Table of Contents

Cover Page

Dear Reader

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the exciting world of the Landons, and to the legacy that changes the lives of an entire family.

The idea of these books came to me when a friend and I met for lunch at a restaurant in New York. While we were waiting to be served, I overheard some women talking at the next table. They were discussing what makes a man exciting. “He has to be gorgeous,” said one. “And a rebel,” said another. “And not the least bit interested in being tamed,” said a third. The next thing I knew, Cade, Grant and Zach Landon sprang to life inside my head. They were certainly handsome, rebellious and untamable, and when I wonder what kind of women could possibly put up with them, their beautiful sister Kyra materialized and said, well, she’d always loved them, even if they were impossible!

This month I’m delighted to introduce Zach Landon in Hollywood Wedding. Zach thinks he’s got no worlds left to conquer…until his world is turned upside down by the exquisite Eve Palmer, a woman who’s not afraid to tell any man where to get off.

So settle back and enjoy four months of love, laughter and tears as you discover the full meaning of the Landon Legacy.

With my very warmest regards,

Sandra Marton

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM HARLEQUIN PRESENTS

LANDON’S LEGACY

1808—AN INDECENT PROPOSAL

1813—GUARDIAN GROOM

Hollywood Wedding
Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

ZACH hadn’t been sure which he wanted most, the woman or the mountain.

The woman had been watching him last night, sitting at a corner table in the inn’s lounge and giving him long, slow looks from under her lashes. There’d been no mistaking the message, but after a minute Zach knew it was no contest.

She was beautiful, but the world was full of beautiful women. The mountain was the challenge, all seven thousand, snow-covered feet of it. It would come first.

So he’d smiled back, told the bartender to send her a drink and lifted his glass to her before finishing the last of his brandy. Then he’d strolled toward the door, pausing beside her table.

“Here for the weekend?” he’d asked and when she’d nodded in assent, he’d smiled. “Alone?”

Her tongue had slicked across her lips. “No,” she’d murmured, “but that won’t stop you, will it?”

Zach had felt his body tighten in anticipation.

“Tomorrow evening,” he’d said softly, and then he’d gone to his room, taken a long, cold shower and turned his thoughts to the next day.

Now, as he undid his bindings and stepped out of his skis, he knew he’d made the right choice. His hands were numb with the cold that had managed to seep through his Gore-Tex gloves, his lungs cried out for more oxygen, and every muscle in his body ached.

He felt terrific.

A smile eased across his face, softening the hard, handsome angles and chiseled features.

He could see the copter approaching, skimming up the windswept Himalayan valley like a prehistoric bird, and he pumped a fist high into the air as it began its descent.

The Valley of the Gods had turned out to be perfect, exactly as Elise had promised. Zach grinned, remembering the conversation with his travel agent the week before.

He’d phoned her from the chartered jet, halfway between a dull breakfast meeting at the Boston Club and a duller luncheon appointment at Windows on the World atop the towering World Trade Center in New York.

“I want to get away for a couple of days,” he’d said without preamble. His administrative assistant had shoved a stack of papers under his nose. Zach had switched the phone to his other ear while he scrawled his initials on the pages. “Got any suggestions?”

Elise, who’d been dealing with Zach long enough to know exactly what the question meant, had instantly offered several in the British accent she still cultivated after better than forty years in the States.

What did he think of rock climbing in Yosemite? Rafting in Idaho? Sky diving in British Columbia?

“No,” Zach had said to each idea, “no, no. I want— I want…Just keep on going,” he’d said in exasperation.

Elise had rattled off more proposals while the jet banked over Manhattan’s narrow canyons. Zach had listened, frowning as he gazed out the window, picturing himself in an hour’s time seated at a table with half a dozen men twenty years his senior who’d pretend they’d really choose grilled tuna and braised radicchio over the rare steaks and butter-dripping baked potatoes their highpriced cardiologists had made them swear off forever, who’d talk stocks and bonds and investments with the appetite and passion most men reserved for women.

Something had knotted in Zach’s flat belly.

“Helicopter skiing,” he’d said into the phone, cutting short Elise’s description of windsurfing in the Caribbean. “Yeah, I know I’ve done it before, but that was in the Canadian Rockies or maybe it was Alaska. Where? The Himalayas?” For the first time in days, Zach had smiled. “Okay, babe,” he’d said, “that sounds good. Let’s go for it.”

Now here he was, on the far side of the world with a glacier and a mountain all to himself. With half a dozen glaciers and mountains all to himself, and nothing to remind him of the world he’d left behind, the telephones and fax machines and computers, the fat cats and fatter corporations that increasingly demanded his expertise and his time in a game that had grown dull.

Zach puffed out his breath. Here he was, as free as he’d been seven years ago, before he’d let the world suck him in, before he’d traded risk for wealth and freedom for the disaster that had been his marriage, and it felt damned wonderful.

Two hundreds yards away, the copter was settling to the earth in a whirling blizzard of rotor-driven snow. The pilot would probably want to take off right away, considering the lateness of the hour, the bitter cold and the omnipresent danger of avalanche.

Zach knew he’d pushed things to the edge as it was, fast-talking the guy into leaving him on the top of the mountain with nothing but his equipment, an avalanche transceiver, a flask of hot coffee and a couple of thick sandwiches for company.

“I dunno,” the pilot had said, scratching his head, “most people go up there with a guide.”

But Zach had persisted. The day he couldn’t talk his way into or out of a situation hadn’t dawned yet. He’d presented his skiing credentials as he would have presented a block of blue-chip stocks for the president of a multibillion-dollar bank and finally the man had shrugged, muttered something about it being Zach’s neck, not his, revved the engine, increased the pitch of the blades and left him to the gods and the mountain.

The day had been incredible. And, Zach thought with a start of surprise as he scrambled into the copter, it wasn’t over yet.

Someone was waiting for him. It was the woman from last night, dressed in a skintight spandex ski suit that showed off every inch of her lush body.

Zach smiled as he sat down beside her and put his lips to her ear so he could be heard over the noise of the copter.

“What a pleasant surprise.”

She smiled back “I thought it would be.”

At least that was what he thought she said. It was impossible to hear, but then, what did a man really need to hear when he was gazing into a pair of thickly fringed amber eyes set above a deliciously turned-up nose and a pouting mouth?

She moved closer, lay a scarlet-tipped hand on his arm and brought her lips to within a breath of his ear.

“I hope you don’t mind. I talked your pilot into taking me along while he collected you.”

Zach’s smile tilted as her thigh settled gently against his.

“Mind? Hell, no. I’m delighted.” The helicopter rose into the air and Zach leaned closer. “My name is—”

“You’re Zachary Landon. I know.” She smiled. “I’m Keri.”

Zach drew back so he could look at the soft, smiling mouth that promised paradise, at the high thrust of the breasts that made a man’s hands ache to touch them. A surge of desire flooded through him and he pulled the woman into his arms and kissed her.

A man would have to be crazy to turn down a woman like this. She was beautiful and she would sleep with him simply because she enjoyed it. She wasn’t like his ex-wife, who used sex for gain. And if she didn’t believe in fidelity any more than the former Mrs. Landon had, at least she hadn’t taken any vows pretending she did.

Keri’s hand began to trace a path up his thigh. Zach caught her fingers in his, and she gave him a slow, dazzling smile before she arched toward him and put her lips to his ear again. Her breath danced along his skin.

“He’s gone,” she said. “I sent him away.”

There was no need to ask who, or what, she was talking about. Zach smiled as he brushed his lips against hers.

“Good,” he said, his mouth against the pink shell of her ear, “just so long as you understand that I’ll be gone, too, in a week.”

Her smile was sexy, her fingers cool as she clasped his face in her hands and drew it close to hers.

“But what a memorable week it’s going to be,” she said.

Zach kissed her again, more deeply this time, and then he drew her close and gazed out the open door as the helicopter swept across the valley.

Today, he had claimed the mountain. Tonight, he would claim the woman. And if he was lucky, he would not tire of either until it was time to return to the real world. He would go back to Boston, to the house on Beacon Hill and to the brokerage firm that bore his name.

Any man not satisfied with all that was nothing but a fool.

Thirteen hours and another world away, Eve Palmer yawned as she made her way across the dark, silent courtyard of her Los Angeles apartment complex to her front door.

It was two in the morning and she was tired to the bone.

She had risen before six, fought the freeway traffic in her beautiful but ailing sports car and taken the first of a day’s worth of meetings at eight. Ten hours later, she’d grabbed a sandwich while she viewed the dailies of Triad’s current movie-in-progress, a dog of a film she’d inherited from her predecessor.

At nine o’clock she’d fixed her makeup, slapped a smile on her face and gone to a cocktail party. At eleven, she’d let Dex Burton, Hollywood’s newest up-and-coming macho male lead, whisk her off for a late-night supper so they could talk business. At least, that was what Dex had claimed.

Eve made a face as she jabbed her key into the lock of the front door and stepped into her tiny living room. But the only business Dex had wanted to do was in bed.

“You give a little, you get a little, lover,” he’d said, flashing her a toothy grin.

It had infuriated her but it hadn’t surprised her. She’d learned the lesson early, that men saw nothing wrong in trading power for sex. If it was more obvious in Hollywood than it had been in foster homes back in Minnesota, it was only because Hollywood had more powerful men and beautiful women per square mile than any other place on the planet.

Eve had managed to keep smiling, to pretend she didn’t understand Dex’s sleazy message. But when his hand had slipped under the table and slid casually up her thigh, her self-control had vanished. She’d told Dex what he could do with his charm and his nonexistent talent, and now here she was, still without a lead for Hollywood Wedding, the film that would determine the course of Triad’s future, and hers.

The apartment was warm and stuffy. Eve kicked off her shoes and headed straight for the air conditioner, sighing as the first cool blast came sweeping through the vents.

A shower, then bed, she thought as she took off her jacket. It wasn’t just the long day that had tired her, it had been standing around at that cocktail party, putting on a bright face to convince the world that rumors of Trident’s imminent demise were exaggerated.

At least the other rumors had eased off, the ones that had plagued her after fate had brought Triad into her life.

No. That wasn’t quite accurate, Eve thought as she undressed. It wasn’t fate that had handed her the top spot at Triad. It was Charles Landon, and that was why the rumors had flown.

Struggling film-production companies were as common as crabgrass, but for a multimillionaire to put a woman at the head of such a company when she had never held that kind of job before—that wasn’t common at all.

That Charles had done it on little more than a whim was something the rumormongers couldn’t comprehend. In her better moments, Eve had to admit it was hard to blame them. She’d had trouble comprehending it herself, she thought as she pulled the clips from her hair.

Her chin lifted in an unconscious gesture of defiance as a cascade of pale golden curls tumbled down her back.

But her relationship with Charles had been strictly business. She had not wangled responsibility for Triad from an old man in some cheap game played out between satin sheets. She had simply been in the right place at the right time, and Charles had taken it from there.

Sometimes she’d been tempted to stand up in a place like Spago’s, bang on a water glass and announce that to the world.

But she never had.

One of life’s most painful lessons was that denying a lie sometimes only gave it the aura of truth.

Eve had learned that at seventeen, when her foster father had tried to molest her. After months of complaining, someone had finally believed her. Eve had almost wept with relief, but it had been short-lived. Her foster father had pointed an accusing finger at her and convinced his wife and the social worker that it was Eve who’d come on to him.

No, Eve thought as she switched on the bathroom light, no, there was no point in denying the rumors about Charles and her. Ignoring them had been the right thing. The whispers had faded, then died—to be replaced by whispers about Triad and speculation about how long the company would take to fail.

But it wasn’t going to fail. She wouldn’t let it. Hollywood Wedding would save Triad, Eve was sure of it. All she needed was the right cast and location…

The breath sighed from her lungs. All, she thought with a little laugh, all.

Eve lifted her head and looked into the bathroom mirror. Her weary smile faded as she met her own cooleyed gaze. She could do it. She would do it. Charles Landon had handed her a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and she wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Absolutely nothing, and no one, was going to keep her from succeeding.

Deep in the Himalayas, Zach and Keri entered the inn.

“I’ll meet you in the lounge for drinks and dinner after I’ve showered,” he said, with a little smile.

Keri linked her arms around his neck.

“Wouldn’t you rather shower in my room?” she whispered “I’ll phone down for champagne, and——”

“Mr. Landon?” Zach turned. The innkeeper stood a few feet away, his expression solemn. “Sir, this just came for you over the wireless.”

Zach smiled as he took the message from the man’s outstretched hand.

“Don’t look so down in the mouth, Patel. Unless it’s my office wiring me that the market’s crashed…” His voice faded to silence as he scanned the slip of paper again. When he looked up, his smile was gone. “Hell,” he said softly.

Keri frowned. “What’s the matter?”

Zach ignored her. “I’ll need access to your wireless,” he said sharply to the innkeeper. “And I’ll expect the copter to be ready to leave in five minutes.”

“Of course, Mr. Landon. I’m terribly sorry, sir. May I offer my condolences?”

“Zach?” The woman’s voice called after him as he hurried up the stairs. “What’s happened? Where are you going?”

He paused at the top of the steps and looked down at her, his expression blank. Her name had gone clear out of his head.

“Sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid our plans are off.”

A pout spread across her pretty face. “What do you mean, off? You said——”

“I’ve got to fly back to the States. I just got word that my old man died.”

“Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

She waited. Zach knew he was supposed to show something, to feel something. But it was too late for that. It was years too late.

All there was time for now was the long journey home.

CHAPTER ONE

SOMEWHERE above the Rocky Mountains, the wild cry of a hawk rose on the early morning air. The sound awakened Zach instantly, just as it always had when he was a boy.

He lay back against the pillows. But he wasn’t a boy now, he thought wryly, he was a man, and as free as the hawk. There was no need to dream of the day he, too, could leave behind the Landon mansion and the valley it commanded.

He had done that, thirteen long years ago, and though he had returned from time to time, he had never missed this place.

With a sigh, he shoved aside the blankets, sat up and scrubbed his stubbled face lightly with his hands.

What time was it, anyway? He peered at the clock beside his bed. Six thirty-seven, said the unblinking red digital face. Zach groaned softly and put his head in his hands.

If he was at home in Boston, he’d have already been up half an hour. By now, he’d be shaved, showered and dressed; he’d be on his way downstairs to the sun room, where Howell would greet him with a polite good morning, a pot of freshly ground coffee and copies of the Boston Globe, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

But he wasn’t in Boston, Zach thought as he rose to his feet and padded, naked, to the window. He was in Colorado. And getting up at six o’clock was no pleasure when you hadn’t gone to bed until someplace after two the night before.

A grin crept across Zach’s face. The evening had been terrific, though. Sitting around, talking and reminiscing with his brothers, was always great.

It never failed to amaze him just how easily he, Cade and Grant fell back into the patterns of their childhood when they got together. Though they were separated by time, by geography and by the demands of their very different professions, all they had to do was meet under the same roof and the years fell away. They were kids again, not just brothers but best buddies, joined by blood, by love—and by their determination to stand up to the common enemy. Their father.

The smile slipped from Zach’s face. The enemy was gone now. Charles had been dead almost a week, the funeral was over, and he still didn’t feel anything. Hell, you were supposed to feel something when you watched your old man’s coffin settling alongside your mother’s in the family mausoleum, weren’t you, something more than a faint sense of regret?

He shook his head as he ran his hand through his chestnut-colored hair. His brothers had been as stonyfaced as he. Kyra had been the only one of the Landon children whose eyes had glittered with tears, but then, his baby sister was as sweet and tenderhearted a soul as had ever lived. That she’d never been one of the old man’s victims, Zach thought wryly, proved that there was a merciful God. Charles’s tyrannical callousness, his authoritarian coldness, had been reserved for his sons alone.

With a sigh, Zach turned away from the window and headed for the attached bathroom. That was all in the past now, he thought as he stepped into the shower stall, and not just because the old man was gone. Charles had lost power over his sons a long time ago. Cade had escaped at twenty-one, giving up the life the old man had picked out for him for the dream of striking it rich in the oil fields. Grant hadn’t lasted that long; he’d made his move at eighteen, going off to the university of his choice instead of his father’s and making his way through it and law school on his own.

Zach smiled tightly as he turned his face up to the water. But he’d had less patience than either of his brothers. At seventeen, he’d walked away from this place and…

He laughed. Hell, no. He hadn’t walked away, he’d driven—in his father’s Porsche. Taking off in the hundred-thousand-dollar car had been his final act of defiance, a kind of in-your-face present from him to Charles as if to prove he was every inch the no-good punk the old man said he was.

Actually, by then, a punk was exactly what he’d become. His grades—except for science, which he loved, and math, which he could do without thinking—were in the toilet. He’d been running with a fast and loose crowd, and it had only been a matter of time before he’d have gotten in trouble with the law.

His smile faded as he stepped out of the shower. Even at seventeen, he’d hated himself for what he was turning into, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

Nothing he did was good enough to please his father. His As in math and science didn’t make up for the Bs (and occasional Cs) he got in dull subjects like social studies and languages. His position on the football team as a grunting, hurt-in-the-dirt lineman was nothing compared to the flash and dash he’d have had as a running back or a wide receiver. And his friends were the wrong ones, local boys instead of snot-nosed brats from the exclusive school the old man insisted he attend in Denver.

By the time Zach had reached the age of seventeen, it was as if he’d become determined to live down to each of Charles’s expectations.

“You’ll never amount to anything,” Charles had said, for as long as Zach could remember.

Looking back now, Zach had to admit that it might have been true. He never would have amounted to anything, not if he’d stayed in this house.

But the last angry blowup had tipped the scales. It had started over some flippant remark he’d made and quickly escalated to a summary of all Zach’s sins. At the end of it, Charles had given him an ultimatum.

“Either you live by my rules or you’ll get out,” he’d shouted.

Zach hadn’t hesitated. Seconds later, he was out the door and in the Porsche, burning rubber as he roared down the driveway and onto the narrow road that led off the estate, driving hell-bent-for-leather into Denver, never stopping until he pulled up at the Army recruitment office.

A smile twisted across his mouth as he recalled the way the scowling recruiting sergeant had looked him up and down, sucked in his cheeks and asked how old he was.

“Eighteen,” Zach said, without blinking.

“Eighteen, huh?” The sergeant smiled. “Tell you what, kid. You bring me your birth certificate and we’ll talk about enlistment.”

The Marine recruiter down the street wasn’t as picky, especially because Zach, wiser if still not older, had paused just long enough to get his hands on a doctored driver’s license before he put in an appearance.

The Marine had looked at Zach, then at the license.

“You got a birth certificate to back this up, son?” he’d drawled.

“Yes, sir,” Zach had answered. It wasn’t a lie, not when you considered that his order for the certificate was already in the works.

“And you’ll produce it tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir,” Zach had said again, his posture erect and his green eyes firmly fixed on the wall just beyond the Marine’s head.

The recruiter had shrugged and shoved a stack of papers across his desk.

“Read ’em, sign ’em, and we’re in business.” As Zach had reached for the papers, the man’s callused hand slapped down hard on his wrist. “Just be sure you know what you’re doing, son.”

Zach had pulled his hand loose and looked up, his eyes suddenly the color of a storm-tossed ocean.

“I’m not anybody’s son,” he’d said coldly, “and I know exactly what I’m doing.”

But, Zach thought now, he hadn’t known a damn. He smiled ruefully as he began dressing. Boot camp and Parris Island had seemed a worse hell than the one he’d escaped—except that at the end of it, the Corps had welcomed him to its bosom in a way his father never had.

For the first time in his young life, Zach had found a home.

By the time he left the Marines four years later, he had a sense of discipline, a yearning for success and a twenty-thousand-dollar stake. On two continents and in half a dozen Corps barracks, his take-no-prisoners attitude, coupled with his head for numbers, had turned him into a steady winner at high-stakes poker.

After that, it was easy. The money had seen him through a couple of years of college, where his finance courses had taught him two things.

The first was that he knew more by instinct about stocks and bonds and market shares than his professors.

The second was that playing poker wasn’t all that different from playing the markets, it was just that the markets paid off bigger.

At twenty-three, Zach had left school. He’d dabbled in arbitrage for a year, in high-risk corporate takeovers for another. At twenty-five, with a couple of million dollars under his belt, he’d decided to settle down. He’d bought himself a seat on the Exchange.

Now, at thirty, he was head of his own firm, one of the most successful young stockbrokers in America.

And one of the most bored.

Zach frowned and paused with his hand on the hanger that held one of the three almost identical dark blue suits he’d had Howell express here from Boston. It was the truth. He was bored out of his mind. It was terrible to admit, but if there’d been one benefit to this last week, it was that it had, at least, ripped him away from the unvarying routine of his days.

He shook his head. What was the matter with him? He’d come here straight from the Himalayas, where he’d been anything but bored, skiing a mountain that pierced the clouds and making it—well, almost making it— with…with whatever her name had been.

What he needed was to get back to work. He had to get back to work. There were fat-cat clients to wine and dine, a dozen dull meetings to chair…

“Hell,” he said, under his breath, and he reached quickly past the three suits, hanging shoulder to shoulder like the three Marx Brothers, pulled out the Harris tweed jacket he’d taken with him to the Himalayas and strode from the bedroom.

The house was quiet, just as it had always been. Even when he and Cade and Grant were kids, they’d tried not to make any noise here, automatically saving their rough-and-tumble for the stables or the endless lawns and pastures. There was something about the Landon mansion, Zach thought as he made his way down the wide staircase, that didn’t inspire the sound of childish voices lifted in glee.

It didn’t inspire the sound of voices at all, he thought, his mouth tightening. The dozens of guests who’d come back here after the funeral had stood around whispering to each other, and there’d been no doubt in Zach’s mind that it was the house they were deferring to and not the occasion.

What an incredible circus the funeral had been! Judges, politicos, bankers, CEOs and board presidents from damned near all the Fortune 500 companies in the West had shown up, all of them looking solemn—and all of them trying to figure out which Landon son was the one who was going to take Charles’s place.

A smile tugged at Zach’s lips as he followed the wonderful aroma of Stella’s coffee toward the dining room. What would all those bigwigs say when they learned that they wouldn’t have the chance to genuflect to any of the Landons? Yesterday, after the reading of their father’s will, the brothers had taken all of two minutes to agree that not a one of them wanted any part of Landon Enterprises.

Zach would check out Landon’s corporate worth and put a price on its head. Grant would handle the legal end. Cade would decide which lost and forgotten, poverty-stricken dots on the map were most in need of hospitals and schools, courtesy of the sale.

And that would be the end of it. Charles Landon’s gift to his sons would go the way of the dodo bird, a fate it surely deserved. Zach and his brothers would be free; only Kyra would keep any ties to the old man, but that was as it should be.

His face softened as he thought of his sister. She was a sweetheart, the light of all their lives. He could hear her voice now, soft and musical, drifting from the dining room.

“…still can’t believe Father left the place to me,” she was saying.

Zach smiled as he stepped into the room.

“Why wouldn’t he have?” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and made his way toward the coffee urn. “You adore this place, baby. It would have been wrong if he’d left it to anyone else.”

Kyra looked up and smiled. “Well,” she said, “don’t you look handsome this morning.”

Zach smiled back at her, even if it wasn’t easy to do. Of all the gloomy rooms in the house, he’d always disliked this one the most. He’d suffered through endless inquisitions and endless criticisms at that big mahogany table.

It suddenly seemed like old timesthe dark furniture, the sideboard overladen with food no one would eat. Lord, he couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

He looked at Cade, who was seated at the table with a cup of coffee in his hands.

“Where’s Grant?” Zach shot back his cuff and looked at his watch. “I thought he’d be back from that meeting with the old man’s administrative assistant by now.”

Cade cocked an eyebrow and got to his feet. “And a charming good morning to you, too.”

“It’s late, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve got an eleven o’clock flight to Boston.”

“And you’re going to make it out of uniform?” Cade shook his head. “I thought all you banker types signed a pledge that said you had to go around in pinstripes.”

“I’m not a banker, I’m a stockbroker. And go ahead, pal. Laugh all you want. Just remember that in a couple of days you’ll be smiling prettily at an English version of me, trying to convince him to invest in your latest search for maybe-it-exists-and-maybe-it-doesn’t oil in— where’d you say you were going this time?”

“The North Sea,” Cade said. “And there’s no maybe about it, my friend. It’s at least as sure a bet as those investments you push.”

Zach smiled at the familiar banter.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I suspect that if your fat-cat clients knew I could still beat you arm wrestling without breaking a sweat——”

“Still? What do you mean, still? You never beat me, not once.”

“Prove it.”

“My pleasure. Just let me take off my jacket

and——”

“Dammit, what is this? Are we kids or adults?”

The Landons all swung toward the door. Grant was standing just inside the room, glaring balefully.

“Grant?” Kyra said. “What’s wrong?”

Grant tossed a manila folder on the table, strode to the sideboard and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

A lie if ever I heard one, Zach thought. Grant looked like a man who’d just had the ground cut out from under him.

“Well?” Cade asked. “What did Bayliss want to talk about?”

Grant’s lips compressed. “Trouble.”

“Trouble?” Zach frowned. “What sort of trouble?”

“This sort,” Grant said.

He took the folder from the table, drew two stacks of papers from it and handed one to each of his brothers. Kyra looked at him as if she was waiting for him to hand her something, too. When he didn’t, she turned away and walked slowly to the window.

The minutes passed while Zach and Cade leafed through the papers Grant had given them. Finally, Cade looked up.

“What is this crap?”

“Exactly what it seems to be. Father bought an oil company in Dallas——”

“You mean, he bought a disaster.” Cade tossed the papers he’d been reading on the table. “And he let it go from bad to worse. Now it’s damned near bankrupt.”

Zach looked up and frowned. “Oil company? Hell, man, what are you talking about? What I’ve got here is an acquisitions profile on some two-bit Hollywood production company named Triad. The old man saddled Landon Enterprises with it, and now it’s about to sink like a stone.”

“You’ve each got different reports drawn up by Bayliss, but the bottom line’s the same. Father bought these companies not long before he took ill, and they seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle”

“Yeah,” Zach said, “well, when this Triad outfit goes down for the third time, it’s going to take lots of Landon dough with it.”

“The same for Gordon Oil,” Cade said. “Landon’s gonna take a nasty hit when it dies.”

Grant’s expression grew even more grim. “Terrific,” he snarled. “Landon went into the two firms to bail them out. Instead, we seem to have made them worse.”

Cade’s brows rose. “What do you mean, ‘we’, big brother?”

“Exactly what I said. As of yesterday, we are Landon Enterprises. And we will be, until we find a buyer.”

Zach looked at Grant, then at the papers he’d dumped on the table.

“Hell,” he muttered, as he gathered them up.

There was no point in arguing with Grant’s assessment. He was right, and the three of them knew it. If the Hollywood outfit and that Dallas company went belly up, they’d leave a blotch of red ink on Landon Enterprises’ ledgers big enough to scare off any potential buyer.

Something had to be done, and quickly.

“Okay,” Cade said, “tell Bayliss——”

“Bayliss retired, as of this morning.” Grant smiled at the looks on his brothers’ faces. “He said he was too old to face another Colorado winter. He bought himself a house in the Virgin Islands. He’s going to spend the rest of his days on the beach, sipping pina coladas.”

Zach cleared his throat. “I’ll phone Goodwin, then. Bayliss’s second in command. He can——”

“Goodwin’s tied up with a dozen other things.”

Cade tossed the Gordon Oil report onto the table. “Terrific,” he snapped. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The men swung around. Kyra was glaring at them as if she couldn’t believe what she’d been hearing. “What’s the matter with you guys? Are you dumb, or what?” She shook her head. “And don’t waste your breath telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about. A child could figure this mess out!”

“Kyra,” Zach said gently, “baby——”

“You’re the financial whiz in this family,” Kyra said, stabbing a finger in his direction. “You could fly out to the coast, take a look at Triad’s books and decide what can be done to help it.”

“Me? Don’t be silly. I’ve got people waiting for me in Boston. I can’t just——”

“And you,” she said to Cade, “the genius who knows all about oil…Would it be too much to hope that maybe, just maybe, you might be the one to check things out in Dallas?”

“Impossible! I’ve business in London. I can’t——”

“She’s right,” Grant said. “You two could get a handle on things faster than anybody else.”

There was a moment’s silence. Cade and Zach looked at each other, and then Zach threw up his arms in defeat.

“Two days,” he snapped, “and not a second more.”

Cade blew out his breath. “Yeah. Two days, and then…Wait just a minute.” He swung toward Grant. “What about you? Don’t tell me you’re the only one of us who gets to walk away from this mess?”

Color rose in Grant’s cheeks. “Not exactly. It seems a friend of Father’s named him guardian of his kid a couple of years ago.”

Zach and Cade began to smile. “Don’t tell me,” Cade said.

“Listen, we can change jobs, if you want. The twelve-year-old for the oil company or the Hollywood studio…?”

“No,” Zach said quickly, “no, that’s okay, pal. I’ll deal with Hollywood, Cade’ll handle Dallas” His lips twitched. “And I bet you’re going to make one hell of a terrific baby-sitter.”

Cade tried not to laugh, but a sound burst from his lips. Grant swung toward him.

“This is not funny,” he choked.

But it was, and they all knew it. The brothers began to laugh, and then they moved into a tight circle, clapped each other on the back and joined right hands as they had when they were boys.

“To the Deadeye Defenders,” they said solemnly. They grinned happily at each other, and then Cade sighed.

“Time to get started.”

Zach nodded. “Yeah. I’ll see you guys before I leave.”

He punched Grant lightly in the shoulder, snapped an imaginary right hook at Cade’s chin, blew a kiss to Kyra and made his way to his room to pack.

It was going on ten o’clock. If he was going to make that eleven o’clock flight to Boston…

Actually, it made more sense to fly straight out to California. He was halfway there already; besides, if he went to Boston, he’d only get tied up in a dozen things. And this mess the old man had created had to be dealt with now, not next week or next month.

With a sigh, he sank down on the edge of his bed and scanned the report again. Triad had been privately owned by a man named Tolland. It had never made any real money, although it had at least been able to keep its head above water. About three years ago, its puny profits had finally turned to losses.

Charles had bought the company some months ago. As for who was running it for him…Zach frowned. It was a woman named Eve Palmer, and she had to be doing a piss-poor job because Triad was in its death struggles.

Zach stuffed the report into his suitcase, locked it and reached for the phone. He’d call the office, ask for more detailed info to be delivered by courier to the airport.

While he was at it, he’d make a couple of other calls, including one to Howell telling him to pack something besides those damned dark blue suits and express them to L.A. as soon as he had his hotel arrangements squared away. And his portable computer—he’d need that, too. It was obvious, now that he’d read the report more carefully, that two days on the coast was optimistic.

But five days would surely do it. Triad was dying, and he had dealt with dying companies before, back in the early days when he’d made fast money by moving in and administering the coup de grace.

Zach picked up his suitcase, walked briskly to the door and stepped out into the hallway.

By this time next week, Triad Productions would be history.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS the kind of day that made people happy they lived in southern California. The sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the temperature hovered in the gentle seventies.

“Fantastic,” said the tourists outside Disneyland.

“Terrific,” said the roller bladers on Ocean Front Walk.

“Awesome,” agreed the surfers at Redondo Beach.

“Rats,” muttered Eve Palmer as she sat trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Her car had not moved a mile in the past twenty minutes. The only thing moving was her temper, and it was rising as rapidly as the temperature inside the car.

Whatever had happened to simple things, like windows you rolled up and down at will? Her old Chevy had had them; you could let in air with a crank of the wrist. But this car that Charles had insisted on buying for her did not. Eve had not wanted it. She didn’t need a silver car that looked like a Batmobile, she’d told him, but Charles had disagreed.

“The head of Triad must look prosperous,” he’d said, as he’d handed her the keys to a vintage Jaguar.

The car had, at first, won her over with its simple but elegant styling. But it was also a money-eating monster, as she’d discovered last week, when the windows, air-conditioning and engine had all begun to malfunction.

A white-coated technician named Hans, looking more like a surgeon than a mechanic, had poked and prodded at its innards. Finally, in hushed tones, he’d pronounced the patient ill but repairable—to the tune of three thousand dollars and three weeks in the shop.

Fortunately for Eve, he’d misinterpreted her sudden pallor.

“If doing without your automobile will be a hardship, Miss Palmer, we can provide you with a temporary replacement.”

Eve had opened her mouth, ready to tell him that the hardship would be coming up with three thousand bucks in this lifetime, but then she’d remembered the second thing that Charles had taught her.

“Never let ’em see you sweat,” he’d said.

So she’d smiled, shoved her oversize sunglasses off the bridge of her small, straight nose and up into her blond hair and said that it just wouldn’t do, not when she was about to begin filming Hollywood Wedding.

“With Dex Burton,” she’d added, because that was an axiom she’d figured out herself. You got publicity wherever you could, and the fact that she hadn’t yet signed Dex—and probably never would—was no one’s business but her own.

Hans had almost clicked his heels with respect.

“I suppose it sounds silly,” she’d said in a way that made it clear she didn’t think it silly at all, “but the car’s my lucky charm. The repairs will have to wait until we’re done shooting.”

Hans, who’d dealt with Hollywood’s finest for years, knew they were as superstitious as his Gypsy forebears. Still, he’d permitted himself an upraised eyebrow.

“Of course, Miss Palmer. But you understand that the car will not work dependably until repairs are made?”

“Certainly,” Eve had said and driven off jauntily, as if she’d always longed to pilot a motorized sauna.

Now here she sat, the AC barely wheezing, the windows only willing to open an inch, the engine giving an ominous shudder every few minutes. Her hair was damp, her silk suit was plastered to her skin—and that wasn’t the worst of it.

This was the last day of filming The Ghost Stallion, the hideous movie she’d inherited from her predecessor. She ought to be out on location, making certain nothing else went wrong. Instead, she was going to be trapped in her office while Zachary Landon, Charles’s son, peered into cabinets, counted paper clips and tsk-tsked over every dime she’d spent.

It had been shock enough to learn of Charles’s death, but to find out that his son was flying in to check up on her…

His accountant son, the one Charles had mentioned when Eve had tried to explain how East Coast bankers had almost destroyed Triad. She hadn’t been sure a man like Charles would understand, but he had.

“Some money men have no imagination at all,” he’d said.

Eve had sighed with relief. “Exactly. Filmmaking is a unique business, Mr. Landon. Mr. Tolland tried explaining that to the bank’s accountants, but——”

“Call me Charles, please. Yes, I can imagine what you went through with the bean counters. Hell, when I think that my own son is one of them…”

“An accountant?”

“Zachary,” Charles had said, his face darkening, “in with a bunch of effete Boston jackasses instead of taking his rightful place at my side. It’s enough to send my blood pressure through the top of the tube.”

Which was pretty much what it was doing to hers now, Eve thought as she edged the car forward.

Charles had understood instinctively that it would take time, money and a few breathtaking risks to save Triad. His accountant son would not.

“Damn,” she said, and gave the steering wheel a sharp whack with her fist.

Traffic began moving and Eve slipped the car into gear and urged it forward. Somehow, she’d have to make him understand. If only she could get to the office before he began poking his ink-smudged fingertips into things.

The cellular phone in the console rang. Eve snatched it up.

It was her secretary. Eve listened, the expression on her face going from concern to dismay to despair. “Are you sure, Emma? Must I really go out there?”

Yes. She must. Eve grimaced, snapped out a few orders and slammed down the phone.

There was a problem on the set again, a disagreement between the movie’s egotistical male lead and Francis Cranshaw, its equally asinine director. She had no choice but to deal with it before she dealt with Zachary Landon.

Men, she thought in disgust, men and their damned arrogance.

An opening suddenly appeared in the next lane. Eve accelerated hard and swung into it, cutting off a black Porsche that was trying to do the same thing. The Porsche’s brakes squealed as she shot past it.

Eve glanced into her mirror as the Porsche’s horn gave a long, angry blast. She could see nothing of the other driver except mirrored sunglasses above a thinned, angry mouth and an aggressive jaw.

He said something—yelled it, probably. Eve didn’t have to hear the words to know they were not pleasant.

Too bad, she thought. With a little smile of grim pleasure, she stepped down on the gas and left the Porsche and its driver engulfed in a cloud of black smoke.

Zach let out a string of words that should have turned the air blue. It had been a woman driving the silver Jaguar—he’d just had time to see the bright gold hair before she’d left him eating dust.

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel of the Porsche. For one wild moment, he fantasized about speeding up, forcing the silver car onto the shoulder of the road, hauling out the driver and…

And what? Slugging women wasn’t his style, not even women like the one he’d spent the flight out here reading about.

Eve Palmer, he thought, and a muscle knotted in his jaw.

He sighed and loosened his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. This was not shaping up as a good day. Everything that could go wrong had, from the minute he’d hit the Denver airport. His plane had been late getting off the ground, the ride had been bumpy, and the much-touted in-flight telephone had worked only after the flight engineer had put in an appearance with a screwdriver and a roll of duct tape.

But the phone had worked then, well enough to bring Zach the information he’d needed to fill in the holes in the Triad file. What he’d learned had not made him happy.

Triad’s costs were up, its profits down, and it was easy to see why. His first guess had been right. The CEO, Eve Palmer, was about as qualified to head the company as she was to perform brain surgery.

“A woman CEO?” Cade had said, in the couple of minutes they’d had to compare notes this morning. His brother had grinned. “Yeah, I’ve got one to deal with in Dallas, too. When will these broads admit they don’t belong in business?”

Zach didn’t think that way. Women drivers were one thing, but he had no problem with women in the boardroom—if their ability was what had got them there.

And that was the problem. Eve Palmer had not climbed the corporate ladder, she’d scaled it on her back in a tangle of silken sheets. It was a mixed metaphor, but how else could you describe a woman who’d won her spot at Triad by becoming Charles Landon’s lover?

The facts were indisputable, starting with the file itself and some notes in his father’s hand.

“The Palmer woman is beautiful,” Charles had written. “Clever, and more than ambitious.”

Zach snorted. Calling her ambitious was understating it. The woman was twenty-five years old. She’d shown up in Hollywood in her teens, apparently from nowhere. Like a million other girls with a million other dreams, she’d been determined to become an actress. But she hadn’t figured on the endless supply of other Eves and Kims and Winonas who arrived on almost every bus.

Undeterred, she had taken other jobs.

She’d modeled. She’d waitressed. She’d sold panty hose and makeup. She’d been a secretary in an office and learned word processing, and in between, she’d even managed to land walk-ons in a couple of movies Zach had never heard of.

Then she’d lucked out. A temporary job as secretary to Howard Tolland, Triad’s former owner, had blossomed into a full-time position. And then Charles Landon had come along.

Zach’s mouth twisted. The rest, as they said, was history.

Whether she’d warmed the old man’s bed before or after he handed her Triad was unclear, but it didn’t matter. The file said it all. Charles had met her one day, taken her out that night. A week later, he’d moved her into the executive office.

Traffic was thinning. Zach shifted gears and let the Porsche build up some speed. Eve Palmer had to have a really special talent to have been able to play the old man for a sucker.

Maybe it ran in the family, he thought with a tight smile as he turned onto the exit ramp. Hell, he’d been taken in by a woman, too, one who didn’t care a damn about simple things like common decency and morality.

Not that it was anything personal. He was here to pull Triad back from the brink, make it an acceptable if not attractive part of the Landon package…but hey, if that meant that Eve Palmer ended up a casualty, who could blame him for taking some small pleasure from it?

All he had to do now was find Triad’s office. He frowned at the numbers on the vaguely run-down buildings that lined Sepulveda Boulevard. It had to be here somewhere.

There it was on the corner, a boxy cement building in a shade of pink so ugly it made his teeth ache.

Zach swung the Porsche into the parking area and shut off the engine. Then he stepped out onto the asphalt, grabbed his tweed jacket from the seat and headed briskly toward the front door.

Moments later, he was out in the parking lot again, frowning darkly. He’d made a point of telephoning ahead so that the Palmer woman would be waiting for him in her office. But she wasn’t. She was, her flustered secretary had said, out on location with the director, Francis Cranshaw.

“A problem came up on the set, Mr. Landon, and Miss Palmer had to go out there. She asked if you’d please make yourself comfortable and wait.”

Wait? Zach’s jaw tightened as he strode toward the Porsche. The hell he would wait. A problem on the set. Did she really expect him to believe that? Eve Palmer was either trying to avoid him or trying to bring him to heel, but he’d be damned if he’d let her do either.

It had been a job, prying directions to the set from her secretary.

“It’s a pretty remote area,” she’d said.

“I assure you,” Zach had said with what he’d hoped was a polite smile, “I’ll find it.”

He climbed into the Porsche, yanked on his mirrored sunglasses and stabbed the key into the ignition.

“Remote location, hell,” he muttered, and shot from the parking lot.

An hour later, Zach was driving down what no one in his right mind would have called a road, cursing under his breath and wondering if the secretary hadn’t deliberately sent him on a wild-goose chase.

What kind of film would anyone shoot in a place like this? For the past twenty minutes, there’d been nothing on the horizon but cactus, scrubby things he thought were trees and tumbles of reddish rock. He had not seen a car or a living soul, unless you counted a scrawny coyote that had trotted past without so much as a glance.

The Porsche whined in protest as Zach drove it across what looked to be a dry streambed lined with small rocks. If the secretary hadn’t deliberately misled him, he thought grimly, then Eve Palmer was even more incompetent than he’d imagined. She had to be, she and her director, Frances Whatsis. Both women would be nuts to shoot a picture in the middle of——

“Damn!”

Zach stood on the brakes as a galloping white horse and its rider suddenly materialized before him. The car skidded wildly, careered across the dusty track, lurched through a stand of prickly pear and came to a sickening stop inches from a pile of huge boulders. The engine coughed, coughed again and faded to silence.

After what seemed an eternity, Zach reached out and switched off the ignition. He took off his mirrored glasses, dropped them on the dashboard, undid his seat belt and only then remembered to breathe.

The white horse was gone, racing across the barren hilltop toward the far horizon. The horse’s rider was rising slowly to his knees in the dirt.

Zach muttered, rose in his seat and vaulted from the car.

“Hell, man,” he said as he hurried toward the fallen rider, “are you okay?”

“Yeah,” the rider said, after a minute, “yeah, I’m okay. You?”

Zach laughed, but it sounded more like a croak. “Except for a pair of wobbly legs, I’m fine.”

The rider stared after the cloud of dust, all that was now visible of the galloping horse.

“Guess he’s gone,” he said unhappily.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t see you until the last minute, and——”

“What do you mean, you didn’t see?”

Zach turned around. A small crowd of people was rushing toward him, headed by a little man with a goatee and a pencil-thin mustache.

“You would have to blind not to have seen Horace!”

“Look, pal, I already said I was sorry. It isn’t my fault that——”

“What’s going on here?”

A woman was pushing her way through the crowd. Zach thought she was a woman, at any rate. It was hard to tell. She had on a wide-brimmed hat that covered her hair and most of her face, a dusty, oversize khaki shirt and a pair of shapeless jeans. The only thing about her that was clearly visible was her anger.

“Well?” The woman brushed past the little guy with the goatee, slapped her hands on her hips and glared at Zach from under the brim of her hat. “What’s going on here?”

Zach looked past her. He could see cameras now, and mike booms, and lots of other equipment he couldn’t identify. If nothing else, he thought with relief, he’d found the Triad set. His gaze returned to the shapeless female standing before him. Yes. He’d found the set, and Frances Cranshaw.

“There’s been a minor accident,” Zach said pleasantly, “nothing to get excited about, I assure you.”

“Are you all right, Pete?” the woman said, swinging toward the horseless rider.

“Yup, I’m fine.”

“Was the horse injured?”

“Nah. He jest took off, is all.”

“You see?” Zach said. “No harm’s been done.”

No harm’s been done, Eve thought, glaring at the intruder from under the brim of her borrowed hat. What a stupid thing to say! Francis had reshot this same scene four times now, wasting heaven only knew how much film, and each time it had ended the same way, with him stroking that ridiculous little goatee and shaking his head and saying that it still wasn’t quite what he wanted.

The only thing Eve wanted was to put the scene in the can, strip off the jeans and shirt and hat the props man had pieced together for her so the sun and the dust wouldn’t finish her off permanently, jump in her car and speed to town to deal with Zachary Landon, who must have arrived by now. She’d been trying and trying to contact the office by cellular phone, but this damned place was so far off the beaten track that the fool thing wouldn’t work.

And now, just when it had looked as if Pete and Horace the Wonder Horse were about to ride into posterity, this—this jerk had come along and ruined it all.

“Well,” Zach said, smiling politely, “if you don’t mind

“Do you have any idea what a mess you’ve caused?”

Zach’s smile tilted. “Madam, in case you hadn’t noticed, I almost broke my neck a few minutes ago. If I were you——”

“You came barreling smack into the middle of my set, scared off my horse, injured my rider——”

“He just told you himself, he’s not injured.”

“And you have the nerve to stand there and tell me that no harm’s been done?”

Zach’s smile faded completely. “Listen, lady——”

“Don’t ’listen, lady’ me!” Eve snatched the hat from her head and slapped it against her leg. Her hair tumbled to her shoulders in a golden cloud. “Why didn’t you slow down as you approached?”

“Approached what?” Zach said, trying not to stare at the wild mane of sunflower-bright curls, as incongruous on this ranting, shapeless creature as a garland of roses would be on a bull. Although, now that he considered, she really wasn’t shapeless. He could see the high thrust of her breasts even under that boxy shirt, and there was the suggestion of a narrow waist, gently rounded hips, and long legs hidden under those jeans…

“Approached my set, that’s what!”

“Look, I didn’t see a thing except dirt and cactus until your horse damned near killed me.”

“Horace couldn’t kill anybody! He can’t even find his way out of a stall without help!”

“Horace? The horse is named Horace?”

“Yes,” Eve snapped, “Horace the Wonder Horse.” Her face colored as Zach’s brows rose. “It’s not funny! That horse is worth a fortune. Why, without him——”

“Let me get this straight,” Zach said slowly. “You’re making a movie about a horse named Horace?”

Eve felt her face, already hot from an hour on this hillside, turn hotter. She knew how it sounded. Dammit, she felt the same way herself. It was incredible to think that Triad was wasting time on a film like this, but it hadn’t been her idea. Howard Tolland had signed the contracts, made the commitments and stuck her with it.

“A movie,” the man said, and laughed, “a movie about a horse named Horace.”

Eve’s gaze shot to his. “Okay,” she said coldly, “you’ve had your laugh. Now turn that car around and get out of here.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Zach said, his eyes narrowing.

“It’s you that’s simple, mister. This is a closed set on private property, and you have no right to be here. I’m telling you again. Turn around and get out of here.”

“Trust me, lady.” Zach looked past Frances Cranshaw, trying to identify Eve Palmer in the sea of interested faces watching them. “You don’t want to toss me off this set.”

Terrific, Eve thought, just what she needed. Another out-of-work actor invading the set. They did it all the time. The UPS guy was an actor, and the kid from Western Union, and even the pizza delivery girl, all of them determined to make an impression.

Well, this man had certainly done that, but who could blame him for trying? She sighed and slapped her hat against her leg.

“Look,” she said, not unkindly, “why don’t you leave your press book with——”

“My what?”

“Your photos. Your resume, whatever. If a part comes up, we’ll get in touch.”

“A part? You think I’m after a part in your two-bit horse opera? You actually think that I…” Zach clamped his lips together. Why was he letting this woman, this Frances Cranshaw, irritate him so? His eyes narrowed. And where was Eve Palmer? Was she such a bitch that she was going to let her director take the rap for what was a CEO’s responsibility? He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to waste my time with you, lady. Where’s your boss?”

Eve’s brows rose. “My what?”

“Come on, don’t play dumb. Where is she?”

“Okay,” she said, “that’s it. You have two minutes to get out of here.”

“Really,” he said, his voice a smooth purr of amusement.

“Look, don’t push your luck. You interrupted my shoot, ran off my horse——”

“Your star, you mean.” He smirked. “Horace, the Wonder Horse.”

“Laugh if you like. But if we can’t find Horace…”

Eve’s words came to an abrupt halt. What if they couldn’t? What if the damned horse was gone for good? A chill settled in the pit of her stomach. Could Francis finish the film anyway? She already knew the answer, knew what would happen to Triad.

“Frankly,” the man said, his smirk deepening, “I think old Horace is probably in Mexico by now.”

Eve felt her mouth begin to tremble. “I bet you think this is pretty damned funny.”

“What I think, madam, is that I’ve stumbled into the middle of a fiasco.”

She stepped forward, her face turned up to his. “You’re the fiasco,” she said, her voice trembling along with her lips. “If we don’t find that damned horse—if we don’t find him…”

All her bravado seemed to vanish. Zach frowned. Tears were rising in those blue eyes, turning them the color of sapphires.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “Dammit, don’t cry!”

“I’m not crying,” Eve said fiercely. “I never——”

But she was. Zach muttered a short, sharp word under his breath and did the only thing he could.

He reached out, drew her into his arms and kissed her

CHAPTER THREE

LATER, when he tried to make sense out of his own behavior, Zach would tell himself his brain must have gone on a holiday. Otherwise, why would he have taken this ill-tempered, sharp-tongued, dust-begrimed vixen in his arms?

Not that his brain had shut down altogether. If anything, it was working overtime, delivering enough sensory messages to put him on overload.

He heard the crowd’s shocked gasp, heard the smothered exclamation of the woman just as his mouth found hers, then felt her stunned resistance, followed quickly by her indignant struggles. He was even aware of the amused tut-tut of a little voice inside his head as it asked him just what, exactly, he thought he was doing.

The problem was that the voice asked the question a fraction of a second too late. By then, Zach’s mouth had closed over Frances Cranshaw’s mouth. And the little voice faded to a whisper.

She tasted sweet, like the nectar of a flower. And cool, like a swift-running mountain stream. But mostly— mostly, she tasted like a meal for a starving man, and he had the sudden crazy thought he’d been hungry all his life.

Until now

Heat coiled in his belly, then shot through his blood. His arms tightened around her.

Stop it, the voice insisted. Let her go. She doesn’t want this—see how she’s fighting you? And you don’t want it either. You don’t know this dame, you don’t like her, and you’re sure as hell not the kind of man who goes around forcing women.

But he didn’t let her go. He drew her closer, bent her over his arm, one hand slipping up to cup the back of her head, his fingers twining in the silken spill of her golden hair while his mouth moved against hers, offering, asking…

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