“I’m here, you get my ass up to go turn out the horses.”

My belly flip-flopped.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“I don’t know what time it is but I know I don’t want to know what time it is. You get up this early every day?”

“I have a lot to do in the mornings and a long commute.”

He dropped his boots on the floor, strolled into the room and came right to me.

He didn’t kiss me or touch me.

What he did do was lift a finger.

Wesley hopped on it.

Johnny turned his hand to his shoulder and Wesley hopped there.

My whole world trembled, because although it was arguable, that might be better than a morning kiss.

I felt it, as I would.

I also ignored it.

Then Johnny grabbed the pot out of the coffeemaker at the same time he took one of the cups hanging on hooks under the cupboards.

“Go do what you do to morph into working girl. I’ll make breakfast.”

“Working woman,” I corrected.

His still sleepy, beautiful eyes cut to me.

“Don’t bust my chops at three o’clock in the morning.”

“It’s five thirty, Johnny.”

His attractive and sometimes ominous thick brows shot up.

“What’d I say about not busting my chops?”

I grinned up at him.

“Go,” he rumbled.

I kept grinning, turned on a Wellington-clad foot and headed to the back door.

I took the boots off, tossed them on the back porch and headed out of the kitchen but stopped at the door and turned back.

Johnny, with Wesley still perched on his shoulder, was peering into the open fridge, one hand on the handle, the other hand held up to his side with his long, strong fingers wrapped around one of my heavy cream coffee cups.

“Johnny?” I called.

He twisted to me but didn’t close the refrigerator door.

“You didn’t turn into a unicorn,” I pointed out.

“I still got the equipment to drill you so if you don’t wanna be late to work, you best stop being cute at the same time you’re being a smartass and get on with morphing into working woman.”

“Message received,” I returned, smiling hugely at him.

“Izzy, no human on earth who’s normal smiles that big at three o’clock in the morning,” he growled.

“It’s five thirty,” I repeated.

“Baby?” he called.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Get the fuck upstairs.”

I kept smiling at him.

After I did that for as long as I thought he could take it, I turned and dashed up my stairs.

Ghostrider

Johnny

HE TOOK THE call even though he didn’t know who was behind the number that showed on his screen.

He shouldn’t have.

After answering, she spoke in his ear.

“Johnny?”

He closed his eyes.

Three years.

That voice was back after three years.

Christ, would this never be done?

“Johnny,” she said softly.

He opened his eyes.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he whispered.

“Johnny,” she whispered back.

“Don’t,” he ordered.

“I’m coming to town.”

“Don’t,” he repeated.

“I need to see you.”

“Three years,” he stated.

She had nothing to say to that.

“And you call and say you’re coming to town and you wanna see me?” he demanded.

“We need to talk.”

“You made your decision.”

“There are things I need to say to you.”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“It was out of my control.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You didn’t understand.”

“I understood. I understood you walked out my fuckin’ door a week after my father died.”

“You know why. I had no choice.”

“I told you your choices, you just chose the wrong one.”

“You couldn’t ask me to do that.”

“You’re not remembering it right. I could. I did. And you gave me your answer by walking out my door.”

“He’s my brother. What was I supposed to do?”

“Not go on the lam with him.”

“You know how it was with us,” she said quietly.

“I knew. So . . . what? Now you’re calling and wanna talk, tell me he did the right thing, turned himself in, he’s serving his time and you’re free of his shit?”

“He . . . I don’t know where he is.”

Johnny closed his eyes again, muttering, “Right.”

“I’ve . . . it’s over.”

Johnny opened his eyes and repeated, “Right.”

“I’m done with him. He’s had his last chance.”

“You need money?” Johnny asked.

“No.” She sounded struck. “Of course not.”

“So why are you calling, Shandra?”

She was back to whispering. “Johnny.”

“You destroyed me.”

She didn’t whisper.

She said nothing at all.

“Dad died. Toby was being his usual Toby. Your asshole of a brother was pulling his usual felonious shit. He needed you. I needed you. And you chose him.”

“I asked you to come with us,” she reminded him.

“On the lam with an asshole who’d robbed a bank?” he asked incredulously.

“You could have talked some sense into him. He listened to you.”

“He didn’t listen to anyone, Shandra, except the voice in his head that drove him to do stupid, selfish acts of assholery.”

“He was all I had.”

Christ.

Christ.

Why did that still burn?

“Yeah, in the end he was, because you made it that way.”

She sounded wounded. “Johnny, you know what I mean.”

Oh, he knew what she meant.

“So you can’t forgive me,” she said, sounding sad now.

“I forgave you five weeks later, the day I had to put Lace down, which also happened to be the day I finished that fucking bathroom you designed that you loved so much and couldn’t wait to use so bad, you put that jar in it to start decorating it before I got the damned thing done. It was then it became clear to me your dad was a dick, your mom was a piece of shit, and growing up, all you had was your brother. Until you met me. But when it came down to it, your loyalty was to blood. I get that. I still put up with Toby’s shit, so I get that. That doesn’t negate the fact the choice you made communicated where I stood. And from your choice, where I stand hasn’t changed.”

“You had to put Lace down?” she asked, not masking this news was upsetting, as it would be. She’d loved that horse. They all had.

He saw her, her red hair streaming behind her, the smile she’d aim down at him from under her hat, astride Lace while he and his dad sat on his dad’s porch, grinning like idiots because Johnny had done what his father had failed to do.

Found a good woman who loved him more than anything on the earth.

One good thing about his father dying before she took off.

He never knew that wasn’t true.

“He went, she declined so fast, it was like she knew and didn’t wanna be in a world without him in it.”

“Oh God, Johnny,” she said gently.

“Can we be done with this?”

“I . . . still have Ranger. He’s good. Healthy and happy. But I think he still misses you.”