by Laurie Paige
“Who’s this?” a male voice asked.
“Who are you calling?”
“This is Rand Harding,” the foreman said impatiently. “Something’s come up down here, a problem.”
His brief laugh was sardonic. Cade tensed, sure that questions about the runaway bride were coming.
“My sister took off right before the wedding. We haven’t heard from her since. She isn’t at any of her friends’ houses. Tell Kincaid—Wayne Kincaid—that I might not return on the fourteenth. In case I need more time to run her down.”
His manner boded no good for the sister when he located her. Cade found himself feeling almost sorry for Leanne. She had a lot of music to face.
“She might show up at the ranch,” Rand said, his tone expressing his doubts.
“In that case, I’ll keep an eye on her,” Cade promised.
That was certainly no lie. With young Jimmy smitten with her and trying to defend her from Gil, who wanted to score with her, he had to keep an eye on the situation. He should tell Rand to come and get her. But he didn’t.
“There’s a cabin in the mountains where my parents used to take us when we were kids. Bill and I are heading up there later today. Wayne has my cell phone number. He can call me if she shows up at the ranch.”
“Right.”
Cade hung up and tried to figure out why he hadn’t told Rand everything. But the way he figured it, that was Leanne’s job. She’d gotten herself into the mess and she could get herself out.
He headed for the dining room and a fresh cup of coffee. Trent Remmington—Larry Kincaid’s fifth illegitimate son and three years younger than Cade—was there with Garrett. So was Trent’s new wife, Gina—the P.I. who was still looking for Larry’s reputed seventh son.
An interesting history their tomcat father had had. As far as Cade was concerned, Judd Redstone was his real father. The man had treated him every bit as much a son as he had Ryder, Cade’s younger half brother.
“Good morning,” Cade said to his new family.
“Cade.” Garrett’s voice brimmed with pleasure as it did each time he spoke to one of the Kincaid brothers, legitimate or not.
Cade felt himself warming to the patriarch the longer he knew him. Unlike his profligate son, the older Kincaid took his responsibilities seriously, hence his buying the Kincaid ranch in Whitehorn for his grandsons.
“Harding called this morning. I, uh, told him I would keep an eye on his sister. She says she knows computers. I’m thinking of having her set up the breeding records.”
“Good idea,” Garrett agreed at once.
Cade ignored the jabs from his conscience. This lying by implication about Leanne was getting too easy. He was letting the Kincaids think she’d quarreled with her fiancé and that her brother knew she’d come to the ranch to get herself together and rethink her life.
Which wasn’t entirely a lie.
“Any new clues on the seventh son?” he asked Gina, who was prettily pregnant.
The brothers had razzed Trent about his fast work with the detective their grandfather had hired to find all the grandsons. He’d met, married and gotten her with child—not necessarily in that order—within a very short time.
“No. We’re checking birth records at all the hospitals. It’s a slow process.”
“But we won’t give up until we know for sure there’s no child,” Garrett put in.
Trent spoke up in a wry tone. “Never say quit. That’s the family motto.”
His eyes met Cade’s in sardonic amusement. The brothers had, among themselves, remarked on their father’s multiple brood. Apparently he’d been cast from the same mode as Jeremiah Kincaid, who, besides Wayne and a younger son, now deceased, had also had a couple of out-of-wedlock children.
Maybe it wasn’t in the Kincaid men to be faithful. Looking at his grandfather, Cade knew that wasn’t true. Maybe there was something within himself that wasn’t capable of loving a woman, not enough to satisfy her….
“Well,” he said, picking up the coffee mug, “I’d better get back to work.”
He headed toward the room he’d set up as his office, but the day beckoned. The sun was shining. The sky was clear. He needed to be outside. He exited the side door and ambled over to the bunkhouse.
Cookie was putting a turkey in the oven. Leanne was icing a cake, making pretty rosettes around the edge.
“Hi,” she said, pushing back a straggling curl with a lift of her shoulder. “We’re making a birthday dinner for Jimmy. It’s a surprise. Do we have candles?”
This last was said to Cookie, who grumpily informed her he didn’t run a party store.
“I’ll pick up some in town when I go this afternoon,” she decided, undeterred from her quest.
“I have a job for you,” Cade said in a hard voice, unsure how to act around her after that kiss a couple of nights ago. He’d managed to avoid her since then.
Her big green eyes stared at him warily, the bright humor of a moment ago gone. “Oh?”
“You said you could handle a computer. If Cookie can spare you, I want to get started on the breeding program.”
“Take her,” Cookie spoke up. “She drives me crazy, talk, talk, talk all the time.”
She gave the old man a pretty pout, then turned to Cade. “I’m almost finished here. Can you give me five minutes?”
He nodded and watched as she finished decorating the birthday cake with leaves around the roses. She washed up the utensils, dried her hands and turned to him.
“I’m ready.”
“We need to go to town.”
Surprised but pleased, she dashed to get her purse and fix her hair. The rubber band holding the thick tresses was gone when she returned. In its place was a green butterfly clip holding the side strands at the crown of her head.
He drove this time. She made no remarks on his old pickup and few about the scenery or weather on the way. He parked at the feed store and led the way inside. Along one wall was a shelf of computer programs especially designed for farmers and ranchers.
“You familiar with any of these?” he asked.
She looked the packages over. “A couple. Is there one you particularly like?”
“I don’t know a thing about any of them. You said you used a computer for inventory. I figured the horses could be tracked the same way.”
Her eyes sparkled up at him. “I used a spreadsheet and wrote my own macros. We can do the same. I tried to talk my dad into keeping up with his breeding herd like that, but he thought it was too complicated. Actually he didn’t like the idea at all. But it should work great for horses,” she finished on a positive note.
There was something totally honest in the way she admitted her father hadn’t liked her idea.
“Poor little genius,” he said.
Leanne laughed. His tone had been mocking, but gently so. He wasn’t as mean as he liked to pretend. She trailed after him while he put in an order for feed for the horses, then talked to the store owner about delivery dates and the problems with wholesalers. The owner asked him for another brochure about the auction. He’d given the last one away.
After promising to fax another for the store bulletin board, Cade led the way outside. He glanced at his watch.
“It’s lunchtime,” he said. “You want to stop in town?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” he asked irritably.
“On whether you’re paying. I’m financially challenged at the present.”
He cut a hard glance her way. “It’s a loan. You get paid at the end of the week.”
She smiled in relief. “Great. I wasn’t sure I’d get anything besides room and board. How much am I making?”
“Minimum wage.”
“I’m worth more than that. Computer skills command a high price on the market.”
His smile held a cutting edge. “Then I suggest you take your skills and ply them elsewhere.” He unlocked the truck and opened the door.
She climbed
inside, leaping up the high step quickly.
“I’ve always been attracted to long-legged women,” he remarked, then slammed the door.
He went around to his side, climbed in and cranked up the engine, turning the air conditioner on full-blast. She studied him, not sure how to take his remark.
“Yeah, it bothers me, too,” he said, looking her over when he stopped at a traffic signal.
“What?”
“The hunger. You feel it, too.”
“Watch it. I might throw myself on you in a fit of uncontrollable passion right here in broad daylight.”
He raised one thick dark eyebrow at her barb. “Right. I forgot I’m a rich rancher now. I have to be on the lookout for predatory women.”
“Huh. You’d have to come with a whole mountain of gold for me to take you on.”
“That wasn’t the way you were acting Sunday night.”
“A gentleman wouldn’t have brought that up.”
“Don’t confuse me with your city lovers,” he advised on a harsher note.
“My city—” She burst into laughter. “I’m not the sex kitten you seem to imagine, Mr. Rich Rancher. From my personal experience, which is quite limited, I think it’s an overrated commodity.”
She clamped her teeth into her lip. That was admitting too much. “I can’t believe I said what I just said,” she muttered. “You bring out the worst in me.”
“Maybe it was lurking in the background all the time.” His smile tipped one side of his mouth, taking the sting out of his observation. “I think we bring out something in each other, but it isn’t necessarily the worst. Maybe it would be the best.”
Chills, like a fever, rushed through her. “What?” she asked, not sure she should ask.
“Whatever,” he drawled.
“It’s odd to have this kind of give-and-take with a man. I’ve never found innuendo…interesting in the past.” Her pause to find the right word resulted in a tepid description. Actually she found the verbal sparring with him exciting and baffling and utterly fascinating. It was so tempting it had to be sinful.
He pulled into a parking place on the main street of the town. “The Hip Hop has the best lunch in these parts. Is it okay with you?”
She agreed it was. They went into the busy little café and got the last table.
Cade turned his attention to the special listed on the chalkboard. He ordered as soon as the waitress came over. She seconded it, then studied him across the table.
She’d caught glimpses of him around the ranch the past couple of days, each time with his grandfather or his new half brother or cousin.
“It must have been difficult,” she mused out loud, “to suddenly find yourself with a whole new family, your past entirely different from what you thought you knew. Like having to rediscover yourself and who you are.”
“I know who I am. I’m still the same person.”
“Not really. You have money now. You said yourself you’ll have to become more wary of women who want you for the Kincaid name—”
“My name is Redstone. That’s what it’s going to stay.”
Before she could reply, a woman with improbable red hair and earrings the size of saucers came in, spotted them and headed for the table.
“You’re one of the new Kincaid grandsons, aren’t you?” the woman said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Mind if I join you? The place is full today.”
“Lily Mae Wheeler, isn’t it?” Cade inquired.
Leanne noticed the woman didn’t catch the irony in his voice or that he hadn’t answered either of her questions.
“Yes. And this is…” The woman looked Leanne over, her eyes, shadowed heavily in blue and outlined in black, sparkling with interest.
“Leanne,” she said, deliberately not giving a last name.
“Leanne,” Lily Mae mused. “Ah. Rand Harding’s sister. Hasn’t he gone to your wedding?”
Leanne’s mouth dropped open.
“They had to postpone it due to unforeseen circumstances,” Cade supplied smoothly. “Leanne is helping us out at the ranch for a while.”
Lily Mae lost interest. “What do you think about Jordan Baxter’s claim on the ranch? Is it going to hold up the sale, do you think?”
Couldn’t the woman see Cade didn’t like being questioned? He shrugged while his eyes grew frosty.
“A lot of people think he’s being cheated out of his rightful inheritance. Are all the brothers still at the ranch?” the nosy woman asked without a pause.
Cade settled back in his chair in a deceptively relaxed pose. “Only Trent and his wife.”
Lily Mae leaned forward confidentially after a quick look around as if to make sure no one was listening. “Now there was a whirlwind marriage,” she said with a sly smile. “And none too soon. The bride is four or five months along, isn’t she?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Cade suggested. “Here, I’ll write the number down. You can call her yourself and get all the details.”
At the blank look on the older woman’s face, Leanne spluttered into her tea glass. She tried to cover the laughter with a cough and choked.
Cade pounded her on the back, his eyes cynically amused.
Their guest was unfazed. “What happened to postpone your wedding? I hope it was nothing serious.”
“A change of heart,” Leanne said honestly. “I decided I needed more time to think things through.”
Lily Mae nodded sympathetically, but Leanne didn’t add anything. The older woman glanced pointedly at Cade. “A woman needs to make sure she chooses wisely.” She laid a hand over her heart. “It hurts to lose the love of your life. I’m a widow myself.”
“And divorced two or three times,” Cade muttered in an aside. “Drove ’em all away with her chatter.”
Leanne kept a straight face with an effort.
Their food arrived, and they fell silent as the waitress dispensed rolls and butter and refilled their glasses. Lily Mae quickly ordered, then watched the young waitress as she headed for the kitchen.
“That new girl looks familiar. Reminds me of someone I’ve seen before.” She was silent for a minute as she mulled it over.
Leanne was sure the woman would come up with a name and recount the person’s entire history. But the Kincaid ranch was her major item at the present, and she returned to that subject.
“I’m surprised about Jordan Baxter myself. Filing that lawsuit and all,” she confided. “He seems like a nice young man. Not like that Lexine Baxter.” Lily Mae shook her head.
Cade narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
Leanne saw the name meant nothing to him. “Lexine Baxter used to live on the ranch next to the Kincaids’,” she explained. “Her father sold out to Jeremiah Kincaid years ago. She left town, then came back under an assumed name.” She remembered the gruesome details because of Rand being at the ranch and in the midst of all the murders. She and Daisy had worried about him.
Lily Mae continued the story. “Lexine married poor Dugin Kincaid, then murdered him. And that wasn’t the first. She killed her former partner, cool as you please, just minutes before her wedding. Dugin wasn’t the last, either. She did in old Jeremiah, too. Of course, he probably deserved it. He didn’t exactly live a saintly life, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m sure we do,” Cade drawled.
“Lexine’s in prison now. She’s serving life.”
The waitress brought Lily Mae’s lunch special. Again she stared at the girl, causing her to become flustered and nearly drop the platter.
“What’s your name, honey?” Lily Mae asked.
The waitress flushed and backed up a step. She glanced around as if looking for an escape hatch. “Emma. Emma Stover.”
“You got kinfolk around here?”
“No. Excuse me.” The girl rushed off.
“She sure looks familiar.” Lily Mae picked up a fork. “Now where was I? Oh, yes. Lexine Baxter. She may as well forget parole. The Kincaids carry too much wei
ght in this state for any parole board to set her free. I thought the Kincaid troubles would be over with her out of the way and not having any children, other than poor Rafe Rawlings, the waif she abandoned in the woods.”
“He’s the sheriff now, isn’t he?” Leanne asked, curious in spite of her reservations about encouraging the woman.
“Yes, he was promoted when Judd Hensley retired and moved his family out to some ranch in the back of beyond. I can’t, for the life of me, understand why people want to move so far from town and other people.”
Cade’s dark eyes met Leanne’s. Should we give her a clue? his gaze seemed to ask. She gurgled in her tea again. A tiny smile cracked his inscrutable face.
“The newspapers labeled Rafe ‘Wolf Boy’ when he was found, a toddler all by himself in an abandoned cabin. Can you imagine doing that to your own flesh and blood?”
“No,” Cade said with unexpected firmness.
Leanne knew he would never abandon his child…or the mother of that child. He would be faithful to the end if he ever married.
A black cloud descended over her spirits. She had made such a mess of her life. She didn’t even know where to begin in order to start over.
“But here’s more trouble for the Kincaids and caused by a Baxter again,” Lily Mae finished her thought.
“Ready to go?” Cade asked Leanne as soon as she polished off the last bite.
She nodded. He paid the bill for all of them and guided her out of the café without satisfying the gossipy woman’s curiosity about them or his reactions to the pending Baxter-Kincaid lawsuit.
On the road to the ranch, she studied his stern features and wondered about his life and the woman who’d left him at the altar.
“A person has to let the past go,” she said suddenly, not sure what she was trying to say or why she felt compelled to say it. “Everyone, including this Jordan Baxter guy, has to move on at some point in life.”
“Thank you for those words of wisdom,” Cade said with a great deal of mock solemnity as he turned onto the sparsely gravelled drive of the ranch.
“You’re welcome,” she replied cheerfully in spite of his sarcasm. “Did you love her very much—the woman who let you get away?”