LITMIR.BIZ

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Cissy?

      Dumb question. There wasn’t a man alive who could resist Cissy.

      That didn’t mean she had to be Heartbroken Hannah. “Did you leave Mason a note?” she snapped back.

      His eyes hooded.

      “Then I assume nothing in particular happened to make you leave.” She settled herself in her seat and stared out the window. Beside her, Archer cleared his throat.

      “I didn’t leave a note. I signed my name to the pithy message Ranger left beside Mason’s plate,” he offered.

      She turned to stare at him, as did Cissy. Archer shrugged. “Seemed like Ranger said everything that needed to be said.”

      “I said I was going to join the military,” Ranger stated. “Did you actually read it before you John Hancocked it? Not writing your own note seems rather lazy, by the way, for a man who nearly wore his fingers out hitting the send button to Australia.”

      “Easy, bro,” Archer said mildly. “Ye ol’ love life is none of thy concern.”

      Hannah shook her head, perplexed. “Besides Mason who works hard, and Frisco Joe who figured it out, and now Laredo, who’s moved to North Carolina to be with Katy like a real man would, are all of you pretty much rascals?”

      “And relationship-dysfunctional?” Cissy put in. “It’s almost scary that the two of you could be in the same truck and not know it.”

      “How was I to know that my twin was a stowaway?”

      Cissy shrugged. “I heard twins had some special extrasensory perception for each other. Y’all seem to be blocking your ESP.”

      “Heaven forbid he could have just asked for a ride,” Ranger complained.

      “Heaven forbid you could have offered,” Archer rejoined.

      “Did I know you’d be up for the military?”

      “Did you think to ask?” Archer demanded. “Why did you think you could leave me behind with His Highness the Hardheaded?”

      Cissy and Hannah both turned to face Archer again.

      “Well, that’s what Mimi calls him,” Archer said sheepishly. “Mason, that is, before she quit hanging around our place.”

      “She probably had to leave out of self-defense,” Hannah said. “Your family isn’t exactly easy for a woman to bear.”

      In the mirror’s reflection, she saw Ranger’s eyebrows peak over his eyes. “How would you know?”

      Caught, because she didn’t want to admit that her feelings had been hurt by Ranger, Hannah said, “Keep your eyes on the road, cowboy. All of us want to reach our varied destinations safe and sound.”

      “And I want to talk about your destination,” Ranger stated. “Where exactly are you two going?”

      Cissy turned completely to face Hannah. “I don’t know that it’s such a good idea to tell him. They’re just going to say that we don’t know what we’re doing.”

      “You said it for me,” Ranger pointed out. “I think it, I know it’s true and now you’ve put it out in the open. We’re all prepared for my reaction, so just say it: What’s your end-of-the-line destination?”

      “I called a friend of mine who runs a gambling riverboat in Mississippi,” Hannah said. “Cissy and I are going to be hostesses on the boat. Well, I’m going to be a card dealer. I got Cissy a job as a hostess.”

      Both men started laughing, immensely amused by the revelation. “Going to the good ship, Lollipop,” Archer sang, until Hannah’s annoyed expression brought his tune to an end.

      Ranger turned the truck at an exit ramp, parking at a truck weigh station and rest area. “Okay,” he said sternly. “All ladies out of my truck. I ain’t taking you any farther than this.”

      Cissy hesitated, but Hannah popped right out of the truck. “Fine,” she said. “I can get a better-looking, more polite and chivalrous ride, anyway. One that doesn’t poke his nose in my business and then laugh.”

      “Archer laughed, I just—”

      “Same thing. All you Jeffersons are alike. It’s your way or the highway. Well, I,” she said with a deliberate glare at Ranger as she tugged her leopard-print duffel from the truck, “don’t even think you’re that hot of a kisser.”

      “Huh?” Ranger and Archer said at the same time.

      “Now wait a minute—” Ranger began.

      “Kisser?” Archer stared at his twin. “Did you kiss her?”

      “Technically, it was a peck,” Ranger began.

      “He pecked both of us, then,” Cissy inserted. “Only my kiss went beyond the peck category, I feel certain.”

      “You kissed her, too? And they’re both riding in the same vehicle with you?” Archer grinned over the seat at his twin. “No wonder the atmosphere in here has been decidedly icy. Brr.”

      Hannah didn’t want to hear about the kissing Cissy had gotten from Ranger, but knowing that the man was such a fast-and-loose kisser was the main reason she didn’t want to let her heartstrings get pulled any tighter. Obviously, her kiss hadn’t meant anything to him.

      “I knew this was a bad idea. Cissy, I vote we call Jerry. Sooner or later, he’ll be by this way in his rig. We should have done that in the first place, I guess.”

      Maybe, but she and Cissy had agreed between themselves that burdening anyone with their departure wasn’t fair. And, frankly, they were afraid they couldn’t say goodbye if they had to face down a couple of salons full of friends. And Cissy would have had to say goodbye to Marvella—no easy thing, considering Marvella would have thrown a fit.

      But for Hannah, saying goodbye to Delilah would have been impossible. She couldn’t have said goodbye, and she wouldn’t have. In the end, she would have stayed—always captive to the hope that Ranger would return. Call. Ask her out. Remember their kiss.

      Ranger crossed his arms at her, and Hannah felt her heart sink a little deeper in her chest. Did he have to be so handsome, even when he was being so dreadfully bossy? “Go,” she told him. “Head off. Don’t waste my time giving me the omnipotent eye.”

      “The omnipotent eye,” Archer mused. “Isn’t that what Helga does to us when we put our boots on the coffee table?”

      “Can I speak to you alone for a moment?” Ranger said to Hannah.

      “I don’t see why—” she started, but Cissy gave her a shove and Ranger gave her arm a pull and she was heading off toward a picnic table with Ranger before she’d finished her sentence.

      “Look,” he said, sitting her down on the plank seat. “Have you thought this through?”

      She thought she heard concern in his voice, real concern, and it startled her out of her indignation. “Yes, I have. And you can stop looming over me like you know everything and what I know could fit into a thimble.”

      He stared at her. “I’m not looming.”

      Okay. So at over six feet he couldn’t exactly help his proportions. She’d wanted to be able to read his posture, and now she certainly could. “So. How long did you think about your road trip?”

      “A while.”

      “I don’t remember you mentioning it before.”

      “We didn’t talk much.”

      No, they hadn’t. Mostly, she’d wanted to kiss him. And that peck comment had hurt her feelings, because it had been more than that to her. “Where are you going?”

      “I’m going into the military.” He gave her a most belligerent glare,

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