LITMIR.BIZ

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masculine and… That meant absolutely nothing. She kept searching.

      His father was a general in the U.S. Army and his mother was an army wife who followed her husband all over the world. Nothing about his life looked out of the ordinary, but one thing caught Alex’s attention. Travis Braxton was born five days after Brodie Hayes in the same hospital in Dallas. How weird was that? Could that just be a coincidence?

      She mulled this over for about thirty minutes, then she knew what she had to do. She had Brodie Hayes’s address and somehow, someway she would get a DNA sample from him.

      Chapter Two

      Alex had told Mrs. Braxton that she could handle the investigation discreetly and that’s what she planned to do. First, she would meet Brodie Hayes and take it from there.

      Finding his ranch wasn’t a problem—she’d gotten the exact directions from the Internet. She took I-635 then US-80 and traveled down a blacktop road until she reached the entrance to the Cowboy Up Ranch. Driving over a cattle guard, she noticed red-and-white-faced cattle lying beneath oak trees. Others were grazing in the heat or drinking from a water trough.

      A ranch-style frame house loomed in front of her, a pipe fence separating it from the pasture. There were corrals and barns to the right. Everything was quiet, no activity anywhere. She parked on the side of the house and got out. Two gray-and-white dogs loped toward her.

      Her breath wedged in her throat as they sniffed at her feet. “Hi there,” she said. The dogs barked and she forced herself not to show fear or jump back. “Hello to you, too,” she responded as brightly as she could. When the dogs trotted back to the barn, she let out a tight breath. Evidently they didn’t consider her a threat. Thank God.

      She walked up the stone walk to the door. There was no doorbell, so she knocked.

      The wooden veranda-type porch stretched along the front of the white house. Horseshoes welded together made sturdy columns. Two wrought-iron chairs with denim seats graced both sides of the door. An inviting swing hung from the rafters. Although shrubbery grew against the house, the neatly mowed yard showed no signs of flowers or flowerbeds. All telltale signs this was the home of a bachelor.

      No one came to the door. The thought of breaking in crossed her mind. She could be in and out in less than two minutes with something with his DNA on it, but she wasn’t quite ready to go to those lengths. When she was about to give up she saw a white pickup barreling her way.

      She just got lucky.

      BRODIE HAYES had had one of those days and he was relieved to get back to his place, his own home. Spending time with his mother left him feeling as if he’d been kicked in the stomach by a two-thousand-pound bull. He was raw, sore and a little dazed.

      His parents had never understood him and the years hadn’t made a difference. He was always acutely aware that he was a big disappointment to both of them.

      At five, Brodie was riding his mother’s broom as a horse. His father took it away from him and made him use it as a gun. As a kid he didn’t understand that—he didn’t want a gun. He wanted to ride a horse. When he was six, he asked Santa for cowboy boots. He didn’t get them and he stopped believing in Santa Claus.

      The years his father was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, were the happiest time of Brodie’s life. He’d made a friend, Colter Kincaid, whose family lived on a ranch and Brodie loved to visit. He learned to ride a horse and he went to rodeos with them. Following that first rodeo, he was hooked. The massive bulls held his attention. He and Colter started riding in the junior rodeos. To enter, Brodie forged his father’s signature because he knew his parents wouldn’t approve.

      That first ride he was bucked into the dirt so hard that the wind left his body. But that only spurred his interest, making him determined to complete the eight-second ride. He would secretly enter the local rodeos, never telling his parents how he was spending his spare time. When Brodie started to win, he didn’t count on the news being in the papers.

      His father was furious and grounded him. Tom Hayes believed in strict discipline and lying was definitely against the family rules. Brodie caved into the pressure and agreed to apply to Texas A&M. He majored in agriculture economics, much to his father’s disapproval.

      In college he rodeoed on the weekends and he told his parents. They didn’t like it, but as long as he was in college they didn’t complain. And Brodie had turned eighteen so his decisions were his own. As he kept winning he knew what he wanted to do with his life. Tom’s wishes were for Brodie to go into the army, but Brodie knew that life wasn’t for him.

      His parents pressured Brodie every way they could, but at nineteen he quit college and followed the rodeo circuit. He made friends who became his family. Colter Kincaid had also decided the rodeo was the life for him. To Brodie, Colter and another cowboy named Tripp Daniels were like his brothers. They always would be.

      His parents finally accepted his rodeo ways, as they called his life, but they had very little contact during those years. His father relented enough to fly to Vegas when Brodie won the national finals. They had a congratulatory beer together before his father left for Washington. He died two months later.

      Claudia, his mother, moved to Dallas to be near her sister, Cleo. They were an unlikely pair. His mother was a social butterfly, enjoying teas, luncheons and charity functions. Cleo, who had married beneath her, as his mother had so often said, had been a cook in a large restaurant until she retired. Claudia had never approved of Cleo’s lifestyle—Cleo had been married three times and she loved to dance and go out and have fun. That was what had caused the problem today.

      Brodie had lunch with them once a week. Cleo was a great cook and he always enjoyed the meal, but his mother was in one of her moods. Cleo had a new boyfriend and they went square-dancing several nights a week. Claudia was upset because that left her alone at night. She wanted Brodie to tell Cleo how bad this man was for her. He didn’t even know the man and he had no intention of doing any such thing.

      When he refused, his mother had become suddenly short of breath. Claudia had had rheumatic fever as a child that left her with a heart murmur. After Brodie’s birth, she began to have more and more problems with her heart. Two years ago, she’d had a mild heart attack, and today he’d feared the same thing was happening.

      He’d spent the rest of the afternoon in the emergency room and the doctor said Claudia didn’t have a heart attack, just an anxiety attack. In the end, his mother had gotten what she’d wanted—Cleo would stay home to take care of Claudia.

      His mother had always been clingy and needy and it seemed to have gotten worse with age. Soon he’d have to talk to her about her fear of being alone. He wasn’t looking forward to it. The bruises were still too raw from today’s confrontation.

      He’d rather face a bull from the bowels of hell than have a conversation with his mother. He knew he had a chance of surviving with the bull. Claudia had a way of ripping him to shreds with just a few well-chosen words.

      He frowned as he saw a Jeep parked in his driveway. He didn’t recognize it, then he saw a woman walking toward the vehicle. A blonde in white shorts that showed off long, slim legs and a tank top that bared tanned arms. Her hair was clipped behind her head and those feminine curves were in all the right places. Touchable places.

      His day just got better.

      THE WHITE FOUR-DOOR TRUCK rattled loudly so Alex knew it was a diesel. The large grill guard and all-terrain tires indicated the truck was for heavy-duty jobs. A man and his truck. In Texas, it defined who he was. This truck said Brodie Hayes was one tough hombre. A woman raised in Texas knew to never mess with a man’s truck or his life. Alex was about to break one of those rules.

      The dogs trotted from the barn and scurried to her, sniffing at her feet again. She hardly noticed them as she watched one booted foot slide to the ground. She held her breath as she waited for the rest of the cowboy to emerge from the truck. Tight-fitting Wranglers molded his long legs, a gold belt buckle glistened on a tooled leather belt, a starched white shirt framed his broad

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