LITMIR.BIZ

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She backed up a couple of steps and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I guess I better go now.”

      “You aren’t competing in the barrel racing with a more seasoned horse?” he asked.

      She shook her head. “Not today.”

      He favored her with another sexy grin. “Guess I’ll be heading out, too.”

      “But you just got here.” And she’d just given herself away.

      His smile faded into a confused look. “How do you know that?”

      She studied the dirt at her feet before raising her gaze to his. “I saw you take a seat in the stands.” The distraction had resulted in her lack of concentration in the arena, and the fact that he’d come to her rescue still stunned her.

      He hooked both thumbs in his pockets, causing her to glimpse a place no self-respecting mother should notice, and it wasn’t his buckle. “I was only here to escape all the holiday decorating at the ranch,” he said. “If I don’t get back, my stepmom is bound to send out a posse.”

      She forced herself to look at his face. “How is Maria?”

      “Feisty as ever. How are your folks?”

      Georgie didn’t care to broach that topic in detail, and preferred to let Austin assume she still lived at home. That would guarantee he wouldn’t come calling, considering the long-standing feud between both their families, compliments of their competitive fathers. Only one time had a Calloway son entered their abode. Through her bedroom window. She had given Austin everything that night eighteen years ago, including her heart. “Mom and Papa are doing fine,” she said, banishing the bittersweet memories from her mind.

      “I’m sure they’re glad to have you back from school. I bet Old George is strutting around like a rooster over his only kid becoming a veterinarian.”

      Not so much. Her father was still shamed over having a daughter who’d had a baby out of wedlock, information her family had kept away from the public eye. In fact, she hadn’t spoken to her dad to any degree in years. Luckily her mother hadn’t passed judgment and still supported her when she’d stayed away from the small town and the prospect of gossip. She purposefully lost touch with friends, and now that she’d returned, she’d fortunately been able to find a remote place of her own, even if it was only a rental. But eventually everyone would know about her son because she couldn’t hide out forever, nor did she want to.

      When Chance waved, Georgie tried for a third departure. “Well, I better load up and leave before the competition begins.”

      A slight span of silence passed before Austin spoke again. “You look real good, Georgie girl.”

      So did he. Too good. Otherwise she might scold him for calling her by his pet name. “Thanks. I’ll see you around.”

      “You most definitely will.”

      Georgie disregarded the comment, turned away and then walked through the gate to retrieve her mare. She lingered there for a few moments and watched Austin leave the arena before seeking out her son. “Let’s go, Chance,” she called as she untied the horse and started down the aisle.

      Chance scampered down from the bleachers and came to her side, his face and baseball cap smeared with dirt. “Who was that man, Mama?”

      Oh, heavens. She had so hoped he hadn’t noticed. “Austin Calloway.”

      “Who is he?”

      She kept right on walking as she considered how she should answer. She settled on a partial truth instead of full disclosure as she walked toward her trailer, her baby boy at her side.

      “He’s an old friend, sweetie.”

      An old friend who’d been her first lover. Her first love. Her one and only heartbreak. But most important, the father of her child.

      If or when Austin Calloway learned that she’d been withholding that secret, she could only imagine how he would react—and it wouldn’t be good.

      * * *

      Austin stormed into the main house to seek out the source of his anger. He found him in the parlor where they’d grown up, his pregnant wife seated in his lap. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Dallas.”

      Both Dallas and Paris stared at him like he’d grown a third eye, then exchanged a look. “I think I’ll go see if Maria and Jenny need help with dinner,” Paris said as she came to her feet.

      Dallas patted her bottom. “Good idea. I can’t feel my legs.”

      She frowned and pointed down at her belly. “Hush. This is all your fault, so complaining is not allowed.”

      “You sure didn’t complain when I got you that way,” Dallas added with a grin as his wife headed toward the kitchen.

      Watching his brother and sister-in-law’s banter didn’t sit well with Austin. “If you’re done mooning over your bride, we need to talk.”

      Dallas leaned back on the blue floral sofa that Jenny had brought with her, draped an arm over the back and crossed his boots at his ankles. “Have a seat and say what’s on your mind.”

      Austin eyed the brown leather chair but decided he was too restless to claim it. “I don’t want to have a seat.”

      “Then stand, dammit. Just get on with it.”

      He remained planted in the same spot even though he wanted to pace. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me Georgia Romero was back in town?”

      “Georgia’s back in town?” came from the opening to his right.

      Austin turned his attention to Maria, his stepmother, mentor and crusader for the truth, and sometimes intruder into conversations. “So he didn’t tell you, either?”

      Dallas’s jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “I’d forgotten I’d talked to her day before yesterday. Besides, it’s not that big a deal. A drought is a big deal.”

      “It’s a big deal to your little brother, mijo,” Maria said as she tightened the band at the end of her long braid. “Austin and Georgia have a special relationship.”

      Obviously the family was intent on throwing the past up in his face like prairie dirt. “Had a relationship. That was a long time ago.”

      Dallas smirked. “You’d take her back as your girlfriend in a New York minute.”

      “You have a girlfriend, sugar?”

      Enter the blonde, bouncy second stepmom. The woman Austin’s dad had married without divorcing Maria. Jenny was a good-hearted gossip and that alone made him want to walk right back out the door. Doing so would only prolong the conversation, unfortunately. “No, Jen, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

      “He used to have a girlfriend,” Maria added. “Georgia and Austin were real close in high school.”

      Jenny laid a dramatic palm on her chest below the string of pearls. “I just love Georgia. Atlanta in the springtime is...”

      “Focus, woman,” Maria scolded. “We’re talkin’ about a girl, not a state.”

      Jenny lifted her chin. “I know that, Maria. You’re telling me about Austin being joined at the hip to his high school sweetheart, who happens to be named Georgia.”

      Dallas chuckled. “You’ve got that ‘joined at the hip’ thing right, Jen, but Austin chased her for years before that joining.”

      Austin needed to set this part of the record straight. “I damn sure didn’t chase her.” Much. “She hung around all of us when we were kids. I never paid her any mind back then.”

      “Not until she came back from camp that summer after she turned fourteen,” Dallas said.

      Man, he hadn’t thought about that in years. She’d returned with

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