It felt familiar, yet strange.
The closer she came to the sprawling two-story ranch house, the simple five-word sentence kept repeating itself over and over again in Ena O’Rourke’s brain like a tuneless song. Part of her just couldn’t believe that she had returned here after all this time.
She could remember when she couldn’t wait to get away from here. Or rather not “here” but away from her father because, to her then eighteen-year-old mind, Bruce O’Rourke was the source of all the anger and pain that existed in her world. Back then, she and her father were constantly at odds and without Edith, her mother, to act as a buffer, Ena and her father were forever butting heads.
The way she saw it, her father was opinionated, and he never gave her any credit for being right, not even once. After enduring a state of what felt like constant warfare for two years, ever since her mother lost her battle with cancer, Ena made up her mind and left the ranch, and Forever, one day after high school graduation.
At the time, she had been certain that she would never come back, had even sworn to herself that she wouldn’t. And although she wavered a little in the first couple of years or so, as she struggled to put herself through college, she had stuck by her promise and kept far away from the source of all her unhappiness.
Until now.
She swung her long legs out of her light blue sports car and got out. She had sincerely doubted that a man who had always seemed to be bigger than life itself was ever going to die.
Until he did.
Bruce O’Rourke had died as tight-lipped as he had lived, without ever having uttered a single word to her. He had never even tried to get in contact with her. It was as if, for him, she had never existed.
It figured, Ena thought now, slowly approaching the house where she had grown up. Her father hadn’t bothered to get in contact with her to tell her that he was dying. Instead, he had his lawyer summon her the moment he was gone. That way, he hadn’t given her a chance to clear the air or vent her feelings.
He hadn’t wanted to be held accountable.
Because he knew he had driven her away, she thought now, angry tears gathering in her eyes.
“Same old Dad,” she bit off angrily.
She remained where she was for a moment, just staring at the exterior of the old ranch house. She had expected to see it on the verge of falling apart. But apparently her father had been careful not to allow that to happen. He had taken care of the homestead. The house looked as if it was sporting a brand-new coat of paint that couldn’t have been more than a few months old.
She frowned to herself. Bruce O’Rourke took a great deal more care of the house and the ranch than he ever had when dealing with her. Her mother, Ena recalled with a stab of pain, was the only one who could effectively deal with the man. What Edith had advised her on more than one occasion was to just give the man a pass because he was under so much pressure and had so much responsibility on his shoulders. It wasn’t easy, the genteel woman had told her in that soft low-key voice of hers, trying to keep the ranch going.
“So you kept it going while pushing me away—and what did it get you in the end, Old Man? You’re gone, and the ranch is still here. At least for now,” she said ironically. “But not for long. Just until I can get someone to take it off my hands. And then I’ll finally be done with it, and you, once and for all,” Ena concluded under her breath.
She was stalling. She supposed she was putting off dealing with that oppressive wave of memories that threatened to wash over her the moment she walked through the front door and into the house.
But she knew that she couldn’t put it off indefinitely.
Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and took another tentative step toward the house. And then another until she reached the steps leading up to the wraparound veranda. The place, she recalled, where her mother and father used to like to sit and rock at the end of the day.
As she came to the second step, Ena heard that old familiar creak beneath her foot.
Her father never had gotten around to fixing that. She could remember her mother asking him to see to it and her father promising to “get to it when I have the time.”
“Obviously you never found the time to fix that that, either, did you, Old Man?” she said, addressing the man who was no longer there.
“Is that a Dallas thing? Talking to yourself?” a deep male voice behind her asked.
In the half second that it took Ena to swing around to see who had crept up so silently behind her, she managed to compose herself and not look as if the tall, handsome, dark-haired cowboy behind her had launched her heart into double time.
“Is sneaking up behind people something you picked up while working here?” Ena countered, annoyed.
Her father had had that habit, materializing behind her when she least expected it, usually to interrogate her about where she had been or where she intended on going. And no matter what she answered, her father always sounded as if he disapproved and was criticizing her.
The cowboy, however, sounded contrite. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t making enough noise for you.” He then coughed and cleared his throat. “Is that loud enough?” he asked her with an easy grin.
Ena pressed her lips together and glared at him without answering.
The cowboy nodded. “I take it from that look on your face that you don’t remember me,” he said.
Ena narrowed her clear blue eyes as she focused on the cowboy, who must have towered over her by at least a good twelve inches. There was something vaguely familiar about his rugged face with its high, almost gaunt cheekbones, but after the restless night she had spent and then the long trip back, she was not in the mood to play guessing games with someone who was apparently one of her father’s ranch hands.
“Should I?” she asked coldly.
Mitch Parnell winced. “Ouch, I guess that puts me in my place,” he acknowledged. He pushed back his worn Stetson and took off his right glove, extending his hand out to her. “Welcome home, Ena.”
The deep smile and familiar tone nudged forward more memories from her past. Her eyes slowly swept over the dusty, rangy cowboy. It couldn’t be—
Could it?
“Mitch?” she asked uncertainly. But even as she said his name, part of her thought she was making a mistake.
Until he smiled.
Really smiled.
Even as a teenager, Mitch Parnell had always had the kind of smile that the moment it appeared, it could completely light up the area. She and Mitch had gone to high school together, and for a week or two, she had even fancied herself in love with him—or as in love as a seventeen-year-old unhappy, lost girl desperately searching for acceptance could be.
Her mother had died the year before and communication between her father and her had gone from bad to worse. It