Texas Heroes_ Volume 1(43)

“It’s too hot up there right now, in this afternoon heat. I wouldn’t recommend either of you going up there until morning.”

“What about tonight when it cools down?”

“There’s no electricity up there.”

“What about a flashlight?”

“I don’t know how good the footing is, but there’s a big window if you can wait until morning.”

Impatience jittered in Maddie’s expression.

Marlowe spoke up. “I second Boone. I’ve had to crawl through attics more than once. The heat is usually at least ten degrees higher. It’s already a hundred degrees outside. You’re talking heatstroke up there.”

She subsided, clearly disappointed.

“What are you looking for?” Boone asked.

“Anything I can find that would tell me something about my grandmother or my father.”

“I’ll show you what I’ve gathered in my files, Maddie,” Marlowe offered.

She turned a grateful smile on him, the wattage blinding.

He’s her kind, Boone. He comes from her world, the world you made Helen leave. Boone could see the writing on the wall. Marlowe would find Mitch. Maddie would gratefully return to her life. Hell, they might even wind up in New York together, for all he knew.

The thought turned his voice curt. “I’ll show you Sam’s files, Marlowe. Then I’ve got to get back to the barn.”

“You’ll stay for dinner, Dev?” Maddie asked.

Marlowe beamed. “You’re cooking?”

She nodded.

He turned to Boone. “This woman is feeding you? Do you know how lucky you are? A top-notch chef here in Morning Star, cooking in your kitchen?”

For some reason, Boone remembered radish roses. He glanced at Maddie, seeing her as the outside world knew her instead of a barefoot woman in cutoffs with flour on her cheek.

And he realized that he’d been a fool to entertain the idea that there would ever be a decision for Maddie to make. She wasn’t the woman who’d been living here with him, who petted calves and swung on the porch. That woman was an illusion, just like any person who’s on vacation assumes a persona that isn’t real.

He’d never even met the real Maddie Collins.

With the force of a sledgehammer, it hit Boone that somewhere deep inside he’d been harboring the tiny seed of a dream that could never happen.

Shaken, he retreated. “I have to get back to work. The files are this way.”

With a determined step, Boone crushed the tiny seed into powder.



Maddie stared out the kitchen window at the still-dark sky, her coffee cooling while her thoughts tumbled, unable to land on anything but how much she wished the sunlight would hurry.

Above her, she heard Boone’s steps heading for the shower. She glanced at the clock, judging when to put the biscuits into the oven. She’d been up for two hours. Boone might not want anything she’d cooked, but she’d needed to stay busy.

Too bad Dev hadn’t accepted their offer to stay here last night. He would talk to her, unlike Boone, who had reverted to the silent stranger she had first met.

Too bad Dev wasn’t the person she really wanted to know.

It was better this way, though. Hearing Dev’s enthusiastic response to her food, even when she didn’t have access to the ingredients she would have liked, had reminded Maddie that there was a whole world of people out there that would welcome her back from Nowhere, Texas. Maybe it was only because of her cooking, but that was all right.

She knew people. She would be fine.

But Boone would stay here, locked in his self-imposed prison, haunted by ghosts, some he wouldn’t discuss. He could die an old man here, never venturing farther than fifty miles away.

Stop being fanciful, Maddie. Boone was a grown man who had traveled the world. He would find someone to marry. He would have children. He would be just fine.

But something deep inside Maddie knew different. And that something ached for the man who had taken a couple of steps toward his prison door until the other night.

Now he had slammed the door shut. The Boone who had begun to smile just a little was long gone.

And Maddie missed him.

The shower shut off.

Maddie shut off her thoughts, too. She had one priority right now, finding out about her family. Proving her father’s innocence to everyone.

She opened the oven door and placed the biscuits inside.



Boone smelled bread baking and inwardly groaned. No slipping out of the house without encountering her this morning. When he entered the kitchen, he could see the restless night in her eyes. He nodded and headed for the coffee.

“Two eggs or three?” she asked.

His back turned to her, he sipped carefully. “Maddie, I told you not—”