“I appreciate this, J.P.,” Sara said quietly, leaning forward a little, causing the saddle leather to creak, and patting Misty’s long sweaty neck.

  “It’s no big deal,” J.P. answered. Though, God help him, it was a big deal.

  She drew a deep breath, seemed to relish it. “Sometimes I wish I’d raised Eric and Hayley in the country, instead of in town,” she said.

  He wanted to hear more. “Why?”

  Sara raised her shoulders in a shrug-like motion, lowered them again. “I don’t know, really, except that all this open space offers a special kind of freedom—no sidewalks, no paved parking lots, no traffic lights or crosswalks or supermarkets—”

  “I guess it’s coming back to you,” J.P. observed.

  She looked at him. “Growing up in the country?”

  “That, and what it feels like to ride a horse,” he said with a smile.

  Sara and Eli’s folks hadn’t owned a big spread, like the Hollisters and the McCalls and a number of other families around Painted Pony Creek, but they’d raised their family outside of town, just the same. Before and after the loss of their parents, Sara and her brother had lived much as J.P. and Cord had, as kids, doing chores, swimming in the creek, riding and camping out, running barefoot through long hot summers.

  She stared pensively at the creek then, watching it tumble and swirl past, on its way to join half a dozen larger streams, then rivers.

  “There are a lot of things I wish I’d done differently,” she said. “With the kids, I mean.”

  “Like what?”

  Sara shook her head, and it seemed she was looking inward now. “Hayley will be fine—she’s so even-tempered and practical—but I worry about Eric.”

  J.P. recalled the trouble Eric had gotten into a couple of years before, when he’d hooked up with a bunch of budding criminals, released some livestock, among other offenses, and wound up in trouble with the law. The kid had done some community service after he was caught and, as far as J.P. knew, straightened out. The boy looked up to his uncle, Eli, and that, along with Sara’s tough love, had probably been his saving grace.

  He might have ended up like his pal Freddie Lansing, though.

  J.P. shuddered slightly, remembering the day he and Eli and Melba Summers, a deputy at the time, had found the Lansing kid dead, hanging from a rafter in an old barn right there on the McCall ranch.

  Since then, J.P. had had the place bulldozed, the weathered boards and beams and shingles hauled away to be burned.

  “Is there any particular reason to worry about Eric?” he asked carefully. It was none of his business, and he didn’t want to cross any personal boundaries, but if Sara wanted someone to confide in, he was willing to listen.

  Sara smiled, looking slightly wistful. “No, he’s behaving well enough,” she said. Then, with a rueful chuckle, she added, “For a teenager.”

  The horses had drunk their fill by then, and they were tossing their heads, ready to be on the move again. The land was their natural habitat, after all; maybe they had some kind of genetic memory, some recollection of ancient days before the West was settled, when they’d run free and wild.

  Or maybe the mustangs, still wild and multiplying with every passing year, served to remind them of how life had been, once upon a time. Genetic memory of the equine variety.

  “I guess I’m ready to head for home,” Sara said. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time, and I need to get back to my manuscript.”

  Privately, J.P. reflected that it hadn’t taken the woman long to achieve her purpose, but he didn’t comment. Back at the house, after he’d unsaddled the gelding and the mare and turned them out to graze with the rest of his horses, he’d probably go online, check the current status of the market, maybe make a few adjustments to his portfolio. Then he’d climb into his truck and make the fifteen-minute drive to his folks’ corner of the ranch and the log A-frame they’d retired to, once J.P. took over the nuts and bolts of the family cattle operation.

  The senior McCalls, John and Sylvia, were healthy, active and thoroughly independent, but J.P. liked to check on them every so often, just the same. His older sisters, Clare and Josie, lived in California and Virginia respectively, and they expected regular reports on the state of the parental units, via text or social media. They didn’t entirely trust the pair to speak up if they needed help or simply wanted some company.

  Sara brought J.P. back to the present moment with a soft, “Is it enough for you, this ranch, I mean? Maybe I’m overstepping here, but don’t you get lonely?”

  J.P. was surprised by the questions but, oddly, not offended. Now that Eli and Cord were both happily married, and starting families, lots of people probably wondered when he would follow suit. God knew his parents and sisters weren’t shy about asking, though he always responded, with varying degrees of annoyance, that they ought to mind their own business.

  “Everybody gets lonely sometimes,” he replied after a few moments of silence.

  The barn was in sight now, and the horses were picking up speed, ready to join the small herd grazing on tall sweet grass.

  “I shouldn’t have asked,” Sara said quickly, obviously uncomfortable.

  J.P. smiled, but sparely. “It’s okay, Sara,” he replied.

  The truth was he did get lonely, especially at night, and he wanted a wife and family, too.

  It was just that he wasn’t willing to settle, when it came to love.

  He dated a lot, mostly women from other towns, but marriage was something else. He wanted what his mom and dad had together, what Cord had with Shallie, and Eli had with Brynne—a true bond, so deep and so sacred that it seemed predestined, cosmic in scope.

  So far, he hadn’t met the right woman. In fact, he sometimes wondered if she was out there at all.

  Or, assuming she was, if he’d be the right man for her.

  He’d almost been a father once, though.

  Nearly three years ago, on the proverbial dark and stormy night, he’d been engaged in a poker game with Eli and Cord, in the back room of Sully’s Bar and Grill, when the door had burst inward and a skinny drowned rat of a girl had appeared out of nowhere.

  She’d looked so much like Reba Shannon, the wild child who had nearly wrecked the trio of friends for good seventeen years before, that J.P. had thought, for a fraction of a second, that he was seeing an actual ghost.

  Her name was Carly, she’d just hitchhiked halfway across the country, and she’d landed in their lives like a hand grenade with the pin pulled and announced, once the shock of her arrival had subsided a little, that one of the three of them—he, Eli or Cord—was her biological dad.

  That long-ago summer of Carly’s conception, when he and both his friends had fallen for Reba, each one believing, with the hormonal hubris of a seventeen-year-old boy, that they were her one and only, had almost faded from their combined memories by the time the girl showed up.

  Said girl had grown up and come looking, not so much for a father, but for explanations.

  A series of events, some fortunate and some not, had ensued, and when the fat lady sang, so to speak, it turned out that Cord had been the one to sire this spirited little spitfire.

  Like Eli’s, J.P.’s reaction to the news had been mixed—he’d been relieved, naturally. But he’d also been disappointed.

  Rock-solid man that he was, Cord had stepped up, taken responsibility, worked at getting to know his daughter. He’d married his wife, Shallie, and the three of them had created a family.

  Now they had another child, Cord and Shallie, and they were beyond happy together.

  J.P. didn’t envy his friends. He was glad for them, but he wanted what they had, for sure. A wife and kids of his own. A family.

  “Where did you go just now, J.P. McCall?” Sara asked as the two of them dismounted. “You seem awfully distracted this morning.”

  It wasn’t a criticism, only a comment. He knew that by her expression and her tone of voice.

  He grinned, took Misty’s reins from Sara and led both animals into the cool hay-scented shade of the barn, where he proceeded to remove their saddles and bridles.

  Sara, obviously a little saddle sore, limped alongside him, ready to help.

  Instead of offering a belated answer to Sara’s inquiry, J.P. countered with, “What about you, Sara? You’ve been divorced for a long time. Your kids are growing up. Don’t you ever get lonely?”

  Sara leaned down to scratch behind Trooper’s floppy ears. The dog was leaning into her right leg, goofy with sudden adoration.

  J.P. could relate.

  Sara gave a rueful laugh. Shook her head. “The kids have taken up so much of my time and energy,” she replied, “that I haven’t had a chance to get lonely.”

  He hung up the bridles, placed the saddles and blankets where they belonged. “Eric must be about to start college,” he said.

  Sara ran her palms down the thighs of her trim jeans. Sighed. “He’s a senior this year. Again.” She paused, winced. “It had to do with that bad patch he went through. He let his grades slip so badly that he didn’t qualify to graduate with the rest of his class.”

  J.P. remembered the bad patch.

  And he could identify. He’d had a few of those himself, times when he’d checked out, both physically and emotionally, after the roadside explosion in Afghanistan that wounded him and killed half a dozen of his friends. His recovery—a grim and deliberate process of coming back to himself—had been long, painful and difficult on every level.

  Not that he’d put the struggle entirely behind him.

  It was, he supposed, a big part of the reason he’d avoided emotional intimacy with the many women he’d wined and dined since his recovery. He was afraid that, if he ever let his shadow-side show, he’d scare them away.

  Or, worse, that they’d stick around, trying to save him.

  “I know a little about Eric’s troubles,” he said at some length as they walked, side by side, out into the sunlight.

  Misty and Shiloh followed amiably along behind them, eager to reach the pasture.

  J.P. moved to open the gate, and both horses hurried through the opening, snorting and kicking up their hind legs as soon as he’d detached the lead ropes from their harnesses.

  He chuckled at this display of equine delight, pulled the gate closed and made sure the latch caught, draping the lead ropes over one shoulder.

  Sara looked pained, attempted a mild stretch and flinched visibly.

  “You’ll be sore for a few days,” J.P. observed unnecessarily.

  “I need to get more exercise,” Sara confessed. “I spend way too much time at my computer.”

  “Maybe you ought to ride more often. It’s good for the soul.”

  She smiled. “I agree, but I’m not sure there’s enough ibuprofen in the world to get me through the tenderfoot stage.”

  J.P. thought of offering Sara a couple of Advil and/or a cup of coffee, but she’d already said she needed to get back to work on her novel, and he didn’t want to come off as—well—needy.

  “You’ll be all right,” he assured her. Damn, McCall, he told himself silently, you’re an eloquent son of a gun.

  “I don’t have much of a choice,” Sara pointed out lightly, without a trace of self-pity. “None of us do, really.”

  She was headed toward her car, parked beside his truck, and J.P. walked alongside her. It was the polite thing to do, but this was more than good manners, and he knew it.

  This was reluctance to part.

  He was about to bite the bullet and ask Sara to come back soon, for another longer ride, when she opened her car door, reached inside and pulled out her purse.

  It was plain, though trimmed with fringe.

  J.P. held up both his hands. “Don’t,” he said.

  Sara frowned. “But—”

  “But nothing, Sara. I don’t want money.” He paused, feeling stupid and awkward. “You’re my best friend’s sister.”

  She tilted her head back, smiled at him, and he marveled at how beautiful she was. He’d always known that, hadn’t he? So why hadn’t it sunk in?

  “Okay, but I demand a compromise.”

  “Such as?”

  Her smile broadened, brightened. “You have to let me buy you dinner. We can go to Bailey’s or Sully’s—anywhere you choose.”

  Suddenly, he was fourteen again. All knees and elbows and Adam’s apple.

  “Umm—”

  She looked worried. “Unless you’re seeing someone. It’s just a friendly dinner, but I wouldn’t want to cause trouble.”

  “I’m not seeing anyone,” he said, a little more quickly than he would have liked. Sara wasn’t suggesting a date, he reminded himself, just a casual meal to repay him for a favor.

  Sara’s smile returned, nearly setting J.P. back on the scuffed heels of his boots. “All right, then. When?”

  “Tonight?” J.P. said, and it felt like a risk.

  Which was ridiculous.

  It wasn’t as if he were about to jump out of a low-flying plane without a chute, but it sure felt like that.

  “Tonight will be great. Is Bailey’s okay?”

  “Bailey’s is fine. Shall I pick you up, or do you want to meet me there?”

  Sara beamed at him.

  J.P. tried to catch his breath.

  “Let’s meet there. Seven o’clock,” Sara said.

  J.P. gulped, searched for his voice, found it. “See you at seven,” he said.

  “Excellent,” Sara chimed. And then she rose onto the balls of her feet and kissed him lightly on his stubbly cheek.

  Before he could respond in any way—except, of course, for the flipping sensation somewhere in his midsection—Sara was behind the wheel of her car.

  He watched, rooted to the ground, as she fastened her seat belt, started the engine, shifted out of Park and drove away.

  He was still standing there when she honked the horn in farewell.

  He didn’t move until Trooper bumped against him, looking for attention—and possibly some extra kibble. Snapping him out of immobility.

  J.P. chuckled and mussed the dog’s ears.

  After putting the lead ropes away in the barn, they went inside the house, the spacious but unassuming ranch house J.P. had grown up in. It was his now, since both his sisters were busy professionals, settled in homes of their own, and his folks preferred their compact A-frame.

  He washed his hands at the kitchen sink, gave Trooper a dog biscuit and glanced at his laptop, open and booted up on the round oak table that, like much of the furniture, had belonged to J.P.’s great-grandparents.

  Usually, the computer drew him, no matter what the time of the day or night, but today was different.

  Today, his mind was reeling—with thoughts of Sara. Memories of her warm smile, her shining eyes, her throaty laugh.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “YOU HAVE AN actual date?” Sara’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Hayley, asked, blue eyes wide, blond ponytail bouncing with emphasis as Sara set two places at the kitchen table, one for each of her children.

  “No,” Sara muttered in response. “I’m meeting a friend for dinner, that’s all.”

  “You’re pretty dressed up,” Hayley remarked rather slyly. “Who is this—friend?”

  “None of your business, kiddo,” Sara replied patiently.

  “You’re meeting a guy,” the kid insisted. “Admit it, Mom. You have a date.”

  “That’s enough,” Sara warned, exasperated. “Tell your brother it’s time to eat, please.”

  Instead of heading for the living room, where Eric was probably engrossed in his phone, Hayley threw back her head and shouted, “Eric! Supper’s ready and Mom has a date with some guy!”

  Sara sighed, distracted and a little nervous.

  Neither she nor J.P. had used the word date when they agreed to meet at Bailey’s at 7:00 p.m. and share a meal.

  “Hayley,” she said, feigning a glare.

  Hayley shrugged in that irritatingly dismissive way of teenagers, turned on one sneakered heel and pushed open the door leading to the living room, leaping back when Eric appeared in the space, looking concerned. “Seriously? You’re going on a date?” he asked, taking in her black jeans, shell top and short turquoise jacket. “Is that a smart thing to do?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sara protested. “I’m meeting a friend for an ordinary dinner. It’s no big deal.”

  Eric frowned. Unlike Hayley, he resembled her, rather than her ex-husband, and his gray eyes were troubled. “Whatever you say,” he said.

  “Wash up and eat your supper,” Sara said, unwilling to discuss her plans for the evening any further, at least with these two. “And I expect the dishwasher to be loaded and the kitchen tidied by the time I get home.”

  “It’s Eric’s turn,” Hayley pointed out. “He can take time out from texting Carly to do his chores.” The relationship between Eric and Carly Hollister, Cord and Shallie’s daughter, was an on-and-off kind of thing and, frankly, it worried Sara a little. Eric was younger than Carly by a little over a year, less mature emotionally, too, and when September rolled around, Carly would be off to college in LA, while Eric stayed behind to repeat his senior year and, hopefully, graduate this time around.

  Life and young love being what they were, he’d be left behind in more ways than one, and while Sara knew that was the way things worked, she dreaded her son’s reaction.

  Flustered because she was due at Bailey’s in less than ten minutes and already fending off a low-grade panic attack, Sara made a mental note to ask Eli to have a talk with Eric, try to prepare him for the inevitable changes headed his way.

  “I don’t care whose turn it is,” she retorted, frowning at Eric, then Hayley. “I’m looking for results here, not arguments.”