by Cait London
He scanned the low clouds, blanketing the mountains and laden with snow. With his grandmother, Mamie, and his brothers, Joel and Nick, Rafe had been trying to set right their father’s crimes and scams.
Lloyd Palladin’s schemes had ended in a life sentence for murder, and he’d been killed in prison. He’d given his sons nothing, not even pride. They’d built that with Mamie’s help. His grandmother had jerked her grandsons from the streets, shoved them into decent clothing, taught them rules and manners, despite their fighting every inch of the way.
Rafe ran his hand through his neatly clipped hair, surprised at the fine trembling. He studied his hands, neatly manicured but big and tough like his father’s. Hell, all the Palladin sons looked like Lloyd: dark brown hair, green eyes and a cleft in the center of their chins.
He felt as lonely and out of place as the tiny castle yanked from English soil and hurled, stone by stone, into the Rocky Mountains. The last twenty-four hours had torn Rafe’s life apart. His mother’s letter, written years earlier, had been sent by a friend of hers, and last week Rafe had discovered that Belinda was not his biological mother.
Joel and Nick were not his full brothers.
Through everything—Belinda’s early death, his father’s brutality and schemes—all Rafe had ever had was the knowledge that the three Palladin sons were a unit—strong, invincible, building their pride from nothing.
And now, he wasn’t one of them.
“Hold. Who goes there?” a man called out as a fresh blast of icy wind whipped around Rafe. Though it was only five o’clock, the cold mountain night shielded the castle now, and Rafe stood in front of his headlights, making his identification easier.
“Rafe Palladin, of Palladin, Inc.” Rafe glanced out into the shadows, remembering when his father had brought him and his brothers here, to patch the castle, “pretty it up,” to sell it. Joel, Nick and Rafe were too young to do the men’s work their father had demanded. He had ridiculed them into doing it, covering rotten boards with new ones, sweeping out the clutter of pack rats, scrubbing the windows. Rafe had been badly cut, too young to use a power saw. To save a doctor bill, Lloyd had cauterized it with a knife’s hot steel. So much for tenderness.
At night, while their father drank steadily, the brothers had lain on the floor and dreamed of being knights, protecting the castle and all who lived within. Rafe had held the crystal to the light, lost himself in the myriad of colors bursting from it and dreamed of the princess that he would rescue one day.
Rafe frowned as the drawbridge began to lower, chains creaking. He’d been a part of his father’s scam, taking Dr. Valerian’s retirement and his savings.
“Enter and welcome. Will you sup with us, friend?” the man asked cheerfully, as the heavy planks of the drawbridge slammed into the ground. “Did you say, ‘Palladin’? I bought this wonderful castle from a Palladin.”
“I’m his son.” Rafe forced the admission. He went back to the car to turn off his headlights and pick up his briefcase. As he made his way across the safe parts of the drawbridge, a rotted board tumbled down into the mote, filled with snow and debris.
“I’m Dr. Nathaniel Valerian. Welcome to my humble home, my castle, so to speak.”
“Father!” A women’s indignant tone hurtled at them as he opened the door. A woman who barely reached Rafe’s chest and wore a circlet of gleaming black braids on top of her head hurried to Nathaniel with a woolen shawl, draping it around his thin shoulders. She drew him into the kitchen. “Father, just look at your feet. How many times have I told you to wear your boots when going out in the snow?” she demanded, then glared at Rafe over the tops of her round glasses as if he were the culprit who had caused Nathaniel to misbehave.
“And who are you?” she demanded in a tone that matched the bitter, freezing weather outside the kitchen.
“My daughter, Demi Tallchief. After her divorce she reclaimed an ancestral name, which has made me very proud. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Tallchiefs of Amen Flats. We are distant cousins and have recently made their acquaintance. She prefers Demi to Demeter, who was goddess of the harvest Are you familiar with Greek mythology, Mr. Palladin?”
“Call me Rafe. I’m afraid I’ve never had time to study mythology.” Rafe saw no reason to chitchat about his own new relatives, the Tallchiefs. In his experience, a business deal was better without charity and friendship. From the way the woman hovered around her father, she was more parent than child. According to Rafe’s preacquisition research, Demi was thirty-one and divorced. She would have influence on Valerian’s decision to sell the castle, and Rafe would have to find her weaknesses.
“Palladin?” Demi asked, her narrow black eyebrows lifting. Her gray eyes seemed to smoke, narrowing threateningly at Rafe. “The man who wrote the letter, and the acquisitions director of Palladin, Inc.? The son of the swindler?”
Rafe turned slowly to her and met her cold stare. A man who battled for his pride, Rafe disliked her accusing glare down her straight nose and over her glasses. The shade of her eyes reminded him briefly of a stormy sky reflected in his crystal. She folded her arms protectively over her chest. “My father said we’re not selling, and that is final.”
Her voice, though clipped and furious, held softer tones, a feminine husky tone that snagged at Rafe. “I thought a personal visit and discussion might better—”
“No. Since you have no further business here, you may go.”
Rafe studied Demi Tallchief. Though she might not be familiar with the “stand and fight” motto of the Tallchiefs, she was not making his visit easy. Demi’s eagerness for Rafe to leave only made him more determined to stay. She obviously ruled the castle, and Rafe would enjoy seeing what happened when she was challenged....
Don’t miss Rafe and Demi’s love story, coming in August, only from Silhouette Desire.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6484-7
THE SEDUCTION OF FIONA TALLCHIEF
Copyright © 1998 by Lois Kleinsasser
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