By the time she pushed through the back door, Cody’s long stride had carried him halfway to his truck.
“Cody!” she called. “Wait!”
He turned, but the look of repressed fury on his face stopped Reggie cold. Less than six feet separated them, but it gaped like a mile.
Reggie hauled in a steadying breath. “Is—is something wrong?”
“What do you mean?” he growled.
“You seem...” She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know...angry or something. I’d hoped that—”
He took a step nearer, his eyes darkening to a stormy gray. “What did you hope, Regan? That I’d kill the fatted calf? That I’d welcome the prodigal sister home with open arms like Harley?” He took another step nearer and the heat of his anger all but smothered her. “Well, I’m not Harley, Regan,” he ground out. “And I’m not your brother. I never was and I never will be. I—” He clamped his lips together before he could say more, before he could say something he would regret.
With a scowl he turned his back on her, and headed for his truck, leaving her standing on the drive behind him.
Two
Telephone poles and road signs flashed by in a blur as Cody raced his truck through the night, venting his anger with a little speed. When the highway narrowed to two lanes he slowed to the legal limit, then stopped altogether when the pavement ended, giving way to the rock road that led to Jack Barlow’s place.
He sat a moment, his arms draped loosely over the steering wheel, staring but seeing nothing. He drew a long breath. The anger was gone, or at least most of it. He could deal with what was left.
With a glance to his right, he saw the familiar gap in the fencing, the faded path of a dirt road now choked with weeds. Years before he’d stood in that gap many a morning, rain or shine, waiting for a school bus to take him to school. At the end of that dirt road, protected by darkness, lay his old home place. On impulse, or maybe because it seemed a fitting end to the day, Cody turned and headed down the road.
Ignoring the scrape of mesquite trees against the sides of his truck and the occasional thunk of a rock to his underpinning, Cody bounced his way down the deeply rutted road. When the cabin came into sight, he yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, then braked to a fast, dust-churning stop in front of the shadowed structure, aiming the beam of his truck’s headlights dead on.
In front of him sat his inheritance, the only thing Buster Fipes, the town drunk, had left behind when his liver had finally said “No more.”
Cutting the engine, Cody swung down from the truck, leaving the headlights on for illumination. At the intrusion, a trio of rats darted through a gap low on the front door and leaped from the sagging front porch, disappearing into the tangle of vines and weeds that had taken over the yard.
Ignoring them, Cody peeled off his suit jacket and tossed it onto the seat, then cuffed his shirtsleeves to the elbow as he walked to the front of his truck. He settled his back against its warm hood, then folded his arms across his chest and crossed his legs at the ankles as he stared at the place he’d once called home.
He snorted in disgust. Home. This place had never been home to him, or anyone else for that matter. It was merely the place where, long ago, he’d stored his belongings and rested his head on occasion. Now, it had lain vacant for more then eleven years.
At one time the property had been owned by the Kerrs, and the old cabin used by hunters who leased seasonal hunting rights on Kerr land. But then Cody’s dad had come along and cut a deal with Harley’s father, promising work in exchange for ownership of the cabin and the five acres of land that surrounded it. His old man hadn’t lived long enough to uphold his end of the bargain, and it was Cody who had worked for the Kerrs to repay the debt.
Cody shook his head, remembering. Harley’s father had tried to talk the then sixteen-year-old Cody into simply letting him deed the land over to him after Buster had died, but Cody’s pride wouldn’t let him accept the gift. Instead, he’d worked part-time during the school year and full-time during the summers, then after graduation he’d hired on full-time, working on the Kerr ranch until the debt had been paid.
He’d lived alone in the cabin until he left Temptation. He’d packed up and headed out of town, seeking his fortune with the only skill the good Lord had seen fit to bless him with... riding bulls. And when he’d returned four years ago and accepted the job as sheriff, he’d chosen to live in the quarters at his office rather than try to make the cabin livable again.
When trespassers had shot out the glass panes, he’d simply boarded up the windows and tacked a No Trespassing sign on the door.... But it hadn’t kept the vandals out. Not that there was anything of value inside to worry about. There never had been, not even when his old man was alive. The shack wasn’t worth the price of the match it would take to burn it down.
But the place was his, he told himself. That and the five acres it stood on. Not a lot, but then Cody had never had much.
Frustrated by his thoughts, he pushed away from the truck and strode toward the one-bedroom cabin. He’d come back to the place only once after that first year of riding the circuit, then left again when he’d found Regan had gone.
Regan. The anger he thought he’d burned up on the highway came singing back with a vengeance. With a growl, he scooped an empty whiskey bottle from the weeds at his feet and hurled it hard and fast at the cabin’s front door. It hit the metal No Trespassing sign and shattered, the splinters of glass gleaming like a starburst in the silver glow of the headlights.
If only he’d had something to offer her when she’d asked him to run away with her, to marry her, he thought angrily. Maybe things would have turned out differently. But all he’d had was this sorry excuse for a cabin and the wages he made working on her family’s ranch. Not much to offer a woman who was accustomed to more.
So, he’d told her, no, to be patient. Another year and she could make the decision to leave home without tying herself to a man who had nothing to offer her. What he hadn’t told her was that he’d be back to claim her once he had a stake.
He’d left Temptation, chasing his fortune on the back of a bull, hoping to make it big and bring home his winnings. Enough to earn him her brother’s blessing when Cody asked for Regan’s hand. Enough for the two of them to buy a place of their own.
But Regan hadn’t been patient...or maybe she simply hadn’t cared enough to wait, he thought grimly. A year after he left, soon as she’d turned eighteen, she’d hightailed it for the big city, then married some guy she’d known less than six months.
Cody braced a hand against a splintered post and dipped his forehead in the crook of his arm, wiping the perspiration that beaded his brow before lifting his head to stare at the tumbling-down cabin.
He didn’t know why he’d come here. He rarely set foot on the place. He supposed he’d needed to remind himself of his roots, of the fact that he wasn’t good enough for Regan Kerr—or Reggie Giles, as she called herself now. Reggie. Anger burned through him as he remembered the name she’d assumed upon leaving Temptation. Why had she chosen to be called by his special name for her? He shook his head, refusing to consider what that might mean. He hadn’t been good enough for her eleven years ago, and nothing had changed much since then...at least not for him.
But
