sprained her wrist. She’s needed me to drive her places,” Leo said drowsily.
“Marilee could drive with one hand. I drove with a broken arm once.”
Leo didn’t respond. They were driving up to the main ranch house, into the driveway that made a semicircle around the front steps. The security lights were on, so was the porch light. But even with lights on in the front rooms of the sprawling brick house, it looked empty.
“You could come and stay with any of us, whenever you wanted to,” Corrigan reminded him. “We only live a few miles apart.”
“You’ve all got families. Children. Well, except Meredith and Rey.”
“They’re not in a hurry. Rey’s the youngest. The rest of us are feeling our ages a bit more.”
“Hell,” Leo growled, “you’re only two years older than me.”
“You’re thirty-five,” he was reminded. “I’ll be thirty-eight in a couple of months.”
“You don’t look it.”
“Dorie and the babies keep me young,” Corrigan admitted with a warm smile. “Marriage isn’t as bad as you think it is. You have someone to cook for you, a companion to share your sorrows when the world hits you in the head, and your triumphs when you punch back. Not to mention having a warm bed at night.”
Leo opened the door but hesitated. “I don’t want to get married.”
Corrigan’s pale eyes narrowed. “Dorie was just a little younger than Janie when I said the same thing to her. I mistook her for an experienced woman, made a very heavy pass, and then said some insulting things to her when she pulled back at the last minute. I sent her running for the nearest bus, and my pride stopped me from carrying her right back off it again. She went away. It was eight long years before she came home, before I was able to start over with her.” His face hardened. “You know what those years were like for me.”
Leo did. It was painful even to recall them. “You never told me why she left.”
Corrigan rested his arm over the steering wheel. “She left because I behaved like an idiot.” He glanced at his brother. “I don’t give a damn what Marilee’s told you about Janie, she isn’t any more experienced than Dorie was. Don’t follow in my footsteps.”
Leo wouldn’t meet the older man’s eyes. “Janie’s a kid.”
“She’ll grow up. She’s making a nice start, already.”
Leo brushed back his thick, unruly hair. “I was way out of line with her tonight. She said she never wanted to see me again.”
“Give her time.”
“I don’t care if she doesn’t want to see me,” Leo said belligerently. “What the hell do I want with a mud-covered little tomboy, anyway? She can’t even cook!”
“Neither can Tira,” Corrigan pointed out. “But she’s a knockout in an evening gown. So is our Janie, even if she isn’t as pretty as Marilee.”
Leo shrugged. “Marilee’s lost a good friend.”
“She has. Janie won’t ever trust her again, even if she can forgive her someday.”
Leo glanced back at his older brother. “Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to screw up your whole life in a few unguarded minutes?”
“That’s life, compadre. I’ve got to go. You going to be okay?”
Leo nodded. “Thanks for the ride.” He glowered at Corrigan. “I guess you’re in a hurry to get back, right?”
Corrigan’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t want to miss the last dance!”
Or the chance to tell his brothers everything that had happened. But, what the hell, they were family.
“Drive safely,” Leo told Corrigan as he closed the car door.
“I always do.” Corrigan threw up his hand and drove away.
Leo disarmed the alarm system and unlocked the front door, pausing to relock it and rearm the system. He’d been the victim of a mugging last October in Houston, and it had been Rey’s new wife, Meredith, who had saved him from no worse than a concussion. But now he knew what it was to be a victim of violent crime, and he was much more cautious than he’d ever been before.
He tossed his keys on his chest of drawers and took off his jacket and shoes. Before he could manage the rest, he passed out on his own bed.
Janie Brewster was very quiet on the way home. Harley understood why. He and Janie weren’t an item, but he hated seeing a woman cry. He’d wanted, very badly, to punch Leo Hart for that.
“You should have let me hit him, Janie,” he remarked thoughtfully.
She gave him a sad little smile. “There’s been enough gossip already, although I appreciate the thought.”
“He was drinking pretty heavily,” Harley added. “I noticed that one of his brothers took him and Marilee home early. Nice of him to find a designated driver, in that condition. He looked as if he was barely able to walk without staggering.”
Janie had seen them leave, with mixed emotions. She turned her small evening bag in her lap. “I didn’t know he drank hard liquor at all.”
“He doesn’t,” Harley replied. “Eb Scott said that he’d never known Leo to take anything harder than a beer in company.” He glanced at her. “That must have been some mixer you had with him.”
“He’d been drinking before we argued,” she replied. She looked out the darkened window. “Odd that Marilee left with him.”
“You didn’t see the women snub her, I guess,” he murmured. “Served her right, I thought.” His eyes narrowed angrily as he made the turn that led to her father’s ranch. “It’s low to stab a friend in the back like that. Whatever her feelings for Hart, she should have put your feelings first.”
“I thought you liked her, Harley.”
He stiffened. “I asked her out once, and she laughed.”
“What?”
He stared straight ahead at the road, the center of which was lit by the powerful headlights of the truck he was driving. “She thought it was hilarious that I had the nerve to ask her to go on a date. She said I was too immature.”
Ouch, she thought. A man like Harley would have too much pride to ever go near a woman who’d dented his ego that badly.
He let out a breath. “The hell of it is, she was right,” he conceded with a wry smile. “I had my head in the clouds, bragging about my mercenary training. Then I went up against Lopez with Eb and Cy and Micah.” He grimaced. “I didn’t have a clue.”
“We heard that it was a firefight.”
He nodded. His eyes
