Lone Star Survivor. Colleen Thompson
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girl, Eden, out of Ian’s hair, though the rambunctious five-year-old was forever finding ways to corner him and wear him out with innocently awkward questions. Questions that he couldn’t answer, for the most part, no matter how damned cute she and the pair of young Australian shepherds who followed her everywhere were about their interrogation.
Mounting up, he looked beyond the ranch’s outbuildings and toward the open rangeland, where a herd of red-and-white cattle grazed off in the distance. Farther afield, he’d been told one could find the fresh drilling that marked the promising new natural gas find that had recently sent the family’s fortunes soaring. But Ian left the worries about the operation and the money to Zach while he focused on the hard manual labor that was not only helping him recover his physical strength but would leave him exhausted by the day’s end. Too exhausted, he hoped, for the disjointed nightmares that had been waking him several times a night. Like his past, their content was largely forgotten the moment he returned to himself. But that didn’t keep him from racking his brain for hours, no matter how frustrating the attempts.
He nudged the palomino into an easy lope, eager for the freedom, the peace that he found only with the prospect of a day alone in the saddle. But it had barely lasted for an hour before he spotted a lone rider making his way toward him: Zach, aboard his big bay, Ace, irritation casting more shade on his expression than the wide brim of his hat.
As his brother’s mount clattered to a stop, Ian sucked a breath through his clenched teeth and raised a palm to hold off the complaint he knew was coming. “Sorry, man. I’m sorry. I did it again, didn’t I?”
“Apologize to Mama, not me,” Zach told him. “Do you have any idea how panicky she gets when you take off without a word to anybody? Jessie thought she was going to have a stroke when she found your bed empty after you didn’t show for breakfast. Mama broke down, asking if you were really still dead, if she’d dreamed all that part about how you’d come back home.”
Ian screwed shut his eyes and blew out a long breath, hating himself for causing her more suffering. “But you knew where I was, right? You told her, didn’t you?”
“I told her you were sure to be around, yeah. But the fact is, Ian, I got lucky figuring out where you were because you didn’t tell me, either.”
“You could’ve called instead of riding all the way out...” But as he felt his pocket for the fancy new smartphone his brother had bought him, Ian’s mouth went dust dry. “Oh, shoot. The damned cell—”
“Works a lot better when you remember to take it with you, bonehead.”
Ian opened his eyes and faced his older brother’s disappointment. “I know I screwed up. But I swear, I’ll do better.”
“Yeah, you damned well will.” Zach’s glare faded, his blue eyes softening. “Listen, man. I know what it’s like, going from a place where you have only yourself to think of, yourself and your mission. But things are different now. You’re part of a family again, with people who care, who worry about you, who want to help you finally come home.”
“I am home,” Ian insisted, the edge in his voice making his mount shuffle and toss his mane. Clutching the reins tightly to keep Sundance in hand, he added, “Against all odds, I made it.”
The government’s investigators had tracked his northbound progress through Mexico and into Texas, where he’d hitchhiked, walked and at one point trailed “coyotes” smuggling their human cargo across the border during his months-long odyssey. There had been some speculation about how Ian might have gotten out of the Middle East and into Mexico, but he’d been unable to contribute anything beyond a fragmented memory of himself clinging to a coarse scrap of threadbare blanket in the dark hold of a cargo ship.
“You think you’ve made it, brother,” Zach said, “but I’m telling you, you’ve still got a ways to go. Which is why you’re coming back with me right now, to meet our visitor.”
Ian’s gut clenched. “I told you, no more shrinks. No counselors. None of Mama’s preachers, either, here to save my lost soul. This range, this work, is the only salvation I need.”
Zach gazed out over the undulating golden waves, over a land that looked flat to those who didn’t know the deep furrows that could lead a man to its hidden places. “I remember a time when you couldn’t wait to get the hell off this land.”
Old resentment squeezed in Ian’s chest. Because since returning, he had remembered enough fragments from their upbringing to resurrect some old grievances. “You should talk. You took off before I did. Left me here, with him.”
At the mention of their father, Zach’s shoulders fell and his gaze drifted. It served as a reminder that some of the memories Ian had recovered would be better off forgotten.
“I know, and I’m sorry, bro,” Zach said. “Sorry for leaving you and Mama both behind. I was just trying to survive those years without ending up in prison. Because I would’ve damned well killed the son of a bitch if I’d stayed one more day.”
Ian nodded, understanding the same desperation that had driven him away from their father’s brand of torture as soon as he’d been able. Like Zach, he’d left their mother here to face it, since she’d refused to admit to what her husband was, much less abandon the material comforts and social status she’d enjoyed as a Rayford. As sorry as he felt for the suffering she’d endured when he’d been believed dead, Ian still hadn’t entirely forgiven her for refusing to protect him and his brother back when it might have mattered.
But there was nothing to be gained by treading that old minefield, and he quickly changed the subject. “I’ll apologize for scaring Mama. I’ll remember my phone next time. But I won’t be coming back with you now, not unless you tell me who’s there waiting.”
“I’ll tell you this much. It’s a woman. A woman from your past.”
Ian frowned, wondering which past his brother meant: the one he couldn’t bear to think of, or the dark, erotic glimmers that invaded his dreams every night.
* * *
Andrea had known Ian grew up on a working cattle ranch in North Texas, but she’d had no idea that he’d come from money. Maybe she’d been projecting the hand-me-downs and frequent moves that had defined her own hardscrabble upbringing or maybe she’d judged Ian by his rare comments about living hand to mouth after going out on his own right out of high school, but the ranch itself, especially the opulent white mansion at its center, convinced her she’d had it wrong. As did the fact that a heavyset woman with her pinned-back gray hair and a starched uniform wheeled out a real, honest-to-goodness tea cart with a silver pot and baskets of delicate confections to the fussy formal living room where she waited while Ian’s mother, Nancy Rayford, did her best to pick Andrea’s brain.
“So, dear,” said the neatly dressed, silver-haired woman over the gold rim of her teacup, “you were saying, you met my son in California?”
Andrea didn’t answer, too distracted by the heat rising to her face as the maid offered her some cookies. “Th-thank you very much. These are lovely.” Andrea chose a chocolate-centered square to be polite, nearly choking on the thought of how her mother, who had waited on more than a few pampered rich ladies in her day, might have looked a lot like “Miss Althea” had she lived.
The maid nodded and excused herself, leaving Mrs. Rayford to repeat her question.
Andrea nodded. “Sorry. Yes, we met on a country road not far outside of San Diego. I was out riding when the chain came off my bike and sent me flying.” She shivered in the air-conditioning, remembering the moment she’d gone over the handlebars. “Fast as I was moving, it’s a wonder I didn’t split my skull along with my helmet.” As it was, she’d been a bloody mess, with the frame of a bike she’d scrimped and saved for for two years bent so badly it was never again race-worthy.
Mrs. Rayford frowned. “You don’t mean to tell me you were riding one of those noisy motorcycles, do you?”
Andrea