LITMIR.BIZ

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you mean I’m enjoying your stunned expression, yes, I guess I am. But Travis is a fine name, strong, sensitive, gentle—” her gaze jittered and dropped “—just like the man who carries it. I want that for my son.”

      Travis licked his lips and shifted. “I don’t know what to say, ma’am—”

      “Peggy.”

      “Yes’m, Peggy, it’s a real honor—and I appreciate it, really I do, only…”

      She cocked her head. “Only what?”

      “Only your husband might not be real excited about having his son named after a broken-down rodeo bum.”

      For a moment, she simply stared at him, with that tousled mane of hair spiraling around her face like a fountain of flame. Her complexion had pinked up considerably, although she was still extremely fair, and the smattering of freckles were standing at attention like a platoon of rust-colored soldiers. Even without a speck of makeup, Peggy Saxon was one incredibly beautiful woman.

      Travis wondered why he hadn’t noticed that before.

      She pursed her lips and tapped a bare foot. “First off, Mr. Stockwell, I take umbrage at the term ‘bum.’ You’re a fine man, and I won’t allow you to make light of yourself.”

      Completely taken aback, he murmured, “Yes’m, sorry,” then winced at the foolish response.

      Ignoring his discomfort, she appraised his body from scalp to toe and back again, with such blatant admiration that he felt his neck heat. “Second, nothing about you is visibly broken-down, and even if it was, I also consider that term to be derogatory and therefore off-limits when referring to my son’s namesake. Last but not least, I have no husband.” She speared him with a look. “Does that about cover your list of objections?”

      Travis swallowed hard. “Yes’m, I believe it does.”

      * * *

      Issuing a pained sigh, Travis settled into the lounger and cooled his forehead with a can of soda. “I’m plumb tuckered. Having babies sure wears a man out.”

      In the corner of the Conways’ converted den, Sue Anne swiveled away from the dispatch center to toss her brother a sour look. “Try shoving a ten-pound watermelon up your nostril and I might consider feeling sorry for you.”

      He popped the soda can, took a long swallow and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yep, women sure got it easy, just lie back and puff like a hound while us menfolk do the real work.” He ducked as a throw pillow whizzed past his head.

      Travis retrieved the pillow and tucked it behind his back. “A mite touchy, eh, sis?”

      She scowled at him. “I told Mama I wanted a kitten. She came home with you.”

      “And you’ve been bullying me ever since.”

      “It’s a rotten job, but someone has to do it.” She smiled sweetly. “You have to admit I’m good.”

      “Best bully in the whole danged world, next to that fat-knuckled little horse apple who used to steal my lunch money.”

      Sue Anne angled a smug grin. “Who do you think hired him?”

      “No fooling?” Travis hiked a brow. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Takes some of the guilt off me for ripping pages out of your diary and pasting them up in the boys’ bathroom.”

      Sue Anne roared to her feet. “You did what?”

      Travis tipped back his hat, propped the soda can on his knee and launched into an exaggerated falsetto recitation. “‘I’ll just die if Daniel Harris doesn’t ask me to the spring hop. He’s so-o-o dreamy. Every time he looks at me, my heart flutters and I get all gooey inside—’ Hey!” He flung up his forearms to ward off another pillow, two magazines and a tissue box. “Cripes, sis, chill out, will you? I was just joshing.”

      Travis peeked out from under his crossed forearms to judge the extent of his scowling sister’s ire. Her brows were puckered, but not enough to form a pleated bridge across her nose. That meant she was perturbed, but not dangerous. At least, not to Travis. A stranger would have taken one look at that glowering face and run for his life.

      Sue Anne Conway kind of had that effect on folks. By any standard, she was an imposing woman. Only an inch shorter than Travis, she outweighed him by twenty pounds and had been three-time women’s barrel-racing champion before settling down with the only man who’d ever beat her at arm wrestling.

      After skewering her brother with a narrowed stare, she plopped back into the dispatch chair, ruffled a choppy shock of short brown hair and smoothed her oversized I Brake for Cowboys T-shirt. “Lucky for you the radio console is bolted to the desk, or I’d jam the danged thing in your ear.”

      “Love you, too, sis.”

      “Yeah, yeah.” Sue Anne sniffed, shrugged, but couldn’t hide a smile. “I love you, too, kid.”

      Travis had never doubted that for a moment. His sister was the only stable person in his life, not to mention the only family he’d had since their no-account father drank himself to death on Travis’s sixteenth birthday. Even though Sue Anne had been busy with her own family, she and Jimmy had welcomed the orphaned adolescent into their home.

      But not for long. At eighteen, Travis had struck out on his own and had soon earned a reputation as one of the best bronc riders on the circuit. The rodeo became his home, leaving Travis free, mobile and emotionally unencumbered. He liked it that way. And on those rare times when irritated livestock used him for a doormat, Travis always limped back to his sister’s house to sulk and lick his wounds until the call of the whispering wanderer made his boots itch.

      Times like now, when he’d been grounded for weeks with a bruised liver and a chest full of cracked ribs. Heaving a pained sigh, Travis retrieved the wet package of pumpkin seeds and shook a few into his palm while the dispatch console hissed to life.

      A familiar voice drawled, “Unit one to dispatch. You there, babe?”

      Sue Anne swiveled around and flipped the switch. “Hi, sweet cheeks. Where else would I be?”

      “Never know. Good-looking woman like you must get lots of offers.”

      “’Course I do. Why, there’s a whole line of hopefuls queued in the parlor, just waiting for me to come to my senses and let one of ’em sweep me off my feet.”

      “And right pretty feet they are, too.” Jimmy Conway’s voice crackled with humor, but was slurred with fatigue. “Listen, hon, I’m outside city hall, getting ready to roll. Seems a pipe break opened a big ol’ sinkhole outside an apartment unit up on North Nash Street. I can’t take but half a crew. Buzz Ted, will you? See if he can pick up the rest.”

      “Ted’s on his way in.” Sue Anne focused on a mural-size city map tacked up on the wall to her left. “He should be a couple of miles from you. I’ll divert him.”

      “Thanks, cupcake. Unit one out.”

      A moment later, Sue Anne was on the radio with the oldest of her two sons. At twenty, Ted Conway was a chip off the old block, a hard-working, hell-raising, good ol’ boy who’d tear his shirt off for a buddy and risk his life for a stranger in need. Like his father, Ted was boisterous, adventurous and salt-of-the-earth good.

      His younger brother, Danny, was less active and more sensitive than either his father or brother, but was every bit as committed to the down-home ethics that had made the entire Conway family one of the best liked and most respected in Grand Springs. Having just graduated from high school, Danny was already firming up college plans despite objections from his chagrined father, who’d always assumed that both of his boys would enter the family business.

      If Jimmy had been disappointed that his youngest preferred computers to cabs, Sue Anne had been quietly pleased, not so much by her son’s choice of career but by his fortitude in pursuing that choice. Sue Anne was the backbone of the family,

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