LITMIR.BIZ

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eyes brimmed with tears as her cousin opened the pickup door.

      “Laci and I will be right there with you. I promise you will have a good time.”

      Maddie nodded and bolstered her courage by reminding herself that Bo Evans had left town. She knew, though, that he wasn’t the only reason she hadn’t returned for so long. No, the real reason she’d fled Old Town Whitehorse was a secret she prayed would never come out.

      JUD KNEW he had to act quickly. His brothers could stand around arguing about their mother’s motives for forcing marriage on them, but it seemed pretty transparent to Jud that the old man wanted his sons to settle in Montana or he would have never told them about the letters.

      If there were even any letters left from their mother to be read on each of their wedding days. Maybe her dying wish really hadn’t been that her sons find wives.

      None of that really mattered to Jud.

      He was doing this for his father. Come hell or high water, Jud intended to give the old man what he wanted—a wedding. Just not the wedding everyone was expecting.

      In a town the size of Whitehorse, it didn’t take Jud but a matter of minutes to find out where Maddie Cavanaugh had gone. Crashing the welcome-home party had been child’s play, since most everyone in town had been invited.

      Seeing her again reinforced his belief that she was exactly what he was looking for, and yet he hesitated. Unlike the other women he’d been with, Maddie didn’t have obvious sexual appeal. She was understated. That’s what she was. Sweet-looking. Real.

      She was also completely wrong for him, and he suspected she would know it soon enough.

      He’d known even before he reached her that she would turn him down for a date. He would have been disappointed if she hadn’t.

      “Maybe some other time,” he’d said, looking regretful as he backed off. But as he left, he saw out of the corner of his eye that she was watching him leave. Her cousins were at her side, whispering something to her. No doubt encouraging her.

      Smiling to himself, he left, betting himself he’d have a date with her before the day was out.

      Maddie Cavanaugh wasn’t getting away. Too much was at stake here.

      “SO TELL US about this Maddie Cavanaugh,” Lantry said at breakfast several mornings later.

      Jud grinned. He was going out for lunch with Maddie and planned to take her to the theatre in town tonight. But while he had to return to his film in Canada tomorrow, he had another date with her to the rodeo the day after. “You’ll see for yourself when you meet her.”

      “We’ve been waiting to meet her,” Lantry said. “Come on, fess up, there isn’t any Maddie Cavanaugh. You made her up, thinking it would buy you time.”

      “I couldn’t make up a woman like Maddie,” Jud said in all seriousness, then concentrated on his breakfast. Juanita had served huevos rancheros with homemade tortillas and beans, his favorite.

      “So when are you going to bring her out to meet Dad and Kate?” Dalton asked from the end of the table. “Or isn’t that Hollywood charm of yours working?”

      “All in good time,” Jud said. “When you’re serious about a woman you need to take things slow. You’ll learn that if you ever date a woman more than once.”

      Lantry cocked his head at his brother and narrowed his eyes. “You’ve never been secretive about any of the women you were dating. Quite the contrary. You’re up to something.”

      “Just true love,” Jud said with a grin.

      TWO DAYS LATER, Shane had his feet propped up on the porch railing and his hat pulled down low against the afternoon sun. He appeared to be asleep, but Grayson knew better.

      “You still planning to go back to the Texas Rangers?”

      he asked quietly.

      Shane didn’t stir. “Why wouldn’t I?”

      Grayson suspected his son’s wounds ran much deeper than the gunshot wound he’d suffered a month ago. “Montana could use a good lawman.”

      Shane chuckled and pushed back his Stetson to look at his father. “Subtle.”

      “Kate says I need to be more direct.”

      “You’re plenty direct the way you are,” he said, sitting up.

      Grayson smiled. “I get the feeling you’re ticked off at me.”

      “You think?”

      “What’s wrong with wanting my family close by?”

      “You’re the one who moved to Montana.”

      “You goin’ to hold that against me?”

      Shane sighed. “What’s going on, Dad? It isn’t like you to sell lock, stock and barrel and leave Texas the way you did.”

      Grayson shook his head. “Love changes everything, son. I hope you find that out for yourself one day.”

      “No, thanks. Not if it makes me change everything about myself.”

      “Is that what you think happened to me?”

      “You’ve got to admit this letter thing is beneath you.”

      Grayson leaned back his chair and stared out across the summer-green prairie. This land, with its rolling grassland that ran to coulees filled with juniper and scrub pine and rocky outcroppings before dropping into the Missouri River gorge, had drawn him the first time he’d seen it.

      He loved the sweet summer scents, loved the way the place was steeped in history, loved riding across the great expanse of country, the grasses, tall and green, undulating in the breeze.

      But mostly he loved this place because it had once been Kate’s and was now hers again. He’d given her the ranch, but it was so little compared to what she’d given him. His heart swelled at the mere thought of his wife.

      But his marriage and this move had put more than miles between him and his sons. He couldn’t bear the thought that he might lose them because of it.

      “It’s selfish of me,” he said to Shane. “To want to uproot you boys to make an old man happy.”

      Shane laughed. “Blackmail first, now guilt?” He shook his head. “Hell, why don’t you pull out all the stops and tell us you’re—” Shane stopped as if the word dying had caught in his throat. Swallowing, he said, “Does this really mean that much to you?”

      “Yes,” Grayson said, meeting his son’s gaze and holding it. “It means that much to me.”

      Shane looked into his father’s eyes, his pulse drumming in his ears. His next breath came hard as he realized he might have stumbled onto the truth. “You aren’t…sick, are you?”

      He couldn’t bring himself to say the D word. He’d come too close to saying it only moments before. Grayson looked as healthy as a horse, but there was no denying he’d aged. His hair had grayed and there were deep lines furrowing his brow.

      “I’m fine,” Grayson said and looked away. “I don’t want you to feel…”

      “Trapped?”

      “No.” His father’s gaze came back to him, his eyes shiny. “I raised you boys to be your own men. I would never want to do anything to change that.”

      Shane swore under his breath. He’d told himself his father wasn’t going to make him feel guilty about not going along with this stupid marriage pact, and yet he felt guilty as hell right now.

      The phone rang inside the house. Neither man moved. After the second ring, Juanita picked up. Shane could hear her and knew even before she stepped to the porch doorway that the call was for him.

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