by Lisa Jackson
As he walked to his truck, he eyed the old Victorian house. It seemed strangely empty. No lights glowed in the windows, no kids ran in the yard, no angry guitar chords wailed from one of the upstairs rooms. Boxes were stacked on the porch—evidence that the Santini clan was moving out.
And Katie Kinkaid would be moving in. That thought made him edgy and restless. Living less than a hundred feet away from her was much too close. Though she probably needed a man to look out for her, he wasn’t a candidate. As he climbed into his truck he tried to take solace in the fact that he wouldn’t be here long. As soon as the electricity and phones were connected, he’d set up housekeeping at the ranch.
Oh, yeah? And then what? Are you just going to forget her and the fact that she’s wading into dangerous waters? Are you going to ignore the fact that you’d like nothing more than to kiss her until her knees went weak, peel off her clothes and make love to her until dawn? And what about the fact that Josh just might be Ralph Sorenson’s grandson? What the hell are you going to do about that?
His fingers tight on the wheel, he drove through town, past the church where Bliss Cawthorne had become Mrs. Mason Lafferty, and on to the old Reed Hotel. A tall three-story building with a Western facade, narrow windows and the original weathered siding, the Reed Hotel had once been a stagecoach stop. Now, after some remodeling and additions, it was the most elegant and historic inn anywhere near Bittersweet.
He handed his keys to a kid who didn’t look old enough to drive but was eager to park the truck, then headed inside. As if it were Christmas instead of early September, thousands of tiny lights winked in the branches of the trees and shrubbery that flanked the front porch. Again, he told himself, he had no business being here—none whatsoever—and yet he climbed the few steps to the open double doors.
Music filtered from within, and he didn’t have to pause at the front desk; he just followed the tinkle of laughter and buzz of excited conversation to a ballroom that was filled to the brim with the citizens of Bittersweet. A small band was playing a lively tune, and couples were already swirling around the floor.
He spotted Katie instantly. In a long blue dress with her red hair piled on to her head, she danced with a guy Luke didn’t recognize. Long-legged, with hawkish eyes and a smile that looked as phony as a three-dollar bill, Katie’s partner held her close. Too close. As if she were his personal possession. And Katie was eating it up. She talked and laughed, tilting her head back and flirting outrageously with the stranger. Her cheeks were flushed, her green eyes sparkling, her smile positively radiant. Luke’s gut twisted with something akin to jealousy, and he silently swore.
When offered a glass of champagne by a waiter dressed like an old stage hand, Luke accepted the drink and downed it in one long swallow. The room was crowded, the music a little loud, the room surprisingly stuffy and hot. With two fingers he pulled at his collar and told himself his claustrophobia was way out of line.
Mason and Bliss danced past, she in white silk and lace, he in a black tuxedo. He twirled her off her feet, and she laughed gaily, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, as if she were completely and truly in love.
The thought sat like lead in Luke’s stomach, and he snagged another glass of champagne from a tray near a fountain that spouted gallons of the stuff. Hearing Katie’s laughter rising above the buzz of conversation, clink of glasses and notes from a dance band, he sauntered outside to a veranda where there was a little respite from the heat.
Several people had gathered on the flagstones, talking and smoking, holding drinks or resting their hips against the stone railing and looking over the creek that splashed behind the hotel.
Two women strolled onto the patio and stood far enough away that he only caught snatches of their conversation.
“Can’t imagine what happened to him,” one of the women was saying. She was short and round, with hair starting to turn silver and long, well-kept fingernails that rummaged through the contents of her purse.
“So you don’t believe the letter is real?” her companion, a wasp-thin woman with harsh features and more makeup than she needed, asked.
“The letter that was printed in the paper? Naw.” She found a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. “If you ask me, Lois, Isaac Wells is gone for good.”
At that point Mason strode onto the patio and, spying Luke, offered a smile.
“Aren’t you supposed to be cuttin’ the cake, or toasting the bride or somethin’?” Luke asked as they clasped hands.
“Needed a break.” Mason tugged at his collar, and Luke noticed the sweat sliding down his neck.
“I hear Bliss has designed a new house for you. That you’re going to open up a dude ranch at the old Sorenson place.”
“That’s the plan.” Luke sipped his drink. He wasn’t much good at small talk but felt comfortable with Lafferty; there was something about him that seemed sincere. Beneath the expensive tux was a real, solid man, a fellow rancher who felt a kinship with the earth. The kind of man Luke trusted.
“I’d like you to show me around sometime when work gets under way.”
“Come on out, anytime,” Luke offered, then asked a question he’d been tossing about all day. “I heard you were related to Isaac Wells.”
“Yep.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“Wish I knew.” Mason rubbed his chin. “I’m afraid it might become one of those unsolved cases around here, just like the Octavia Nesbitt thing a few years back.”
“Nesbitt?” Luke asked. The name was familiar.
“Tiffany’s grandmother. Years ago she was robbed—her jewelry taken from her house, even her damned cat stolen. The case was never solved and made everyone nervous. Leastwise, that’s what Bliss and her father tell me.”
“But no one was hurt?” Luke asked.
“Nope. This is different that way.” Mason’s eyebrows drew together. “Can’t help but wonder whether old Isaac is dead or alive.”
“There you are!” Bliss, breathless, caught up with her new husband. “Hiding?” Her blue eyes sparkled with a teasing light.
“From you?” he asked. “Always.”
“Such a charmer.” She clucked her tongue, and to the delight of the two women on the far end of the patio, Mason swooped her into his arms and kissed her as if he’d never stop. One woman fanned her face, the other turned away, hiding a smile. Luke grinned. He felt the passion between the just-married couple, knew what it was like to want a woman so badly he ached.
When Mason finally lifted his head, Bliss appeared breathless. “Well,” she finally said, her cheeks flushed to a rosy hue, “I’d love to steal away to the bushes with you right now, Mr. Lafferty, but we have duties to attend to.”
“Too bad,” Mason drawled.
Bliss touched him lightly on the nose. “If you’re lucky, I’ll give you a rain check.”
“I’m gonna hold you to it, Mrs. Lafferty.”
They linked fingers, and she pulled him back into the interior of the old hotel.
Luke finished his drink, then stared through the windows and spied Katie dancing. She was grinning and looking as if she were having the time of her life. He wondered what kind of trouble she was getting herself into. First the letter—be it a hoax or the real thing—then the phone calls to her house where no one answered. They could just have been someone dialing the wrong number, but he couldn’t shove them out of his head.
Not that he could forget much about Katie Kinkaid. As the two women drifted back into the ballroom, Luke leaned against the rail and glared down at the darkened ravine. Lights from the hotel reflected on the tumbling water of the creek, and he thought he saw a lone man, a black figure, slip behind a thick copse of trees.
The hairs on the back of his neck lifted in warning, even though he told himself that he’d imagined the shadow, or, if there really was someone hiding in the undergrowth, it was probably just some kid sneaking booze from the reception or stealing away from his parents’ wary eyes. L
uke squinted hard into the darkness and strained to hear a sound—a snapping twig or muttered oath or anything to convince himself that he hadn’t imagined it.
Watch it, Gates, you’re getting paranoid. Still, he studied the night-darkened banks of the creek. The suspicious part of his mind considered vaulting over the rail and following his instincts, tailing whoever it was and finding out if he was up to no good.
“I thought I saw you sneak in.” Katie’s voice startled him.
Luke glanced quickly over his shoulder. She was standing only inches from him, her tiny, flushed face angled up to look at him. Her green eyes sparkled, and he wondered if she wasn’t the most intriguing woman in the universe.
“I suspected that you might decide to put in an appearance after all.” Her lips curved into a smile of silent amusement, as if she could read his mind and found his thoughts laughable.
“I think you invited me,” he replied, turning and placing his body between hers and the stranger in the shadows—if there was one. A thin sheen of perspiration added an alluring glow to her skin, which was already smooth as silk.
“That I did,” she said flirtatiously, and Luke remembered seeing her in another man’s arms, how at-home she’d seemed, how lighthearted and free. She interrupted his thoughts when she asked, “So…how about a dance?”
He hadn’t been asked that particular question since high school. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
“That makes two of us. Come on.” As if she expected him to come up with some kind of excuse, she grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him into the warm room where couples were gliding around the dance floor. Rather than protest, he went with her into the ballroom. He felt safer inside even though there was probably no danger lurking in the gloomy shadows by the creek. It was just his imagination working overtime.
A song from the big-band era was playing. He’d heard the tune before, didn’t know its name and didn’t have time to speculate. Katie fell into his arms as naturally as if she’d been born there. She didn’t seem to mind that his dancing was limited. He hadn’t lied. He’d had a few dance lessons in physical education when he’d been about twelve and scared to death of the opposite sex; then he’d experimented a little in high school and at rare social events while he’d been married to Celia.
“See?” Katie said, looking up at him with eyes as green as a forest. “This isn’t so bad.”
“Could be worse,” he admitted and wondered why it felt so right to hold her.
“A lot worse.”
As if of their own accord, his arms tightened around her. She felt small, warm and pliant as she rested her head against his shoulder. Music and laughter swirled around them. The lights dimmed, and Luke’s heart pounded. He imagined kissing her again, melding his lips over hers and sliding his tongue between her teeth; imagined slipping his hands beneath her dress and how her skin would feel as he peeled the blue folds of silk from her body.
Tiffany and J.D. glided past. Tiffany’s head was thrown back, and she was laughing gaily, as if she had the world by its proverbial tail. In a glimmer she spied Katie and winked at her half sister, as if the two women shared a private joke.
“Mind if I cut in?” John Cawthorne’s voice surprised him. “I’m making a point of dancing with each of my daughters.” Luke stepped aside, ended up with Brynnie in his arms and watched as the father of the bride made a big display of dancing with his third daughter. He’d already had a turn with Bliss, who had seemed radiant in her father’s arms—as well as with Tiffany, who had danced stiffly, no smile upon her face. Now Katie fell into step with her newfound father as if she’d been a part of his family for years.
“He loves them, you know. Each one,” Brynnie said as she and Luke paused for a glass of champagne. “All the hard feelings that existed between the girls and him, well, let me tell you, it’s taken its toll. Trying to put this scrappy family together has been hard on him.”
“And on his daughters,” Luke added.
“Oh, my, yes. Even Katie.” Brynnie sipped slowly. Her face was flushed, and her fading red hair, precariously curled on to the top of her head, was starting to fall. “Here, would you mind holding this?” She handed him her glass, extracted a bobby pin from her crown and held it between her lips as she expertly tucked the falling loops of hair into place again. “There we go.” She pushed the bobby pin to the spot where it belonged, securing her tresses, then took her glass from him. “What I wouldn’t do for a smoke,” she admitted, “but I’m trying to quit, what with John’s condition and all. I suppose you know that he had himself a heart attack.”
“I’d heard,” Luke admitted, still watching John and Katie move easily around the dance floor.
“That’s what started all this—him and me getting together and his obsession with making us all one big happy family.” She glanced up at Luke. “I’m not a gambling woman, but I’d bet my life that our family’s a little bit like Humpty-Dumpty—darned near impossible to put together. At least, not as fast as he’d like it to. Emotions take time to heal… Oh, listen to me. This is a wedding, for goodness’ sake, and here I am gettin’ maudlin.” She blinked rapidly, sniffed and swept a beringed finger under her eyes. “It’s so silly. I guess I just want John to be happy.”
“He looks like he is,” Luke observed as the music ended. Katie looped her arm through the crook of her father’s elbow, and they maneuvered through the knots of people clustered around the ballroom floor.
“I hope so,” she said fervently as John and Katie approached. John and Brynnie moved off.
“So, what did Mom tell you?” Katie asked. “I saw you two with your heads together.”
“She was just giving me some background on the family.”
“Such as?” she asked as his arms surrounded her again.
“Your mother seems to think there’s no hope of bringing your family together.” He held her tight and got lost in the scent of her perfume.
“Maybe not, but I think it’s time to bury the hatchet and get on with our lives. Bliss is married now, has her own life with Mason and his daughter, Dee Dee—that’s her, dancing with her father.” She pointed to Mason and a girl of about nine or ten, he guessed, as they danced together. Dee Dee was embarrassed, but Mason swung her off her feet, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Anyway, so Bliss is happy, and now Tiffany and J.D. are going to tie the knot, so why dwell on the past? Don’t get me wrong—John and Mom should never have carried on an affair while he was married. Though, come to think of it, if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” She grinned, and the reflection of a thousand tiny bulbs in the chandelier overhead shone in her eyes.
“And that would be a shame.” Luke brushed a lock of her hair off her cheek and saw her smile slowly fade as she stared at him. The pulse at the base of her throat jumped a little, and he was lost in her. He forgot the dozens of people in the room, was alone and intimate with her as the world around them slipped away.
“A…a big shame,” she said, trying and failing to lighten the mood. She avoided his eyes for a second, and he forced himself to think of something, anything other than holding on to her and never letting go.
“So what about you? Both your half sisters are getting married.”
“I have my career,” she said automatically and sensed her blood heat. Being this close to Luke, feeling the pressure of his fingers on her back, caused her head to swim. Oh, Lord, how had she gotten this close to him?
“And that’s the most important thing in your life.”
“Second. Josh is first.” That was a given, but she didn’t want to discuss her son; not with this man who spoke little but asked questions that delved far too deep. Changing the subject was simple. “So, I guess you and I will be neighbors in a couple of weeks.”
“More than neighbors,” he said, and stupidly her heart took flight as the leader of the dance band announced that the musicians would be taking a break.
“More?”
“You’ll be my landlady.�
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“Oh.” She let out her breath and laughed. “Good. It’ll give me a little bit of power, won’t it?”
His smile was off center and sexy as all get-out. “A little. But I’ll be movin’ out myself soon.”
“I suspected as much,” she said and mentally gave herself a shake when she heard the note of disappointment in her voice. “Come on, it’s time you met some people around here.” She guided him through the throng where they not only spoke with her half sisters, and Mason and J.D., but she introduced him to her half brothers and three quarters of the town. While he seemed to recognize a sprinkling of the guests at the reception, Katie knew them all.
“It’s hard to believe there are this many citizens in the town,” he whispered to her as she located Josh, who was ignoring his crutches in favor of hanging out with Stephen and a couple of other boys.
“I should go and talk to my son,” she said, but hadn’t taken a step in Josh’s direction before Brynnie caught up with her.
“Come on, come on,” she said, tapping Katie’s shoulder. “We’ve got dinner in the dining room, and it’ll go to waste if we don’t eat it.”
“In a minute—”
“Now or forever hold your peace.”
“I think we’d better not cross my mother,” Katie said with a teasing grin.
“Good idea,” Brynnie remarked as she beelined toward her twin sons and hustled them in the direction of the buffet.
They dined on salmon, prime rib and venison, though Katie’s appetite was nil. She was too keyed up, being with Luke. Touching him and smelling the faint odors of leather and musk that clung to him caused her heart to flutter, her mind to spin and, apparently, her stomach to shrink. She played with her food, barely eating a bite, sipped a little more champagne and, after the meal, danced to a couple of songs. She then stood beside Luke as Bliss and Mason cut their five-tiered cake and fed each other enormous pieces that left smudges of frosting on their faces. Mason kissed the icing off Bliss’s cheeks, and she repaid him by swiping a dab of the white confection on to his nose.