The Cowboy's Texas Heart (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 3)

“This is why I gotta talk to her. She wants a cache? I literally fell into her cache in that landslide.”

“What?” Tyler breathed.

Seth shrugged his good arm like he was twenty-two instead of twelve as if it was no big deal, but a smile had sprung across his lips, dimpling his cheek. Tyler knew rescue workers had found Seth in an open pocket between portions of rock, protected from the mud overhead, but hadn’t realized there’d been anything significant about it.

“I wanted to tell her first, but…” Seth trailed off.

Charlie’s gaze widened. Then she slapped the mailer against Tyler’s chest and gazed up at him with big blue eyes. No wonder T.R. seemed infatuated. She was a bombshell.

“Heart’s my best friend. But she needs a kick in the butt, and for someone to accept her and not give up on her. Her parents, her fiancé, they all gave up on her.”

“Where’s her house?” Tyler croaked, desperation to get to her raging through him.

Charlie tapped the return address on the envelope and flashed her gaze at him once more. “Convince her that she’s worth it.”

“She doesn’t think she is,” he murmured.

“Make her believe it. Because I’ve never seen her so happy as when she’s with you.”

Then she backed up, grinned at his boys, then glanced at T.R., shaking her head with an exasperated raising of the eyes heavenward while T.R. smirked and folded his arms.

“Daisy Maisy, time to go.” Her daughter waved at his boys, who notched their chins goodbye, and they both retreated to the Land Rover. Charlie stood up on the runner board and called over the roof of the vehicle from the driver’s side. “She won’t tell you this, but you should know the State Committee terminated her due to violating her noncompete agreement in her contract, so she’s definitely gonna need that job!”

As the SUV pulled away, Tyler whirled back to his kids, a smile on his mouth he couldn’t wipe away competing with anguish over learning what Heart had just sacrificed. He had to get to her.

“Who’s up for a road trip?”

“Me!” his boys yelled in unison, erupting in grins.

“Good. Pack a bag. Let’s go get her back.”

*

Heart lay onher pillows on her platform bed from IKEA for the first time in over two months. It didn’t smell like cedar, or Truefitt & Hill, or Tyler’s skin. The plate glass window overlooked the golden desertscape, bright, cheerful, peaceful. House sparrows flitted from the tops of yucca and the gnarly, sprawling branches of mesquite. Vultures floated on the air, silhouettes against a cloudless evening sky.

Tranquil. Her mother could call it purgatory all she wanted. Out here, Heart had someplace to retreat to, where she didn’t have to live up to expectations. Yet as she waited for that tranquility to embrace her like it always did, the ache in her chest wouldn’t relent.

She pushed out of the sheets, leaving them rumpled, in nothing but her tank top and boxers, knotted her hair into a messy bun, rummaging through her desk for pencils which she stabbed into it, and padded to her kitchen, went through motions.

Made coffee. Watered plants. Opened her email for her upcoming survey job in the panhandle, this one a private land survey for a distillery building new construction.

Thank God her contracts with the state weren’t her only ones. But these private gigs were slim, so she ought to start farming her website around again and forking out for some advertising. She’d agreed to start next Saturday, Travis and Skylar’s wedding ceremony, and for the millionth time in three days, tapped her phone’s home button to wake it up and check her calendar, except it was still dead. It had died on the drive home, and she’d left her charging cable at the hospital.

More stupid tears welled as she’d imagined Tyler shaking his head and teasing her about it.

It was better off silent, than constantly dinging with messages from Tyler telling her that the accident wasn’t her fault when the accident was her fault. It would never have happened had she not advised him to leave the escarpment alone. Each time a message had popped in, she’d nearly caved, nearly returned to him like the clingy girlfriend she’d let herself become, if only to feel his arms around her and live in an illusion that she could be good enough. But there was no way he wouldn’t blame her. In time, his bitterness would surface and push away his lust for her. His memories of his boys in such a dangerous situation would taint what they had. God, hadn’t Monarch’s death taught her anything? And hadn’t Tyler’s experience with his ex taught him anything? To avoid someone like her?

But as she waited for the coffee to brew, she couldn’t confirm her arrival time next Saturday until she checked her calendar. She riffled through her bags piled by the door. They’d spilled over as she’d searched for things she needed. Ignored her old Ariats, still caked in mud from searching for Seth. Ignored the iron spiral stairs that led to her loft, and the visions she’d once welcomed of Seth and Stevie climbing up them, making it their hideout and bedroom.

She exhaled. Finally found an old charger in a kitchen drawer and plugged her phone in. It was so dead, the entire pot brewed before the device buzzed alive. After six in the evening. Wow. That was late, but she supposed she hadn’t slept much except for naps since searching for Seth, waking up with crippling anxiety each time, her body coursing with so much adrenaline and fear, illness had assailed her belly for the past two days coming off the high.

Her texts loaded. She couldn’t look. Poured coffee and took a sip, but quickly set it aside as her stomach rebelled. It had taken years to work through this guilt and accept Monarch’s death. She wasn’t so sure she could kick that guilt all over again.

Still, morbid curiosity got the better of her, now that she was seeing the stack of messages, like glowing accusations. She winced, tapped them open as she slipped her feet into flip-flops, and took her coffee to the porch to breathe in fresh air and clear her head, when the final message, sent in the middle of last night, snagged her attention.

She covered her mouth. More guilt. Oh God. His poor kids. In all her anguish and self-doubt, she’d dashed off without saying goodbye, without giving them any explanation. She felt tears well in her eyes. His kids were so cool, and she missed them so much. Missed him. Missed what they could have had.

What you can still have…her conscience whispered. If you’d only call him and hear him out.