Catch Me by Lorelie Brown

manner to see his brother’s charm fail.
    Her shoulders went back in challenge. “I robbed a bank.”
    “Y-you what?” Andrew sputtered and he eyed Maggie from head to toe again, this time taking in her well-beaten boots and broken-in trousers.
    Dean smothered a chuckle. If Andrew knew Maggie even a smidge, it wouldn’t be any surprise at all.
    “I robbed a bank,” she repeated, more forcefully. Then she waved a hand in dismissal. “I needed the money for my father. But what’s this about a ranch?”
    Andrew lifted his hat and scratched the top of his head. Befuddlement when it came to Maggie seemed to be a common thread. “Our home ranch. Where we grew up.” He turned back to Dean. “Phinn is even visiting. We could have a right good family reunion. Ma would be thrilled.”
    “No.” He couldn’t stand being out there again. Everywhere he looked, Annie would be there. And the memories of Jack would be even worse. Visions of the swaddled baby being passed from grandmother to uncle and back again. Dean’s own imagination would haunt him. He’d anticipated taking Jack out to the ranch to ride and rope so often.
    “Maggie, it’s time to go.”
    “But Dean, I’d love to meet more of your family,” she teased.
    Andrew pushed off the railing. “Let me get my things. I’m coming with you.”
    “Like hell you are.” The words burst forth from him without consideration.
    “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Besides, I just sold the land I’ve been working, so I could do with getting out of town.”
    “What in blazes? Who sells good ranch land?”
    Andrew’s grin was as bright and wickedly sharp as ever. “McKovey’s daughter was quite persuasive.”
    “You always do think with your prick.”
    He gave a little shrug that said he didn’t much care. “My horse is here at the livery too. All I have to do is grab my bags from—well, from where they are.” He glanced back at Maggie. Knowing Andrew, his belongings were at the local whorehouse.
    “Why in the world would I wait on you?” Dean picked up the sack of goods he’d bought at the mercantile. “We don’t need the company.”
    A cagey look slipped over Andrew’s face. “Because if you don’t, I’ll go straight to the ranch and pack Ma onto a train. We’ll be waiting at—Fresh Springs, was it?—before you get there.”
    Dean resisted the urge to kick the livery’s front door. “Aw, hell. Get your stuff.”

Chapter Eleven
    As every mile slid by under her horse’s hooves, the thought of going to prison became more and more real, thudding at the back of her brain. They were still in Texas, and Maggie didn’t particularly mind. She most certainly wasn’t doing anything to speed the journey up.
    When the opportunity arose to delay even a lunch break, she took it with both hands.
    Maggie reclined on a horse blanket under the shade of a tree branch. She worried at an apple, turning it about and about between her teeth, barely paying attention to what she was doing.
    The scenery was a tad bit distracting. In a wonderful way.
    Twenty feet away, Dean swung an axe as he chopped at a tree blown across the road by some storm. He’d been at it twenty minutes, and had already accumulated a stack of evenly cut wood to the side. She’d poked and teased at him for doing such a pointless task when they could have ridden around the obstacle. But five minutes ago, the words died in her mouth.
    Because five minutes ago, he’d taken his shirt off.
    He obviously went without his shirt now and then, as his torso was the same lightly golden color as his hands and face. Muscles shifted and played beneath his skin. She particularly liked the thick columns that stretched alongside his spine. A fine sheen of sweat covered him, making the small ligaments that marched up his side more apparent as he hefted the heavy axe again.
    What would it be like to touch that glistening skin? He’d be salty if she touched her tongue to the divots at the tempting curve of