Read Lone Star Lonely for Free Online Page A

over all this again. Not now.
    “I’ll fill you all in,” Garrett said, not
letting him down. None of his brothers would ever let him down. If
there was one thing he could depend on, it was that simple fact.
Garrett sent Adam a nod, telling him to go on, do what he had to.
Adam had a feeling his brother already knew what that was.
    Adam started across the room, heading for the
stairs as Garrett spoke. “Kirsten’s fine. Shaken, but fine. For
now. She might be a suspect in Cowan’s murder, though. She’s been
at the rangers’ station in El Paso most of the day, but she’s home
now and—”
    “I’m going over there,” Penny
interrupted.
    That stopped Adam in his tracks. He spun
around even before Garrett could speak. “I don’t want you going
anywhere near that place, Penny.”
    “She’s my best friend, and she needs me.”
    “And there’s a killer on the loose. Ben,
don’t let her go over there.”
    Ben frowned at his brother but knew better
than to mistrust him. “Honey, if Adam thinks it’s dangerous….” he
began.
    “Well, if it’s dangerous for me, then what
about Kirsten? Somebody ought to be over there watching out for
her. She shouldn’t even be there, for the love of heaven! I have to
go. She’ll listen to me.”
    Ben stroked his wife’s hair. “Hey, slow it
down, will you? I lost you once, honey, and I’m damned well not
going to risk losing you again.” He pressed one hand to her
slightly expanded belly. “And you have the baby to think about now,
too.”
    She pressed her lips together as Garrett and
Chelsea both chimed in, backing Ben up one hundred percent. “But
what about Kirsten?” she asked.
    Adam sighed heavily. “I’ve got that covered,
hon.”
    All three of them stared at him as if he’d
grown another head, while Garrett just sighed as if he’d been
expecting this.
    “Adam, do you really think that’s the best
idea?” Ben asked. “One of us could probably handle watching out for
Kirsten for a few days while all this sorts itself out. I could go
over right now, and—”
    “Right. Look, Ben, you have the martial arts
school and a pregnant wife. Garrett’s got the ranch to run, and
with just him and Elliot to do it, he can’t spare the time. Not to
mention his duties as sheriff. Wes is busy with the mares about to
foal, and Jessi and Lash are whooping it up with the big mouse in
Orlando. I’ll handle it.”
    He turned again.
    As he headed up the stairs, he heard Ben very
softly asking Garrett, “What the hell is up with him?”
    “Your guess is as good as mine,” was
Garrett’s soft-spoken reply.
    Then Chelsea sighed and whispered, “I
sometimes think you Brand men are awfully slow on the uptake. I’ve
gotta go call Jessi and tell her she was right all along. That
chapter really wasn’t over.”
    Oh, but she was wrong, Adam thought. If she
was talking about the chapter in Adam’s life that involved a
relationship between him and Kirsten, she was dead wrong. He would
go over there, and he would watch over her whether she liked it or
not. Because he felt he ought to. Because if he got a phone call
tomorrow saying she’d been murdered in her sleep, he would have to
live with it, knowing he could have prevented it and hadn’t. And
because maybe this was the only way he would ever prove to himself
and to everyone else in this family—in this entire town—that he was
over her. Over her. Once and for all.
    He’d finally figured out what his sorry mind
had been lacking all this time where Kirsten was concerned.
Closure. Maybe this was his chance to have it. Maybe in the process
of getting her out of this mess, he would have time to make her
answer the questions he’d never asked her. The questions he’d been
avoiding all this time. And to get that finality he needed to close
her out of his soul for good. And she would give him the answers,
too. Hell, she owed him that much. Yes, he thought. She owed
him.

    Kirsten’s shaky grip on control broke down as
soon