Long Road Home

by JoAnn Ross

  “You were upset about your dad. It had you act out of character.”

  “Sure, I was worried about him. That, plus jet lag and guilt for leaving my team back in those mountains, tore down some barriers. If things had been different . . .

  “I told myself that it’d be better to say that the kiss hadn’t really meant anything, that it had been a mistake, that we didn’t have a future, than to cause you even worse pain if we’d gotten involved and I didn’t make it back.”

  “What?” Austin dragged her hand through her hair. “You didn’t think that I’d be devastated if you died? Or were injured?” Her head spun at the idea that whether or not they were lovers would make any difference. “Just for argument sake, what if I’d been hit by a logging truck, or had a boulder drop on me while you were deployed?” And ended up dead. Like Tom and Heather. “Are you saying you’d be any less upset than you would be if we’d slept together?”

  “Of course not.” He turned back toward her. “The real mistake wasn’t the kiss. It was that email, which was a major fuckup, okay?”

  Like many cowboys, Sawyer didn’t cuss around women. It might be considered an old-fashioned attitude in this day and age, but long-held habits die hard. The fact that he’d done so now told Austin how tangled his emotions were.

  “How the hell was I supposed to know that you’d elope with some guy before I could fix things? I had no idea you were even dating.” He left unsaid that she sure as hell hadn’t kissed him like a woman who was in a relationship.

  “I wasn’t dating anyone.” He was right about it being effed up. On both their parts. “I met Jace the night I married him.”

  He’d been slick, handsome, and compliments had come trippingly off his tongue, unlike most of the men she’d grown up with. Those pretty words, along with the cosmos, had, for a few dizzying hours, put a temporary patch on her broken heart.

  “Getting married was the biggest mistake of my life,” she said. “But the worst part of the debacle was that I lost you.”

  “Hell. I’m sorry.” He flung his body back down beside her and took both her hands in his. “I screwed things up. Big-time.” His voice was as rough and gravelly as a rutted logging road after a harsh mountain winter.

  “It wasn’t just you,” she said. “I was a grown woman. I should’ve been honest about how I felt.”

  “And now?”

  “I want you.” There, she’d said it. “I’ve never stopped wanting you.”

  “We’re on the same page there. Me wanting you,” he clarified.

  “That’s a start.” Austin had been giving their situation a great deal of thought ever since that New Year’s email. “And if you were anyone else, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. But we have a history, and I don’t know if some quick, sweaty rounds of hot hookup sex is the answer.”

  “Hello. I’m a guy,” he reminded her. “To us, sex isn’t a bad answer whatever the question. And trust me, there’d be nothing quick about it.”

  She slapped his arm, even as she knew he’d said that to lighten the mood. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. And thinking about those sweaty rounds of hot sex that are going to keep me up the rest of the night, now that you’ve put all those pictures in my mind. But I’m also serious as a heart attack about you.”

  “Not everyone can be like Heather and Tom.”

  “We’re not them. They tumbled into the ever-after kind of love when they were too young to appreciate it. We may have wandered off onto separate paths these past years, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t meet at the crossroads.”

  The way they always had at the meeting place between their two ranches.

  “I’m not much of a risk taker,” she said.

  “Says the women’s breakaway roping champion. Not to mention that crazy barrel racing at thirty miles an hour.”

  “My top speed was thirty-four coming home,” she murmured.

  “See? That’s flat-out crazy. And I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but if you’re looking to be risk averse, you’re in the wrong business.”

  “You’re talking about work. Not life.”

  “Maybe others can compartmentalize. But for you and me, ranching is life. Green Springs, your horses, even that mangy old bull—”

  She tossed up her chin. “Desperado is not mangy.”

  “See.” He reached out and ruffled her hair in an easy, familiar gesture. “Here we are, sitting in the dark, wading through a minefield of a conversation about regrets, hot sex, and God help me, the dreaded R word, and you sidetrack the conversation to defend livestock.”

  “While you can’t even say the R word,” she pointed out.

  “I can, too.”

  She folded her arms, gave him a hard look, and waited.

  “Okay.” He sucked in a breath. Whipped off his hat and raked his hand over his hair. “Relationship.” He nodded. Job done. “Satisfied?”

  A smile was tugging at her lips, but not wanting him to think she was laughing at him, Austin merely said, “Congratulations. Another milestone achieved.”

  “How about one more?”

  As Sawyer framed her face in his hands, she forgot to think. Forgot to breathe as he tilted his head and kissed her, slow, soft, and sweet, while the night breeze sighed in the tops of the pine trees and brilliant stars spun overhead.

  She could have wept as he eased back and brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “We’re dealing with a lot of stuff right now. So, although thoughts of tangling the sheets with you are going to have me taking a lot of icy showers, maybe you’re right about letting things spin out. Take our time to get it right.”

  “It’s not my first choice, either,” she admitted, touching her palm to his cheek. “But with the funeral and the kids and everything . . .”

  Heather and Rachel were turning out to have been right about children being the ultimate birth control.

  “Yeah. They get priority.” He exhaled a breath. “We’ve got a busy day tomorrow. I’d better let you get some sleep.”

  “You, too.” The regret she’d heard in his rough tone was echoed in her own soft voice.

  Sawyer stood up, held a hand down to her, and when she took hold of it, pulled her to her feet.

  As they stood there, Austin felt as if she were standing on a rocky escarpment at the top of Modoc Mountain. One false step and she’d go tumbling over. Displaying a self-discipline that had undoubtedly made him a great Marine, Sawyer simply walked with her to the door.

  “Sweet dreams.”

  “You, too,” she said.

  “Mine will be,” he assured her as he ran his palm down her loosened hair. “Because I’ll be dreaming of you.”

  Then he stepped away as Austin walked back into the house instead of flinging herself into his arms. As she’d been aching to do.

  Then she stood there, her hand pressed against the glass of the French door, watching as he headed back to the foreman’s house.

  23

  SOPHIE WAS IN bed when the ding of her phone signaled a text. She wasn’t supposed to be texting or talking with friends after ten o’clock at night, but it wasn’t as if her mom was here to stop her. She did pull the blanket over her head, just in case Rachel might go by the door and see the light.

  The text was from Madison. RUOK?

  My parents are dead.

  I saw the news. OMG!!! RU devastated?

  Sophie thought about that for a minute. I was mad. Now I just feel like an invisible nothing. Like a ghost. Maybe instead of her parents haunting her, she’d spend eternity haunting herself. Kill me now.

  YUR probably in shock.

  Maybe. We’re having 2 funerals.

  Srsly? Y???

  Kid 1 & regular 1.

  Yu R not a kid.

  I have to go 4 Jack.

  NW

  Way

  Sux

  Wanna come?

  Sophie held her breath. After what seemed like forever, she tried again. I’ll die w/out friend
s there.

  K What time?

  Dont know yet.

  Text when U do.

  She blew out a relieved breath. TY!!!

  U R BFF What RU wearing?

  IDK

  Hadn’t she already been forced to help plan the stupid kid funeral and fight to keep Jack from dressing their dad like a fucking zombie? Now she was supposed to think about a funeral outfit? Thanks to Seventeen, she might know fifty-two ways to have the best first kiss ever and fifteen foolproof ways to snag her crush (number one: find out where he goes, and stalk him so he’ll come up and talk to you), but she’d never read a single “What to wear to the funeral after your parental units get squashed by a giant boulder” article.

  Stay + I’ll CU 2moro we’ll figure it out.

  Sophie felt her stupid eyes stinging again. THX

  <3<3<3

  Wishing she could stay hidden beneath the blanket forever, she pushed herself out of bed and went into the guest room’s adjoining bathroom, where she stared at herself in the mirror for a long time. Looking hard. Looking deep. Trying to find some sign that she’d changed, but except for her eyes being red-rimmed and puffy, she looked just the same as when she’d got up this morning. Before her entire world had crashed down around her and burst into flames. And now she was just left with the ashes.

  How could she not look any different?

  She went back into the bedroom and cracked open the door. And listened. When she couldn’t hear anyone talking or moving, she crept down the hallway in her bare feet and went downstairs into the kitchen, where her near perfect life as she’d known it had ended.

  Thanks to the moonlight streaming in from the window, she didn’t have to risk turning on the light. She did stop and listen again.

  So far, so good.

  Taking the kitchen shears from the block on the counter, Sophie padded out of the kitchen and back up the stairs.

  24

  “YOU’RE A FRIGGING idiot.” Two hours after leaving Austin, Sawyer was still awake, tangled up in twisted sheets with a boner the size of a redwood.

  He’d never claimed to be a monk. When you never knew where you were going to be from one day to the next, or whether you’d even survive another day, getting serious about a woman was the one risk he’d never been willing to take. He’d gone to bed with lots of women, some of whom had been Special Forces groupies whose lack of desire for any sort of commitment beyond a single night had suited him just fine. There were others he could have probably made a good life with. The problem was, he’d always broken those affairs off after a few weeks for the simple reason that they hadn’t been Austin.

  It was stupid to spend your entire life carrying a torch for a single woman, especially when their timing never seemed to be in sync. A New Age astrologer he’d spent a memorable few nights with when he’d been back in California for training probably would have told him that his and Austin’s stars or planets or moons, whatever, simply weren’t aligned. And never would be.

  The problem was, Sawyer hadn’t believed that then. And he damn well didn’t believe it now.

  The thing to do, he thought as he crawled out of bed, was to think of their situation as a yet another mission. Separate from the kids, even though taking care of Sophie and Jack was what was keeping them together.

  After all, a failure to plan was a plan for failure. And, like with the Jack and Sophie mission, failure was not an option. Which were only two of the platitudes he’d been taught in MARSOC training. The only trouble was, as he’d discovered firsthand, you could plan until the cows came home, as his dad would say, and things could still go all to hell.

  He was headed toward the kitchen when there was a knock at the door. The last time he’d had a night visitor, it hadn’t been good news. And why the hell did everyone keep showing up when he was butt-assed naked, anyway?

  For a fleeting moment Sawyer thought maybe Austin had changed her mind. He looked up at her house, which was dark. It was probably Cooper, come to check on him. Never mind that Sawyer was a bad-assed Marine, Coop would probably be playing the bossy big-brother role when the three of them were toothless and gumming Pablum in the old cowboys’ home while checking out the hot young nurses.

  Muttering a string of curses as blue as his balls, he marched over to the door and flung it open.

  And, aw, shit, saw Austin standing on his porch.

  “Uh, hi,” she said, quickly dragging her wide eyes from his dick to his chest.

  This wasn’t good, but damned if he was going to cover up like he had anything to be ashamed of. It wasn’t the first penis she’d ever seen. And given that she’d grown up breeding bulls and horses, it sure wasn’t the biggest.

  “Hi.” He stepped aside. “Is there a problem?”

  “Apparently so.” Her gaze met his, and in her eyes he saw what looked like a wicked sexual humor he’d never associated with her. Austin Merrill had, even in his hottest fantasies, always remained an idealized blond goddess on top of a gleaming white pedestal. Another reason no other woman had ever measured up.

  And yeah, even though he knew the vestal virgin idea was sexist, and had possibly come from him having assigned himself her protector at the ripe old age of seven, self-realization, which had never been his strong suit, struck like a lightning bolt.

  He might have been afraid of ruining their friendship, but the risk he hadn’t wanted to take was finding out that his goddess was, in fact, a flesh-and-blood woman. Which he’d gotten a taste of when she’d practically inhaled his tongue outside that Salem hospital.

  “If I’m interrupting something, I can leave,” she said.

  Okay. That was a joke. Being a big, bad, Marine Special Ops Ranger, Sawyer wasn’t used to women laughing at him in what hopefully was going to turn out to be a foreplay situation. But this was Austin. Who seemed to have suddenly developed a sexy, bad-girl twin.

  “No.” He must’ve swallowed his tongue because he was having trouble getting any words out. “Just let me . . .” He waved his arm in the direction of the bedroom. “Go get some . . .”

  Maybe he was having a stroke. His grandfather had suffered a TIA a few years ago when Sawyer had been home for Christmas, and the old man’s thoughts and speech had been messed up for a couple days.

  “Underwear?” she asked with a wickedly arched brow. Hot damn, it looked as if he actually was finally going to get lucky with the woman of his dreams. Which was both amazing and terrifying at the same time. Do. Not. Screw. This. Up.

  “Yeah. I’ll, uh, be right back.” Geez, wasn’t he about as smooth as Scott Eastwood? “Uh, you want to come in?”

  “Thanks.” She gave him an I know you want me smile that had his soldier standing up to salute again.

  Growing up, Sawyer had gone skinny-dipping with his brothers and pals in the river and lake. He’d played sports and could snap towels in the locker room with the best of them in high school. He’d been in the Marines and had hot bunked on aircraft carriers. He’d never given a thought about being naked around another man or, for that matter, any female he was involved with. Until now.

  He probably set a world speed record for the amount of time it took him to yank on some jeans, pull a gray T-shirt over his head, and return to the living room, where she was standing there, looking good enough to lick in a pair of jeans and a snug, strawberry-pink T-shirt that read Boots, class, and a little sass. That’s what cowgirls are made of.

  “I’m sorry if I got you up,” she said.

  “I already was.” Okay, maybe that was an inappropriate response. He definitely needed to work on his social skills. Open mouth, insert boot. “I was about to get a beer. You want something?”

  “You probably don’t have any wine.”

  “Sorry.” And why hadn’t he or his brothers thought of that while shopping? He’d bet his best trophy buckle that Cooper had kept it on hand when he was going out with Rachel.

  “That’s okay. I wouldn’t turn down a beer.”

  She followed him
into the kitchen.

  “Jenna and Layla did an amazing job with this place,” she said. “And just in time, because if everything goes well, the kids could be moving in by next week.”

  “Into the ranch house,” he clarified. He was really digging her shirt. Especially since the walk over from the house must’ve been really chilly.

  “True. But I’ll bet they’ll be wanting sleepovers with you. Especially Jack. Sophie may be a bit of a problem, being how she’s crushing badly on you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She sighed as she took the bottle he handed her. “For a really smart man, Sawyer Murphy, you can sometimes be a bit dense when it comes to the female of the species.”

  He tilted his bottle toward her. “You’ll be getting no argument from me on that one. As hard as it’ll probably be for them to be uprooted yet again, getting settled into a permanent home will be a good thing.”

  “It will,” she agreed. She took another drink of the beer, and just looking at her pink lips on the long neck of the brown bottle had Sawyer thinking things that weren’t going to be conducive to having a conversation considering whatever blood was left in his head was rapidly racing south. “I belong to a book club.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t get where she was going with that comment, but wasn’t going to overthink anything that had her sitting here perched on a stool in his cabin. Even better would be if she were in his bed. On the floor. Against the wall. And that was just for starters.

  “We had our last meeting at the Bar M. When we were talking about Heather’s anniversary trip, she and Rachel were laughing about kids being the ultimate birth control.”

  “I imagine that’s probably true.”

  “So.” She put her bottle on the counter, slid off the stool, went over to him, lifted her arms, and linked her fingers together around his neck. “I was thinking, with Lexi flying in tomorrow from Vegas, then the funeral, then Jack and Sophie moving into the ranch house, that this may be one of the few nights we’re going to have a chance to be alone for a while.”