Lone Star Kind Of Man. Peggy Moreland

folded her arms triumphantly at her breasts. “The honeymoon is on me.”

      Mary Claire’s mouth dropped open. “A honeymoon?”

      “Yes. A honeymoon. You’re all scheduled to leave in the morning for Cozumel. The reservations can be changed, of course, but, hey! Why not go now?”

      Mary Claire lifted her head from the tickets she’d pulled from the envelope. “Oh, Reggie, as much as I appreciate the gesture, we can’t. The kids—”

      “The kids,” Reggie interrupted, “have their Aunt Reggie to baby-sit them while their Mom and Dad are soaking up the sun on the Caribbean.”

      She turned to Hank and Leighanna. “What about you guys? Anything that stands in the way of your enjoying a honeymoon?”

      Leighanna started to reply, but Hank quickly snatched the envelope from her hand. “Heck no! Thanks, Reggie.”

      Leighanna jerked her head around to stare at him in open-mouthed surprise. “But what about the End of the Road? Who’ll run the bar?”

      Hank pressed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “We’ll close it. It’ll still be there when we get back. I’m not passing up the chance of spending a week alone with my wife.”

      Though her opinion of Hank had been guarded at first, Reggie decided she might just like this guy after all. Any man who’d drop everything to spend a week with his new wife had her undying respect. She shot him a wink. “Well, that settles it, then. In the morning you guys are off for a week in Cozumel.”

      Harley turned to Cody, his forehead knitted in a worried frown. “Would you be willing to keep an eye on my place while I’m gone?”

      Without tasting the champagne, Cody set his glass aside. When he’d heard Regan offer to stay and baby-sit Stephie and Jimmy, he’d immediately started planning a vacation of his own. The destination didn’t matter, just as long as he was far away from Temptation and Regan. But now he was trapped. He couldn’t deny his friends this opportunity for a honeymoon, and, without his help, he knew Harley would never agree to go.

      “You know I will,” he assured Harley, as he reached for his hat. He settled it one-handed onto his head, knowing he had to get out before this madness consumed him. “I guess I better be going.” He made a quick circle around the table, clasping first Harley’s hand, then Hank’s, offering his congratulations. A peck on the cheek for Mary Claire and another for Leighanna. But when he reached Regan, he took an obvious step back and merely tipped his hat... and then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him.

      Reggie stared after him, feeling the bitter sting of his rejection. Why? she wondered in confusion. Why was Cody treating her so coolly? They’d once been so close.

      Well, she’d watched him leave before without an explanation, she told herself, but this time she wasn’t going to let him get away so easily.

      “Excuse me,” she murmured to the others and rose to her feet.

      By the time she pushed through the back door, Cody’s long stride had carried him halfway to his truck.

      “Cody!” she called. “Wait!”

      He turned, but the look of repressed fury on his face stopped Reggie cold. Less than six feet separated them, but it gaped like a mile.

      Reggie hauled in a steadying breath. “Is—is something wrong?”

      “What do you mean?” he growled.

      “You seem...” She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know...angry or something. I’d hoped that—”

      He took a step nearer, his eyes darkening to a stormy gray. “What did you hope, Regan? That I’d kill the fatted calf? That I’d welcome the prodigal sister home with open arms like Harley?” He took another step nearer and the heat of his anger all but smothered her. “Well, I’m not Harley, Regan,” he ground out. “And I’m not your brother. I never was and I never will be. I—” He clamped his lips together before he could say more, before he could say something he would regret.

      With a scowl he turned his back on her, and headed for his truck, leaving her standing on the drive behind him.

      Two

      Telephone poles and road signs flashed by in a blur as Cody raced his truck through the night, venting his anger with a little speed. When the highway narrowed to two lanes he slowed to the legal limit, then stopped altogether when the pavement ended, giving way to the rock road that led to Jack Barlow’s place.

      He sat a moment, his arms draped loosely over the steering wheel, staring but seeing nothing. He drew a long breath. The anger was gone, or at least most of it. He could deal with what was left.

      With a glance to his right, he saw the familiar gap in the fencing, the faded path of a dirt road now choked with weeds. Years before he’d stood in that gap many a morning, rain or shine, waiting for a school bus to take him to school. At the end of that dirt road, protected by darkness, lay his old home place. On impulse, or maybe because it seemed a fitting end to the day, Cody turned and headed down the road.

      Ignoring the scrape of mesquite trees against the sides of his truck and the occasional thunk of a rock to his underpinning, Cody bounced his way down the deeply rutted road. When the cabin came into sight, he yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, then braked to a fast, dust-churning stop in front of the shadowed structure, aiming the beam of his truck’s headlights dead on.

      In front of him sat his inheritance, the only thing Buster Fipes, the town drunk, had left behind when his liver had finally said “No more.”

      Cutting the engine, Cody swung down from the truck, leaving the headlights on for illumination. At the intrusion, a trio of rats darted through a gap low on the front door and leaped from the sagging front porch, disappearing into the tangle of vines and weeds that had taken over the yard.

      Ignoring them, Cody peeled off his suit jacket and tossed it onto the seat, then cuffed his shirtsleeves to the elbow as he walked to the front of his truck. He settled his back against its warm hood, then folded his arms across his chest and crossed his legs at the ankles as he stared at the place he’d once called home.

      He snorted in disgust. Home. This place had never been home to him, or anyone else for that matter. It was merely the place where, long ago, he’d stored his belongings and rested his head on occasion. Now, it had lain vacant for more then eleven years.

      At one time the property had been owned by the Kerrs, and the old cabin used by hunters who leased seasonal hunting rights on Kerr land. But then Cody’s dad had come along and cut a deal with Harley’s father, promising work in exchange for ownership of the cabin and the five acres of land that surrounded it. His old man hadn’t lived long enough to uphold his end of the bargain, and it was Cody who had worked for the Kerrs to repay the debt.

      Cody shook his head, remembering. Harley’s father had tried to talk the then sixteen-year-old Cody into simply letting him deed the land over to him after Buster had died, but Cody’s pride wouldn’t let him accept the gift. Instead, he’d worked part-time during the school year and full-time during the summers, then after graduation he’d hired on full-time, working on the Kerr ranch until the debt had been paid.

      He’d lived alone in the cabin until he left Temptation. He’d packed up and headed out of town, seeking his fortune with the only skill the good Lord had seen fit to bless him with... riding bulls. And when he’d returned four years ago and accepted the job as sheriff, he’d chosen to live in the quarters at his office rather than try to make the cabin livable again.

      When trespassers had shot out the glass panes, he’d simply boarded up the windows and tacked a No Trespassing sign on the door.... But it hadn’t kept the vandals out. Not that there was anything of value inside to worry about. There never had been, not even when his old man was alive. The shack wasn’t worth the price of the match it would take to burn it down.

      But the place