Lone Heart Pass. Jodi Thomas

the kitchen and left the other rooms to sleep, he claimed.

      “Answer,” she whispered, needing to know that someone was out there. Right now, tonight, she could almost believe she was the only one left alive. “Answer, Grandpa.”

      Finally, after twenty rings, she hung up. The old guy didn’t even have an answering machine, and he’d probably never heard of a cell phone. Maybe he was in the barn or over near the corral where the cowhands who worked for him lived from spring to fall. Maybe he’d driven the two-lane road to town for his once-a-month trip. If so, he’d be having dinner at the little café in Crossroads. He was probably ordering two slices of Dorothy’s pie right now.

      She wished she were there in the booth across from him.

      With the streetlight’s glow from the window, she crossed to her fireplace and lit the logs. Strange how after more than a dozen years she still missed him when she’d never missed anyone else. She had lived years with her parents and remembered only slices of her life, but she remembered every detail of that summer.

      As the paper-wrapped logs caught fire, the flames’ light danced off the boxes and blank walls of her world. She found a half bottle of wine in the warm fridge and a bag of Halloween candy she hadn’t been home to hand out. Curled up by the fire in her dark apartment, she began to read her mail. Most of the time she would fling the envelope into the fire without opening it. Ads. Letters from strangers. Catalogs filled with stuff she didn’t need or want.

      One by one she tossed the envelopes into the fire along with every hope and dream she’d had about a career as a campaign manager.

      In the last stack of mail, she noticed a large white envelope hand-addressed to her. Curiosity finally caught her attention. The postmark was over a month ago. Surely it wasn’t something important, or someone would have called her.

      Slowly, she opened the envelope.

      Tears silently tumbled as she saw the top of the page. She began to read Levy Hamilton’s will. Word by word. Aloud. Making herself feel truth’s pain.

      The last page was a note scribbled on a lawyer’s office stationery.

      Levy died two months ago, Miss Hamilton. We were unable to reach any family, so I followed his request and buried him on his land. When he named you his sole heir of Lone Heart Ranch, he told me you’d figure out what to do with the old place. I hope this will get to you eventually. I’ll see you when you get here.

      Jubilee turned over the envelope. It had been forwarded twice before reaching her.

      She laid the will aside and cried harder than she’d ever cried for the one person who’d ever really loved her. The one person she’d ever loved.

      After the fire burned low and shadows slowly waltzed as if circling the last bit of light, she thought she felt Levy’s hand resting on her shoulder. His knotted fingers didn’t seem ready to let her go.

      At dawn she packed the last of her clothes, called a storage company to pick up the boxes and walked away from her life in DC with one suitcase and her empty briefcase.

      She’d go to her parents’ house over the holidays. She’d try to find the pieces of herself and see if she could glue them together. But together or not, she’d start over where the wind never stopped blowing, and dust came as a side dish at every meal. She may have only lived there a few months, but Lone Heart Ranch might be the only place where she’d ever felt she belonged.

       CHAPTER TWO

      Charley Collins

      February 2010

      “SET ’EM UP, CHARLEY. We’ll have another round.” The kid on the other side of the bar was barely old enough to drink, but his laugh was loud and his voice demanding. “It’s Valentine’s Day and none of us have a date. That’s something to get drunk over.”

      Charley Collins swore under his breath. The drunks had had enough, but he’d be fired if he didn’t serve the college boys, and he couldn’t afford to lose another job. This dark, dusty bar wasn’t much, but it kept food on the table and gas in his pickup.

      “Aren’t you Reid Collins’s brother?” asked the only one of the boys who could still talk without drooling. “You look like him. Taller, maybe a little older. Got that same reddish-brown hair he’s got. Red River mud-color if you ask me.”

      Before Charley could say anything, another drunk shook his head wildly. “No brother of Reid would be a bartender.” He burped. “Collinses are rich. Deep-pocket rich. They own more land than a cowboy can ride across in a day.”

      Charley moved down the bar, hoping to slip out of being the topic of conversation. He hated the way they’d been talking about women all night, but that was better than listening to a conversation about him.

      The sober one continued just loud enough for Charley to hear.

      “I heard Reid had a big brother a couple of years older than him. Papa Collins disowned his oldest son. I remember Reid saying his dad ordered an armed guard to escort his brother off the ranch like he was some kind of criminal. Davis Collins told his own son that if he ever set foot on the land again, he’d have him shot for trespassing.”

      Charley picked up the box of beer bottles and headed outside. He’d heard enough. He needed air.

      It took several steps before the noise and smell of the bar cleared, but he walked all the way to the alley. After he set the bottles down by the trash, he stared at the open land behind the Two Step Saloon and took a deep breath. He needed clean air and space and silence. He was born for open country, and he had no idea how he’d survive working in a beer joint and living above it in a tiny two-room apartment.

      Every time he swore things couldn’t get worse, they did.

      Staring at the full moon, he felt like cussing or drinking his trouble away. But cussing wasn’t a habit he needed and he couldn’t afford the liquor.

      He couldn’t quit and he couldn’t run. Not without a stake to start over somewhere else. Charley had a feeling that somewhere else wouldn’t fit him anyway. This part of Texas was in his blood. He belonged here even if it did seem half the people for a hundred miles around were trying to run him out.

      Like a miner taking one last breath before he climbed back into the hole, Charley filled his lungs and turned around.

      He saw a woman in the shadows near the back door. She was tall and perfectly built even in silhouette. Long dark hair circled over her shoulders in the breeze like a cape. For a moment he hoped she was a ghost. Lately he’d been a lot less afraid of spirits than women.

      When he was five feet away he made out her face—not that he needed more than the outline of her body to know who she was. “Hello, Lexie. You miss the turnoff to the ladies room?”

      Her laugh was low and sexy. She was in her thirties now, but nothing about Lexie had slipped from the beauty queen she’d been. He’d seen her come in an hour ago with some guy in a business suit and fancy boots that had probably never touched dirt.

      “I followed you out, Charley.” She waited like a spider waits for a fly to land on its web. “Anyone ever tell you you’re one hell of a handsome man? Tall, lean with bedroom-blue eyes. I was trying to concentrate on my next husband, but all I could do was stare at you. You got that mixture of Prince Charming and Bad Boy down pat. I can tell how good a man is going to be in bed just by the way he moves and, honey, you are walking sex appeal.”

      Charley thought of arguing. She must be blind. He was two months past due for a haircut, four days late on shaving, and he’d slept in the jeans and shirt he had on for the past two nights.

      “Yeah, I’ve heard that lie before,” he answered her question. “My last stepmother told me how irresistible I was about an hour before my father disowned me.”

      Lexie moved closer. “Must