"Where do you suppose we're going?"

Jared asked.

"That's a question I'll have to ask you. Why are we having dinner and conversation instead of sex?" Savannah queried.

To his credit, he didn't choke, but responded smoothly. "That's blunt."

"Lawyers like to use twenty words when one will do," she countered. "I don't."

"Then let's just say you expected sex. I don't like being predictable." Jared's eyes flashed on hers with a power that jarred. "When we get around to sex, Savannah, it won't be predictable. You'll know exactly who you're with, and you'll remember it."

In that moment, she didn't have the slightest doubt Perhaps that was what worried her. "All your moves, Lawyer MacKade? Your time and place?"

"That's right." His eyes changed, lightened with a humor that was hard to resist. "I'm a traditional kind of guy."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nora Roberts

THE PRIDE OF JARED MACKADE

 

 

Silhouette

SPECIAL EDITION

Published by Silhouette Books

America's Publisher of

Contemporary Romance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue

The woods echoed with war whoops and running feet. Troops were fully engaged in the battle, peppering the fields beyond the trees with sporadic shelling. The day rang with the crash of weapons and the cries of the wounded.

Already dozens of lives had been lost, and the survivors were out for blood.

Leaves, still lush and green from the dying summer, formed a canopy overhead, allowing only thin, dusty beams of sunlight to trickle through. The air was thick and humid and carried the rich scent of earth and animal in its blistering heat.

There was no place Jared MacKade was happier than in the haunted woods.

He was a Union officer, a captain. He got to be captain because, at twelve, he was the oldest, and it was his right. His troops consisted of his brother Devin, who, being ten, had to be content with the rank of corporal.

Their mission was clear. Annihilate the Rebels.

Because war was a serious business, Jared had plotted out his strategy. He'd chosen Devin for his troops because Devin could follow orders. Devin was also a good thinker.

And Devin was a vicious take-no-prisoners hand-to-hand fighter.

Rafe and Shane, the other MacKade brothers, were ferocious fighters too, but they were, Jared knew, impulsive. Even now, they were racing through the woods, whooping and hollering, while Jared waited patiently in ambush.

"They're going to separate, you watch," Jared muttered as he and Devin hunkered down in the brush. "Rafe figures on drawing us out and clobbering us." Jared spit, because he was twelve and spitting was cool. "He doesn't have a military mind."

"Shane doesn't have a mind at all," Devin put in, with the expected disdain of brother for brother.

They grinned over that, two young boys with disheveled black hair and handsome faces that were grimy with dirt and sweat. Jared's eyes, a cool grassy green, scanned the woods. He knew every rock, every stump, every beaten path. Often he came here alone, to wander or just to sit. And to listen. To the wind in the trees, the rustle of squirrels and rabbits. To the murmur of ghosts.

He knew others had fought here, died here. And it fascinated him. He'd grown up on the Civil War battlefield of Antietam, Maryland, and he knew, as any young boy would, the maneuvers and mistakes, the triumphs and tragedies of that fateful day in September 1862.

A battle that had earned its place in history as the bloodiest day of the Civil War was bound to tug at the imagination of a young boy. He had combed every foot of the battlefield with his brothers, played dead in Bloody Lane, raced through his own cornfields, where black powder had scorched the drying stalks so long ago.

He had brooded many a night over the concept of brother against brother—for real—and wondered what part he might have played if he had been born in time for those terrible and heroic days.

Yet what fascinated him most was that men had given their lives for an idea. Often, when he sat quietly with the woods around him, he dreamed over the fighting for something as precious as an idea, and dying proudly.

His mother often told him that a man needed goals, and strong beliefs and pride in the seeking of them. Then she would laugh that deep laugh of hers, tousle his hair and tell him that having pride would never be his problem. He already had too much of it.

He wanted to be the best, the faster, the strongest, the smartest. It wasn't an easy target, not with three equally determined brothers. So he pushed himself. Studied longer, fought more fiercely, worked harder.

Losing just wasn't an option for Jared MacKade.

"They're coming," Jared whispered.

Devin nodded. He'd been listening to the crackle of twigs, the rustle of brush. Biding his time. "Rafe's that way. Shane circled behind."

Jared didn't question Devin's assessment. His brother had instincts like a cat. "I'll take Rafe. You stay here until we're engaged. Shane'll come running. Then you can take him out."

Anticipation brightened Jared's eyes. The two brothers' hands clutched in a brief salute. "Victory or death."

Jared caught his first sight of the faded blue shirt, a blur of movement as the enemy dashed from tree to tree. With the patience of a snake, he waited, waited. Then, with a blood curdling cry, leaped.

He brought Rafe down in a flying tackle that had them both skittering over the rough dirt into the prickle of wild blackberries.

It was a good surprise attack, but Jared wasn't foolish enough to think that would be the end of it. Rafe was a vicious opponent—as any kid at Antietam Elementary could attest. He fought with a kind of fiendish enjoyment that Jared understood perfectly.

There really was nothing better than pounding someone on a hot summer day when the threat of school was creeping closer and all the morning chores were behind you.

Thorns tore at clothes and scratched flesh. The two boys wrestled back to the path, fists and elbows ramming, sneakers digging in at the heels for purchase. Nearby, a second battle was under way, with curses and grunts and the satisfying crunch of bodies over aged dried leaves.

The MacKade brothers were in heaven.

"You're dead, Rebel scum!" Jared shouted when he managed to grab Rafe in a slippery headlock.

"I'm taking you to hell with me, bluebelly!" Rafe shouted right back.

In the end, they were simply too well matched, and they rolled away from each other, filthy, breathless, and laughing.

Wiping the blood from a split lip, Jared turned his head to watch his troops engage the enemy. It looked to him as though Devin were going to have a black eye, and Shane had a rip in his jeans that was going to get them all in trouble.

He let out a long, contented sigh and watched the sunlight play through the leaves.

"Going to break it up?" Rafe asked, without much interest.

"Nah." Casually, Jared wiped blood from his chin. "They're almost finished."

"I'm going to go into town." Energy still high, Rafe bounded up and brushed off his pants. "Gonna get me a soda down at Ed's."

Devin stopped wrestling Shane and looked over. "Got any money?"

With a wolfish grin, Rafe jingled the change in his pocket. "Maybe." Challenge issued, he tossed the hair out of his eyes, then took off at a dead run.

The delightful prospect of shaking quarters from Rafe's pockets was all the impetus Devin and Shane needed. Suddenly united, they scrambled off each other and chased after him.

"Come on, Jare," Shane called over his shoulder. "We're going to Ed's."

"Go on. I'll catch up."

But he lay there on his back, staring at the sunlight flickering through the awning of leaves. As his brothers' pounding footsteps faded away, he thought he could hear the sounds of the old battle. The boom and crash of mortars, the screams of the dead and dying.

Then, closer, the ragged breathing of the lost and the frightened.

He closed his eyes, too familiar with the ghosts of these woods to be unnerved by their company. He wished he'd known them, could have asked them what it was like to put your life, your soul, at risk. To love a thing, an ideal, a way of life, so much you would give everything you were to defend it.

He thought he would for his family, for his parents, his brothers. But that was different. That was... family.

One day, he promised himself, he would make his mark. People would look at him and know that there was Jared MacKade, a man who stood for something. A man who did what had to be done, and never turned his back on a fight.

 

 

 

Chapter One

Jared wanted a cold beer. He could already taste it, that first long sip that would start to wash away the dregs of a lousy day in court, an idiot judge and a client who was driving him slowly insane.

He didn't mind that she was guilty as sin, had certainly been an accessory before and after the fact in the spate of petty burglaries in the west end of Hagers-town. He could swallow defending the guilty. That was his job. But he was getting damn sick and tired of having his client hit on him.

The woman had a very skewed view of lawyer-client relations. He could only hope he'd made it clear that if she grabbed his butt again, she was out on hers and on her own.

Under different circumstances, he might have found it only mildly insulting, even fairly amusing. But he had too much on his mind, and on his calendar, to play games.

With an irritated jerk of the wrist, he jammed a classical CD into his car stereo system and let Mozart join him on the winding route toward home.

Just one stop, he told himself. One quick stop, and then a cold beer.

And he wouldn't even have had that one stop, if this Savannah Morningstar had bothered to return his calls.

He rolled his shoulders to ease the tension and punched the gas pedal on a curve to please himself with a bit of illegal speed. He drove along the familiar country road quickly, barely noticing the first tender buds of spring on the trees or the faint haze of wild dogwood ready to bloom.

He braked for a darting rabbit, passed a pickup heading toward Antietam. He hoped Shane had supper started, then remembered with an oath that it was his turn to cook.

The scowl suited his face, with its sculptured lines, the slight imperfection of a nose that had been broken twice, the hard edge of thin. Behind shaded glasses, under arching black brows, his eyes were cool and sharply green. Though his lips were set in a line of irritation, that didn't detract from the appeal of them.

Women often looked at that mouth, and wondered ... When it smiled, and the dimple beside it winked, they sighed and asked themselves how that wife of his had ever let him get away.

He made a commanding presence in a courtroom. The broad shoulders, narrow hips and tough, rangy build always looked polished in a tailored suit, but the elegant cover never quite masked the power beneath.

His black hair had just enough wave to curl appeal-ingly at the collar of one of his starched white shirts.

In the courtroom he wasn't Jared MacKade, one of the MacKade brothers who had run roughshod over the south of the county from the day they were born. He was Jared MacKade, counselor-at-law.

He glanced up at the house on the hill just outside of town. It was the old Barlow place that his brother Rafe had come back to town to buy. He saw Rafe's car at the top of the steep lane, and hesitated.

He was tempted to pull in, to forget about this last little detail of the day and share that beer he wanted with Rafe. But he knew that if Rafe wasn't working, hammering or sawing, or painting some part of the house that would be a bed and breakfast by fall, he would be waiting for his new wife to come home.

It still amazed Jared that the baddest of the bad MacKades was a married man.

So he drove past, took the left fork in the road that would wind him around toward the MacKade farm and the small plot of land that bordered it.

According to his information, Savannah Morn-ingstar had bought the little house on the edge of the woods only two months before. She lived there with her son and, as the gossip mill was mostly dry where she was concerned, obviously kept to herself.

Jared figured the woman was either stupid or rude. In his experience, when people received a message from a lawyer, they answered it. Though the voice on her answering machine had been low, throaty, and stunningly sexy, he wasn't looking forward to meeting that voice face-to-face. This mission was a favor for a colleague—and a nuisance.

He caught a glimpse of the little house through the trees. More of a cabin, really, he mused, though a second floor had been added several years ago. He turned onto the narrow lane by the Morningstar mailbox, cutting his speed dramatically to negotiate the dips and holes, and studied the house as he approached.

It was log, built originally, as he recalled, as some city doctor's vacation spot. That hadn't lasted long. People from the city often thought they wanted rustic until they had it.

The quiet setting, the trees, the peaceful bubbling of a creek topped off from yesterday's rain, enhanced the ambience of the house, with its simple lines, untreated wood and uncluttered front porch.

The steep bank in front of it was rocky and rough, and in the summer, he knew, tended to be covered with high, tangled weeds. Someone had been at work here, he mused, and almost came to a stop. The earth had been dug and turned, worked to a deep brown. There were still rocks, but they were being used as a natural decorative landscaping. Someone had planted clumps of flowers among them, behind them.

No, he realized, someone was planting clumps of flowers. He saw the figure, the movement, as he rounded the crest and brought his car to a halt at the end of the lane, beside a aging compact.

Jared lifted his briefcase, climbed out of the car and started over the freshly mowed swatch of grass. He was very grateful for his dark glasses when Savannah Morningstar rose.

She'd been kneeling amid the dirt and garden tools and flats of flowers. When she moved, she moved slowly, inch by very impressive inch. She was tall—a curvy five-ten, he estimated—filling out a drab yellow T-shirt and ripped jeans to the absolute limit of the law. Her legs were endless.

Her feet were bare and her hands grimed with soil.

The sun glinted on hair as thick and black as his. She wore it down her back in one loose braid. Her eyes were concealed, as his were, behind sunglasses. But what he could see of her face was fascinating.

If a man could get past that truly amazing body, he could spend a lot of time on that face, Jared mused.

Carved cheekbones rose high and taut against skin the color of gold dust. Her mouth was full and unsmiling, her nose straight and sharp, her chin slightly pointed.

"Savannah Morningstar?"

"Yes, that's right."

He recognized the voice from the answering machine. He'd never known a voice and a body that suited each other more perfectly. "I'm Jared MacKade."

She angled her head, and the sun glanced off the amber tint of her glasses. "Well, you look like a lawyer. I haven't done anything—lately—that I need representation for."

"I'm not going door-to-door soliciting clients. I've left several messages on your machine."

"I know." She knelt again to finish planting a hunk of purple phlox. "The handy thing about machines is that you don't have to talk to people you don't want to talk to." Carefully she patted dirt around the shallow roots. "Obviously, I didn't want to talk to you, Lawyer MacKade."

"Not stupid," he declared. "Just rude."

Amused, she tipped her face up to his. "That's right. I am. But since you're here, you might as well tell me what you're so fired up to tell me."

"A colleague of mine in Oklahoma contacted me after he tracked you down."

The quick clutching in Savannah's gut came and went. Deliberately she picked up another clump of phlox. Taking her time, she shifted and hacked at the dirt with her hand spade. "I haven't been in Oklahoma for nearly ten years. I don't remember breaking any laws before I left."

"Your father hired my colleague to locate you."

"I'm not interested." Her flower-planting mood was gone. Because she didn't want to infect the innocent blooms with the poison stirring inside her, she rose again and rubbed her hands on her jeans. "You can tell your colleague to tell my father I'm not interested."

"Your father's dead."

He'd had no intention of telling her that way. He hadn't mentioned her father or his death on the phone, because he didn't have the heart to break such news over a machine. Jared still remembered the swift, searing pain of his own father's death. And his mother's.

She didn't gasp or sway or sob. Standing straight, Savannah absorbed the shock and refused the grief. Once there had been love. Once there had been need. And now, she thought, now there was nothing.

"When?"

"Seven months ago. It took awhile to find you. I'm sorry—"

She interrupted him. "How?"

"A fall. According to my information, he'd been working the rodeo circuit. He took a bad fall, hit his head. He wasn't unconscious long, and refused to go to the hospital for X rays. But he contacted my colleague and gave him instructions. A week later, your father collapsed. An embolism."

She listened without a word, without movement. In her mind Savannah could see the man she'd once known and loved, clinging to the back of a bucking mustang, one hand reaching for the sky.

She could see him laughing, she could see him drunk. She could see him murmuring endearments to an aging mare, and she could see him burning with rage and shame as he turned his own daughter, his only child, away.

But she couldn't see him dead.

"Well, you've told me." With that, she turned toward the house.

"Ms. Morningstar." If he had heard grief in her voice, he would have given her privacy. But there'd been nothing at all in her voice.

"I'm thirsty." She headed up the walkway that cut through the grass, then climbed onto the porch and let the screen door slam behind her.

Yeah? Jared thought, fuming. Well, so was he. And he was damn well going to finish up this business and get a cold one himself. He walked into the house without bothering to knock.

The small living room held furniture built for comfort, chairs with deep, sagging cushions, sturdy tables that would bear the weight of resting feet. The walls were a shade of umber that melded nicely with the pine of the floor. There were vivid splashes of color to offset and challenge the mellow tones—paintings, pillows, a scatter of toys over bright rugs that reminded him she had a child.

He stepped through into a kitchen with brilliantly white counters and the same gleaming pine floor, where she stood in front of the sink, scrubbing garden earth from her hands. She didn't bother to speak, but dried them off before she took a pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator.

"I'd like to get this over with as much as you," he told her.

She let out a breath, took her sunglasses off and tossed them on the counter. Wasn't his fault, she reminded herself. Not completely, anyway. When you came down to it, and added all the pieces together, there was no one to blame.

"You look hot." She poured lemonade into a tall glass, handed it to him. After giving him one quick glimpse of almond-shaped eyes the color of melted chocolate, she turned away to get another glass.

"Thanks."

"Are you going to tell me he had debts that I'm obliged to settle? If you are, I'm going to tell you I have no intention of doing so." The jittering in her stomach had nearly calmed, so she leaned back against the counter and crossed her bare feet at the ankles. "I've made what I've got, and I intend to keep it."

"Your father left you seven thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five dollars. And some change."

He watched the glass stop, hesitate, then continue to journey to her lips. She drank slowly, thoughtfully. "Where did he get seven thousand dollars?"

"I have no idea. But the money is currently in a passbook savings account in Tulsa." Jared set his briefcase down on the small butcher-block table, opened it. "You have only to show me proof of identity and sign these papers, and your inheritance will be transferred to you."

"I don't want it." Her first sign of emotion was the crack of glass against counter. "I don't want his money."

Jared set the papers on the table. "It's your money."

"I said I don't want it."

Patiently Jared slipped off his own glasses and hooked them in his top pocket. "I understand you were estranged from your father."

"You don't understand anything," she shot back. "All you need to know is that I don't want the damn money. So put your papers back in your fancy briefcase and get out."

Well used to arguments, Jared kept his eyes—and his temper—level. "Your father's instructions were that if you were unwilling or unable to claim the inheritance, it was to go to your child."

Her eyes went molten. "Leave my son out of this."

"The legalities—"

"Hang your legalities. He's my son. Mine. And it's my choice. We don't want or need the money."

"Ms. Morningstar, you can refuse the terms of your father's will, which means the courts will get involved and complicate what should be a very simple, straightforward matter. Hell, do yourself a favor. Take it, blow it on a weekend in Reno, give it to charity, bury it in a tin can in the yard."

She forced herself to calm down, not an easy matter when her emotions were up. "It is very simple and straightforward. I'm not taking his money." Her head jerked around at the sound of the front door slamming. "My son," she said, and shot Jared a lethal look. "Don't you say anything to him about this."

"Hey, Mom! Connor and me—" He skidded to a

halt, a tall, skinny boy with his mother's eyes and

messy black hair crushed under a backward fielder's

cap. He studied Jared with a mix of distrust and cu-

riosity. "Who's he?"

Manners ran in the family, Jared decided. Lousy ones. "I'm Jared MacKade, a neighbor."

"You're Shane's brother." The boy walked over, picked up his mother's lemonade and drank it down in several noisy gulps. "He's cool. That's where we were, me and Connor," he told his mother. "Over at the MacKade farm. This big orange cat had kittens."

"Again?" Jared muttered. "This time I'm taking her to the vet personally and having her neutered. You were with Connor," Jared added. "Connor Dolin."

"Yeah." Suspicious, the boy watched him over the rim of his glass.

"His mother's a friend of mine," Jared said simply.

Savannah's hand rested briefly, comfortably, on her son's shoulder. "Bryan, go upstairs and scrape some of the dirt off. I'm going to start dinner."

"Okay."

"Nice to have met you, Bryan."

The boy looked surprised, then flashed a quick grin. "Yeah, cool. See you."

"He looks like you," Jared commented.

"Yes, he does." Her mouth softened slightly at the sound of feet clumping up the stairs. "I'm thinking about putting in soundproofing."

"I'm trying to get a picture of him palling around with Connor."

The amusement in her eyes fired into temper so quickly it fascinated him. "And you have a problem with that?"

"I'm trying to get a picture," Jared repeated, "of the live wire that just headed upstairs and the quiet, painfully shy Connor Dolin. Kids as confident as your son don't usually choose boys like Connor for friends."

Temper smoothed out. "They just clicked. Bryan hasn't had a lot of opportunity to keep friends. We've moved around a great deal. That's changing."

"What brought you here?"

"I was—" She broke off, and her lips curved. "Now you're trying to be neighborly so that I'll soften up and take this little problem off your hands. Forget it." She turned to take a package of chicken breasts out of the refrigerator.

"Seven thousand dollars is a lot of money. If you put it in a college fund now, it would give your son a good start when he's ready for it."

"When and if Bryan's ready for college, I'll put him through myself."

"I understand about pride, Ms. Morningstar. That's why it's easy for me to see when it's misplaced."

She turned again and flipped her braid behind her shoulder. "You must be the patient, by-the-book, polite type, Mr. MacKade."

The grin that beamed out at her nearly made her blink. She was sure there were states where that kind of weapon was illegal.

"Don't get to town much, do you?" Jared murmured. "You'd hear different. Ask Connor's mama about the MacKades sometime, Ms. Morningstar. I'll leave the papers." He slipped his sunglasses on again. "You think it over and get back to me. I'm in the book."

She stayed where she was, a frown on her face and a cold package of raw chicken in her hands. She was still there when his car's engine roared to life and her son came darting back down the stairs.

Quickly she snatched up the papers and pushed them into the closest drawer.

"What was he here for?" Bryan wanted to know. "How come he was wearing a suit?"

"A lot of men wear suits.'' She would evade, but she wouldn't lie, not to Bryan. "And stay out of the refrigerator. I'm starting dinner."

With his hand on the door of the fridge, Bryan rolled his eyes. "I'm starving. I can't wait for dinner."

Savannah plucked an apple from a bowl and tossed it over her shoulder, smiling to herself when she heard the solid smack of Bryan's catch.

"Shane said it was okay if we went by after school tomorrow and looked at the kittens some more. The farm's really cool, Mom. You should see."

"I've seen farms before."

"Yeah, but this one's neat. He's got two dogs. Fred and Ethel."

"Fred and—" She broke off into laughter. "Maybe I will have to see that."

"And from the hayloft you can see clear into town. Connor says part of the battle was fought right there on the fields. Probably dead guys everywhere."

"Now that sounds really enticing."

"And I was thinking—" Bryan crunched into his apple, tried to sound casual "—you'd maybe want to come over and look at the kittens."

"Oh, would I?"

"Well, yeah. Connor said maybe Shane would give some away when they were weaned. You might want one."

She set a lid on the chicken she was sauteing. "I would?"

"Sure, yeah, for, like, company when I'm in school." He smiled winningly. "So you wouldn't get lonely."

Savannah shifted her weight onto her hip and studied him owlishly. "That's a good one, Bry. Really smooth."

That was what he'd been counting on. "So can I?"

She would have given him the world, not just one small kitten. "Sure." Her laughter rolled free when he launched himself into her arms.

With the meal over, the dishes done, the homework that terrified her finished and the child who was her life tucked into bed with his ball cap, Savannah sat on the front-porch swing and watched the woods.

She enjoyed the way night always deepened there first, as if it had a primary claim. Later there might be the hoot of an owl, or the rumbling low of Shane MacKade's cattle. Sometimes, if it was very quiet, or there'd been rain, she could hear the bubble of creek over rocks.

It was too early in the spring yet for the flash and shimmer of fireflies. She looked forward to them, and hoped Bryan wasn't yet beyond the stage where he would chase them. She wanted to watch him run in his own yard in the starlight on a warm summer night when the flowers were blooming, the air was thick with their perfume, and the woods were a dense curtain closing them off from everyone and everything.

She wanted him to have a kitten to play with, friends to call his own, a childhood filled with moments that lasted forever.

A childhood that would be everything hers had never been.

Setting the swing into motion, she leaned back and drank in the absolute quiet of a country night.

It had taken her ten long, hard years to get here, on this swing, on this porch, in this house. There wasn't a moment of it she regretted. Not the sacrifice, the pain, the worry, the risk. Because to regret one was to regret all. To regret one was to regret Bryan. And that was impossible.

She had exactly what she had strived for now, and she had earned it herself, despite odds brutally stacked against her.

She was exactly where she wanted to be, who she wanted to be, and no ghost from the past would spoil it for her.

How dare he offer her money, when all she'd ever wanted was his love?

So Jim Morningstar was dead. The hard-drinking, hard-living, hardheaded son of a bitch had ridden his last bronco, roped his last bull. Now she was supposed to grieve. Now she was supposed to be grateful that, at the end, he'd thought of her. He'd thought of the grandchild he'd never wanted, never even seen.

He'd chosen his pride over his daughter, and the tiny flicker of life that had been inside her. Now, after all this time, he'd thought to make up for that with just under eight thousand dollars.

The hell with him, Savannah thought wearily, and closed her eyes. Eight million couldn't make her forget, and it sure as hell couldn't buy her forgiveness. And no lawyer in a fancy suit with killer eyes and a silver tongue was going to change her mind.

Jared MacKade could go to hell right along with Jim Morningstar.

He'd had no business coming onto her land as if he belonged there, standing in her kitchen sipping lemonade, talking about college funds, smiling so sweetly at her boy. He'd had no right to aim that smile at her—not so outrageously—and stir up all those juices that she'd deliberately let go flat and dry.

Well, she wasn't dead, after all, she thought with a heartfelt sigh. Some men seemed to have been created to stir a woman's juices.

She didn't want to sit here on this beautiful spring night and think about how long it had been since she'd held a man, or been held. She really didn't want to think at all, but he'd walked across her lawn and shaken her laboriously constructed world in less time than it took to blink.

Her father was dead, and she was very much alive. Lawyer MacKade had made those two facts perfectly clear in one short visit.

However much she wanted to avoid it, she was going to have to deal with both those facts. Eventually she would have to face Jared again. If she didn't seek him out, she was certain, he'd be back. He had that bull dog look about him, pretty suit and tie or not.

So, she would have to decide what to do. And she would have to tell Bryan. He had a right to know his grandfather was dead. He had a right to know about the legacy.

But just for tonight, she wouldn't think, she wouldn't worry, she wouldn't wonder.

She wasn't aware for a long time that her cheeks were wet, her shoulders were shaking, the sobs were tearing at her throat. Curling into a ball, she buried her face against her knees.

"Oh, Daddy..."

 

 

 

Chapter Two

Jared wasn't opposed to farm work. He wouldn't care to make it a living, as Shane did, but he wasn't opposed to putting in a few hours now and again. Since he'd put his house in town on the market and moved back home, he pitched in whenever he had the time. It was the kind of work you never forgot, the rhythms easy to fall back into—ones your muscles soon remembered. The milking, the feeding, the plowing, the sowing.

Stripped down to a sweaty T-shirt and old jeans, he hauled out hay bales for the dairy stock. The black-and-white cows lumbered for the trough, wide, sturdy bodies bumping, tails swishing. The scent of them was a reminder of youth, of his father most of all.

Buck MacKade had tended his cows well, and had taught his boys to see them as a responsibility, as well as a way of making a living. For him, the farm had been very simply a way of life—and Jared knew the same was true of Shane. He wondered now, as he fell back into the routine of tending, what his father would have thought of his oldest son, the lawyer.

He probably would have been a little baffled by the choice of suit and tie, of paper drafted and filed, of appearances and appointments. But Jared hoped he would have been proud. He needed to believe his father would have been proud.

But this wasn't such a bad way to spend a Saturday, he mused, after a week of courtrooms and paperwork.

Nearby, Shane whistled a mindless tune and herded the cows in to feed. And looked, Jared realized, very much as their father would have—dusty jeans, dusty shirt loose on a tough, disciplined body, worn cap over hair that needed a barber's touch.

"What do you think of the new neighbor?" Jared called out.

"Huh?"

"The new neighbor," Jared repeated, and jerked a thumb in the direction of Morningstar land.

"Oh, you mean the goddess." Shane stepped away from the trough, eyes dreamy. "I need a moment of silence," he murmured, and crossed his hands over his heart.

Amused, Jared swiped a hand through his hair. "She is impressive."

"She's built like... I don't have words." Shane gave one of the cows an affectionate slap on the rump. "I've only seen her once. Ran into her and her kid going into the market. Talked to her for about two minutes, drooled for the next hour."

"How did she strike you?"

"Like a bolt of lightning, bro."

"Think you can keep your head out of your shorts for a minute?"

"I can try." Shane bent to help break up bales. "Like a woman who can handle herself and isn't looking for company," he decided. "Good with the kid. You can tell just by the way they stand together."

"Yeah, I noticed that."

Shane's interest was piqued. "When?"

"I was over there a couple of days ago. Had a little legal business."

"Oh." Shane wiggled his eyebrows. "Privileged communication?''

"That's right." Jared hauled over another bale and nipped the twine. "What's the word on her?"

"There isn't much of anything. From what I get, she was in the Frederick area, saw the ad for the cabin in the paper down there. Then she blew into town, snapped up the property, put her kid in school and closed herself off on her little hill. It's driving Mrs. Metz crazy."

"I bet. If Mrs. Metz, queen of the grapevine, can't get any gossip on her, nobody can."

"If you're handling some legal deal for her, you ought to be able to shake something loose."

"She's not a client," Jared said, and left it at that. "The boy comes around here?"

"Now and again. He and Connor."

"An odd pairing."

"It's nice seeing them togetner. Bry's a pistol, let me tell you. He's got a million questions, opinions, arguments." Shane lifted a brow. "Reminds me of somebody."

"That so?"

"Dad always said if there were two opinions on one subject, you'd have both of them. The kid's like that. And he makes Connor laugh. It's good to hear."

"The boy hasn't had enough to laugh about, not with a father like Joe Dolin."

Shane grunted, gathering up discarded twine. "Well, Dolin's behind bars and out of the picture." Shane stepped back, checking over his herd and the land beyond. "He's not going to be beating up on Cassie anymore, or terrorizing those kids. The divorce going to be final soon?"

"We should have a final decree within sixty days."

"Can't be soon enough. I have to see to the hogs. You want to get another bale out of the barn?"

"Sure."

Shane headed over to the pen, prepared to mix feed. At the sight of him, the fat pigs began to stir and snort. "Yeah, Daddy's here, boys and girls."

"He talks to them all the time," Bryan announced from behind them.

"They talk right back." With a grin, Shane turned, and saw that the boy wasn't alone.

Savannah stood with one hand on her son's shoulder and an easy smile. Her hair was loose, falling like black rain over the shoulders of a battered denim jacket. Shane decided the pigs could wait, and leaned on the fence.

"Good morning."

"Good morning." She stepped forward, looked into the pen. "They look hungry."

"They're always hungry. That's why we call them pigs."

She laughed and propped a foot on the bottom rung of the fence. She was a woman used to the sight, sound and smell of animals. "That one there certainly looks well fed."

He shifted closer so he could enjoy the scent of her hair. "She's full of piglets. I'll have to separate her soon."

"Spring on the farm," she murmured. "So, who's the daddy?"

"That smug-looking hog over there."

"Ah, the one who's ignoring her. Typical." Still smiling, she tossed back her hair. "We're here on a mission, Mr. MacKade."

"Shane."

"Shane. Rumor is, you've got kittens."

Shane grinned down at Bryan. "Talked her into it, huh?"

All innocence, Bryan shrugged, but his quick, triumphant grin betrayed him. "She needs company when I'm at school."

"That's a good one. They're in the barn. I'll show you."

"No." To stop him, Savannah put a hand on his arm. There was a glint in her eyes that told him she knew exactly where his thoughts were heading. "We won't interrupt your work. Your pigs are waiting, and I'm sure Bryan knows exactly where to find the kittens."

"Sure I do. Come on, Mom." He had her by the hand, tugging. "They're really cool. Shane's got all kinds of neat animals," Bryan told her.

"Mm-hmm..." With a last amused glance, she let herself be hauled away. "Magnificent animals." And, she thought as she watched Jared stride out of the barn with a bale over his shoulder, here was another one now.

His eyes met hers, held, as he stopped, tossed the bale down. The suit had been deceiving, she realized. Though he hadn't looked soft in it, he'd looked elegant. There was nothing elegant about the man now.

He was all muscle.

. If she'd been a lesser woman, her mouth might have watered.

Instead, she inclined her head and spoke coolly. "Mr. MacKade."

"Ms. Morningstar." His tone was just as cool. But it took a focused effort to unknot the tension in his stomach. "Hi, Bryan."

"I didn't know you worked here," Bryan began. "I've never seen you working here."

"Now and again."

"How come you were wearing a suit?" he asked. "Shane never wears a suit."

"Not unless you knock him unconscious first." When the boy grinned, Jared noticed a gap in his teeth that hadn't been there the day before. "Lose something?"

Proudly Bryan pressed his tongue in the gap. "It came out this morning. It's good for spitting."

"I used to hold the record around here. Nine feet, three inches. Without the wind."

Impressed, and challenged, Bryan worked up saliva in his mouth, concentrated and let it fly. Jared pursed his lips, nodded. "Not bad."

"I can do better than that."

"You're one of the tops in your division, Bry," Savannah said dryly. "But Mr. MacKade has work to do, and we're supposed to be looking at kittens."

"Yeah, they're right in here." He took off into the barn at a run. Savannah followed more slowly.

"Nine feet?" she murmured, with a glance over her shoulder.

"And three inches."

"You surprise me, Mr. MacKade."

She had a way of sauntering on those long legs, he thought, that gave a man's eyes a mind of their own. After a quick internal debate, he gave up and went in after her.

"Aren't they great?" Bryan plopped right down in the hay beside the litter of sleeping kittens and their very bored-looking mama. "They have to stay with her for weeks and weeks." Very gently, he stroked a fingertip over the downy head of a smoke-gray kitten. "But then we can take one."

She couldn't help it. Savannah went soft all over. "Oh, they're so tiny." Crouching down, she gave in to the need and lifted one carefully into her hand. "Look, Bry, it fits right in my palm. Oh, aren't you sweet?" Murmuring, she nuzzled her face against the fur. "Aren't you pretty?"

"I like this one best." Bryan continued to stroke the tiny gray bundle. "I'm going to call him Cal. Like for Cal Ripkin."

"Oh." The soft orange ball in her hand stirred and mewed thinly. Her heart was lost. "All right. The gray one."

"You could take two." Jared stepped into the stall. Her face, he thought, was an open book. "It's nice for them to have company."

"Two?" The idea burst like a thousand watts in Bryan's brain. "Yeah, Mom, we'll take two. One would be lonely!"

"Bry-"

"And it wouldn't be any more trouble. We've got lots of room now. Cal's going to want somebody to play with, to hang around with."

"Thanks, MacKade."

"My pleasure."

"And anyway," Bryan went on, because he'd come out of his own excitement long enough to see the way his mother was cuddling the orange kitten, "this way we could each pick one. That's the fair way, right?"

Smiling, Bryan reached out to brush his finger over the orange kitten. "He likes you. See, he's trying to lick your hand."

"He's hungry," Savannah told him, but she knew there was no possible way she was going to be able to resist the little bundle rooting in her hand. "I suppose they would be company for each other."

"All right, Mom!" Bryan sprang up, kissed her without any of the embarrassment many nine-year-old boys might feel. "I'm going to tell Shane which ones are ours."

With a clatter of feet, Bryan dashed out of the barn.

"You know you wanted it," Jared said.

"I'm old enough to know I can't have everything I want." But she sighed and set the kitten down so that it could join its siblings in a morning snack. "But two cats can't be that much more trouble than one."

She started to rise, flicking a glance upward when Jared put a hand under her arm and helped her up. "Thanks." She stepped around him and headed for the light. "So, are you a farm boy moonlighting as a lawyer, or a lawyer moonlighting as a farm boy?"

"It feels like both these days. I spent the last few years living in Hagerstown." He matched his pace to her long, lazy one. "When I moved back a couple of months ago, I had a lot of things to deal with in the city, so I haven't been able to give Shane and Devin much of a hand."

"Devin?" She paused outside, where the sun was strong and warming quickly. "Oh, the sheriff. Yes, Bryan's mentioned him. He lives here, too."

"He sleeps here now and again," Jared said. "He lives in the sheriff's office."

"Fighting crime, in a town with two stoplights?"

"Devin takes things seriously." He looked over to where Bryan was dancing around Shane as Shane herded the cows back to pasture. "Have you given any more thought to your father's estate?"

"Estate.

Now, that's a very serious word. Yes, I've thought about it. I have to talk to Bryan." At Jared's cocked brow, she spoke quietly. "We're a team, Mr. MacKade. He gets a vote in this. We have a Little League game this afternoon, and I don't want to distract him from that. I'll have an answer for you by Monday."

"Fine." Jared's eyes shifted from hers again, narrowed. The warning glint in them had Savannah's lips curving.

"Let me guess. Your brother's looking at my butt again."

Intrigued, Jared looked back at her. "You can tell?"

Her laugh was quick and rich. "Honey, women can always tell. Sometimes we let you get away with it, that's all." She cast a lightning grin over her shoulder, winked at Shane. "Come on, Bryan. You've got chores to finish up before the game."

She walked back through the woods with Bryan, listening to him chatter endlessly about the kittens, the ball game, the animals at the MacKade farm.

He was happy, was all she could think. He was safe. She'd done a good job. On her own. She caught herself before she could sigh and alert her son to the troubles in her mind. It was often so hard to know what was right.

"Why don't you run ahead, Bry? Get those chores done and change into your uniform. I think I'll sit here awhile."

He stopped, kicked at a pebble. "How come you sit here so much?"

"Because I like it here."

He studied her face, looked for signs. "We're really going to stay in this place?"

Her heart broke a little as she bent down and kissed him. "Yes, we're really going to stay."

His grin was quick and bright. "Cool."

He raced off, leaving her standing alone in the path. She sat on a fallen log, closed her eyes and emptied her mind.

So much tried to intrude—memories, mistakes, doubts. She willed them away, concentrating on the quiet and that place in her own head that was safe from worry.

It was a trick she'd learned as a child, when the confusion of life had been too overwhelming to face. There had been long rides in a rattling pickup, endless hours in smelly paddocks, loud voices, the gnaw of real hunger, the cries of fretful babies, the chill of underheated rooms. They could all be faced, again and again, if she could just escape into herself for a few minutes.

Decisions became clearer, confidence could be rebuilt.

As fascinated as if he'd come across some mythical creature in the woods, Jared watched her. That exotic face was utterly peaceful, her body utterly still. He wouldn't have been surprised to see a butterfly or a bright bird land on her shoulder.

These woods had always been his. His personal place. His intimate place. Yet seeing her here didn't feel like an intrusion. It seemed expected, as if in some part of his mind he'd known he'd find her here if he just knew when to look.

He realized he was afraid to blink, as if in that fraction of a second she might vanish, never to be found again.

She opened her eyes slowly and looked directly into his.

For a moment, neither of them could speak. Savannah felt the breath rush into her throat and stick there. She was used to men staring at her. They had done so even when she was a child. It annoyed, amused or interested her by turns. But it had never left her speechless, as this one long, unblinking stare out of eyes the color of summer grass did.

He moved first, stepping closer. And the world started again.

"I hate stating the obvious." Because he wanted to—and because his knees were just a little weak—he sat on the log beside her. "But you are staggering."

Steadier now, she inclined her head. "Aren't you supposed to be plowing a field or something?"

"Shane's gotten proprietary about his tractor over the years. Aren't you supposed to be going to a ball game?"

"It's not for a couple hours." Savannah took a deep breath, relieved that it went smoothly in and out. "So, who's trespassing, you or me?"

"Technically, both of us." Jared took out a slim cigar and found a match. "This is my brother's property."

"I assumed the farm belonged to all of you."

"It does." He took a drag, watched the smoke drift into the sunlight. "This strip here is Rafe's land."

"Rafe?" Her brows shot up. "Don't tell me there are more of you."

"Four altogether." He tried to smother his surprise when she plucked the cigar out of his fingers and helped herself to a casual drag.

"Four MacKades," she mused. "It's a wonder the town survived. And none of the women managed to rope you in?"

"Rafe's married. I was."

"Oh." She handed him back the cigar. "And now you're back on the farm."

"That right. Actually, if I hadn't waffled, I'd be living in your cabin."

"Is that so?"

"Yep. My place in town's on the market and I'm looking for something around here. But you already had a contract on your place by the time I started looking." He picked up a stick and drew in the dirt. "The farm," he said, sketching lines. "Rafe's. The cabin."

Savannah pursed her lips at the triangle. "Hmm... And the MacKades would have owned a nice chunk of the mountain. You missed your shot, Lawyer Mac-Kade."

"So it seems, Ms. Morningstar."

"I suppose you can call me Savannah, since we're neighbors." Taking the stick from him, she tapped the point of the triangle. "This place. It's the stone house you can see on the hill from the road into town?"

"That's right. The old Barlow place."

"It's haunted."

"You've heard the stories?"

"No." Interested, she looked over at him. "Are there stories?"

It only took him a moment to see she wasn't playing games. "Why did you say it was haunted?"

"You can feel it," she said simply. "Just like these woods. They're restless." When he continued to stare at her, she smiled. "Indian blood. I'm part Apache. My father liked to claim he was full-blooded, but..." She let words trail off, looked away.

"But?"

"There's Italian, Mexican, even a little French mixed in."

"Your mother?"

"Anglo and Mex. She was a barrel racer. Rodeo champion. She was in a car accident when I was five. I don't remember her very clearly."

"Both of mine are gone, too." Companionably he offered her the cigar. "It's tough."

She drew in smoke. "This one shouldn't have been, for me. I lost my father ten years ago, when he booted me out. I was sixteen, and pregnant with Bryan."

"I'm sorry, Savannah."

"Hey, I got by." She passed back the cigar. She didn't know why she'd told him, except that it was quiet here, and he listened well. "The thing is, Jared, I've been thinking more about my father in the last day or so than I have in years. You can't imagine what eight thousand dollars would have meant to me ten years ago. Five." With a shrug, she pushed back her hair. "Hell, there was a time eight dollars would have made the difference between— Well, it doesn't matter."

Without thinking, he laid a hand over hers. "Sure it does."

She frowned down at their hands, then slowly, casually, slipped hers away and stood. "The thing is, I have Bryan to think of. So I'll talk this over with him."

"Let me state the obvious again. You've done a terrific job raising your son."

She smiled. "We've raised each other. But thanks. I'll be in touch."

"Savannah." He rose, faced her on the path. "This is a good town, mostly a kind one. No one has to be alone here unless they want to."

"That's something else I have to think about. I'll see you around, Lawyer MacKade."

Jared hadn't been to a Little League game in years. When he pulled up at the park just outside of town and absorbed the scents and sounds, he wondered why. The single swatch of wooden stands was crowded and noisy. And kids who weren't on the field were running and racing behind the low chain-link fence or wrestling under the shade of the stands.

The concession hut drew others, with the smell of steaming hot dogs and sloppy joes.

He pulled his car behind the long line of others along the bumpy shoulder of the narrow road and walked across the uneven grass. He had an eye peeled for Savannah, but it was little Connor Dolin who caught his gaze.

The pale-haired boy was waiting quietly in line for food, staring at his feet as a couple of burly older kids harassed him.

"Hey, it's nerd brain Dolin. How's your old man like his cell?"

Connor stood stoically as they bumped and shoved him. The woman ahead of him in line turned and clucked her tongue at them, which had no effect at all.

"Why don't you bake him a cake with a file in it, butthead? Bet a wussy like you bakes a real good cake."

"Hey, Connor." Jared stepped up, aimed one look that had the two bullies scrambling away. "How's it going?"

"Okay." Humiliation had stained his cheeks, fear of abuse had dampened his palms around the money he clutched. "I'm supposed to get hot dogs and stuff."

"Mm-hmm." In the way of males, Jared knew better than to mention what he'd just seen. "How come you're not playing ball?"

"I'm not any good." It was said matter-of-factly. He was much too used to being told he wasn't any good to question it. "But Bryan's playing. Bryan Morningstar. He's the best on the team."

"Is he?" Touched by the sudden light in those shy gray eyes, Jared reached out to flip up the visor of Connor's ball cap. The boy jerked instinctively, went still, and reminded Jared that life had not been all ball games and hot dogs for this nine-year-old. "I'm looking forward to watching him," Jared continued, as if the moment had never happened. "What position does he play?"

Ashamed of his own cowardice, Connor studied the ground again. "Shortstop."

"Yeah? I used to play short."

"You did?" Astonished by the idea, Connor just stared.

"That's right. Devin played third, and—"

"Sheriff MacKade played baseball?" Now the astonishment was mixed with a pure case of hero worship. "I bet he was real good."

"He was okay." It pricked the pride, just a little, to remember he'd never been able to outhit, or outfield, Devin. "How many dogs you want, Connor?"

"I've got money. Mom gave me money. And Ms. Morningstar." He fumbled with the bills. "I'm supposed to get one for her, too. With mustard."

"It's my treat." Jared held up three fingers at the vendor as Bryan worried his lip and stared at his money. "This way I get to hang out with you and Ms. Morningstar."

Jared handed the boy the first hot dog, watched him carefully, deliberately squeeze on a line of bright yellow mustard. "Are your mother and sister here?"

"No, sir. Mom's working, and Emma's with her down at the diner. She said it was okay for me to come down and watch, though."

Jared added drinks to the order, and packed the whole business up in a flimsy cardboard box. "Can you handle this?"

"Yes, sir. Sure." Pleased to have been given the job, Connor walked toward the stands, holding the box as if the hot dogs were explosives and the soft drinks a lit match. "We're way up at the top, 'cause Ms. Morningstar says you can see everything better from up high."

And he could see her, Jared mused, as they approached the stands. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her chin cupped in her hands. And her eyes— though he had to imagine, as they were shielded with dark glasses—focused on the field.

He was wrong about that. She was watching him, walking beside the boy, flashing that killer smile or giving a quick salute whenever someone hailed him. And noticing several women—of varying ages—who put their shoulders back or patted at their hair as he passed.

That was what a man who looked like that did to a woman, Savannah supposed. Made her instinctively aware of herself on a purely physical level. It was like pheromones, she decided. The scent of sex.

Those long legs of his carried him up the stands behind the small boy. Now and again his hand touched a shoulder or shook a hand. Savannah picked up the jacket she'd set in Connor's place and squeezed over toward the rail.

"Nice day for a ball game," Jared said as he sat beside her. He took the box from Connor and, to make room for the boy, shifted closer to the woman. "Crowded."

"It is now. Thanks, Con."

"Mr. MacKade bought them," Connor told her, and solemnly handed her back her money.

She started to tell him to keep it, but she understood pride. "Thanks, Mr. MacKade."

"What's the score?"

"We're down one, bottom of the third." She took a healthy bite of her hot dog. "But the top of our batting order's coming up."

"Bryan bats third." Connor chewed and swallowed politely before he spoke. "He has the most RBIs."

Jared watched the first boy come out in the bright orange uniform of the team sponsored by Ed's Cafe. "Have you met Edwina Crump?" Jared murmured near Savannah's ear.

"Not yet. She owns the diner where Cassandra works, doesn't she?"

"Yeah. Be grateful your boy's not wearing lipstick pink."

Savannah started to comment, then let out an encouraging shout when the bat cracked. The crowd hollered with her when the batter raced to first.

"Tying run's on, right, Con?"

"Yes'm. That's J. D. Bristol. He's a good runner."

She devoured her hot dog, fueling her nerves, while the second batter struck out, swinging. Someone shouted abuse at the ump, and several hot debates erupted in the stands.

"Apparently these games are taken as seriously as ever," Jared commented.

"Baseball's a serious business," Savannah muttered. Her stomach did a fast boogie as Bryan stepped toward the plate.

Now the crowd murmured.

"That's the Morningstar kid," someone announced. "Got a hot bat."

"Way that pitcher's hurling, he's going to need a torch. Nobody's getting a good piece of that ball today."

Savannah lifted her chin, and bumped the man in front of her with her knee. "You just watch," she told him when he glanced around. "He'll get all of it."

Jared grinned and leaned back on the iron rail. "Yeah, a serious business."

She winced when Bryan took a hard swing and met air. "I've got a buck says he knocks the tying run in."

"I don't like to bet against your boy, or the home team," Jared mused. "But MacKades are betting men. A buck it is."

Savannah held her breath as Bryan went through his little batter's routine. Out of the box, kicking at dirt with his left foot, then his right, adjusting his helmet, taking two practice swings.

"Eye on the ball, Bry," she murmured when he stepped to the plate. "Keep your eye on the ball."

He did—as it sailed past him and into the catcher's mitt.

"Strike two."

"What the hell kind of call is that?" she demanded. "That was low and outside. Anybody could see that was low and outside."

The man in front of her turned around, nodded seriously. "It surely was. Bo Perkins's got eyes like my grandma, and she needs glasses to see her own opinion."

"Well, somebody ought to give Bo Perkins a kick in the..." She let the words trail off, remembering Connor who was watching her with huge eyes. "Strike zone," she decided.

"Good save," Jared said under his breath, and watched Bryan step to the plate again.

The pitcher wound up, delivered. And Bryan gave a mighty swing that caught the ball on the meat of the bat. It flew above the leaping gloves of the infield, and rose beautifully over the outfield grass.

"It's gone!" Savannah shouted, leaping to her feet with the rest of the crowd. "That's the way, Bry!" Her victory dance wiggled her hips in a way that distracted Jared from watching the running of the bases. She kept shouting, her hands cupped to carry the sound, while Bryan rounded the bases and stomped on home plate.

For the hell of it, she grabbed her new friend in front of her and kissed him full on his mouth. "He got a piece of it, didn't he?"

The man, thirty years her senior, blushed like a schoolboy. "Yes, ma'am, he sure did."

"Not exactly the shy, retiring type, are you?" Jared said when she dropped back onto her seat.

"Pay up." She stuck out her hand, palm up.

Jared took out a bill, held it out. "It was worth it."

"You ain't seen nothing yet, Lawyer MacKade."

Jared thought about the promise of those agile, curvy hips and sincerely hoped not.

 

 

 

Chapter Three

It was probably a mistake, Savannah thought, to be sitting across a booth at Ed's from Jared MacKade, eating ice cream. But he'd been very persuasive. And Bryan and Connor had been so excited when he offered to treat them to a victory sundae after the Antietam Cannons batted their Way to a win.

And it did give her a chance to see him with Cassandra Dolin.

Connor's mother was a frail little thing, Savannah mused. Blonde and pretty as a china doll, with eyes so haunted they could break your heart. Jared was very gentle with her, very sweet, coaxing smiles from her.

Evidently the shy, vulnerable type was right up his alley.

"Come on, Cassie, have some ice cream with us."

"I can't.'' Cassie paused by their table long enough to brush a hand over her daughter's hair as little Emma ate her hot fudge with tiny, serious bites. "We're swamped. But I appreciate you treating the kids, Jared."

She was thin enough to blow away in a spring breeze, Jared thought, and held up a spoonful of sundae. "Have a bite, anyway."

She flushed, but opened her mouth as obediently as a child when he held the spoon to her lips. "It's wonderful."

"Hey, Cass, burgers up."

"Right there." Cassie hurried off to pick up the orders from the counter where Edwina Crump reigned supreme.

The owner of the diner sent Jared a lusty wink. The fact that she was twenty years his senior didn't stop her from appreciating a fine-looking man. "Hey, big fellow, don't see you in here often enough." She patted her frizzed red bowling ball of a hairdo. "When you taking me dancing?"

"Whenever you say, Ed."

She gave a chicken-cackle laugh, wiggled her bony body. "Got a hot band over at the Legion tonight. I'm ready and waiting," she told him before she swung back into the kitchen.

Amused, Savannah propped her elbows on the table. "The Legion, huh? I bet it gets pretty wild."

"You'd be surprised." He cocked a brow. "Wanna go?"

"I'll pass, thanks. Bry, do you think you can shovel any more into your mouth at one time?"

He scooped up a dripping spoon of ice cream, butterscotch and sprinkles. "It's great," he said around it. "What's yours taste like, Con?" To see for himself, Bryan reached over the table to dip his spoon into Connor's. "Strawberry's okay," he decided, "but butterscotch is the best."

Willing to be wrong, he eyed Emma's hot fudge avariciously.

"No," Savannah said mildly, and watched with approval as the five-year old Emma curled a hand protectively around her bowl. She might be a quiet one, Savannah mused, but the kid knew what was hers. "Pack it away, honey," Savannah told her. "I bet you can eat these boys under the table."

"I like ice cream," Emma said, with one of her rare smiles.

"Me too." With a grin, Savannah scooped up some of her own. "And hot fudge is the best, right?"

"Uh-huh, and the whipped cream. Miss Ed gives you lots of it." She put her spoon down carefully beside her empty bowl and announced, "I can go to Regan's now. My mama said."

"What's Regan's?" Bryan wanted to know.

"She's friends with my mom," Connor told him. "She has a shop just down the street. It has lots of neat things to look at."

"Let's go see."

Before he could dart from the booth, Savannah laid a hand on his arm. "Bryan."

It took him a minute. "Oh, yeah, thanks. Mr. MacKade. The ice cream was great. Come on, Con."

"Thanks, Mr. MacKade." Since Emma already had his hand and was tugging on it, Connor slid from the booth. He looked down at his sister, wrinkled his brow.

"Thank you," she said, keeping an iron grip on her brother's hand.

"You're welcome. Say hi to Regan."

"We will. Mama," Connor called out, "we're going down to Regan's."

"Don't touch anything," Cassie told them, balancing two plates on one arm and serving another. "And come right back if she's busy."

"Yes'm."

Bryan was already out of the door, and Connor followed, hampered by his sister's sedate pace.

"I'd say you hit a home run," Savannah commented, leaning back to drape an arm over the back of the booth.

"You hit one yourself. That's one of the longest conversations I've ever heard out of Emma."

"It must be hard, being shy. She looks like an angel. Like her mother."

Angels who'd already been through hell, Jared thought. "Cassie's doing a terrific job with them, on her own. You'd appreciate that."

"Yes, I would." Savannah glanced over to where Cassie was busy wiping down a booth. "You're... close?"

"I've known her most of my life, but no, not the way you mean. She's a friend." Pleased she was interested enough to ask, he took out a cigar. "And a client. Anything beyond friendship wouldn't be ethical, when I'm representing her."

"And you'd be a very ethical man, wouldn't you, Lawyer MacKade?"

"That's right. You know, you've never mentioned what you do."

"About what?"

"About making a living."

"I've done all sorts of things." With a sizzling look, she took the cigar from him.

"I'll just bet you have," he murmured.

"Right now I'm an illustrator. Kids' books, mostly." Laughing, she passed the cigar back to him. "Doesn't quite fit the image, does it?"

"I don't know. I'd have to see some of your illustrations." He glanced up, and his lips curved. "Hey, Dev."

Savannah shifted to see the man who had just come in. He had the same dark, go-to-hell looks as Jared, a body that was tall and tough and rangy. The eyes were green, as well, but they were different.

She recognized the way they swept the room, checked for details, looked for trouble. Instinctively her muscles tightened, her face went blank. She didn't need the badge on his chest to tell her this was the sheriff. She could spot a cop at half a mile on a speeding horse. She could smell one at twenty paces.

"Saw your car." After one quick scan of the room, one quick smile for Cassie, Devin dropped into the booth beside his brother.

"Savannah Morningstar, Devin MacKade."

"Nice to meet you." An eyeful was Devin's first impression. Then he caught the chill, and wondered about it. "You bought the cabin? The doctor's place."

"That's right. It's my place now."

Not just a chill, he mused. Ice was forming. "That must be your kid I've run into out at the farm. Bryan, right?"

"Yes, Bryan's my son. He's well fed, he's in school, and he's had his shots. Excuse me, I'd better go see what the kids are up to.''

And straight into frostbite, Devin mused as she slid from the booth. He winced as the door swung to behind her. "Ouch. What the hell was that about?"

"I don't know," Jared murmured. "But I'm going to find out." He pulled bills out of his pocket.

"You want a guess?" Devin made way so that Jared could climb out of the booth. "The lady's had trouble with the law."

Damn, damn, damn. On the sidewalk, Savannah struggled to regain her composure. That had been stupid, she berated herself. That had been foolish. The trouble with letting yourself relax, she reminded herself, was that all sorts of nasty things could sneak up and bite you in the back.

Now that she was outside, her fists jammed into the snug pockets of her jeans, she realized that she didn't know what this Regan's shop was, much less where it was. All she wanted was to get her son and take him home.

"You want to tell me what just happened?" Jared stepped up behind her, touched a hand to her shoulder.

Savannah made herself take a careful breath before turning. "I finished my ice cream."

"Then maybe you should walk it off." He twined his fingers around her arm and had them quickly and fiercely shaken off.

"Don't take hold of me unless I ask you."

He felt the MacKade temper stir and clamped down on it. "Fine. Why don't you tell me why you were rude?"

"I'm often rude," she shot back. "Especially to cops. I don't like cops. They're one step down from lawyers. I'm not interested in socializing with either one. Which way are the kids?"

"It seems to me we were just socializing up a storm."

"Now we're not. Go back and talk law and order with your brother." The old fury, the old fears, wouldn't quite let go. "You can tell him to go ahead and run a make on me. I'm clean. I have valid employment, and money in the bank."

"Good for you," Jared said equably. "Why should Devin run a make on you?"

"Because cops and lawyers love to stick their noses in other people's business. That's what you've been doing with me ever since you drove up my lane. The way I live and the way I raise my son are my concern and nobody else's. So back off."

It was fascinating. Even through his own bubbling temper, it was fascinating to watch her simmer and spew. "I haven't gotten in your way yet, Savannah. You'll know when I do. Believe me, you'll know. Right now, I'm just asking for an explanation."

She didn't know how he did it. How he could look searing daggers at her and still speak in that controlled, reasonable voice. She hated people who could manage that.

"You've just got the only one I'm giving. Now where's my son?"

Jared kept his eyes on hers. "Past Times—two doors behind you." But when she started to whirl away, he took her arm again.

"I told you not to— "

"You listen to me. You're not going to charge in there like some fire-breathing Amazon."

The heat in her eyes could have boiled the skin off a man. "You'd better take your hand off me before I damage that pretty face of yours."

He only tightened his grip. Under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed seeing her try. "There are two abused kids in that shop," he began, and watched her face change. Fury to surprise, surprise to painful sympathy.

"Connor and Emma. I should have seen it." Her gaze darted to the wide glass window of Ed's. "Cassandra."

"Those kids watched their mother get beaten by their father, and that's more violence in those two short lives than anyone deserves. You go storming in there, you'll—"

"I don't make a habit of frightening children," Savannah snapped back. "Whatever you by-the-book types think, I'm a good mother. Bryan's never done without. He's had the best I could give him, and—"

She shut her eyes and fought back the rage. Jared thought it was like watching a volcano capping itself.

"Let go of my arm," she said, calmly now. "I'm going to take my son home."

Jared studied her face another moment, saw the licks of temper just behind the molten brown of her eyes. He released her, watched her walk to Regan's shop, take one more calming breath before pulling open the door and going inside.

Devin strolled out. He stopped beside Jared and scratched his head. "That was quite an interesting show."

"I have a feeling it was just the overture." Intrigued, Jared tucked his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. "There's a lot going on in there."

"A woman like that could make a man forget his own name." With a faint smile, Devin looked over at his brother. "You remember yours?"

"Yeah, just barely. I think you were right about her having problems with the law."

Devin's eyes narrowed. The law, the town and everyone in it were his responsibility. "I could run a make on her."

"No, don't do that. It's just what she expects." Thoughtfully Jared turned toward his car. "I've got an urge to give the lady the unexpected. We'll see what happens."

"Your call," Devin murmured as Jared climbed behind the wheel. Your call, he thought again. As long as the lady stays out of trouble.

Bryan stared out the car window, his face averted coolly from his mother's. He didn't see why Connor couldn't spend the night. It was still Saturday, and there were hours and hours left until the dumb bell rang for school on lousy Monday.

What was a guy supposed to do with all those hours without his best bud? Chores, he thought, rolling his dark brown eyes. Homework. Might as well be in jail.

"Might as well be in jail," he said aloud, turning his face now in challenge.

"Yeah, they play a lot of baseball, eat a lot of butterscotch sundaes, in the joint."

"But I've got nothing to do at home," he said—the desperate lament of every nine-year-old.

"I'll give you something to do," Savannah shot back—the typical response of every frustrated parent. And when she heard that come out of her mouth she nearly groaned. "I'm sorry, Bry, I've got a lot on my mind, and it's just not a good night for a sleep-over."

"I could've stayed at Con's. His mother wouldn't care."

Direct hit, she thought grimly as she turned up the lane. "Well, yours does, Ace, and you're stuck with me. You can start by taking out the trash you didn't take out this morning, cleaning that black hole that passes as your room, then studying your math so you don't end up in summer school."

"Great." The minute she stopped the car, he slammed out. He muttered another comment about it being worse than jail that had smoke coming out of her ears.

"Bryan Morningstar." His name lashed out. When he pivoted back, they stood glaring at each other, angry color riding high on each set of cheekbones, eyes almost black with passionate temper. "Why the hell are you so much like me?" she demanded. She threw her face up to the sun. "I could have had a nice, quiet, well-mannered little girl if I'd tried really hard. Why did I think I'd like having some snotty, bad-tempered boy with big feet?"

It made his lips twitch. "Because then you'd have to take out the trash yourself. A girl would whine and say it was too messy."

"I could take the trash out," she said consideringly. "In fact, I think I will, after I put you in it." She made a grab, but he danced back, laughing at her.

"You're too old to catch me."

"Oh, yeah?" She streaked forward, pounded up the bank after him. He stood hooting at her, taunting. Which was his mistake. She snagged him, making the catch more from her advantage of reach and experience than from speed, and tumbled with him to the grass.

"Who's old, smart mouth?"

"You are." He shrieked with laughter as her fingers dug mercilessly into his ribs. "You're almost thirty."

"I am not. Take it back." She whipped him into a headlock, rubbed her knuckles over his hair. "Take it back, and do the math, Einstein. What's twenty-six from thirty?"

"Nothing," he shouted. "Zero." Then, fearing he might wet his pants if she kept tickling, he surrendered. "It's four, okay? It's four."

"Remember that. And remember who can still take you down." She pulled him back against her, hugged him so suddenly, so fiercely, he blinked. "I love you, Bryan. I love you so much."

"Jeez, Mom." He wriggled in mortification. "I know."

"I'm sorry I snapped at you."

He rolled his eyes, but trickles of remorse found their way through the embarrassment. "I guess I'm sorry, too."

"You and Connor can have a sleep-over next weekend. I promise."

"Okay, that's cool." When she didn't release him, he frowned. But it wasn't so bad, letting her hold him—since none of the guys were around to see. She smelled nice, and her arms were soft. There were flickers of memory of being rocked and soothed.

He was simply too young to do anything but take them for granted. She'd always been there. She always would. He let his head rest on her shoulder, and didn't feel like squirming when she stroked his hair.

"Could we maybe cook out on the grill later?"

"Sure. Want superburgers?"

"Yeah, and french fries."

"What's a superburger without fries?" she murmured, then sighed. "Bryan, has Con said anything to you about his father?"

She felt her son go still, and pressed a light kiss to his hair. "Is it a secret?"

"Sort of."

"I don't want you to betray a confidence. I found out today that Connor's father used to hit his mother. I thought if Con had talked to you about it, you might want to talk to me.''

He'd wanted to, ever since Connor had told him. But Connor had cried some—even though Bryan had pretended not to notice. And a guy just didn't tell his mother things like that.

"Con's said he's in jail for hitting her. Con said he used to hurt her real bad, and he drank a lot and gave her bruises and everything. They're getting divorced."

"I see." She'd seen plenty of men who were Joe Dolin's type in her life, but that didn't stop her from despising them. "Did he hit Con, too? And Emma?"

"Not Emma." Here was another dicey part, but Bryan heard himself blurting it out before he could stop. "But he hit Con. Not when his mom was around and could see. He'd call him names and shove him. He said Con was a sissy 'cause he liked to read books and write stories. Con's no sissy."

"Of course he's not."

"He's just real smart. He doesn't hardly have to study to get the answers right. But he doesn't raise his hand in class very much. The teacher calls on him anyway." As he stared off into the woods, Bryan's face darkened with rage. "Some of the kids give him a hard time about things. About his father, and how he's teacher's pet and how he can't throw a baseball very far. But they back off when I'm around."

Savannah closed her eyes, laid on cheek on Bryan's head. "You're quite a guy."

"Hell—heck." He corrected himself quickly. "Bullies are just wimps underneath, right?"

"Right. Con's not the only one's who's smart." She let out a sigh. "Bryan, I need to talk to you. Do you remember the other day, when you came home and Mr. MacKade was here?"

"Sure."

"He's a lawyer, and he came here on business."

"Are we in trouble?"

"No." She turned him so that they were face-to-face. "We're not in trouble. We're fine. He came about... My father died, Bryan."

"Oh." He felt nothing but mild surprise himself. He'd never met his grandfather, knew of him only because his mother had explained that Jim Morningstar was a rodeo rider who moved around a lot. "I guess he was pretty old."

"Yeah." Fifty? she wondered. Sixty? She didn't have a clue. "I never really explained things to you, exactly. Your grandfather and I had a fight a long time ago, and I left home."

How could she tell this child, her beautiful child, that he'd been the cause of it? No, that she wouldn't do. That she would never do.

"Anyway, I left, and we sort of lost touch."

"How did Mr. MacKade know he was dead? Did he know him?"

"No, it's a lawyer thing. Your grandfather got hurt, and it started him thinking, I guess. He hired this lawyer out in Oklahoma to find us, and the lawyer called Mr. MacKade. It all took awhile, then Mr. MacKade came out to tell me. And to let me know that your grandfather left some money."

"Wow, really?"

"It's about seven thousand—"

"Dollars?" Bryan finished for her, eyes popping. It was all the money in the world. Enough for a new bike, a new mitt, the Cal Ripkin rookie baseball card he lusted for. "We get to keep it? Just like that?"

"I have to sign some papers."

The dollar signs faded from his eyes long enough for Bryan to read his mother's face. "How come you don't want it?"

"I... Oh, Bryan." Defeated, she curled up her legs and rested her brow on them. "I don't know how to explain it to you. I've been so mad at him all these years. Now I'm mad at him for waiting until he was dead."

Bryan patted her head and thought it over. "Is it like him saying he's sorry? And if you take it you'd be saying you were sorry, too?"

She let out a half laugh at the simplicity of it. "Why couldn't I have thought of that?" Wearily she lifted her head, studied his face. "You think we should take it."

"I guess we don't need to." He watched Cal Ripkin fly gracefully away. "I mean, you've got your job, and we've got a house now."

"No," she murmured. "We don't need to." She felt the weight slip from her shoulders. They didn't need to, and that was exactly why they could. "I'll go see Mr. MacKade on Monday and tell him to put the money through."

"Cool." Bryan leaped to his feet. "I'm going to call Con and tell him we're rich."

"No."

He skidded to a halt. "But, Mom..."

"No. Bragging about money is very uncool. And I might as well break it to you now, Ace. It doesn't make us rich, and I'm dumping it into a college fund."

His mouth dropped open, nearly scraping his shoes. "College? That's a hundred years away. Maybe I won't even go."

"That'll be up to you, but the money'll be there."

"Oh, man." At nine, Bryan was experiencing the pain of a fortune won and lost. "All of it?"

"All—" his shattered face changed her mind in midstep "— except some." You can have one thing. It'll be like a present from your grandfather."

Hope bloomed. "One anything?"

"One any reasonable thing. A gold-plated Corvette slides over to the unreasonable side."

He let out a whoop, leaped over to hug her. "I've gotta go look up something in my baseball-card price guide."

She watched him go, full steam, catapulting onto the porch, streaking into the house with the screen door slamming like a gunshot behind him.

Later, while she grilled burgers on the porch with Bryan curled up with his price guide and dreams of glory, Jared sat on the other side of the haunted woods and thought of her.

He was tempted, very tempted, to stride through those woods and finish the altercation she had started that afternoon out on the sidewalk in front of Ed's.

Prickly women weren't his style, Jared reminded himself and set the chair rocking. Prickly women with lightning tempers and murky pasts were even less so. Not that she wasn't interesting, and not that he didn't like fitting puzzle pieces together.

But his life was cruising along at a very comfortable pace at the moment. He would have enjoyed her companionship—on a purely superficial level, of course. A few dates, leading to physical contact. After all, a dead man would fantasize about rolling around with a woman who looked like that.

And Jared MacKade wasn't dead.

He also wasn't stupid. The woman who'd blasted him that afternoon was nothing but trouble. The last thing one hot temper needed was to crash up against another. That was why he preferred his women cool, composed and reasonable.

Like his ex-wife, he thought with a grimace. She'd been so cool there were times he wanted to hold a mirror in front of her mouth to see if she was still breathing.

But that was another story.

First thing Monday morning, he was going to draft a nice formal letter advising Savannah Morningstar of her inheritance and the steps she was required to take to accept or decline it.

He didn't mind getting his hands dirty for a client, sweating for one, even losing sleep for one. But she wasn't his damn client, and he'd taken professional courtesy to his colleague out west as far as he intended to.

He was out of it.

Hell, the woman had a kid. A very appealing kid, but that was beside the point. If he pursued a personal relationship with her, it would involve the kid, as well. There was no way around that one and, Jared admitted, there shouldn't be one.

Then there was that fact that, beneath that scorching beauty, the woman was tough as shoe leather. There was no doubt that she'd been around, knew the ropes and had probably climbed plenty of them. A woman didn't get eyes that aware by spending all her time baking biscuits.

He imagined she could chew a man up, spit him out, and have him come crawling back for more.

Well, not this man.

He could handle her, of course. If he wanted to.

That exotic, unbelievable face zipped straight to the center of his mind and taunted him.

God, he wanted to.

In disgust, Jared sprang up and headed into the woods. He needed to walk, he decided. And he preferred the company of ghosts to his own thoughts.

 

 

 

Chapter Four

"Good afternoon, MacKade law offices." Sissy Bleaker, Jared's secretary, answered the phone on the fly. It was quarter to five, she had a hot date in exactly one hour, and the boss had been like a bear with a sore tooth all day. "Oh, yes, hello, Mr. Brill. No, Mr. MacKade is in conference."

Sissy could have spit nails when the front door opened. How the devil was she supposed to look irresistibly sexy in an hour if she couldn't get out of here?

"I'll be happy to take a message." As she picked up a pad, she glanced up. And decided she could have a week at her disposal and not pull off the kind of in-your-face sexy that had just walked into Jared MacKade's outer office.

Savannah hated being here. She hated that she'd felt obliged to change out of jeans into pleated trousers and a jacket. Something about visiting official places compelled her to put on a front.

And this place certainly looked official. The pretty plants and bland pastel paintings on matte-white walls didn't hide the fact that law was the order here. The carpet was a muted gray, the deeper-toned chairs in the waiting area were likely just the wrong side of comfortable.

We wouldn't want people to be at their ease now, would we? she thought bitterly.

She'd never known a den of authority—social services, a principal's office, an unemployment line—to offer comfort. Still, she'd thought the man had more style than to choose such a cold, formal setting for his work.

The secretary behind the polished reception-area desk was young, bright-eyed and, Savannah was sure, fiercely efficient. The quick greeting smile she sent in Savannah's direction was carefully empty of curiosity and perfectly balanced between warm and cool.

Savannah had no idea Sissy was curdling with envy inside.

"Yes, Mr. Brill, I'll see that he gets your message. You're welcome. Goodbye." Wondering just where the mystery visitor had come across that terrific jacket, all sweeping lines and bold colors, Sissy hung up the phone and aimed her most professional smile.

"Good afternoon. May I help you?"

"I'd like to see Mr. MacKade."

"Do you have an appointment?" Sissy knew very well she did not. Jared's schedule was filed in her brain right alongside her own.

"No, I was..." Damn, she hated this. "I was in town, and I thought I'd take a chance he'd be free for a minute."

"I'm afraid he's in conference, Ms___"

"Morningstar." Of course he was in conference, Savannah thought nastily. Where else was a lawyer when he wasn't on the putting green but in conference? "Then I'd like to leave a message."

The name Morningstar rang all sorts of bells in Sissy's brain. It had been said through gritted teeth that morning, when Jared dictated a briskly formal letter with all kinds of interesting hums between the lines.

"Certainly. If it's personal, you could write it down and I'll... Oh." Sissy beamed at her phone. "Mr. MacKade's just finished his conference call, I see. Why don't I buzz him, see if he can squeeze you in?"

"Fine, great." Restless, Savannah turned away to pace.

Sissy decided that if she grew six inches in height, filled out several more in the right places, she might just look that impressive on the move.

"Mr. MacKade, there's a Ms. Morningstar to see you, if you have a moment. Yes, sir, she's in the office now. Yes, sir." Careful to keep her lips from sliding into a smile, Sissy hung up the phone. "He'll see you, Ms. Morningstar. It's right up those stairs and to the left. First door."

"Thanks." Savannah turned toward the short curve of stairs, put one hand on the pristine white rail and climbed.

Must have been a town house at one time, she decided. Or a duplex. Though she wouldn't have called the place homey, Savannah admitted it had class—if you went in for snooty and nondescript.

There was a short hallway at the top of the steps, a print of a spray of white orchids in a white vase that was so soulless and ordinary it offended her artist's eye, and two doors facing each other.

She strode to the one on the left, rapped once and opened it.

Of course he'd look terrific in charcoal gray, she thought. A lot better than the office did, with its dull grays and punishing whites. Someone should tell him work was more pleasant in an environment with a little color and life.

But it wouldn't be her.

He rose, elegant in his three-piece suit and carefully knotted tie. A tie he'd just jerked back into place. She thought, with an inner sense of rebellion, that he looked like more of a lawyer than ever.

"Ms. Morningstar." He inclined his head. He thought that her stepping into the room was like having some brilliant bolt of lightning strike a placid pond. "Have a seat."

"It won't take long." She remained standing, stubbornly. "I appreciate you taking the time to see me."

"I had the time." To illustrate the point, he moved a file from the center of his desk to the side, and sat. "What can I do for you?"

In answer, she pulled papers out of her purse, tossed them on his desk. "I signed them, in triplicate, and had them notarized." Her driver's license landed with a plop on top of the papers. "That's my ID." She threw in her social security card for good measure. "I don't have a birth certificate."

"Mm-hmm..." Taking his time, Jared pulled brown horn-rims out of his jacket pocket and slipped them on to study the papers.

Savannah stared at him, swallowed hard. It didn't seem to matter that she told herself it was ridiculous. Her heart had skipped a beat. He looked gorgeous, intellectually sexy, in those damn glasses. And made her feel like a fumbling fool.

"It's all in order," she began.

"Afraid not." Thoughtfully, He picked up her driver's license, perused it. "This is invalid."

"The hell it is. I just had it renewed a couple of months ago."

"That may be," he continued, studying her now. "But as the picture actually looks like you, and is, in fact, flattering, this driver's license is obviously a fraud, and therefore, invalid."

She closed her mouth, jammed her hands in her pockets. "Are you making a joke? Is that allowed in hallowed halls?"

"Sit down, Savannah. Please."

With a bad-tempered shrug, she sat. "Did you ever hear of color?" she demanded. "This place is dull as a textbook, and your art is pathetically ordinary."

"It is, isn't it?" he agreed easily. "My ex-wife decorated the place. She was a tax accountant, had the office across the hall." He leaned back and scanned the room. "I've gotten used to not seeing the place, but you're right. It could use something."

"It could use an obituary." Annoyed with herself, she pushed a hand through her hair. "I hate being here."

"I can see that." He picked up the papers again, skimmed through them. "You understand that you're agreeing to accept a payment, by cashier's check, that equals the total cash balance of your father's estate?"

"Yes."

"And his effects?"

"I thought.. .I thought that meant the money. What else is there?"

"Apparently there are a few personal effects. I can get you an itemized list if you like, so that you can decide if you want them sent or discarded. The shipping would be deducted from the estate."

Discarded, she thought. As she had been. "No, just have them sent."

"All right." Methodically he made notes on a yellow legal pad. "I'll have my secretary draft a letter tomorrow confirming the status and apprising you that you'll receive full disbursement of the estate within forty-five days."

"Why do you need a letter when you've just told me?"

He glanced up from the papers, the eyes behind the lenses amused. "The law likes to cover its butt with as much paperwork as humanly possible."

He signed the papers himself as proxy for his colleague, then handed Savannah back her license and social security card.

"That's it, then?"

"That's it."

"Well." Feeling awkward, and relieved, she rose. "It wasn't as painful as I expected. I suppose if I'm ever in the market for a lawyer, I'll give you a call."

"I wouldn't have you as a client, Savannah."

Her eyes fired as he took off his glasses and stood to come around the desk. "That's very neighborly of you."

"I wouldn't have you as a client," he repeated, standing behind her, "because then this would be unethical."

He caught her off guard. She'd had no idea any man could still catch her off guard. But she was in Jared's arms and being thoroughly kissed before she had a chance to evade.

If she'd wanted to evade.

There was heat, of course. She expected that, enjoyed that. But it was the lushness of it that surprised her—the silky, sumptuous spread of it that bloomed in that meeting of lips, flowering through her body.

He held her close, in a smooth, confident embrace, no fumbling, no grappling. He gave her room to resist, and as that clever, wide-palmed hand skimmed lightly up her spine, she thought only a fool would step away from that caress, that mouth, that heat.

So she stepped into it, sliding her own hands up his back until they were hooked over his shoulders.

He'd wondered what he would find here. From the moment she stood, clumps of flowers at her feet, and looked at him, he'd wondered. Now he knew there was strength in those long, lovely arms, fire in that soft, full mouth. She opened for him as if he'd touched her hundreds of times, and her taste was gloriously familiar. The press of her body against his, every firm, generous curve, was an erotic homecoming.

He tangled his fingers in her hair, slowly tugging her head back to savor. And as her mouth moved warm on his, he discovered what it was to be savored in turn.

Gradually, thoughtfully, he drew back to study her face. Her eyes were steady, calm. Darker, yes, he mused. He knew by the way her heart had jumped against his that whatever had moved through him had moved through her, as well. But she didn't tremble.

What would it take to make a woman like this tremble?

He knew he would have to discover that secret, and all the others she kept hidden behind those dark, unreadable eyes.

"But," he said, "I can certainly recommend a lawyer for you, if you find you need one."

She lifted a brow. Oh, he was a cool one, she thought, carrying on the conversation as if her in-sides weren't sizzling. Appreciating it, she smiled. "Why, thank you."

"Excuse me a minute," he said when his phone rang. "Yes, Sissy." His gaze left Savannah's only long enough for a glance at his watch. "So it is," he murmured, noting that it was just after five. "You go ahead, I'll lock up. And, Sissy, the letter I dictated this morning. The first letter? Yes. Don't mail that. I need to make some changes."

Savannah watched him consideringly. He was sending his secretary off for the day, and they would be alone. She understood what it meant when a man looked at a woman the way Jared was looking at her. She understood what happened between men and women after they'd shared a mutually lusty kiss.

Over the years, she'd learned to be very careful, very... selective. The responsibility of raising a child alone wasn't a small one. Men could come and go, but her son was forever. She wasn't a woman who stepped blindly into affairs, who scratched every itch or accepted every advance.

But she was also realistic. The man currently dismissing his secretary, the man flipping through his daily calendar to coordinate his schedule, was about to become her lover.

"My secretary's got a date," Jared commented when he hung up the phone. "So it looks like we're closing the office on time today." Tilting his head, he studied Savannah. "I'm supposed to ask you, discreetly, where you got your jacket."

"My jacket?" Bemused, Savannah glanced down. "I made it."

"You're kidding."

Her bottom lip moved into an expression somewhere between a pout and a sneer, and her chin rose in a gesture he now recognized as an indicator of temper simmering. "What? I don't look like the type who can sew? I don't fit the happy-homemaker image?"

Intrigued, he rested a hip on the edge of his desk, reached out to rub the brilliantly hued lapel of her jacket between his fingers. "Nice work. What else can you do?"

"Whatever I need to do." She didn't bother to protest when he tugged her toward him. Instead, she rested her hands on his shoulders and leaned down into the kiss.

"It's early," he murmured.

"Relatively."

"Where's Bryan?"

"At Cassie's." Mildly surprised he'd bothered to ask, she changed the angle of the kiss and let herself sink in. "I'm going to pick him up about six. I've got about a half an hour."

"It's going to take longer." He shifted, took her by the hips and drew her intimately between his legs. "Why don't you call her and see if he can stay until seven?" His teeth nipped gently over that lovely bottom lip. "Seven-thirty."

She was going to enjoy getting him out of that tie, Savannah thought. "I suppose I could."

"Good. You clear it, then we'll go across the street."

"Across the street?"

"For an early dinner."

She drew back, stared at him. "Dinner?"

"Yes." Almost certain his legs would support him, Jared stood, before he could give in to the urge to tear off her clothes, drag her to the floor and have her. "I'd like to take you to dinner."

"Why?"

"Because I'd enjoy spending an hour or two with you." On top of you, he thought. Inside you. God. With every appearance of calm, he skirted the desk and flipped through his address file. "Here's Cassie's number."

"I know Cassie's number." It was demoralizing to realize she had to take a good, deep breath to steady herself, when he was just standing there, so coolly, so easily. "What's going on here, Jared? We both know dinner isn't necessary."

His stomach twisted into tight slick knots. He could take her. Right here, right now. It was just that simple. And anything too simple was suspect.

"I'd like to have dinner with you, Savannah. And conversation." Picking up the phone, he dialed Cas-sie's number himself, held out the receiver. "All right?"

Filled with mistrust, she hesitated. With a shrug, she took the phone. "All right."

The restaurant was casual, the menu basic American grill. Savannah toyed with her drink and waited for Jared's next move.

"So, you make clothes."

"Sometimes."

Smiling, he leaned back in the wooden booth. "Sometimes?" he repeated, looking at her expectantly.

He wanted to make conversation, she determined. She could make conversation. "I learned because homemade is cheaper than store-bought, and I didn't want to be naked. Now I make something now and again because I enjoy it."

"But you make your living as an illustrator, not as a seamstress."

"I like to work with color, and design. I got lucky."

"Lucky?"

Wary of the friendly probing, she moved her shoulders. "You don't want the story of my life, Jared."

"But I do." He smiled at the waitress who set their meals in front of them. "Start anywhere," he said invitingly.

She shook her head, cut into the spicy blackened chicken he'd recommended. "You've lived here all your life, haven't you?"

"That's right."

"Big family, old friends and neighbors. Roots."

"Yeah."

"I'm going to give my son roots. Not just a roof over his head, but roots."

He was silent for a moment. There had been a fierceness in her voice, a fiery determination, that he had to admire, even as he wondered at it. "Why here?"

"Because it's not the West. That's first. I wanted to get away from the dust, the plains, and all those sunbaked little towns. That was for me," she admitted. "I've been moving east for ten years. This seemed far enough."

When he said nothing, she relaxed a little. It was difficult to combat that quiet way he had of listening. "I didn't want the city for Bryan. But I wanted to give him a sense of belonging, of..."

"Community?"

"Yeah. Small town, kids, people who'd get to know him by name. But I still wanted a little distance. That was for me again. And..."

"And?"

"I was drawn here," she said at length. "Maybe it's the mysticism in my blood and my heritage, but I felt—I knew that this would be home. The land, the hills. The woods. Your woods called to me." Amused at herself, she smiled. "How's that for weird?"

"They've called to me all my life," Jared said, so simply her smile faded. "I could never be happy anywhere else. I moved to the city because it seemed practical. And small towns and long walks through the woods weren't my ex-wife's style."

If he could probe, so could she. "Why did you marry her?"

"Because it seemed practical." Now it was his turn to wince. "Which doesn't say much for either of us. We were reasonably attracted, respected each other, and entered into a very civilized, intelligent and totally passionless contract of marriage. Two years later, we had a very civilized, intelligent and totally passionless divorce."

It was difficult, all but impossible, to visualize the man who had kissed her being passionless about anything. "No blood spilled?"

"Absolutely not. We were both much too reasonable for combat. There were no children." Her choice, he remembered, only slightly bitter. "She'd kept her own name."

"A modern professional marriage."

"You've got it. We split everything down the middle and went our separate ways. No harm, no foul."

Curious, Savannah tilted her head. "It bothered you that she didn't take your name."

He started to correct her, then shrugged. "Yeah, it bothered me. Not very modern or professional of me. Just one of those things that would have made the commitment emotional instead of reasonable. That's just pride."

"Partly," Savannah agreed. "But part of you wanted to give her that piece of you that you were most proud of, that had been passed to you, and that you wanted to pass to your children."

"You're astute," he murmured.

"Lawyers aren't the only ones who can read people. And I understand the importance of names. When Bryan was born, I stared at the form they give you. For names. And I thought, what do I put where it says Father? If I put the name down, then I'm giving that name to my son. My son," she repeated quietly.

"What did you put down?"

She brought herself back from that moment, when she'd been barely seventeen, and alone. Completely alone. "Unknown," she said. "Because he'd stopped being important. My name was enough."

"He's never seen Bryan?"

"No. He packed up his gear and lit out like a rocket the day I told him I was pregnant. Don't say you're sorry," she said, anticipating him. "He did me a favor. It's easy for a sixteen-year-old girl to be dreamy-eyed and hot-blooded over a good-looking cowboy, but it isn't easy to live with one."

"What have you told Bryan?"

"The truth. I always tell him the truth—or as close to it as I can without hurting him. I'm not ashamed that I was once foolish enough to imagine myself in love. And I'm grateful that sometimes foolishness is rewarded by something as spectacular as Bryan."

"You're a remarkable woman."

It touched and embarrassed her that he should think so. "No, I'm a lucky one."

"It couldn't have been easy."

"I don't need things to be easy."

He considered that, and thought it was more that she didn't care for things to be easy. That he understood.

"What did you do when you left home?"

"When I got kicked out," she said. "You don't have to pretty it up. My father gave me the back of his hand, called me... all sorts of things it's impolite to repeat to a man wearing such a nice suit—and showed me the door. Wasn't much of a door," she remembered, surprised to see that Jared had reached out to link his fingers with hers. "We were living in a trailer at the time."

He was appalled. Probably shouldn't be, he realized. He'd heard stories as bad, and worse, in his own office. But he was appalled at the image of Savannah at sixteen, pregnant and facing the world alone.

"Didn't you have anyone you could go to?"

"No, there was no one. I didn't know my mother's family. He'd have probably changed his mind in a day or two. He was like that. But the things he'd called me had hurt a lot more than the slap, so I put on my backpack, stuck out my thumb, and didn't look back. Got a job waiting tables in Oklahoma City." She picked up her drink. "That's probably why Cassie and I hit it off. We both know what it's like to stand on your feet all day and serve people. But she does a better job of it."

Oh, there was plenty she was skimming over, Jared thought. Miles of road she wasn't taking him over. "How did you get from waiting tables in Oklahoma City to illustrating children's books?"

"By taking a lot of detours." Well fed, she leaned back and smiled at him. "You'd be surprised at some of the things I've done." Her smile widened at his bland look. "Oh, yes, you would."

"Name some."

"Served drinks to drunks in a dive in Wichita."

“You're going to have to do better than that, if you want to shock me."

"Worked a strip joint in Abilene. There." She chuckled and plucked the thin cigar he'd just taken out of his pocket from his fingers. "That's got you thinking."

Determined not to goggle, he struck a match, held it to the tip of the cigar when she leaned over. "You were a stripper."

"Erotic dancer." She blew out smoke and grinned. "You are shocked."

"I'm... intrigued."

"Mm-hmm... To pop the fantasy a bit, I never got down to the bare essentials. You'd see women on the beach wearing about as much as I shook down to— only I got paid for it. Not terribly well." Casually she handed him back the cigar. "I made more money designing and sewing costumes for the other girls than I did peeling out of them. So I retired from the stage."

"You're leaving out chunks, Savannah."

"That's right." They were her business. "Let's say I didn't like the hours. I worked a dog and pony show for awhile."

"A dog and pony show."

"A poor man's circus. Took a breather in New Orleans selling paintings of bayous and street scenes, and doing charcoal sketches of tourists. I liked it. Great food, great music."

"But you didn't stay," he pointed out.

"I never stayed long in one place. Habit. Just about the time I was getting restless, I got lucky. One of the tourists who sat for me was a writer. Kids' books. She'd just ditched her illustrator. Creative differences, she said. She liked my work and offered me a deal. I'd read her manuscript and do a few illustrations. If her publisher went for it, I'd have a job. If not, she'd pay me a hundred for my time. How could I lose?"

"You got the job."

"I got a life," she told him. "The kind where I didn't have to leave Bryan with sitters, worry about how I was going to pay the rent that month, or if the social workers were going to come knocking to check me out and decide if I was a fit mother. The kind where cops don't roust you to see if you're selling paintings or yourself. After a while, I had enough put together that I could buy my son a yard, a nice school, Little League games. A community." She tipped back her glass again. "And here we are."

"And here we are," he repeated. "Where do you suppose we're going?"

"That's a question I'll have to ask you. Why are we having dinner and conversation instead of sex?"

To his credit, he didn't choke, but blew out smoke smoothly. "That's blunt."

"Lawyers like to use twenty words when one will do," she countered. "I don't."

"Then let's just say you expected sex. I don't like being predictable." Behind the haze of smoke, his eyes flashed on hers with a power that jarred. "When we get around to sex, Savannah, it won't be predictable. You'll know exactly who you're with, and you'll remember it."

In that moment, she didn't have the slightest doubt. Perhaps that was what worried her. "All your moves, Lawyer MacKade? Your time and place?"

"That's right." His eyes changed, lightened with a humor that was hard to resist. "I'm a traditional kind of guy."

 

 

 

Chapter Five

A traditional kind of guy, Savannah mused. One day after her impromptu dinner with Jared, and she was standing in her kitchen, her hands on her hips, staring at the florist's box.

He'd sent her roses. A dozen long-stemmed red beauties.

Traditional, certainly. Even predictable, in their way, she supposed. Unless you factored in that no one in her life had ever sent her a long, glossy white box filled with red roses.

She was certain he knew it.

Then there was the card.

Until your garden blooms

How did he know flowers were one of her biggest weaknesses, that she had pined for bright, fragrant blooms in those years when she was living in tiny, cramped rooms in noisy, crowded cities? That she'd promised herself that one day she would have a garden of her own, planted and tended by her own hands?

Because he saw too much, she decided, and circled the flowers as warily as a dog circling a stranger. She was so intent on them, she actually jumped when the phone rang. Cursing herself she yanked up the receiver.

"Yes. Hello."

"Bad time?" Jared asked.

She scowled at the flowers lying beautifully against the green protective paper. "I'm busy, if that's what you mean."

"Then I won't keep you. I thought you might like to bring Bryan over to the farm for dinner tonight."

Still frowning, she reached into the box, took out a single rose. It didn't bite. "Why?"

"Why not?"

"For starters, I've already got sauce on for spaghetti." She waited a beat. So did he. "I suppose you expect me to ask you to come here to dinner."

"Yep."

Twirling the rose, she tried to think of a good reason not to. "All right. But Bryan has baseball practice after school. I have to pick him up at six, so—"

"I'll pick him up. It's on my way. See you tonight, then."

Something seemed to be slipping out of her hands. "I told you all of this wasn't necessary," she muttered. "The flowers."

"Do you like them?"

"Sure, they're beautiful."

"Well, then." That seemed to settle the matter. "I'll see you a bit after six."

Befuddled, she hung up. After another long stare at the roses, she decided she'd better dig up a vase.

At six-fifteen she heard the sound of a car coming up her lane. Carefully she finished a detail on the illustration of her wicked queen for a reissue of traditional fairy tales, then turned away from her worktable. Bryan was already clattering up the steps by the time she walked from her small studio into the kitchen.

"... then he popped up, and that klutzoid Tommy couldn't get his glove under it. His mom had two cows when the ball came down and smacked him in the face. Blood was spurting out of his nose. It was so cool. Hi, Mom."

"Bryan." She lifted a brow at the state of his clothes. Red dirt streaked every inch. "Do some sliding today?"

"Yeah." He headed straight to the refrigerator for a jug of juice.

"Tommy Mardson got a bloody nose," Jared put in.

"So I hear."

"His mom was really screaming." Excited by the memory, Bryan nearly forgot to bother with a glass— until he caught his own mother's steely eye. "It wasn't broke. Just smashed real good."

"We're going to work on that grammar tonight, Ace."

Bryan rolled his eyes. "Nobody talks like the books say. Anyway, I got a B on the spelling test."

"Drinks are on the house. Math?"

Bryan swallowed juice in a hurry. "Hey, I gotta clean up," he declared, and dashed for the stairs in a strategic retreat.

Recognizing evasive action, Savannah winced. "We hate long division."

"Who doesn't?" Jared handed her a bottle of wine. "But a B in spelling's not chump change."

Neither, she thought, was the fancy French label on the bottle. "This is going to humble my spaghetti."

Jared took a deep, appreciative sniff of the air. It was all spice and bubbling red sauce. "I don't think so."

"Well, at least take off that tie." She turned to root out a corkscrew. "It's intimidating. You can—"

He turned her by the shoulders, lowered his head slowly and covered her mouth with his. The top of her head lifted gently away.

"Kiss," she finished on a long breath. "You can sure as hell kiss." After picking up the corkscrew that had clattered to the counter, she opened the wine with the quick, competent moves of a veteran bartender. "Fancy wine and fancy flowers, all in one day. You're going to turn my head."

"That's the idea."

She stretched for the wineglasses on the top shelf. "I'd have thought, after the condensed version of The Life and Times of Savannah Morningstar, you'd have gotten the picture that I'm not the wine-and-flowers type."

He brushed a finger over the petals of the roses she'd set in the center of the table. "They seem to suit you."

As he folded his tie into his pocket, loosened the collar of his shirt, she poured the wine. "It was rude of me not to thank you for them. So..." She handed him a glass. "Thanks."

"My pleasure."

"Bryan's going to hide out until he thinks I've forgotten about the math. More fool he. If you're hungry, I can call him down."

"No hurry." Sipping wine, he wandered into the front room. He wanted a better look at the paintings.

The colors were bold, often just on the edge of clashing. The brush strokes struck him as the same— bold sweeps, temperamental lines. The subject matter varied, from still lifes of flowers in full riotous bloom, to portraits of vivid, lived-in faces, to landscapes of gnarled trees, rocky hills and stormy skies.

Not quiet parlor material, he mused. And not something it was easy to look away from. Like the artist, he decided, the work made a full-throttle impression.

"No wonder you turned your nose up at what's hanging in my office," he murmured.

"I've never thought art was supposed to be cool." She moved a shoulder. "But that's just my opinion."

"What's it supposed to be? In your opinion?"

"Alive."

"Then you've certainly succeeded." He turned back to her. "Do you still sell?"

"If the price is right."

"I've been thinking about having Regan do something about my office. My sister-in-law," he reminded her. "She's done an incredible job with the inn she and my brother are rehabing. Would you be willing to handle the art?"

She took it slow, watching him, sipping wine. The idea had an old, deeply buried longing battling for air. Painting was just a hobby, she reminded herself. What else could it be, for a woman with no formal training?

"I've already told you I'd sleep with you."

He managed a laugh, though it nearly stuck in his suddenly dry throat. "Yes, you have. But we're talking about your painting. Are you interested in selling some?"

"You want to put my art in your office?"

"I believe I've established that."

One step at a time, Savannah reminded herself. Don't let him see just how much it would mean. "Wouldn't you be more comfortable with some nice pastels?"

"You have a nasty streak, Savannah. I like it."

She laughed, enjoying him. "Let's see what your sister-in-law comes up with first. Then we'll talk." She walked back into the kitchen to put on water for the pasta.

"Fair enough. Why don't you drop by the inn, see what she and Rafe have done there?"

"I'd love to get a look at the place," she admitted.

"I could drive you over after dinner."

"Homework." She shook her head with real regret. "I have a feeling I'm going to be doing long division."

"In that case—" he picked up the wine and topped off both their glasses, "—let me offer a little Dutch courage."

She hadn't expected him to stay after the meal was over. Certainly hadn't been prepared for him to wind things around so that he was sitting beside her son at the kitchen table, poring over the problems in an open arithmetic book.

She served him coffee as he translated the problems into baseball statistics. And why, Savannah wondered, as her son leaped at the ploy and ran with it, hadn't she thought of that?

Because, she admitted, figures terrified her. Schooling terrified her. The knowledge that her son would one day soon go beyond what she had learned was both thrilling and shaming.

Not even Bryan knew about the nights she stayed up late, long after he slept, and studied his books, determined that she would be able to give help whenever he asked her for it.

"So, you divide the total score by the number of times at bat," Jared suggested, adjusting his horn-rims in a way that made Savannah's libido hitch.

"Yeah, yeah!" The lights of knowledge were bursting in Bryan's head. "This is cool." With his tongue caught between his teeth, he wrote the numbers carefully, almost reverently. After all, they were ball players now. "Check this out, Mom."

When she did, laboriously going over the steps of the problem, her smile bloomed. "Good job." She brushed a kiss over Bryan's tousled hair. "Both of you."

"How come I didn't get a kiss?" Jared wanted to know.

She obliged him, chastely enough, but Bryan still made gagging noises. "Man, do you have to do that at the dinner table?"

"Close your eyes," Jared suggested, and kissed Savannah again.

"I'm out of here." Bryan shut his book with a snap.

"Out of here, and into the tub," Savannah finished.

"Aw, come on." He looked beseechingly at Jared.

"Actually," Jared began, "I believe my client is entitled to a short recess."

"Oh, really?" But Savannah's dry comment was drowned out by Bryan's whoop of delight.

"Yeah, a recess. Like an hour's TV."

"With the court's indulgence." Jared shot Bryan a warning look, laid a hand on his shoulder. "What my client means is, thirty minutes of recreational television viewing is appropriate after serving his previous sentence and taking steps toward rehabilitation. After which he will, voluntarily and without incident, accept the court's decision."

Savannah hissed a breath through her teeth. "Lights out at nine-thirty," she muttered.

"All right!" Bryan pumped his fist in the air. "You should have gone for the hour," he told Jared.

"This was your best deal. Trust me, I'm your lawyer."

A grin split Bryan's face. "Cool. Thanks, Mr. MacKade. 'Night, Mom."

"Very fast, fancy talking," Savannah said under her breath as her son dashed upstairs to the little portable in her bedroom.

"I couldn't help myself." Feeling a little sheepish, Jared tucked his hands in his pockets. "He reminded me of what it was like to be a nine-year-old boy and desperate for another hour. Are you going to hold me in contempt?"

She sighed, picked up the empty coffee cups, took them to the sink. "No. It was nice of you to stand up for him. Besides, he'd have wrangled the half hour out of me anyway."

"He deserved it." Jared grinned when she glanced over her shoulder. "So do I. After all, we slogged straight through that math assignment."

"You want thirty minutes of—what was it, recreational television viewing?"

"No." He took his glasses off, slipped them into the pocket of his shirt. "I want you to walk in the woods with me." When her brow creased and she glanced toward the stairs, Jared took her hand. "We won't go far. Hey, Bry!" he called out. "Your mom and I are going for a walk."

"Cool," came the absent, obviously uninterested answer. Jared took her denim jacket from a hook by the kitchen door. "It gets chilly after sundown."

"Just to the woods," she insisted as she shrugged into the jacket. From there, she could hear Bryan if he called her.

"Just to the woods," Jared agreed, and closed his hand over hers. "Do you get lonely out here during the day, by yourself?"

"No. I like being by myself." She walked outside with him, where the air had a faint snap and the sky was so clear the stars almost hurt the eyes. "I like the quiet."

They went down the uneven steps that had been hacked into the bank, then across the narrow lane to where the woods began with shadows.

"I kissed my first girl in here."

The just-greening trees opened to welcome them in. "Did you?"

"Yep. Cousin Joanie."

"Cousin?"

"Third cousin," Jared elaborated. "On my mother's side. She had long golden curls, eyes the color of the sky in June, and my heart. I was eleven."

Comfortable with shadows and starlight, she laughed. "A late bloomer."

"She was twelve."

"So, you liked older women."

"Now that you mention it, that might have been part of the attraction. I lured her into the woods one balmy summer evening, when the sun was going down red behind the mountain and the whippoorwills were starting to call."

"Very romantic."

"It was an epiphany. I drew together all my sweaty courage and kissed her near the first bend in the creek, when the air was full of summer twilight and the smell of honeysuckle."

"That's very sweet."

"It would have been," he mused, "if my brothers hadn't followed us and hidden to watch. They screamed like banshees, Cousin Joanie went tearing back to the farm. Of course, my brothers ragged on me for weeks after, so I had to take on each of them to save my honor. Devin broke my finger, and I lost interest in Cousin Joanie."

"That's sweet, too. The rites of passage."

"I've learned a few things since then, about kissing pretty girls in the woods."

When he turned her into his arms and his mouth moved over hers, she had to admit he was right. He'd learned quite a number of things.

"Where is cousin Joanie now?"

"In a nice split-level in the 'burbs of Virginia, with three kids and a part-time job selling real estate." With a sigh, he pressed his curved lips to Savannah's brow. "She still has those gold curls and summer eyes."

"One more ghost in the MacKade woods." She looked back through the trees. She could see the lights she'd left on in her cabin. Her son was safe there. "Tell me about the others."

"The two corporals are the most famous. One wore blue, the other gray. During the Battle of Antietam, they were separated from their companies."

He slipped an arm over her shoulders so that they walked companionably, their strides matched. "They came upon each other here, in the woods, two boys barely old enough to shave. In fear, or duty, or maybe both, they attacked each other. Each one was badly wounded, each one crawled off in a different direction. One to the farm."

"Your farm?"

"Hmmm... A Union soldier, torn open by the enemy's bayonet. My great-grandfather, no friend of the North, found him by the smokehouse. The story is that he saw his own son, who he'd lost at Bull Run, in that dying boy, so he carried him into the house. They did what they could for him, but it was too late. He died the next day and, afraid of reprisals, they buried him in one of the fields, in an unmarked grave."

"So he's lost," Savannah murmured. "And haunts the woods because he can't find his way home."

"That would be close enough."

"And the other corporal?"

"Made it to the Barlow house. A servant took him inside, and the mistress was preparing to tend to him when her husband shot him."

She didn't shudder. She was well used to cruelties, small and large. "Because he didn't see a boy, but the wrong color uniform?"

"That's right. So the mistress of the house, Abigail Barlow, turned from her husband and went into seclusion. She died a couple of years later."

"A sad story. Useless deaths make for uneasy ghosts. Still, it always feels—" she closed her eyes, let the air dance over her face "—inviting here. They just don't want to be forgotten. Do you want to know where they fought?"

Something in her tone had him looking down at her. "Why?"

She opened her eyes again. They were darker than the shadows, more mysterious than the night. "To the west, fifty yards, by a clump of rocks and a burled tree."

He felt cool fingers brush the nape of his neck. But her hands were in his. "Yes. I've sat on the rocks there and heard the bayonets clash."

"So have I. But I wondered who. And why."

"Is that usual for you?" His voice had roughened. Perhaps it was what they spoke of in the night wood. Or perhaps it was her eyes, so dark, so depthless, that he knew any man would blissfully drown in them.

"Your great-grandfather was a farmer who saw a young boy dying and tried to save him. Mine was a shaman who saw visions in the fire and tried to understand them. You still try to save people, don't you, Jared? And I still try to understand the visions."

"Are you-?"

"Psychic?" She laughed quickly, richly. "No. I feel things. We all do. The strongest part of my heritage accepts those feelings, respects them, honors them. I followed my feelings when I left Oklahoma. I knew that I'd find where I belonged. And I took one look at that cabin, at those rocks, these woods, and I knew I was home. I watched you walk across the grass that first time, and I knew I'd end up wanting you."

She leaned forward, touched her lips to his. "And now, I know I have to get back and put my son to bed before he raids the refrigerator."

"Savannah." He caught her, hands again before she could turn away. His gaze was intense on her face, almost fierce. "What do you feel about where we're going?"

She felt the heat, then the cold, then the heat once more, slide up her spine. But she kept her voice easy. "I find that when you look too far ahead, you end up tripping over the present. Let's just worry about the now, Jared."

When he lifted her hand to his lips, Savannah realized that now was going to be trouble enough.

* * *

She waited until the end of the week before she acted on Jared's suggestion and detoured by the Barlow place. The MacKade place, she corrected, amused at herself for having picked up the town's name for the old stone house on the hill.

The Barlows hadn't lived in it for over fifty years. The last family, a couple from the north of the county, had bought it, lived in it briefly, then abandoned it twenty years ago. It had been up for sale off and on during those decades, but no one had taken the plunge.

Until Rafe MacKade.

Savannah considered that as she turned off the road and up the steep lane. Someone had begun to clear the overgrowth of brush and brambles, but it was going to be heavy going. Someone, she decided, was going to need a lot of vision.

The house itself was three stories of beautiful stone. Tall windows, arched windows, mullioned windows, gleaming. Most had been boarded up only months before—or so Savannah had been told when she was cornered by Mrs. Metz in the market.

There were double porches. The one that graced the second floor was in the process of being torn down. It needed to be, Savannah mused. It was rotted and sagging and undoubtedly treacherous. But the lower one was obviously new, still unpainted, and straight as a military band on parade day.

Scaffolding ran up the east wing, and piles of material sat under plastic tarps in the overgrown yard. She pulled up beside a pickup that was loaded with debris and shut off her engine.

When she knocked, she heard an answering shout, faintly irritated by the tone of it. She stepped inside and stood, shocked and swamped by the deluge of sensation. Laughter and tears and horror and happiness. The emotions rolled over her, then ebbed, like a breaking wave.

She saw the man at the top of the steps. Smiled, stepped forward. "Jared, I didn't expect to see you. Oh."

She saw her mistake immediately. Not Jared. The eyes were a darker green, the hair slightly longer and definitely less well-groomed. Jared's face was just a bit more narrow, his eyebrows had more of an arch.

But that MacKade grin was identical, as sharp and lethal as an arrow from a master's bow.

"I'm better-looking," Rafe told her as he started down.

"Hard to say. The family resemblance is almost ridiculous." She held out a hand. "You'd be Rafe MacKade."

"Guilty."

"I'm—"

"Savannah Morningstar." He didn't shake her hand, just held it while he gave her a long, practiced once-over. "Regan was dead on," he decided.

"Excuse me?"

"You met my wife last weekend at her shop. She told me to think of Isis. That didn't do me a hell of a lot of good, so she said to think of a woman who'd stop a man's heart at ten paces and have him on his knees at five."

"That's quite an endorsement."

"And dead on," he repeated. "Jared said you might be coming by.'' He tucked his thumbs in his tool belt.

"I don't want to interrupt your work."

"Please, interrupt my work." He aimed that grin again. "I'm just killing time until Regan gets home from the shop. We're living here temporarily. Want a beer?"

This was the kind of man she understood and was at ease with. "Now that you mention it."

But she hadn't taken two steps behind him when she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the curve of the staircase.

Intrigued, Rafe watched her. "Problem?"

"There. It was there, on the stairs."

"I take it Jared told you about our ghosts."

She felt weak inside, jittery at the fingertips. "He told me there had been a young Confederate soldier, that Barlow had shot him after a servant had brought him into the house. But he didn't say—he didn't tell me where."

Her legs felt heavy as she walked to the stairs, as she followed the compulsion to go up. The cold was like a blade through the heart, through to the bone. Her knuckles went white on the rail.

"Here." She could barely get the words out. "Here on the stairs. He could smell roses, and hope, and then... He only wanted to go home."

She shook herself, stepped back one step, then two before turning. "I could use that beer."

"Yeah." Rafe let out a long breath. "Me too."

* * *

"Do you, ah, do that kind of thing often?" Rafe asked as he popped the tops on two beers in the kitchen.

"No," Savannah told him, very definitely. "There are some places around this area... this house, the woods out there..." She let the words trail off as she looked out the window. "There's a spot on my bank where I planted columbine, and areas of the battlefield that break your heart." With an effort, she shook off the mood and took the beer Rafe offered. "Leftover emotions. The strong ones can last centuries."

"I've had a dream." He'd only told Regan of it, but it seemed appropriate now. "I'm running through the woods, my battle gray splattered with blood. I only want to go home. I'm ashamed of it, but I'm terrified. Then I see him, the other soldier, the enemy. We stare at each other for a dozen heartbeats, then charge. It's bad, the fight. It's brutal and stupid and useless. After, I come here, crawl here. I think I'm home. When I see her, when she speaks to me and tells me it's going to be all right, I believe her. She's right beside me when someone carries me up the stairs. I can smell her, the roses. Then she shouts, looks at someone coming toward us down the stairs. When I look up, I can see him, and the gun. Then it's over."

Rafe took a long drink. "What stays with me the longest, after it's over, is that I just wanted to go home. I haven't had it in a couple of months."

"Maybe that's because you are home."

"Looks that way." Suddenly he grinned and tapped his bottle against hers. "A hell of an introduction. Are you up to seeing the place, or do you want to pass?"

"No, I'd like to see it. You've done some work in here."

"Yeah." The kitchen had a long way to go, Rafe mused, but the counters had been built and were topped by a warm slate blue that showed off the creamy ivory of new appliances and gleaming glass-fronted cabinets of yellow pine. "Regan put her foot down," he explained. "A workable kitchen and a finished bath and she'd handle living in a construction site for a while."

"Sounds like a practical woman."

"That she is. Come on, I'll give you the tour."

He took her arm and started back down the hallway. "I'd like to start upstairs," she told him before he could open the door to the right.

"Sure." Most people liked to start with the parlor or the library, but he was flexible. As they started up, he felt her hesitate, brace. Just as he felt the hard shudder move through her as they continued. "No one feels it anymore," he said. "Not in weeks."

"Lucky for them," Savannah managed, grateful when they reached the top of the landing. She looked beyond the tarps, the buckets and tools and saw sturdy walls that had been built to last.

"We finished—" He broke off as she turned away from the bedroom he and Regan shared. A room that had belonged to the mistress of the house and had been lovingly repaired, redone and furnished. Saying nothing, he followed her to the opposite wing.

The door had been removed from this room, a room with long windows that faced the outskirts of town. The walls had been painted a deep green, the wide, ornately carved trim a bone white to match the marble of the fireplace.

The floors had been recently sanded. She could smell the wood dust. The little room beyond—the valet's room? she wondered—had been roughed in as a bath.

"The master's room," she murmured.

"We thought it was likely." Fascinated, Rafe watched her walk from door to window, from window to hearth.

Oh, it had been his, Master Barlow's, she was sure of it. He would have studied the town from here and thought his thoughts. He would have taken one of the young maids to bed in here, willing or not, then slept the dreamless sleep of the conscienceless.

"He was a bastard," Savannah said mildly. "Well, he didn't leave much behind." With a smile, she turned back to Rafe. "You're doing a wonderful job."

Rafe rubbed his chin. "Thanks. You're a spooky woman, Savannah."

"Occasionally. I read palms in a carnival for a while. Pretty tedious work, really. This is much more interesting." She moved past him, back into the hall, and headed straight for the mistress's room. "This is beautiful," she murmured.

"We're jazzed about it." From the doorway, Rafe scanned the room himself. He could smell roses, and he could smell Regan. "It's going to be our honeymoon suite."

"It's perfect."

She meant exactly that. In all her travels, she had never seen anything as lovely. Rosebud wallpaper as delicate as a tea garden was trimmed with rose-toned wood. There were beautiful arched windows framed in lace that had the sunlight streaming in patterns on the highly polished floor.

A four-poster with a lacy canopy dominated the space. There were candles, slim tapers of ivory, and rose burned downed to varying lengths that stood on the mantel in crystal holders. An elegant lady's desk was topped by a globe lamp. Petit-point chairs, curved edged tables. A pale pink vase crowded with sunny daffodils.

No, she'd never seen anything so lovely. How could she have? she reminded herself. Her life had been dingy trailers, cramped rooms and highway motels.

Envy snaked through her so quickly she winced.

"Jared said your wife did the decorating."

"For the most part."

What would it be like, Savannah wondered, to have such exquisite taste. To know exactly what should go where?

"It's beautiful," she said again. "When you're ready to open, you'll have to beat off guests with a stick."

"We're shooting for September. It's a little optimistic, but we might pull it off." His head turned, his eyes changed at the sound of the door opening downstairs. "That's Regan."

Savannah had a firsthand view of what a MacKade looked like when he was very much in love. Another surprising snake of envy curled through her.

"Up here, darling," Rafe called out. "I'm in the bedroom with a gorgeous woman."

"That's supposed to surprise me?" Regan strolled into the room. "Hello, Savannah." It was all she managed to get out before Rafe cupped a hand behind her neck and drew her up for a lengthy welcoming kiss. "Hello, Rafe."

"Hi."

They beamed at each other. Savannah could think of no other word for it. Unless the word was perfect. Regan MacKade, with her swing of glossy brown hair, her elegant face with its charming little mole beside the mouth, her lovely blue eyes the color of summer skies, seemed perfect as she slipped an arm around her husband.

Her clothes were beautifully tailored—the teal blazer and pleated slacks, the smart white shirt with the copper bar pin at the collar. She had a sexy-lady scent about her. Not prim, not overt. Just perfect.

Savannah felt like a grubby Amazon who'd stumbled on a princess.

"I've been giving Savannah the tour," Rafe explained.

"Great." Regan pushed back the right curtain of her hair, and rings glittered on her fingers. "What do you think so far?"

"It's wonderful." Savannah remembered the beer in her hand and lifted to it her lips.

"Let's not stop here." With a friendly smile, Regan led the way out. "Jared called the shop this morning and said he'd like us to work on redoing his offices."

"About damn time," Rafe commented. "The place is as cheerful as a mausoleum. White and gray. Might as well work in a tomb."

"We'll fix that." With boundless confidence and enthusiasm, Regan showed off the house.

Every room, whether it was complete or in progress and filled with nothing more than dust and cobwebs, scraped at Savannah's confidence. She knew nothing of fine antiques, expensive rugs or window treatments.

She didn't want to know.

"Jared's really impressed with your art," Regan went on as they wound their way down to the first floor. "Obviously it inspired him to do something about his work space. I'd love to see some of what you've done."

"It's no big deal. I don't have any training."

Savannah took one long scan of the front parlor, with its curvy settee and elegant side tables, and jammed her hands in the pockets of her jeans. A marble fireplace gleamed like glass, set off with polished brass tools and andirons. And everything, down to the last candlestick, was picture-perfect.

"Nothing of mine would fit in here, that's for sure. Or a lawyer's office, either. Thanks for the tour. And the beer," she added, handing Rafe the empty bottle. "I've got to go pick up my kid."

"Oh." Surprised by the abrupt exit, Regan followed her to the door. "If you've got some time over the weekend, I can fiddle with my schedule. We could work on color schemes and treatments."

"I've got a lot of work." Savannah pulled open the door, suddenly desperate to escape. "You'd better handle it on your own. See you around."

"All right, but—" Regan broke off with a huff when the door closed in her face. She had definitely, and none too subtly, been brushed off. "And what," she asked, turning to Rafe, "was that all about?"

"Don't ask me." Thoughtfully he ran a hand over his wife's glossy hair. "That's a spooky lady, darling. Let's go sit down, and I'll tell you about it."

 

 

 

 

Chapter Six

When Jared pulled up in front of the cabin, he was puzzled, mildly annoyed, and quite intrigued. It hadn't taken long for word to get to him that Savannah had all but raced out of his brother's house, shrugging off the job Jared had offered her as she fled.

He intended to get an explanation.

Spotting Bryan and Connor in the side yard, he gave a wave. They responded with an answering shout before they went back to the important business of throwing a baseball.

His rap on the door went unanswered, so he walked in without invitation. He doubted he'd have heard one over the screaming rock and roll that shook the cabin. He followed a gut-bursting guitar riff through the kitchen and into an adjoining room.

She was bent over a worktable. The white of the oversize men's undershirt she wore was streaked with paint. Her hair was twisted back in a braid, her jeans were riddled with holes, and her feet were bare.

His mouth watered.

"Hey."

She didn't look up. A look of fierce concentration remained on her face as she worked delicately with a slim brush dipped in brilliant red.

He glanced around the cluttered room. It had probably been intended as a mudroom, as there was a door leading to the outside. Obviously she didn't need or have time for ambience in her work space, he mused.

The light was full and bright through the windows and showed every speck of dust. The floor was aging linoleum decorated with paint spills. Unframed canvases were propped carelessly against the unfinished log walls, steel utility shelves overflowed with bottles and jars, tubes and cans. He could smell turpentine.

And, with relief, he could see the dented portable stereo that was threatening to split his eardrums. He strode over, switched it off, and almost shuddered at the sudden, exquisite silence.

"Keep your hands off my music," Savannah snapped.

"Obviously you didn't hear me come in."

"Obviously, I'm working." She tossed her brush into a jar of solution, chose another. "Take off."

His eyes lit, but he spoke with measured politeness. "Yes, I believe I will have a beer, thanks. Can I get you one?"

"I'm working," she repeated.

"So I see." Ignoring the curse she hurled at him, he leaned over her worktable.

The wicked queen was nearly finished, and her face was terrible in its beauty. Her body was long, elegant, draped in purple and ermine. Her golden crown was as sharp as blades and glittered with wicked-edged jewels. And in her narrow, regal hand, she held a vivid red apple.

"Gorgeous," Jared murmured. "Evil to the bone. Is this from 'Snow White'?"

"No, it's from the Three Stooges. You're in my light."

"Sorry." He shifted slightly, knowing it wasn't what she wanted.

"I can't work with an audience," she said between her teeth.

"I thought you used to paint on street corners."

"This is different."

"Savannah." Patient, he rubbed a slight red smudge from her cheek. "Did Rafe or Regan say something to upset you?"

"Why should they?"

"That's what I'd like to know."

"They were perfectly polite. Perfectly." When he only cocked a brow, she huffed out a breath. "I like your brother, I loved seeing the house. It was fascinating. And your sister-in-law's just adorable."

It was a woman thing, he realized, and took a cautious step back. "You've got a problem with Regan?"

"Who could have a problem with Regan? We just wouldn't work well together. And besides, I don't want my art in your office.''

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Because I don't. I had time to think about it, and I decided I'm not interested." She aimed a cool, level look at him. "All the way not interested, Jared. So beat it."

He moved fast. Lawyer suit notwithstanding, she should have expected him to move fast. He had her up from her stool, his hand clamped on her arm, before she could blink.

That didn't mean she couldn't speak.

"I've told you not to grab me unless I ask you to."

"Yeah, you've told me. You've told me a lot of things." For the hell of it, he took a firm hold on her other arm and watched her eyes flame. "Now why don't you tell me what's going on here?"

"I don't have to explain myself to you. You think because I let you kiss me a couple of times, I owe you? I've let plenty of men kiss me, Ace. And I don't owe anyone."

She'd aimed the arrow well. He felt it hit home, stunned by just how sharp the point was. "You owe me the courtesy of an explanation."

"Courtesy doesn't interest me."

"Fine." Then he wouldn't let it stop him. He yanked her close and crushed his mouth to hers in an angry, frustrated kiss.

She didn't struggle. Instinct warned her it would be worse if she struggled. Instead, she kept herself stiff and turned her mind off. Cold rejection, she knew, was more effective than heated protest.

But both her body and her mind betrayed her, and she trembled.

It thrilled him—that quick, involuntary shiver, that low, helpless moan. But temper was still sparking through him when he jerked away.

Her face was flushed, her breath fast. He knew by the look in her eyes that she wanted as he wanted. At the moment, that fact only infuriated him.

"I owed you that," he said tightly. "Now you can tell me again how much you're not interested."

She was interested. Interested in having a man look at her, just once, the way she had seen Rafe look at Regan. And, oh, it was demoralizing to realize she had that vulnerable need inside her.

"In a quick tumble, Jared?" In a deliberately insulting gesture, she brushed her fingers over his cheek. "Sure, baby, when I've got the time."

"Damn it, Savannah."

"You see." She sighed, shook her head. "I knew you'd take it personally. You're the type. And like I said, that's not my type. You're terrific to look at, and you've got a lot of heat. But—" she lifted a hand, tugged on his tie "—just too traditional and by-the-book. Now, Lawyer MacKade, you know all about the laws against trespassing, the sanctity of someone's home. I'm going to ask you real nice, since you like things real nice, to leave. You wouldn't want me to have to call your brother, the big bad sheriff, would you?"

"What the hell has gotten into you?"

"A dose of reality. Now go away, Jared, before I stop asking nice."

He'd be damned if he'd beg. Damned if he'd let her see that she'd wounded him where he'd never expected to be wounded. Iron pride chilled his eyes. He turned and left without a word.

When she heard his car start, and the sound of it going down her lane, she sank back onto her stool and shut her eyes.

She gave Bryan permission for his promised sleep-over and enjoyed the noise and bother of two active boys lasting late into the night. She was in the bleachers on Saturday, cheering on her son and his team. And if she looked around now and again, scanning for a tall man with dark hair and green eyes, no one else knew.

At Cassie's insistence, she dropped both boys at Connor's late Saturday afternoon. Home alone, she paced the house, fidgeted in the quiet, and finally went back to work.

The queen was finished, but she still had the prince to sketch. No wimpy, soft-eyed dreamer for her Snow White, Savannah mused as she began running the pencil over the thick white pad. Her Snow White deserved some fire, some passion, some promise of a happy-ever-after with heat.

It was hardly a wonder that her first rough sketch resembled a MacKade. Dragonslayers, she thought with a grim smile. Troublemakers. Who said a prince had to be polite? Hadn't most of them won their thrones in battle first?

Yes, she could see Jared as a fairy tale prince. Her kind of fairy tale. The kind of story that had inspired the legends that had been passed down through the ages, before they became softened and misted to lull children rather than frighten them.

Warrior, avenger, adventurer. Yes, that was the prince she wanted to create.

She began to enjoy herself. The familiar process of bringing something to life through her heart and mind and hand was always fascinating, if not always soothing.

If things had been different, she wouldn't have made her living from assignments, but from that heart and mind. Painting what she saw, what she felt, what she wanted—for the joy of it.

She was lucky, she reminded herself, to have this much. There had been no art classes in her life, only stolen moments with a pad and colored pencils. Dreams no one had ever understood.

Yes, she was lucky, because her work and the payment for it allowed her to take time for painting, to justify it as a harmless, not terribly expensive hobby.

Quickly, fueled by instinct, she began to add details to the sketch—the diamond-bright dimple at the corner of that sensual mouth, the arrogant arch of an eyebrow, a hint of muscle beneath the cloak, more than a hint of danger in the eyes she would certainly have to paint a grass green.

Hell, she reflected, if nothing else, her brush with Jared MacKade had given her the perfect model for her assignment. The illustration would be a good one. She couldn't have asked for more.

She should never had let herself get caught up in the idea of painting for Jared, or selling him work that she had done for herself.

The sound of a car had her bracing and fighting to squash a little flutter of hope.

But when she went to the door, she saw Regan MacKade. The two women studied each other coolly. After a long moment, Savannah opened the door and stepped back.

"I don't know what's between you and Jared," Regan said without preamble. "And if you think it's none of my business, you're wrong. He's family. But I'd like to know why you've decided you can't stand me to the point where you won't even take a potentially lucrative job just because we'd rub elbows occasionally."

"I don't want the job."

"That's a lie."

Savannah's eyes went molten. "Now look, sister—"

"No, you look." Revved, Regan jabbed a finger at Savannah's chest. "We don't have to be friends. I've got friends. Though I'm baffled at how we could both manage to be friends with someone as sweet as Cassie Dolin. She finds you admirable, and it's not my place to tell her you're just plain rude. You were interested in the job when Jared suggested it. Interested enough to come to the house. And according to Rafe, everything was just dandy until I walked in. Now what's your problem? Sister."

Savannah found her temper warring with amusement, and reluctant admiration. Didn't the woman realize Savannah was big enough to break her in half? "I guess you told me."

"So why don't you tell me?" Regan shot back.

"I don't like the way you look."

"You—I beg your pardon?"

"Or the way you talk." Pleased with herself, Savannah smiled. "Let me guess—private education, dances at the country club, debutante ball."

"I was never a debutante." If she hadn't been so baffled, Regan would have been insulted. "And what's that got to do with anything?"

"You look like you just stepped out of one of those classy women's magazines."

Regan threw up her hands. "That's it?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Well, you look like one of those statues men sacrificed virgins to. I don't hold it against you. Exactly."

They frowned at each other for a minute. Then Savannah sighed, shrugged. "I've got some ice tea."

"I'd love some."

By the time she was sipping her second glass, Regan was up and wandering the front room. She stopped by a landscape, all rocky hills and trees gone violent with autumn.

"This one," she decided. "He needs this one where that horrible white-orchid still life is hanging."

"I'd have thought you'd go for the orchids." When Regan turned, her eyes narrowed blandly, Savannah smiled fully for the first time. "Yeah, I can see I'd have been wrong."

"Greens and mauves," Regan announced. "Deep greens. And those chairs in the outer office have got to go. I've got a couple of library chairs in mind. Deep-cushioned, high-backed. Leather. And I figure hardwood with area rugs, instead of that gray sea of wall-to-wall."

Yes, of course. Savannah could already see it. Regan MacKade was obviously a woman who knew what she wanted. "Look, I'm not a humble person, but can you actually see my paintings jibing with your taste... or Jared's?"

"Yes. And I think, all things considered, that you and I will work together very well." Regan held out a hand, waited. "Well, are we going to give Jared a break and get him out of that tomb?"

"Yeah." Savannah took the pretty hand, with its glittering rings, in hers. "Why the hell not?"

Later, Savannah walked toward the woods. She had to admit she'd done something she detested in others. She had looked at the surface and made a decision. All she had seen—maybe all she'd wanted to see when she looked at Regan MacKade—was elegance, privilege and class.

But who could have guessed there'd be such grit under all that polish?

She should have, Savannah realized.

And when she saw Jared sitting on a rock smoking quietly, she realized she had known she'd find him here.

He said nothing when she sat down beside him and took the cigar. The silence was lovely, filled with birdsong and breezes.

"I owe you an apology." It didn't quite stick in her throat, but she handed him back the cigar. "I was... You caught me at a bad time the other day."

"Did I?"

"Don't make it easy, MacKade."

"I won't."

With a quick, bad-tempered shrug, she swung her legs up, crossed them under her. "I wasn't completely truthful with you. There are a lot of things I don't mind doing, but lies don't sit well with me. I wanted the job. I can use it. But I felt...intimidated," she muttered as the word sat distastefully on her tongue.

"Intimidated?" It was the last reason or excuse he'd have expected to hear out of her. "By what?"

"Your sister-in-law, to start."

"Regan?" Sheer astonishment ran up hard against the foul mood he'd been mired in for twenty-four hours. "Give me a break."

It was his quick, dismissive laugh that snapped it. Temper soaring, Savannah bolted up from the rock and whirled on him. "I've got a right to be intimidated by whatever I please. I've got a right to feel exactly how I chose to feel. Don't you laugh at me."

"Sorry." Wisely Jared cleared his throat, then looked up at her. "Why would Regan intimidate you?"

"Because she's...she's classy and lovely and smart and successful. She's everything I'm not. I'm comfortable with who I am, what I am, but when you come up against someone like that, it's a kick-in-the-butt reminder of what you're never going to be, never going to have. I don't like feeling inadequate or stupid."

Disgusted with herself, Savannah jammed her hands in her pockets. "And I didn't expect to like her so much. She came by to see me a little while ago."

"I thought she might. Regan likes to confront things head-on." Thoughtful, he studied the tip of his cigar. "Ask her sometime about the night she waltzed into Duff's Tavern in a tight red miniskirt and had Rafe gnawing his pool cue into toothpicks."

Fascinated by the image, Savannah nearly smiled. "I'll have to do that. I'd like to handle the art for your office, Jared, if you're still interested."

"I'm interested." He turned the cigar around, offering it. When she shook her head, he took a last puff and carefully tamped it out on the rock.

"I wasn't completely truthful about a couple of other things." The situation was a first, and she wasn't quite sure how to phrase things, so she decided to keep it simple. "I have feelings for you, Jared. They just sort of popped up. They worried me."

He was watching her now, his wonderful eyes very focused, very cool. She wondered how many witnesses had broken apart on the stand under that strong gaze.

"Men are a lot easier to deal with when feelings aren't involved," she continued. "I could be reading this wrong, but I got the idea you were aiming for a relationship kind of deal, and I've had lousy luck with relationships. So I started thinking about that, and some other things, and figured it was best all around to bail."

When he said nothing—absolutely nothing—she gave in and kicked at the dirt on the path. "Are you just going to sit there?"