A Cowboy Returns

The blood drained from her face at being paired, even loosely, in a sentence with Eli. “You can’t be sure your herd’s got Shipping Fever until the lab results come back and I get out there and look at the steer we drew from.”

“I grew up around this stuff. I know what it is.” He snorted and shook his head, hooking one arm through the pipe panel. “It’s going to ruin Dad’s perfect reputation.”

“He wasn’t perfect,” she said softly, remembering how Mr. Covington had always been so cold and rigid in his expectations of Eli. Those expectations had succeeded in driving Eli away for good, and she’d never forgive the old man for it.

Carol’s return with two sandwiches and a giant glass of lemonade interrupted the conversation. She’d also brought Ty cookies. “I thought you might want something sweet.”

Reagan fought the urge to steal a cookie.

As if the conversation hadn’t been deadly serious only moments before, Ty looked at the older woman and grinned wide enough to reveal a single dimple. “You’re an angel, Mrs. Jensen. You ever get tired of Mr. Jensen, you pack up and we’ll run away together.”

She flushed prettily. “You’re incorrigible, Ty.”

“Can’t blame a man for being attracted to a pretty woman...Carol.”

Reagan only half listened as Ty bantered with Carol and then a few of the day workers as he ate his sandwiches. She offered absent, one-word answers when someone said something directly to her, but she couldn’t manage to tease and joke in return.

“Hey.”

She glanced up to find her and Ty alone again. Coughing, she nodded. “Yeah.”

Ty ran a hand around the nape of his neck. “I probably should have warned you Eli was coming home.”

She winced at his name.

“I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up.”

She waved a hand in dismissal, but the words that matched the gesture wouldn’t come. Her chest was too tight. Shrouded in panic, she pushed off the fence. It had been years since this had happened, since she’d given in to the devastating loss that had changed the course of her life and affected every aspect of it, from what she’d taken in school to five years of marriage.

A hard gasp escaped her at the same time large hands spun her around. She said the only thing she could say to him. “Keep him away from me, Ty.”

“You want the Bar C to use Doc Hollinsworth? I don’t want to, but if you ask, I’ll do it.”

She swallowed convulsively. He was offering her a shameless out. All she had to do was seize it.

“You know we’re in trouble,” he continued. “None of us are sure just how bad it’s going to get, but I’ll wager my assless chaps it’s going to get ugly. We’ve got to have a vet on call. You know that, too. I can’t imagine Eli’s going to keep his share of the cows, even if they survive. Probably ship them off as soon as we can prove they aren’t infected. If that’s the case, I can try to put off getting the shipping papers until after Eli’s gone, maybe handle that part myself—me or Cade, anyway—and just send Eli the check.”

She straightened. “Call me when you’re ready. Hollinsworth isn’t half the man I am.”

Ty grinned, but it didn’t lessen the tight lines at the corners of his eyes or the crease between his brows. “Hell, Reagan, not many of us are.” Curling a finger under her chin, he nudged her face up. “You’ve managed really well.”

Her laugh was bitter. “Survival isn’t admirable, Ty. It’s the only option they ever left me with, him and Luke.”

“Luke didn’t die on you on purpose.”

She nodded, swiping viciously at the tears that fell for the loss of each man. “He might not have done it on purpose, but gone is gone. The only difference between Luke and Eli?” Backing away from Ty, she didn’t bother to try to hide her misery. “Luke didn’t have a choice. Eli did. But in the end? They both left me.”

Spinning on her heel, she called hoarsely for Brisket. The dog leaped into the truck bed, and she didn’t try to coax him into the cab.

Vaulting herself into the seat behind the wheel, she cranked the engine and took off, pretending not to hear Ty calling her name.

There was nothing left to say.

3 (#ulink_2076330b-4d7b-54b0-9ce6-c9fd4238839a)

ELI MADE THE 120-mile drive to the Clayton County courthouse in average time considering his rental car was powered by little more than a two-stroke lawn-mower engine.

His first order of business was to determine whether or not anything had been filed on his old man’s behalf or—worse—against the estate. Nothing showed up, so he went through the rest of the probate process.

Privately, he was grateful for the mundane tasks. They kept his mind busy, kept him from thinking too much. He made the appropriate inquiries at the courthouse and filed the required documents as the estate’s representative. Then he’d gone to the newspaper to arrange for the mandatory ads to run in the classifieds. That done, he started for the ranch.

Less than ten miles from the courthouse, he was the only car on the highway. No surprise. The locals would consider traffic heavy if they passed a dozen cars. He was as far from Austin’s bumper-to-bumper lifestyle as he could get. Considering the clown car and his surreal surroundings, it was as if he’d been fired from civilization’s cannon into the wilds of wide-open space. Every instinct he had screamed the landing was going to suck. Bad.

The memory of Reagan—her summertime smell, her cinnamon taste, her feminine strength, her lean body—had haunted him all morning.

She’d always been at the heart of the community. It made sense, then, that she’d married the community’s son.

Everyone loved Luke. He was the kind who stopped to help a stranded motorist and not only fixed their car but topped off their gas and gave them food and a fresh set of directions before sending them on their way. Always neighborly, he’d be the first to volunteer for day work during shipping season. He’d be the last to leave. As a kid, every son had been compared to Luke—his dad had told him several times he would have preferred Luke as a son over him any day. Even Reagan’s mother had expressed her opinion, pushing her daughter toward Saint Luke—and away from Eli. She must have been overjoyed when Reagan married the right man.

Eli would put money on it the guy had evolved to the ultimate cowboy, the type of man every boy wanted to grow up to be. He and Eli had always been casual friends, but at the moment? Eli hated every damn cell in the man’s body.

Rolling the car window down, he breathed in the dry air. New Mexico’s unpopulated roads and wide-open spaces never failed to press their beauty on him without apology—right before they reminded him how insignificant he was.

He’d never been able to accomplish enough to stand out as his own man, always living in his father’s shadow. Never Elijah Covington, but always Max Covington’s boy. And even in that, the only thing that set him apart was that he was the eldest of the three. His greatest distinction was that he’d been his dad’s biggest disappointment. Never quite country enough, never quite smart enough, never quite proud enough of his name, just...never quite enough.

The only one who’d ever made him feel he was more, could be more, had been Reagan.

Seeing her today had shaken him. Hard. She’d been more beautiful than he remembered, those moss green eyes set in a deceptively feminine face. Most people just saw a pretty girl who’d make a good rancher’s wife. He’d always known there was far more to her than that. It had terrified him they’d both end up doing exactly what the community expected of them—him taking over his father’s ranching operation, and her staying on in the little town because she loved her man.

She had stayed, but not for reasons he’d ever understood.

Emotions whipped through him as unchecked as spring winds, tearing up certain pieces of his life and battering others until he was a mess of overlapping memories. When he finally reached the right road, Eli pointed the little car across the first of eleven cattle guard and started through the sand hills. It was a different world out here, yet nothing had changed. He could find his way through this alien landscape with his eyes closed.

Rounding a corner, he rolled to a stop. Cows blocked the road, completely unconcerned with either him or his cartoon car. Waving his arm out the window and shouting, pair after pair of huge brown eyes lifted to blink at him. He honked and snorted at the almost comical beep that made him think of circus cars that dumped out twenty clowns in the ring.

“I am not getting out of this car,” he shouted at them. Laying on the horn, he whistled and eased into the mass of bodies. Slowly, the herd began to move off.

Eli tunneled his fingers through his hair and fought the urge to turn the car around. He could get to Amarillo and catch a flight back to Austin tonight, be in his own bed by midnight and back in the office first thing tomorrow morning. And if it weren’t for the fact Tyson had asked for help, he would have done just that.

Damn it.

His youngest brother had never asked him for anything. Ever. The realization yoked him with heavy guilt. He’d do this for Ty and leave.

And what about Cade? his conscience whispered.

Oh, Cade had asked him for something once, had asked for the one thing he couldn’t give. He’d never forgiven Eli for saying no, either.

Eli whispered dire threats to the little car as it struggled up the final hill. It peaked and the world opened up. From the Sangre de Cristo mountain range to the west, the uninterrupted northern horizon and the plains to the east, open range spread before him with regal silence. His breath caught and his chest ached.