Randy was allergic to sad. “I hear you,” Randy agreed. “We covered ourselves there.”
“Okay, so we have our maps and everything, right?” Lewis headed toward the driver’s side, and Randy, happy to accommodate him, headed to the passenger side. Randy had sold his own truck and put the money into a short-term bond. He’d do his share of the driving but would let Lewis call the shots. He was happy to let Lewis lead—as long as he was leading in the right direction.
“We have our maps,” Randy said. “And GPS. Our cell phones are both charged, and we have the cords and chargers to keep them that way. We have two thermoses of coffee, sandwiches, nibbles, cash on hand, and our debit and credit cards.”
“We’re heading to Texas, first, to visit our brothers and our cousins and meet wives and babies. While we’re there, we’ll check in online and see if we’ve had any responses to our inquiries into land available for purchase in our four-state area of preference.”
They’d agreed to look for a new place in Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. They’d come to the conclusion that they needed to make their own way in this world. They had money saved, having invested early, and all they needed to do was find a place that felt like home.
They were best friends and trusted each other more than they trusted any other soul, period. Despite the odds, the two of them had become brothers, more surely than if they’d been born that way.
“Trace and Lucas swear the internet where they are is awesome. So it shouldn’t be a problem for us to make progress on our search while we’re there.”
“Good.” Lewis reached for the key then sat back. “One more thing I think we have to go over, just to make sure we’re both on the same page.”
“Okay, cousin. Shoot.”
“We are only going to Lusty for a visit. We are not staying. We are not meeting some woman who would make us the perfect wife. Not that I have anything against those who do, and not that you and I haven’t shared a few…encounters…in the past. They were good, and they were fun. But that is not where we are headed right now. Right? So, we’re only going to visit the family in Texas. Maybe stay a couple of weeks. Hell, maybe even three or four. And then we’re going to find that place that’s meant to be ours, that place that feels like home. Right?”
Randy Benedict, son of John and Mary, brother to Trace and Lucas, Carl and George, was an honest man. Except, of course, when being honest simply would not get the job done.
He’d thought about this ever since he’d heard from his brothers and his cousins who’d relocated to Texas and examined the way he’d felt when they’d talked about their lives and lifestyles there.
So, when his cousin Lewis—his best friend, the man his heart knew as brother—said he’d had enough, that he wanted to find his own place, Randy immediately threw his lot in with him.
Because Randy Benedict had a hunch. Not a plan, that was Lewis’s strong suit, but he had a hunch. His family had called the two of them—him and Lewis—a couple of mavericks all their lives, and Randy felt he was finally living up to that moniker. And like any true maverick, from here on out, he was going to be unconventional and spontaneous to the max.
He turned to his best friend and met his gaze and prayed his serious face was all Lewis would see. “Right. We’re going to visit the family, and then we’re going to find that place that’s meant to be ours.”
Randy didn’t lie, exactly. He just didn’t say all that was on his mind—or in his heart. Because his hunch was that there was indeed a place that was meant to be theirs, a place that would feel like home. The woman? The one he believed they were destined to share? She’d likely come later. Much, much later.
As Lewis started the truck and headed down Randy’s family’s long driveway for what would probably be the last time, Randy knew without a doubt they were heading to the place that was meant to be theirs. And that place had a name.
Lusty, Texas.
* * * *
Michaela Powell stepped out onto the front porch, greeting the new day as the sun shone bright in the east. Stretching, she sighed and took a moment to pull her hair up the scrunchie capturing her light brown tresses that had grown longer over the last six months.
She’d have to decide if she wanted her hair to get longer still of if maybe it wasn’t time to head into Waco and get something done with it. She didn’t want short short hair, but she didn’t like the extra work that accompanied long hair. Before she’d returned home, she’d kept her hair in a chic, well-groomed, every-hair-in place kind of style.
What she’d dubbed modern office professional.
But Michaela no longer worked in an office, nor did she plan to in the foreseeable future.
I should wait until after my meeting with the lawyer.
That would probably be wise. She wanted to stay, more than she’d thought she would when she left Austin and came home. But could she?
She had an appointment in an hour with Jake Kendall, her father’s attorney, and wasn’t it just weird that the man was one she’d met first on the phone and then come to know through working as a server at Angel’s Roadhouse?
Jake Kendall, she’d heard, didn’t take on a whole lot of clients outside the family. When it came to Kendalls, Benedicts, and Jessops, there sure were a lot of them hereabouts. More, certainly, than there’d been when she’d left six years before for college in Austin at the ripe old age of eighteen.
She’d pursued a degree in graphic design and had worked for
