A family man and a rancher. A very contented rancher. He hadn’t believed it possible, that he could so completely put his rangering days behind him. But Lori had given him a future, one he gave thanks for every day of his life.
And he had discovered, in his own time and his own way, that he had made rangering his life simply because he knew nothing else, because it had been the only family he had ever known. He had made himself the “perfect” Ranger because it was the only identity he had.
He’d told Lori once that being a Ranger was what he was, nothing more. He knew now there was so much more to him. And he also knew he could never be a Ranger again. He could never again act without caring, without hesitating, without being sure he wasn’t making a mistake. He no longer had the instincts of a hunter. The sharp edges had been blunted by contentment, by a love that grew rather than diminished with time. He relished every touch, every smile, every laugh from Lori. Even the arguments, sometimes especially the arguments, because they always ended in passion.
And he cherished his children, two-year-old Nick and eight-month-old Joy, who was a bundle of plump sweetness. He never tired of watching them, fascinated with every new step they took, elated at the smiles that lit their faces when they saw him. He wanted them to have everything he hadn’t had, all the love and family and security.
Smoke came from the cabin below. Just as it had three years ago when he was a predator rather than protector. Three years. He wiped the mist from his eyes as he viewed his world now: the warm, inviting home, horses in the corral, the bull in the paddock. Hundreds of beeves were grazing in the open range he shared with Nick.
And inside, Lori. Lori with the glowing eyes and spontaneous smile and zest for life. Lori, who had given him so much love, whose lilting voice so often filled the house with music, whose fierce loyalty to those she loved never dimmed. Lori, who had filled every nook and cranny in him, in what had once been little more than a shell.
He watched as a horse approached the cabin and smiled slowly as Nick dismounted. He was a regular visitor, he and Beth and their children, Maggie and new twin sons, just as he and Lori were to Nick’s home. They had grown close these years, Morgan and Nick, each finding in the other strengths that complemented his own.
With Morgan and Andy’s help Nick had built a new home for himself and Beth, Maggie and the boys. Several months after sharing the same, but enlarged, cabin, they’d decided one of them needed a new home. Nick had insisted they toss a coin for the cabin, and Morgan had won. He still suspected that Nick had cheated, that his brother had known that the cabin held a special significance to Morgan and Lori.
There had been no more trouble from the posters. The Rangers had sent notices to every sheriff in four states that the reward had been rescinded, and Nick and Morgan had stayed in Wyoming these past three years, quietly building the ranch. The lawmen in the surrounding areas were all aware of the circumstances and ready to quash the expectations of any would-be bounty hunter.
Andy was Nick’s top hand, turning into a first-class wrangler. Old enough, and steady enough now, to be charged with returning to Texas in a few weeks to bring up additional longhorns.
Nick and Lori’s family had wintered with them. Jonathon and Fleur and Daniel, and this time an out-of-luck magician who had charmed Maggie and astounded them all with his sleight of hand. If a few items had disappeared with him, Morgan had merely chalked it down to payment for services. He no longer believed in black and white; he’d discovered that life was never that exact, that living life, really living it, meant compromise and accepting weaknesses as well as strengths, in himself as well as others.
He’d learned that Jonathon’s inherent decency, his compassion toward other people, more than compensated for his rather loose interpretation of honesty. Daniel had taught Morgan that, and Morgan found himself looking forward to Jonathon’s visits, to that blind optimism and sense of adventure that was so much a part of him. And to long philosophical discussions with Daniel, who was godfather to young Nick.
How easily Morgan had once dismissed them as charlatans and crooks.
Nick wriggled in his arms. “Go home,” he demanded.
Morgan looked up at the endless blue sky above, the valley below that held his heart. He leaned down and rumpled Nick’s tawny hair. “All right, Button,” he said, hearing the elation in his own voice, a happiness that still astounded him at times. “We’re going home.”
About the Author
Patricia Potter is a USA Today–bestselling author of more than fifty romantic novels. A seven-time RITA Award finalist and three-time Maggie Award winner, she was named Storyteller of the Year by Romantic Times and received the magazine’s Career Achievement Award for Western Romance. Potter is a past board member and president of Romance Writers of America. Prior to becoming a fiction author, she was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and the president of a public relations firm in Atlanta. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1994 by Patricia Potter
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0700-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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