldiers’ group blog that had gained a large readership and quite a bit of notoriety. He’d sent his mother the Web site link from Afghanistan but she’d never really commented.

Virginia made a face. “It was too graphic for me.”

He smiled an apology. Much of the language had been rough, blunt. Soldiers weren’t polite. “I warned you to read only my stuff.”

“Yours was hard to take, too. In a different way.”

He waited, but that was all she’d say. Typical.

“It may get worse, you know, if I’m published.”

“Rio.” The way she said his name was like a scolding. “Please reconsider.”

“Why? You said it yourself. I’m on my own again. Free and independent. I’ve accepted my birthright—or lack of one. Do you want me to be ashamed of who I am?”

This was the closest he’d ever come to stating the bald truth to her face. He twisted in the leatherette booth, bringing his fist down on the table with more force than he’d meant to. The crockery rattled. He quickly quieted it. “For chrissake, Ma, this is a new century. There’s no real stigma to—”

“That’s enough.” Color flamed his mother’s face. “Can’t you write this thing without naming names? Anonymous.”

“This thing?” He hadn’t expected her to understand his compelling need to write his story, to leach the poison out, but he’d hoped that she’d be proud of the accomplishment, at least.

“The book,” she said heavily.

“It’s a memoir.”

Her gaze slid away. “Authors use pen names. It’s not unusual.”

He forced a negligent shrug. The blog had been written under nicknames—pseudonyms, of a sort—to protect the careers of the soldiers. It wasn’t required that he use his own name. His agent, however, had told him that being open to the publicity would be highly beneficial. As well, verification would be required.

Verification of the truth. A truth that would devastate several people who deserved it, but also his mother. Maybe even Meg, for all that she’d put on a good front of not caring what others thought of her.

“I’m thinking about it,” he conceded. “Or who knows? The memoir may not pan out.” He wasn’t even sure he could write a book in the first place.

“What about fiction?”

“I don’t think so.” There’d already been enough fiction in his life. His mother had accepted it, even perpetuated it. He wasn’t as willing.

“What does she say?”

“Meg and I haven’t discussed it. She doesn’t know that I’m writing a book.”

“That won’t last, not in Treetop.”

“We’ll see. The ranch is isolated. She doesn’t seem to have much to do with the townspeople.”

“Like her father.”

Rio had never thought of Meg as antisocial. But she wasn’t an ordinary girl, either. She was hard to know, difficult to get along with. Except when it came to the two of them, relating one-on-one. Their friendship had deep roots. The love was more complicated, especially after she’d rejected him the last time.

The real last time, he’d decided then, as she skipped town with another guy. That resolution had been easier to keep with thousands of miles between them.

Now, she was already working her way under his skin, into his blood. The old desires were tugging at him.

But, no, he wouldn’t take her back. Not again. Even in the unlikely event that she offered. If nothing else, the memoir would prevent that.

“I don’t trust her,” Virginia went on. “She’ll get you into trouble. Again.”

“I’m responsible for my own actions, Ma.”

Virginia gave an inelegant snort. “Responsible for hers, too.”

“Her name is Meg. You used to like her, or at least you tried to befriend her.”

“She was young then. A skinny child with no mother, growing up practically wild. I felt sorry for her.”

“That didn’t change just because she got older.” Older, but also tougher, wilder, even more daring. Sometimes, she’d scared even Rio.

Primarily, she’d confused him. He’d been dealing with his own adolescent turmoil. He hadn’t been equipped to handle the strange new way that Meg made him feel, with her ripening body and her growing awareness of how boys, even men, reacted to her.

Virginia was still fretting. “She’ll be a distraction for you.”

Rio looked out the window. Sure enough. A charge went through him at the mere sight of Meg.

“There she is now.”

His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Speak of the devil.”

Meg was across the street in the Food King parking lot. She loaded grocery bags into her trunk, her jacket hanging open and a long red scarf tied loosely around her neck. The wind caught at her hair, making his heart leap. Memories.

Good intentions…

“I’m going to help her.” He stood and pulled out his wallet. “Why don’t you come over and say hi. Meg asked after you.”

Virginia’s mouth was drawn. “I’ll finish my coffee.”

“Give me five minutes.” He loped across Range Street, the two-lane road that was Treetop’s main thoroughfare. The cold was biting. “Meg! Hold up.”

“Hey, Rio,” she said with a natural ease that was a big improvement over the previous day’s tension. She brushed her hair aside. “Morning.”

He pulled up, grabbed one of the remaining bags and set it in the back of her car. “Planning to feed an army?”

“Nope. Only you.” Her smile was a sun flickering behind clouds. “I remember how you used to eat. Like a voracious army, leaving no flapjack unturned.”

He looked into the next bag. A giant sack of green beans and a frozen apple pie. “Mmm, lunch. You’ll be sorry you hired me.”

She became brisk, shoving the last bag at him and rolling away the cart. “I’m already sorry, but not for that.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s—” She squinted. “Just second thoughts. Is that your mother?”

Virginia clearly sat in the diner window, her face a pale oval behind the dark glass. Looming large across the building’s low eaves the retro sign in tall turquoise letters spelled out EDNA’S. “We were having breakfast.”

Meg waved. After a moment, Virginia lifted her hand.

“You know what’s funny? I haven’t run into your mother since I’ve been back.” Meg slanted a look at him. “But I suppose I haven’t been off the ranch a whole lot.”

“Neither has she. You’re both homebodies.” He gritted his teeth. His mother’s idea of home didn’t match his own. And yet he couldn’t argue that she wasn’t content.

“That’s a new one for me.” Meg shut the trunk. “Speaking of home, I’m heading back there after a quick stop at the feed store. When will you be along? Do you need more time?”

He watched her fiddle with the zipper on her jacket.

“When do you want me?” The question felt loaded.

She knew it, too, answering him only with a wry expression.

“I can pack and check out in five minutes,” he said.

“You’re not staying at the Stones’?”

“No.”

She didn’t ask why, but a worry line appeared between her eyebrows. “I did some work on the cabin last night, but it’s still a mess.”

“That’s okay. I can help fix it up.”

This time, her smile stayed a while longer. Someday he’d get her to laugh again. “You’re sure in a rush to start shoveling shit.”

“Is that my job? Damn. You never said I’m your new Rooney. Next you’ll be peppering my snuff.”

“R-r-right. When you start walking bowlegged, I’ll let you know.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and got in the car. It was a red Camaro with Nevada plates, a dozen dings and rust spots past the point of well maintained. “Listen. There’s no rush. Come by any time next week, if you’d rather.”

So she wasn’t ready. “I want to get settled in.”

“What about your mother? Wouldn’t you like to spend more time with her?”

“She’s not going anywhere.” And neither was he. It was time to face the past. Maybe he couldn’t fix the things that had gone wrong or enact some kind of ideal reunion with his father, but he could learn how to live with the truth—openly. Writing the memoir could turn out to be a healing experience, not just a divisive one.

Meg said, in a rather stilted way, “Tell Virginia that she’s welcome at Wild River anytime, if she wants to visit with you.”

Rio nodded. Meg put up her window, withdrawing into the dark interior as she reached for the ignition. She must have known, or sensed, that his mother still blamed her for the supposed ruination of Rio’s future. He gave her credit for making the first overture, however small.

“I will,” he said, though she was driving away. He waved at the departing car.

From Edna’s, Virginia watched, her face placid but her worry palpable. Rio told himself he knew what he was doing.

CHAPTER THREE

THE NEXT MORNING, Meg woke to the smell of frying bacon. She burrowed deeper into her bed, awash with memories of a time when her mother was alive and active. They had filled out the small kitchen table perfectly—two parents, a little girl who swung her legs against the chair rungs, and Rooney, a grizzled, guffawing “uncle” who used to give her quarters for candy and gum.

Mornings for the past few months had been ascetic. Caffeine was her only remaining vice. Sitting at the same table with the coffeemaker at hand, she’d made lists of chores, lists for the feed store and hardware store, lists of low-cost ways to advertise her training stable. She’d never been a list maker before, but she’d thought that having it all written down would get her going, and doing.

Some days, it worked. Others, not.

She’d learned soon enough that there wasn’t a list on earth that could write away her loneliness.

This morning was different. Rio was in the house. She was up and out of bed, showered and half-dressed before she realized it.

When she entered the kitchen, he was laying strips of bacon on a folded paper towel. Tall, brown, in a red plaid flannel shirt, jeans and stocking feet. A lock of black hair fell in his eyes. He looked up and flashed a white smile. “Morning, Meg. I started breakfast.”

“That’s not your job. But thanks.” Her stomach growled. “I guess I’m starved.”

“Good. You’re too thin.”

“Yeah, well, you look like you could use a few home-cooked meals yourself.”

“That’s what my mother says.”

Rio’s mother. He’d brought her up several times yesterday, as they were working on the cabin. He’d kept it all casual, but Meg had the feeling that he was planning to get them together and talking, despite their agreement that he was here for a job, not a lovey-dovey reunion.

She did have some fond memories of Virginia Carefoot. For a time, the woman had seemed like just about an ideal, motherly kind of mother to Meg, even when her own had still been alive. But then she’d grown up and Virginia had become quietly disapproving of the relationship between her upstanding son and the town’s bad girl. From a more mature perspective, Meg could hardly blame Mrs. Carefoot for that. She’d been dead right in predicting that Meg would lead Rio to a sad end.

“You go feed the horses,” she told him. “I’ll finish breakfast.”

“I already fed them.”

“Oh.” She glanced at the clock. “I overslept.” She would have sworn that having Rio on the ranch would keep her tossing and turning, but instead she’d conked out for a solid nine hours—the longest she’d slept in years. “I’ll start setting an alarm.”

“No problem. I can take over the morning feeding. I’m closer to the barn, in the bunkhouse. The horses wake me anyway.”

“Um, okay, then how about pancakes?” She reached for the canister of flour. A carton of eggs was open on the counter. She cracked several into a bowl, glad to have something to do with her hands. He was watching and that made her skittish.

“Sure, if they’re apple.”

“Why not.” Yesterday, she’d bought more produce than she had in the previous ninety days. A mixing bowl filled with Macintoshes sat on the table. “If you slice them up, nice and thin.”

He got a knife and sat at the table. She drained the grease from the cast-iron frying pan, the same one that had always been used at the ranch. She added milk and baking soda to the mixing bowl and began whisking the batter. “So…you seem to have settled in all right.”

Her scalp prickled from the sensation of Rio’s gaze on the back of her head. “I’m at home here,” he said easily. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Except you’re sleeping in the bunkhouse.”

“We did that a few times. Remember?”

Hell, yes, she remembered. As kids, they’d thought it was great fun to take over the cabin on the rare nights that Rooney was gone. They’d played at being cowboys, with a campfire and beans heated in the can and served on tin plates. They’d rolled out their sleeping bags and told ghost stories and dirty jokes that they hadn’t half understood, until finally they couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer.

But there’d been other nights, too, when they’d grown older. In the cabin, in the barn, even, once or twice, in Meg’s bedroom. Her father would have banned Rio from the ranch if he’d ever caught them. That had been half the thrill for her.

“I remember.” She poured a dollop of the batter into the pan and watched the sizzling edges as if they were mesmerizing. Remember was a dangerous word for them.

Rio nudged her. “The apples.”

She stepped away. “Go ahead.”

He laid slices in the frying pancake. “Remember when we tried to roast apples over the campfire?”

“Sure.” That word again—remember. Was he deliberately making her recall how easy things used to be between them? “We stuck them on sharpened sticks. They came out all black and crisp outside and raw inside.”

“Those were good times.”

“Yeah.” Meg retreated. Leaving Rio to flip the pancakes, she snatched one of her lists off the sloppy pile of notepads, instruction manuals and several outdated phone books on top of the fridge. “We should go over the day’s chores. Get it straight how things are going to be around here.”

“Fuel first,” he insisted. “I need a hot cup of coffee and a bellyful of apple pancakes before I can face my first day as your stable boy.”

“You started yesterday.”

They had emptied the cabin, scrubbed the floor and sink, scraped and painted trim, washed the window. Her final task had been to hang a pair of curtains she’d fashioned out of two linen dish towels printed with strawberries and watermelon slices. Rio had laughed and said that Rooney would have never stood for such a womanly touch, but fortunately he was secure in his masculinity.

That was when Meg had scrammed. After soaking in a hot bath and thinking a little too long about Rio’s very secure masculinity, she’d decided she’d have to reiterate their position as boss and employee. She would assign him duties that ensured there’d be as little contact as possible between them during an average day. They’d already become too chummy.

She ducked her head over the list as he put a platter of pancakes between them. Sharing a meal in the cozy kitchen wasn’t helping her cause.

“Today,” she announced, “you can work on repairing the fences.” That would keep him out of her way.

“Shouldn’t I muck out the stalls first?”

“But I was going to groom the horses.”

“Exactly. They’ll be out of their stalls.”

“Of course.” She forked two pancakes onto her plate and four onto his.

He buttered them and added syrup, looking too content for her peace of mind. “I don’t bite, Meg. Hell, I won’t even talk to you if you don’t want me to.”

She frowned. He’d had a knack for knowing what she was thinking and feeling. Except the one time that she’d held a huge secret so deep inside that not even Rio had suspected. He had known that something was wrong, but she’d led him to believe that she was just nervous about their upcoming high school graduation and her plan to leave home immediately afterward.

“It’s not that.” Her eyes darted to his face. He was studiously slicing through his stack and didn’t look up. “We can be friendly, sort of. We just can’t be close. Not the way we used to be.”

He reached for the coffee, still too relaxed. “Why?”

She became very interested in chewing. He was stirring milk into his coffee, the spoon going around and around until she knew that he wasn’t as indifferent as he portrayed.

She hooked her feet on the chair rung. “Too much happened. And too much time has gone by.”

“But if we got it all into the open, wouldn’t that be better?”

“Not for me.”

Rio’s expression didn’t change, but she could tell he was disappointed in her. Join the club, she thought. I may not be much good for closure, but I’m an expert at cutting my losses and moving on.

He jerked the spoon from the mug. “Whatever you say, boss.”

RICHARD LENNOX HAD RUN a good-size herd of cattle back in the day, when the market had thrived and there’d been more than one cowboy in the bunkhouse. Lean years had cut the herd in half by the time Meg had been allowed to work the cattle alongside the men. After she’d gone and Rooney had passed away, the word around town had been that Lennox was a broken man. He’d reduced the herd even more and scraped by on his own. Sometime along the way, a large parcel of the ranch land had been sold.

What acreage remained was remote but prime, reaching as far as the mountains to the south and culminating in a small, deep canyon to the west. Meg could have made a nice sum by selling it, but she was her father’s daughter, likely to turn her nose up at the large ranch corporations or California tourists who’d be the buyers.

While much of the land was free range, the pastures closest to the house were strung with barbed wire. That meant a lot of fence to ride.

Rio could think of worse jobs. Plenty of them. Only months ago, he’d been stuck in a mountaintop outpost in Kunar Province, barely surviving the grinding heat and dust and stones while dreaming of the cold, clear Wyoming skies. Ten years away hadn’t made him forget what it was like to breathe air so pure you felt glad to be alive.

This morning, the wind sweeping off the mountains had a bite. He pulled up the collar of his jacket before returning a steadying hand to the reins. Meg had put him aboard her horse Renny, short for Renegade. The bay gelding had some age on him, but he’d capered like a two-year-old as they rode toward the foothills.

Clouds like thick cotton wadding moved slowly across the sky, hiding the sun. Rio remembered long hours spent down in a bunker while insurgents fired on the camp, the sun beaming relentlessly down on him and his infantry unit. In those hours, he’d often think of Meg. Happy and productive, he’d hoped, but maybe as lonely without him as he was without her.

The war had dragged on. He’d seen soldiers killed. More wounded. Many lost arms or legs. Eventually he’d come to understand that Meg was his phantom limb. A pain so real it woke him up at night.

At his discharge from the army, he’d overcome the temptation to search for her. He hadn’t considered that he’d find her right here, in Treetop, even though that made sense. They’d both returned like homing pigeons.

He studied the landscape that had once been so familiar, recognizing certain trees, particular rocks.

It seemed unbelievable that they were living on the ranch together. Except that the Meg he’d been remembering all this time was not the person she was now.

Would she become familiar again, too?

He wanted to relearn her, but she wasn’t ready to give him any specifics about what and where she’d been for the past decade, beyond a list of short-term jobs she’d held down. He couldn’t blame her. He didn’t want to talk either, which was why he’d taken to writing as an outlet.

Still, this was only their second day together. They had time. And nothing to keep them apart, except fences of their own making. Which, Rio well knew, were the most insurmountable of all.

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, he gripped a pair of pliers with a hand rubbed raw. Rookie move, forgetting his gloves. Wearing the proper gear was basic cowboy knowledge, but he hadn’t done ranch work in a long time.

He put some muscle into his task and stretched the broken wire taut, then attached it with an efficient twist to one of the extra lengths he’d brought along. That’d hold. Especially since he didn’t figure Meg would be running stock up here in the high pasture anytime soon.

He doffed his cap, an army-issue camo job, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It was past noon. The sun had risen above the clouds and was warm enough to heat the back of his neck. Renny nosed the dry grass, looking for green, tugging the reins as he stretched his neck toward a tempting mouthful.

The last thing he needed was to lose his horse, so many miles from the house. It’d be a long walk back. Meg would tease him mercilessly, probably bring up the last time his horse had arrived at Wild River an hour before him.

Might be worth it, he mused, to get her to remember—or rather, acknowledge—their history. She remembered; he knew she did. That was why she was being so standoffish.

Freeing the reins from the fence post, he led Renny along the fence line, coming to a section that was beyond spot repair. Rusty barbed wire lay in snarls in the buffalo grass, tangled in the branches of a fallen tree.

Sloop and Meg appeared on the rise, loping through the golden grass. The horse’s pale mane and tail made a bright flag in the sunshine. Meg sat astride, slim and quiet in the saddle. Rio’s gut tightened, the way it did when he watched a hawk soar above the mountains, or the sunset burn a line across the desert. She’d always been his own personal force of nature.

She pulled up alongside Renny. “Problems?”

He gestured at the downed fence. “I’ll have to move the tree, then run new strands.”

Meg flicked the reins against her mount’s neck to keep him from nipping at Renny. “All right.”

“Barbed wire is no good for horses.”

“Well, no. But I can’t afford board fences right now.”

“Maybe not up here, but how much grazing land do you need, with only three horses in the barn?”

“There will be more. Until then, I suppose the home pasture will do.”

“Then why’m I out here?” Rio caught the sheepish cast to her expression before she glanced away. “You were just trying to keep me busy,” he accused her.

She turned Sloop in a tight circle. “No…”

“You wanted me out of the way.”

“That’s not it,” she protested. With small conviction.

“My time would have been better spent in the barn. The feed room’s neglected. There’s enough space between some of the boards to see daylight.” He stowed the pliers and wire cutters in the saddlebag. “I won’t be much use to you if you can’t stand to have me around.”

“You’re wrong.” She’d never admit defeat. “It was just that the good weather won’t hold for long. I thought the fences should be taken care of first.”

“Busywork,” he groused, giving the weather-worn fence post a shove. It rocked. “You need new posts, too.”

“Next time I’m in town, I’ll price lumber. Maybe we can do the home pasture for now.” She looked relieved that he’d let her off the hook. “Anyway, I rode out to see if you were hungry for lunch.”

“That wasn’t necessary. I packed a sandwich and a thermos of coffee.”

Her eyebrows went up. “When did you manage that?”

“After breakfast. You were lurking on the back porch, trying to avoid me.”

“I was pacing, not lurking. I had a craving for a cigarette.” She wheeled Sloop around. “Leave this section for now. Just fix what you can.”

“Waste of time,” he called, forestalling her departure.

She glanced back. “What?”

“There’s no need to send me off to Outer Mongolia, Meg. I was planning to keep to myself anyway. When you want to be rid of me, all you have to do is say the word.”

She didn’t seem to know how to respond.

He lifted the second flap of the saddlebag and took out the thermos. “You could even safely share my coffee and sandwich, with no danger of camaraderie.” Let alone intimacy.

“I rode out here to be sure you got your lunch, didn’t I?”

“But I’ll bet you had no intention of eating any yourself. At least not with me.” He shook his head. “You’ve got to learn how to relax around me.”

Her lashes lowered. “I don’t seem to know how to treat you anymore. What do you suggest?”

“First off, don’t treat me at all. You’re thinking too much when you should be natural. Second, climb down off that horse and have a sip of coffee.”

“I’m weaning myself off caffeine,” she said, but she dismounted.

He tied Renny to the rickety post and strolled to an outcropping of rock and sagebrush. “You had coffee this morning.”

“I allow myself one cup with breakfast.” She smoothed her horse’s reins between her hands. “I gave up all my other vices—alcohol, cigarettes, swearing.”

Men, he silently added, though he didn’t know that for sure. He was guessing, by her antsiness around him, that she hadn’t been with a man for some time.

“How come?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Just had enough of them, is all.”

“I hope you weren’t sick.” She had the gaunt look of someone who’d been through the wringer, one way or another. He supposed he had the same look.

“Not exactly what you’d call—” She pressed her lips together. “You see? This is what I wanted to avoid. All this talk. The questions.”

“Uh-huh. And what sort of conversation would you prefer, ma’am? The common weather variety, I suppose.” He pointed to the sky. “Chilly and clear. Partly sunny, with intermittent clouds. It’s turned into a fine autumn day.”

She nudged at a mossy stone with the toe of her boot. “Go tell it to the Weather Channel.”

He screwed the top back on the thermos. The coffee had warmed him from the inside, the sun from the outside. Yet he was still cold. “It’s going to be a long winter, Meg.”

“It always is.”

“But with just you and me here, especially if you keep on acting so prickly…”

Sloop pulled on the reins, snatching at the grass. Absently Meg tugged back. Her eyes were narrowed on Rio’s. “What are you saying?”

“Ease up. Pull in the quills. I’m not an enemy.”

She shortened the reins, bringing the horse’s head up. Her face was unnaturally pale beneath the two spots of ruddy color in her cheeks.

“You know it,” he added. She had to. “You know me.”

“It’s been ten years.”

“Not that much has changed, no matter how long it’s been.” He wanted to shorten the distance between them, but it wasn’t going to be that easy. “You can trust me, Meg.”

She threw the reins around Sloop’s neck and reached for the stirrup. He admired her athletic grace as she swung her leg over the saddle. And, admittedly, her fine shape. Even skinny, she filled out her jeans very well.

“If you’re staying all winter,” she added. “I guess I’ll find out.”

He watched her ride away, loping again, faster than she should have, not looking back. He was satisfied with himself for making even a small amount of progress with her, until a disarming thought struck him.

Given what a large part of his life Meg had once been, there was the enormous likelihood that he’d be writing about her in a very intimate way. She wouldn’t like that. In fact, she’d hate it.

Yet he’d just said that she could trust him.

If the book deal went through, it would prove him to be a liar.

CHAPTER FOUR

MEG AND RIO SETTLED into a routine over the next several days, although she could never be entirely at ease with him. There were too many uncomfortable moments when their idle chitchat turned serious or old shared memories arose from some innocent remark. It seemed to her that their history lurked in the shadows, ready to spring up as suddenly and as lethal as a rattler.

Then there were the instances when Rio got too close physically. Meg was accustomed to avoiding the past. But practically living with a man, especially one as vital as Rio, was disturbing in an immediate way that was impossible to ignore.

She handled that by taking a big step back. Literally and figuratively, no matter how strong the temptation to succumb grew. Since the chemistry between them would always be there, she was counting on getting better with practice. Better at avoiding him. Stronger at resisting.

Not that Rio pushed. Or even tried. He hadn’t made a single move. He was, in fact, scrupulous about giving her the space she needed. Which was fine with her.

Until she began noticing that he seemed to want to keep away from her as much as she tried to avoid him.

That made her wonder.

Sure, he had reason. Not only had she left him, she’d been responsible for almost sending him to jail. But, amazingly, he didn’t seem bitter or angry. He’d practically ordered her to get more comfortable with him.

How could she when he never stuck around?

Every evening, for instance, he retreated to the bunkhouse right after supper. She was grateful at first. Then restless. And curious. There was nothing to entertain him in the cabin—not even a TV or radio. She’d offered to have the satellite-dish company come out to install a second receiver, but Rio had refused. He’d claimed he didn’t watch a lot of TV.

After a week, she’d mentioned that he could hang around after dinner if he liked. It wasn’t that she was looking for company, she’d justified to herself. The baseball playoffs would soon be starting and she’d felt obliged to offer since the Mariners were contenders and he’d once been a fan.

Again, Rio had said no. Then no to a movie on DVD, too. Even when she’d gone out of her way to choose one of the action flicks he’d once preferred.

After that, she was determined not to offer again.

Yet she couldn’t stop wondering what he did with himself. He didn’t drive into town, not even on Sunday, his day off. He’d barely put in an appearance at all that day, except when he’d asked to borrow Renny. He’d gone off on a horseback ride to Eagle Rock, a craggy point near the canyon they’d discovered as kids, pretending they were Lewis and Clark on expedition. He hadn’t asked her to go along, though of course she’d have declined if he had.

So, yeah. She was getting exactly what she’d thought she wanted.

“Great,” she said, standing at the stove scrambling eggs on the seventh day of October. The date was circled on the insurance company calendar she’d hung beneath her mother’s old cuckoo clock. “Just great. Yep. I am greatly relieved.”

At least she should be.

Rio let himself in the back door. “Talking to yourself is a sign of senility or loneliness, I don’t remember which.” He scraped his boots on the welcome mat. “What you need is a dog.”

“What you need is a hat,” she said, glancing at the reddened tips of his ears. “Aren’t you cold?”

He rubbed his hands together before crossing to the coffeemaker and pouring a cup. “I’ll get a hat if you’ll get a dog. Every ranch needs a dog.”

She thrust a plate of eggs and buttered English muffins at him. “A dog requires care and feeding. A hat is just a hat.”

“Except when it’s a cowboy hat. Should I get white or black?”

“Gray.”

“Spotted or solid?”

“Huh?” She pictured him in black-and-white cowhide. No way.

“Long hair or short?”

Her eyes went to Rio’s hair. The military cut was growing like stinkweed. The ends of his hair were already long enough to brush his collar. He looked more like the boy she remembered. Or maybe it was that she’d been getting used to the man he’d become, stranger though he’d remained.

“The dog,” he said.

“Right.” She forked up her eggs. Her appetite had improved. In the short time since Rio had moved to the ranch, she’d put on a pound or two. She figured that was just a by-product of feeling obligated to feed him well. Not anything to do with being happier. “I like mutts.”

“What size? You haven’t turned into the kind of girl who goes for an itty-bitty pocket dog, have you?”

She rolled her eyes. “You have to ask?”

His gaze lingered on the layered long-sleeved tees and favorite pair of Levi’s 501s that had practically become her uniform. “Guess not.”

She pushed away her plate with more force than necessary. “Today’s the auction.”

“I remembered.” She saw that he had. He was handsome in a fresh white shirt and practically new jeans. She did not let her gaze linger.

He indicated her almost-full plate. “Nerves took your appetite?”

“I don’t have anything to be nervous about.”

“No? Then I guess it’s only me.”

She frowned. Rio had always been the solid, silent type, but she didn’t remember him being so maddeningly obtuse. All week, he’d kept to himself, giving away nothing of his thoughts or plans.

How dare he follow her separation edict so strictly! If she hadn’t been so frustrated, she would have laughed at the irony.

Instead, she frowned more deeply. “What are you talking about?”

“You and me,” he said easily enough. “We’ll be out in public together for the first time since you hired me. Kind of a debut, you know?” Cocking his head to one side, he said, “We’ll be the center of attention.”

“Heaven forbid,” she said, but she wasn’t convinced. “You’re wrong. No one will care.”

Fortunately, the auction was in Laramie, over a hundred and fifty miles away. “As far as anyone’s concerned, we’re simply boss and employee, minding our own business.” They might run into acquaintances, but it wouldn’t be like parading down Range Street hand in hand, with everyone from her neighbors, the Vaughns, to the gang at Edna’s gawking at them.

Rio tossed off a cocky salute, a habit he’d taken to whenever she got to sounding too bossy. “Whatever you say, Sarge.”

She wrinkled her nose. “If you’re finished with breakfast, let’s go.” She cleared the table, scraping the dishes and leaving them in the sink instead of loading the dishwasher. “The riding horses won’t be on the block until the afternoon, but I want to get there early enough to inspect the available stock.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Young, green and cheap.” She wiped her hands on her back pockets. “Will you help? You always had an eye for horseflesh.”

His gaze had skimmed across her. Whatever he’d seen had made his eyes gleam like jet. “Sure, I’ll help.”

After the week together but apart, Meg felt good to have him look at her with some interest again. She stepped away quickly, before the urge to prolong the moment took hold. “Let’s get a move on. It’s at least a two-hour drive.”

THEY TOOK HER CAR. Meg kept the radio on for most of the drive, punching the buttons to switch stations whenever she became impatient. Rio teased her for the short attention span. She teased him right back for stabbing his left foot on the floor every time she zipped around a slow vehicle.

“You drive the same way you used to.” The car swerved. He made an exaggerated grab for the door handle. “I felt less at risk during a mortar attack.”

“Balderdash. I haven’t been in an accident in two years.”

“Two whole years, huh. That’s comforting, but…” He chuckled. “‘Balderdash’?”

“An experiment.” She lifted her chin. “Remember, I’m trying to cut down on the curse words. But there aren’t many options that don’t sound as corny as Nebraska. Horsefeathers, baloney, bull puckey.” She waved a hand at an approaching vehicle wavering toward the center line. “Golly gee, look at that jerkweed in the bat-rastard Jeep!” She scoffed. “You see? It’s hopeless.”

Rio shifted his legs. They were too long for the Camaro. “What’s with the self-improvement kick? No drinking, no swearing, no caffeine, no, uh, dates. Is it self-improvement or self-denial?”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Not always.”

“Name a situation where it’s not.”

“Easy. I went to night school for eight years, off and on. I improved myself with no pain.”

“I don’t know about that.” She considered. “You gave up all your free time. That’s a denial.”

“Hmm. Maybe…”

“Damn straight.” She bit her bottom lip. “Oops. I meant darn tootin’.”

He laughed. “A few damns and hells don’t shock me.”

“I’m not doing it for you.”

His mouth canted. “Prickly.”

They rode in silence for a few miles before she cleared her throat. “Did you really do that? Get a college degree?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad.”

He looked at her sidelong. There was a world of meaning in those two words, since she was the reason he’d forfeited his scholarship to college. By his reckoning, the delay had been worth it. Back then, he’d have done anything for her. Possibly he still would.

But did that include deep-sixing—or at least severely altering—his memoir?

“What did you study?” she asked. “I remember when you wanted to be a biologist.”

“I was seven. And into frogs.”

“After that it was a mechanical engineer.”

“Only because I thought that meant I’d design cars.”

“And you were going to be a baseball player, too.”

“Every kid has that dream.” He’d dropped the idea pretty fast when Billy Stone had turned nasty over his father giving Rio a baseball glove for his birthday, an extremely rare gift that neither boy had known how to handle. Billy had been chubby and awkward, without an athletic bone in his body. Being only a few years apart in age, they’d buddied around some as youngsters. As they’d grown older, Billy had become more competitive over his father’s limited time and attention.

“What about you?” Rio asked Meg. “I don’t remember you having a burning ambition for anything except leaving—”

Her wince stopped him short.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing.”

Burning ambition. Stupid choice of words, but apologizing would make it worse.

Although he sincerely doubted that it had been deliberate, the fire she’d set on the night she’d finally run away for good had burned the Vaughns’ old hay barn to the ground. Two squad cars and the volunteer fire department had shown up, along with half the town. Rio had turned himself in early that morning, when Deputy Sophie Ryan had come to the Stone ranch saying that he’d been spotted leaving the barn before the fire. No fool, the deputy had pressed Rio hard on the question of Meg’s whereabouts. He’d insisted he’d been the only one there.

They’d had no choice but to believe him, especially after he’d taken the deal the judge had offered at what was supposed to be his arraignment. The judge, a Stone family friend, had been pressured to hurry the case along…and keep the senator’s name out of it. Rio was given a choice. Join the army or face charges. For Meg’s sake, he’d capitulated. Even so, his downfall had been the talk of the town. In fact, given the pace of life in Treetop, the arson was probably still the most notorious crime in recent history.

“You never got to college?” he asked Meg.

“You know how I felt about school.” She thrust her head forward, her fingers tense on the wheel. She was speeding fifteen miles above the limit.

He returned to her question. “I went in planning to study business, but I came out with a degree in contemporary literature. My favorite class was creative writing.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not what you expected from a rank-and-file leatherhead?”

“Well, no. But I always knew you’d accomplish anything you set your mind to.” She gave him a pointed glance. “So how come you’re my stable hand?”

He shrugged. “Call it a holding pattern.”

“Holding for what?”

“I’m working on that.”

He didn’t want to tell her about the book. Not just because publication would prove him a liar. It was also her cynicism. And that she was holding back her own secrets.

But the main reason was that he’d only just begun to work his way into the project. It was still too private and new. For the past week, he’d been expanding the pieces he’d written as previous blog entries, trying to shape them into some kind of proposal for the publishers. He wasn’t convinced he had enough of a story to make a memoir beyond his experiences in Afghanistan, from brutal to banal.

The more personal revelations were a trickier proposition. So far he hadn’t touched them. Turning over the rocks and digging up the dirt, especially in public, would take every ounce of dogged grit he possessed.

Ruthlessness, too.

With some of those involved, like his biological father, he could be ruthless. Near to it, anyway.

But with Meg? That was harder to imagine. He’d never been capable of hurting her. This time, he would have to.

THEY ARRIVED at the auction, which was held in an immense barn at an exposition center. Leaving the low-slung Camaro among a lot filled with SUVs, trucks pulling trailers, and other gas guzzlers, they made their way inside. After stopping to register, they headed directly to the stalls and a small holding corral where the riding horses were being kept. The air was ripe with the earthy scents of leather, livestock and fodder.

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