A Texas Soldier's Ready-Made Family by Judy Duarte

Author:Judy Duarte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-05-25T14:22:18+00:00

* * *

John found his parents and brothers just outside of Santa Fe. Their small silver mobile home rumbled under turquoise-colored skies, with a truck—his brothers’—following closely behind. If not for cell phone contact, he would have missed them.

Mary and Mack Mathison waved at him as he pulled alongside their white truck, which hauled the silver Airstream mobile home they’d bought too many years ago for John to remember. His brothers Javier and Jackson saluted him, and he fell back into position, trailing behind the white truck lettered Mathison on both doors in black. Home sweet home.

This was it. He turned on some tunes, tried not to think about Daisy and told himself he was content to caravan as far away from Texas as possible.

“This could never have been her life,” John told the smiling bobblehead dog on his dash. “Daisy grew up with so much wealth, so much of everything, that she couldn’t possibly understand this kind of pared-down existence.”

The black-and-white bobblehead dog he’d named Joe, because it fit the J motif of his and his brothers’ names, neither agreed nor disagreed. In fact, Joe didn’t seem to be worried about much of anything other than the sunburn he was getting on his furry behind, courtesy of dash sitting. John watched the mountains of New Mexico fade away, thought about how beautiful it would be to see this highway on his motorcycle, with Daisy parked comfortably on the back, her arms around his waist, which she’d done all the way back from Montana. He got a woody just remembering her delicate arms around him, felt a dull hammer begin inside his skull.

“Holy Christmas,” John muttered. “I’m going to have to take up serious meditation to get her out of my head.”

He’d left his motorcycle in Bridesmaids Creek, under Sam’s care, with dire instructions that it was to be in the same beloved condition when he returned. Sam had agreed with a grin, saying smartly that of course it looked even better with Daisy polishing the seat, and would he mind—

“At which point I gave Sam such a glare that he shut clean up,” John told Joe, and Joe nodded in approval. Or maybe he didn’t nod in approval, but if he wasn’t nodding in approval, then what the hell good was a bobblehead dog to a man, anyway?

At the border connecting New Mexico and Colorado, his parents stopped the caravan at a roadside rest stop. He hadn’t expected them to stop so soon, as life on the road was about putting the miles between destinations. But they were more than happy to halt the train soon after he’d joined them, to welcome him back to the fold.

“What the hell, son?” Mack demanded, giving him a tight hug. “You took a year off my life showing up like that. I thought I’d seen a ghost.”

“Might as well be a ghost,” Mary said. “He hasn’t been around in four years.”

His brothers banged him on the back with enthusiasm. “We missed the hell out of you,” Javier said.

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