LITMIR.BIZ

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to accept a perfunctory hug. Birch was as stiff a hugger as her stepfather—neither was the warm, cuddly type. Were all the Westin men like that? Her gaze flicked to Adam. Was he?

      Birch took up introductions. “Pete, you remember J. D. Oakes,” he said, gesturing at the man with the white handlebar mustache and a piercing gaze. J.D. held between two fingers what appeared to be a hand-rolled cigarette. It smelled foul. “And this here is Del Halverson. I don’t know if you and Del ever ran into each other way back when.”

      Pete shook both men’s hands. “Sure, I know these two. Del, I think you bought your place a year or two before I left. You’d just returned from the East Coast as I recall.”

      Del Halverson was a florid man with small features bunched in the middle of a large face. “I wasn’t away long,” he said. “Got tired of working for my uncle in a damn bank. We all left Wyoming at one time or another, right? Even Lonnie moved away to be a soldier for a while. Big city lights tempt a man. Most of us wander back sooner or later. ’Cept you, J.D. You didn’t come from around here.”

      “I came from a hundred miles north of here. I swear, Del, unless a man is born in your backyard, he’s a foreigner.” He smiled at Echo as he added, “I remember when you were a wisp of a little girl.” Then he dropped his cigarette to the gravel and ground it out with his boot. He looked up, caught Uncle Birch scowling at him, and hastened to pick it up. “Sorry, I forgot,” he said, and crossed to an old milk pail filled with sand that leaned beside a post. He dropped in the butt and turned back to Del. “Let’s get out of the way so these people can get reacquainted.”

      Both men said their goodbyes then climbed into one of the trucks and drove off.

      An uneasy silence ensued until Echo finally broke it. With a sweeping gesture, she indicated the house. “It sure looks different than I remember,” she said.

      “Cody remodeled three summers ago before he married Cassie,” Adam volunteered.

      “Fat lot of good it did him,” Uncle Birch snarled. “She ran off last winter anyway.”

      Echo didn’t miss the knot that formed in Adam’s jaw. She wasn’t exactly sure what prompted it unless he didn’t appreciate his father making those kind of comments about his brother.

      “This place is hard on women,” Pete commented.

      Birch turned on his brother. “Is that why you sold me your share of the ranch and moved Althea away? Because the place was hard on her?”

      “Partly.”

      “Pauline is still here,” Birch grumbled. “She lasted.”

      “Maybe because you never married her. Where is she, anyway?”

      “In town for the day.”

      “Looking forward to seeing her. And you know I didn’t move just because of Althea. Things weren’t the same after…”

      His voice trailed off and he looked at the ground.

      Birch glowered at his brother. “Go ahead and say it.”

      The silence that followed his remark was so deep it felt like the earth itself held its breath. Echo shifted uneasily, glancing over at Adam, who was staring at the ground.

      Finally, Pete thumped his leg with his fist. “That’s all water under the bridge. I’m back now to stay unless you’d rather I didn’t. It’s not my ranch anymore.”

      “The Open Sky will always be your home,” Birch muttered. “Some things don’t change.”

      “Then take me out to the barn and bring me up to speed. I plan to help with the haying. I used to know my way around a tractor, you know.”

      A smile lifted Birch’s lips for a millisecond. “We can use the help. Come on, Adam, we’ll—”

      “I can’t,” Adam said so quickly Echo decided he was as anxious to escape these two querulous old men as she was. He turned to Pete and added, “We discovered someone was looting the burial cave this winter. I need to ride out and check the safeguards Pierce and I put in place. What with haying, there won’t be another opportunity for the next few weeks.”

      Echo saw her chance. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

      “I’m going on horseback.”

      “That’s fine.”

      “Do you still ride?”

      “Of course.” Sort of…

      He glanced down at her sandals. “You’re not dressed for it.”

      “I have boots and jeans in the truck.”

      “It’s a long ride—”

      “Oh, come on. I can keep up. I was pretty good on a horse.”

      “That was a lifetime ago,” Adam said.

      “I was a natural. Uncle Birch told me so.”

      Birch actually chuckled as he took off his hat, rubbed the red mark it had left on his forehead and pulled it on again.

      “Well, Pete, let’s you and me go find Cody and Jamie. Leave these two to pick up where they left off—squabbling.” With that, the two older men walked toward the outbuildings, both with ramrod-straight backs, both with hands jammed in their pockets.

      Adam’s gaze followed his father and uncle.

      “So,” Echo continued, “are you going to take me with you or not?”

      He looked straight into her eyes. “You’re as pushy as you were when you were a skinny kid with pigtails.”

      “I prefer to think of it as highly focused.”

      “Self-delusional, too,” he muttered. “Okay, hurry and change. I’ll go saddle a couple horses. You want a broken-down mare or maybe a pony would be more your speed?”

      She grinned, pleased he could still dish it out. “Give me a stallion, buddy, I can handle him.”

      “I bet you can,” he murmured as he walked away.

      ADAM RODE AHEAD OF THE BLACK gelding he’d saddled for Echo. Bagels was a spirited horse and under normal circumstances, Adam might have chosen another for what he guessed was an out-of-shape rider. But time was short and besides his own mount, Solar Flare, Bagels was the only horse in the barn even remotely suitable.

      He smiled to himself at the phrase “out of shape.” One look at Echo De Gris in her jeans had confirmed what the earlier glimpse of her bare legs had blatantly announced. Whatever his cousin Echo was, she was also a damn good-looking woman.

      Take the glossy short black hair that fell fetchingly across her forehead. Or her black-as-coal eyes, glinting with mischief. Or her slender back and strong arms. Before now his notice of her had been that of a slightly older boy stuck “babysitting” the brattiest little girl in the West. She’d matured into a very attractive woman if you didn’t count that willful streak of hers. Look at the way she’d coerced him into this ride.

      “Hey up there,” she called.

      He turned in his saddle to face her and caught a glimpse of her breasts jouncing softly as she rode. Nothing wrong with that, either. “What’s up?”

      “What’s that little yellow building over there?”

      “Ice fishing shack. We drag it over the lake when it freezes up, cut a hole in the ice and go to it.” He turned in the saddle, but she once again hailed him and he turned back.

      “What about that house over there on the point?” She indicated with one hand and swayed slightly in the saddle. The gelding snorted.

      “What about it?”

      “It looks new. Whose is it?”

      “Mine.”

      “Hold

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