Free Thunderbolt over Texas by Barbara Dunlop

it?”
    â€œThere are two of you. And you’re a woman.”
    â€œNow you’re sounding sexist.”
    Cole turned to his brother. “You’d actually let your wife live in the cabin.”
    â€œNope,” said Kyle. “But it sounds like you’re willing to let yours.”
    Cole opened his mouth, but he couldn’t immediately come up with the right argument. Damn Kyle. This was not his opportunity to push the new house agenda.
    â€œAnd what about the children?” asked Katie. “There’s absolutely no room in the cabin for children.”
    All eyes swung to Sydney. “Maybe an addition?” she offered.
    Katie laughed. “Yeah, right. Cape Cod or Colonial?”
    Grandma patted her hand. “Don’t be shy, Sydney. We value your input.”
    Sydney hesitated, but she was being stared down by the entire family. “I’ve, uh, always liked a nice Cape Cod.”
    â€œPage thirty-nine,” said Grandma.
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    â€œWell, you were a big help,” Cole said to Sydney as they walked down the ranch road in the moonlight. After her initial protest, she’d plunged into the planning session with gusto.
    â€œI tried to keep quiet.”
    â€œAnd that didn’t seem to work out for you?”
    â€œI’m supposed to be falling for you, so I tried to make myself sound like actual wife material. I answered all your Grandma’s questions. We swapped recipes—”
    â€œYou know recipes?”
    Sydney shot him a look. “I made them up. Point is, if I’d balked at planning my future house, it would have looked suspicious.”
    â€œNow they’re going to want me to build the damn thing.”
    â€œSo what? The cabin is falling apart.”
    â€œWhat am I going to do with a two-story, octagonal great room?”
    â€œI didn’t vote for the octagonal great room. That was Katie.”
    â€œWell you voted for the dormer windows.”
    â€œThey’re pretty.”
    â€œAnd a turret?”
    â€œAdds detail.”
    â€œAnd what am I going to do with a hot tub?”
    Sydney was silent for a moment. “Uh, bathe?”
    â€œVery funny. I don’t need jets and bubblers rumbling under my butt to get clean.”
    â€œEver tried one?”
    â€œNo.”
    She grinned and bumped her shoulder against his arm. “Don’t know what you’re missing, cowboy.”
    â€œWhy? Have you?”
    â€œIt just so happens I own a hot tub.”
    A visual bloomed in Cole’s brain—of Sydney, glistening skin and swirling water.
    â€œCole?”
    He cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
    â€œYou ever stop to think there might be some deep-seated, psychological reason you shortchange yourself?”
    â€œNo.” He didn’t shortchange himself, and he didn’t have deep-seated reasons for anything. He herded cows. Heraised horses. He kept the ranch running. What you saw was what you got.
    â€œYou’re living in a cabin where you wouldn’t let any other member of your family live.”
    That wasn’t true. He turned from the ranch road down his short driveway and the roar of the creek grew louder. “I’d let Kyle live there.”
    â€œAnd you’ve never been married.”
    â€œLucky for you.” If he was married she wouldn’t be getting this opportunity with the Thunderbolt.
    â€œSee, I have a hard time believing women aren’t interested in you. If you’d wanted—”
    â€œPlenty of women are interested in me.” He felt ego-bound to point that out. Well, maybe not plenty. But some. Enough. He wasn’t exactly a monk out here.
    â€œThen why haven’t you settled down?”
    â€œIt’s not by choice.”
    â€œBet it is.”
    â€œNot my choice.”
    â€œThe women said no?”
    He refused to answer, wondering how he and Sydney always ended up having such personal conversations. He was a private man. He liked it