The Cowboy's Homecoming. Carolyne Aarsen

No vehicle was parked at the end of the trail.

      She stood, slinging the bag over her shoulder, and it seemed she was looking at him, as if she was trying to figure out who he was.

      Which was precisely what he was doing.

      Then, as she pulled her sunglasses off, she knocked her hat off her head and her auburn hair tumbled to her shoulders, her amber eyes fringed with thick lashes were revealed, and reality followed like a Montana snowstorm as things clicked into place.

      He knew exactly who she was.

      Abby Newton. Daughter of Cornell Newton, the man Lee had run down with his truck after a party that had gotten out of hand. The accident had put Cornell in the hospital and Lee in jail. The shame of what he had done had kept Lee away from home for almost nine years.

      Until now.

      He knew the precise moment her own recognition of him clicked. She took a step back, her eyes narrowed and her impudent grin morphed into a scowl.

      “Well, well,” she said, the ice in her voice making him shiver. “Lee Bannister, back from exile. I’m going to blame my slow recollection to the fall out of the tree. Didn’t think I’d ever forget your face, but then, you’ve changed since I last saw you.”

      “Hey, Abby.” He tried to sound casual. Tried to ignore the mockery in her voice.

      Lee hadn’t seen her since her father was awarded damages of two hundred thousand dollars and he’d been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for reckless driving under the influence. The accident he’d caused had put her father in the hospital and had created injuries that, as far as he knew, Cornell was still dealing with.

      That had been over nine years ago. Lee had paid his debt to society and was still working on repaying his parents for the money they had to dole out for the settlement. His father had to downsize his cattle herd as a consequence. When Lee was released from prison, he took on a job working offshore rigs. And he sent his folks every penny he could. He hadn’t been home since.

      Though Abby was a Saddlebank native as well, he had heard she was working overseas. Seeing her now was a shock and an unwelcome surprise. She reminded him of a past he’d spent years trying to atone for.

      “I’m guessing you’re back for Keira’s wedding,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact, settling her hat back on her head and pulling the bill down as if to hide the anger in her gaze.

      “And the anniversary celebration,” he added gruffly.

      The anniversary was a big deal. Refuge Ranch was one of the few family-owned ranches that could trace their ownership back to when settlers first started in the basin. A reporter was even coming to spend time at the ranch and planned to cover the celebrations and do a feature story on it for Near and Far.

      His father had warned him that he would be the one to help the guy out.

      More penance, he thought. Babysitting a reporter and showing him around the ranch.

      “Right,” she said, tucking her sunglasses in the pocket of her vest. “I heard about that. One hundred and fifty years of Bannisters at Refuge Ranch. Quite the heritage.”

      Was she mocking him? Though he couldn’t blame her if she did. He knew he wasn’t her favorite person.

      He looked back over his shoulder at the view he had hoped would give him some peace and ease him into a difficult homecoming. He didn’t think the past would be dredged up quite so quickly, however.

      Help me through this, Lord, he prayed, clinging to the faith he’d returned to during those years in prison. Help me to accept what I can’t change.

      He turned back to Abby, knowing he had to face reality. Trouble was, he wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it.

      “I know it’s too late and I know that words are easy, but I want to tell you that I’m so sorry for what I did to your father,” he said. “I wish...I wish I could turn back time. Do it over again.”

      “You’re not the only one who wishes that by any stretch.”

      The bitterness in her voice made him wait a beat to give the moment some weight.

      “My father spent a lot of time struggling with pain,” she continued. “He was a broken man after that accident. My parents’ marriage couldn’t hold together. What you did to my family...me and my brother—” She stopped there, holding up her hand as if trying to halt the memories. “Never mind. Neither of us can change anything. It’s done. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

      Lee knew he deserved every bit of her derision, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t hurt by it. At one time Abby had been important to him. Her poor opinion of him had been almost as agonizing as the loss of his freedom.

      “I better go,” she said quietly. “I need to get back to town.”

      “How?” he asked, shifting to another topic. “I didn’t see a car.”

      “My friend Louisa has it. Remember her?”

      “Of course. You two were joined at the hip in high school.”

      “Still are, apparently. We live together in Seattle. She’s back in Saddlebank visiting her parents and she’ll be back soon.” Her words were terse and Lee guessed this conversation was over.

      “Well, I hope you have a good visit with your mom,” he said. “And if I don’t see you again, take care.”

      Her only reply was a curt nod. She gave him a humorless smile, then turned and walked away.

      Lee dragged his hand over his face. Well, that awkward meeting was done with.

      If he played his cards right, he might not have to see her again, which was fine with him.

      She was a reminder of the past he had spent a lot of years trying to atone for.

      * * *

      “Dumb, dumb, dumb,” Abby Newton muttered as she strode through the underbrush toward the road, yanking her cell phone out of her pocket. Of all the clumsy, stupid and just plain humiliating things to happen, she had to end up falling out of a tree right on top of Lee Bannister. And then she flirted with him.

      She didn’t know why her brain had been firing so slowly that it took so long for her to recognize him.

      Abby swallowed hard. She blamed it on her own prejudicial memories. This guy looked nothing like the Lee Bannister she had seen swaggering out of the lawyer’s office on his way to prison, as if he couldn’t care less about destroying her family. That Lee Bannister was a slender young man with shortly cropped hair who wore a perpetual smirk and acted as if the world owed him a favor. He had always been a too-large personality in her life, but for a few months just before graduation, they had dated. She had naively thought she had tamed the wild man. Until she found out about the bet his delinquent friends had made with him about going out with her.

      The shame of that could still catch her off guard from time to time.

      Now it seemed that Lee’s rebellious attitude had morphed into a hardness that seemed bred into his very bones. His shoulders and chest had filled out. His hair was long, dark and framed a face with a strong chin, pronounced cheekbones and eyes enhanced by slashing dark eyebrows. In short, his features held a rugged maturity she suspected came from his time in prison and his years of manual labor after that.

      For a heartbeat she felt a glimmer of sympathy.

      But all it took was the memory of her father, a broken and hurting man, lying in a hospital bed to remind her that Lee could never pay enough for what he’d done to their family. Her father was a changed man after Lee hit him with his truck, drunk, on his way back from a party. The alcohol that had impaired Lee’s driving had also taken over her father’s life. He became an alcoholic, stopped working and spent days in physical pain.

      Abby’s family was sundered in two when