or nowhere, but feel the wind pulling at his
face.
“You don’t know that,” Rory pointed
out. “You ever ask her what she wanted?”
“She was your friend, not mine.” Cabe’s
fingers tightened on the grips as he
mounted up.
“Only because every time the two of you
were sharing space, you were busy listing
off all the things she’d done wrong.”
“Not every time,” he said defensively.
“And you can’t tell me that the three of you
weren’t up to your eyes in trouble
whenever I looked.”
“It made you look,” Rory said calmly.
“You were busy whipping the ranch back
into shape and don’t think I didn’t
appreciate that. Seth and I, we were never
worried about having a roof over our
heads, but the ranch kept you damned busy.
You were all work, work, work and no
play.”
“Someone had to be responsible,” he
growled.
Rory glanced over at him. “And you’re
real good at it. Seth, he gets all over the
place on the rodeo circuit. Hell, he’s still
raising Cain. He can’t ever sit still for
more than a week or two at a time. He
knows that, eventually, he’s going to have
to change something, but he’s not sure how
or why—but he
does
know that you’ll
always be right here, waiting for him when
he’s ready.”
Cabe felt that same surge of love for his
brother that he’d felt since his five year-
old self had tiptoed into the nursery to
sneak a peek at the family’s newest
member. He wasn’t sure what his brother
was getting at, but he was doing his
damnedest to listen. “What does that have
to do with Rose?”
Rory shrugged. “Maybe, nothing. But
she had things hard in L.A. and she always
worried that she was screwing things up
here in Lonesome.”
“She spent every minute of every day
looking for trouble,” Cabe snarled. “That’s
not worrying too much, Rory.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to get the
screwing up over and out of the way,”
Rory pointed out calmly. “If the worst has
already happened, there’s not as much left
to worry about.”
Cabe stared back at Rory. “That’s
ridiculous,” he said finally. “Auntie Dee
loved Rose. This was—is—her home. She
had nothing to worry about.”
“Try telling her that. You think she
knows about the reverse mortgage?” Rory
tossed the question out there.
“You want to play twenty questions
now?” An image of Rose’s face last night
at the swimming hole was burned into his
memory. Excitement and passion had lit
her up from within when she’d talked
about Auntie Dee’s house and her plans for
the place. Just how many times had she
gone over those plans in her head? And
why? And would a check be enough to buy
her a different dream?
It didn’t matter.
He needed those water rights. Hell, he
already
owned
them. He just had to claim
them.
“No,” Cabe bit out. He fired up the ATV
and got the quad pointed back toward the
closest road. Another day he would have
ridden out to the drill site, because on
horseback it was easier to feel that
connection between the ranch and himself.
There just wasn’t as much room for
thinking when he took the ATV out, which
was why he’d done so today. He’d already
thought this thing to death.
“She doesn’t have a clue,” he said
grimly, and he started following Seth on
back to the ranch house. The raw power of
the ATV motor matched his mood, the
primal vibration devouring the sound of
Rory’s curses.
“Rose won’t like it,” Rory warned. Dust
puffed up in small clouds as he took the
lead. “She’s always had a thing for that
crazy little house.”
Yeah.
Cabe tugged the Stetson down
farther as the ATV crested a lazy roll of
field. There was no surprise there. He’d
been ranching all his life, had watched
good men be forced to give up the land
their families had held for generations
because they couldn’t make the note and
couldn’t force a living out of their place. In
her own way, Rose Jordan had looked
every bit as passionate as those men.
But she’d only spent a handful of years
living in Lonesome, and she’d run, first
chance she’d gotten. Had she even thought
about what it would take to keep up a
property? This wasn’t a game, and she
couldn’t just come on back and play house.
He didn’t like what he was going to do, but
not doing it wasn’t an option.
She might not want anything from him,
even though part of him ached to learn
every sweet inch of her, but she was going
to take that damned check.
This time, when she took off, she’d have
what she needed to start over.
He’d make damn sure of it.
The Honda Civic rattled up Lonesome’s
main—and only—street, making it clear
that the car was only going this far because
Rose had insisted. Since Lonesome wasn’t
exactly sporting a Motel 6, Rose had spent
the night sleeping on the Honda’s backseat,
parked in Auntie Dee’s driveway. She’d
considered breaking a window and getting
into the house, but then she’d just have to
fix the window with money she didn’t
have.
She could wait one more night to get
into her house.
Fortunately, parking was never an issue
in Lonesome. There were more than
enough spots for cars, although horses
were a different story. Picking her place,
she parked the car and got out. When she’d
consulted the trunk of the car earlier,
looking for something clean to wear, she’d
settled on a purple chiffon sundress that
floated above her knees in a tease of airy
fabric—make-you-look clothes.
She wasn’t stupid, and she’d take every
advantage she could get in this meeting.
“I know what I want,” she told herself,
loudly slamming the Honda’s door so no
one could hear her talking to herself.
“Different” didn’t sell well in Lonesome.
She’d learned that the hard way, too. “I’m
keeping that house.”
Sure, the cowboys decorating the
outside of the bar-and-grill looked plenty
sexy, but she knew better. Everyone here
knew
everyone else, and not just on a first-
name basis or a hi-how-are-ya exchange.
No, the residents of Lonesome knew who
your parents were, where you’d been born.
From first word and first tooth right on up
to and including first date and firstborn,
Lonesome didn’t keep secrets. Didn’t need
to. Lonesome’s families were born here,
died here, and pretty much did all their
living either on the surrounding ranches or
on Lonesome’s handful of streets.
Which didn’t leave a whole lot of room
for a girl like her. An outsider.
The label the town’s gossips had put on
her was
trouble
.
That label wasn’t wrong.
She’d come out to Lonesome as part of a
program to get kids out of inner-city Los
Angeles and away from the tough
neighborhoods where they’d grown up.
Her foster parents had shoveled her onto
the bus that promised to drive her five
hundred miles north, away from city
conveniences—and city noise, pollution,
heat, and general gang-banging violence—
to Northern California and ranch country.
Matter of fact, she hadn’t wanted to leave
Los Angeles. Why would she? But she’d
gotten onto the bus because a ten-year-old
girl didn’t have too many choices, and she
was smart enough to realize, even then, that
there were worse destinies than a summer
spent in Lonesome.
Some of the kids riding the bus couldn’t
wait for the doors to open up and spit them
out into rural nowhere. Those kids talked
about horseback riding and swimming and
county fairs, but those were just words as
far as she was concerned. She knew all
about words. Those other kids, the ones
who’d been there before and were going
back for seconds or thirds, acted like
they’d found themselves some new
families out there in the sticks. Whatever
family she’d been born with hadn’t
bothered to stick around for her. She’d
wound up in the foster-care system
because that was what Los Angeles County
did with kids who couldn’t produce a
parent. A borrowed roof still beat sleeping
in the streets or the back of a car.
Lonesome wasn’t going to give her a new
family. She knew that.
But when she’d gotten off that bus, she’d
met Auntie Dee. By the end of the summer,
she’d known she wasn’t ever getting back
onto the bus. She’d stayed. The good
residents of Lonesome might not have been
sure about her, but Auntie Dee had been.
She’d had eight good years with Auntie
Dee before she’d finally packed her bags
and left. This time, for college and a
degree in architecture. She hadn’t been
back
much—and
that
was intentional,
because she’d been avoiding Cabe
Dawson even though he, of course, had no
clue how she felt—but she’d convinced
Auntie Dee to make the bus ride down to
LA, and she’d shown her the city. She
should have come back. She shouldn’t
have let Cabe’s rejection hurt her so badly.
Of course, truth was, Cabe probably
would have looked her square in the eye,
given her a happy meet-and-greet, and
offered her a cold longneck. She was a
friend of his brothers, and Cabe Dawson
valued his family. It was just one of the
many fine qualities he had. He thought her
attempt to kiss him was just a game, just
another attempt to push his buttons hard.
All of which made her want to plant her
brand-new cowboy boot in the middle of
his equally fine ass and shove.
Cabe had welcomed her to Lonesome,
invited her to hang out with his brothers.
Hell, she’d
been
one of the boys. Sort of.
She’d
spent
summer
after
summer
following the Dawson brothers around
from one piece of mischief to the next,
Cabe dogging their heels disapprovingly
the whole time. He’d never looked at her
and seen a girl. Or a potential girlfriend.
And by the time they’d been halfway
through high school, she’d wanted him to
look at her. She’d made just one move.
Once. One attempt to kiss Cabe Dawson
and make him see her as someone more
than his brothers’ friend.
He’d been standing by that truck of his
that day, looking serious and focused as he
examined a fledgling olive tree. She
wasn’t sure why he’d added olives to the
ranch but Cabe always had a vision and a
plan, so there was probably a damned
smart reason for that move. The ranch
looked good these days and, God knew, the
economy had done a number on too many
of her former neighbors. Auntie Dee had
complained about how tight times were
getting more than once.
Cabe had got that, got the ranch.
What he hadn’t got was
her
.
“Cabe—” She killed the motor on the
ATV and coasted to a stop next to him.
“Not now, Rose,” he grunted.
“This is important,” she insisted.
The look on his face said the olive tree
was important, too, but he turned that
dark gaze on her and the usual butterflies
kicked up in her stomach. God, he was
something else. All big and remote and so
very, very disciplined. She’d never seen
him out of control. Not once. He knew
exactly what to do and when and how to
do it.
He was perfect.
Her gaze dropped to the broad
shoulders beneath the sweat-dampened T-
shirt. That part of him was perfect, too.
The delicious curl of heat, low in her