A Cowboy Returns. Kelli Ireland

for the firm’s corporate jet and his chiropractor right about then.

      Of course, he should probably just be grateful they weren’t landing on a dirt strip. They’d had to circle several times while the neighboring rancher retrieved his cows from the runway. That had been bad enough.

      The flight attendant made an inane joke at the pilot’s expense, but Eli only half listened. Thumbing his smartphone on, he waited for a signal. His service indicator showed a single bar. A single bar.

      “I’m in hell,” he muttered, but that wasn’t true. Hell undoubtedly had better cell service.

      Scrolling through emails, he ignored the flight attendant’s glare. He might have been obligated to come home to manage the distribution of his father’s estate, but that didn’t require he cut himself off from civilization entirely. With any luck, he could get to the ranch, go through the estate paperwork, file the will and be gone within the week. Had his old man been remotely organized, this could have been done by mail. And had the estate been reasonably solvent, they could have hired someone to manage the distributions altogether. No doubt, there wouldn’t be any money.

      That had to be why his youngest brother, Tyson, had emailed and asked him to come home and handle estate “issues.” Otherwise? They never would have called him home. He’d have just received whatever his old man left him via certified mail.

      Eli glanced out the window at the desert landscape. New Mexico always looked caught between centuries and droughts. The landscape was as foreign to him as Austin would be to his brothers. Here in Tucumcari, the wide plateau created a backdrop decorated with cedar shrubs, barbed wire fences and black grama grass. Cows outnumbered people twenty to one, and if you didn’t drive a pickup, you’d better be riding a horse.

      The only beef Eli cared about was braised, his vehicle was an Audi R8 and the only horses that mattered were under the hood.

      He’d always been the piece that didn’t fit this particular puzzle.

      Elijah snorted and shook his head, pulling his small travel bag out from under his seat. Might as well get this over with.

      Fifteen minutes later he was standing beside a tiny Ford Fiesta with a dented fender, an AM/FM radio and questionable air-conditioning. It was the better of the two cars available at the only car rental service in town.

      “I’m in hell,” he repeated, struggling against a temper he’d all but mastered over the past fourteen years.

       Fourteen years.

      He’d been gone almost as long as he’d lived here.

      Peeling off his Canali suit jacket, he tossed it across the passenger seat before folding himself behind the wheel. A generous layer of grit on the rubber floor mat ground under his heel. The little car shimmied as the four-cylinder engine sputtered and choked before it caught and, obviously under duress, whined to life.

      The rental attendant tipped the brim of his hat in salute and wandered inside the tiny office as Eli drove away. He hadn’t remembered Elijah, or had pretended not to as a matter of convenience to avoid unnecessary chitchat. Small towns worked that way. You were either on the inside or exiled for life.

      The next few days would be a lot of the same. Tight-knit communities were very unforgiving when one of their own escaped, and his leaving had been an escape. As well loved as his father had been, everyone saw his departure as a first-rate betrayal—oldest son to old man.

      Elijah refused to feel guilty for wanting a different life, a better life. He had it now and hadn’t asked for handouts along the way. He’d earned his place, and he wasn’t sorry that place wasn’t here. With one exception...

      Caught up in his own thoughts, he ran one of the two traffic lights in town.

      An extended-cab four-wheel-drive pickup swerved, brakes chattering and tires squealing. It hit the curb, skipping up and over with a hard bounce before coming to rest in the hedges in front of the Blue Swallow motel.

      Heart lodged in his throat, Eli shut the little car down and left it in the middle of the road, racing toward the truck. He couldn’t see anyone moving inside. Then a black-and-white head popped up and looked out the rear window.

       A dog.

      If anything, the dog seemed exhilarated at the wild ride, his feathery tail wagging with obvious enthusiasm.

      Eli reached the driver’s side and found a cowboy-hatted individual slumped forward, forehead against the steering wheel, arms lax, hands resting next to trim thighs. A woman. He reached for the truck door. The dog objected, going from excited to back-the-hell-off between breaths. The animal crossed his owner and bared his teeth in a feral growl, blatantly daring Eli to open the door.

      Not interested in losing any body parts, Eli knocked on the window hard enough to rouse the woman.

      She rolled her head to the side, green eyes narrowed in an impressive glare. The moment those eyes focused on Eli, they flared with almost-comedic alarm. Almost.

      Because his did the same thing.

       Reagan Armstrong.

      The one person he’d intended to avoid altogether stared at him in utter disbelief. Her mouth hung open in shock. She didn’t move.

      History rose up between them, an invisible, insurmountable wall of differences that stole every word that might have allayed old hurts or bridged the gap of time to allow them to communicate. At least while he was here.

      Leaning one arm against the truck’s door frame, Eli gave a small jerk of his chin. “Reagan? Lower your window.”

      She mouthed something that, if it matched the look in her eyes, was seriously foul.

      He was prepared for that. What he wasn’t prepared for was for her to shove the door open. The mirror folded as it nailed his shoulder. Then the hot metal of the door’s edge slammed into his sternum hard enough he wasn’t sure if he’d been burned or if the bone had cracked or both.

      She spoke before her boots hit the dirt, her voice as smooth as the truck’s diesel engine. “Well, well. If it isn’t Elijah Covington. Or would that be Mr. Covington, Esquire, since you’re an Austin attorney now? Just what you always wanted—bigger, better and worlds away from here—so I suppose congratulations would be appropriate. I mean, you made it out, made your way and managed to break your word, all in one impressive feat.”

      His brows drew together. “What are you talking about, ‘break my word’?”

      “You said you’d come home. Promised, in fact. But I’d be willing to bet you hit the county line at a dead run and never thought about us again. Good on you, Esquire.” The last was offered with near indifference or would have been if she hadn’t begun to clap slowly for emphasis.

      It was that last action that betrayed her, because, despite their fourteen years apart, Eli knew her.

      The aged and seasoned hurt that lurked beneath the surface of her words sliced through his conscience with cold efficiency. He’d wanted her to come with him, but she’d made it clear her life was here. And his life could never be here.

      “You knew we wanted different things. I was never going to fit in here. Not like you did. My dad. My brothers. Leaving was my only option. And I didn’t just skip out on you.” Running his hands through his hair, he huffed out a heavy breath. “Look, Reagan,” he started, and then the wind shifted, carrying her smell to him, all fresh-cut hay and sunshine on warm skin.

      Overwhelmed with sensory memories, his gaze homed in on lips that parted in almost curious shock. And just like that, she was the girl he’d loved. And yet, with time and distance, she had somehow evolved into more.

      She’d always been his sun, chasing away the shadows he hadn’t been able to banish himself. Unwelcome memories of yesteryear hovered at the fringes of his consciousness. He needed to touch her, needed the tenderness he’d always found waiting