Long Way Home

She saw him then. Saw him and stopped dead in her tracks.

“Monte!”

Her voice vibrated with his name.

His heart racketed in his chest. Did she still care for him?

Cold reality killed that thought as the miserable guilt washed over him.

How in the world could she? He had left her without a word.

She remembered that at the same time he did. Her big, blue eyes narrowed and she turned away from him to check on the little girl.

Mommy. The little girl had called her Mommy.

The strangest sense of loss came over him.

No, Jo Lena didn’t still care. She hadn’t cared for a long, long time. This child had to have been born within a year of when he left the Hill Country.

Now Jo Lena had her arm around the little girl and she was looking at him again.

“Monte, come and meet Lily Rae,” she called. “We need to talk to you about Annie.”

He walked toward them.

“Can you believe she just came through the sale?” he said.

“No, and I can’t believe you bought her,” she said, in a warm, cordial tone.

A tone that clearly said they were fine acquaintances and nothing more.

He walked up to them.

“Monte, I’d like you to meet Lily Rae,” she said.

Lily Rae held out her hand like a grown-up and gave him a straight look from her deep blue eyes. The very same shade of blue as Jo Lena’s.

“Nice to meet you,” she said in her piping little voice.

Well, her voice wasn’t anything like her mother’s. At least, not yet.

“Same here,” Monte said.

Her smile was that of an imp. Her hand was tiny.

“Are you LydaAnn’s brother?” Lily Rae seriously wanted to know.

“Yes,” Monte said.

The little girl looked at him, considering.

“She already has two brothers.”

Great. Even this kid who didn’t know him thought he was unnecessary. He was home, all right.

“You don’t think she can use another one?” he asked the child.

Lily Rae shook her head.

“Clint and Jackson are enough,” she said decisively.

Then she flashed him a smile that looked so much like Jo Lena’s—which he had not seen for years—it brought back a world of hurt.

“You can be my big brother,” Lily Rae announced. “I don’t have any and I need one.”

He was so busy thinking about Jo Lena’s smile from six years ago that it didn’t quite soak in. And then it did. And it warmed a tiny cockle of his heart.

“Why do you need one?” he foolishly asked.

“To give me a hard time,” she said. “LydaAnn says that’s what brothers are good for.”

A hole like a crater opened inside him. What had he missed in six years? He didn’t even know his brothers and sisters anymore.

“It takes one to know one,” he said, his voice suddenly rough with emotion. “LydaAnn can give a person a pretty hard time herself.”

At least she used to. She must be a grown woman now. Had her personality changed, too?

“I know,” Lily Rae said happily. “She’s my big sister.”

Then she turned back to the mare, stroking her nose and crooning wordlessly. Jo Lena had raised a happy little girl.

“How much are you asking for this mare, Monte?” Jo Lena said.

“She’s not for sale.”

Two pairs of blue eyes with identical expressions—worried, but mostly surprised—fixed on him.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am.”

Jo Lena smiled. Lily Rae glanced at her, then went back to petting the mare.

“Everybody knows what you paid for her, Monte. Don’t try a horse trade with me.”

“I’m not,” he said flatly. “I bought her to keep.”

“Why? You’re a bull rider, going down the road.”

Used to be. I don’t know what I am now.

“Bought ’er to look at,” he said.

“Once every six years?”

“You sound downright sarcastic there, Jo Lena. It doesn’t become you.”

“As if I’m worried about your opinion,” she said tartly.

Six years and motherhood seemed to have put a little edge on Jo Lena.

“You’re trying to buy a horse from me that’s not for sale,” he pointed out.

“Look, Monte,” she said earnestly, “I’ll have to take out a loan to pay you what you paid for her. I’ll do it and add a five-hundred dollar profit.”

Her eyes were so blue. A deep, bluebonnet kind of blue. But she still hadn’t smiled at him since the moment she saw him. Not a real smile, the way only Jo Lena could smile.

Suddenly, he wanted to see that smile. He needed to see it.

“Think about it,” she urged. “You make five hundred overnight, and you aren’t even out the gas money to haul her home.”

“Remember when we helped Dexter vaccinate his goats for gas money?”

He got his reward. She smiled then, just like she used to.

For one, two, then three long beats of his heart, they looked at each other and Jo Lena smiled at him.

The smile made him feel like king of the world, just the way it always used to do. But she was different now. He didn’t know her anymore. Deep down, she probably hated him.

If he had one grain of good sense left in his body, he’d let her have this mare and be rid of Jo Lena. Never see her again.

But the smile gave him a flash of power he hadn’t felt for a while. Since before he got hurt and became a “victim” the first time.

He wanted, more than anything, to reach out and brush back the strand of straight, silky hair that had come loose from the braid. Like in the old days.

“So, Jo Lena,” he drawled, teasing her, “exactly what is it you like about this horse?”

She lost her smile but she didn’t break the look. The serious, no-nonsense expression came back into her eyes.

“I have some good memories and some bad ones,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Oh, like when we had so much fun playing bareback tag in the pecan orchard in the twilight.”

The memory hit him like a blow. It nearly stopped his heart.

“And the bad ones?” he said through the tightness in his chest.

“I hate it when somebody runs off from me,” she said calmly. “Horse or man.”

He wouldn’t let himself look away. He made himself hold her gaze. He deserved that and more.

She was a woman now, Jo Lena was, with all her girlishness gone. A strong, beautiful woman he didn’t know.

Give her the mare. He should give her the mare so she’d go.

“Jo Lena,” he said. “This mare is not for sale. For any price.”

“Bobbie Ann! Bobbie Ann!”

Lily Rae jumped off the fence and ran toward the house.

Monte and Jo Lena turned to see his mother on the back porch. And a vehicle coming down the road from the highway.

“Big family breakfast!” Bobbie Ann called. “Jo Lena, will you stay?”

Well. Forget the poor prodigal needing to face one thing at a time. First Jo Lena and now his brothers.

Lily Rae turned, yelling, “Please, Mommy, can we stay? Please?”

Jo Lena nodded yes.

Then she looked at Monte.

“Annie’s my mare and you know it. Until we make a deal, I’m staying.”

Monte looked at her straight.

“Well, I hope you brought your suitcase,” he said. “I own her now and I’m not selling.”

Chapter Two

The look she gave him then was enough to make him flash back through the last six years in a heartbeat. It was Jo Lena’s famous, mule-stubborn, I-will-not-give-up-or-give-in look.

“I already have clothes here,” she said. “In fact, I have my own room.”

She turned her back on him and started for the house. He stared after her for a moment, then he caught up with her as fast as he could with his leg stiff and his back hurting like crazy.

His head was hurting worse, though. And he was losing his mind. Was this jealousy he felt, jealousy that she evidently was in his family and he was out?

No, it was irritation. Was he never going to be rid of her, even if he sold her the mare?

“You live here? Why? What about your husband?”

Jo Lena flicked him a glance and walked faster.

“I don’t have a husband.”

He was losing his mind. He knew that because suddenly, he knew what he was feeling—and it was fury. Some no-good rounder had left Jo Lena, who was a fine person in every respect, alone with a child to raise.

“Who is he, Jo Lena?”

She threw him another, more irritated, look and lengthened her stride. Jo Lena wasn’t as tall as he was, but she had long legs and had always been able to match him, stride for stride.

“Who is who, Monte?”

“The bum who left you…”

Without slowing a bit, she turned and gave him another, sharper, more significant look. It stopped his tongue.

It nearly stopped his feet.

Well, yes, he himself had left her. But he hadn’t married her and given her a child and then left her.

“Monte,” Bobbie Ann called. “It is so good to see you, son.”

He was close enough now to see the joy in his mom’s face. His mother loved him. Even if Jo Lena had thrown him out of her heart before he got to the county line six years ago, and even if his brothers and sisters were still mad at him, his mother loved him.

“It’s good to see you, too, Ma,” he said.

Suddenly, it was true. So true he didn’t know how he’d lived all those long days without seeing the love in her sparkling blue eyes. He went to her and hugged her, kissed her on the cheek. She held on to him for a minute.

The car drove into the yard behind him and the engine shut down.

“Here’s your brother,” she said. “Everybody’s so glad you’re home.”

Warily, he turned to look. It really didn’t matter which brother. Neither of them had any use for him.

Clint and Cait were getting out of a big, white SUV. He’d never met her, because he hadn’t come home for John’s funeral, but this must be Cait, who was his sister-in-law twice over.

Monte couldn’t help but watch. Cait, clearly, was pregnant and Clint was positively tender as he helped her step from the running board to the ground.

He lost his tenderness, though, when he looked at Monte.

“Hey,” he said. “Here’s the prodigal son.”

Cait gave Clint a quick look, almost like a warning, then she smiled at Monte.

“Are we ever glad to see you,” she said. “I’ve been craving Bobbie Ann’s biscuits and I hate to show up on her doorstep every single morning without an invitation.”

They all laughed, Clint introduced Cait and she gave him her hand, then Clint shook with him, muttering, “It’s about time you came home.”

Monte thought about that as they all moved across the back porch and into the kitchen, milling around, trying to make small talk. It made him bristle. No doubt Clint and Jackson both would soon let him know, in no uncertain terms, where he stood with them, but he didn’t care. He had a legitimate gripe about each of them, too, and if they didn’t know what it was, he’d tell them.

Fortunately, Bobbie Ann took charge. She shooed Monte upstairs to his old room to shower and change, saying that breakfast would be ready in thirty minutes, and then she gave everybody else, including Lily Rae, a job to do.

Monte escaped gratefully. A shower would help clear his head and he would love the feel of clean clothes. Not to mention a chance to calm his heart about Jo Lena.

How could she have let go of him so soon? Let go enough to marry someone else and have that someone’s baby within a year? It was still hard for him to believe.

Because that wasn’t like Jo Lena. She had always been as loyal as she was stubborn.

Guilt stabbed him. He had hurt her enough to drive her straight into the arms of another man.

He must put the past out of his mind and deal with Jo Lena here in the present. Or not deal with her. He needed to get himself together and just ignore her. Avoid her.

His old room surrounded him peacefully. He sat down on the chair at the side of the bed, kicked the bootjack out from under it and stuck one heel into it, pulling carefully. Boots finally off, he began to peel the dirty clothes from his battered body, focusing on keeping his mind blank and all regrets and memories at bay.

This physical pain was enough to keep him busy. He had no need to dwell on his emotional hurts, too.

He levered himself up and went straight into the shower, standing for a long time in the tingling sluice of hot water, letting it relax some of his muscles and wash some of the ache out of his back. Soaping every inch he could reach without yelling in pain, shampooing his thick hair and rinsing took a long, blank time, and he was thankful for it.

Finally, he made himself shut off the water, step out and towel off. Cleaning up had made him feel a lot stronger.

And it actually made him smile to find that he still fit into his old, battered Wrangler jeans. He put on the most worn pair because they were the softest, and then, after clean socks and boots, his favorite, faded T-shirt he’d bought long ago when Billy Joe Shaver had played Gruene Hall and he and all three of his brothers had gone to hear him together.

Long ago and far away.

That opening line from one of the songs they’d heard started running through his head. Yes, that night seemed decades ago and thousands of miles away. But today it was now and he was here. On the Rocking M. Back home.

He had to go downstairs and face them—all but John, who was gone forever. John wouldn’t be mad at him for not going to his funeral. John would take up for Monte if he were here this morning, even if they had been on opposite sides of the religion question.

He walked to the window and looked out over the ranch. John had been closer to him than to the others because for so long they’d been the young ones, bossed around by the big brothers. They’d staged their little rebellions, though.

Monte grinned to himself. Thinking about John was driving away that shaky feeling inside him. He could hold his own with Clint and Jackson.

But then, while he walked carefully down the stairs and through the entry hall and the great room, he wasn’t so sure of that. He just needed peace. And time alone. And an empty head.

And an empty heart. He didn’t want to look at Jo Lena and see the girl he used to know and the woman he might never know all rolled up into one magnificent package that made his heart skip a beat.

She was the first thing that met his eye, though, when he crossed the threshold into the dining room. Jo Lena. And the rest of the women and babies. It didn’t even seem like home, there were so many women and babies.

None of them belonged to him.

It was as unsettling as walking into a whole herd of unpredictable bulls to try to find his place at the table. There was a baby in a high chair on one side and Lily Rae on the other. His father and John were gone. Their absences screamed at him.

“Monte,” Lily Rae called, the minute she saw him. “I want to sit by Monte.”

Monte’s jaw tightened. He ignored her.

Jackson looked up, saw him and they limped toward each other to shake hands.

“Looks like you’re about as bunged up as I am,” Jackson said. “That must’ve been a whale of an argument you had with that bull.”

“Ah, but you oughtta see the shape he’s in,” Monte said, and everyone laughed.

He felt himself relax a little as Jackson introduced him to his wife, Darcy, and Maegan, their curly-haired, red-headed baby girl with wide blue eyes the very color of Jackson’s. Then Delia and LydaAnn were hugging him.

“Careful, girls, careful. Remember he’s hurt,” Bobbie Ann said, coming in from the kitchen with a big pan full of hot biscuits.

His sisters were careful with him. And they were telling him they were glad he was home.

But, as they let him go, they gave him looks that let him know they were pretty put-out with him for taking so long to get home. That was all right. They were truly glad to see him, even if they were probably going to give him a piece of their minds later on.

“Monte,” Lily Rae said again. “I want to sit by Monte.”

Bobbie Ann jumped right in, spoiling her rotten.

“Of course you can sit by Monte,” she said, as she waited for Jo Lena to move one of the gravy bowls and a platter of sausage to make a place for the biscuits.

She looked up at Monte, her blue eyes sparkling with happiness.

“Son, will you sit at the end of the table? You’ve made a new young fan this morning.”

“Monte’s my big brother,” Lily Rae, beaming, announced to the world in general.

“You better watch him,” LydaAnn said, teasing her. “That Monte’s full of tricks.”

“Not as much as I am,” Lily Rae said firmly.

Everybody laughed but she ignored that. She didn’t care about getting attention right then because, small as she was, her whole purpose was to help hold the chair as Monte maneuvered his painful body into it.

Great. This was the final humiliation—being taken care of by a child.

“If that bull broke your leg, Monte, don’t walk on it,” Lily said, her piping voice cutting through all the rest of the conversation in the room. “I’ll get you my grandpa’s wheelchair.”

“It’s not broke,” he snapped, much more harshly than he intended.

He clamped his mouth shut. This was ridiculous. Why wouldn’t Jo Lena distract the child?

“But then, what would poor Grandpa do?” Jo Lena said softly.

“Use his walker,” Lily Rae said earnestly, “’cause he needs th’ zexercise.”

Bobbie Ann chuckled with the others, then she said, “My heart’s so full this morning, I need to be the one to say the blessing.”

Everyone bowed. Except Monte. He stared straight down the length of the table. He still was no hypocrite. And, six years later, it was still a fact that nobody was going to tell him what to believe.

“Monte! Bow your head,” Lily Rae rasped in a loud whisper.

Startled, he shot her a fierce look. She glared right back at him.

Jo Lena gently laid her hand on the back of Lily’s head and the child bowed it then, but before she closed her eyes, she gave Monte one last, sharp glance upward from beneath her long lashes.

In spite of his irritation, he had to suppress a grin. The kid had spunk—just like her mother.

Bobbie Ann said the blessing, thanking God for the food and for Monte’s homecoming. Asking God to heal his body. Monte stared out the window behind his mother’s chair and tried not to think about her words.

He would just as soon not be called to God’s attention. Look at the shape he was in. His whole life as he’d known it was gone. God wasn’t interested in him.

As soon as Bobbie Ann was done, Lily Rae piped up. “Monte didn’t bow his head.”

Everybody turned to look at him. He scowled at Lily Rae, which made everybody laugh but her.

Lily Rae, frowning worriedly, turned to Bobbie Ann.

“We have to teach him manners,” Lily said.

That brought an even bigger laugh.

“Monte never did have any manners,” Clint said. “We tried to teach ’em to him, didn’t we, Jackson?”

“Sure did.”

Bobbie Ann smiled at the little girl, then threw Monte one of her famous looks.

“Yes, we do, sugar,” she said. “We’ll work on his manners.”

“Monte, why didn’t you close your eyes during the prayer?” Lily Rae asked.

He busied himself crumbling biscuits and drizzling gravy onto them. Maybe if he ignored her, she’d go away.

Maybe all of them would forget about him and talk about something else.

No such luck.

“Yeah, Monte,” Clint drawled. “I’d think you’d want to bow your head and close your eyes and thank God for showing you the way home.”

Monte’s stomach tightened.

But not so much that he couldn’t eat. This was the first home-cooked food he’d had for months. The gravy smelled heavenly.

“Ma,” he said, “I haven’t had a decent biscuit since I’ve been gone and no restaurant in the world can make sausage gravy like yours.”

“Well, at least you remember Ma’s cookin’,” Jackson said. “For the last several years we were star-tin’ to think you’d lost either your map or your memory.”

Monte shot a defiant glance at him and then one at Clint.

He’d have to have it out with his brothers before too many days went by. But then, he had known that for six years now.

“Why do you have my mommy’s horse?” Lily Rae said, attacking from another direction.

She was just like her mother. Same determination. She was going to make him talk to her, one way or the other.

He looked at her then, and tried his fiercest glare. Her wide, blue eyes never wavered. She took a big bite of a biscuit oozing with honey.

“Annie’s my horse,” he said finally. “I bought her at a sale.”

Lily stared at him thoughtfully while she chewed.

He could feel Jo Lena’s amused eyes on him. Delia’s, too. Everybody was listening.

“Annie was my mommy’s horse since she was a little foal,” Lily Rae said as soon as she could talk again.

“Yeah,” Delia put in, “she was. I remember when Annie was born, and when she was two I remember Jo Lena used to ride her.”

Delia’s voice was full of suppressed laughter.

Suddenly, aggravated as he was, Monte felt he was really home. Delia, at least, was going to treat him the same way she used to.

Well, to be truthful, so were Jackson and Clint, even if their baby brother was now thirty-one years old. Great irony in that.

He threw his sister a warning glance but, as always, she only laughed at him and raised her eyebrows, demanding an answer as Lily Rae asked another question.

“Are you going to sell Annie to us?” Lily said.

If Jo Lena thought this mouthy little girl was cute enough to make him change his mind about that horse, she had another think coming. He hadn’t bought the mare just so Jo Lena could own her again.

Matter of fact, at this moment, he couldn’t quite remember the reason he had bought her. Maybe for old times’ sake—memories had flooded through him like a river when he saw Annie come up the ramp onto the sale podium.

No. He had bought her for the foal she carried. The Quick Tiger and Sunny Meridian bloodlines could be a better cross to get a great cutter than most people might think.

“No,” Monte said shortly. “There’s no reason to sell her to you. You live on the same place with Annie and I’ll let you ride her anytime you want to.”

This shocked Lily Rae, who looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Nuh-uh! Mommy and me don’t live here. We live at our house!”

She turned to Jo Lena for confirmation.

Reluctantly, Monte stopped eating. Thoroughly annoyed, he glared at Jo Lena.

“You said…”

“You jumped to conclusions,” she said coolly. “I have my own room here—to change in. I ride nearly every day.”

“’Cause I like to play at Lupe’s,” Lily Rae said, naming the wife of Manuel, the ranch foreman. “She takes care of me and Maria.”

She took a long drink of milk, holding the glass with both hands.

Then she smiled at Monte with her milk mustache shining above her lip.

“I can ride, too,” she said, “and Mommy says Annie is a perfect horse for me.”

His whole family was watching and listening as if this was a movie.

Well, too bad. Let them think whatever they wanted. They already judged him as selfish to the core, so he’d just prove them right.

“I’ll let you ride Annie but I won’t sell her,” he said firmly. “Annie’s a good mare and I have plans for her.”

As those words left his mouth, he knew why it was that he’d bought the mare and why he was hanging on to her so fiercely.

It wasn’t that he wanted to keep Jo Lena hanging around him from now on, begging to buy her.

Annie was nine years old and she’d never had a foal. She was possibly a great mare who’d never been taken to her full potential. She’d never even competed in a big cutting futurity. He could train her for that and he could see what he could do with her first foal.