by Gayle Wilson
Maybe to force him to make it on his own. To become a man. His own man. Or maybe, Michael had finally decided, because he had never told anyone, much less his father, how much he had loved this place. That had obviously been a mistake.
He shut off the ignition and opened the car door, easing down carefully from the high seat. As he’d expected, his knee had stiffened, both from the long flight and the hours he’d spent behind the wheel.
Right hand on the top of the door, left on the roof for support, he took an experimental step, testing it. Prepared for the pain, he managed to control his response to it except for a slight tightening of his lips and a nearly soundless inhalation.
It would have been smart to bring the cane, if only for the duration of the trip. Instead, he’d tossed it into one of the trash bins outside Reagan. Just as he’d metaphorically trashed everything else associated with the past eight years of his life.
Still holding on to the top of the door as he flexed the damaged knee, Michael allowed his gaze to scan the compound. The place looked prosperous and well kept. Both the barn and the house had been freshly painted. He had already noted that the grazing stock he passed on the way in from the highway were sleek and healthy. Maybe his father had known what he was doing after all.
Rejecting that thought, he stepped away from the door, slamming it behind him. Limping heavily, he walked around to the rear, opening the door there to drag out his duffel bag.
He’d stuffed every item of clothing from his wardrobe that might be appropriate for the ranch into it. And he’d been surprised by how little of that there was. The rest, with exception of a couple of suits hanging from a hook in the back seat, he’d given away.
He closed the hatch, the noise unnaturally loud in the drowsy afternoon heat. He’d half expected someone to come out by now to investigate the arrival of a strange car.
Of course, it was possible there was no one in the main house. There were always a hundred things that needed seeing to on a ranch this size, especially in the middle of summer.
He walked around the car and up the low steps, boot heels echoing across the wooden planks of the porch. Switching the duffel bag to his left hand, he raised his right to punch the bell.
Somewhere in the back of his mind the word “home” echoed. He changed the motion he’d begun, his fingers fastening around the knob instead. He opened the door, letting it swing inward to a cool dimness.
At the far end of the huge central room it revealed, the brass fittings on the old bar, a survivor from the days when the Royal Flush had been the fanciest bordello in Colorado, caught the late afternoon light. Michael’s eyes lifted automatically, searching for the portrait of his great-great-grandmother, which had always hung behind it.
Old Dora was still there. It seemed nothing about the Flush had changed. Of course, it never had.
He set the duffel bag down on the rich, heart pine floor and stood in the somnolent stillness, letting the memories close around him. As he did, he became aware of voices coming from behind the house. One was obviously male. And the other…
Colleen? If so, it might be easier for both of them if their first meeting took place outside. At least then she wouldn’t have to throw him out of the house.
His lips tilted at the image. At maybe five foot five to his six-three, she’d play hell trying. Of course, a challenge, even one of that proportion, had never discouraged his sister.
He realized he was anticipating seeing her again, just as he’d been looking forward to his first sight of the house from the moment he’d turned off Highway 9. Whatever bitterness he’d felt toward his father had never extended to Colleen. Or, if it had then, it certainly didn’t now.
In the nearly sixteen years since he’d been here, he’d been to hell and back. The only family he’d known in all that time had been the men who had fought and died beside him. Without that bond—
Deliberately he broke the thought. Today wasn’t about guilt or regret. Today was about homecoming. And the sooner he got this one over with, the better for everyone concerned.
“ALL I’M TELLING YOU—”
“And all I’m telling you is to handle it,” Colleen interrupted. “That’s what I pay you for, Dex.”
“Why don’t you just sell the damn place to someone who’ll appreciate it?”
“I appreciate it. That doesn’t mean I want to be in on every minor decision of its day-to-day operation.”
“What I’m asking you about isn’t minor, Colleen. And you damn well know it.”
“I also know you’ll make the right decision, with or without my advice. I’m not real sure why you’re so all-fired set on having it.”
Michael had already heard enough to identify the man his sister was arguing with as her foreman. And anger was apparent in each muscular inch of the man’s body. It was also apparent that those muscles were not the kind built in a gym, but through the hard, backbreaking work a ranch demanded.
Besides, he had the look of a cowboy, both in his tall, rangy build and sun-darkened skin. It was obvious that, boss-lady or not, Colleen did not intimidate him.
“You don’t deserve what you’ve got,” the foreman said, his voice no longer raised. It was quiet and somehow far more effective at expressing his disgust. He ran a hand through black hair that had a liberal sprinkling of gray. “Maybe because you had this place handed to you on a silver platter, you think it don’t require any work on your part to keep it.”
Colleen took a breath, her lips tight, visibly controlling her own temper. Although it had been a decade or more since he’d seen her, Michael had had no trouble recognizing his sister. She had the Wellesley coloring, of course. Dark brown hair and those strange blue-green eyes that a few women in his past had unfortunately referred to as turquoise.
Whatever color they were, it looked a whole hell of a lot better on Colleen. She was still a good-looking woman, despite the fact that she must be…
When he’d done the math, he realized with a sense of shock that his sister was forty-five. Nine years older than he, she had been only twenty-nine when he’d joined the military.
A lifetime ago. A lifetime he knew almost nothing about.
“I work,” she said, her tone as intense as that of the man who’d made the accusation. “And damned hard, too. What I do makes it possible for this operation to survive no matter how the markets fluctuate. Just because I don’t want to be consulted about every little detail doesn’t give you the right to suggest I don’t appreciate the Flush.”
“Then act like it, damn it.”
“If you’re trying to convince her to do something,” Michael said, choosing that moment to reveal himself by stepping out of the shadows from where he’d been watching the confrontation, “I can tell you for a fact that you’ll fare better not cussing her. Gets her back up every time.”
With his first word, their heads had snapped toward him, almost in unison. Two pairs of eyes—one hostile and suspicious, the other slightly narrowed—focused on him.
“Who the hell are you?” the cowboy demanded.
“Michael.” Colleen breathed his name as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Because he had been watching for her reaction—a matter of training as well as need—he had known the exact instant when she’d accepted her identification. What was in her eyes as she did eased tensions he hadn’t been aware he harbored.
“Hello, Colleen. It’s been a long time.”
She shook her head, her eyes welling with tears. She fought them, succeeding only because she was determined and because whatever his sister set her mind to, she accomplished. When she was again in control, she turned to the man with whom she’d been arguing.
“Dex, if you’ll excuse me. We can talk about this later, please. Right now I have some…unfinished business I need to take care of.”
“Something more important than the ranch?” Dex asked, his voice edged with bitterness.
Colleen turned to smile at Michael, ign
oring the taunt. “Much more important,” she said softly.
The cowboy’s hazel eyes locked briefly with his. Michael inclined his head as if they had been introduced. A muscle in the other man’s jaw knotted, but he didn’t make any further objection. He slammed the battered Stetson he’d held in his right hand back on his head and stalked off.
Colleen didn’t even glance his way, her eyes examining Michael’s face as if she were trying to memorize it.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? God, Michael, you have to know better than that.”
A little more of the tension seeped out of his body at the sincerity of her exclamation. She reinforced it by stepping forward and holding both her hands out to him. After a second’s hesitation, he put his into hers, using them to pull her against his body in an awkward embrace.
It didn’t remain awkward for long. Colleen leaned against him, her arms fastening around his waist in a fierce hug. Almost against his will, Michael found himself responding to that honest emotion.
After a moment she stepped away to look up into his eyes. Hers were once more suspiciously touched with moisture, but she was smiling.
“I wish I could tell you how wonderful you look, but, truth be told—”
“I look like hell,” he finished for her.
“Are you okay?”
The depth of concern in her voice was almost his undoing. He hated that emotion seemed so near the surface now, but the idiot shrink the agency had insisted he talk to had told him he could expect that. Maybe so, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“I will be,” he said, forcing a smile. Her lips quickly answered it, but her eyes were still clouded. Slightly anxious. “I thought I might hang out here for a while. If I won’t be in the way.”
For one instant there was a flicker of something in the blue-green depths of her eyes. It was gone before he could even think about identifying what he’d seen. Her smile broadened immediately, and she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.
“Welcome home, little brother,” she said. “And when you’re all rested up, there are a couple of paint ponies that could use some schooling. Think you’re up to that?”
“I will be,” Michael promised, and for the first time in nearly six months, he began to believe that might be true.
“GUILTY OR NOT, Cal Demarco’s still a son of a bitch.”
Michael could hear the anger in Colleen’s voice despite the nearly ten years that had passed since the Internal Affairs Division of the Denver Police Department had cleared her former supervisor of the corruption charges she’d leveled against him.
“Unfortunately, they don’t put you away for that,” he said, “or jails would be a whole lot more crowded than they are now.”
The bourbon his sister had been pouring with a generous hand had finally eased the ever-present ache in his knee. It had also served to destroy any sense of strain his long absence might have caused between them.
“I could suggest a few other candidates.” She lifted her glass, resting it against her chin as she considered him. She was sitting on the couch opposite his, legs curled under her. “And now that I’ve caught you up on the sad, uninteresting story of my life, I think it’s time to hear what you’ve been up to.”
He hesitated, thinking about what he wanted to tell her, as well as what he couldn’t. Most of that was for security reasons, but some he just didn’t want to talk about.
“Suffice it to say that I’m retired.”
Her lips pursed, her eyes still on his face. “From the military.”
It hadn’t been phrased as a question, but he nodded, dropping his eyes to the amber liquid he was absently swirling in the bottom of his glass. He lifted it, anticipating the dark, smoky bite of his grandfather’s private stock.
“Except you left the Rangers more than eight years ago.”
His hand halted in midmotion as his eyes jumped up to meet hers.
“I’m just curious what you’ve been doing since,” she said. “Or is that privileged information?”
He didn’t answer, holding her gaze as silent seconds ticked by.
“You’re the only family I have left, Michael. It’s unlikely I wouldn’t try to find out where you were and what you were doing.”
What was unlikely, he thought, was that she could have.
“And did you?”
“That surprises you.”
“Considering.”
She smiled at him, seeming pleased she’d been able to shock him. “I know you worked for Jack Waigner up until December of last year. I don’t know where you’ve been for the last six months. You…dropped off my radar screen.”
Her eyes briefly touched on the knee she’d pointedly avoided asking him about, in spite of its obvious impairment.
“Hospital and then rehab,” he said. That, too, was probably obvious, given what she already knew.
“That’s why you retired?” This time her acknowledgment of the injury he’d suffered was more open, her eyes tracing along the long, blue-jean clad length of his leg, stretched out on the coffee table between them.
Was it? That wasn’t a question he’d allowed himself to think too much about.
“Partially.”
“I’ve thought about the timing of your disappearance. About what was going on then. Wondering if there was a connection.”
“And you think you’ve figured it out,” he said flatly, reading confidence in her tone.
“I asked some questions.”
“And got answers?” he asked, his voice deliberately quizzical.
He hadn’t quite been able to put together how, living here, his sister could know things no one outside the intelligence community should know. Nor had he figured out where her questions were headed. He’d be willing to bet, however, that this conversation wasn’t about familial concern. Nor was it the product of an idle curiosity.
“A few. Enough, I think. San Parrano maybe,” she suggested.
The words evoked memories he never wanted to think about again. He had worked hard on erasing the nightmare images from what had been a joint Special Forces/CIA counterterrorist mission. One that had gone very wrong very quickly.
“You were there, weren’t you?”
He nodded, then raised the glass and tossed down the last swallow of liquor. It burned a path along the back of his throat, despite the ache that had formed there.
“And you don’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to think about it,” he said truthfully. He leaned forward, setting the empty glass down on the coffee table.
“I understand Waigner sent his best people.”
“Most of them died. Hardly a recommendation.”
“I don’t know. It’s good enough for me.”
The small smile was back, but he couldn’t quite read it. A little self-satisfied. Maybe even challenging. In response, he tilted his head, raising his brows in inquiry.
“I could use some help right now,” she said, “and since you’re here…”
Get up now, he told himself. Walk down the hall to your bedroom, thoughtfully located on the ground floor. Crawl into bed, pull the covers over your head, and pretend this conversation never happened.
“Help with what?” he said instead.
“An assignment.”
After she’d left the police department, Colleen had set up her own private investigation agency. She ran it from behind the scenes, and from what she’d told him earlier, it had become very successful.
This offer to join it was probably her way of getting him back on his feet, as misguided as the idea was. He’d been approached by other people with the same purpose during the last couple of months. His answer hadn’t been repeatable. He mitigated his response to his sister, however, because he truly believed she acted out of love.
“I’m no P.I., but thanks for the thought.”
“You think I’m patronizing you.”
He smiled rather than responding with what he thought.
“I really do need your help, Michael. I’m assuming your security clearances are all in order.”
“For what it’s worth.”
“A baby’s life,” she said softly. “What would that be worth to you?”
Chapter Two
Every time he thought he’d figured out where this was going, Colleen threw him a curve. He didn’t much like this last one. “Whose baby?”
“Samuel Langworthy’s grandson.”
Even as he’d asked the question, Michael had realized there was only one baby who’d occupied the headlines of the nation’s newspapers during the past two weeks. He’d read stories back in Virginia about the Langworthy kidnapping. The coverage here in Colorado had probably been ten times as intense, not only because of the political ramifications, but because it involved one of the founding families of the state.
The Langworthys were Colorado’s version of the Kennedys, and to most people here they were every bit as glamorous. Samuel, the patriarch, had served as governor. His run at the Senate had been interrupted by heart trouble, so his political dreams were being lived out by his son, Joshua.
A Harvard Law grad who had come home to work for the Department of Justice, Josh Langworthy was currently running for governor. There were also two Langworthy daughters, but Michael had been away from the state too long to remember their names.
“Langworthy hired you?”
“Not Langworthy,” Colleen said. “This is…something official.”
“Meaning what?”
He wondered for a moment if she’d maintained some connection to the Denver police. That wouldn’t explain, of course, how she had known so much about what he had been doing for the past eight years.
“ICU has been recruited.”
Investigations, Confidential & Undercover was Colleen’s agency, which she’d started after she left the police force. Who might have “recruited” a private investigation firm and to do what was another question.