She realized Lawson was still talking and shook the cloud from her thoughts. “What did you say?”
“I said, let me in on the joke. I want to laugh, too.”
Her breath pulled from her lungs as if she’d been cut. Her gaze held his for a long moment then fell to her lap as she felt something within her snap. She slowly lifted her gaze to survey the faces of those around her. They were all waiting for her to say something. They wanted to laugh with her just like they’d done a thousand times before. But this time one thing was different.
She wasn’t laughing.
She eyed her friends and family. “There is no joke, Lawson—not anymore.”
* * *
Lawson eased his duffel bag from his shoulder to the floor of the cozy old cabin on the O’Brien property. This was the place where his life had truly begun nearly ten years ago when Kate and Nathan had taken him on as a farmhand and brought him into their family. In this cabin, he’d learned his first lesson about what it truly meant to belong somewhere. Only a few months after that, Doc and Lettie had become his legal guardians and his honorary parents.
It somehow felt right to begin again in this place—to once more forget the past that had been resurfacing in his thoughts so often. Glancing around the room, he took in a cleansing breath then quickly lost it when he spotted Ellie directly to his right. She stood on a stool she’d placed over a crate in an effort to reach a cobweb near the cabin’s high ceiling. Every time she moved, the stool she perched on wobbled beneath her. Lawson strode over and plucked her from her perch.
“Hey,” she protested as he set her on her feet. “I almost had it.”
He nodded. “You certainly did...if it was a broken bone.”
She wrinkled her nose at him then turned to gesture to the rest of the cabin. “Well, how do you like your new, old place?”
He surveyed the table with two chairs that had been placed by the window with a planter filled with cheery yellow flowers. A bed with a simple quilt, a large trunk and a small wardrobe stood on the opposite side of the room. A comfortable-looking chair sat next to the fireplace. He smiled. “It looks nice, clean, homey. Did you do all of this?”
“Guilty.” She removed the stool from the crate and set it near the door.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know. I wanted to.” She tucked a loose tendril behind her ear. “I missed you, you know.”
“What was there to miss?” He knew he was fishing for compliments but he didn’t care. Mostly, he just wanted her to prove that her statement was true.
She kicked a large dark blue-and-green rag rug to unroll it over the middle of the wooden floor. “Oh, I don’t know. It just hasn’t been the same since you left and Sean got married. The three of us used to be as thick as thieves—you, Sean and I. Nothing felt right without you here.”
He believed her. He’d wanted to, anyway. It was a nice feeling—being missed by someone.
She surveyed the room then must have been satisfied because she allowed herself to collapse onto a kitchen chair. “I bet you didn’t miss me.”
“Of course I did.” He sat across from her.
She shook her head. “You didn’t but that’s fine. You were busy bringing outlaws to justice. I wouldn’t have missed me, either.”
“It wasn’t as exciting as you seem to think.”
“What was it like, then?”
“It was like everything I’ve tried to forget.”
That quieted her for a moment before she smiled sympathetically. “Well, you’re home now. You can forget as much as you want.”
Home. That one word sounded so sweet to his ear. He gave a solemn nod. “I was already planning on it.”
“I’ve been wondering—” she fiddled with one of the flowers “—why do the Rangers call you Lawless?”
Lawson stared at Ellie, then frowned. “Now, where did you hear that?”
“Nathan sold a few horses to the Rangers. While he was in Austin, he asked about you. They told him you were one of the best Rangers on the force. They also told him you’d picked up the moniker Lawless. Why?”
He averted his gaze from her questioning eyes. “They assigned me the worst criminals, Ellie. Sometimes that meant I had to take risks, be ruthless and do things I wouldn’t dream of in any other situation. I never broke protocol but I’ve certainly bent my fair share of rules.”
She frowned. “They called you that because you bent a few rules?”
He gave a slow nod. She narrowed her eyes. It was clear she knew he wasn’t letting her in on the whole truth. Well, that was too bad because he wasn’t about to tell her that almost the entire Ranger force thought he’d make a better outlaw than a Ranger, and loved to tease him about it. He didn’t find it particularly funny. Nor did he want his name to be associated with the term outlaw, especially if some of those foggy memories of his childhood were accurate. He figured it was time for a change of subject.
“Now it’s my turn to ask a question. What was so important about me not being on that list of yours?” He asked the question before he could second-guess the wisdom of pursuing something that had upset her so much earlier.
Ellie was quiet for a long moment as if debating whether or not to tell him before she surprised him again by glancing up with teasing eyes. “Now that really is a dangerous question. You’ll probably wish you hadn’t asked, but since you want to know so badly, I’ll tell you.”
He gave her a nod. “I’ll take my chances.”
She leaned forward. “The whole point of the list was to find out who my match might be, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, after I’d gone through the list without finding anyone, Ms. Lettie took the paper and looked it over. She told me I’d left someone off but she wouldn’t tell me who it was.”
He found himself leaning forward, as well. “That was me, right? I was the one you left off because I wasn’t in town.”
“Exactly.” She sat back as if that settled everything.
Lawson stared at her. “You’ll have to explain this to me, Ellie, because I still don’t get it.”
“You were the one.”
“The one what?”
Ellie laughed. “Lawson, really. Think about it. You were the only man left.”
“So?”
“So—” her voice took on a bit of exasperation “—Ms. Lettie and Kate, they think that you and I...well, that we would be...what did Kate say? Oh, that we could be very good...together.”
Lawson stared at her for a long moment as understanding slowly dawned. “What?”
She smirked. “That’s what I said.”
He tried to wrap his mind around that thought. Honestly, it wasn’t as hard as it should have been. He swallowed. His thoughts raced back to his recent interactions with Ellie—from his impulsive act of catching her in his arms at first sight to his pretend proposal. If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he hadn’t been treating Ellie like a sister. At least, not since he’d gotten back. In fact, if it were some other woman, he might have seen his behavior as flirtatious.
He ducked his head to keep her from reading his thoughts. He was crazy. He had to be. There was no way he could be attracted to little Ellie. Of course, she wasn’t so little anymore. How old was she now? Twenty-one? She was pretty much a woman by now, wasn’t she? His voice came out a little