Page 6

“Okay, Maggie. Marshall.” He pointed to himself.

“No, Maggie Newman. I, um, never married.”

He’d assumed as much, but the confirmation hit him square in the chest. He’d wrestle with that bull another day, though.

“Sorry to hear that.” Was he, though? “But I meant I’m Marshall. I took my mother’s maiden name when I got back to Deer Creek.”

She shot him another look, this one posing a question he wasn’t ready to answer. He was still processing her. There. After he’d all but given up hope he’d ever see her again. Even now, he wasn’t sure he knew how he felt. Confused, for one.

“So, Bennett Marshall?”

“Or Bennett Tucker Marshall if you’re gonna yell at me again.” He tried for a smile, and she offered a small one in return. It had the power of the summer Texas sun, warming him and burning his skin all at the same time.

“Cute. You know, you still didn’t answer what you’re doing here.”

“Neither did you.” The way she was looking at him, as if he was an interloper who hadn’t, at one point, kissed her senseless on this very porch, was nothing compared to how she looked, period. It’d taken a second for him to really notice, and now he was wishing he hadn’t. Because, damn.

Time hadn’t been unkind to her, that was for sure. She’d polished up the edges he’d liked and all but tamed the wild out of her hair, but she was still the prettiest thing he’d seen in three states.

Her deep brown eyes, for starters. They still carried a hint of feral curiosity along the edges. God, how he used to feel like he was bathing in chocolate, warm and liquid, when he fell into them each time they’d kissed.

He coughed, shoving that memory aside.

“I asked first.” Yeah, the girl he knew was still in there, even if she was hidden under wrinkle-free packaging.

“Looking at the land, making a list of what needs to be fixed, plowed, or mowed.”

Her smile fell. “And who tasked you with that? This isn’t your property.”

He stared at her, surprised. “Is it any more yours? You haven’t been here, Maggie. I have. And you should know it’s my plan to buy it when it goes to auction.”

“And there it is. That’s why you’re sitting on my porch like a thief. My dad’s been gone a week, Bennett. And you’re poaching already?”

“Now, you hold up a minute, Maggie. That’s not what I’m doing—wait. Did you say my porch?”

She leaned back on one leg, bent the other and crossed her arms, the Texan way of saying, You kidding me? coming back to her as if she’d never left. You could take the girl out of Deer Creek…

“I did. Seems my dad’s parting gift to me was this.”

She waved her hand over the weeds as high as cornstalks beyond the weathered, worn porch with paint peeling back on every corner. What else could she say about the property her dad had left her? Even Bennett recognized it was as if the cancer’d eaten up her father’s land and the life it used to teem with along with her dad’s liver and lungs.

That was where he came in, to extricate the cancer and bring this place back from the dead.

“Well, you should know Carl encouraged me to take it over.”

“Which would have made more sense than him bringing me back. But it doesn’t matter what he said to you. What he did was sign Newman Ranch over to me.”

That didn’t track with the man he knew.

“Why would he do that when he swore a better life for you? That’s why he hated me back then—’cause you’d be stuck here if we stayed together. What good does bringing you back do either of us?”

She ignored the last question even though it was the one weighing heavy on his heart.

“He didn’t hate you.”

“He didn’t once you were gone, but I remember how that glare of his felt, and it wasn’t good. Heck, he even admitted it after a couple PBRs a few years back. But it doesn’t matter, does it? You left and that was a long time ago.” She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t do this right now. It wouldn’t solve a damn thing, rehashing the injuries of their youth. “Anyway, I was hoping to deal with an estate attorney and get this wrapped up quick, but you’ll do.”

“I’ll do?”