Free Cowboy Come Home by Janette Kenny

woman,” Hollis said. “She went through hell during the war and after, same as the rest of the Feths.”
    That caught her attention. “Was she kin to you?”
    “My sister. Only family I had living. We were both born on this ranch.”
    That explained why her daddy let Hollis do as he pleased at the Circle 46. It’d been his family’s home. It still was in many ways, leaving Daisy to feel like a trespasser.
    “The child that died. He was a boy?” she asked.
    “Yep. Jared doted on that son of his. Damned shame.”
    A half-brother. Was it possible she’d heard about him and that had caused her to envision the boy who’d watched over her? Was that why she was troubled with the memory of a young boy from time to time? Why there were times she’d believed she had a brother?
    That had to be the reason, for there’d been no young boy in her life. She’d just longed for a playmate. A sibling. Her mother had told her enough about it to fire her imagination.
    She wanted to ask more about her daddy’s first wife and son. Wanted to know every detail that Hollis Feth could remember about his sister and nephew. Wanted to know more about her own mother as well. But just forcing those few memories had her head pounding. If he told her more right now, she’d likely forget it or tangle it in her thoughts.
    There would be time to visit with him later when she wasn’t so tired and out of sorts. She could finally visit her mother’s grave, and maybe just doing that would free her thoughts more.
    Maybe if she sat there in peace at her mother’s grave she’d be able to rid herself of the strange nightmares she’d had for as long as she could remember.
    “Now your mama,” Hollis began, yanking her thoughts back to him. “She wanted a child so. When you came along she was the happiest woman in Colorado. But I reckon you knew that.”
    When you came along. Odd that Hollis said nearly the same thing as her daddy had.
    “Daddy told me, but it’s good to hear.”
    She’d known that her mother had pined for a child—a girl if she could have her choice. Knowing that was the truth helped ease that empty feeling that had come over her out of the blue.
    Hollis returned to the skillets sizzling on the stove. She felt comfortable around this man, even though she hadn’t been near him for five years or so. Oh, he’d come to Daddy’s funeral and talked to her some then, but she’d been too aggrieved to appreciate the visit.
    Now in just an hour she’d found out he was her daddy’s brother-in-law. This was his home, yet he’d left it too to go to Colorado with her daddy and mother. But when they came back to Texas, Hollis had moved to the JDB with them.
    “Why didn’t you come back here when you left the JDB five years ago?” she asked.
    Hollis sighed. “It was time for me to move on and try my hand at something besides cooking and rounding up cattle. But last year, I was ready to come back home.”
    She thought to ask what he’d done during those years away, then changed her mind. He’d tell her when he was ready to, if ever.
    “How many men did Ned let go here?” she asked.
    “Six of them. All with horse experience.” Hollis muttered something she couldn’t catch; she suspected it was a ripe oath. “He had the gall to tell me that he wasn’t paying me anymore for cooking, so I might as well clear out too.”
    “But you refused to budge.”
    “I wasn’t about to let him run me off.”
    Thank God for that. “Trey asked if Sam Weber was still the foreman.”
    “Nope. He just took off without a word to anyone. Guess he had a bellyful of Ned telling him what to do and headed off to greener pastures.”
    “He wasn’t fired then?”
    “Nope. He’d been arguing with Ned over the horses, and I half thought Ned would send him packing. Wasn’t surprised when Sam pulled up stakes.”
    Just like Trey had done.
    She rubbed her brow. She’d been so sure that he’d tired of Ned’s bossing too. That he’d tired of