LITMIR.BIZ

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it, Nathan, you haven’t changed a bit. Still issuing orders and expecting them to be followed. Who made you the grand pooh-bah of the Western world?”

      “Pooh-bah?”

      She ignored that. “You come to my house. You kiss me. Then you lay down rules for me to live my life by and what? You expected me to just salute and say, ‘Yes, sir’?”

      “Would’ve been nice,” he muttered.

      She laughed. In spite of everything. “Yeah, well, not going to happen.”

      “You make me crazy,” he admitted, shaking his head slowly. “You always did.”

      His voice was softer, deeper, and his eyes held a heat she remembered too well. So she stiffened her spine, refusing to be swayed by the urges she felt deep within her.

      “Good to know,” Amanda said, tipping her head back to look into his eyes. “That’s some consolation, anyway.”

      He blew out a breath and muttered something she didn’t quite catch before saying, “Fine. No rules. We go along. Stay out of each other’s way.”

      “Fine.”

      “Eventually, people will stop talking or waiting for something to happen between us and—”

      “You’re still doing it,” Amanda interrupted.

      “Doing what?”

      “Making rules. Setting down how things will be,” she said. Tipping her head to one side, she stared up at him in complete frustration. “You can’t regulate life, Nathan. It just…happens.”

      Like losing a baby you had loved from the moment of conception. That familiar twinge of pain, muted slightly because of time and her deliberate attempts to bury it, twisted inside her briefly.

      “Unacceptable.”

      “You don’t get to make that call, Nathan,” she said softly.

      “You’re wrong.” His eyes were hard, flinty chips of frozen chocolate. Whatever softness had been there before had completely dissipated. “My life moves just as I want it to. No exceptions.” He paused. “Not anymore.”

      There it was, she thought. Once upon a time, she had been the exception to Nathan’s carefully laid-out life. She’d thrown a wrench into his plans, made him scramble for a new strategy and then it had all fallen apart again. This time, though, she was older—and wiser, she hoped—and she wouldn’t be sucked into Nathan’s tidily arranged world. She preferred her life messy. She liked the adventure of not really knowing what to expect.

      Of course, then scenes like tonight would probably rise up again to torture her, but that was a risk she’d rather take. Better than having your life plotted out on a ledger sheet, with no surprises, no jolts of pleasure or pain.

      “Royal’s a small town,” he was saying and Amanda pushed her thoughts aside to pay attention. “But not so small that we can’t comfortably ignore each other.”

      “That’s how you want this to play out?” she asked. “We each pretend the other doesn’t exist?”

      “Better that way,” he said.

      “For who?”

      He didn’t answer. He just opened the door and said, “Goodbye, Amanda.”

      The sound of his boots on the stairs rang out like a too-fast heartbeat. A few seconds later, she heard a car engine fire up and then he was driving away.

      Amanda closed her door on the world, wandered to the kitchen and retrieved the stuffed potatoes that were just a little too well-done. She idly stood there and watched steam lift off her dinner and twist in the barely moving air.

      “Damn it,” she whispered and stared through the window to the night beyond the glass. Her dinner was burned, her stomach was spinning and her temper was at war with her hormones.

      Nathan was a force of nature. One that apparently was destined to crash in and out of her life whether she wanted him to or not. And the worst part?

      “He walked away. Again.”

      She poured a fresh glass of wine, forced herself to eat the overdone potatoes and promised herself the next time she and Nathan were in the same room, she would be the one doing the walking.

      The Battlelands Ranch glowed in the darkness. It stood like a proud dowager, waiting to welcome home its prodigal children. Practically every window shone with lamplight. Even the outbuildings—the barn, the foreman’s house and Nathan’s own place—boasted porch lights that formed brightly lit pathways.

      Just like always, Nathan felt tension slide away as he drove down the oak-lined drive and steered his 4Runner toward the house he’d had built for himself when he moved back to Royal. He might not be a rancher these days, but the land was in his blood as much as it was in his younger brother Jacob’s. The Battles had been on this land for more than a hundred and fifty years. They’d carved out every acre. Bled for it. Wept for it, and managed to hold on to it through all the bad times that had come their way.

      The heart of the main ranch house was the original structure, a stately Victorian that the first Battle in Texas had built more than a hundred and fifty years ago to please his new bride. Over the years, that turreted, gingerbread-adorned structure had been added to, with wings spreading from each side and spilling into the back. Most of the ranch houses in the area were more modern, of course. Some mansions, some simple houses, they were all interchangeable in Nathan’s eyes.

      This place was unique because the Battles didn’t tear something down just because it was old. They fixed it, improved on it and kept it, always to remind them of where they’d come from. Now that stately old Victorian was the centerpiece of a ranch bigger and more prosperous than that first Battle could ever have dreamed.

      Gnarled, twisted live oaks stood like ancient soldiers on either side of the drive and gathered in clumps along the front and rear of the house. As Nathan parked his car and climbed out, he heard the swish of leaves in the grudgingly moving hot air.

      From the main house came the sharp, clear sound of children’s laughter, and Nathan smiled to himself. Lots of changes here at the Battlelands—mostly thanks to Jacob and his wife, Terri. They and their three kids were making this place come alive again as it hadn’t since Nathan and Jake were kids themselves.

      He glanced quickly at the wading pool and the nearby wooden swing set and climbing gym he’d helped Jacob put together for the kids. That laughter spilled from the house again and Nathan instinctively quelled the small twist of envy he felt for what his brother had. He knew Jake was happy. He had a family and the ranch he loved and Nathan didn’t begrudge him any of it.

      Still, it was a stunner that his younger brother had a wife and kids, but Jake had taken to life as a family man as easily as he had assumed control of the ranch years ago.

      Nathan loved the place and it would always be home to him, but the ranch had never been at the heart of him as it had for Jake. As long as Nathan could remember, he had wanted to be a cop, while Jake wanted nothing more than to ride the range, and deal with the cattle grazing on the thousands of acres the family claimed. It had worked out well, Nathan told himself. Didn’t matter that he was the eldest. It was enough for Nathan that the Battlelands was in good hands—even if those hands weren’t his.

      And, since Terri was pregnant again, Nathan knew that the family ranch was going to be in Battle hands for many more years to come. He couldn’t help wondering what Jake thought of that, if his brother ever sat down and realized that his sons and daughters would be working the same land that had been handed down to him.

      That twist of envy grabbed at him again and Nathan couldn’t help wondering how his life might be right now if Amanda had carried their child to term. Would they still be together? Would there be more children? He tried to imagine it, but couldn’t quite pull it off.

      The ranch house door opened just

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