LITMIR.BIZ

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Maybe not riding all the young ones, but he’d work. He’d ridden through the pain and worked through the pain and he was going to keep right on doing it as long as he could move.

      That decided, he pulled on ragged jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, his wool-lined Carhartt jacket and sheepskin moccasins. Coffee and the sunrise. That was the ticket. After that, he wouldn’t jog or run, but he’d damn sure shovel some shit. He wasn’t gonna let being the big boss and the ranch owner go to his head.

      Two hours later he was on his second pot of coffee and still on the porch, feet propped up on the railing, still no boots on, doing nothing but looking around like a pole-axed steer. What a lazy bum.

      In a rocking chair, no less, like he was on his last legs. He’d have to talk to that designer woman who’d picked out the furniture. What’d she think this was? A rest home for old cowboys?

      He’d get up and get to work as soon as he finished this pot. He’d just sit here for a few more minutes and decide what all he needed to do today. Only two days home and then he’d be back on the road.

      Home. That seemed so strange to him. This new place was home.

      Big house, good quality, but not fancy. Lots of glass and wood and stone but homey. Make it look like it grew out of the ground, there in front of the big grove of aspen at the foot of the mountain. That’s what he’d told the architect. That’s what he’d got.

      Now he couldn’t believe it was his. And he couldn’t believe that someday he’d be here all the time. No cowboy could rodeo forever.

      Looking that fact right in the face made him feel the earth shift underneath him: What would he do with a home? Home wasn’t just for one person, was it? But two people—him and his dad—hadn’t been a home, either. Not even the three of them, when his mom was still there, had made one. He didn’t know what a home was.

      But if building could make one, then he’d have one. There were two buildings and several miles of fence under construction that he could see from here, just by turning his head. There were more that he couldn’t see right now. All of it belonged to him. He was the one making it happen.

      His new barns, his new outdoor arena, his new shop, his new breeding lab, his new landscaping, his new manager’s house for Tucker and his wife Helen, his new bunkhouse for whatever help they needed, his new indoor arena, his new garage, were all springing up out of the ground because he’d ordered them to be built. Except for the mountain ranges rising against the sky, all the land he could see from this spot where he sat belonged to him, either deeded or leased.

      He, Chase Lomax, was settling down. Well, he was preparing to settle down. Sometime. Not yet.

      But he couldn’t deny that he was building a homeplace. Something to last, a fine ranch of the kind men handed down to their children.

      Which was insane. When he died, he would leave it to Shane, since he certainly wasn’t the marrying kind and wouldn’t be having any more children.

      He’d put his money in the bank since those first years on the rodeo road when all he’d had was that little old trailer he’d lived in with Andie Lee and Shane. Since then, he’d operated out of one friend’s place or another, usually whichever friend was boarding Tardy Girl for him. The now twenty-five-year-old mare he called Teege or T.G. was the only thing he’d managed to hold on to all his life.

      Except the saddle he’d made with his dad. The only dadlike thing his dad had ever done. He didn’t like to think about his old man but sometimes he did wish he could show him this ranch, after all the times he’d called him worthless and no-good and told him he’d never amount to anything.

      He slammed his mind shut on the memory of his dad’s voice and concentrated on looking at the snow-covered mountains. This had to be the most spectacular view in the state of Montana. The best view he’d ever seen anywhere, and he’d been all over the U. S. and a lot of Canada and to Brazil with Robbie.

      Chase, chilled to the bone, even though they were having a good spell of open weather, stood up and threw what was left of the coffee into a bush by the steps, set the mug on the table and gave his arms and shoulders a mighty stretch. His joints popped and his bones creaked, but at least he was all in one piece.

      The sun was warming things up and he should get out in it. Maybe the wind would become a chinook—after all, most of the snow was melting from the lower elevations.

      He would go change into running shoes and put in a mile or two. This afternoon, he’d lift weights and do a lot of crunches. Robbie’s Brazilian buddy, Paulo, did two thousand sit-ups a day. No wonder he was in perfect control of his body when he got on a bull. Of course, he was a lot younger than Chase.

      He turned to start for the door, but the grinding of wheels on gravel stopped him. He turned, waiting idly, to see who was coming. More workmen, probably.

      This was pitiful. He was so hard up for entertainment he was watching the builders drive in to work.

      Nope. He knew the pickup as soon as he saw it. Andie Lee, coming to see him.

      Only once before had she driven the hundred miles to his place from the Splendid Sky, the ranch where they’d met all those years ago. They’d been so young then. So young they didn’t understand the world they were in, happy in the rebellion of forbidden love: Andie Lee the princess, the owner’s stepdaughter, and Chase the saddle bum/drifter/colt breaker/wannabe rodeo champion.

      The one time she’d been here was to bring their son, Shane—well, technically, her son—to camp with Chase for a couple of days. That had been before the house was completed. What would she think of it?

      He didn’t really care what she thought of the house. Suddenly, he just wished he’d held on to her somehow so he wouldn’t be lonesome now.

      Lately she’d been dating just one guy, a guy she’d looked at with a million feelings in her eyes the day she introduced him to Chase. And, later, she hadn’t wanted to talk about him on the phone, so that had made him feel sort of shut out. They hadn’t been lovers for several years, but they’d been friends and they were accustomed to telling each other just about everything.

      Come to think of it, she’d been too busy for weeks now to talk to Chase much at all.

      If she was here, this was serious. It must be bad news. Shane might be in trouble again.

      She drove up to the center of the circle drive and parked in front of the steps. He took them two at a time to go meet her, hardly feeling the pain in his leg. Shane wasn’t with her.

      Smiling, Andie got out of the truck and walked into his open arms, lingering in his hug for a minute without saying a word. She felt so damn good. She smelled so familiar. Now, she could make this place a home. Why the hell had he ever let her go?

      “You must’ve hit the road before sunup,” he said. “Everything all right?”

      She pulled back and gave him that smile again. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

      “Everything’s wonderful. I’ve come to tell you my exciting news.”

      “Is it about Shane?”

      “About me,” she said. Then she turned away, took his hand, and started leading him up the steps. “Give me some coffee,” she said. “I finished mine just before I started down the mountain.”

      “Got a fresh pot.”

      She let go of his hand.

      “I want to see your house later,” she said, “but for right now, let’s sit out here. This view is fabulous. It’s even better than the one from Micah’s place.”

      “It might be too cold for you. Things’re just starting to warm up.”

      “Hey,” she said. “I don’t live in Texas anymore. I can take the cold.”

      When he came back with two full mugs, she was standing at the corner of the railing, looking

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