The Maverick. Carrie Alexander

      Despite the guardedness, she doubted he’d changed all that much. If he was like the other Mustangs, he was taking her as seriously as a tiny Chihuahua nipping at his heels, unworthy of too great a defense.

      Sophie huffed. “Indeed he does need a keeper. Don’t worry. I’ll see to him.”

      Mary Lucas brushed away her grandson’s helping hand. “Between us, I expect we’ll manage, Deputy Ryan.” Setting her cane with a careful precision, she started down the steps, her head held high.

      Sophie had the funny feeling a deal had just been struck. Only she didn’t know the terms.

      She followed Luke, who was following his grandmother, ready to help in case she should falter. In the way of small towns, Sophie knew that Mary Lucas had badly bruised her hip in a recent fall from a green horse someone of her advanced age shouldn’t have been riding in the first place, but that the prognosis was good for a full recovery.

      Typically, Mary refused to use her temporary infirmity to her advantage, even in Luke’s case. She gestured for him to rejoin Sophie and proceeded along the sidewalk without them.

      Luke turned, disconcertingly good-looking even though he wore the same clothes as yesterday. His dark hair brushed the collar of the leather vest, curling slightly at the ends in a way that made Sophie’s fingertips tingle with a desire to comb it. She was going to have to watch herself as closely as she watched him.

      “Okay, Deputy, what do I have to do?” he asked. “Check in with you like a parole officer?”

      She tucked her traitorous fingertips into fists, not exactly sure of how to handle the unorthodox situation. “You might start by telling me what your intentions are.” One of the possible interpretations of the phrase scrambled her thought processes. “That is, I meant…” She swallowed, her throat still as raw as a slab of fresh-cut beef. It was a funny thing how emotions of the heart manifested themselves in physical symptoms. If she spent an extended time around Maverick she’d likely find herself in the hospital, languishing with an incurable case of lovesickness.

      Lovesickness? Good God.

      “Why have you come back?” she blurted.

      There was a pause before he answered. “Not for any funny business.”

      Hmm. Was his hesitation born of caution, or deception? She shrugged. “Given your record…”

      He grinned. “You have good reason to doubt me.”

      He didn’t have to look so pleased with himself.

      “You’d better keep a very close eye on me,” he said with a sly intonation.

      Sophie tilted her head back to regard the sky. “Am I the only one who’s taking this seriously?” she asked the bountiful cumulus clouds. It was much better not to look at Maverick. The smallest things about him—the flicker of his lashes, the tiny curved line that too many wry, lopsided grins had cut into the side of his cheek—knocked her off center.

      “Seriously?” he said. “I don’t need a baby-sitter, if that’s what you and the judge had in mind.”

      Sophie steadied herself. “That’s fine, because I’m a deputy, remember?”

      “So you’ve said. Repeatedly.”

      “You don’t think I can do my job?”

      He looked her up and down. She felt far too aware of the feminine curves that filled out her uniform. More than her fingertips were tingling by the time he finished. The smile line in his cheek deepened, though he didn’t come right out with a full-fledged, wolf-licking-his-chops grin. “Anything I say now will get me into trouble.”

      Sophie wanted to feel stolid and obdurate, not like a weightless butterfly shimmering in the sky, vulnerable to every turn of breeze. “Try me.” She touched her tongue to her upper lip. “I can take it.”

      “I think…you’ve grown up very nicely.”

      “Grown up being the operative phrase.”

      He slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, rocking slightly on his heels. His face was still, but his eyes danced. “I was emphasizing nicely.”

      She frowned to disguise the pleasure flickering inside her.

      “Don’t be like that,” Luke said. “I was giving you a compliment.”

      “The point is my competence, not my appearance.”

      He shrugged. “You asked, darlin’.”

      “Luke,” called Mary from the open window of her big old Ram pickup truck.

      “Two seconds, Grandmother,” he said without taking his eyes off Sophie. He was only looking at her, but it was the sort of “looking” usually aimed at bikini-clad babes. With the added impact of the old-style Maverick magnetism. Sophie hadn’t experienced anything like it since he’d skipped town, and while she knew she should be demanding to be taken seriously, at heart she exaulted that he hadn’t completely changed.

      Luke was still Maverick—intense, vital, electric Maverick.

      And she could feel herself opening like a sunflower under his brilliant illumination.

      SEEING THE LUCAS RANCH again was like getting slammed in the chest with a sledgehammer. Luke’s heart ached. For the moment, he let himself forget that his place in the family had been purchased at a high price. He believed that he was coming home.

      The ranch looked good—too good. Almost enough to make him wonder why he’d left. The road turned in a wide arc between the gate and the house, sweeping past the stand of quaking aspen, alder and birch where he and Heath used to play Davy Crockett and Jim Bridger. The trees were already decked out in yellow and orange for autumn, whispering of winter with each shake of their leaves. A blue jay squawked and flashed its brilliant wings, scaring a flock of goldfinches up into the branches. The sight spread warm fingers of bone-deep satisfaction inside Luke. He’d missed this place.

      A grassy slope rose toward the grand house. The original Lucas homestead had been built in a natural hollow of the land, where it was sheltered from the scouring wind. A practical, commonsense approach. After the family had prospered, the fancy new house, a three-story Georgian with rows of tall windows across the front, had been constructed on the rise. It overlooked the ranch in majestic splendor. To the east, the ranch land spread flat like a bolt of cloth flung across a table. To the west, ridges and red granite mesas were dotted with pines twisted by the cruel winds.

      Mary Lucas surveyed the land with a satisfied air. “Good to be home,” she said, not quite a question.

      Luke drove onto the apron of paving bricks that stretched across the front of the house. Low brick planters bristled with multi-colored asters and chrysanthemums. “It’s the same.”

      “I expect you’ll notice a few changes.” His grandmother directed him to park near the steps. “We had to take down the old hay barn and rebuild. Roof was caving in. Lightning split the tree by the pond. That firewood lasted us two winters.”

      “The one with the rope swing? That’s a shame.”

      Mary shrugged. “We have no younger generation to enjoy it.”

      The irony was apparent only to Luke. “Heath’s slipping up on the job, huh?”

      “Kiki.” Snort. “That’s his wife. Too delicate and flighty by half. It takes a strong woman to bear a Lucas child.”

      “Especially with the weight of all previous generations on your back.” Luke stepped out of the truck and slammed the door, not waiting for a response. Mary Lucas was not the doting grandmother type, looking to cootchie-coo a baby out of maternalistic yearnings. Her maternal instinct was for the land. All she cared about was continuing the family line for posterity. By any means necessary, up to and including paying a brood mare—or an expensive stud—to do the job.

      Luke