A Knight In Rusty Armor. Dixie Browning

      One

      Travis Holiday eased off the accelerator as he hit another patch of sand, this one even deeper than the last. He’d hoped to get home before dark. Not that it mattered. He could have stayed away a year and it wouldn’t have mattered. There was a lot to be said for living alone, where a man could go and come with a minimum of hassle.

      Waylon and Willie launched into the one about being on the road again, and Trav hummed along, his pleasant baritone only slightly off-key. With his fist, he cleared a circle on the steamy inside of his windshield. It didn’t help much. The outside was clouded with salt and pitted from years of beach driving.

      “On the ro-oad again...” Off-key or not, he kept perfect time with the wipers. Waylon and Willie lagged about half a beat behind.

      In spite of the worsening weather, the day had gone a lot better than he’d expected. Not that he’d been expecting much, but the cousin he’d never even heard of until a few months ago had turned out to be a pretty decent guy.

      Considering the difference in their backgrounds, they’d hit it off surprisingly well. Hell, they even looked alike. Same build. Same general coloring. Same plain, angular features.

      Lately, he’d thought a lot about family. About roots. He’d never wasted much time thinking about that sort of thing before. The little he knew about his parents had been more than enough.

      But things were different now that he had a son. Once he’d gotten past the shock, he’d started thinking in terms of a heritage. Of what it meant to be a living link between past and future. If his son had children, and those children had children—

      “What the bloody—!” He slammed on the brakes, swearing as the pickup slid dangerously close to the edge of the narrow highway and came to a stop. Rolling down the window, he leaned his head out to peer through the mixture of rain, blowing sand and