Faith Ivory was stuffing the last of her Temperance League homework into her briefcase and anticipating a nice long weekend snowed in at her apartment when she heard a man’s voice in the outer office. Not just any man’s voice. Holt McClellan’s voice. Wonderful. Just what she needed. She’d been so close to making a clean break of it.

Her gaze skittered to the window, through which she briefly considered hurling herself, but she changed her mind when she realized what a mess that would make on all the pretty snow that had fallen since mid-afternoon. These unexpected spring snowstorms were so inconvenient. She sighed heavily, snapped her briefcase shut, and sat down to wait for Holt’s knock on her door.

She didn’t have to wait long.

“Yes?” she called out halfheartedly in response to the three quick raps, almost identical to the ones that had jolted her out of her peaceful existence at her apartment.

With the creak of a hinge, he filled her doorway. And as had happened on every other occasion when she found herself in the same room with him, her heart rate tripled. They didn’t part well that night at Cherrywood almost a month ago. After the appearance of his sister and her…her…

Well, Faith was still at a loss as to who exactly his sister’s companion was that night. Nor did she ever quite figure out just what that whole Me-Tarzan-You-Jane tableau was about. All that was important was that she exit as gracefully—and as quickly—as possible, to avoid further embarrassing both the McClellan family and herself. So she fled. In a taxi. After making it clear to Holt that she had no desire to see him again. Ever.

At least, she thought she made herself clear. But now, here he stood, looking more handsome and overwhelming than ever, and all she could do was feel strangely glad to see him.

“Faith,” he greeted her.

“Holt,” she replied, congratulating herself for maintaining such a steady tone of voice. “What are you doing out in this, weather? According to WFPK, we’re supposed to have eight inches of snow by dark.”

He chuckled morosely. “Yeah, and then it’ll probably hit seventy degrees tomorrow and make a mess of things. These spring snowstorms can be so obnoxious.”

Pushing aside the realization that she was just thinking the same thing herself, she asked, “What can I do for you?”

“You can give me a second chance.”

Gee, nothing like getting right to the heart of the matter, she thought. “Please come in,” she invited him, seating herself behind her desk. “And close the door behind you.”

He did as she requested, and as he shed his coat and sat down in the chair opposite her, it occurred to her that their positions were now reversed from that first encounter in his office. But where Holt’s turf was some of the most expensive real estate in town, Faith’s digs were decidedly more modest. The Louisville Temperance League operated on a shoestring—a baby bootie shoestring at that—and could barely afford the aged, nondescript building where they located two years ago. Faith’s office was one of the larger ones in the suite, but even at that, was no more than one-quarter the size of Holt’s. And where his was bright with trendy earth tones and furnished with expensively tailored pieces, hers was dark and cluttered with castoffs that even the most generous observer would be hard-pressed to call “antique.”

She steepled her fingers on the scarred blotter atop her desk, then opened her mouth to say something along the lines of, “I never want to see you or your family again for as long as I live, now go away.” But he held up a hand to stop her.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for a month,” he said without preamble.

Something happy and mellow oozed into her belly, but she refused to succumb to the warm, fuzzy way it made her feel. Really, she did. Honest. She did.

“And I owe you an apology for what happened that night at Cherrywood,” he added.

Actually, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t up to Holt to apologize for a scene someone else created, even if it was a member of his own family. Nor was he responsible for Faith’s reaction to what happened. How could he know she would react the way she did that night, when Kit McClellan entered the dining room so obviously intoxicated? Faith had become immediately uncomfortable after that. Not because of the potential embarrassment factor for Holt, but because of the very definite fear factor for herself. Kit’s drunken state reminded Faith too much of the drunken state of another person whose memory was too fresh in her mind. Stephen Ivory. Even in death, he ruled her life.

“You don’t owe me an apology,” she said.

“Yes, I do.”

“For what?”

He smiled sadly. “For subjecting you to my family before our relationship was fully cemented.”

“You seem to be a few steps ahead of me. I wasn’t aware we had a relationship to cement.”

“I beg to differ.”

“And I beg your pardon.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hooking his fingers loosely together between his legs. He met her gaze steadily, intently, unequivocally. But instead of addressing the matter of their alleged relationship, he returned to the subject of his apology instead.

“Faith, I’m sorry you had to witness the scene you witnessed that night,” he said softly.

“So am I.”

“I tied to explain it to you then, but you wouldn’t let me. You were too busy bolting for the front door.”

She laughed, the sound an anxious ripple of uncertainty. “The last thing I wanted to do was get caught up in what was obviously a private family matter.”

Holt laughed, too, but his was a genuine sound of merriment. “Trust me, Faith, when I tell you that there was nothing private about what happened that night. Everyone who’s ever met Kit knows what kind of behavior she’s capable of indulging in.”

“So then it’s no secret to anyone in Louisville that your sister is a lush?”

Faith squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her hands, appalled that she said such a thing out loud. She waited to see what Holt would say in response to her inexcusable, unforgivable gaffe. But when she finally corralled the nerve to open her eyes again, she found him smiling at her.

“You thought Kit was drunk that night?” he asked, barely containing his laughter. “Really?”

Faith nodded, growing more and more miserable with every passing moment. “And I’m just not comfortable around people who over-imbibe. In fact, anyone who shows signs of drunkenness tends to terrify me.”

But Holt wasn’t listening to her explanation, because he was too busy being doubled over in laughter.

“What?” she said, torn between her own troubling memories and his infectious good humor. “What’s so funny?”

He reined himself in, but a huge grin split his face, and all Faith could think was that she’d never seen him looking more handsome. “It just never occurred to me that anyone would think Kit’s a drunk, that’s all. She’s certainly a unique individual, but I’ve never seen her drunk in my life.”

“Well, what else would cause her to act the way she was acting? Why did her companion bring her in over his shoulder, kicking and screaming that way?”

Holt shook his head and chuckled some more. “That’s going to take a long time to explain, something I sincerely hope will make for an appropriate segue when I ask you out again at the end of this conversation. As for Kit’s behavior, well… That’s just the way she is. She was perfectly sober that night. So was Pendleton, for that matter.”

Faith began to smile, too. Eccentric she could handle. “So then there’s no deep dark secret in the McClellan household?” she asked. “No out-of-control, drunken family member doing something to embarrass the entire clan?”

Holt sobered at her jest. “Actually,” he said, “that’s not exactly true. We, uh, we do have a lush in the family, someone who has in fact embarrassed the McClellan clan on a number of occasions in the past.”

Her embarrassment rose to the fore, and she wondered how many more times she was going to say the wrong thing around this man before she finally learned her lesson. “You do?”

He nodded.

“Who?”

He hesitated for a moment, before revealing quietly, “Me.”

“You?”

He nodded again, and suddenly he looked older than Faith first thought him. “I’m a recovering alcoholic,” he stated evenly, having no trouble whatever putting voice to the words. “No one knows that outside my family, except for a counselor. No one but you. And no one else can ever know.”

A clump of something cold and unpleasant landed in the pit of Faith’s stomach. “You obviously aren’t struggling with it. Why keep it such a secret, especially when others could benefit from your experiences?”

He met her gaze again. “Can’t you imagine what people would do with that bit of news? The second-in-command at Hensley’s Distilleries nearly killed himself with his own product? The Louisville Temperance League, for example, would have a field day if they knew.”

Faith blinked at him. “They do know.” She wasn’t sure what motivated her to say that, but once the words were uttered, she had no way to take them back.

Holt shook his head. “No, they don’t know. You know. I’m trusting you not to exploit the information or make it public knowledge.”

“How can you trust me to do that?”

“Because I know you.”

“You know nothing of me,” she countered.

“Maybe I know more than you think.”

How Faith wished that were true. And how she wished Holt hadn’t revealed what he just revealed. Not just because of the compromising position it put her in, but because his admission of his weakness—his illness—simply hit too close to home.

“Faith?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“I can trust you, can’t I?”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t know. If no one outside your family is aware of this, why did you tell me?”

“Because I think it’s something you should know. Because I think it will be important in our future.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have a future, Holt. How many times do I have to say that?”

He stared at her for a long time in silence, and all she could do was stare back. Around her, the world seemed to stop spinning for a few moments. Then Holt leaned back in his chair, and the enchantment was broken.

“I can trust you,” he said, clearly resolved.

“Then the problem now,” she replied just as resolutely, “would be that I can’t trust you.”

His eyebrows arrowed downward in confusion. “What do you mean? Why can’t you trust me?”

“Because you’re an alcoholic.”

“Recovered,” he hastened to correct her.

“Recovering,” she corrected him in turn. “You guys never do fully recover, do you? There’s always that chance…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but his entire body went rigid in response at her implication.

“My husband was an alcoholic,” she said suddenly, uncertain just when she decided to reveal that particular bit of news. “That was what killed him. He drove off the road one night on his way home from work, and hit a tree at eighty miles an hour. I can only thank God he didn’t take anyone else out with him.”

Holt didn’t react—didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t breathe.

So Faith continued. “On his good days, Stephen was a charming liar,” she said softly. “And on his bad days…” She paused, steeling herself against the memories. “On his bad days…he was a mean drunk.”

Holt’s expression hardened, as if he understood what lay beneath the sentiment. But all he said was, “I was never a mean drunk, Faith. But I was a charming liar. My wife divorced me because of that. I lied to her about everything.” He dropped his gaze back down to the hands that lay still in his lap. “On a couple of occasions, I was unfaithful to her. And I was stupid enough to think she wouldn’t find out.” He glanced back up and met her gaze with steely determination. “I won’t sit here and make excuses for my behavior back then. But I can tell you that, had I been sober, none of it would have happened.”

“How long now have you been sober?”

“For almost two years.”

Faith nodded. “That’s commendable, Holt. I’m glad you’re doing so well. But you have to understand that, having put up with that kind of behavior from one man, for a lot longer than I should have, I’m not willing to risk having it happen again.”

“It won’t happen again,” he vowed. “Not with me.”

She smiled sadly. “I wish I could believe that. But I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Before he had a chance to say anything more, she stood and circled her desk, amazed that her legs were actually able to carry her. As gracefully as she could, she jerked open the door, then turned to Holt again.

“Thank you, Mr. McClellan, for clearing up the matter of your sister,” she said, striving for a formality she was nowhere near feeling. “I think that concludes our business together.”

Clearly with much reluctance, he stood and shrugged back into his coat, then began to make his way out. He got as far as the door without speaking, but something made him halt before he passed through it. When he did, his scent surrounded her, warm and earthy and masculine, reminding her of so many things she wished she could forget. He gazed down at her face for a long time without speaking, then, as if he couldn’t resist the impulse, he lifted his hand and stroked her cheek with bent knuckles. Faith squeezed her eyes shut tight to keep in the tears she felt welling. Her already jumpy heart leaped at the soft caress, but she neither spoke nor moved in response.

When she opened her eyes, Holt threw her a half-smile. “I’ll be seeing you,” he murmured. Then he left, crossing the tiny outer office to exit through the other door. He didn’t look back once.

“Mrs. Ivory?”

Only then did Faith realize that her secretary had witnessed their last exchange. “It’s okay,” she told the other woman. “He didn’t mean it.”

She stepped back into her office and closed the door, leaning back against it, as if doing so might keep her demons on the other side. Outside her office window, in a swirl of white that hid the rest of the world from her view, the snow began to fall in earnest. She just wished it could cover the ugliness of everything she felt inside, too.

Holt guided his big, black BMW back to Cherrywood with little incident before the storm reached full capacity. All the way home, he thought about Faith Ivory, cursing his life, his family, and his circumstances. But mostly, he cursed himself. Not just because of the things he did in the past to mess up his present, but because he just could not surrender his hope of a future with Faith.

Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her? he wondered. She made it clear she had no desire to pursue whatever attraction was blossoming between them. She made it clear she couldn’t trust him. So why couldn’t he just let it—let her—go?

As he exited the four-car garage behind Cherrywood, his gaze fell on the battered basketball hoop fastened to the side. He hesitated, oblivious to the fat flakes of wet snow that clung to his hair and snuck down his collar, trying to remember the last time anyone used it. Years. Maybe more than a decade. He couldn’t recall the last time the hollow thump-thump-thump of seemingly careless dribbling pounded the walkway from the back door to the garage. There were seasons when that hoop was never idle, though, when he and his brothers—and frequently Kit—spent the entire weekend battling it out on the concrete court below. Their mother would lounge with a book by the pool, watching, egging on whoever happened to be her favorite that day, until suppertime rolled around. Then she’d go in the house and fry a couple of chickens, and they’d all have supper at the umbrella tables outside.

For all their wealth and prominence, Lena Hensley McClellan made sure her children led normal, wonderful lives when they were little. She loved to cook, and she made sure they were all home for supper every night. Once a week, she dressed them all in nondescript jeans and T-shirts, piled them into their grandfather’s pickup truck, as if they were any middle-class family in the world, and scuttled them off to all the best places in town. To the Louisville Zoo, where she let them ride the train as many times as they wanted through the green hills pungent with animal smells. Or to Huber Farms in Starlight, Indiana, right when they started pressing the apples for cider, when the air was cold and brisk and redolent of autumn. Or to the Frito-Lay factory for one of those kiddie tours, where they sent everyone home with a free bag of Fritos, and you felt as if you’d been given the most wonderful gift in the world. Or to Showcase Cinemas, back before they chopped it to pieces, when the screens were vast and enormous and the picture virtually surrounded you, and from the fabulous fourth row, you felt like you were a part of the film.

Holt closed his eyes and inhaled deeply of the snowy evening, the scent of the cold air assaulting him with too many memories for his brain to process, too many emotions for his heart to hold. God, he missed being a kid. Almost as much as he missed his mother. He wished he could rewind the years and relive them all in slow motion. Not just to experience the joy all over again, but to make amends for some of the things he said and did.

As always, when such feelings came over him, his first impulse was to pour himself a drink. As always, when such impulses came over him, he immediately shoved them aside. Instead, he turned his back on the basketball hoop and trudged to the back door, then made his way immediately to the library, where his father kept the best stocked bar. He opened the liquor cabinet, reached past the bottles of Hensley’s and found a club soda at the very back.

A soft sound from behind had him spinning around, and he was surprised to see Kit standing at the library entrance. Immediately, he held the bottle in his hand aloft for her inspection. “Club soda,” he said. “Really.”

She smiled. “You don’t have to prove it to me, Holt. I have faith in you.”

He smiled back at her choice of words. “Yeah, well, that makes one of us.” He twisted the cap off the bottle as he turned to fill a glass with ice. “What are you doing home? Did you and Pendleton have a lovers’ spat?”

A chuckle erupted from behind him. “Not hardly,” she said. “We’d have to be lovers for us to have a lovers’ spat, wouldn’t we?”

Holt turned to face her, drink in hand, and feigned surprise. “What? You mean all that stuff you told Dad about the two of you sleeping together isn’t true? Kit. I’m shocked, you would lie to our father that way.”

She strode easily into the room and dropped down onto the loveseat. But she said nothing in response to his assertion.

He sipped his soda, then set it on the side table as he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it into a chair. “So what brings you home?” he asked again as he joined her on the loveseat.

She tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I needed a little break. And, just for the record, I didn’t lie to Daddy. Pendleton and I really did sleep together that first night. He just didn’t find out about it until he woke up the next morning.”

“So it really was sleeping, and nothing else?”

She nodded.

“And the status quo has remained unchanged?”

“Oh, no, it’s changed,” she said. “Pendleton has been sleeping on the couch since then.”

Holt chuckled. “I knew Dad underestimated him. I can’t see Pendleton buckling under to either one of you, in fact, even if he did let you move in with him.”

Kit turned her head to gaze at him, her expression inscrutable. “Are you suggesting I underestimated him? How do you know I don’t have him right where I want him?”

“And just where is it that you want him, Kit? Do you even know? Besides spread-eagle, belly-up, food for the buzzards, I mean.”

She seemed to give his question great thought before finally replying, “I never wanted to make him food for the buzzards. He is kind of cute, after all. I’m sure I could find some use for him.”

“Other than as a revenge tool against Dad, you mean.”

She made a face. “Please, Holt. You make me sound so conniving.”

“If the shoe fits…”

She sighed heavily, an empty, defeated sound, but she said nothing to contradict his allegation.

So Holt told her, “Dad might not know what you’re up to, little sister, but I do. And I don’t like it.”

She glanced away, but not before he saw the flicker of anguish that skittered across her features. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said softly.

“Oh, yes you do. You’re letting Dad think that you and Pendleton are building a little love nest together, just to lull him into a false sense of security and make him think you’ll be getting married soon. That way, he’ll leave you alone, and you can jerk the rug right out from under him at the last minute.”

“I am not building a love nest with Pendleton,” she denied. But he found curious the two bright spots of pink that stained her cheeks.

“No, what you’re building is a house of cards,” he told her. “And it’s going to come down on you eventually. You might be able to fool Dad for a little while, but not for long. He only has a little over a month left to get you married. Once he finds out what you’re up to…” Holt deliberately left the statement unfinished, knowing Kit would draw far worse conclusions if left to her own devices.

When she glanced back over at him, her expression divulged nothing of what she was thinking. “Are you going to tell him?”

Holt shook his head. “I ought to, but I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I think it’s important that you come to your senses on your own. Not because someone jerked you there against your will.”

She eyed him in silence for a moment, but he had no way of knowing whether she would heed his suggestion.

“Did you know he’s originally from New Jersey?” she asked instead.

Holt arched his eyebrows at the quick change of subject. “Pendleton?”

She nodded. “And did you know he has a big ol’ Harley hog? And he likes R&B? And he used to be married? And before he came to work for Hensley’s, he was working for a nonprofit organization that helped underprivileged kids?”

“Pendleton?”

She nodded. “Yeah, boy, you think you know a corporate drone and then bam. He pulls a stunt like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like turning into a human being.”

Holt laughed. “So you like him then?”

“No,” she said too quickly. “Yes,” she then amended just as rapidly. She sighed as she tangled her fingers nervously together in her lap. “Oh, I don’t know.”

Holt chuckled. “Maybe Dad was right. Maybe Pendleton is the man for you.”

“Don’t get cocky,” she muttered. But her heart clearly wasn’t in the admonition.

Holt sipped his soda and loosened his tie and tried to pinpoint when, exactly, his little sister had stopped being such a doormat. He didn’t have to think long. He recalled the exact moment with crystal clarity, even though he was three sheets to the wind at the time. The reading of their mother’s will. Scarcely two seconds after Abernathy apprised them of the conditions surrounding their mother’s final wishes, Kit scooped up the McClellan scepter and ran like the wind, and none of them came close to catching her.

But then, at first, once the shock of their mother’s last will and testament wore off, the McClellan men didn’t feel particularly concerned about the problem. Marrying off Kit wasn’t such a big deal. She’d been trying to have a relationship with one kind of loser or another since she was fifteen. Just because the McClellan men chased—or paid—them all off didn’t mean there wouldn’t be others. Kit wasn’t half-bad-looking, Bart reminded them. As long as the lights weren’t too bright. And despite her abrasiveness, Dirk added, she could be fun. Sometimes. And she was smart, too, Mick threw in. Maybe a little too smart on occasion. But surely a man could overlook those things in light of millions of dollars, couldn’t he? Why worry about some silly little condition of the trust, right?

Yeah, right.

They should have known better, Holt thought now. And they should have given Kit a little more credit, long before Mama died.

“So how are things going with your new girlfriend?” she asked suddenly, pulling him out of his reverie. Although he knew perfectly well who Kit was talking about, he feigned confusion. “Girlfriend? What girlfriend?”

She clearly wasn’t buying any of it. “Oh, come on. You remember,” she said, “that sweet blond creature you were entertaining in the dining room the night Pendleton brought me home from the Caribbean. Faith Ivory of the Louisville Temperance League, I believe you introduced her as?”

“Oh, her.”

“Yeah, her. How are things going?”

“They’re not.”

“Oh.”

Neither of them said anything further for a moment, and just as Holt opened his mouth to change the subject, Kit opened hers to keep it right where it was.

“You really like her, don’t you?” she asked.

It would be pointless to lie, Holt thought. Kit wasn’t stupid. Hadn’t they all learned that the hard way? “Yes,” he said, staring down into his glass, if not at his sister. “I like her very much.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.” Now he glanced up at Kit, searching her face as if she might somehow give him the answer he was looking for. “But I can’t stop thinking about her. There’s something there between us. I just can’t… I just don’t…” He sighed restlessly, unable to complete the thought.

“So call her,” Kit told him, as if that were the solution to all the varied and numerous obstacles facing him and Faith.

“I did better than that. I went to see her in person.”

“And?”

“And she made it clear that she doesn’t want to see me.”

“Why not?”

“Her late husband was an alcoholic,” he said. “He treated her badly. She has a small problem with trust.” There, he thought. Succinct and to the point. All done.

Not quite, he realized when he looked over to find Kit gaping at him. “You told her about your drinking?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Boy, you must really like her.”

Yeah, you could say that, he thought. Aloud, he only told her, “Although she thinks my overcoming my problem is admirable, she’s by no means convinced that I won’t, in a moment of weakness, do something stupid like, oh…fall off the wagon and turn mean.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kit said. “You’ll never fall off the wagon. And you couldn’t be mean if your life depended on it.”

“Yeah, well tell her that.”

“Maybe I will.”

He eyed her warningly. “Don’t you dare. Stay out of this, Kit. This is between me and Faith. And it’s over now. She’s not going to come around.”

Kit said nothing in response, something that troubled him greatly. In an effort to change the subject and dispel any crazy schemes she might be cooking up in that wily head of hers, he hurried on, “I still can’t believe Pendleton hasn’t tossed you out by now. Not unless there’s more to this arrangement, in spite of the sleeping assignments, than you’re letting on.”

Kit sighed, obviously disappointed by the lob back into her own court. “Well, he doesn’t have much choice, does he? If I come crying back to Daddy that Pendleton doesn’t love me anymore, Daddy will fire him.”

“Pendleton’s a savvy guy,” Holt said. “He could find work anywhere he wants.”

“Not at the stud rate Daddy’s paying him.”

“There are some things in life that are more important than money,” Holt said, surprised at how easily the words rolled off his tongue.

Kit burst into laughter. “Oh, right. Listen to you. You’d shrivel up and die without Mama’s millions.”

“And you wouldn’t?”

She sobered, but dropped her gaze instead of meeting his. “I couldn’t care less about Mama’s money. Ninety-nine-point-four million bucks could go a long way in the right hands. And Mama picked out some fine charities.”

Holt nodded. “Have you really thought about what your life would be like if all our money were taken away from us? Even with Abernathy handling the funds for the last two years, your life hasn’t changed one bit since Mama’s death. You still get your more than generous allowance. You’re still free to do whatever you want. But if all that money were jerked out of your hands, what do you think your life would be like?”

“It would probably be ninety-nine-point-four million times better,” she told him.

He shook his head. “You’re used to living this way, Kit. Deny its importance all you want, but if you suddenly couldn’t walk into Cherrywood whenever it suited you, if you couldn’t use your charge card on whatever struck your fancy, if you had to go out and get a job—”

“A job?” she interrupted him, her expression troubled, as if she hadn’t considered that aspect of the real world.

He chuckled. “Well, honey, ain’t nobody else out there who’s gonna support you. You’d have to support yourself. What kind of salary do you think you’ll draw with your résumé?”

She fidgeted. “Well. I do have a college degree. Two college degrees, as a matter of fact.”

“A BA in liberal arts and an MA in philosophy,” Holt reminded her. “Oh, yeah. Those and all that professional experience you have—your most recent position was as a bartender, I believe, and lasted all of twenty-four hours—well, hey, your résumé ought to catch anyone’s eye.”

She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “So I’ll work as a bartender to support myself.”

This time Holt was the one to laugh. “It would almost be worth sacrificing a hundred million dollars to see that. But maybe you should stop thinking about yourself for a minute, and start thinking about everyone else you’re going to affect with this adolescent attitude you have.”

She gaped at him. “Adolescent? Excuse me?”

Holt dropped his gaze down into his glass, watching as the tiny, crystalline bubbles snapped and fizzed. “Do you remember what you did the day after Mama’s will was read?”

Kit kept silent, but he knew she was remembering that day as well as he did.

“You came into my bedroom when the sun was at its peak,” he continued, “and you threw open all the curtains so that I was blinded by the light.”

“I remember,” she said softly.

“Then you dragged me out of bed and poured me a cup of coffee. And as I sat there sipping it, you pulled out a notebook and enumerated for me, in stark, colorful detail, each and every incident, going back decades, in which I embarrassed myself or my family or my friends or my coworkers with my drinking.”

“It had gone on long enough, Holt. I just wish I did it while Mama was still alive.”

He nodded. “Do you remember how long it took for you to list all of those incidents that you so thoughtfully recorded for so many years?”

“All day,” she said. “And all night.”

He nodded, too. “All damned day. And all damned night.”

“But you haven’t had a drink since then,” she reminded him.

He dipped his head forward in acknowledgment. “No. I haven’t. And I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

She smiled at him. “Yes, you did. You haven’t had a drink since then.”

Holt considered her for a moment in silence, then he roped his arm around her neck, pulled her close and placed a loud, smacking kiss at the crown of her head. Kit laughed, but shoved him away, then rose and went to retrieve a club soda for herself. That was the McClellan way, he thought. Reach out impulsively, touch briefly, pull back quickly. No harm done. Mama was the only one who had ever been able to hug for any length of time.

Holt sighed. “Now, I have the chance to pay you back, Kit.”

She had remained on the other side of the room, clearly needing some space after that overwhelming display of emotion they just shared. Now she strode slowly back toward him, but dropped into a chair opposite the loveseat.

“No payback necessary,” she assured him.

“You’re going to get it anyway.” He made himself comfortable and watched her closely as he spoke. “These days, it’s you who’s trying to self-destruct,” he said. Immediately, she opened her mouth to object, so he sliced his hand through the air to cut her off. “Your behavior over the last two years has been selfish, juvenile, and unfeeling.”

“Must be in the genes,” she managed to fire off while he was taking a breath.

“I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing,” he conceded. “I know what Dad did to you the night before your wedding was unforgivable, and I know Mick and Dirk and Bart and I had no right to be so overprotective. For my part, at least, I apologize. But I think you’ve made your point. And I think it’s about time you did something to rectify the situation.”

“Rectify the situation,” she echoed. “And by that you would mean…”

“Get married,” he stated bluntly. “Even if it’s only some phony arrangement that lasts a few months, just do it. Save the family fortune. Return our lives to all of us, so we can get on with our lives.”

She nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully for a full minute before responding, and for a moment, Holt honestly thought she was going to agree to his suggestion. But when she replied, all she said was, “I’ll think about it.”

That, he supposed, was as good as he was going to get.

“You know, it was snowing pretty hard when I came in,” he said, recalling the fat, furious flakes that pelted him as he crossed the backyard. “And it’s probably full dark by now. You’re going to have trouble getting home tonight.”

She sighed as she gazed wistfully toward the library entrance. “Yeah, I guess I should just spend the night here. It’ll give Pendleton a break. He can have the bed for a change.”

Holt tipped his head toward the telephone that sat on the end table within her reach. “You going to give him a call? Let him know you won’t be home tonight?”

She started to reach for the receiver, stroked her fingers over it lightly a few times, then finally shook her head. “No, I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s not like he’s going to worry about me. He probably won’t even notice I’m gone.”