Cody couldn’t have looked more shocked if she’d announced that Luke was locked away at home with a harem.
“But that’s crazy,” he blurted at once. “We all know what happened was an accident. Nobody blames Luke. Hell, if anybody was at fault it was Daddy. He’s the one who backed Erik into a corner and made him try to be something he wasn’t. Any one of us could have taken a spill on that tractor. Accidents happen all the time on a ranch.”
Jessie couldn’t have agreed with him more, but she was startled that Cody recognized the truth. Of all of them, he had always seemed to be the least introspective. Cody seemed imperturbable, the one most inclined to roll with the punches. She’d always thought he accepted things at face value, including Harlan’s own view of himself as omnipotent. Obviously she’d fallen into the trap of viewing him merely as the baby in the family. The truth was he’d grown into a caring, thoughtful man.
“That’s what I tried to tell Luke, but the accident didn’t happen here. It happened on his land. He seems to think he should have prevented it somehow.” She looked into Cody’s worried eyes. “Talk to him. Maybe you can get him to see reason. I couldn’t.”
Cody looked doubtful. “Jessie, if you couldn’t reach him, I don’t see how I can. You were always able to communicate with him, even when the rest of us were ready to give up in frustration.”
Jessie sighed. “Well, not this time.”
At the doorway to the suite she had shared with Erik she paused. Cody leaned down and brushed a light kiss across her cheek. “I’m glad you’re back, Jessie. We’ve missed you around here. I think the last ounce of serenity around this place vanished the day you left.”
She was startled by the sweet assessment of her importance to this household where she’d always felt like an interloper. “Thanks, Cody. Saying that is the nicest gift anyone could have given me.”
He grinned. “Don’t say that until you’ve opened those packages downstairs. Something tells me everyone’s gone overboard in anticipation of your return and the arrival of the baby.” He winked at her. “One thing this family is very good at is bribery.”
“Bribery?”
“So you’ll stay, of course. You don’t think Daddy will be one bit happy about his first grandbaby growing up halfway across the state. He’s going to want to supervise everything from cradle to college. Hell, he’ll probably try to handpick her husband for her. Just be sure he doesn’t make her part of some business deal.”
Before Jessie could react to that, Cody was already thundering down the stairs again.
“Cody, for heaven’s sakes, remember where the dickens you are,” Harlan bellowed from somewhere downstairs.
“I’m just in a hurry to get another slice of Maritza’s pie,” Cody shouted back, unrepentant.
“No more pie until dinner,” Mary called out. “There won’t be a bit left for the rest of us.”
“Mother, Maritza’s been baking for a month,” Cody retorted. “There must be enough pies in the kitchen to feed half of Texas. You’ve only invited a quarter of the state at last count. One slice won’t be missed.”
Jessie stood for a moment longer, listening to the once-familiar bickering and decided that this, too, was what it meant to be part of a family. Somehow, though, with neither Erik nor Luke here the atmosphere had lost something vital—its warmth.
Feeling thoughtful and a little lonely, she opened the door to her suite, took a deep breath...and walked back into her past.
The house was empty. Luke found himself wandering from room to room, hating the oppressive silence, hating the sense of loneliness that he’d never noticed before. He’d always been a self-contained man. Hell, any cowboy worth his salt could spend days on end in the middle of nowhere, content with his own thoughts.
Suddenly he didn’t like his own company all that much. In a few short days, he’d grown used to Jessie invading his space at unexpected moments. He’d come to look forward to his own private time with Angela, their one-sided conversations, her sober, trusting gaze.
He stood at the doorway to his own bedroom and tried to force himself to cross the threshold. For some idiotic reason, he felt as if he were trespassing on Jessie’s private space, rather than reclaiming his own.
She’d left the room spotless, far neater than it had been when she’d arrived. The bed had been made up with fresh sheets. He knew because he’d heard the washing machine and dryer running and investigated. He’d found sheets and towels in the dryer, a load of his clothes in the washer.
He sighed. He almost wished she had left the old sheets on. Perhaps then, when he finally crawled back into that lonely bed of his, he might have been surrounded by her scent. Now, he knew, it would smell only of impersonal laundry detergent and the too-sweet fabric softener.
As he stood there he caught the glint of something gold on the nightstand beside the bed. The last rays of sunshine spilled through the window and made the metal gleam, beckoning him. Instinctively he knew whatever it was, it wasn’t his. Puzzled, he crossed the room to see what Jessie had left behind.
Even before he reached the nightstand, he realized what it was: a ring. Her wedding ring. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of it. He picked up the simple gold band and let it rest in the palm of his hand. Even though he knew what it said, he read the engraved message inside: Erik and Jessica—For Eternity.
What had she been thinking? he wondered. She must have taken it off when she was cleaning and simply forgotten it,
