LITMIR.BIZ

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a uniform that bristled with ribbons. His hair was the color of midnight.

      Corny, all of it, but true.

      He had a face a sculptor might have chiseled.

      A sculptor with a cruel sense of irony.

      Because Jacob Wilde’s face was perfect….

      Except for the black patch over one eye, and the angry, ridged flesh that stretched across the arch of his cheek beneath it.

      CHAPTER THREE

      JAKE STOOD frozen in the open doorway.

      The momentary rush of euphoria at seeing his sisters and brothers drained away as fast as the water from Coyote Creek in a dry Texas summer.

      No party, he’d said. No crowd. And, yes, he’d figured there’d be people there anyway….

      His belly knotted.

      From where he stood, it looked as if the entire county had showed up.

      He took a quick step back, or tried to, but his sisters threw themselves at him.

      “You’re here,” Em said happily.

      “Really here,” Jaimie said.

      “You’re home,” Lissa added, and what could he finally do but close his arms around them all?

      Caleb pounded him on the back.

      Travis squeezed his shoulder.

      Despite everything, Jake began to grin.

      “Is this a welcoming committee?” he said, “or a plot to do me in?”

      They laughed with him, his sisters weeping, his brothers grinning from ear to ear.

      For a few seconds, it was as if nothing had changed, as if they were all still kids and the world was a wonderland of endless possibilities….

      Then Caleb cleared his throat.

      “The General sends his best.”

      Jake checked the room. “He’s not here?”

      “No,” Travis said uncomfortably. “He said to tell you he’s sorry but he got hung up at a NATO meeting in London.”

      Reality returned in a cold, hard rush.

      “Of course,” Jake said politely. “I understand.”

      There was a moment of silence. Then Jaimie touched his arm.

      “Everyone’s waiting to say hello,” she said softly.

      Jake forced a smile. “So I see.”

      Caleb leaned in closer. “Sorry about the crowd,” he murmured.

      “Yeah,” Travis said. “Trust me, bro. We didn’t plan any of this.”

      “It’s just that word got around,” Lissa said. “And people were so eager to welcome you home….”

      “You don’t mind, Jake,” Em said, “do you?”

      “No,” he said, “of course not.”

      His brothers saw right through the polite response. They exchanged a look.

      “You ladies can have him later,” Caleb said. “What he needs right now is a cold brew. Right, my man?”

      What he needed was to get the hell out of here, especially because he knew what would happen once he stepped fully inside the room, where the lights were brighter and the crowd could get its first good look at him, but why add cowardice to his other sins?

      “Unless,” Travis said quickly, “baby brother wants champagne. Or wine.”

      Jake looked at his brothers. They were throwing him a lifeline, a way to grab hold of the past by segueing into an old routine.

      “Champagne’s for chicks,” he said, the line coming to him as readily as his next breath. “Wine’s for wusses.”

      “But beer—” Travis said solemnly.

      Caleb finished the silly poem. “—is for real men.”

      Jake could almost feel his tension easing.

      They’d come up with the doggerel years ago. It had been valid when they were in their teens. Not anymore. They’d all grown up; they’d traveled the world and, in the process, their tastes had become more sophisticated.

      Travis even had a wine cellar, something they teased him about unmercifully.

      Still, a cold beer sounded good, almost as good as the memories dredged up by the silly bit of shtick.

      “A cold beer,” Jake said wistfully. “A longneck?”

      “Does real beer come in any other kind of bottle?”

      The three Wildes smiled. And moved from the porch into the room.

      “Hell,” Jake muttered.

      He’d forgotten the crowd. The lights.

      The reaction.

      People gasped. Slapped their hands to their mouths. Whispered to the person beside them.

      Jake could have sworn that all the air in the big room had been siphoned away on one deep, communal inhalation.

      “Crap,” Caleb muttered. Travis echoed the sentiment, though with a far more basic Anglo-Saxonism.

      “It’s okay,” Jake said, because if ever there’d been a time when a lie was a good thing, it was now.

      A surge of partygoers surrounded him.

      He recognized the faces. Ranchers. Their wives. The couple who owned the hardware store, the town’s pharmacist. The owner of the local supermarket. The dentist. Teachers who’d known him in high school, coaches, guys he’d played football with.

      Most of them had recovered their equilibrium. The men stuck out their hands. The women offered their cheeks for kisses.

      All offered variations on the same theme.

      Jake, it’s wonderful to have you home.

      “It’s wonderful to be home,” he answered.

      Another lie, but what was he going to say? No, it’s not wonderful? I can’t wait to get the hell out of here? I don’t belong here anymore, I don’t belong anywhere?

      “Just keep moving,” Travis muttered.

      Jake nodded. One foot in front of the other …

       Who was that?

      A woman. Standing all the way in the rear of the big room, near Em’s piano.

      He’d never seen her before.

      If he had, he surely would have remembered her.

      Tall. Slender. Dark hair pulled away from her face. An oval face that held a faint look of amusement.

      In a sea of blue denim and pastel cotton, she wore black silk. Sexy black silk …

      The crowd swelled, shifted, and he lost sight of her.

      “You ready for this?”

      “Ready for…?”

      “The next bunch,” Travis said, jerking his chin toward the larger crowd ahead.

      “The cheers of your million fans,” Caleb added, working hard for a light tone.

      Jake forced a laugh, as he knew he was meant to do.

      “Sure.”

      Two lies in two minutes. Had to be a record, even for him.

      “Then, let’s do it,” Caleb said. “’Cause the sooner we make it to the end zone, the sooner we can

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