Page 21 of Destined for the Cowboy

No family that had wanted him, anyway.

But Bud was here, and that was enough. Bud Dailey, the man who had, in essence saved him. Who’d given him a path, and the training to walk it. And who, in the end, had given him more than any blood family could have, a life he actually wanted to live.

But none of this explained why or how he’d known that the person he could see in the distance, far from where he’d parked, that slender woman in the long shirt over those leg-hugging things that made his pulse kick up, that woman who was too far away for him to see her face, was Tris.

Yet he had known. Been certain.

He’d known in time to leave without being seen. In time to avoid any contact with her at all. But he’d come over here anyway.

He was noticing a definite theme. Whenever Trista Thorpe Carhart was around his logic, common sense, and self-control seemed to vanish. And not necessarily in that order.

But even noticing that, he hadn’t been able to stop himself when she’d started toward him. As if he’d been roped by some rodeo star, he’d done the same, moved toward that vision up ahead, with her burnished hair and those bottomless blue eyes made so famous by her brother.

And he was thankful she had spoken first, even if it was about the weather, since opening words were apparently not a menu choice for him today. With her, anyway.

And they would be proud to have a man like you stand as they stood.

She’d stunned him speechless with that one. But he couldn’t help smiling. That anybody thought that of him was a prize, for Tris to not only think it but say it was a treasure.

The feeling that gave him enabled him to ask, “Do you always come back here to the originals, when you’re here?”

Her eyes widened as she looked at him. “That’s exactly what I call this, the originals section.”

Of course you do.He chalked up yet another instance of them thinking almost exactly alike. Maybe someday it wouldn’t totally disconcert him.

Quit thinking like this is going to continue. It can’t. And the reason why is buried here in this cemetery.

“Do you…feel better, after you’ve visited him here?” He didn’t clarify who he meant, knew he didn’t have to.

“Not really,” she said. “If I want to feel close to him, I go to the school. It’s like he’s in every wall of the new section. So, I don’t come here very often.” She gave him an odd look. “I’m notreally sure why I felt I needed to come today. But I did. And here you are.”

He drew back slightly. She’d said that as if she’d expected him to be here. Or at least, like she’d thought he might be. But she had no way of knowing this was a regular stop for him—it had never come up. They’d talked about many things, but certainly not visiting the Last Stand cemetery.

Surely she must have just been referring to the coincidence of them once again being in the same place at the same time. That explanation calmed him a bit, but then she blew that to bits.

“I was going to stop at Java Time on the way back home. Care to join me?”

No. No, I can’t. Shouldn’t. Won’t.

What came out was, “I’d like that.”

And so he found himself, a bare fifteen minutes later, sitting in the local coffee shop drinking the strongest black they had while Tris sipped on a creamy, frothy thing that looked more like a dessert than the caffeine deliverance system coffee was to him. So they weren’t alike in everything.

He should be relieved by that, but he was too tangled up in realizing he’d apparently been tracking the ways in which they were alike.

Feeling a little like a wary horse who wasn’t sure just how scared he should be of this new, big thing that seemed to be closing in on him, he watched her take a long sip of her warm drink before he spoke.

“Planned your next excursion yet?”So I can be sure to be elsewhere…

She gave him a delighted smile. “I talked to Jackson, and he loved the idea of taking Jeremy to the Apollo Mission Control Center. He may even go himself, if we can keep it quiet.”

That shook him out of his self-centered thoughts. What must it be like, to have to even think like that? Wonder if you couldor should go somewhere with your own sister and son, because your presence might cause an uproar?

“You should come with us, since it was your idea.”

He managed not to choke on his swallow of coffee. Barely. “I…no, it’s your family. You don’t want a stranger horning in.”

“Stranger? You’re not a stranger, Logan. To Jackson, to Jeremy, to any of us.” She gave him a long, steady look that was somehow unsettling. “Nor,” she added softly, “are you strange.”

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