Page 81 of Devoured

But it stayed with her, that fragment, the weight of it. Things were moving over there, on the other side of the wall.

Inside, John sat at the desk by the window with an envelope in his hands. He wasn't opening it. Just turning it slowly between his fingers, looking at the handwriting on the front.

Lara caught a glimpse of the return address as she passed with the coffee pot. A man's hand, slanted. A foreign postmark.

Brod—

John turned the envelope face-down before she could read the rest.

"Morning, sweetheart," he said easily. "That coffee for me?"

"If you want it."

"I want it."

She poured him a cup. Neither of them mentioned the envelope. Whatever was inside it would open when John was ready. She was starting to understand that about this family, things got carried quietly here until people were ready to set them down.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she crossed back toward the sink. A voicemail; she'd missed it up on the rise where the signal dropped. She pressed it to her ear.

"Okay, don't make it weird," Addi said immediately, voice low and fast, "and don't tell Mom, and definitely don't tell the cowboy yet, because he'll get ideas, but I've been looking at flights, and I might come back out there for Thanksgiving."

Lara smiled before she could stop herself.

"Strictly to check on you. Obviously. Not because I liked it. I did not like it, there are too many cows and the town has one traffic light." A pause. "...There's something about that place, though." Another pause. "Anyway. Don't say anything yet. Love you. Bye."

The line clicked dead. Lara slipped the phone back into her pocket, still smiling.

Then she went looking for the rest of it. The morning. The noise. The life waiting outside.

Through the kitchen window she could see Helen hanging washing on the line. Giana curled on the porch steps with a book and the one-eared rabbit tucked against her chest. Levi crouched near the shed doing something to a truck tire that looked dangerous enough to become somebody else's problem shortly.

And Dean, coming out of the barn now with his hat pushed back, scanning the yard until he found her, and the look on his face changing the second he did.

Lara stepped out onto the porch.

Dean met her halfway across the yard.

He didn't say her name.

He didn't have to.

Behind him, the screen door banged open. Levi looked between the two of them and grinned.

"You're home."

Lara looked at Dean. Then past him, at the house, the smoke rising from the chimney, the dogs weaving through the yard, the whole loud ordinary morning of the place going on around her, hers to keep.

"I'm home," she said.

DESIRED

THE ROYSTON COWBOYS BOOK 2

CHAPTER ONE

His father wanted him to manipulate a grieving stranger into handing over her own land, and Mason had every intention of doing no such thing.

He just hadn't said so yet.