The Prodigal Texan

For once, her daughter didn’t insist. “Call if you need me,” she said, burrowing back between dog and blanket.

“I will.” In case she changed her mind, Nan went straight through the kitchen to the mudroom, where she slipped on barn shoes and her favorite jacket. Outside, the night felt a lot colder than it had earlier, and she buttoned the jacket as she hurried to the barn. When she saw the doors had been rolled back, she slowed to an easy walk, so she wouldn’t be breathless when she arrived.

With her first step into the barn, Bailey, her buckskin stallion, turned in his stall to greet her.

“Hey, big man.” She slid open the top half of his door so she could rub his face and neck. “I came to see your new baby. He’s gonna be a big guy, just like you.” Bailey rubbed his muzzle over her hair. “Uh-huh. I love you, too.” She kissed his cheek before closing the door.

Starlet’s stall was across the aisle. Nan approached and looked through the grate. “Everything okay?”

As she’d expected, Cruz knelt in the straw, running his hands over the soft dun coat of the sleepy foal they’d named Cappucino. “Sure. I woke him up a little, but he’s being a good boy.” Nearby, Starlet, a sweet little bay mare, chewed a mouthful of alfalfa hay and kept close watch on the human touching her baby. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just checking.” She swallowed hard. “I hear you have a houseguest.”

Cruz stretched to his feet with an easy grace. He still wore the white shirt, new jeans and fancy ostrich-skin boots he’d looked so good in at the party, and he looked even better without so many people around.

“That’s right. Jud Ritter is doing some work for Wade, and I said it would be okay if he stayed with me.”

Beside Cruz, Cappucino folded his legs in awkward angles, trying to stand. Starlet nosed her baby to his feet and he immediately began nuzzling the mare’s side, looking for his next meal.

Nan backed away as Cruz left the stall. “So, I guess we won’t…I won’t be seeing much of you for a while.” Her clumsy choice of words only struck her after she said them. How often had she told him she loved just looking at him?

He leaned his shoulders back against the stall door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess not.”

She didn’t hear regret in his voice, and she couldn’t read his face in the shadows of the barn. “Did you do this on purpose?”

“You mean, did I plan it? How could I? I never met Jud Ritter until this afternoon at the party.”

“But…”

Cruz nodded. “But I was willing to accept Wade’s suggestion that he stay with me.”

“Why?”

“I think you and I need some space.”

The width of the aisle between them was too much space, as far as Nan was concerned. “For what?”

“To choose our priorities. To look ahead and figure out where we go from here.”

She’d sensed some unsettledness in him lately, but this seemed to come out of an empty sky. “Why do we have to go anywhere? What’s wrong with where we are?”

He stared at her for a long minute. “You enjoy hiding behind the widows and old ladies at parties, like you did this afternoon? You don’t want to dance with me, have some fun?”

As Nan struggled to frame an answer, he continued. “You think I want to spend my time leaning against the wall, watching everybody else have a good time?”

“Cruz—”

“When I’m with you, what we have together is enough.” His broad shoulders lifted on a deep breath. “But I’m tired of living two lives. Having Jud around will keep me thinking straight, maybe long enough to work this out.”

Her heart cramped. “I don’t mean to force you into living two lives.”

“But if you’re not comfortable with people knowing about us, I’m not going to broadcast the news. And that requires me to be one person with you and someone different with everybody else in town. I can’t even be honest with Miranda—and she’s one of my best friends.”

“Yes, and you’re closer to her in age than to me.” Nan bit her lip as soon as she said the words. She hated sounding like a bitter old woman, jealous of her daughter. But if the shoe fit…

In two strides, Cruz crossed the aisle to close his hands over her shoulders. “Which doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to the way I feel about either of you.”

They were the same height, and now she could see the anger, the pain blazing in his dark brown eyes. What kind of love was hers, that hurt him this much?

“You’re right,” she said. “I’m not being fair—”

“Fair, hell.” His arms came around her, hard. “I’m selfish enough to want to show you off, that’s all.”

He claimed her mouth with the directness that was so much a part of his nature, and her body ignited for him in an instant, as it had from the very first. She’d been married for five years, yet had not known passion could take her this way. When she lay alone in her bed now, she ached for Cruz beside her. When they were together, like this, she couldn’t get enough of him. There were hay bales in the stall behind them. Her knees weakened and she pulled him closer….

Down the aisle, Bailey whickered as he always did when someone approached the barn.

“Miranda,” Nan whispered, and turned her face away, pressing her forehead against Cruz’s shoulder. “I should go back to the house. I told her I wouldn’t be long.”

Smiling slightly, Cruz loosened his hold and stepped back. “See what I mean? I lose my head completely when I’m around you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Nan said, trying for lightness. She turned to walk farther into the barn, checking on the mares who had yet to drop their foals. Regaining control. “Flora was pacing this morning before we went to the wedding—I’m thinking tonight might be her—”

“There you are!”

Nan whipped her head around to see her daughter silhouetted at the barn door, wearing her barn coat and shoes and her pajamas. Dusty trotted down the aisle.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten the way to the barn and wandered out into the night,” she teased. “Or been eaten by wild animals.” Head tilted, she looked at Cruz, then at Nan again.

“So what’s going on?”

MIRANDA DIDN’T REALLY expect her mother or Cruz to answer the question. Any intelligent observer would understand what was going on—especially after two or three occasions like this one. She just couldn’t resist ribbing them a little about their “secret.”

“We got to talking about the mares and foals,” Cruz said, his voice deeper and a little huskier than usual. “And the party, of course.”

“I thought Greer and Noah looked so happy together.” After giving Dusty a head rub, Nan came slowly toward the front of the barn. Cruz backed out of her way, keeping the width of the aisle between them. “And we all had a great time.”

“Of course,” Miranda agreed. “Even Jud Ritter.” She looked at Cruz. “Where is your houseguest?”

“I gave him free run of the fridge and left him to it. He didn’t reach the food tables at the reception.”

“How long is he planning to stay?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Wade said he’d invited Jud here to do some work. Do you know anything about that?”

Footsteps sounded on the floor behind her. “Not much more than you do,” Jud said. “And he doesn’t ask nearly as many questions.”