Free Morgan's Son by Lindsay McKenna Page B

corners—and he had this wild desire to touch them with his own, to explore and savor the taste of them. Would she be pliable and as hot as he suspected? The insane urge to find out nearly unstrung him. Craig took another step back, pretending to dry his hair some more, desperate to keep his hands busy—and away from Sabra.
    He cleared his throat. "My brothers are idealists, like you," he said dryly. When Sabra snapped a look in his direction, he smiled a little. "It's only a comment."
    "You make it sound like a disease."
    Shrugging, he said, "Sometimes it is."
    She turned, holding his still-amused gaze. "I couldn't live the way you do," she said honestly. "If I didn't have some hope, some idealism, I don't think I'd survive."
    "The world is made up of realists and idealists." He poked a finger at the photo. "My brother's idealism made him hang on to that marriage and suffer for nearly seven years before he got a reality check."
    "He must have loved her," Sabra said simply. "That's different from idealism. You don't just bolt and run when your partner has a problem."
    "I won't argue with that. But Dan's idealism prevented him from forcing her to get help or do something that could have saved the marriage. He dragged his feet, hoping that talking with her would help. It didn't, of course."
    "It sounds as if, in his place, you'd have dropped the marriage in a heartbeat."
    With a shrug, Craig said, "I don't believe in wasting time where I'm not wanted. His ex-wife wanted her habit more than she did him. Dan didn't want to believe that. His idealism got in the way of reality."
    Sabra set the photo down and picked up the other one. "So who's this? Your younger brother?"
    "Yeah, that's Joe. Our folks retired to a small place called Cottonwood , Arizona , and he stayed on to run the family trading post and grocery store at Fort Wingate . It's on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico ."
    "You two look a lot alike," Sabra said, studying the man dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and a blue-and-white-checked cowboy shirt, a black felt cowboy hat pushed back on his dark brown hair. He stood by the store, smiling broadly, a border collie at his feet. But despite his similar features and coloring, Sabra realized Joe actually looked very different from Craig—both brothers did. What was the difference?
    It took her a moment to realize that Craig looked battered in comparison to his siblings, as if he'd been beaten down by life more brutally. It was only conjecture, but Sabra instinctively felt she'd hit upon the truth.
    "Joe's the joker of us," Craig said as she placed the photo back on the top of the television. "He's the wild cowboy from New Mexico ."
    "And he never went into the military?"
    "No, not him. He doesn't do well with too much discipline and organization around him. I think he inherited our mother's love of the land and earth. The Navajo people love him, and he's worked hard to see they have a better quality of life."
    "He sounds very humanitarian."
    "As opposed to me?" He saw her flush at his insight.
    "Well…I meant—'
    "It's okay," he told her, turning away. "I'm used to being the heavy in the family. Once, Joe was engaged to an Anglo." He stopped and twisted to look at her. "Anglo is how the Navajo describe a white person. Anyway, Joe fell head over heels with this Anglo teacher, Rebecca, on the res. He fell for her hook, line and sinker. When she told him she was pregnant, I laughed."
    "Why?"
    "Because the woman was pregnant when she met him, just looking for some idealistic jerk to marry her so she could have security and money. I happened to be home on leave, and I saw her coming a country mile away."
    "Did Joe?"
    "No." His mouth twisted. "She turned on her arsenal of charm, and he fell for it. I asked him if it was possible to really fall in love that fast. He said he thought so, but I warned him she wanted something from him. Something she wasn't telling him."
    "So what happened?"
    "I was around for thirty days,