by Joanne Rock
“Why do you think she had me fired? Do you think she saw me as a threat, as well?” Recalling her time spent here, trying to find out more about Alonzo Salazar and the identity of Matthew’s father, Nicole remembered there was only one person who knew her real goal. “Only April Stephens, the financial investigator who looked into Salazar’s book, knew what I was doing.”
“But April shared your motives with Weston Rivera, who revealed it to the other owners.” His breath huffed a mist of white between them before it cleared, the night air feeling suddenly too cold.
Although maybe the loss of Desmond’s touch had more to do with the chill.
“So all of you knew what I was doing here. And you think Vivian found out because she worked closely with Alec?” She had her work cut out for her here with too many questions that still needed answers in order to offer her nephew security. Stability. He was a defenseless kid who needed her.
“That’s the theory.” Desmond’s gray gaze missed nothing as it wandered over her. “We should go in soon. You’ll catch a chill.”
His other palm slid from the back of the bench to rest between her shoulder blades. The contact should have just warmed her, perhaps. But even through her coat, the touch reminded her of the fierce attraction that lingered between them.
Or, for her, at least.
Did he feel it?
“I still have so many questions, but I’m out of my depth with all of this,” she admitted, referring to the intrigue that hung heavy over the ranch even though it aptly applied to the magnetic pull she felt toward the man beside her. “Now I feel like I need to speak to Chiara Campagna, if that’s possible.”
“She’s organizing a dinner with the other partners, so we can all talk then.” His hand rubbed the center of her back gently. “Let’s go in, Nicole. You must be exhausted after the flight last night and another one today.”
“And I woke up early—” She cut herself off, remembering the nature of the call that awoke her.
Seeing Desmond on her phone. Feeling her senses wake up along with the rest of her. What possessed her to bring that up?
She could tell he was remembering that moment, as well. His gaze darkened. But he rose to his feet and tugged her after him. “Since that was my fault, I feel all the more compelled to send you inside. You can get some sleep, and I’ll text you tomorrow with details about the dinner so you can meet Chiara and the other partners.”
She nodded mutely, not trusting her wayward mouth not to betray her in more ways.
Walking beside Desmond, Nicole returned to the lodge at his side, her thoughts still on his dictate that she get some sleep. She’d awoken in bed this morning to the sight of this man, albeit on her screen. And she knew without question she’d return to bed tonight with the image of him on the backs of her eyelids.
Three
Late the next morning, Desmond had the ranch’s rifle range all to himself. The mountain meadow had a covered stand to protect guests from inclement weather where they could practice shooting reactive targets up to four hundred yards away. But for Desmond, shooting wasn’t about getting out of the elements. Instead, he lay prone on a short rise off to one side of the covered stand, where a ranch employee waited to take his weapon when he finished.
His steel targets were just over a thousand yards away, the sport made more challenging by the crosswind coming off the mountain. He’d been lying here for almost an hour, getting a feel for the steady wind versus the gusts, timing his shots when the latter went still.
He’d hoped to clear his head after a restless night without much sleep, his thoughts too full of Nicole Cruz. So far it wasn’t working. He still wanted her with a hunger he’d never felt for any woman, and telling himself she was off-limits wasn’t making a dent in that need. He needed to put his friendship with Zach—his loyalty to his friends and partners—ahead of his fascination with Nicole.
Indulging in his hunger for her would only cloud his vision where she was concerned, and it was crucial that he remain clear-eyed and focused to wade through the mystery of Matthew’s paternity. Maybe it was a futile hope that lying in the snow would chill him out. But Desmond didn’t get out to a range often since he’d purchased the casino, so he indulged the urge now to redirect his thoughts.
With the gusts quieted for a moment, he focused on his breathing, his finger bared on the trigger. Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
An empty-lung shooter, he was ready to fire when he finished the exhale, eye on the target through his scope. But an old, unwanted voice sounded in his brain as he gently squeezed off the shot.
Aim small, miss small.
Gunfire sounding, Desmond cursed himself for giving his father’s voice any bandwidth in his head.
“Nice one,” the tech from the ranch’s gun club called over to him from the stand. “You’re just a hairsbreadth from dead center.”
Which was a miss according to the man who’d dragged Desmond out hunting when he’d been far too young to handle a weapon. Securing the rifle now, he tugged off his hearing protection and levered to his feet. As he walked down the hill to return the Winchester to the tech, he saw another figure inside the covered wooden stand.
Gage Striker, one of Desmond’s partners, stood off to one side. A New Zealander with a devil-may-care way about him that flew in the face of his uptight family’s political ambitions for him, Gage was a former investment banker who’d turned to angel investing, giving him more free time after years of working 24-7. Gage had recently reunited with Elena Rollins, the woman he’d nearly married six years ago until Gage’s father had interfered with their relationship.
“Gage.” Desmond greeted him with a nod before turning over his weapon to the waiting tech. “Are you waiting for the range? The crosswind is trouble, but it comes and goes.”
“No.” Gage waved away the offer of the rifle. “Waiting to speak to you, if you have a few minutes.” He gestured toward the ATV waiting nearby.
“I’m surprised you knew where to find me.” Desmond packed his hearing protection in the accessories bag before he joined Gage in walking toward the ATV. The snow was well packed here, the shooting range a popular guest attraction year-round.
“When you weren’t at home this morning, I took a chance you’d be out here.” Dropping into the driver’s seat, Gage turned the key in the ignition, thankfully not remarking on Desmond’s tendency to shoot when he was stressed.
It made no sense, really, since the dad he’d grown up resenting—often physically fearing—had been the one to teach him. But as time went by, his skills had surpassed his father’s. And there was a comfort in being better with a firearm than your enemy. His dad had died of a heart attack nearly a decade ago, but the ugly legacy he’d left behind still resurfaced sometimes.
Desmond slid into the passenger seat, the frustration of the sleepless night still heavy on his shoulders. He didn’t feel any need to share what being around Nicole was doing to him personally. There were enough more obvious reasons they were all tense this week.
“When did you get in?” Desmond withdrew his glove from his coat pocket and returned it to his shooting hand. “Is Elena with you?”
“Yes. We flew in this morning. She’s been upset ever since she heard about Chiara being targeted by Alec’s assistant.” Gage put the ATV in gear and headed in the direction of Desmond’s house. “I wanted her to stay away until we got to the bottom of this mess, but with Nicole and Matthew arriving, she booked the next flight out for us.”
Gage and Elena had been in Los Angeles, where Elena still kept an apartment, but Gage resided in Silicon Valley, where they were planning to live full-time. Elena had been a fashion and lifestyle social media influencer, on a smaller scale than Chiara Campagna, but Chiara convinced her to expand her fashion design talents.
“So you’re just in time for tonight’s dinner with Nicole Cruz,” Desmond observed
, unable to leave her out of the conversation for long when she dominated his thoughts.
“Yes. Miles texted us this morning about that.” Gage picked up speed as they reached a smoother road along a field they would use for grazing in the spring. As part of the ranch’s green initiatives, they rotated grazing areas frequently. “But I wanted to get your thoughts on the situation before we all meet.”
“On what?” Desmond grabbed the roll bar to steady himself as Gage took a bump at high speed.
“On Matthew Cruz’s father. You know Chiara has been adamant that she saw Zach kissing Nicole’s sister, Lana Allen, a student teacher at Dowdon.”
Desmond remembered Chiara from their school days, before she’d reinvented herself with a new name for social media. Back then, Kara Marsh had attended the girls’ school down the road. She’d had a crush on Zach and had been devastated to see him kissing Miss Allen the week before his death. Had Nicole’s sister really preyed on a teenager? If it was true, Zach had kept it a secret from his friends. Lana Allen might have been young at the time—just twenty years old to Zach’s seventeen. But Zach had been a minor in the care of the school, so a relationship would have been criminal.
“I’m aware.” Desmond’s temples throbbed, the stress of wading through the past weighing heavy. Miles had told them about Chiara’s revelation just days ago, but the news had been overshadowed by Vivian Fraser’s arrest for stalking and hacking. “I haven’t asked Nicole about it yet. I don’t want to bias her toward Zach until we see what she knows first. She might have an entirely different angle on this.”
Part of him still held out hope that Matthew wasn’t Zach’s son. That Alonzo Salazar, their old mentor, had been helping support the boy just because Lana Allen had been his student teacher and not because Alonzo had been a friend or mentor to the child’s father.
“But what’s your gut telling you?” Gage scrubbed a hand along his jaw, squinting through a light haze of snow that whirled through the open cab of the ATV when the treads kicked up loose powder. “Why would Zach come out as gay to us if he wasn’t?”
“Damned if I know.” Desmond had turned over the puzzle plenty of times and came up empty. “He could have been bisexual but didn’t realize it that summer when he told us.”
“But why come out at all if he wasn’t certain?” Gage shook his head, dark eyebrows furrowed as he frowned. “Zach seemed fearless to me in a lot of ways, but even for a guy who seems like he has it all together, that’s a bold step. Who does that if they aren’t sure?”
An uncomfortable thought occurred to him, not for the first time. “You don’t think he did it to help hide an affair with a teacher?”
“Absolutely not.” Gage’s voice was certain. Adamant. “He wasn’t deliberately deceitful.”
The knot in Desmond’s chest eased a fraction, Gage’s faith in their friend reassuring him. He’d echoed Desmond’s own long-held opinion that Zach was the best of them. They’d always looked up to him.
“And yet he kept the relationship with Lana a secret. But if Zach wasn’t Matthew’s father, and we know none of us are, either, who else would Alonzo Salazar have been covering for to financially support Matthew Cruz?” He asked the question aloud, but of course Gage wouldn’t have any answers, either.
Riding the rest of the way in silence, Desmond hoped they’d learn more once he introduced Nicole to his friends.
And if some part of him felt defensive of her being put in the hot seat by the Mesa Falls partners, Desmond would just have to squelch it, along with all the other tangled feelings he had for Nicole.
* * *
Standing in front of Desmond’s massive home on the Mesa Falls property, Nicole wondered how one person could possibly need this much space. The three-story stone-and-cedar-shingle structure perched on the edge of a small pond, with only a few wandering elk nearby for company. She’d ridden a snowmobile over from the main lodge, eager to continue her quest for answers today even though he’d texted her details about a meeting with his partners later tonight.
Did he honestly think she was going to sit idly all day when Mattie’s future rested on her locating his father?
Frustrated, she pressed the button for the doorbell again, peering in through the leaded glass in the front door. She could hear the resonant sound of the chimes inside, although the place was so large she wondered if it could be heard in the farthest rooms. She pulled out her phone to text him that she was outside while she listened for signs of life within the house. But before she could open up the contact information on her screen, she heard a distant hum of a motor from somewhere behind her instead.
Stepping out from under the arched entryway, she stayed on the shoveled stone path to keep her boots out of the packed snow. The engine noise grew until she spotted a two-seater ATV heading toward her through the woods behind the pond. Pocketing her phone again, she wandered onto the back patio, where heavy outdoor furniture sat in a ring around a built-in fire pit. As the ATV neared, she spied two men in the front seat.
One of whom was definitely Desmond.
Her skin flushed despite the cold, awareness and anticipation combining to remind her that she needed to guard herself around him at all times. The heated draw was as distracting as it was compelling. Last night, as they sat outside watching the ice-skaters near the lodge, she’d been tantalized by the feel of his hand on hers. When was the last time she’d had skin-on-skin contact with any man?
The vehicle slowed near the patio, the driver parking the vehicle close to the shoveled cobblestones. A Plexiglas windscreen shielded them in front, but the low side doors had no windows, allowing her to see Desmond clearly as he unlatched the passenger side and stepped out near her.
“Nicole.” His gray eyes sizzled over her with words unspoken, his attention as stirring as any touch. “I didn’t know you were looking for me.”
“I should have messaged you.” She hadn’t because she’d feared he might be avoiding her until the larger meeting with his friends.
“Nicole, this is Gage Striker.” Desmond stopped beside her, gesturing toward the driver of the vehicle. “He’s one of my partners you’ll be seeing more of at dinner.”
“Nice to meet you.” She smiled politely, her manner businesslike. And although the dark-haired man with a square jaw and powerful shoulders was technically as handsome as Desmond, she found it easy to maintain her distance.
“You, too, love.” He used the endearment the way some people said “friend” or “ma’am,” although his New Zealand accent lent the word a different sort of charm. “Thank you for making the trip to Montana.” He gave her a nod. “See you soon.”
Then he pulled away, the engine humming louder for a moment before quieting as the ATV headed up the driveway toward the main lodge.
Leaving her alone with Desmond on the patio of his rustic mansion.
“Would you like to come inside?” Desmond’s voice held an intimate note as he delivered the simple question.
Or was she hearing a subtext he didn’t intend?
Her heart sped faster. She looked more carefully at him now, taking in details she hadn’t noticed before. The crusted ice on the placket of his field jacket. His red cheeks.
“If you don’t mind,” she said carefully. “But if I’m interrupting your plans—”
“I have no plans other than warming up.” His gloved hand brushed the small of her back through her long coat, guiding her toward a back entrance. “Let’s go inside.”
Her belly tightened as she moved in that direction, hoping she hadn’t overestimated her ability to remain immune to this man now that she was accompanying him into his house alone. Although she was curious about what he’d been doing to leave ice down the front of his jacket, she didn’t want to take things to a more personal level. Instead, she focused on the house as he reached around her to disarm the alarm and open the back door.
&
nbsp; “This is a beautiful home.” She stepped onto a three-season porch with a stone floor and firewood neatly stacked along one wall. Colorful wool blankets draped over the arm of a sofa that looked out on the snowy backyard.
“I can’t take much credit for it.” He reached around her to open another door into the main house. “I told a builder what I wanted in a vacation residence when we first bought the ranch and haven’t spent much time here since.”
She followed him into a French country kitchen with cream-colored distressed wood cabinets and a white oak floor with wide planks. A wrought iron chandelier hung over an island that dominated the room. Everything was absurdly neat, with no personal items left on countertops or photos on the wall.
He waved her through to a smaller living area that was more like a den at the back of the house. A beige rolled-arm couch sat close to a hearth built into a stone wall. A real wood fire burned in the grate behind a wrought iron screen, though the warmth came from mostly embers now. Bookshelves lined one wall while another looked out over the frozen pond and snowy yard.
“If you give me your coat, I can get you something hot to drink while you make yourself comfortable.” He moved behind her to take the long, fawn-colored garment, his hands on either side of her shoulders but not yet touching.
The heat of him radiated into her all the same.
“You don’t need to go to any trouble on my account,” she protested, taking in the intimacy of the small room.
Why hadn’t she asked him to meet her at the lodge, where there were more people around? Less temptation to look her fill at the man near her.
“It’s not just for you.” He lifted her coat from her shoulders and eased it down her arms. “I’ve been out at the rifle range this morning and I’ll need something to thaw out.”
For a moment she caught a hint of his scent as he stood behind her—sandalwood and musk. But before she could take a deeper breath to be sure, he moved toward the fireplace to lift a poker and stir the fire to life.