Книга - And The Winner—Weds!

And The Winner--Weds!
Robin Wells


Mills & Boon Silhouette













Stories of family and romance beneath the Big Sky!


My, oh, my.

The man in the doorway was tall, lean and muscular. He wore jeans and cowboy boots, and he held a battered, buff-colored Stetson in his hand. Frannie wasn’t sure if it was his deep tan or his denim shirt that made his eyes look so blue, but they seemed to jump out of his handsome face like blue flames.

He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman. Did he look at every woman as if he found her attractive and fascinating? He no doubt did. It was probably some kind of subliminal, body-language come-on that she ought to know better than to fall for, but she knew no such thing. Whatever he was doing, it was working.

Oh, yes, it was definitely working….





And the Winner—Weds!










Robin Wells







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ROBIN WELLS


Before becoming a full-time writer, Robin Wells was an advertising and public relations executive, but she always dreamed of writing novels—a dream inspired by a grandmother who told “hot tales” and parents who were both librarians.

When she sold her first novel, her family celebrated at a Chinese restaurant. Robin’s fortune cookie read “Romance moves you in a new direction”—and it has. Robin has won an RWA Golden Heart Award, two National Readers’ Choice Awards, a Holt Medallion and a Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence.

Robin lives just outside New Orleans with her husband, two daughters and an exceedingly spoiled dog named Winnie the Pooh-dle. She loves to hear from readers, so drop her a note online at her website, www.robinwells.com, or by writing her at P.O. Box 303, Mandeville, LA 70470-0303.


To Ken—the winner of my heart




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen




One


“What do you think of Summer’s hair?”

Frannie Hannon pulled her eyes away from the computer screen and swiveled around in the wooden office chair to see her two gorgeous cousins, Jasmine and Summer, standing in front of the front desk of the Big Sky Bed & Breakfast. Summer’s long, dark hair fell in a tousled cascade of curls to her shoulders, where it lay in dramatic contrast against the red silk of her short chic dress.

“Give me your honest opinion, Frannie.” Summer ran a hand through the loose waves in her normally straight hair. “Do you think Gavin will think curls look good on me?”

Frannie pushed her tortoiseshell glasses higher up on her nose, a dry smile curving the corners of her lips. “Your husband would think you looked gorgeous if you shaved your head and painted your skull green. And the annoying thing about it is, he’d be right.”

It was the absolute truth. With her beautiful Native American features, deep chocolate eyes and wide, expressive mouth, Summer Nighthawk was breathtaking. But then, so was Jasmine Monroe, with her close-cropped dark hair, delicate features and creamy pale skin. Either woman’s face or figure could stop traffic and a man’s heart at fifty paces.

All mine could stop is a clock, Frannie thought ruefully. A familiar twinge of inferiority tweaked at her heart. She’d grown up here in Whitehorn, Montana, with Summer, Jasmine and Jasmine’s equally gorgeous sister, Cleo, and she viewed them more as sisters than as cousins. Their mothers, in fact, were sisters. Frannie’s mom, Yvette, and Jasmine’s and Cleo’s mom, Celeste, ran a bed-and-breakfast in the rambling arts and crafts-style manor house. Summer’s mother, Blanche, had died shortly after Summer’s birth, so Celeste and Yvette had raised their sister’s daughter as one of their own.

The four cousins had all grown up together. They’d spent summers splashing in the waters of Blue Mirror Lake and winters toboganning down the foothills of the Crazy Mountains. They’d shared their dreams and their secrets, their toys and their clothes. They were family in every sense of the word, and yet sometimes, when Frannie looked at her cousins, she found it hard to believe she’d come from the same gene pool.

Times like now. Summer was so dark and exotic, Jasmine so fair and fragile. Next to them, Frannie always felt like a little brown mouse.

Well, not little, exactly, she thought ruefully. Tall and gawky was more like it. At five-foot, nine-inches, Frannie’s height was the only exceptional thing about her. There was nothing special about her light brown hair except its unruly nature, which was why Frannie kept it clamped back in a tight ponytail. Her skin was clear and fair, but her features were unremarkable. Her eyes were an okay shade of hazel, but she kept them hidden behind her large, tortoiseshell-framed glasses. Oh, she had her own unique characteristics, of course—her nose was faintly freckled, her figure was on the scrawny side, and she grew in credibly clumsy whenever she was nervous—but overall, she was drab, colorless and nondescript.

Which suited her just fine, Frannie reminded herself. It was better to fade into the background than to stick out and be ridiculed. In fact, she deliberately cultivated an inconspicuous look. She dressed to blend in, wearing brown or beige suits for her job at the Whitehorn Savings and Loan, and jeans and shapeless sweaters, like the baggy gray one she was wearing now, on evenings and weekends.

When it came to her appearance, Frannie didn’t kid herself. She was plain, and she knew it. She’d made peace with that fact years ago, and now, at twenty-six, she knew there was no point in pretending to be some thing she wasn’t.

“So what do you think?” Jasmine prompted. She waved her hand toward Summer’s hair as if she were Vanna White pointing to a grand prize. “Am I a maestro with a curling iron, or what?”

“You are the Queen of Coif.” Frannie leaned back in the rolling chair and gazed approvingly at Summer. “You look great. But what’s the special occasion? You and Gavin haven’t been married long enough to be celebrating an anniversary.”

Summer lifted a shoulder. “No occasion. Just a Saturday night date with my husband.”

“Who’s baby-sitting?” Frannie asked. “Isn’t it the nanny’s night off?”

“She switched to accommodate our schedules. It isn’t often Gavin and I are off on the same Saturday night.” The nanny took wonderful care of their toddler Alyssa.

“So where are you going?”

“To dinner at the country club—if he ever finishes up at the hospital. I told him I’d change here instead of driving all the way home.” Summer sighed. “I love living in the country, but as many hours as we spend at work, sometimes I think we just ought to live in a room at the hospital.”

Frannie nodded sympathetically. Gavin was a general surgeon at the Whitehorn Hospital, the same place where Summer practiced as an immunologist. Both of them spent most of their waking hours there or at the clinic on the reservation. Since their home was twenty miles away, Summer often used the bed-and-breakfast to change clothes, wait for Gavin, or simply relax between shifts.

“So if there’s no special occasion, what’s with the snazzy dress and new hairstyle?” Frannie asked.

Summer shrugged. “I just think it’s good for a husband to see his wife looking different every now and then. I want to keep the magic in my marriage.”

Jasmine and Frannie looked at each other, then simultaneously burst into laughter.

Summer put her hands on her hips and eyed them indignantly. “And what, pray tell, is so funny about that?”

“Summer, your entire life is magic,” Jasmine said.

“Yeah,” Frannie seconded. “You’re beautiful, you have a fantastic career, a beautiful daughter, and you’re married to a successful surgeon who worships the ground you walk on.”

Summer’s hands fell to her sides. “Well, you know the old saying—familiarity breeds contempt. I don’t want Gavin to get bored with me.”

Jasmine rolled her eyes. “As if that could ever happen.”

“Yeah, Summer. Gavin’s not fickle like Jasmine here.” Frannie grinned at her pixie-faced cousin. Jasmine was hotly pursued by all the local bachelors, but she had yet to get seriously interested in any of them. “Who’s the lucky guy you’re going out with tonight?” Jasmine looked down at her neatly buffed nails. “Bill Richards. You know—one of the architectural engineers of the new resort and casino. He stayed here a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, I remember him! Broad shoulders, dark hair…” Summer frowned. “But I thought he left town when the construction halted.”

The construction of a casino on the Laughing Horse Reservation and a resort on adjacent private land was the biggest thing to ever hit Whitehorn. The development was supposed to boost the local economy, become a major revenue source for the Northern Cheyenne tribe, and create several hundred jobs for the citizens of Whitehorn. The ground had barely been broken for the project, however, when a skeleton with a bullet in its rib had been unearthed at the construction site.

And it wasn’t just any old skeleton, either. Dental records had revealed that the remains belonged to Summer’s father, Raven Hunter. Fortunately—well, it wasn’t exactly fortunate, Frannie mentally amended, but in view of the discovery of his body, it certainly made the situation less emotionally painful—Summer had never known her father.

The police were conducting a murder investigation, and to the distress of the citizens of Whitehorn, the construction project had been put on hold until the investigation was completed. Rumor had it that the police probe could take months. If it lasted until the onset of winter weather, the grand opening could be delayed for a full year.

“I thought the engineers weren’t going to return until construction resumed,” Frannie remarked.

Jasmine nodded. “Evidently it has. When Bill called to ask me out, he said they’ve decided to build the resort’s sports complex first. It’s being built further to the east, on Garrett Kincaid’s property.”

“So the project is back on track,” Summer said. “Well, that’s good news for Whitehorn’s economy.”

“Not to mention Whitehorn’s single women.” Jasmine gave a mischievous smile. “The town’s probably filling up right now with hunky engineers and contractors and heavy-equipment operators.”

“That’s right.” Summer’s gaze fastened on Frannie, one eyebrow arching in mock reproach. “But in order for a gal to meet any of them, she’d have to get out there and mingle.”

Frannie winced, knowing she was in for another round of the old familiar lecture.

Jasmine quickly picked up on Summer’s theme. “Are you going out tonight, Frannie, or are you going to hole up here like you usually do?”

Frannie swiveled her chair back to face the computer. “The books are a mess. You know how hopeless Aunt Celeste is with finances, and she’s been doing all the purchasing since Mom’s been gone.”

“But it’s Saturday night,” Summer scolded. “Don’t you know all work and no play makes you a dull girl?”

Frannie made a face. “I’m already dull. It’s too late to worry about it.”

Summer wagged a finger at her. “It’s never too late to get a life, Frannie. You need to go out and meet some men.”

“It’s not as if they’re eagerly lining up for an introduction.”

“That’s because you’re always hiding away here,” Jasmine insisted.

“That’s right.” Summer nodded. “You’ll never meet anyone if you don’t get out and circulate.”

“You two do enough circulating for all of us.” Desperate for a change of subject, Frannie glanced at her watch. “Speaking of circulating, when are your guys arriving?”

“Gavin should be here any minute.”

Jasmine glanced at the grandfather clock in the entryway alcove, then clasped a hand to the lapels of her white terrycloth robe. “Oh, dear. Bill will be here in ten minutes and I’m not even dressed! Summer, come help me figure out what to wear.”

“Okay—if you’ll let me borrow your new necklace.”

“Deal.”

Frannie heaved a sigh of relief as her cousins scurried upstairs to Jasmine’s room in the back wing of the house. She knew they meant well, but she hated it when they tried to coax her into social situations. The few times she’d allowed them to drag her to the local night spots, she’d sat on the sidelines as man after man ignored her.

Her cousins refused to accept it, but Frannie knew it was a fact: she didn’t have what it took to interest a handsome, successful, desirable man—not for any length of time, anyway. The best she could hope for was a kindhearted geek, and she had yet to meet one who held the least bit of appeal.

She was better off sticking with the one thing she knew she was good at: numbers. Numbers could always be counted on. There was no guesswork, no wondering if the results would be worth the effort, no question about how things would turn out. Numbers didn’t care if they were gussied up in colors and fancy fonts or set down in plain black and white. Unlike men, numbers were solid and reliable and trustworthy.

She plucked a yellow slip of paper off the top of the stack of receipts in front of her, determined to get her mind back on book keeping. She’d been managing the books for the Big Sky Bed & Breakfast since she was fifteen, but she still found it a challenge. Aunt Celeste’s unorthodox way of operating kept it that way.

She stared at the receipt in her hand and frowned. Whitehorn Cleaners. Was this a bill for laundering business linens or Aunt Celeste’s personal clothing? Lately Aunt Celeste had been even more careless than usual about labeling the receipts. With a sigh, Frannie placed the receipt in the growing stack of items she needed to ask her aunt about and reached for another.

She was inputting information from an itemized grocery list when the bell over the heavy oak front door jangled. Since Summer had said her husband was due any minute, Frannie assumed he’d arrived. “Come on in, Gavin,” she called. She heard the door open, but didn’t bother to turn around. “Summer’s getting ready. She’ll be out here in a moment.”

“Well, now,” said an unfamiliar voice. “I thought summer was already here, seeing as it’s the end of June.”

It was a low, deep throb of a voice, smoky and unrelentingly masculine. Something about it made the hair on the back of Frannie’s neck stand up, as if she’d just entered an electric force field.

She jerked around to find two men standing just inside the doorway. The one on the right was middle-aged and stout, clad in denim overalls, a red plaid shirt and brown work boots. His gray hair was sparse and closely shorn, and he had a face as round and friendly as a pumpkin pie.

But the other one… Frannie tried to swallow, but her mouth was suddenly so dry she felt as if her tongue had melded to the top of her mouth.

The other one… My, oh, my.

He was obviously the owner of that seductive voice. Tall, lean, and muscular, he wore jeans and cowboy boots, and held a battered, buff-colored Stetson hat in his hand. Frannie wasn’t sure if it was his deep tan or his denim shirt that made his eyes look so blue, but they seemed to jump out of his handsome face like blue flames, blue flames that licked at her very soul. There was a strange heat in his gaze—the heat, Frannie realized with a jolt, of sexual awareness.

He was looking at her in the way a man looks at a woman. Well, of course he was, she thought distractedly—after all, she was a woman, and he was most definitely a man. What surprised her was that he was looking at her as if she were a desirable woman. His mouth was curved into a small, amused smile, and Frannie realized he was waiting for her to speak.

She started to scramble to her feet, and tipped her chair over in the process. She leaned to pick it up, caught her foot on a chair roller, and toppled into the over turned chair face-first, leaving her bottom in the air.

“Hey, are you all right?” The handsome man quickly rounded the desk and took her arm, helping her pull herself upright.

His hand was warm, and the warmth spread rapidly through her body, causing her cheeks to burn. Frannie smoothed her sweater, embarrassed at her awkwardness. “I, uh, I’m fine. I was, uh, expecting someone else.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, ma’am.” His low, smoky voice managed to make the word “ma’am” sound like a caress.

His hand was still on her upper arm. Frannie felt as tongue-tied as a schoolgirl. “Oh, I’m not disappointed.” The moment she said it, she wanted to bite her tongue. Why did she always manage to say and do the most awkward things whenever she was around a handsome man?

The corners of his mouth curved up further. “Well, good.” He dropped his hand and stepped back.

Frannie was certain she’d never met him before, yet something about him seemed strangely familiar. “Do I know you?”

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. I’m sure I would have remembered.”

Frannie gave a wry grin. “Not necessarily. I don’t always make such a memorable first impression.”

The man laughed, and a fresh tug of attraction pulled at Frannie’s chest. Did he look at every woman that way, as if he found her attractive and fascinating? He no doubt did. Most women probably just weren’t as susceptible to it as she was. It was probably some kind of subliminal body-language come-on that she ought to know better than to fall for, but she knew no such thing. Whatever he was doing, it was working. Oh, yes, it was definitely working.

She tried to pull her thoughts out of the fog and search her mind for a reason the man looked so familiar. Maybe he was a movie star or a TV actor.

Maybe, she thought as she watched him circle back around the front desk, he was just the man of her dreams. Aunt Celeste believed that dreams were gateways to the soul, that they held clues to both the past and the future.

What on earth was the matter with her? There was no way a man such as this was going to be a part of her future. She was still staring, she realized abruptly.

She pulled her eyes away and tugged at the bottom of her sweater again. “Thanks for the help. Sorry about the klutz attack.”

“I’m sorry we startled you.”

Frannie was relieved to hear Summer’s high heels click on the hardwood floor as she entered the foyer. “Gavin, is that you?” Summer appeared in the doorway, her arms high, her hands behind her neck as she fastened what Frannie recognized as Jasmine’s new necklace.

Summer stopped in her tracks, immediately dropping her arms. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said with a smile. “I was expecting my husband.” She stepped forward and stuck out her hand. “Welcome to the Big Sky Bed & Breakfast. I’m Summer Nighthawk.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” The tall handsome man shook her hand. “I’m Austin Parker, and this here’s Tommy Deshaw.”

Summer shook hands with both men, then cast a quizzical look at the younger one. “Austin Parker—the race car driver?”

The man smiled sheepishly. “Afraid so.”

“My husband is one of your biggest fans.” Summer’s smile widened. “We’d heard you’d bought some land around here.”

“Yes, ma’am. The old Givens ranch.”

“That place has a huge house. Do you have a large family?”

“No, ma’am. I’m not married.”

“No?” Summer gestured to Frannie. “Well, neither is Frannie here.”

Frannie longed to crawl under the front desk.

“I take it you two have met?” Summer continued.

“Yes, ma’am. But we hadn’t quite gotten around to introductions.” He treated Frannie to a blinding smile.

Frannie had no choice but to reach out her hand. “F—Frannie Hannon.” Good grief, she could barely say her own name! It was a good thing she’d managed to spit it out before he touched her, because when his large, warm hand closed around hers, the ability to speak deserted her along with all coherent thought. She felt a sense of both relief and loss when he loosened his grip.

She turned and shook hands with Tommy. The older man smiled warmly. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am.”

“Frannie, Austin Parker is the hottest ticket on the NASCAR circuit,” Summer said.

“How…nice.”

“Tommy here’s the really hot ticket,” Austin said, gesturing to his companion. “He’s my pit crew chief, so he’s the one who really runs the show. The crew’s what keeps a driver on the road.”

“We’re delighted to have both of you here.” Summer’s smile included both men. “What can we do for you two gentlemen?”

“I’d like to book a room for Tommy for the next few days, if you’ve got one available.” Austin shifted his hat to his other hand. “He’s going to be overhauling the engine on my car. I intended for him to stay out at my ranch, but I’m havin’ the place renovated and all the guest rooms are a wreck. Do you happen to have any vacancies?”

“As a matter of fact, we’re nearly empty this evening.” Summer smiled at Tommy. “We’d be delighted to have you stay with us. Right, Frannie?”

Frannie smiled wanly, edging her way back to the computer. That gleam in Summer’s eye meant she was up to her old match making tricks, and Frannie wanted no part of it. Trying to interest Austin in her would be like trying to interest a yacht owner in a rowboat. Turning, Frannie picked up a handful of receipts and lowered herself back into the wooden swivel chair.

“Frannie, would you like to handle the check-in?” Summer prompted.

Frannie froze. “I—I, uh…oh, gee, I really need to get these numbers into the computer. Since Gavin’s not here yet, could you go ahead and take care of it?”

Summer had no choice but to graciously nod. “Why, sure.” She pulled a large leather book out from under the desk, opened it and angled it toward Tommy. “If you’d just sign in here, Mr. Deshaw.”

The look she shot Frannie told her she was in for a lecture as soon as Summer got her alone. Frannie fervently hoped Gavin showed up before that happened.



Frannie had no such luck. Austin had no sooner said his goodbyes and Tommy Deshaw headed to his room than Summer grabbed the back of Frannie’s chair and spun her around to face her. Frannie could tell from the way her cousin’s lips were pressed in a thin tight line that she was thoroughly exasperated.

“What’s the big idea?” Summer demanded.

“Of what?”

“Of ignoring the most eligible bachelor to hit Whitehorn since my Gavin, that’s what.”

“Oh, Summer, a man like that’s not going to be interested in the likes of me.”

“Not if you turn your back to him and act rude!”

“I wasn’t acting rude. I was acting busy. Which, it just so happens, I am.”

Frannie was relieved to see Jasmine saunter into the front foyer, wearing a striking black pantsuit. Frannie seized on the opportunity to change the subject. “Jasmine, you look great.”

“Thanks. What’s going on?”

Summer pointed at Frannie. “A wonderful specimen of manhood just walked in here, and our cuz wouldn’t even talk to him.”

“I didn’t have anything to say!” Frannie protested.

“You don’t have to say anything, Frannie,” Summer said. “You just have to talk.”

“Oh. Thanks for the clarification,” Frannie said dryly.

Jasmine laughed. “You know what she means, Frannie. Make small talk. Be pleasant. Show you’re accessible.”

“Let him know you’re interested,” Summer added. “Smile. Flirt.”

“That’s easy for you two to say. I don’t know how to do any of that.”

“Well, then, it’s high time you learned. Jasmine and I can teach you.”

Jasmine nodded vigorously.

“Oh, no.” Frannie held up her hands, palms out. “No way. No, thanks.”

Jasmine’s flawless forehead creased in a frown. “Why not?”

“Because it wouldn’t work. Besides, I’d feel like an idiot.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Not for long, anyway.” Jasmine circled the front desk and stopped in front of Frannie, her hands on her hips. “Think about it, Frannie. Isn’t it better to feel a little silly for a little while than to feel lonely forever?”

Lonely forever—was that what they thought she was destined to be? A sharp little knife of pain sliced into Frannie’s heart. “There are worse things than being lonely,” she mumbled.

Such as being humiliated. And heart broken. And feeling like a pathetic fool.

Summer’s dark eyes filled with sympathy. “Just because you had a bad experience with one guy in college is no reason to shy away from all other men for the rest of your life.”

It wasn’t just a bad experience, Frannie thought, it was an amputation of part of her soul. Joe had not only betrayed her; he’d emotionally maimed her. He’d stripped her of her self-confidence and her ability to trust anyone.

Frannie pushed back her chair and rose, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m not shying away. I’m just minding my own business, living my own life.”

“Frannie, you’re practically a recluse,” Jasmine said softly.

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are,” Summer affirmed. “You never go to any parties or social events. You go to work at the bank, then you come home and work here. And if an attractive man happens to come within a mile of you, you duck your head and avoid making eye contact.”

“And then there’s the matter of how you dress,” Jasmine added gently. “You’re hiding all of your best qualities. You have a great figure, but no one would ever know it under the clothes you wear. You have beautiful eyes, but instead of wearing your contact lenses, you hide behind your glasses. I’d love to have thick, curly hair like yours, but instead of making the most of it, you keep it skinned back in a ponytail or a tight little bun.”

Frannie was surprised to find herself blinking back tears. “Sorry I’m such an embarrassment to you.”

“Oh, Frannie, that’s not what we’re saying!” Jasmine stepped forward and embraced her in a hug. “We love you and want you to have all the good things in life, that’s all.”

“That’s right. We want you to be happy.” Summer placed a hand on Frannie’s back and gave her a consoling pat. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just trying to jar a little sense into you, that’s all.”

Frannie sniffed and wiped her eyes, then pulled away. Summer gave her another pat on the back, then pulled herself onto one edge of the computer work station. “I don’t think you realize it, Frannie, but when it comes to men, you’re your own worst enemy. You’ll never meet anyone if you don’t stop hiding.”

“I’m not deliberately hiding. I’m just…I don’t know. Being self-protective, maybe.” Frannie turned away and stared at the large stone fireplace in the living room across the foyer. She took a ragged breath. “If I had one-tenth of the good looks you two have, things would be different. But I don’t. I don’t want to set myself up for rejection again, that’s all.”

“You’ve got everything we’ve got,” Summer said.

“And in some places, more.” Jasmine looked down at her own petite chest in such an amusingly wistful way that Frannie had to smile.

“I’m plain as mud,” Frannie said bluntly.

“You’re not!” Summer said. “You just need a little polishing up.”

“That’s right.” Jasmine nodded. “And attitude.”

Frannie gave a tight smile. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of that.”

“Boy, do you ever!” Jasmine grinned. “But that’s not the kind of attitude I mean. You need to project more self-assurance.”

“Jasmine’s right,” Summer said. “Your outlook and expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you’re unattractive and don’t expect anyone to approach you, you’re going to act in ways that will make men keep their distance. But if you act confident and look your best and expect men to be attracted to you, that’s exactly what will happen.”

Frannie wished she could believe them. Some thing about that race car driver had stirred up longings she’d all but forgotten she could feel. She heaved a sigh. “You make it sound so easy. Too bad it isn’t.”

“Well, how about giving us a chance to prove that it is?”

If she had any sense, she’d say no right away. But the memory of Austin’s touch was too fresh on her mind. “What have you got in mind?” Frannie asked.

Summer grinned. “I just thought of the perfect occasion to prove to you that a makeover of your appearance and attitude can make over your love life.”

“And what might that be?” Frannie asked skeptically.

“Yeah, what is it?” Jasmine asked.

Summer paused dramatically. “The Whitehorn Ball. It’s the hospital’s big annual fund-raiser, and all of the staff is expected to be there. There’s this new doctor in radiology. He’s single, he doesn’t know anyone in town and he doesn’t have a date.”

Panic welled up in Frannie’s chest. “Oh, no. Not a blind date.”

Summer raised her hand in a calming gesture. “Just hear me out. The dance is three weeks away. That’s plenty of time for Jasmine and me to make you over and give you some pointers.”

“Oh, Summer, I don’t think this is a good idea….” Frannie began.

“It’s not a good idea. It’s a great one,” Jasmine said excitedly. She clasped her hands together. “We could triple date.”

“But—”

“But what?”

“But it’s a formal dance,” Frannie protested.

“So? That makes it all the more fun. We’ll turn you into Cinderella for the ball.”

“But—” Frannie swallowed around a lump in her throat. “But I was supposed to go to a formal dance with Joe the night after…after…”

“After you found out what a heel he was,” Summer finished for her.

Frannie nodded.

Her gaze was soft and warm. “That was what? Five years ago?”

“Six.”

Summer gently placed her hands on Frannie’s shoulders. “Can you look me straight in the eye and honestly tell me you don’t ever want to go to a formal dance again the rest of your life?”

Did she really want to limit her life in that way? Frannie sighed. “I guess not.”

“Well, then, it’s high time you got back in the saddle.”

“But the idea makes me so—so uncomfortable.”

“Frannie, sometimes we have to move outside our comfort zone in order to move forward. We have to face our fears in order to get over them.” Summer’s tone was calm and authoritative, the tone that Frannie secretly called her doctor’s voice. “This is a great opportunity for you to put the past behind you, once and for all, and start a new chapter in your life.”

Jasmine nodded earnestly.

“Besides,” Summer continued, “what have you got to lose? It’s just one night out of your life. For just one night, try things our way. If you don’t like the results, you can always go back to the way things are now.”

A car pulled up in the drive and killed its engine. The hum of another engine rapidly followed. A wave of relief washed through Frannie. “Sounds like both of your dates are here. Too bad we’ll have to discontinue this fascinating discussion.”

Summer rose and straightened her skirt, her lips curved in a smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll continue it later. In the meantime, will you promise to just think about it?”

It would be a disaster. She was awful at making small talk. She would make a fool of herself. She was nuts to even consider it.

But she was considering it. Heaven help her, she was. Meeting that race car driver had made her realize how much she longed for male companionship. More than anything, she wanted a husband and a family.

Her cousins were right, Frannie thought ruefully. She wasn’t likely to meet any prospective mates sitting at home in front of the computer.

Frannie sighed and reluctantly nodded. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”




Two


Frannie thought of little else for the rest of the evening. She was still thinking about it the next morning when she strode into the large sun-filled kitchen, where Aunt Celeste was fussing over the stove.

Frannie smoothed a wayward strand of hair back into the tight bun she’d coiled at her crown, thinking how different her own drab coloring was from her vivid aunt’s. A natural redhead, Celeste had russet hair that became progressively brighter over the years as she fought off the signs of aging. Her current shade was called Autumn Flame, and she’d evidently taken the theme to heart, because she was dressed in a loose yellow shirt over a filmy orange and yellow gypsy-style skirt.

“Ouch!” Celeste dropped a heavy skillet back onto the stove with a loud clatter, then stuck her index finger into her mouth and dashed to the sink, her bangle bracelets jangling.

Frannie hurried forward. “Are you all right?”

Celeste flipped on the faucet and stuck her right hand under the running water. “Depends on your definition of ‘all right.’ That’s the second time I’ve burned myself this morning, and the third skillet of scrambled eggs I’ve nearly ruined.”

“Where’s Jasmine?” Jasmine normally did all the cooking at the B and B.

“That nice young man she went out with last night came by and wanted to take her fishing this morning,” Celeste said. “I told her to go ahead, that I’d enjoy taking a turn in the kitchen. I didn’t know I was going to be all thumbs this morning.”

Frannie frowned. Aunt Celeste might be less than careful when it came to bookkeeping and paperwork, but she was usually the very picture of efficiency in the kitchen. Celeste’s personality was as warm as her hair color, and she was just as nurturing as she was warm. She loved cooking and baking, and was as comfortable around the stove as Frannie was around the computer.

Frannie stepped closer. Her aunt’s complexion seemed paler than usual this morning, and the delicate skin under her eyes was etched with deep blue shadows.

“Are you feeling ill?”

Celeste brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead with her left hand and sighed. “I’m fine, dear. Just tired. I didn’t sleep well again last night. I kept having those awful dreams.”

Celeste had been plagued by nightmares for the past two weeks. All of them involved members of her family, and most of them centered on her sister, Blanche. In one particularly vivid dream, Blanche had warned that the past was about to rise up and greet her. She’d also cautioned Celeste be careful to make the right choices.

“Have you had any more dreams about Blanche?” Frannie asked.

“All of them seem to involve her.” Celeste stared out the kitchen window at the forest. “A couple of them last night were about my brother, Jeremiah. He was angry—horribly angry—but I don’t know why or at whom or what was going on. Another time I woke up with my heart racing, and I’d been dreaming about Blanche. I could see her in the distance.”

Celeste shut off the faucet and reached for a paper towel. “She was trying to tell me something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand what it was. She was too far away. I could see her lips moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.”

Frannie reached for a clean cloth and filled it with ice. She gave it to her aunt. “You’ve been having a lot of bad dreams lately.”

Celeste put the ice pack on her injured finger. “Just about every night. I’m sure it’s a sign.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. Blanche keeps trying to tell me something. I keep thinking back to the dream where she told me the past was about to rise up. Something’s about to happen. And whatever it is, it’s important.”

Celeste was a deeply spiritual person, but she harbored some odd notions about dreams and ghosts and the afterlife. She’d lived in Louisiana for a year with her late husband, and she’d brought back some strange beliefs from the bayou.

“Sometimes a dream is just a dream,” Frannie commented.

“And sometimes it’s not.” Celeste shook her head. “You know, dreams are nothing to dismiss lightly. Sometimes they contain messages from the other side. The problem is, the messages are often hard to read.” Celeste inspected her finger. “They’re like smoke signals—they can drift away before you get a chance to understand them.”

An acrid odor reached Frannie’s nose. She sniffed, then looked at Celeste in alarm. “Speaking of smoke, is something burning?”

“Oh, dear!” Celeste dashed across the kitchen, grabbed an oven mitt and yanked open the oven door, then reached inside. “Ouch!” she exclaimed, waving her hand.

“Did you burn yourself again?”

“Yes, dadblast it! Frannie, come and take these cinnamon rolls out of the oven before they burn to a crisp.”

Frannie patted her aunt’s back. “Why don’t you go sit down and relax? I’ll get breakfast for our guests this morning. We only have three, don’t we? Mr. Deshaw and that nice couple from Washington?”

“Four. Mr. Deshaw’s friend came by to pick him up, and I invited him to stay for breakfast. I believe Mr. Deshaw said he’s a race car driver, of all things.”

Frannie’s heart unaccountably picked up speed. She pulled on the oven mitt her aunt had abandoned and retrieved the burned rolls from the oven.

“The couple ate an hour ago. They’re out on the lake in the rowboat, fishing.”

“Well, then, I’ll get breakfast for the gentlemen.”

“Why, thank you, dear.” Celeste smiled at her niece. “I believe I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“Are you serving breakfast on the back porch?”

Celeste nodded. “It was too beautiful a morning to stay inside. Since the rolls are burned, why don’t you make some toast? You can serve it with the scrambled eggs. I made enough to serve an army.”

Celeste made her way upstairs and Frannie bustled around the kitchen. In a matter of minutes she’d prepared two attractive plates garnished with sliced cantaloupe and fresh strawberries. She loaded them onto an antique silver tray, her stomach fluttering nervously. Taking a deep breath, she headed out of the kitchen, through the den and onto the screened-in back porch.

The porch overlooked Blue Mirror Lake and Frannie usually found the view breathtaking, but she was too distracted by the sight of the tall, handsome man to notice the scenery this morning. Austin was settled in a rustic twig chair at a wooden table, deep in conversation with Tommy, and he looked even more handsome than she remembered. Her pulse fluttered wildly when he looked up at her and smiled.

He rose as she approached the table. “Good mornin’. May I help you with that?” He gestured toward the tray.

Frannie hesitated, completely flustered. She wasn’t accustomed to guests standing and offering to help when she tried to serve them. “Oh, no. Please take your seat.” She lifted a hand from the tray and gestured toward his chair.

She immediately knew she’d made a mistake. The tray tipped and the plates slid. She watched in horror as they headed toward him, as if in slow motion. Trying to correct the slant of the tray, she jerked it upward, but overcompensated.

“Oh, no!” Frannie gasped. A plate of scram bled eggs hit Austin full in the face, then landed back on the tray with a loud clatter.

Frannie stared, too aghast to move. Scram bled eggs dripped from his forehead, from his eyebrows, from his nose. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Austin ran his fingers across his eyes, clearing a path through the yellow blobs. Setting the tray quickly on the table, Frannie grabbed a blue cloth napkin and handed it to him. He used it like a washcloth, completely covering his face and wiping the egg away.

Frannie watched helplessly, dying a thousand deaths. “I’m so very, very sorry! Are you all right?”

He pulled the napkin away and opened his eyes. “Fine.” Turning the napkin, he took another swab at his forehead. The corners of his mouth turned up in a wry grin.

“It’s not the first time I’ve had egg on my face, is it, Tommy?”

The large man across the table slapped his knee and chortled. “No, sirree. But usually you’re the one that put it there.”

“I’m so sorry,” Frannie repeated. She grabbed another napkin and began dabbing at his shirt. His chest beneath the blue cotton knit was disconcertingly hard and warm. “Oh, dear, you’ve got it on your jeans, too.” She lifted the napkin, ready to attack his crotch, then froze as she realized what she was about to do.

His hand closed over hers, stopping her. The heat from his hand radiated up her arm, through her shoulder and straight through her chest. She stared up into blue, blue eyes.

His grin was blinding. “I think I’d better take over the clean-up operation.”

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, her voice a low, mortified whisper.

“It’s all right. It’s no big deal.” Releasing her hand, he took the napkin from her and brushed off his lap. “Looks like you took a bit of a hit yourself.” He reached out and brushed a blob of egg from her cheek.

The intimacy of the touch sent a shock wave curling through her. She jumped away as if he’d gigged her with a cattle prod, only to immediately realize the absurdity of her reaction.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” she lied.

“Well, there’s a little more egg right…” He reached out his hand again. Once more she reflexively jumped back.

Something about this man’s touch made her feel hot and bothered and breathless.

“I’m, uh, ticklish,” she lamely explained, vigorously rubbing her cheeks. “Is my face clean now?”

He seemed to be looking at something over her head. He pulled his eyes down to meet her gaze. “Your face? Uh, yeah.”

“Good. Well, I’ll…I’ll go fix you another plate, then come back and clean all this up.”

She fled to the kitchen, feeling as awkward as a three-legged chair. Quickly she made more toast, sliced more melon and plated up two more servings of eggs.

“Here you go,” she said a few minutes later as she hurried back to the porch. She set down his breakfast and backed away from the table, unreasonably worried about getting too close to Austin. “I’ll just go get a broom and dustpan and—” She stopped short and stared at the spotless wooden floor. “You cleaned it all up!”

Austin shrugged. “We found a roll of paper towels by the serving bar in the corner.”

Frannie frowned in dismay. “But you’re guests, and I’m the one who made the mess, and—”

Austin waved away her objections. “We’re used to cleanin’ up crank cases and oil pan spills. This was nothing.”

“That’s right.” Tommy smiled, his widely spaced teeth giving his round face the appearance of a friendly jack-o’-lantern.

But it was Austin’s amused expression that held her gaze. He was looking at her in such a strange way, as if he found her intensely interesting.

Frannie felt her pulse race. She was used to being ignored by men, not treated as an object of endless fascination—especially not by the likes of Austin Parker. She was drab and colorless and average. She certainly wasn’t dressed to rate any undue attention; she was just wearing a faded brown sweatshirt and loose-fitting khakis. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, her hair was wound in a bun at her crown, and her glasses were firmly in place on top of her nose. Austin’s intense scrutiny rattled her down to her toenails.

“Well, uh, thanks for the help. Can I get you anything else?”

“I think we’re all set.”

She beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen, where she tried to drown out her clamoring thoughts by loading the dishwasher and vigorously mopping the floor. She was nearly finished when Austin stuck his head inside the door fifteen minutes later. “Breakfast was delicious. Thanks. And give my thanks to your aunt.”

She heard the men’s footsteps retreat down the hall, then heard the front door close behind them. She leaned against the kitchen wall and inhaled a deep breath, her hand on her stomach.

Thank goodness they were gone. Austin made her feel as if her lungs were too small to draw enough air. And the way he looked at her! His gaze went so…so deep, as if he were seeing things in her that no one else had ever seen.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she muttered to herself. Instead of standing around mooning over an unattainable man, she needed to march herself back to the computer and finish the bookkeeping. She started through the dining room on her way to do just that, then jerked to a halt as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirrored china cabinet.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured.

There in the mirror, staring back at her from between plates of flowered Franciscan china, was the reason Austin had regarded her with such fascination: a giant glob of scrambled egg was perched atop her head like a yellow rubber tiara, supported by the bun she’d pulled her hair into that morning.

“Great. Just great.”

Striding back into the kitchen, she held her head over the sink and dislodged the enormous lump of egg. She pulled a paper towel off the holder and rubbed her hair, heaving a sigh of disgust. Austin was the sexiest man she’d ever set eyes on, and what did she do? She acted like a hopelessly tongue-tied klutz, so skittish that the poor guy didn’t dare tell her that the top of her head looked the inside of an egg salad sandwich.

Summer and Jasmine would never have been behaved so clumsily. They would have known how to talk and behave and flirt. Summer and Jasmine never would have thrown a plate of eggs in a guest’s face in the first place, and they certainly wouldn’t have ended up walking around all morning looking as if an airborne goose had just used them for target practice.

Maybe she should take them up on their offer to make her over. She had no expectations of being as glamorous as her cousins, but maybe, just maybe, she could gain a little of their self-assurance. Maybe Summer was right. Maybe if she quit feeling like such a nerd, she’d stop acting like one.

“What the heck,” she muttered, heading upstairs to wash her hair for the second time that day. It was worth a try. When Jasmine got home, Frannie would tell her she’d agreed to the makeover.



Frannie was still burning with mortification over the egg incident when the bell over the front door jangled thirty minutes later. She looked up from the computer to see a tall man in a tan uniform stroll into the foyer, accompanied by an attractive blond woman dressed in jeans and a white cotton shirt with a large black tote bag over her shoulder.

Frannie rose from her seat and smiled. “Sheriff Rawlings, good morning!”

Rafe Rawlings’s rugged face creased in a friendly smile. “Good mornin’, Frannie. I’d like you to meet my new detective, Gretchen Neal.”

Frannie stepped forward and shook the blonde’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” The woman’s handshake was as sturdy as her tall, athletic build. With her milky skin, light blond hair and blue eyes, she reminded Frannie of the movie star Gwyneth Paltrow.

“Gretchen just moved here from Elk Springs,” Sheriff Rawlings said. “But before that, she worked on the police force in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Miami. We’re lucky to have someone with her experience join our force.”

“We sure are. Can I offer you two breakfast?”

“No, thanks. I’m afraid we’re here on business today, Frannie.”

Frannie raised her brows in surprise.

Rafe’s dark eyes grew serious. “Gretchen’s heading up the investigation into Raven Hunter’s death. I need someone who can devote one hundred percent of their time to the case, and Gretchen’s got the background to handle it.”

“I…see.” Although she didn’t. Not really. That still didn’t explain why they were here on a Sunday morning. “Do you have any other suspects? Other than Uncle Jeremiah?”

“No one.” The sheriff adjusted his holster, his expression uneasy. He cleared his throat. “We’re still investigating your uncle.”

Frannie nodded slowly. Her mother’s brother had died before Frannie was old enough to remember him, but she’d heard plenty of tales about him. According to her mother, Jeremiah had been cold-hearted, bigotted and controlling. Based on what she’d heard about him, Frannie wasn’t at all surprised that he was a suspect. Jeremiah’s hatred of Raven Hunter was well known.

“We’d like to talk to your mom and your aunt again, to see if they remember anything else about the night Raven disappeared,” Rafe said gently.

“I’m afraid Mom’s in Minnesota. Dad’s mother just had hip replacement surgery, and so Mom and Dad went to stay with her for a while while she recovers.”

“When will they get back?” Gretchen asked, pulling a small notebook out of her tote bag.

“I don’t know exactly. But I can give you a phone number where you can reach them.”

“Thanks. I can take her statement over the phone.”

Rafe glanced at Gretchen. “And if need be, we can get the police in Minnesota to take a deposition from them.”

Frannie rounded the front desk, flipped through a Rolodex file and located the number. She wrote it on a slip of white paper. “Here it is.” She handed the number to Gretchen. “I’m afraid Mom won’t be much help to you, though. As she told Rafe, she was in Bozeman when Raven disappeared.”

Gretchen tucked the number into a pocket of her folder. “Well, we’ll give her a call and get an official statement.”

“What about Celeste?” the sheriff asked, leaning on the front desk. “Is she around?”

“Yes. She’s upstairs, resting.”

Rafe’s brow pulled together. “I thought she was always up at the crack of dawn.”

“She usually is. But she hasn’t been herself lately. She hasn’t slept well for the last couple of weeks.”

The sheriff glanced at Gretchen. “That’s about how long it’s been since we found Raven’s skeleton.”

Gretchen nodded, then turned to Frannie. “Could I talk to your aunt?”

“Of course.” Frannie motioned toward to the large silver coffee urn that sat on a sideboard in the hall, next to a stack of cups, spoons and cloth napkins. They always kept it filled in the mornings for the convenience of their guests. “Help yourselves to some coffee. I’ll go get her and we’ll join you in the living room.”

Frannie climbed the winding staircase, headed down the long hall, then turned right at the end, where it intersected a shorter hallway. She stopped at the second door and knocked softly. “Aunt Celeste?”

“Come in, dear.”

She found Celeste sitting in a rocker by the window, her eyes closed. Frannie paused. She was used to seeing her aunt bustling around the house, full of energy and vitality, tending to everyone else’s needs. It was disturbing, seeing her so still in the middle of the day.

“Aunt Celeste?” She hesitantly stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “Rafe and a new detective are here. They want to ask you some more questions about the night Raven disappeared.”

Celeste opened her eyes and gave a long, deep sigh that sounded as if it came from the depths of her soul. “Fine. I’ll talk to them.” She got up from the rocker. “But I’ve already told Rafe what I know.”

The forlorn, troubled look on Celeste’s face touched Frannie’s heart.

At least Rafe was an old family friend, she thought as she followed her aunt downstairs. That should make the interview process easier on Celeste.

The sheriff stood as they entered the room.

Celeste mustered a warm, hospitable smile and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Rafe, dear. It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s a pleasure to see you, too, ma’am.”

“How are your lovely wife and child?”

The lawman’s face softened. “Raeanne’s just fine. And Skye keeps us plenty busy.”

Celeste smiled. “I bet she does. You’ll have to bring her by.”

“I’ll do that.” Rafe turned and gestured to Gretchen. “Celeste, I’d like you to meet Gretchen Neal, my newest detective. Gretchen, this is Celeste Monroe.”

Celeste nodded. “It’s a pleasure.” She shook Gretchen’s hand, then waved her palm toward one of two mission-style sofas that faced each other in front of the massive stone fire place. “Please have a seat.”

Rafe and Gretchen lowered themselves onto one of the sofas. Frannie sat beside Celeste on the opposite one, across the heavy oak coffee table.

Rafe leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “I suppose Frannie told you I’ve put Gretchen in charge of the investigation into Raven Hunter’s death.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Celeste, but she’d like to ask you some questions you and I have already discussed.”

Gretchen pulled a small tape recorder out of her black leather tote bag. “Do you mind if I record our conversation?”

Celeste looked questioningly at Frannie, her green eyes round. Frannie nodded encouragingly.

“I—I suppose that would be all right,” Celeste conceded.

Gretchen punched a button on the machine and placed it on the coffee table, then opened her notebook and pulled out a pen. “Let’s start at the beginning, then, Mrs. Monroe. Would you please describe the relationship between your brother Jeremiah and Raven Hunter?”

Celeste eyed her warily. “What do you mean?”

“Were they friendly? Did they get along?”

Celeste wound her fingers together in her lap and stared down at them. “No. Not at all.”

“Why not?”

Celeste took a deep breath and exhaled it in a sigh. “My sister Blanche was in love with Raven. She wanted to marry him, but Jeremiah wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Why not?”

“Well…” Celeste looked at Rafe pleadingly. “I hate to speak ill of the dead. We don’t know if they can hear us.”

Rafe’s eyes were sympathetic, but his tone was firm. “You need to tell us everything you know, Celeste. We need all of the facts.”

Celeste nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. She took another deep breath. “Well, I’m afraid Jeremiah was something of a racist. He didn’t want a Kincaid from our side of the family to marry an Indian. And Raven, of course, was Cheyenne.”

“Did Raven and Jeremiah have an argument about it?”

“Oh, many. Jeremiah forbade Blanche to see Raven.”

“Did Blanche routinely do what Jeremiah told her to do?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. We all did—me, Blanche, and Yvette. After our parents died, Jeremiah ran the family. He was very strong-willed.”

“You and your sisters lived with Jeremiah at that time?”

“Yes. In the old house.”

Rafe turned to Gretchen. “Garrett’s Kincaid’s place now. It was boarded up for years until he moved in a couple years ago.”

Gretchen jotted the information down in her notebook, then looked at Celeste. “Did your brother own a gun, Mrs. Monroe?”

Celeste’s fingers tensed in her lap. “Yes. He had a whole collection.”

“Did he have a pistol in his gun collection?”

“Several.”

“Where did he keep that gun collection?”

“In his study. He had a glass case built into the wall for it. He was very proud of it.”

“What happened to those guns?”

“I—I don’t know. I imagine they’re all still in the house.”

Gretchen and Rafe exchanged another look, and Gretchen scribbled another notation. At length she looked back up at Celeste. “I’d like to get back to the topic of Blanche and Raven. Did Blanche follow Jeremiah’s orders to stay away from Raven?”

The older woman stared down at her hands. “No.” She shifted uneasily and plucked at the fabric of her skirt. “She continued to see him. And she became pregnant with his child.” Her eyes took on a gentler look. “With Summer.”

“What was Jeremiah’s reaction to that?”

“Oh, my.” Celeste’s fingers twisted and untwisted the fabric. Her forehead creased in a frown. “Oh, dear. I—I really don’t remember. I know he was upset. I know Blanche and Raven planned to run away and elope. But my…my memory about those days is all kind of a blur.”

“Do you remember when Blanche told him she was pregnant?”

Celeste shook her head. “Blanche didn’t want to tell him. She kept putting it off. But as time went on, it became impossible to hide her condition. And when Jeremiah found out, he—” Celeste broke off.

“He what?”

Celeste pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “I’m not really sure. Everything about that time gets all jumbled up in my mind.”

Gretchen leaned forward. “This is really important, Mrs. Monroe.”

“I—I’m afraid I’m getting a terrible headache. Everything is all mixed up and confused.”

“Take your time, Celeste,” Rafe said soothingly. “Do you remember anything at all about that time?”

Celeste leaned her head back against the sofa and wound the fabric of her skirt around her index finger. “Let me see… Well, I remember Summer’s birth. I was there, you know, when Blanche gave birth. And I was there when she died of complications, a week afterward.” Celeste grew silent. “I promised her that Yvette and I would raise her baby. Jeremiah didn’t want us to, but we did.”

“You and Yvette did a fine job of that,” Rafe said softly.

Celeste smiled. “We did, didn’t we?”

“Yes, indeed. And I’m sure Gavin agrees.” Rafe returned her grin. After a companionable silence, he pressed forward. “Do you remember anything about Jeremiah’s reaction to Blanche’s pregnancy?”

“No. But I remember something Blanche told me about it after Raven was gone.”

“What?” Gretchen took over the questioning.

“She said that Jeremiah tried to pay Raven to leave town.”

“Did she think Raven took the money and left?”

“Oh, no. Raven had told her about the offer. He said at first he thought it would be best if he accepted it—that Blanche and the baby would have a better life without him. But when push came to shove, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t break Blanche’s heart like that. He loved her—everyone knew that. He told her he was going to give back the money….”

“So he’d taken the money?” Gretchen asked.

Celeste massaged her right temple. Her eyes looked dazed and confused, and her face had grown pale. “I—I guess. I don’t know. I—I really can’t remember.”

Gretchen glanced at the sheriff.

“Do you remember the night Raven disappeared?” Rafe asked.

Celeste shook her head.

“When was the last time you saw Raven?” Gretchen asked.

“I—I don’t know. I’m all confused. And my head…” Celeste pressed her palm against her forehead.

Frannie noted with alarm that Celeste’s hand was trembling. She put an arm around the older woman. “She hasn’t been sleeping well,” she said apologetically to Rafe and Gretchen. “I think she needs to go back upstairs and lie down.”

“Yes. I think I should. I—I’m sorry I can’t be more help,” Celeste said weakly.

Gretchen and Rafe exchanged a meaningful glance, then both simultaneously rose from the sofa. Celeste and Frannie rose, as well.

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Monroe,” Gretchen said. “I hope you get to feeling better.”

“Me, too.” Rafe studied the older woman, his dark eyes thoughtful. “Give me a call if you remember anything you think might help us, all right?”

“I will.”

“I’ll see our visitors out, Aunt Celeste,” Frannie said. “You go on upstairs.”

“All right. Goodbye.” Celeste shuffled from the room, looking old and wan.

Rafe gazed after her for a long moment, then turned to Frannie. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“You’re more than welcome.” Frannie smiled at Gretchen. “It was nice meeting you, Gretchen.”

“Nice meeting you, too.”

“Good luck with your investigation.”

“Thanks. With a thirty-year-old murder case, we’re likely to need it.” Gretchen tucked her pen and notebook into her tote bag, then looked at Frannie. “Has your aunt ever told you anything about that night?”

Frannie shook her head. “She never talks about Jeremiah.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

Frannie lifted her shoulders. “Celeste is very superstitious. She used to live in Baton Rouge, and she picked up a lot of Cajun beliefs about spirits and such. She’s probably afraid Jeremiah will hear her talking about him. My mom said all of them were afraid of Jeremiah. He evidently had quite a temper.”

“Hmm,” Gretchen murmured. “Well, I’m sorry if we upset your aunt.”

Rafe followed the detective out the front door, then paused on the porch. He turned to Frannie. “Have a good day. And thanks for your time.”

“Any time.”

The sheriff paused, his hand on the door. “We’ll probably need to come back and question Celeste again.”

“I understand.”

Frannie leaned against the door as soon as she closed it behind the sheriff. Aunt Celeste was one of the kindest, warmest, most helpful women she’d ever known. She was a natural-born nurturer, and she’d always been open and straightforward.

Her reluctance to talk about Jeremiah and her inability to recall the events surrounding Raven’s death struck Frannie as highly unusual. The sheriff and his new investigator seemed to think so, too. There was more to the story than Celeste was telling, and Frannie couldn’t help but wonder what it was.




Three


Frannie looked up from a stack of loan applications late the next morning to see a familiar figure in a white physician’s coat approach her desk at the Whitehorn Savings and Loan. “Summer! What brings you here?”

“You do.” Summer sat in the armchair across from the desk and grinned at her cousin. “Jasmine tells me you’ve agreed to let us give you a makeover.”

Frannie shifted uneasily in her desk chair. She’d told Jasmine yesterday that she’d go along with Summer’s plan, but now she was having second thoughts. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that, and—”

“Oh, no,” Summer broke in, lifting her hands in a stop gesture. “We’re not going to let you back out now. I’ve already told Kyle that his date with you is confirmed.”

“Confirmed!” Frannie’s eyebrows flew up. “What do you mean, confirmed?”

Summer’s mouth curved into a small smile. “Gavin and I ran into Kyle at the country club Saturday night, and I asked if he’d be interested in having me fix him up with you for the dance. He seemed quite eager.”

Probably because he thinks I look like you. Frannie eyed her cousin suspiciously. “Saturday night? But how did you know I’d agree?”

Summer didn’t even pretend to look apologetic. “I didn’t.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a newspaper clipping. “Anyway, here’s your first assignment.”

“Assignment?”

Summer nodded. “Jasmine and I are going to give you assignments, and you’re going to follow them exactly.”

Oh, dear, what had she let herself in for? Summer’s take-charge attitude and sense of initiative had served her well—it had helped her work her way through medical school, and she’d used it to see her husband through a difficult episode when he’d been falsely accused of a crime—but sometimes Summer could make Frannie feel as if she’d been hit by a steam roller. She eyed her cousin warily. “What kind of assignments?”

Summer handed Frannie the clipping. Frannie glanced down at it, then looked up quizzically. “This is an ad for Kiss of Dew makeup and skin care products.”

Summer nodded. “A representative is giving free facials and makeup lessons at Kaylor’s Drug Store today. I want you to go on your lunch hour.”

Summer read the clipping more closely. “It says you have to call and schedule an appointment.”

“I’ve already done it for you. I know you take a late lunch, so your appointment is set for one.”

“Summer, I usually eat lunch on my lunch hour.”

“As a physician, I’m fully aware of your nutritional needs.” Summer took out a packaged sandwich from her purse. “That’s why I brought you this from the hospital vending machine.”

Frannie sighed as Summer set the sandwich on her desk. “You’re a real piece of work, Summer. You know that, don’t you?”

Summer flashed a blinding smile. “So I hear.” She glanced at her watch and rose from the chair. “I have to get to the clinic. I’ll stop by the Big Sky on my way home this evening to see how your makeup looks.” She hoisted her large purse on her shoulder and raised a hand as she walked away. “Ta-ta!”

Frannie watched her go, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Why had she ever agreed to this silly plan? She’d be better off taking an assertiveness training class—or lessons in basket weaving or tea cozy knitting or trapeze flying. Then, at least, she’d stand a ghost of a chance of succeeding.



“We need the smoothest skin possible under our foundation, so we’re going to start with this lovely kiwi avocado skin mask.”

The Kiss of Dew cosmetics representative evidently spoke of everything in terms of “we.” She’d already told Frannie that “we” had beautiful skin. All the same, she’d spent the past five minutes preparing it for a beautifying skin treatment.

Frannie winced as the stocky middle-aged woman poured a mound of green slime into her palm and picked up a cotton ball. “Is this really necessary?”

The heavily made-up lady nodded, jiggling her well-powdered multiple chins. “Oh, yes. Absolutely. Why, it’s part of our Essential Exfolliants and Emollients Kiss Kollection.”

Frannie glanced at the bottle and wondered if it was merely a coincidence that the initials spelled out EEEKK. That was certainly her reaction to the prospect of having the green goo slathered all over her face.

Especially in such a public setting, Frannie thought morosely. Right in the drugstore window.

Oh, well. Frannie had already endured having her face cleaned and swabbed with two different potions while passersby stopped and gawked. Wearing the green goop couldn’t be too much more humiliating. Folding her arm under the black cosmetics cape, she closed her eyes and resigned herself to the inevitable.

The woman began dabbing the cold, gooey substance on her face. “There. Doesn’t that feel refreshing?”

It felt like having a mixture of gelatin and undiluted pea soup globbed on her skin. Frannie pulled her lips into an expression simulating a smile and tried not to cringe as the woman smeared the thick paste across her forehead, over her nose, on her cheeks and down her chin.

“There! We’re all done.” The woman held a mirror up to Frannie’s face.

She looked as if she’d just stepped off a space shuttle from Mars. The only parts of her face that weren’t vivid green were her eyelids and her lips.

“Now all we have to do is sit and wait fifteen minutes while the mask works its magic,” the woman said perkily, batting her false eye lashes. “Then we’ll sponge it off and apply your makeup.”

Great. Fifteen minutes of sitting in the front window of Kaylor’s, looking like Swamp Thing. The only good thing about it was that nobody would be likely to recognize her under all that gunk.

Frannie pulled on her eyeglasses and stared out at Main Street, noting that there seemed to be more traffic than usual. Three yellow dump trucks cruised slowly past in single file, heading toward the resort and casino construction site.

She was following their progress when a small black-and-white object on the sidewalk across the street caught her eye. It was a dog, Frannie realized—an adorable, tiny dog with a puglike face and long, fluffy hair, probably a Shih Tzu. As Frannie watched in horror, the little dog wandered into the street and narrowly missed being hit by a passing blue van. The animal headed back to the curb, but a white Chevy cruised by, forcing the dog into the center of the road. Turning, the little dog skulked down the yellow line in the middle of the street, its tail tucked between its legs.

Frannie tensed. The dog was in front of the drugstore window now, directly in her line of vision. Judging from the rhinestone-studded collar and red bow, it was obviously someone’s pampered pet.

The little animal timidly started across the street again, heading right into the path of a red sports coupe. Frannie gasped as the driver swerved and honked. She didn’t realize she’d shut her eyes until she opened them a second later to see the little dog cowering in the street, its tail tucked, as the red car zoomed past.

Before she had time to consider her actions, Frannie flew off the stool, dashed through the drugstore and ran out the door. She stood on the sidewalk for a second, scanning the street for the little dog, then spotted it standing in the middle of the eastbound lane. The creature’s big brown eyes gazed at her pleadingly as it cringed in the road, directly in the path of a sleek black Jaguar rapidly barreling toward it.

“Stop!” Frannie yelled, waving her arms and stepping toward the road. The car showed no signs of slowing. The driver honked, but continued to speed toward the little dog.

“Don’t hit the dog!” Frannie screamed. The driver either didn’t hear or didn’t care.

There was no time to waste. Frannie dashed into the street, the black plastic cape flapping wildly around her. She threw herself headlong at the little dog, clutched it to her chest and rolled onto the pavement, praying she was rolling out of harm’s way.

She heard the squeal of brakes and smelled the burn of rubber. When she opened her eyes, she was facedown on the pavement, so close to the concrete that the pebbles in it looked like boulders.

She slowly lifted her gaze to see the bumper of the Jaguar less than a foot away. It was a good thing she was lying down. Otherwise, she surely would have fainted.

The driver’s door jerked open, and an angry man climbed out. His face was so mottled with rage that it took her moment realize that it was Lyle Brooks, the owner of the Whitehorn-based construction company building the resort and casino.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, running in front of my car like that?” Lyle demanded.

Frannie gazed down at the black and white dog wriggling in her arms. “I was saving this dog.”

“To hell with the dog! He’s not big enough to have caused any damage to my car. You, on the other hand, are a different story. Do you have any idea what it would have done to my insurance premiums to have an accident like that?”

Frannie gasped. She knew who Lyle was—his picture had been in all the papers when he won the contract for the casino and resort—but she’d never met him before, even though he was a distant Kincaid cousin. She’d heard he was callous and hard-hearted, but she’d always figured the stories were exaggerated. She was beginning to think differently.

“Your insurance premiums wouldn’t have been nearly as high as your court costs and bail bond,” said a low male voice from behind her, a familiar smoky voice, full of unfamiliar, barely controlled anger. “I saw the whole thing, and it looked to me like you were speeding. And I’d testify to that in a court of law.”

Frannie turned to see Austin Parker behind her, his eyes narrowed and his lips set in a hard, ungiving line.



The woman on the pavement stared up at him, her strangely familiar hazel eyes huge in her bright green face. Under any other circumstances Austin was sure he’d be amused, but what he’d just witnessed left him too shaken and angry to feel any sense of humor.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He reached down a hand and helped her up. The moment he touched her, he knew why she looked familiar. This was the woman from the bed-and-breakfast—the one who’d fallen over her chair when he first met her, then spilled egg all over both of them. He peered at her curiously.

“Frannie?”

“Yes?”

How the devil had her face gotten in that condition? “You didn’t just try to serve someone something green, did you?”

She looked at him blankly, then pulled her hand away to get a better grip on the dog, who was licking her cheek with gusto. Comprehension dawned. “Oh. N-no. I was having a facial.”

Austin turned back toward the driver of the Jaguar, a feeling of distaste rising in his throat. Even if he hadn’t just seen the man nearly run down a helpless animal with what looked like cold-blooded deliberation, he was certain he would have disliked him on sight. His lips were set in what looked like perpetual disdain, and he had a foppish, overly groomed look that spoke of self-absorption. His perfectly combed hair was so heavily moussed and gelled that the wind lifted it as a single unit. He wore a Rolex watch on his left wrist and a pinky ring on each hand. A gold chain was visible at the open neck of his custom-made shirt.

Austin looked him dead in the eye. “Looked to me like you were aiming for that dog.”

“It had no business being on the street.” Lyle glared at Frannie. “And the same goes for you.”

Austin took a menacing step forward. “Well, now, I believe you have that all wrong. Frannie here has as much right as anyone to be anywhere she pleases. You’re the one who was out of line. You owe Frannie an apology, and I’d like to hear you make it.”

“I’ll do no such thing. I had the right of way. I was driving along, minding my own business, when she recklessly threw herself in front of my car.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘your own business’ when you’re behind the wheel of a car,” Austin said sharply.

The man stared at him coldly. “I know who you are. You’re that racing hotshot that just moved here, aren’t you?” He pulled himself up to his full height, but Austin still towered over him. The man puffed out his chest and scowled. “Maybe you don’t know who you’re dealing with here. I’m Lyle Brooks, the owner of one of the biggest construction companies in Montana, and I don’t need lessons in how to drive a car.”

Austin glared at the man. “Well, then, maybe you need lessons in how to read street signs, because you were clearly exceeding the speed limit. You were racing down Main Street as if it were the final lap at Winslow, and I’ll have no problem telling that to the police.”

“The police?” Lyle’s eyebrows shot up. His brow furrowed, and his eyes widened in apprehension. “Hey, now, there wasn’t an accident. There’s no reason to get the law involved.”

Austin took another step forward, enjoying the fact that it forced Lyle to back up. “Not if you apologize to Miss Hannon.”

The man’s eyes narrowed.

Austin rubbed his chin. “If you have a problem with that, well, then, I’m afraid I’ll have a problem letting this matter go without filing a report. And Miss Hannon, here, is likely to want to press charges for reckless endangerment.”

Frannie looked at him wide-eyed. Austin was pretty certain she’d never do any such thing, but he was thankful she kept silent.

“If we all stand here blocking traffic much longer, the police are likely to show up whether we want them to or not,” Austin added.

Lyle’s eyes were small, hate-filled slits. With an impatient sigh, he turned toward Frannie. “Sorry.”

He hardly sounded sincere, but Austin decided not to push it. He watched the man stalk back to his expensive car, climb in and peel rubber as he drove away.

“What a charmer,” Austin muttered. He looked at Frannie, and the absurdity of her green face made him smile. “We’d better get out of the street.”

He took her arm, started to the sidewalk, only to realize she was limping. “Are you hurt?”

She winced in pain. “I think I skinned my knee.”

“I’ve got a first-aid kit in my car. Let’s get you to that bench on the sidewalk, then I’ll go get it.”

They’d made it to the sidewalk and had nearly reached the bench when an elderly woman rushed up to Frannie, all out of breath. “Snook’ems!” Her wrinkled face beaming, she clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, you found my Snooky-Wook’ems! Oh, how can I thank you?”

The fur ball in Frannie’s arms thumped its tail madly. Frannie passed the dog to the woman’s outstretched arms.

The woman joyfully kissed the animal on its wet black nose. “I’ve been looking everywhere for her.” The little dog nearly knocked off the woman’s glasses in its effusive expression of delight. “Where did you find my angel?”

“Wandering around in the middle of the street,” Frannie said.

“Oh, dear! I’m glad she wasn’t hit by a car. I don’t know what I’d do without my Snooky-Wook’ems!”

Austin fixed her with a stern look. “You’d better keep her on a leash, then. Frannie risked her life to save your dog.”

“Oh, my! Oh, I’m so sorry!” The woman’s gray eyes were round and earnest behind her thick trifocals. “I left Snooky in my car while I ran into the drugstore to get my heart medicine. I put the window down so she wouldn’t get hot, and well, she must have jumped right out.” The woman held the little dog up to her face and spoke in a high-pitched, babyish voice. “You were a naughty girl, weren’t you, Snook’ems? You gave Mommy quite a scare.”

“Scared me pretty good, too,” Frannie said dryly.

They weren’t the only ones, Austin thought. His heart had nearly jumped out of his chest when he’d seen a woman—Frannie—dive in front of that car.

“I don’t know how to thank you, dear.” The woman kissed the dog again, then turned to Frannie. She peered over the top of her thick lenses. “It just goes to show, you can’t judge a person by the way they look. I never knew you punk rockers cared about animals. “

“Punk rocker?” Frannie’s eyes were shocked. “ I’m not a punk rocker!”

Austin leaned toward the old woman conspiratorially. “She’s very sensitive about her skin condition. I keep telling her its nothing to be ashamed of. Anyone can pick up a fungal condition.”

The old woman’s eyes flew wide. “You mean, that’s fungus? Is it contagious?”

Austin nodded somberly. “I’m afraid so. The only antidote is to cover your entire body in peanut butter for twenty-four hours immediately after exposure.”

“Oh, dear!”

“I suggest that you and Snooky go right home and get started.”

Wearing a look of horror, the woman hurried down the sidewalk, clutching the little dog to her ample chest.

Frannie convulsed in a fit of laughter. It took her a minute to regain her ability to speak. “You’re as naughty as Snook’ems,” she finally gasped.

Austin grinned. “Served the old biddy right.”

She grinned at him, her smile so warm and bright he practically reached for his sun glasses. A jolt of attraction zapped through him despite her green face.

He cleared his throat, disconcerted. “Let’s take a look at your knee.” He gestured to a wooden bench under the green-and-white-striped drug store awning. Frannie sat down, lifted the cape and pulled up the long tan skirt of her gabardine suit to reveal long slender calves.

Her right knee was scraped and bleeding. Austin felt a rush of empathy. “You sit right there, and I’ll go get my first-aid kit.”

“Okay. Thanks.” He could feel Frannie’s eyes on him as he sprinted across the street. Opening the door of his black pickup, he pulled out a box from under the seat, then strode back across the street.

She looked so ridiculous, sitting on that wooden bench in that ridiculous cape, with that goofy green face and those enormous eyeglasses. Something inside of him went warm and oddly mushy.

“Are you okay?” He squatted in front of her and opened the box.

“Yes. But you might as well go ahead and say it.”

“Say what?”

“What you’re thinking. That it was stupid of me to run out in the street like that.”

Austin pulled out a cotton pad and squirted it with disinfectant. “Why do you think that’s what I’m thinking?”

“Because it was stupid. I acted before I thought. But that little dog looked so scared and helpless, and that car was coming so fast. I knew if I was going to try to help it, I had to act fast.”

“Well, I gotta say, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“I did?”

Austin nodded. “I was just coming out of the automotive store when I saw you flying across the street. You looked like Batman, swooping into the street in that cape.”

He was glad to see that he’d made her grin.

“I didn’t see the dog at first, but I heard you yell, and I saw the Jag speeding toward you. When I saw you take a tumble right in front of it, well, my heart was in my throat.”

“It was?”

“Dang right. No one knows better than me the damage an automobile can inflict on the human body.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not usually so reckless.”

Something about the chagrin on her green face made him smile. “Hey, I said you scared me. I didn’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

Her hazel eyes fixed on him in a way that made him forget all about her green face.

“Come to think of it, I have done the same thing,” Austin found himself saying. “I nearly got trampled by a stallion once, trying to get a sick colt out of a herd back when I was breaking horses.”

“You used to break horses?”

He grinned. “Well, it’s debatable who got broken more, the horses or me.” He set the bottle of disinfectant on the sidewalk and lifted the soaked pad. “This is likely to sting, but I need to clean the wound.”

“Okay.”

He dabbed at her left knee. She bit her lip, but didn’t cry out. Once again he felt that odd, mushy feeling.

“Did you work with horses here in Montana?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Among other places. My father never stayed in one place for long.”

“Because of his job?”

Austin gave wry smile. “Not really. Because of his lifestyle.”

Frannie tilted her head quizzically, and looked at him, really looked at him, in a way he hadn’t been looked at in a long time. She wasn’t just looking at him; she seemed to be really seeing him.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Austin lifted his shoulders. “He didn’t want to put down any roots, didn’t want to get attached to anyone or anything.” Including me, Austin thought bitterly.

“We moved a lot.”

“What did he do?”

“He was a ranch hand. Had a real talent with cattle. Me, I always preferred horses.”

“Is that what you’re raising on your ranch?”

Austin nodded. Why was he telling her all this? It wasn’t like him to gab about his personal life with someone he’d just met. It must be that sincere way she looked at him, as if she were somehow connecting with him.

Austin picked up a Band-Aid strip and peeled the paper away. He gently set it on her knee, covering the wound, then found himself oddly reluctant to take his hand from her leg.

It was a very nice leg. Her skin was warm and smooth and lightly tanned. Her calves were well-shaped and slender. It was a shame that a woman with legs like that would hide them under such a long skirt.

“There.” He pressed down the edges of the Band-Aid strip, then pulled back his hands. He had the oddest urge to bend down and kiss her knee.

But that made no sense—no sense at all. He clicked the metal box of bandages closed and straightened.

She stood, as well. “Thanks. I really appreciate your help.”

“My pleasure.”

His gaze fell to her lips. They were moist and pink, and they stood out in sharp contrast to the green on the rest of her face. In fact, she seemed to be all eyes and lips. Beautiful hazel eyes. Plump, luscious-looking lips—lips that parted slightly as he stared at them. A rush of heat coursed through him. How he’d like to press his mouth to those lips, to draw that pouty bottom one into his mouth, to slide his tongue right between her lips….

The inappropriateness of his thoughts jarred him. He shifted the first-aid kit to his other hand. “Well, I’d better get back to the ranch. Tommy needs these parts for the car.”

“And I’d better get back inside and get this goop off my face.”

“Right.” Austin nodded curtly. “Well, see you later.”

“Okay.” Those tempting lips curved into a smile. “And thanks. For the first aid, and for stepping in with Lyle.” Her hair had come loose from the low ponytail she wore, and she brushed a stray strand behind her ear.

“My pleasure.” But it was pleasure of an entirely different kind that he was thinking about as he watched her turn and scurry back into the drugstore.

I must have taken one too many knocks to the head in race collisions, Austin thought as he strode to his car. Why else would a woman covered in a shapeless plastic cape who looked as if she’d fallen face-first into a bowl of puréed spinach turn him on more than any woman had in a long, long time?



Lyle Brooks gunned the engine of his expensive car as he tore down the dirt road leading to the resort construction site, still fuming over his near accident in town.

Who the hell did Austin Parker think he was, telling him what to do? He might be a hotshot on the NASCAR circuit, but that didn’t mean he was anyone here in Whitehorn.

Around here, Lyle thought heatedly, he was the hotshot. After all, he was the owner of the construction company building the resort and casino, the biggest thing to ever hit this one-horse town. The complex was going to put Whitehorn on the map. Even more importantly, it was going to make Lyle richer and more powerful than ever.

Lyle braked as he approached the construction trailer, pulling into the spot directly in front of the door. His foreman had suggested that they reserve the spot for the handicapped, but Lyle hadn’t cared for the idea. It was his construction company, by damn. If anyone was going to get the best parking spot, it was going to be him. He wanted the best out of life, whether it was parking spots or cars or cigars or women. He wanted it, he deserved it, and he intended to see that he got it.

Slamming the door of the Jag, he strode up the wooden steps into the luxury trailer to find his secretary, Pam, on the phone. “Oh, he just walked in, sir,” the attractive blonde said into the receiver. “Just a moment.” Pam punched a button and looked up. “It’s your grandfather.”

So the old goat finally decided to call me back, Lyle thought. He’d been trying to reach Garrett Kincaid all morning, but all he’d got was the old man’s answering machine. Lyle didn’t know why his grandfather didn’t just get a cell phone. Garrett said he didn’t need one, but Lyle was certain he was just being stubborn. It was awfully hard to get the old man to change his mind about anything once his mind was made up about it.

But Lyle was working on it. Oh, yes, he was working on it. “I’ll take the call in my office,” he said, stalking past the secretary and closing the door.

He lowered himself into the tall cordovan leather chair. It was a custom-made chair Lyle had ordered from a furniture company in North Carolina, stately and large, with an extra-high back. Even with the two-inch lifts in his shoes, Lyle was only five-foot-nine, and he liked to make an imposing impression.

He picked up the phone and punched the button, forcing a warmth he didn’t feel into his voice. “Hello, Granddad. Thanks for calling me back.”

“What can I do for you today, Lyle?”

“I was, er, wondering if you’ve given any more thought to what we were discussing yesterday. “

He heard his grandfather sigh. “Lyle, we’ve been all through that, and you know how I feel about the matter. That land is reserved for Gabriel, and I’m not going to swap it for yours. There’s no point in discussing it further.”

“I’m not asking for a straight trade. I’m willing to offer a considerable amount of money in addition to my land. For the sake of fairness, I don’t see why you can’t at least consider the possibility of selling it to me.”

“I’ve been more than fair with you, Lyle.” Garrett’s voice was as hard as steel. “It’s my land, and I’ll do what I damn well please with it.”

“But two years ago, you didn’t even know about Larry’s brood of bastards!”

“I won’t have you talking about your cousins that way.” The steel in Garrett’s voice sounded razor-sharp.

“Cousins.” Lyle spit the word out, derision dripping from his voice. “I don’t understand how you can consider those illegitimate whelps as family.” As far as Lyle was concerned, they were nothing but unfortunate reminders of his uncle Larry’s philandering ways.

“Because that’s what they are, whether you like it or not.” Garrett’s voice cut sharply through the phone line. “They’re Larry’s sons. They’re as much my blood as you are, and I suggest you start accepting that fact.”

Lyle stared out the window at the Crazy Mountains, their tops rugged and craggy above the timberline. They looked just like his grandfather sounded, tough and indomitable and unmoving. No, his grandfather was tougher than the mountains, Lyle thought ruefully. If a mountain was in his way, he could always blast through it with dynamite. With his grandfather, he’d have to find a way around.

The old man was completely intractable when it came to this topic. Ever since he discovered two years ago that his late son, Larry, had fathered seven illegitimate children, Garrett had refused to listen to reason. The old man had not only welcomed the bastards into the bosom of the family, but given them all large chunks of the Kincaid ranch, as well. Land that should have been split three ways—between Lyle and his two legitimate cousins, Melanie and Collin—was now going to be split among the bastards.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. The piece of land the old man had given Lyle was a worthless parcel abutting the Laughing Horse Reservation up north. The land the resort was being constructed upon, however, was being saved for Gabriel Reilly Baxter, Larry’s youngest illegitimate child who’d been adopted by Jordan Baxter. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the little bastard was probably still in diapers.

Lyle’s grandfather refused to see the injustice of it all. Lyle had tried to reason with the old man. He’d tried wheedling and logic. He’d even had his mother intercede on his behalf. She’d manage to convince Garrett to give Lyle an extra piece of the Whitehorn property, but it had been more of that useless tract next to the reservation. He’d even offered to buy the land the resort would be built on from the stubborn old mule. The only concession he’d gotten was that Garrett had agreed to let him represent the land in negotiations with the Indians, and he’d made sure that Lyle’s construction company got the contract to build the casino and resort.





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