by Lisa Jackson
Oh, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, dwell on the consequences of that first fateful meeting. Not while she had so much to do. Using her pencil, she scratched her head where the rubber band of her ponytail pulled tight. She spread the files she’d made of each of Larry’s offspring beside her on the wrinkled covers. On the desk, her laptop glowed ghostly blue.
Where was that baby?
She’d spent days trying to track him down, to no avail. She had, again, come up dry.
“So much for your sharp investigative mind,” she muttered to herself, wondering if there really was a seventh illegitimate son. She flipped open the journal. Could it be a hoax? Did some woman try to pawn off her baby as Larry’s to scare him, or to shake him down? Was it all a twisted, cruel joke? Larry Kincaid had certainly used and cheated on any woman he’d contacted, maybe someone had just turned the tables on him.
She tapped her eraser against her teeth and ignored the sound of Trent’s laughter rolling up the stairs. She wondered who he was talking to, then reminded herself she didn’t care.
“Think,” she admonished, and flipped through her notes about the other brothers, scanning the files, searching desperately for some thread that might tie them together, some reason Larry chose the women he did, a commonality aside from the fact that they were all Larry Kincaid’s sons. Maybe she would then come up with the most likely candidate for Larry’s last fling. She sensed that the woman lived around here in Whitehorn. Larry had been here about the time the child had been conceived.
If he’d been conceived, she reminded herself as she propped a shoulder against the wall.
Each of her reports, typed neatly, dated, cross-referenced and tucked into manila files, gave a short bio on Garrett’s grandsons. She had also included a picture of each of the grown men and kept color copies for herself.
She opened a file. The firstborn, Adam Benson, was thirty-seven years old and an overachiever who had earned an MBA and a reputation for having a chip on his shoulder the size of Montana. There were reasons for his anger—deep-seated and dark. Gina studied the picture she’d culled from his college yearbook. Arrogantly handsome with jet-black hair, steely gray eyes and strong, chiseled features vaguely reminiscent of his grandfather’s, Adam was a striking man. He’d worked hard and was determined to leave his mark on this world. Always pushing, never satisfied, he’d become a corporate raider and, even at the age of twenty-three as he stared into the camera, he looked the part.
Gina set his page aside and picked up the next, that of thirty-five-year-old Cade Redstone. Gina smiled. Cade was about as opposite from his older brother as he could be, a real, doggie-chasing, bronc-riding, spur-jangling cowboy whose mother, Mariah Raintree, was a Native American who had once worked as a maid for the Kincaids. The snapshot showed Cade at a rodeo in Texas, astride an ornery Brahman bull. His dark eyes gleamed with anticipation. His bronzed skin gleamed with sweat. Gina suspected Cade would feel right at home on the ranch and would probably give his uptight, older half brother a well-deserved ribbing. While Gina expected Adam to turn on a polished leather heel and leave the Whitehorn ranch immediately upon landing, she suspected Cade would dig his cowboy boots into the gravel, grass and dirt of the spread with gusto and fire.
She set his file aside and picked up the third, that of Brandon Harper, the result of Larry’s affair with a Las Vegas showgirl. Brandon’s stepfather had been a monster and the boy had lashed out, been placed in foster care, adopted, but had been a juvenile delinquent on a path straight to jail. Luckily he’d been athletic and, under the guidance of a coach or two, had avoided jail. He, like Trent, had made his millions on his own.
The photo she’d found of Brandon had been taken just last year at a social event in Lake Tahoe. Dressed in a black tuxedo with a teal vest, he was standing in the foyer of a high-rise hotel, an illuminated fountain spraying upward as a backdrop, a gorgeous model clinging like a piece of expensive jewelry to one arm. Brandon’s smile was as cold as his ice-blue eyes. A Rolex watch peeked from beneath his sleeve and his black hair had been perfectly cut. His features were sharp, bold and guarded. While the woman he was with fairly beamed, Brandon looked as if he had ice water running through his veins.
Gina tossed his folder aside and shook her head. This was getting her nowhere in a hurry. The common link between these half brothers was their good looks, very different yet hinting of a Native American ancestry hidden deep in their gene pool. Their mothers were all beautiful, but from different walks of life. Adam’s biological mother had been a cheerleader who had died while giving him birth. Cade’s, a pretty housekeeper. Brandon’s, a flashy dance hall girl. Young and beautiful and obviously not immune to Larry Kincaid’s charms, whatever they had been.
The next file was a double. The Remmington twins. Blake and Trent. Gina’s foolish, foolish heart twisted a bit. Living this near to Trent was a mistake. Each night she tossed and turned, thinking of him lying next door. She remembered their lovemaking in the DeMarco Hotel in Dallas and the other times he’d kissed her, his lips seeming to brand her own.
“Don’t even go there,” she warned herself, but her mind was already wandering from the job at hand to the feel of his skin against hers, the warmth of his hands, the magic of his breath against her flesh.
She swallowed hard and opened the file. Two pictures of nearly identical men stared back at her. Blake was dressed in a white lab coat with a stethoscope slung around his neck. A bright-eyed boy of about three was seated on Blake’s bent knee. The floppy-haired imp sported a cast that ran down a chubby leg and he grinned widely as he clutched a one-eyed teddy bear to his chest.
Blake obviously enjoyed his career and the children he cared for. She wondered why, during his marriage, he’d never become a father.
Her stomach clenched at the thought. How ironic that she might be carrying Trent’s child. She glanced at her watch, checked the date and sighed. This wasn’t how she’d planned to become a mother and yet the thought that a baby—Trent’s baby—might be growing inside her was exhilarating. She hadn’t thought much about settling down but she’d always wanted children.
And yet she was terrified. The fact that she hadn’t yet made the time to buy a pregnancy test convinced her that she was in major denial.
She looked down at the file folder to Trent’s picture. It was a far cry from his brother’s. Oh, their features were nearly identical, but that was where the likeness ended. Everything about them from their personalities to their attitude toward life appeared to be in diametric opposition to each other.
The snapshot said it all. Trent stood in front of a gusher, a brazen slash of a smile cutting through two days’ worth of dark beard. His eyes were blue and triumphant, his hair longer than the current trend and blowing in the breeze. No hard hat for the owner of the company. Pride was etched into the set of his jaw, naked challenge flared in his eyes as he stood, arms folded over his chest, the tails of his denim shirt flapping in the wind. Rugged. Wild. A force to be reckoned with, Trent Remmington was at home in designer suits or faded jeans, a man, she was afraid, she could so easily learn to love.
She gasped. Love? She thought she could love him? Now where did that ludicrous thought well from? She barely knew the man, for crying out loud, and just because…just because she thought she might be carrying his… Her stomach clenched and she suddenly had trouble breathing. She’d always been a reasonable woman and not one to think that sexual attraction necessarily meant love. But if she was pregnant—
Rap! Rap! Rap!
She glanced up and found Blake leaning against the doorjamb. “Want to take a break?” he asked.
“A break?”
“I’ve got to drive into town and could use a little company. Besides, you know the town and can point me in the direction of the nearest grocery store. I promised Suzanne I’d pick up some of the supplies she forgot earlier.”
“What about Trent?” Gina asked, dumbfounded.
“He’s busy.” Blake’s smile was positively inf
ectious. “Besides, you’re prettier.”
“I—I don’t know,” she started, then decided why not? She was getting nowhere fast as it was. “Sure. Just give me a minute.”
“I’ll meet you in the foyer.” He disappeared and she told herself that any personal involvement with any of the Kincaid sons was a mistake, but then, she’d already made the worst of all. She yanked the rubber band from her hair, swiped at the wavy red locks with a brush, slapped some lipstick over her lips and grabbed her purse. Slinging the strap over her shoulder, she breezed down the stairs, nearly running into Trent in the process.
It was funny, she thought, that no matter how much the twins looked alike, she knew instantly which one she was facing and it wasn’t just a matter of clothes—nope, it was attitude.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, stopping on the stairs.
“Into town.”
His lips compressed. “With Blake.” It wasn’t a question.
“He wanted me to point out the some of the sights.”
“That should take all of two minutes.”
“You could come along,” she invited with a lift of her shoulder.
His eyes narrowed a fraction. “I’ll take a rain check. Have fun.”
Was he being sarcastic? Probably. Trent continued up the stairs and Gina sped down the remainder of the flight.
“That’s the Branding Iron, a local nightspot,” Gina said as Blake steered his plush car through the streets of downtown Whitehorn. Melodic notes of soft jazz whispered through the speakers and the leather interior smelled new.
Blake hitched his chin toward the bar as they passed. “Ever been inside?”
“Just once, to interview the bartender and waitresses. Your father—”
“If you’re talking about Larry, let’s call him by his name, okay. ‘Father’ just doesn’t seem to fit.”
She snorted. “I heard the same thing from Trent.”
“So it really is true—great minds do think alike,” he joked as he drove past Whitehorn Memorial Hospital and the statue of Lewis and Clark positioned near the front of the building. Tall cottonwoods surrounded the structure and street lamps illuminated the grounds. “I’d always thought that was a fallacy.”
“Take a right here.” She pointed to the next corner.
“Voilà,” he said as the grocery store appeared. Two pickups, a dented station wagon with duct tape holding a taillight together and a Mercedes convertible were parked in the asphalt lot. As Blake cut the engine, a tall, silver-haired man in a sharply pressed suit strode out of the store. Anger and something else—desperation?—pinched the corners of his mouth and he swept the Acura a dark look. In one arm he toted a single paper bag of groceries, but his shoulders were bent with the load of his bad attitude.
“Jordan Baxter,” Gina said as Jordan pressed his keyless lock and the lights of his convertible turned on. Opening the door, he slid behind the wheel.
“Who’s he?”
“A man you want to avoid. The bad blood between the Baxters and the Kincaids goes back for generations.”
Blake laughed. “A family feud. Like the Montagues and Capulets?”
“Not quite so highbrow,” she said, smiling at his Shakespearean reference. “More like the Hatfields and the McCoys, I’m afraid.”
“Are you? That surprises me. You look like the kind of woman who’s not afraid of anything.”
“There is no such animal,” she said as Jordan threw his Mercedes into reverse. The convertible’s sleek finish appeared nearly liquid in the incandescent glow of the street lamps. With a well-tuned roar, the Mercedes took off.
She reached for the door handle, but Blake didn’t move. He was fiddling with his key chain with one hand, the fingers of the other hand still poised on the wheel. “Before we go inside,” he said, “I’d like to ask you something.”
Her muscles stiffened. His teasing attitude had disappeared along with his boyish smile. “Shoot.”
“Okay.” Turning his head to stare at her directly, he asked, “Are you in love with my brother?”
Ten
Blake’s question followed Gina around like a lost puppy. Are you in love with my brother? Who knew? She’d managed to laugh at his suggestion and hurry out of the car into the store, but the thought that she might be in love with Trent kept nipping at her heels, trailing after her, interrupting last night’s sleep and waking her in the predawn hours. She’d given up on sleep and decided to face the day. But even now as she stepped out of the shower into the steamy bathroom, her mind spun at the thought that she just might be falling in love.
“Get a grip,” she told herself, for today was the day that the sons of Larry Kincaid were due to arrive. All her efforts at locating them would culminate this very morning. She flung a thick peach-colored towel around her body, tucked it over her breasts and used a wash cloth to wipe the steam that had collected on the mirror.
Soon enough she could leave Whitehorn, Montana.
And what then?
Click.
The latch on the door sprang and the door itself opened with a loud creak. Holding the towel to her chest, she whirled around. Trent, fully dressed in jeans and a cream-colored shirt with the sleeves rolled up, slipped in. Her towel nearly fell to the cracked linoleum.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in a harsh whisper, her heart hammering wildly.
“I wish I knew.”
“What do you mean?”
In answer, he kicked the door shut, latched the lock, then grabbed her. Steam rose in the tiny room lit only by a single bulb in a tulip-shaped fixture over the mirror.
“Are you crazy?” What had gotten into him?
“Probably.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“No.” His eyes held hers for half a heartbeat and she was lost. She gulped. His lips crashed down on hers and though she wanted to protest, she couldn’t call up a solitary word of refusal. No, damn it, she practically melted. Just like the silly kind of woman she detested. As if of their own accord, her arms slipped around his neck and she willingly opened her mouth to him. She closed her eyes, feeling soft droplets of water drip from the ringlets of her wet hair onto her bare shoulders.
She was crazy. Downright certifiable. And yet she kissed him as eagerly as he did her. She told herself that she was only fanning the fires of a passion that should never have been lit in the first place, but she didn’t care. What harm there was had already been done.
Her towel slipped a bit, edging lower, but she was so caught up in the emotion of the moment, she didn’t feel it surrender to the insistent pull of gravity, nor would she have cared. Trent was kissing her, devouring her, and deep inside she heated, her flesh tingling, her breath shallow and raspy as she pretended they were all alone in the universe and that loving Trent Remmington was forever her destiny.
Her eyes fluttered a second then closed in ecstasy as he lowered his mouth, kissing the crook of her neck and tugging the towel down until her breasts were exposed. She moaned and leaned against the sink as he bared one round nipple and a cool current of air from the open window moved across her skin. Her nipples puckered in anticipation.
He, running a thumb over one breast, teased and played with the rosy little bud of the other with his tongue, teeth and lips until desire pumped liquid fire through Gina’s veins. Hot. Raw. Hungry. She lolled her head back, her hands at her sides, her fingers gripping the porcelain sink as her knuckles grew white. She wanted him—more than any reasonable woman would hunger for a man. The ache deep inside her pulsed in white-hot beats that pounded through her brain and evoked a whispered moan from her throat.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that she should stop him. On this day of days, when the house would soon be crawling with Kincaids, she needed to be composed and relaxed, cool and collected. But his tongue was liquid magic, stroking, touching, caressing. The serrated edges of his teeth toyed with her skin and she arched closer to him, wanting more.
&n
bsp; “That’s it, love,” he said, and slowly pulled the towel away from her to let it pool on the bathroom floor. Steamy mist hung in the air as he settled onto his knees, his mouth easing lower, his tongue rimming her navel, his hands moving over her abdomen. Calloused fingers smoothed her skin and she thought of the baby that might be growing within her.
His child.
His breath was hot against the damp nest of curls at the apex of her legs. He kissed her there and she moaned again, her skin on fire. With little urging, she opened to him and he kissed her, softly at first, then with more insistence, his lips and tongue sucking and licking, his breath swirling hot within her.
She bit her lip to keep from screaming, felt him lift her legs over his shoulders as she balanced against the sink. His groan reverberated through her, and the entire universe seemed to center deep in the most feminine part of her. As a morning breeze swept through the cracked-open window, chasing away the last remaining wisps of mist, the pressure mounted. Sweat sheened her body. His fingers dug into her skin. Lifted higher and higher, she was climbing, gasping, panting, until she reached the brink and fell over. Her entire body convulsed, the cold porcelain pressed into her hips, the heat of the man she loved breathing fire deep inside.
“Oooohh.” Her throat was dry, her skin fevered. She couldn’t think, could barely speak. “Trent…oh, Trent.”
“Shh, baby, it’s okay.” His words pulsed through her.
“No…I… Ooooh!” She bucked again and the universe collided. Her hands grabbed his head and held him close. She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her mouth against the primal scream that threatened to roar from her.
And then it was over. Her body went limp as he slowly let her legs fall back to the floor. She was dizzy, still spinning.