This Cowboy's Son

He should have stopped this, should have left it at friendship. Sex always screwed things up.

He pulled his arm out from under her head and sat up. He looked frantically around the room. Shadows of bad memories danced in the corners, thickening the air, choking him.

Bile rose in his throat.

Get the hell out of here.

No way did Matt do the white picket fence, the vows at the altar and the “I’ll love you forever” crap. No way did he do kids.

Marriages ended badly. With a bang.

I love you. What was he thinking?

The fire had long since died, and now the candle flickered out. Darkness pressed on his lungs.

Matt dressed in the dark, his fingers thick and clumsy. He fumbled on the table for his hat, slammed it onto his head and stepped toward the door. The floor creaked.

When Jenny rolled over, his throat constricted, and he felt that marriage noose tighten around his neck.

She sighed, still asleep.

With shaking hands, he pulled on his boots. Opening the door a crack, he squeezed out then rushed through the storm and climbed into the Jeep, the lowest of the low, a jerk. A coward.

He’d never promised Jenny he was anything other than that, any better than his father or his grandfather before him. Long men didn’t do responsibility.

He couldn’t have been more honest. This is sex. Nothing more.

But was it only sex?

Aw, shut up.

When he roared out of the clearing and across the prairie, the Jeep sprayed rooster tails of mud and water. Sayonara, Jenny.

Five years later

JENNY LIFTED another forkload of hay into Lacey’s stall. She had mucked out too many stalls today, fed too many horses. Her muscles throbbed with the strain.

She’d been exhausted lately, doing both her jobs and Angus’s.

Angus hadn’t even turned out for the branding last week. Jenny had handled it all, had called in friends and local teenagers to help with the job. It had been a big one. They’d had a good crop of calves this year.

Maybe soon, he would feel up to doing more around the ranch. He’d been grieving for his dead son for a long time, a couple of years now. It was time to rejoin the land of the living.

The low rumble of a pickup truck caught her attention as the vehicle pulled into the Circle K’s yard.

Jenny tossed her rake against the wall and stepped outside, happy for the break until she recognized that black truck and the horse trailer behind it.

Her heart writhed against her ribs.

Why was Matt Long in this corner of Montana five years after he’d left?

She’d hoped never to see him again.

When he stepped out of the truck, still as gorgeous as ever, Jenny’s traitorous heart twitched, but she forced it to settle down. Fast.

Shallow charm and a killer grin wouldn’t turn her head this time. She’d learned her lesson when he’d run out on her.

He could no longer set her on fire. The only thing that burned for him within her now was anger.

His five-year absence hadn’t been anywhere near long enough for her to forgive him.

Had he heard the news? Was he here to mess it all up for her? She wouldn’t put it past him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, striding to within a couple of feet of him, not a trace of welcome in her voice.

He slammed the truck door, then saw her. His mouth dropped open then closed just as quickly. The line of his jaw hardened. “What are you doing here?” he asked in return, leaning against the door of the truck, crossing his arms. “Thought you’d still be working for Hank on the Sheltering Arms. You just visiting here today?”

His mirrored sunglasses shielded his eyes.

She needed to see them, to figure whether he was a better man than he used to be. Not that it mattered to her. She should have never trusted the rat. Matt, the rat.

“I work here.” She stepped closer.

“Since when?”

“Four years now.”

He didn’t comment, just brushed past her and opened the back doors of his horse trailer. Masterpiece let out a demanding whinny. They must have been on the road awhile.

“You have a lot of nerve coming back to Ordinary,” she said. “Especially after the way you left. You couldn’t have said goodbye? Or left a note?” He shrugged.

No conscience.

Once a rat, always a rat.

Good to know. She wouldn’t feel guilty about the decisions she’d made anymore. She’d been right to do what she’d done and the hell with Matt’s feelings. They weren’t her concern.

Matt backed Masterpiece out of the trailer.

Master nudged his chest and Matt took a caramel out of his shirt pocket, unwrapping it. The horse picked it up from Matt’s palm with the delicacy of a surgeon.

Jenny still didn’t know what he was doing here, and really didn’t care, but she was booting him off this ranch.

“Load Master right back into that trailer,” she ordered, her tone so cold her tongue got frostbite. “Get out of here.”

“Nope,” he said, ignoring her as if she were of no more consequence than a flea. “I take my orders from Angus, not from a ranch hand.”

“What are you talking about? What orders?” Dread circled around her belly. Why would Angus be giving Matt orders? “Why are you here on the Circle K?”