no stock alias to fall back on, as Carolyn evidently did, he used his own name. Since he didn’t keep pictures of himself on hand, he uploaded a snapshot of Moonshine instead.
That made him grin. According to Kim, no self-respecting woman would take up with a cowboy unless she’d seen his horse.
He completed the few remaining cybersteps, and the way was finally clear: he could send Carolyn a message.
Right off, Brody hit a wall. Now that he’d gone to all that trouble, he couldn’t think of a darn thing to say.
Feeling mildly beleaguered, he sighed, sat back in his chair, frowning at the screen as if something might materialize there if he concentrated hard enough.
Well, slick, he taunted himself silently, where’s all that smooth talk and country charm you’ve always relied on?
Brody sighed again. Rubbed his chin pensively.
This was ridiculous.
A simple howdy ought to do, even if there was some bad blood between him and Carolyn.
Only howdy wasn’t going to pack it.
“For a good time, call Brody” sprang to mind next, and was mercifully discarded.
He decided on Hope you feel better, and he was tapping that in when the instant message popped up.
Hello, stranger, Joleen wrote. What luck to catch you online—is there a blue moon or something? Anyway, I wanted to give you a heads-up—I’ll be back in Lonesome Bend in a few days.
Brody went still. And cold.
Joleen had hit the road weeks ago, swearing she’d stay away for good this time.
“Shit,” he muttered. Timing, like luck, was never so bad that it couldn’t get worse.
Hello? Joleen cyber-nudged.
Hi, he responded.
Joleen was faster on the draw, when it came to keyboards. I was hoping I could stay at your place. Mom and Dad have room, but they’re not too pleased with me these days.
Brody let out a ragged breath. Sorry, he wrote back, using only the tip of his right index finger. Quarters are too tight for a visitor.
Still mad over that little spat we had? Joleen inquired, adding a row of face icons with tears gushing from their eyes.
It isn’t that, Brody replied laboriously.
Joleen’s reply came like greased lightning. Are you dumping me, Brody Creed?
Brody sighed again, dug out his cell phone and speed-dialed Joleen’s number.
“Hello?” Joleen purred, like she couldn’t imagine who’d be calling little old her.
“I just think it’s time we called it quits,” Brody said, seeing no reason to bother with a preamble. “The sleeping-together thing, I mean.”
“So you are dumping me!” Joleen chimed. To her credit, she sounded cheerful, rather than hurt. One thing about Joleen—she was a good sport.
“Okay,” Brody said. “Have it your way.”
“If I had things my way,” Joleen immediately retorted, “we’d be married by now. With a bunch of kids.”
Brody closed his eyes. He could envision the kids all too clearly, but they were all dead ringers for Carolyn, not Joleen.
“We had a deal,” he reminded Joleen gruffly. “We agreed from the first that we wouldn’t get serious.”
Joleen laughed, but the sound had a bitter edge to it. “So it’s finally happened,” she said, after a lengthy silence. “Some filly has you roped in, thrown down and hog-tied.”
“Nice image,” Brody said, without inflection. “And for your information—not that I owe you an explanation, because I sure as hell don’t—nothing has happened.”
“Right,” Joleen scoffed. “Well, I’m coming back anyway. If you get lonely, I’ll be at my folks’ house, trying to convince them that I’m a good girl after all.”
“Good luck with that one,” Brody said, sensing a letup in the tension, however slight. He’d never loved Joleen, and they’d had some wild fights in their time, but he liked her. Wanted her to be happy.
“You and me,” Joleen mused, surprising him with the depth of the insight that came next, “we pretty much just use each other to keep everybody else at a safe distance, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” Brody agreed presently. “I think that’s what we’ve been doing, all right.”
“Huh,” Joleen said decisively, as though she’d come to some conclusion.
“And it’s time we both moved on,” Brody added. You go your way, and I’ll go mine.
“Just tell me who she is,” Joleen urged.
“There isn’t a specific she, Joleen.”
“The hell there isn’t, Brody Creed. I know you, remember? You’ve been on this path for a while now, coming back to Lonesome Bend, making up with Conner and Kim and Davis, building a house—” She made a moist sound then and, for one terrible moment, Brody feared Joleen was either already crying or about to. “Silly me,” she finally went on. “I thought all that talk about not getting too serious was just that—talk. We go way back, Brody.”
Brody shut his eyes for a moment, remembering things he’d been doing his best to forget right along. Joleen had been Conner’s girlfriend, back in the day, and with plenty of help from him—Brody—she’d driven a wedge between the brothers that might have kept them estranged for a lifetime, instead of a decade.
And a decade, to Brody’s mind, was plenty too long to be on the outs with Conner.
“I’m sorry if you misunderstood,” Brody said quietly, when the air stopped sizzling with Joleen’s ire. “But I never gave you any reason to think whatever it was we had together was going anywhere, Joleen, and I’m not responsible for what goes on in your imagination.”
She sighed, calming down a little. “Is this the part where you say we’ll always be friends?” she asked, at long last.
“That’s up to you, Joleen,” Brody said, wishing he could ask her not to come back, at least not right away, because things were complicated enough already. Trouble was, Lonesome Bend was as much her home as his, and she had every right to spend time there. “We can be friends, or we can steer clear of each other for a while and let the dust settle a little.”
“I could make trouble for you, you know,” Joleen reminded him mildly.
Was she serious or not? He couldn’t tell.
“You could,” he allowed.
“You might as well tell me who she is,
