Rocky Mountain Maverick

When he’d done the math, he realized with a sense of shock that his sister was forty-five. Nine years older than he, she had been only twenty-nine when he’d joined the military.

A lifetime ago. A lifetime he knew almost nothing about.

“I work,” she said, her tone as intense as that of the man who’d made the accusation. “And damned hard, too. What I do makes it possible for this operation to survive no matter how the markets fluctuate. Just because I don’t want to be consulted about every little detail doesn’t give you the right to suggest I don’t appreciate the Flush.”

“Then act like it, damn it.”

“If you’re trying to convince her to do something,” Michael said, choosing that moment to reveal himself by stepping out of the shadows from where he’d been watching the confrontation, “I can tell you for a fact that you’ll fare better not cussing her. Gets her back up every time.”

With his first word, their heads had snapped toward him, almost in unison. Two pairs of eyes—one hostile and suspicious, the other slightly narrowed—focused on him.

“Who the hell are you?” the cowboy demanded.

“Michael.” Colleen breathed his name as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Because he had been watching for her reaction—a matter of training as well as need—he had known the exact instant when she’d accepted her identification. What was in her eyes as she did eased tensions he hadn’t been aware he harbored.

“Hello, Colleen. It’s been a long time.”

She shook her head, her eyes welling with tears. She fought them, succeeding only because she was determined and because whatever his sister set her mind to, she accomplished. When she was again in control, she turned to the man with whom she’d been arguing.

“Dex, if you’ll excuse me. We can talk about this later, please. Right now I have some…unfinished business I need to take care of.”

“Something more important than the ranch?” Dex asked, his voice edged with bitterness.

Colleen turned to smile at Michael, ignoring the taunt. “Much more important,” she said softly.

The cowboy’s hazel eyes locked briefly with his. Michael inclined his head as if they had been introduced. A muscle in the other man’s jaw knotted, but he didn’t make any further objection. He slammed the battered Stetson he’d held in his right hand back on his head and stalked off.

Colleen didn’t even glance his way, her eyes examining Michael’s face as if she were trying to memorize it.

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? God, Michael, you have to know better than that.”

A little more of the tension seeped out of his body at the sincerity of her exclamation. She reinforced it by stepping forward and holding both her hands out to him. After a second’s hesitation, he put his into hers, using them to pull her against his body in an awkward embrace.

It didn’t remain awkward for long. Colleen leaned against him, her arms fastening around his waist in a fierce hug. Almost against his will, Michael found himself responding to that honest emotion.

After a moment she stepped away to look up into his eyes. Hers were once more suspiciously touched with moisture, but she was smiling.

“I wish I could tell you how wonderful you look, but, truth be told—”

“I look like hell,” he finished for her.

“Are you okay?”

The depth of concern in her voice was almost his undoing. He hated that emotion seemed so near the surface now, but the idiot shrink the agency had insisted he talk to had told him he could expect that. Maybe so, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“I will be,” he said, forcing a smile. Her lips quickly answered it, but her eyes were still clouded. Slightly anxious. “I thought I might hang out here for a while. If I won’t be in the way.”

For one instant there was a flicker of something in the blue-green depths of her eyes. It was gone before he could even think about identifying what he’d seen. Her smile broadened immediately, and she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.

“Welcome home, little brother,” she said. “And when you’re all rested up, there are a couple of paint ponies that could use some schooling. Think you’re up to that?”

“I will be,” Michael promised, and for the first time in nearly six months, he began to believe that might be true.

“GUILTY OR NOT, Cal Demarco’s still a son of a bitch.”

Michael could hear the anger in Colleen’s voice despite the nearly ten years that had passed since the Internal Affairs Division of the Denver Police Department had cleared her former supervisor of the corruption charges she’d leveled against him.

“Unfortunately, they don’t put you away for that,” he said, “or jails would be a whole lot more crowded than they are now.”

The bourbon his sister had been pouring with a generous hand had finally eased the ever-present ache in his knee. It had also served to destroy any sense of strain his long absence might have caused between them.

“I could suggest a few other candidates.” She lifted her glass, resting it against her chin as she considered him. She was sitting on the couch opposite his, legs curled under her. “And now that I’ve caught you up on the sad, uninteresting story of my life, I think it’s time to hear what you’ve been up to.”

He hesitated, thinking about what he wanted to tell her, as well as what he couldn’t. Most of that was for security reasons, but some he just didn’t want to talk about.

“Suffice it to say that I’m retired.”

Her lips pursed, her eyes still on his face. “From the military.”

It hadn’t been phrased as a question, but he nodded, dropping his eyes to the amber liquid he was absently swirling in the bottom of his glass. He lifted it, anticipating the dark, smoky bite of his grandfather’s private stock.

“Except you left the Rangers more than eight years ago.”

His hand halted in midmotion as his eyes jumped up to meet hers.

“I’m just curious what you’ve been doing since,” she said. “Or is that privileged information?”

He didn’t answer, holding her gaze as silent seconds ticked by.

“You’re the only family I have left, Michael. It’s unlikely I wouldn’t try to find out where you were and what you were doing.”

What was unlikely, he thought, was that she could have.

“And did you?”

“That surprises you.”

“Considering.”

She smiled at him, seeming pleased she’d been able to shock him. “I know you worked for Jack Waigner up until December of last year. I don’t know where you’ve been for the last six months. You…dropped off my radar screen.”

Her eyes briefly touched on the knee she’d pointedly avoided asking him about, in spite of its obvious impairment.