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reasonable explanation.
    Part of Bye would like to tear his father limb from limb for cheating on Mom. Another, more selfish part figured that as long as Mom didn’t know, she couldn’t be hurt. She might even be a little bit grateful for the occasional respite from her gruff, dictatorial husband. In any case, the days his father wasn’t on the Bar C were good days for Bye.
    When his headache finally let up, he got up and went inside. Lying alone in his darkened room, he tried to persuade himself Karen meant no more to him than a good, casual playmate, and sharing her with Jack or another Dom shouldn’t bother him. He wasn’t sure he succeeded, because he couldn’t get the picture of her sucking Duval’s cock out of his mind. He didn’t like that picture at all.
    I just don’t like sharing. I’m a selfish bastard.
    He knew that. He’d been told it enough times. It wasn’t that he had any special feelings for any particular woman, just that he wanted whoever he played with all to himself. A nagging voice in his head told him he’d never felt that way before, but he shushed that voice and started counting windmills in his mind. That usually worked to put him to sleep, but not tonight. If he wasn’t thinking about Karen, he was worrying about his mom.
    It was nearly three in the morning before exhaustion overtook him and temporarily banished his troubling thoughts.
    * * * * *
    “Bye, get up. Mom will be home in a few minutes.”
    He blinked, looked up at Deidre and then at the clock by his bed. It was eleven o’clock, too damn early for him to be getting up after his restless night. “She got down to Houston less than a week ago, sis. They won’t be done with the tests for a few more days. Besides, if she was ready to come home now, Mike would have called me. Four isn’t home, and he doesn’t let the Bombardier leave the ground without two pilots.”
    “Daddy got home early this morning and he and Mike left right away. He told me Mom had called him on his cell and said she was finished with the tests. I’d have gone with them but Daddy said no.”
    Mom must have checked out okay. Or did she? Could they have found something so bad wrong that there was nothing that could be done?
    Bye sat up, suddenly wide awake. A cold chill ran down his back in spite of the room being plenty warm. “Did Four say anything?”
    Deidre shook her head. “Only that he’d talk to us when they get home. Bye, I’m scared.”
    “So am I, but let’s try to think positive. Go on downstairs. I’ll get dressed and join you.”
    “Do you really think she’s okay? Mom has felt awfully bad since I got home from college, and in the past few weeks she must have lost at least ten pounds.”
    “So have you, little one.” Bye didn’t like the fact that Deidre seemed about to cry.
    “I know, but Mom didn’t need to lose them.” Tears flowed down Deidre’s lightly tanned cheeks, but she managed to stifle a sob.
    “I know. We’ll have to wait to find out what’s going on until they get here. There’s no use working ourselves into a frenzy of worry and what-ifs.” Bye felt like shedding tears himself, but he choked them back and tried to sound more hopeful than he felt. When his sister left, he got up. After a shower and a quick shave, he dressed and found her out on the porch, staring out toward the airstrip as though she could will the plane to get back here faster.
    “If you’re that anxious, we could always drive over to the hangar and wait there,” he said, keeping his tone light. “That way we can see Mom as soon as the plane lands.” Taking Deidre’s shaking hand, he led her to the garage and settled her in an old Jeep they used to drive off-road, around the ranch.
    As they waited in Mike’s office inside the hangar, Bye mulled over Four’s sudden return and Mom’s quick discharge from the Houston hospital. With every passing moment he became more convinced the news wouldn’t be good. To distract himself he