Thunderbolt over Texas

She bit down, smiling her appreciation of the delicacy.

He popped the other half into his own mouth, thinking he could happily stay here for the rest of his life.

“So,” she continued around the berry. “Your great-great-granddaddy, the infamous and sexy Jarred Erickson-”

“I believe I take after him,” said Cole, pushing himself into a sitting position, striking a pose among half a dozen plump, white pillows and a billowing comforter.

“The sexy part or the infamous part?” she asked, bending her knees to cross her ankles in the air and resting her chin on her interlaced fingers.

Cole took in her tousled hair and her bare buttocks. Yep. Definitely forever. “I’m thinking both,” he said.

She grinned and reached for her champagne flute. “So you’re telling me Jarred decreed that the ranch should stay as one parcel into perpetuity?”

Cole nodded. “My ancestors were big on decrees. Every few generations, somebody comes up with something that wreaks havoc for a couple hundred years.”

He figured most of them were lunatics, particularly those who had taken to piracy.

She took a sip of the champagne, and he had to curb an urge to kiss the sweetness from her mouth.

“And your solution is to come up with some new decrees?” she asked.

“Damn straight. It’s my turn. I complied with theirs-”

Sydney coughed out a laugh.

“What?”

“You complied with what, exactly?”

“Passing on the Thunderbolt.”

“Ha. You had to be railroaded into marriage.”

That was unfair. He frowned at her. “It’s completely voluntary.”

“As a last resort.”

He reached for his own champagne, leaning back against the birch headboard. “Point is, it’ll get the job done.”

“You’re also splitting the ranch in half, in defiance of Great-great-granddaddy Jarred.”

“That’s just common sense. Keeping it intact was a stupid idea.”

“Are you always this determined that you’re right and everyone else is wrong?”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” she mimicked.

“Hey, if a man doesn’t trust his own judgment, what’s left?”

She laughed again, nearly spilling her champagne. Then she twisted into a sitting position, rearranging the comforter over her lap. “You know, whoever came up with the wenches and ale rule, sure had you Erickson men pegged.”

“Wenches and ale?”

“Yeah. You know. The wenches and ale.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Didn’t your grandma tell you?”

Cole shook his head.

Sydney leaned across him, snagging another strawberry and dipping it in the cream. “That’s why the women get the brooch.” She popped the berry into her mouth. “Somebody back in the fourteenth century decided you guys might sell it for wenches and ale. You know, the Erickson of the day would change the tradition. And, poof, there would go the Thunderbolt.”

Cole couldn’t help but grin.

“What?” she asked.

“Who needs wenches and ale?” He lifted his flute in a mock toast. “I’ve got champagne and-”

“Watch it, cowboy.”

He leaned forward and kissed her strawberry lips, taking the safe route. “A princess.”

She pulled back. “A princess?”

Okay, too sappy. “A hot babe?”

She raised her eyebrows.

He decided to go with the truth. “A beautiful, intelligent, funny, gracious lady?”

“That’s not bad.”

He took the champagne from her hand and set both glasses down on the bedside table. “Come here,” he said, needing to feel her all over again. He gathered her into his arms and they stretched out on the comforter.

She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

He stroked her hair, releasing its scent. “Wenches and ale. How is it you know more about my family than I do?”

“I’m nosey. I ask lots of questions.”

He settled his arm more comfortably around her. Traffic sounds came to life on the street below, and the rising sun flashed its orange rays through the balcony doors.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said, twirling a lock of her hair around his index finger.

“Fire away.”

“You said you had foster parents.”

She nodded. “I lost my parents in a house fire when I was five.”

Cole tightened his arm around her, and the ceiling fan whooshed into the silence.

“My foster parents were friends of the family. Nanny Emma and Papa Hal raised me. But they were older. And they’ve both since passed away.”

Cole’s heart went out to her. He didn’t know what he’d do without his family. “You must miss them all.”

“Nanny and Papa, yes. But I don’t really remember my parents at all. I have these vague images of them in my mind.”

“What about pictures?”

“Burned in the fire. A few of the neighbors had shots of my father from a distance, but they tell me my mother was always behind the camera, not in front of it.”

Cole’s chest tightened at the injustice. Never to know what your mother looked like? At twenty, he’d ached for his mother. Sydney had been five.

Protective instincts welled up inside him. “What about newspapers? Her high school yearbook? Surely somebody-”

“It’s okay.” Sydney reached over and stroked her palm across his beard-stubbled cheek, comforting him, when he should have done it for her.

“What do you remember?” he asked, covering her small hand with his own.

“My mother’s locket.” Sydney relaxed against him again, smiling at what was obviously a touchstone memory. “It was silver, oval-shaped. It had a flower, I think it was a rose, etched into the front. I don’t know whose picture was inside, but it would dangle down when she bent over to hug me. I distinctly remember reaching for it. Her hair was blond, and it sort of haloed around the locket.”

“Where’s the locket now?”

“Destroyed by the fire.”

“Oh, Sydney.”

“It’s really okay.”

He tucked her hair behind one ear and gently kissed the top of her head. “I guess that explains a lot.”

She tipped her chin to look up at him, green eyes narrowing. “Explains what?”

“Your profession. Your burning desire to locate antiquities.”

She pulled back. “I locate antiquities because I have a master’s degree in art history.”

“You have a master’s degree because you’ve spent your life looking for the locket.”

“That’s silly. The locket was destroyed more than twenty years ago.”

He touched her temple with his index finger. “Maybe in here.” He placed his hand over her heart. “But not in here.”