Tucker's Crossing. Marina Adair

paint job of his car, as Cody Tucker sped down the same country road he’d driven a thousand times over. Giant oak trees lined the winding lane, gnarled and intertwined, creating a canopy of mottled green. Passing through those iron gates only confirmed that he was back at the one place he’d sworn he’d never return—Tucker’s Crossing.

      Besides the surprising lack of cows, the once-thriving cattle ranch looked exactly the same. Tens of thousands of acres of gently rolling hills spotted with scrub oak that made a century of Tuckers seem insignificant. Despite the years of pain and disappointment, the raw beauty of The Crossing never failed to steal his breath. Like it or not, this land was in his blood.

      But where the hell were all the cows?

      His great-great-granddad was one of the founders of Sweet Plains. Packed up his young wife and headed west from Georgia with the dream of raising cattle. And that’s what he did. What Tuckers had done for four generations. So how the hell could someone run a beef ranch with no cows?

      Rounding the last curve, Cody swore when the yellow ranch house tore through the tranquil view. Two stories of history and tradition were held in by the white porch. Massive windows spanned the lower level of the house. And a porch swing, his mama’s favorite place to end the day, rocked silently—empty.

      He’d always known his father was a controlling son of a bitch—he just hadn’t known that his old man could still screw with him from the grave. After the reading of Silas Tucker’s will, Cody had loaded up his car and set out for the family ranch at Tucker’s Crossing.

      Their mama had loved that house, put every last piece of herself into making it a home. Cody would be damned if his father destroyed that too. Being that there were only three Tuckers left, he knew that if he didn’t step up he’d not only let his mama down but, worse still, one of his brothers would come, determined to make things right. And that was not going to happen.

      Noah, two years younger and several inches taller than Cody, was a Texas Ranger in the middle of a career-making assignment. Beau, the youngest and only Tucker who had ever come close to being called charming, as he could charm women into bed and horses out of the chute with one damn grin, had nationals to think about. Plus Cody couldn’t get his mind off of the way his baby brother had looked when Mr. Parnell, the executor of Silas’s will, got to the part about someone having to live at the ranch house. Beau didn’t even blink at the demand but hidden beneath the courage and swagger that comes from being a champion bulldogger, Cody saw something he hadn’t seen since the night he’d gone back for his kid brother—fear.

      He wasn’t about to let either of his brothers make that kind of sacrifice just to satisfy their old man’s last attempt at control. He, on the other hand, could work from the ranch and put the plan they’d mapped out into action.

      Five years ago, tired of making other people rich, Cody had founded Tucker Industries. What started out as a boutique commodities producer and trading firm quickly went from sweat equity to something that made his family’s wealth look like small change. Now he had the freedom, and the money, to work from wherever. He’d just never imagined wherever would ever encompass Sweet Plains or Tucker’s Crossing. But after a lifetime of protecting his kid brothers, it was a hard habit to quit.

      Cody pulled up to the house, cut the engine, and rested his head on the seatback. His eyes locked and held on the three wooden steps that led to the front door. He dreaded the prospect of twelve months of hard time in a place that brought up nothing but bad memories. What a mess.

      He grabbed his bag and headed up the walkway. The afternoon sun scorched the earth, cracking the soil into canyons and deep valleys, reducing everything else to dust. Triple-digit temperatures were synonymous with summertime in Sweet Plains, but when they came on as early as May it meant trouble for ranchers and farmers. And Cody had enough trouble on the horizon.

      The last thing he wanted to do was go inside that house. He’d spent the past decade working hard to be respected and feared in a cutthroat industry. But right now, looking at that brass doorknob, Cody felt no better than the cowering, snot-nosed kid he used to be.

      He knew one thing though—if he turned tail and headed back to Austin, his father won.

      Silas, dead set on ruining his kids’ lives, included a stipulation in his will, forcing one of the Tuckers to inhabit the family homestead for a minimum of 365 consecutive days. If they didn’t comply, Cody and his brothers could kiss all claim to the land good-bye. That wasn’t something Cody could live with.

      So there he was, ready to get to work. First order of business: clean house. And he wasn’t talking about the floors and windows.

      Pushing through the door, he took in the family room. The house was airy and large by normal standards. Then again, nothing Silas ever did was small.

      Everything in the place was the same: the perfectly hung portraits, the meticulous rows of leather-bound books—hell, even the porcelain rooster that his mama bought at the summer auction when he was eight was still sitting on the coffee table, looking like the day she brought it home. He half expected to find the old man reading in the recliner.

      Hanging his jacket on the rack and wanting to get settled, Cody made his way up the stairs and down the long hallway toward his bedroom. At the third doorway he stopped. Grown man or not, his hands still went clammy when he looked into his parents’ room—well, his mom’s room. His father had stopped sleeping in there when Cody was just a boy.

      A flowered sundress hung from the back of the antique vanity. The worn cotton swayed gently, dancing in the breeze that skated through the opened window and bringing with it memories of a happier time and the faint scent of honeysuckle.

      God, how long had it been since Cody had set foot in this room? It was the night he’d come home and found Beau in a pummeled heap on the floor, unconscious and barely breathing. He’d carried him to his truck and promised his brother that neither of them was ever coming back.

      And he’d be damned if he went back on his word, even if Silas Tucker was dead.

      Cody grabbed the handle to close the door when he spotted something that sent his instincts on high alert. Steam was coming up from under the bathroom door.

      He reached inside his bag and extracted his Remington .45, letting the bag crumple to the floor. He’d purposely given the housekeeper the day off and told the foreman to send everyone home early so that the house would be empty.

      Someone obviously hadn’t gotten the message.

      Safety off, he quietly cracked the bathroom door and scanned the room. The rose wallpaper, colored glass bottles, and lace-edged towels were a lot to take in. He could practically hear the sound of the water lapping against the tub wall, feel the burn in his throat, taste the bile, and remember the sight of his mama, her head resting against the ledge, eyes staring into heaven.

      Scented steam curled up from behind the curtain, frosting the mirrors and window. The spray of water on porcelain slowed and stopped with a final trickle.

      The curtain was pulled back, inch by inch, second by second. Unable to focus past the gauzy haze, his lids widened as one feminine leg stepped onto the bath mat, followed by another, until finally, out from the fog emerged . . . Shelby Lynn?

      “What the hell are you doing here?”

      Shelby’s nerves jerked into action as the familiar, masculine voice blasted her. The towel spilled from her fingers to pile at her feet, her eyes ricocheting off the gun and into the dark, molasses pools of her past.

      All she could do was blink wildly, unable to make sense of what she was seeing. Then it all came into focus and she inhaled so hard she was afraid she just might pass out. Facing down six-plus feet of coiled muscle could do that to a girl.

      Unable to think—well, at all—she couldn’t decide if she should answer his question or disappear back into the safety of the shower. Working on pure instinct, she rushed to splay her hands over her most vulnerable parts, contorting her body to appear smaller. Then she met his gaze, those whiskey-brown eyes that had haunted her, and she couldn’t help