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  “But you convinced him,” Keller said quietly.

  She looked at him then. Straight on and focused. “Once he realized that he could trust me.”

  “Trust you to what?” Ry asked, and she turned back.

  “To be honest with him. Not to cheat him on money or anything else. To do my best to get his work out to the world, and to make him enough money that he could quit his second and third jobs and make this his first.”

  Ry’s gaze shifted to Keller. He saw the question in his brother’s eyes. “Your call,” he said. “It’ll be an interruption for you, since you’ll be the excuse.”

  “Not an excuse,” Sydney said. “Or out of the ordinary. I’ve met lots of artists simply because I wanted to learn about their work, their process. Not just for my business, but because it interests me.”

  For a moment no one spoke. Then Ry let out a compressed breath. “If you trust her enough for this, that she’ll just leave without Lucas ever knowing if it comes to that, then I won’t blow it. Now can I go back to work, please.”

  It wasn’t really a question. When he turned away, then reached for the remote and the music came back on, Sydney looked at him and said, “I gather we’re dismissed?”

  “You gather right,” he agreed, and they headed back out the door.

  When it had closed behind them, he looked at her. “Mom said that box was from an artist in New Zealand.”

  “It is.”

  “And you went there to meet him.”

  She nodded. “After I ran into someone traveling in Europe, someone who knew him and showed me some photos.”

  “So you promptly flew to New Zealand?”

  “Well, not so promptly, since I was meeting a bag maker in Prague at the time, but Auckland was my next stop. He lives outside the city, and does a lot of work that portrays his homeland.” She nodded back toward the barn. “That’s a New Zealand falcon. A brave and very feisty bird, he told me.”

  “Fits, then,” Keller said.

  She looked up at him steadily as they walked back toward the house. “You’re very close to him, aren’t you.” It was more statement than question.

  “He’s my brother,” he said simply.

  *

  “You see?” she said quietly as they walked. “That’s what I want Lucas to have, and to have with him. That no questions asked, well of course we’re close, we’re family kind of thing.”

  “Which you’ve never had.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Then how do you expect to build it? That kind of connection doesn’t just happen because you wish it.”

  “Believe me,” she said with a grimace, “I know that. I wasted a lot of time wishing it for myself.”

  He stopped walking, turned to face her. “So what, you’re now expecting Lucas to fix that for you? Is this all about what you want, or what’s best for Lucas?”

  He didn’t sound angry, just concerned. And she couldn’t deny she’d started to wonder a bit about that last part herself. “I just want him to have what I never did. A real family.”

  “I might argue what ‘real’ means, but you do realize,” he drawled, “that means you’re still stuck with that family when they do something stupid, or that really ticks you off?”

  She smiled. “I can’t wait.” At his look, she added, “But I will. Because I gave you my word.”

  Something shifted in his gaze then, she wasn’t sure exactly what. “Your mom and dad,” he began, but stopped when she shook her head.

  “I was never allowed to call them that. I had to use their names.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “I think it helped them deny they’d ever been stupid enough to have me. At least, when I got old enough that I wasn’t as useful to them as they’d hoped.”

  “Useful?”

  “People are often more welcoming to strangers if you have a baby or small child. But the older that child gets, the less helpful it is.” Her mouth quirked. “And the harder to keep that child in line, especially while traveling all over.”

  “What about school?”

  “Frighteningly enough, my mother had been a teacher. She did the basics. I did a lot online. And in places where she found a temporary position, my going to school there was part of the deal.” She shrugged. “Once I learned to read and write, it was kind of moot, though. She just handed me a book and told me to read it and write a report.”

  “Efficient,” he said dryly. “Depending on who wrote the book.”

  She laughed. “I wrote a book report once, when I was about thirteen, calling the whole thing stupid and wrong, with a list of the reasons why. It was one of her favorites, so she didn’t like that much.”

  One corner of his mouth twitched, as if he were suppressing a smile. “Sounds like you had your own thirteen-year-old moments.”

  “I did,” she said cheerfully.

  Suddenly, decisively, he glanced at his watch, a utilitarian, well-used piece that looked slightly military. Maybe it was. His father’s? Then he looked back up at her. “We’ve got about three hours before Lucas gets home. Feel like going for a ride?”

  “On a horse?”

  His brow furrowed. “What else?”

  She shrugged. “A camel or an elephant, or worse, an ostrich.”

  He stared at her. “And you’ve ridden all those?”

  “At one time or another, yes.”

  “Sorry, not a single ostrich.”

  “Don’t be sorry. The one I rode was the crankiest, nastiest creature I ever encountered.” She smiled then. “And I’d love to go for a ride. I want to see where Lucas has been living.”

  “It’ll probably bore you to tears, after all the places you’ve been.”

  She thought of the painting again, of the colors, the expansiveness, of the pure love of place that had been poured into it. “Don’t miss the beauty just because you see it every day,” she said softly.

  He looked startled, then thoughtful. “I try not to. I love this place, but sometimes there’s so much work I forget to stop and remember that.”

  Curious, she tilted her head as she looked at him. “What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from Texas?”

  His mouth quirked. “Geographically, Mexico City. Philosophically, Austin.”

  She couldn’t help the laugh that burst from her. And realized, with a jolt, just how much she was coming to like this man.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sydney patted the horse on the neck; he’d noticed she’d taken several minutes to get acquainted with the good-tempered paint. He’d been right, she clearly liked horses, and wasn’t unfamiliar.

  “What a sweetheart you are,” she murmured to him, “as well as beautiful.” She looked at Keller. “What’s his name?”

  Keller grimaced. “Latte.” She blinked. “His sire’s name is Cappuccino. What can I say?”

  She smiled, and he managed not to grin stupidly. Barely. “Fits, if he’s as laidback as you say. Was he born here on the ranch?”

  He shook his head. “We got him from the Walkers, over in Whiskey River.” At her questioning look he explained, “Town about twenty miles from here. They breed good horses.” He smiled crookedly. “And expensive. We only got him because he tested positive for a gene variation that can cause fatal problems in foals if matched with a mare with the same, so they gelded him.”

  “Sounds…sad but responsible.”

  He nodded. “They are. And good people. Some breeders would have just put him down as a foal.”

  “I would say those breeders shouldn’t be allowed to breed themselves,” she said sweetly.

  “I would not argue that,” he said with a smile. But then he might have said the same about her parents, and if it were so, she wouldn’t exist. And the world would be short a very unique person.

  Well, now, Rafferty, that’s a weird thought to be having…

  She patted the horse’s neck again, then moved back toward the saddle. The paint was a big boy, nearly sixteen hands,
so he walked over. “I’ll give you a leg up.”

  “I can do it.”

  He nearly laughed; she’d sounded like Lucas. “Didn’t say you couldn’t,” he drawled. “But you can barely see over his withers, and I’m here, so take the lift.”

  She grimaced, but nodded. He bent and held out a hand. Just one; she was a tiny thing, and if he couldn’t handle it, he needed to go throw some more hay bales around. She stepped on his outstretched palm, and got aboard smoothly enough. She reached out and took up the reins, gently. He watched, strictly for assessing purposes. Of her riding ability, not her…body.

  Although as female bodies went, he had no complaints. What he did have a complaint about was how his own body reacted to being that close to her. He spun on his heel and walked around to Blue’s left side. Stood there for a moment, needlessly fiddling with the knife sheath Ry had made for him, for their father’s Ka-Bar combat knife, which he always carried when riding out on the ranch. You never knew when you might need a good knife.

  What you really need is to keep your eyes—and your hands—off of her.

  She looked at him. “Is there a name for his coloring?”

  “He’s a piebald overo. Overo is the color pattern—and the link to the genetic problem—piebald’s the black and white.”

  She eyed Blue. “And him?”

  “Blue roan.”

  “Blue? I mean I see the effect, but—”

  “Equal mix of black hairs and white.”

  “Oh,” she said with a nod. Then she leaned forward to pat the horse once more, straightened, and lifted the reins, although in more of an English style.

  “He’s trained to neck rein,” he said neutrally.

  “Okay.”

  She acted like someone who knew the basics but maybe hadn’t done it in a while. Which was exactly what she was, apparently.

  A camel or an elephant, or worse, an ostrich.

  He couldn’t even imagine a nomadic life like that, with no ties, or why, after her childhood, she’d kept at it. And as they rode out, he decided he’d never have a better chance to find out, as long as she was already talking.

  “When you were roaming the world with them, how did your parents decide where to go next?”

  “There was never any rhyme, reason, or plan that I could see,” she said. “They’d see or hear something about some new place and decide to go.”

  “Just like that?”

  She shrugged. “They aren’t big into research or examining anything closely.”

  “Not even about possible hazards or travel warnings?”

  “Especially not that,” she said, and now her tone had that tinge of almost bitterness again. “And we once ended up in the middle of a local territorial dispute because of it.”

  “What about you, now?”

  She gave him a sideways look. “I do my homework. And have yet to end up in a war zone.”

  “Wise,” he said neutrally. “But how do you decide where to go?”

  “I go where the artisans are. I have a pretty good network now, of people who let me know when they find someone they think is a good fit. And they spread the word.”

  “So your childhood was what…good practice?”

  For the first time he saw a flash of weariness in those amber eyes. “It was all I knew. I just managed to find a way to make a living at it.”

  He thought she’d done quite a bit better than just make a living, but he didn’t push it. He was too busy thinking about the words that seemed almost sad to him. It was all I knew.

  They rounded the main barn and headed north. He had in mind where he wanted to take her, the high spot near Chance’s place that had the best view on the ranch, in one direction looking toward Hickory Creek, the other out toward the Pedernales in the distance, the rolling hills and a couple of dramatic drop-offs where a limestone outcropping jutted out. The bluebonnets had mostly died back by now, but there was one sheltered spot near the Lacey oak that seemed to cling to them longer. There might still be some there.

  He wasn’t really sure why that mattered, or even why he was doing this. But it appeared they’d decided to let her into Lucas’s life, so she was going to be around for a while.

  What would happen after that, only time—and maybe the courts—would tell.

  After a moment, she spoke again. “In the beginning, when I got old enough to realize that few people lived the way they did, I used to admire them for it.” She smiled wryly. “Then when I was a teenager and started thinking with all that teen drama, I wondered if they were on the run from something horrible they’d seen, or been victims of.”

  “I’d be wondering if it was from something they’d done,” he muttered.

  “Oh, I got there eventually.”

  “Did you ever ask them?”

  “I did.” Her hand moved up to her cheek as if involuntarily. “I got backhanded for my trouble.” He winced. “I suppose you never got hit?”

  “No. Yanked a bit, when I was ten or so. I whined too often about my father being deployed all the time. My mother yanked me into a chair, called me disrespectful and selfish, and gave me a lecture about duty, pride, and loving my country that I’ve never forgotten.”

  “I can picture her doing that.”

  “Worst thing she ever said to me.”

  “Selfish? Wow.”

  “What was the worst thing for you?”

  “‘Hurry up, Sydney, or we’ll leave you here.’” She grimaced again. “Or rather, the day I realized it wasn’t a joke.”

  He couldn’t describe the feeling that came over him when he realized she wasn’t kidding. “Your parents,” he said slowly, “are the most supremely selfish people I’ve ever heard of.”

  “I know that. Now.” The sadness in her voice and on her face made his throat so tight he couldn’t speak. “I finally realized they never really grew up. So they keep wandering, looking for whatever they’re looking for, but never finding it.”

  A squirrel darted out of the brush, startling Blue into a quick sidestep, while Latte stayed placid, merely turning his head to watch the creature as it sped across the faint trail and into the thicker brush on the other side.

  “He’s very calm,” she noted, patting the paint’s neck again.

  “He’s rock solid,” Keller agreed.

  She gave him a sideways look. “Yours, not quite so much.”

  He couldn’t help it—he grinned. “Blue and I have reached an agreement. I put up with the occasional tap dance, and in return he’ll work the legs off any other horse on the ranch.”

  She smiled, widely, and he felt a pleasure all out of proportion to the simple fact that the sadness had gone from her expression.

  They rode on for a bit in silence, but a question he hadn’t asked was nagging at him. Finally, he just went for it. “So how do they afford all this traveling?”

  “My mother’s trust fund.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Her late father was very successful. And smart—he set it up so she could only get a monthly stipend until she was thirty.” She sighed. “But when she could draw on it at will, they really started going through it. Once I got fairly decent at math, I warned them they were going to drain it. They blew me off. I was just a kid; what did I know?”

  “And now?” he said, although he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

  Again she shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “They come to me when they need money.”

  “And you give it to them?”

  “They’re my parents.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “I thought you didn’t know anything about family ties.”

  She laughed, and it had the same bitter note as before. “Are you really comparing that to what you have?”

  “No. There is no comparison.”

  They rode on. He pointed out the green kingfisher flying overhead. “Hill Country’s the only place you’ll see them,” he said, and she jokingly—he thought—asked if she’d see an armadillo
anytime soon.

  “You’re being very open,” he said finally.

  “I’m being honest,” she said. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s a Rafferty requirement.”

  He blinked. Smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” Then, feeling more than a little baffled, he asked, “How did you ever turn out like you did?”

  The bitterness was gone when she answered softly, “Maybe I got it from the same place my aunt and uncle did.”

  Her aunt and uncle. “Lucas’s parents.”

  “I know what it feels like not to be wanted. To not have…a place in life. I don’t want him to ever feel that way.”

  And yet Lucas, if her account was true and he thought it was, had had more of a good start in life than she ever had. And her words, that she’d said them at all, removed the last of his doubts about her sincerity. She meant everything she’d said. She wanted to be part of Lucas’s life.

  He just wondered how Lucas would feel about a globe-trotting relative who dropped into his life and then flitted back out again on another distant jaunt. Because Keller was certain she would. A woman like this would never settle down here in small-town Texas, any more than Anna had. Lucas had better be aware from that at the outset.

  And as they rode on, he had the thought that Lucas wasn’t the only one.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sydney wasn’t sure what had made him change, only that something had. He’d been less antagonistic since the meetings with his mother and his brother, but now he seemed practic­ally…accept­ing. She was almost afraid to speak, for fear she’d somehow say something wrong and send them backward. Because she knew for certain that this man had the power to stop her in her tracks. Yes, his respect and love for his mother was obvious, but so was hers for him. And if he put his foot down, as the eldest son, she had a distinct feeling it would carry as much weight as his dead father’s would have.

  She’d met a lot of men from a lot of places, some of them soft and some hard, some wastrels and some productive, some followers and some leaders…some cowards and some courageous. But she’d rarely met one that exhibited the better of all those opposite qualities. She had the feeling she had met one now.