Rave Reviews for Picket Fence

“Cates weaves a tantalizing and emotional tale that strums the heartstrings and keeps the reader spellbound until the joyful, gratifying ending.”

—Booklist

“Forgiveness and acceptance are key elements in this outstanding new family drama, which offers the deep insight into the human soul and the touching story that are hallmarks of a Cates novel. 4 ½ stars.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“Kimberly Cates provides a discerning look at love offering its healing power if only the lead trio would take a chance.”

—Harriet Klausner

More Praise for Kimberly Cates

“One of the brightest stars of the romance genre.”

—New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen

“Kimberly Cates is an extraordinary storyteller.”

—Jill Barnett, author of Sentimental Journey

“A truly gifted storyteller.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“Kimberly Cates takes readers on a heartwarming journey of secrets, emotional upheaval, and the meaning of unconditional love.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub on The Mother’s Day Garden

Also from Kimberly Cates and HQN Books

Picket Fence

The Gazebo
Kimberly Cates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my daughter Kate, the most beautiful bride ever, and to

Kevin, the son I always dreamed of.

Here’s to Happily Ever After!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1

THE SMALL WHITE HOUSE at the end of Linden Lane didn’t look like the kind of place where secrets lived. But no one in the river town of Whitewater, Illinois, knew better than Deirdre McDaniel that appearances could be deceiving.

The lawn was manicured with military precision. No dandelion had dared invade from behind enemy lines—the yard of the neighbor, whose lackadaisical attitude toward weed control had been the bane of Deirdre’s father’s existence.

She wasn’t sure which would have hurt worse—seeing her childhood home down at the heels, the way vacant properties often were, or witnessing her older brother’s valiant attempt to keep the place ready for their father’s inspection when the hard truth was Captain Martin McDaniel was never coming home.

Deirdre shifted the white van into park and killed the engine. Catching the inside of her full lower lip between her teeth, a nervous tick no one else could see, she stepped out of the car, her grip tightening on the keys in her hand.

Breezes tugged chin-length wisps of unruly mahogany hair about a face too sharply drawn, with its pointed chin and high cheekbones. Eyes so intensely blue they seemed a breath away from catching fire stared at the red-painted front door. She wished there was a key somewhere among the cluster in her hand she could use to lock away her memories, but it was too late. They flooded through her, the past far more vivid than the glorious late-September day.

She could remember crushing wrinkles into her mother’s crisp cotton Easter dress as she gave Emmaline McDaniel a chocolate-bunny-smeared hug. She could smell the wood shavings on her father’s callused hands and hear herself wheedling her big brother, Cade, into letting her join the “boys only” club that had the coolest tree fort in the neighborhood.

She could see Spot, the ragged coal-black mutt she’d rescued, racing down the lane howling, the neighbor cat’s claws dug into his back, triumphant glee on its feline face. Deirdre’s father with his military bearing and loathing of weakness glowering in disgust.

If that dog was a marine we would’ve shot it by now.

But you couldn’t shoot your daughter. Not even if she did the unforgivable.

Merry Christmas everyone. I’m pregnant… That was one Christmas no McDaniel would ever forget. Seventeen years had passed since Deirdre had made that announcement, and her stomach still turned inside out whenever she thought of it. The only small mercy in the whole ordeal: her mother hadn’t been alive to hear what she’d done.

Emmaline, always the quintessential lady, would have burned with shame to see the telltale bulge of Deirdre’s belly and hear the whole town buzzing that the wild McDaniel girl had gotten what was coming to her. Maybe they were right.

Deirdre quelled the old hurt welling up inside her and walked up to the familiar front door. Her hand shook so badly it took three tries to fit the key into the lock.

You don’t have to do this. Cade’s voice echoed in her memory as she stepped inside the house. The living room stood empty except for brighter patches of paint where pictures had hung and divots in the carpet where furniture legs had left their mark. A few boxes and some rolls of bubble wrap stood neatly in a corner, Cade’s always-efficient handiwork. He would have spared her this last task, too, if Deirdre had been willing to let him.

You’ve got nothing to prove, he’d insisted with a hug.

But how could the family golden boy ever understand? She did have something to prove. To herself. And she was running out of time.

The house was for sale. She might never have another chance to make peace with the home she’d grown up in. To say goodbye to the maple tree she’d climbed down to sneak out at night, her father’s workbench, her mother’s petal-pink bedroom—a sanctuary Deirdre had rarely entered because it was tucked under the eaves.Illustrating just how big a failure Deirdre was when it came to being Emmaline McDaniel’s daughter.

It was such a simple thing to hold so much pain, just an old-fashioned cedar chest with dollops of copper trim.

“This is your hope chest,” Emmaline explained when Deirdre was still too young to be a disappointment. “My mother gave it to me, and her mother gave it to her. Someday you’ll give it to your little girl.”

“What is it hoping for?” Deirdre had asked, clambering up on top of it, the buckle on her shoe cutting a raw white scratch in the wood. Her mother’s lips had tightened in a way that would grow all too familiar as she hauled Deirdre down.

“A hope chest is a place to store dreams for when you grow up,” Emmaline had explained.

Deirdre remembered running grubby fingers over the smooth orange-streaked wood as she tried to imagine what dreams looked like. Would they pour out like the glitter she’d put on the cookie dough star she’d made for the Christmas tree? Would they float out, shimmering, and sprinkle her all over like fairy dust?

She’d been five years old when she was finally strong enough to wrestle the trunk’s lid open and saw what was in the chest.

Every object was fitted like pieces in a giant puzzle. Old-fashioned aprons and dainty white napkins with handmade lace were painstakingly starched in neat squares. A fluffy white veil and wedding dress, every fold stuffed with tissue paper so it wouldn’t crease. Silverware marched across one end of the chest in felt sleeves, and crystal vases like the ones her mother put roses in all over the house sparkled in nests of cotton batting.

Undaunted, Deirdre figured the treasure must be hidden somewhere amid all that worthless junk, like the lamp in the Aladdin story Cade had read her. If she could just find a way to unleash its magic…

One bright summer morning while her mother was tending her roses, Deirdre sneaked one of the vases from the wooden chest so she could try to pour the dream out of it. The dream she could see sparkling inside it, just out of her reach. She’d climbed up on the rocking chair by the window and stretched up on tiptoe, holding the vase as close to the sunbeam as she could, hoping to see the dream more clearly.

She could still feel the sickening sensation of wavering, losing her balance, hear the horrid smashing sound as the vase fell, striking mama’s table full of delicate ladies on the way down. Shattering crystal and china released not glistening dreams, but the hard, ugly truth that made Deirdre bleed inside the way her fingers bled when she tried to scrape up the broken glass, hide it before her mother could see.

There was no point in giving a girl like Deirdre McDaniel a hope chest. She was hopeless and not even her mother’s magic chest could change her.

“Mom? Hey, Mom?”

Deirdre nearly jumped out of her skin as her own daughter’s call yanked her back from memories imbedded like the slivers of crystal even her father hadn’t been able to remove. They would work out from beneath her skin’s surface on their own when they were good and ready, he’d promised. When it came to ignoring pain, Captain Martin McDaniel was an expert.

Deirdre braced herself as sixteen-year-old Emma burst through the door, her thick black curls tumbling halfway down her back, her heart-shaped face aglow. Love still punched Deirdre in the chest every time she looked into Emma’s dark eyes, terrifying her, amazing her. It was dangerous to love anyone so much. But Deirdre had never been able to help herself.

“How in the world did you find me here?” she asked, trying not to sound as relieved as she felt not to be alone.

“I ran across the garden to Uncle Cade’s. He guessed there was a chance you might be here at Grandpa’s house.”

“My brother the psychic.” Deirdre grimaced. “I specifically told him I was coming here and I didn’t need anyone to hold my hand. In fact, I seem to remember threatening to murder him if he came within a hundred yards of this old place. I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill him.”

Emma groaned. “Not again. Couldn’t you at least come up with something more original?”

Deirdre’s chin bumped up a notch along with her aggravation. “It’s not funny. I can do this. Alone.” Maybe so, but she couldn’t deny how grateful she was to see Emma’s earnest face. Methinks the lady doth protest too much… What was it about having a daughter in Miss Wittich’s drama class that set Shakespeare rattling around Deirdre’s head? “I’m hardly going to fall apart,” she asserted stubbornly.

Emma sobered. “Maybe you’d feel better if you did.”

“That’s your aunt Finn talking. She’s always so sure she knows me better than anyone else.”

“She’s wrong about that.” Emma regarded Deirdre with old-soul eyes so shadowed with worry that guilt twisted in Deirdre’s chest. “Nobody knows you better than I do.”

That’s exactly what Deirdre was afraid of. It kept her up late at night, pacing through the white elephant of a house she and her sister-in-law had turned into a thriving business.

March Winds…where the past comes alive.

Finn had even incorporated the Civil War–era mansion’s resident ghost into the B&B’s logo—a sketch of the distinctive tower window framing the silhouette of a little girl, a candle in her hand. A brilliant marketing tool, if only Deirdre could look at it without being carried back to when Emma was ten and so terribly alone that the ghost had been the child’s only friend. How could any mother ever forgive herself for that?

“Mom, for once this McDaniel-style mutiny isn’t anyone’s fault but mine. I have to head in to work in less than an hour and I couldn’t stand to wait until the library closed to tell you the news from school.”

It still blew Deirdre’s mind that the news from school was always good where Emma was concerned. For years the McDaniels had been Whitewater High’s personal Bad News Bears.

“Mom, you’ll never guess what Miss Wittich picked for the senior play.”

The drama teacher had kept her selection under wraps for weeks, leaving her students on tenterhooks—perfect leverage to keep restless seniors from going bonkers in class. Of course, it had also put Emma through the tortures of the damned. The girl couldn’t help but hope the fact she was the best actress Whitewater High had ever seen would win her the lead. But the rest of the students made no secret that homecoming queen, cheerleader and Emma’s longtime nemesis Brandi Bates was a shoo-in for top billing. Considering small-town politics, Deirdre was sure they were right.

“Don’t tell me. Sound of Music? Oklahoma?”

Emma had been dreading some lightweight musical ever since last year’s performance of Bye Bye Birdie. “Nope. Not a singing nun in sight.”

“If it were up to me I’d have your class do The Crucible,” Deirdre said, still stinging from the jabs Brandi and her crowd had dealt Emma over the years. “Explore the dangers of a pack of nasty girls gossiping in a small town. It might make some of those little bi—uh, witches stop and think.”

Emma gave her a quick hug. “I quit caring what they thought about me years ago.”

If only Deirdre could believe it. She could remember all too well how it felt to be different, an outsider looking in. “You know, not one of those girls is even half as wonderful as you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly an impartial judge. But Miss Wittich is and—You’re getting me all off track! I’m trying to tell you about the play. We’re doing the most brilliant, most wonderful, most amazing play ever written.” Emma paused for dramatic effect. “Romeo and Juliet!”

“Romeo and Juliet?” Deirdre gave a snort of disgust. “Is your teacher out of her mind? Stuffing hormone-crazed kids’ heads with romantic nonsense—glorifying sex, defying one’s parents and committing suicide. Teenagers generally screwing up their lives. That play should come with a warning from the surgeon general.”

“My mother, the last of the great romantics.” Emma rolled her eyes. “When was the last time you went on a date?”

“When was the last time Mel Gibson was in town? Oops, he’s married. Guess I’m out of luck. Besides, one die-hard romantic in the family is enough. You got your uncle Cade married off. Be happy with that.”

Happy? She’d never believed it possible for a McDaniel to be that happy. With his adoring wife, five-year-old twins and another baby on the way, Cade’s life was damned near perfect. At least until the patient from hell had moved into the spare bedroom. Their seventy-six-year-old father who’d broken his hip tackling some kid who’d snatched a teenage girl’s purse.

Damned embarrassing, the Captain had grumbled, to find out the kids involved were brother and sister, just horsing around. Deirdre almost managed to smile at the memory of the crotchety old buzzard blushing to the roots of his thick, iron-gray hair. And yet she couldn’t stop the ache in her chest. His injury had changed everything.

“Mom, don’t you ever get lonely?” Emma asked.

“With you around? Never.”

“But I won’t be around forever. After Christmas—”

Emma had been hovering over the mailbox for weeks now, waiting to see if she’d won early admission to the drama school she’d dreamed of since she’d gone to theater camp there last year. Truth was, Deirdre dreaded Emma leaving, yet was anxious to get her out of this dead-end town. High school and its dangers had terrified Deirdre, but Emma had a good head on her shoulders. She was way too smart to get trapped the way her mother had.

That said, maybe it still wasn’t such a bad thing that Brandi would be the one to do the whole balcony gig. “The nurse is a great character part,” Deirdre said, trying to sound sympathetic. “You’ll be brilliant.”

“I’ll be brilliant all right. But not as the nurse.” Emma shone and Deirdre’s heart tripped. “Miss Wittich says I’m the most perfect Juliet she’s seen in thirty years of teaching!”

Oh, God. A perfect Juliet? That’s exactly what Deirdre was afraid of. Emma glowed with innocent passion, stubbornly determined to race into the world with open arms, not knowing how badly life could hurt her.

“Aren’t you going to say something? Like congratulations?”

“I’m just…I thought Brandi…everyone was so sure she was going to get the lead.”

Emma grinned with pardonable triumph, considering all the times Brandi had lorded it over the less popular kids. “Man, is she ticked. Her boyfriend, Drew Lawson, is Romeo. And I get to kiss him on stage!”

Deirdre’s nerves tightened. “A little less enthusiasm, please.”

“Oh, Mom, it’s just acting. But he is gorgeous in a soulful, Orlando Bloom kind of way.”

“That’s just great.” Couldn’t Wittich have done something revolutionary? Like cast some shy, pimpled computer geek who wouldn’t make Emma’s cheeks turn pink with anticipation?

“Uncle Cade said it’s too bad Grandma isn’t around to hear my news. He says Romeo and Juliet was her very favorite play in the whole world. Is that true?”

Deirdre stifled a frown. “That sounds about right.”

Their mother had loved all that star-crossed lover junk, sobbing her way through movies like West Side Story time after time as if the tragic endings sneaked up on her totally unexpectedly to bite her in the butt.

“Mom, what was Grandma like?”

“Perfect.” The word slipped out before she could stop it. Emma shot her a puzzled frown. “I mean, she was one of those women who gardened in a house dress long after other moms had changed to jeans. She liked more…old-fashioned things. Like floppy straw hats and china teacups and frilly dresses on little girls.”

Deirdre remembered the look of horror on her mother’s face when Deirdre mutinied against Emmaline’s dress code. Deirdre had taken her mother’s sewing shears and dragged out a pair of Cade’s old jeans. Hacking the legs off so the frayed hem hit below her knee, Deirdre had threaded one of the Captain’s neckties through the belt loops, then tied it tight around her far-narrower waist. After all, she couldn’t climb up to the tree house in a stupid dress.

“Do you think Grandma Emmaline would like me?” Emma asked, a wistful light in her eyes.

“Absolutely.” Deirdre tried to ignore the twist of pain in her chest. “She would have adored having someone to share teacups and poetry with.” Maybe the fact that Deirdre had produced such a granddaughter would have redeemed her a little in her mother’s eyes.

Deirdre felt a jab of envy, reluctant to share any of Emma’s love, even in her imagination.

“Am I like her?”

“No,” Deirdre said flatly. Then more softly, “Yes. In some ways. But you’re stronger than my mother was. She always seemed as if she were waiting for something bad to happen.”

“I wish I’d gotten a chance to know her. I asked the Captain about her. His face got all stiff and sad when I mentioned her, just like yours does. But Uncle Cade said everything there is to know about Grandma is in that wooden box upstairs. There’s even a copy of Romeo and Juliet she kept from when she played Juliet in tenth grade. Uncle Cade used to read it to cheer her up when she was sad.”

She’d been sad a lot. Even boisterous Deirdre had longed to be able to comfort her. But when the melancholy had stolen over Emmaline McDaniel’s face, the last thing she wanted was Deirdre racketing around.

Can’t you ever sit still? her mother would mourn. You’re just like your father.

Not that the Captain had approved of her wild side, either.

“I’m just dying to get my hands on that play,” Emma pleaded. “Can I come with you and look for it?”

Deirdre’s jaw clenched. Score another point for Cade. He’d not only made certain Emma would check on her in the house, he’d guaranteed the kid would shadow her every step of the way to the cedar chest.

“Emma, I’d…”

Rather not let you see how much it hurts me to sort through Mom’s things, see how badly everything in the chest suits me. What a disappointment I was to a mother I never really knew…

There had been an ocean of secrets between Deirdre and her mother. Deirdre had almost lost Emma’s trust, as well. She’d deserved to. Jesus, God, how she’d deserved to. But she’d fought to mend the wounds between them, swore she would never hide things from Emma again, never keep secrets that would fester, destroy.

She’d be the worst kind of hypocrite to change the rules now.

She forced herself to smile. “If you really want to come upstairs with me, it’s fine.”

Emma gave a skip of delight. “You’re the best mom in the whole world!”

Deirdre flinched inwardly. She knew better.

Emma grabbed Deirdre’s hand the way she had every Christmas morning before they headed downstairs to see what Santa Claus had left, never disappointed even those times when the man in the red hat had to scrape the very bottom of his sack for presents.

Half dragging Deirdre, Emma rushed up the stairs to the soft pink room that had been Emmaline’s own. Not that Deirdre had entered it willingly after shattering the china ladies. The afternoon sunlight showed the dust on the top of the chest, smeared with finger marks, as if Cade hadn’t been able to resist touching it. He should take the blasted thing, Deirdre thought. For him there would be warm memories as well as pinching ones.

“Oh, Mom!” Emma enthused. “Do you know how many times I wanted to open this thing? But the Captain would never let me.”

One thing Deirdre and her father had shared was a desperate need to forget. Deirdre knelt beside the chest, sucking in a steadying breath.

“How about we open it on three?” Emma said, curling her own fingers around the edge of the wooden lid. “One, two, three.”

The hinges creaked, the sweet smell of cedar filling Deirdre’s nose as she set the length of brass into place, to hold the trunk lid open. But the scent was the only thing familiar. Deirdre frowned, puzzled. Instead of precisely folded linens and silver lined up like soldiers on parade, the trunk’s contents were a jumble as if someone had dug frantically through the contents. Atop it all lay a worn copy of Romeo and Juliet, bits of its blue cardboard cover flaking off, a smear of blue dye staining the bridal veil beneath as if it had gotten wet somehow during the years.

Emma cried out, snatching the script up, clutching it to her chest as zealously as Juliet had clutched the dagger. But it was Deirdre who felt the piercing of old pain, old grief.

“I just…I can’t believe I’m actually holding a play she loved as much as…as I love it.”

Deirdre’s throat felt so tight it hurt to squeeze words through it, but she wouldn’t have spoiled Emma’s pleasure for anything in the world. The child was far too intuitive as it was, always picking up on the hurts and secret sorrows of everyone around her. “Then keep it.”

“Uncle Cade says Grandma’s stuff is all yours. You don’t have to give this to me.”

“I want you to have it.” Maybe Emmaline McDaniel was looking down from heaven, delighted, too. Her beloved play script was going to someone who wouldn’t regard it with cynical distaste.

Reverently Emma cradled it in her hands. “Listen! I’ll read the part I used for the audition!” She started to open the script, but it fell open in the middle, a yellowed envelope seeming to mark a place. “What’s this?” Emma said, slipping the envelope free. Deirdre recognized her mother’s elegantly swirled handwriting.

“It must be a letter your grandmother wrote to somebody.”

“But it’s stamped ‘return to sender.’ I wonder why she kept it. It must have been important. This is the place she kept all her most precious stuff. Maybe it’s something wonderful! Mysterious! Like something in an old Nancy Drew book.”

“Or maybe she was reading the play and had to stop to cook dinner or answer the phone so she just stuffed a stray letter in to mark her place. Go ahead and open it. I can see the suspense is killing you. Just don’t be disappointed when it turns out to be no big deal.”

Emma folded herself down to the floor, crosslegged, and pillowed the script on her lap, carefully loosening the flap of the letter. She withdrew folded sheets of stationery embossed with a graceful bunch of lilies of the valley.

She cleared her throat, beginning in her most theatrical way.

“Dear Jimmy,

After so many years, I hardly know how to begin. Three nights ago there was a horrible accident. My daughter, Deirdre, fell off the wing of a plane in the local hangar, damaging her kidneys. She nearly died, and the doctor says it’s so serious she may need an organ donor.”

“That’s why you’ve got those scars on your back, right?” Emma glanced up at Deirdre through her lashes.

“Not one of my finer moments. I was climbing around on the plane, trying to get your uncle’s attention and—well, it was a really bad idea.” Bad? How about catastrophic? The guilt had all but destroyed Cade. She’d come out of the anesthetic to find that the bright, laughing older brother she’d adored had vanished forever.

She’d tried to prove to him she wasn’t worth all the misery in his eyes. She was so wild, so reckless, it was no one’s fault but her own when life steamrolled her.

But what the heck was Mom writing to this Jimmy guy about the accident for? One of the few things Deirdre could remember from the fog of pain that had engulfed her as she drifted in and out of consciousness was the Captain’s gruff voice, telling the doctor to cut him open right then and there, give his daughter his kidney, hell, his goddamned heart if the girl needed it.

She’d felt so loved for that short space of time. Her mother’s tear-streaked face desperate, her father so fierce, as if he could hold back death. And Cade…he’d looked as if the sky had fallen on his head. But there had never been any question her big brother loved her. She’d never doubted it for a moment, even years later when she’d gambled everything on his love, taken advantage of his generous heart.

The memory still brought tears to Deirdre’s eyes. Why hadn’t her family been able to hold on to that far-too-brief closeness? How could it have slipped away?

Emma cleared her throat, began reading.

“They tested my husband and me to see if either of us is a suitable donor. The tests showed the unthinkable. My husband can’t help my baby girl. Neither can I. There is only one person who can. Her real…”

Emma stumbled to a halt, hurt welling up as she raised her gaze to Deirdre. “I thought we told each other everything. Why didn’t you tell me you were adopted?”

“What are you talking about? I’m not.” Deirdre took the letter out of Emma’s hands, scanned to where her daughter had stopped reading. Her real father…

Deirdre reeled, struggling to grasp the unthinkable. “I didn’t know…” she breathed, her knees starting to shake. Deirdre began to scan the writing silently, but Emma put a pleading hand on her arm.

“Read it out loud. Don’t…shut me out.”

If there was any place on God’s earth Deirdre understood the pain of being shut out, it was here. Swallowing hard, she started over in a wavering voice.

“I knew in my heart God would find a way to punish me for loving you.”

Loving who? This stranger? This Jimmy?

“What happened between us fifteen years ago was wrong. My husband will never forgive me. And my son—oh, God, Jimmy, he knows all about us.”

Deirdre fought to breathe. Her mother…her mother had cheated on the Captain, gotten pregnant…

No! Icy hooks tore at Deirdre’s stomach. She wished she could shove the letter back into the chest and burn it. Wished she’d never seen the envelope tucked in the play script. Wished Emma were anywhere on earth but here, peering at her with dark, stricken eyes.

Deirdre pressed her hand to her mouth. This was impossible. She couldn’t believe it. But suddenly a life-time’s worth of pain and rejection made horrible sense.

They’d known she wasn’t a McDaniel at all! Her mother and the Captain and Cade. Did they talk about the dirty little secret when she wasn’t around? Shake their heads and say it was no wonder she’d been such a disaster as a kid? She’d been a mistake from the moment she’d been born.

She closed her eyes, remembering every time she’d found the three of them around the dinner table, whispering, going silent when she walked in the room. And yet, her parents had hurt her before, hadn’t they? It was Cade who stunned her now. Cade’s silence that cut the deepest.

“Mama?” Emma hadn’t called Deirdre that since she was so tiny Deirdre could pick her up in her arms. Deirdre struggled to control her own reaction, felt as if she were about to shatter. “Did Grandma have an affair?”

Deirdre’s head swam with betrayal. She’d been born out of some sleazy affair. No wonder the Captain couldn’t be in the same room with her for five minutes without exploding. No wonder Cade had run away to the air force and tried to leave her behind. She was the living evidence of how his mother had betrayed him. Of all the McDaniels’ secrets, Deirdre’s mere existence was the dirtiest, the ugliest.

“I’m sorry,” Emma quavered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to…”

Dig up the rotten truth after so many lies? Emma blamed herself. Deirdre could see it in her daughter’s anguished face.

Deirdre tried to keep her voice calm, even. “You didn’t write that letter, Emma. You didn’t lie or cheat or bury things so deep I never understood…until I thought…”

There was something horrific about me, some flaw so ugly, so unforgivable neither of my parents could love me the way they loved Cade.

Deirdre unfastened the brace and closed the lid of the trunk, the edge of the letter crushed in her hand. “Emma, you head on in to work. Okay, honey? I need a little time alone.” Wasn’t that what she’d told Cade what seemed a lifetime ago? Why the hell hadn’t he listened? Was that why the stuff in the trunk was a mess? Had he been looking for that letter? Anything that could sully the image of his precious, perfect mother?

“Time for what?” Emma asked, as Deirdre scooped up her keys. “Where are you going?”

“To find out the truth. The Captain and Cade owe me that much at least.” Deirdre started down the stairs.

“But, Mom…I want to come with you. I—”

“No!” Deirdre snapped. Emma flinched back, tears spilling over her dark lashes. “No.” Deirdre repeated more softly. She cupped Emma’s cheek in her hand. “You head on over to the library. They’re expecting you to show up for work, and you’re going to need time off for play practice starting next week.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“Please. Just…go. Try to understand.” She felt flayed wide-open inside, bleeding. Didn’t want her baby to see her like this.

“What’s going to happen now?” Tears ran down Emma’s face. “You’re all upset with Grandpa and Uncle Cade.

I just got my family back. I’m scared everything will be all ugly like it was before. Mom, promise me…you won’t…”

Run away again? Turn her back on Cade and the Captain? Pretend away her pain? It had been six years since Deirdre felt such an urge to leave Whitewater behind her.

“Promise me you won’t let this change everything.”

Oh, God. Emma was so young. So innocent. She couldn’t possibly know that the letter already had.

“I swear I won’t let it change anything between us, baby. You and me. Nothing could change how much I love you.”

“But—”

“I’ll be all right, angel girl,” Deirdre assured her, but she could see disbelief in her daughter’s eyes. Emma knew she was lying. Hiding. But her family—they’d cornered her. What else could Deirdre do?

Plenty. Starting with getting straight answers for the first time in her life. Deirdre hugged Emma fiercely, then stalked out to the van. She backed out of the driveway, glimpsing Emma, shoulders drooping, cheeks wet with tears, one last victim trapped by the house and its secrets.

Damn them—damn them all. Her mother, the Captain, the brother she’d trusted more than God himself. She’d sworn she’d never let the misery of her own childhood touch her little girl. Now Emma was caught in the cross fire.

Deirdre’s fingers clenched the steering wheel, pain, betrayal cutting so deep she couldn’t breathe. No, she vowed. She wouldn’t let them hurt her anymore. Wouldn’t let them hurt her little girl.

She morphed pain into something harder, more familiar, easier to endure. White-hot McDaniel rage.

CHAPTER 2

TOYS SCATTERED THE PLAY yard fronting Cade’s log cabin, his beloved view of the Mississippi obscured by a fence designed to keep his five-year-old twins from tumbling into the river. But as Deirdre strode toward the gate, an escape attempt was well underway. Sturdy, dark-haired Will struggled to balance a tower made of furniture from the playhouse, while Amy perched on top with the grace of a fairy and the tenacity of a pit bull, attempting to unravel the mystery of the childproof latch.

A hot stab of grief shot through Deirdre, their intrepid innocence reminding her poignantly of her own childhood rebellions, how she’d chafed at any boundaries her parents set. It was for your own good. How many times had she heard that refrain? No doubt she was about to hear it again. An excuse for years of secrets and silence.

We were only trying to keep you safe….

But there was no such thing as “safe,” Deirdre thought grimly. Cade might try to convince himself his fence would protect his family, but Will and Amy would grow. The lock would eventually open. And the danger would still be waiting, inevitable as the letter Emmaline McDaniel tucked in her copy of Romeo and Juliet so many years ago.

“Freeze, you two!” Deirdre ordered.

The startled twins tumbled to a heap on the ground. Undaunted, they grinned up at her, sure that she adored them.

“Aunt Dodo!” Will called out. “My best plane flied right over the fence.” He jabbed a finger complete with bright orange bandage toward a rosebush Finn had planted last year. Deirdre’s heart twisted as she retrieved the killer paper airplane so obviously Cade’s work. He’d built Deirdre dozens when she’d been Will and Amy’s age. She could still see her brother’s long fingers folding the sheet of paper so precisely, as if making that plane for her was the most important thing in the world.

“You ever try to stage another jail break and I’ll make sure you never fly again! Got it?” They clambered to their feet and saluted the way the Captain and Emma had taught them—an almost fail-safe trick to get them out of trouble. Deirdre unfastened the gate and edged past the stack of child-size table and chairs.

“We never would’a tried to ’scape,” Amy explained as Deirdre returned the plane to its miniature pilot. “But they’re having big trouble screwing in there.”

“Screwing?” Considering the fact that Finn’s pregnant stomach was roughly the shape of her VW Beetle, the logistics of the R-rated definition boggled the mind.

“The crib,” Will explained. “Daddy’s been trying to put it together all morning and he keeps screwing it wrong.”

Her brother, Mr. Magic Hands, who made his living restoring antique airplanes, was stumbling over putting together something as simple as a crib? Deirdre refastened the gate and started toward the French doors that stood open to the breezes.

“Want me to show you where they are?” Will offered.

“She’ll be able to find ’em all by herself,” Amy said. “Just follow the bad words.”

The kid was right as usual. Deirdre could hear Cade and the Captain arguing in the freshly painted nursery long before she could see them. Finn, garbed in overalls and one of Cade’s T-shirts, was doing her best to smooth ruffled feathers. But her smile didn’t hide the lines of strain crinkling around her eyes and digging deep around her mouth.

She looked exhausted, this pregnancy taking far more out of her than when she’d carried the twins—or maybe it was the hopeless task of trying to keep the peace with so many McDaniels under one roof.

“The baby isn’t coming for three more months,” Finn soothed. “There’s no reason why we have to put the crib together today.”

“The twins were six weeks early,” Cade said, and Deirdre caught a glimpse of his face. He had the expression of a man walking barefoot across hot coals. “I’m not taking any chances.”

“If your husband would quit being stubborn and give me the goddamn screwdriver—” the Captain grumbled.

“Yelling at each other isn’t going to help,” Finn said. “I don’t blame either one of you for being distracted. But Deirdre’s stronger than you think.”

Deirdre ached at her best friend’s vote of confidence. Finn had had faith in her from the moment they’d met, when Deirdre had been a heartbeat away from surrendering the only thing in her life that really mattered.

Her daughter…

Deirdre hated the thought of Finn being caught in the middle of the impending storm, but she’d married into the McDaniel family with her eyes wide-open. What else could she expect?

“Besides,” Finn said, “Emma’s with her.”

The memory of Emma’s stricken face slammed into Deirdre like a fist to the solar plexus, shattering any consideration Finn’s condition warranted. Anger flared anew. “As a matter of fact, Emma was with me,” Deirdre snarled, charging into the room. “Thank you all so much for that little treat.”

“Deirdre!” Finn wheeled toward her, Irish green eyes asking more than Deirdre could ever give her.

“Thank God you’re here, girl!” the Captain grumbled. “You put this damned thing together! Your brother can’t tell a nut from a bolt today! I can’t figure out what the hell’s wrong with him.”

“That’s easy enough to explain. Nothing like a guilty conscience to screw up your concentration, is there, big brother? You sent Emma to the house.”

“That’s right. I told the kid where you were.” Cade tossed his screwdriver to the thick blue carpet and levered himself to his feet, his chin jutting at a belligerent angle that accented the faint scar he’d gotten hauling their father out of a fight years ago. “Go ahead and string me up. You wouldn’t let me come with you, and I didn’t think you should be alone.”

“I didn’t hold your hand when you were sorting through that box with your old comic books in it. Why shouldn’t I be alone to look through my own stuff?”

“You know damned well why.” Cade raked his dark hair back from his forehead and glared down at her with eyes as blue and blazing with defiance as her own. “That chest might as well have been stuffed with dynamite the way you blew up whenever you went near it.”

“And to think that was before I knew what was inside. You should have dug a little deeper when you went pawing through it the other day, Cade.”

“What do you mean when I pawed through it? The chest is yours. I never even opened it.”

“So you drove the Captain over for one last attempt at search and destroy?”

The Captain scowled. “If I could climb the stairs to that second floor, missy, I’d be in my own house where I belong instead of dragging my sorry self around here, getting in the goddamn way.”

“Captain, we’re glad to have you—” Finn started, but Deirdre plunged on.

“I found what you were looking for, Cade,” Deirdre said, her gaze locking with his. “It was there all the time.”

He gritted his teeth, struggling for patience, an expression painfully familiar. And yet there was something brittle about him, his blue eyes burning, intense. “How could I be looking for it when I don’t even know what it is?”

Deirdre drew the letter out of her pocket, betrayal burning through her anew. “Don’t even try to lie your way out of this, either one of you.” Deirdre brandished the envelope at her brother and father. “All this time you knew—”

“Knew what?” the Captain asked, looking bewildered. “There was nothing but frills and nonsense in that cedar chest. Get hold of yourself right now, girl, and act like a McDaniel.”

Deirdre gave a harsh laugh. “I wonder how many millions of times I heard that one? ‘Act like a McDaniel, Deirdre. McDaniels don’t cry. McDaniels never quit. McDaniels don’t run away.’ I stunk at being a McDaniel, didn’t I? I just never knew the reason why. But you did. You and Mom and…Cade.” Her voice broke. She hated herself for showing weakness, reached deep inside to quell her tears. “This is a letter Mom wrote when I fell off that stupid plane.”

“Sonofabitch!” Cade paled. He grabbed the letter.

“Go ahead and take it,” Deirdre said. “I’ve already read it.”

Finn slanted a worried glance at the Captain, then hustled over to Deirdre, slipping one arm around her. “Why don’t you and Cade go into the kitchen. The two of you can talk—” Empathy and regret softened Finn’s face, her eyes far too easy to read.

“Oh my God, Finn!” Deirdre said, the truth jolting her. “You know it, too.”

“Know what? What the hell are the three of you talking about?” Martin McDaniel complained. “Quit acting like I’m not even here! I’m old, not stupid. And I have no idea what you’re all so upset about.”

Deirdre glared back at him in disbelief. “Don’t you get it? The game’s over. The secret’s out. But I’ve got to admit, you were damn good at covering it all up, Dad.” She all but spat the word.

“Deirdre, wait, he didn’t—” Cade started to intervene, but Deirdre didn’t even stop to draw breath.

“This whole pack of lies was just an earlier version of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ right, Captain? I’ve got to hand it to you, though, you handled it like an officer and a gentleman.”

“Deirdre, don’t,” Finn pleaded. “You’ll regret—” But Deirdre plunged on.

“Must have galled the hell out of you, having to pretend I was your daughter.”

“Pretend?” the Captain echoed.

“Having to look at me every day and know that Mom crawled into bed with some other man.”

Despite his injury, the Captain pulled himself ramrod straight. “Don’t you dare say such a thing about your mother!”

“Why not? We both know it’s true. My real father is some guy named Jimmy Rivermont. No wonder you couldn’t be in a room with me for ten minutes without losing your temper.”

“You’re not making any sense!” the Captain blustered. “Your mother was a perfect lady! She would never have…”

“Stop it, for God’s sake,” Deirdre raged. “If I hear what a perfect lady Mom was one more time I’m going to throw up! Don’t you get it? The game is over. I know the whole sordid story. It’s all in the letter Mom wrote to the guy she was screwing while you were off God-knows-where playing hero.”

Martin McDaniel staggered back a step, so damned confused Deirdre’s heart hurt. She had to fight to hold on to her outrage as he took the letter from Cade’s fingers, opened it, read it. He didn’t make a sound. Stood there, so still, as if he’d been turned to stone.

“What did you do?” Deirdre asked, like a kid poking at a sore tooth. “Sit at the table and shake your heads? ‘The girl is a mess, but what can you expect? It’s not as if she’s a McDaniel.’ I spent my whole life tearing myself apart wondering why I didn’t fit in with my own family. Why you and Mom loved Cade better. At least now I know the truth. It wouldn’t have mattered how hard I tried to be what you wanted me to be. I’d still be Emmaline McDaniel’s dirty little secret. No wonder you couldn’t love me.”

She dared her father to deny it was true, wanted him to insist that knowing she wasn’t his by blood hadn’t made any difference. She was his daughter in every way that counted. She needed her father to close the space between them, put his arms around her. But he didn’t.

The Captain turned to Cade, eyes once eagle sharp now pleading. “You knew about this? That your mother…your sister…”

Finn moved to her husband, slipped her arm around him. And for a heartbeat Deirdre wondered what that felt like—to have someone support you when the roof caved in. A soul mate who would walk through fire to shield you.

Cade drew strength from his wife, faced the rest of his family.

“Yeah. I knew.”

The Captain let the letter fall from his fingers. Deirdre could almost see his once-formidable strength drain away, his body suddenly frail, terrifyingly old. She wanted to reach out to him but couldn’t. He’d just proved the greatest terror of her childhood to be true. He didn’t love her. He couldn’t even look at her.

Cade laid a hand on Martin McDaniel’s arm as gently as if the craggy old man were one of his twins. “Dad, wait.”

Deirdre flinched at the unexpected word. Dad. Cade said it so tenderly, closing the distance the whole family had kept by addressing the Captain by his rank all these years.

But Martin McDaniel didn’t seem to notice. He turned, shuffling out the door.

Cade looked as if he wanted to follow, but he was enough like his father to know it would be futile. McDaniels hid their weaknesses, burrowing in somewhere to lick their wounds like savage animals.

Silence fell, so thick Deirdre couldn’t breathe.

“I’ve been dreading this day since I was sixteen,” Cade said. “Scared that the truth would come out somehow. But I thought…hoped the secret died with Mom. God, Dee, haven’t you suffered enough? And the Captain, hell, what could the truth do but hurt him? Dad didn’t know about this any more than you did.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Deirdre stammered.

“I was never supposed to know, either. I accidentally overheard Mom talking to the doctor at the hospital. They were afraid you might need a kidney. When they tested for a compatible donor, the truth came out. Your blood work and the Captain’s proved you couldn’t be father and daughter.”

“My God.” Deirdre sagged into Finn’s rocking chair. “That’s why Mom changed once I got home from the hospital.”

Cade nodded. “It killed her just to look at me, knowing I knew her secret. Sometimes I think she was so afraid you and Dad would find out the truth that she wanted to die. Yes, she had an affair with some musician—”

“A musician?” Deirdre echoed. “Like me?”

“It doesn’t matter what the guy did for a living,” Cade said, but Deirdre could tell that he knew it did; it mattered to her in ways he’d understood far too long. “Mom stayed with us,” Cade insisted. “She tried to make things work. She loved all of us.”

“Don’t even go there, Cade.” A lifetime’s bitterness spilled through Deirdre. “She loved you. That’s why she stayed. She never loved me. At least now I know why.”

“Deirdre, you don’t know that,” Finn said. “People make mistakes. Do things they regret. You disappeared from Emma’s life for nine months, but that didn’t mean you’d stopped loving her. How do you know your mother—”

“Nice, Finn,” Deirdre said. “Real nice. Throw that up in my face.”

Tears welled in Finn’s eyes. “You’re my best friend. The sister I never had. I don’t want to hurt you, but I love you enough to tell you the truth.”

“The truth…” Deirdre echoed, Finn’s words lancing through her. “Yeah. Maybe it is time I faced the truth. My mother and I never could be anything like you. You’re so damned easy to love I could almost hate you for it. You even got three hardcases like the McDaniels to adore you. I mean, two McDaniels,” she corrected. “The Captain and…and Cade.”

Cade glowered. “Deirdre, none of this changes the fact that you’re my sister.”

“Don’t even try to tell me you felt the same way about me after you heard the truth!” Deirdre exclaimed. “You could hardly look at me after I came home from the hospital. It was like…like someone ripped all the joy right out of you. You were a stranger.”

“Dee, it was my fault you got hurt! I felt guilty as hell. Mom told me you came to the hangar because you missed me. All I did was yell at you, try to drag you off that plane. All I cared about was my damned job and the flying lessons it bought me. You almost died! And then to find out about Mom and—Hell, yes, it shook me up! But I didn’t stop loving you! I was just a kid myself, hurting, mixed up…”

“Deirdre,” Finn interrupted, desperate, “I wish you could have heard Cade when he told me how much he regretted the distance between you. It tore him apart.”

“No wonder he thought I wasn’t a fit mother for Emma,” Deirdre said. “I was the product of some sleazy affair.”

“You abandoned the kid on my goddamned doorstep without a word of explanation! I didn’t know where you were for nine months! It had nothing to do with who the hell your father is!”

“Tell yourself that, if it makes you feel better,” Deirdre said, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“Okay, you want the truth? I would have given my right arm to keep you from finding that letter. To keep you and the Captain from finding out about a piece of ancient history that could only hurt you. But when it comes right down to it, you’re still my kid sister. The Captain’s still your father. That letter doesn’t change a damn thing.”

“You’re wrong,” Deirdre said, her chin bumping up a notch. “It changes everything.”

“Don’t go off half-cocked and do something we’re all going to regret. I know you’ve got a hell of a mad on, but the truth is you’re hurt. Hurting people back isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

“Maybe not. But finding my real father might.”

“The Captain is your real father,” Cade roared in exasperation. “He’s the one who taught you how to throw a baseball, who ran all over town looking for orange pop when you were sick!”

“Yeah, well, the military trained him to fall on a grenade if necessary,” Deirdre said. “Duty, honor, country and all that crap. When it comes right down to it, we should all be relieved! None of us have to pretend to be a big happy family anymore.”

She snatched the letter. Cade swore. He grabbed for her arm.

She wheeled on him, flames all but shooting from her eyes. “Leave me the hell alone!” she roared.

“Damn it, Dee, I’m sorry. Tell me…tell me what to do. How to fix things.”

Fix things…that’s what Cade had always been good at. But all the magic in the world couldn’t erase the letter’s contents from Deirdre’s mind.

“You want to know what hurts most of all?” Deirdre said. “You lied to me, all this time. Cade, I trusted you.” Tears pushed against her lashes. She turned, fled.

She could hear Cade start after her, heard Finn’s insistent voice. “Let her go. She needs time to sort this through.”

Finn probably thought once Deirdre calmed down everything would be all right. Finn and Cade would try to put the broken pieces of the family together again. They didn’t know it would never work.

The hurt of a lifetime finally made sense. She wasn’t a McDaniel. It was time to find out exactly who she was.

She raced across the garden that separated Cade’s cabin from March Winds, slipped around to the back door to avoid the newlyweds mooning over each other in the porch swing. She rushed into the private living quarters she and Emma called home and stumbled to the small office that was her haven, a room devoid of the antiques and Victorian furbelows that gave the rest of the old house its old-world aura.

Deirdre slammed the door and leaned against it as if a wolf were chasing a few feet behind her. She sucked in a deep breath, the tears finally falling free. Disgusted with herself, she scrubbed them from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She wasn’t going to waste any time crying. She was going to do something. But what?

How was she supposed to find this Jimmy Rivermont so many years later? Considering the letter was returned to sender it was obvious her mother hadn’t been able to find the man. And at least she’d known who she was looking for.

Deirdre didn’t have a clue how to begin. How did you find someone who’d disappeared?

She closed her eyes, her memory suddenly filling with a tall man in a long outback-style coat, a black cowboy hat on his head, his steel-gray gaze dangerous, ruthless. Six years had passed since she’d opened the door to find Jake Stone on the other side—the private investigator tracking down the small fortune Finn’s ne’er-do-well father had stolen. Obliterating the inheritance Finn had believed was proof her father had loved her enough to provide her with the home he’d never given her as a child.

Stone had shattered Finn’s illusions, all but destroyed Cade and Finn’s chance at happiness, then gone, leaving ugly scars in his wake. Finn had made peace with it as best as she could, she and Cade working hard to repay every penny, but her father’s betrayal still haunted her. Deirdre could sense it when no one else was looking.

She hated Stone for what he’d done. Let him know she thought he was lower than pond scum. What else could he be, digging into people’s lives, destroying them for a fee?

She recoiled inwardly from the man, what he did for a living. The ruthlessness in his eyes. He was a son of a bitch. But he was a talented son of a bitch. If anyone could find her real father, he could.

Deirdre grabbed the phone book from its perch on her desk, leafed through it and found the entry. “Jake Stone, P.I. By appointment only…”

Ripping the page out, she grabbed her purse and keys and headed out the back door. Forget making an appointment. It had been loathing at first sight between her and Stone. Face-to-face it would be harder for him to turn her down.

Considering what he’d done to Finn, it was obvious the man was willing to do anything for the almighty dollar. She’d pay him what he wanted. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

CHAPTER 3

DEIRDRE DID A DOUBLE TAKE as she pulled up to Stone’s office. She’d expected an anonymous-looking brick building where people could slink in to ask Stone to unravel secrets. Something from an old detective movie, not the immaculately kept Arts-and-Crafts-style bungalow, its fresh coat of café au lait paint with splashes of hunter green and deep red trim gleaming amid other, more down-at-the-heels houses nearby.

But if Stone’s office defied her expectations, the trio of Harley-Davidson motorcycles blocking the driveway fit the clientele she’d imagined Stone would associate with. Skulls and crossbones decked two of the machines, the other inscribed with the motto, “Born To Raise Hell,” amid an elaborate design of flames.

Stone’s clients? Or informants stopping by to ruin someone’s life? She didn’t have time to care.

She parked, climbed out of the van. Squaring her shoulders, she marched up to the porch. The door stood ajar, and from the sound of things, whoever was inside wasn’t happy. Good. She had wished Stone nothing but misery over the past six years as she’d watched her brother and sister-in-law struggle to pay back the remainder of a debt that wasn’t theirs.

The thought of Cade and Finn knifed Deirdre in the chest, their betrayal of her, and the anguish on their faces as she’d stormed away flooding through her. She shoved the image down, hard.

Angry masculine voices rang out from inside Stone’s office. A wiser person might have headed back to the car to wait until whoever was ruining Stone’s day stormed back out to their bikes. But the opportunity to see Stone under fire was too sweet to miss, and she couldn’t risk him locking the door behind these guys once the fun was over. Adrenaline kicked her pulse into high gear, as she slipped, unnoticed, through the dark green door, gauging the scene in a heartbeat.

Apparently Stone was having a very bad day.

Three men roughly the size of gorillas had Stone cornered between a mission-style desk, two Stickley-esque armchairs and a wall of glass-covered bookcases, but the P.I. didn’t seem to have the brains to realize he was about to get the stuffing kicked out of him.

He lounged against a sliver of wall like a model in some sexy blue jeans ad, all hard muscle, testosterone and mystery, his long black hair caught back from sharp cheekbones, a bored expression on his darkly handsome face. “…and here your momma thought you couldn’t read,” he said.

The gorilla with the shaved head and a swastika tattooed on his skull sneered. “I had plenty of time to work it out. You were front-page news for months. Got me all excited, thinking I’d get to see you out in the prison exercise yard.”

Prison? Deirdre puzzled.

Stone shrugged one broad shoulder, his black T-shirt clinging to muscles an Olympic athlete would have envied. “Life is full of disappointments.”

“Yeah, but you never can tell what fun might be waitin’ just around the corner.”

The other two men chuckled.

“There we were, Stone, on our way to Colorado, when we stop to suck down a cold brew. And plastered right there on the wall by the bar is a blow-up of the article about you getting thrown off the force.”

Deirdre caught her lower lip between her teeth. She had wondered what made Stone become a private investigator. Being thrown off the police force just might do it. But didn’t a cop have to do something pretty serious for that to happen? Stone didn’t even look ruffled.

“I wanted to do my Al Capone imitation for the camera that day,” he said, “but some people just can’t take a joke.”

Swastika scowled. “When I told the bartender you were the one who busted me, he was happy to give us your address.”

“Yeah, well, they say everybody needs a hobby. I happen to be his.”

“He said it was your fault his old lady left him.”

Stone grimaced. “I confess. I did it. I shoved his hands down that other woman’s pants.”

Rage fired in Swastika’s eyes. “Still acting so high-and-mighty! You’re no better than the rest of us cons! Any other poor son of a bitch would have had their ass thrown in prison for what you did! Fucking cold-blooded murder! But your father-in-law, the police chief, couldn’t stomach throwing the force’s golden boy to the animals.”

Deirdre waited for the explosion. Stone should be furious—the lowlife was accusing him of murder, for God’s sake! Cade would have broken the gorilla’s nose by now, and, Deirdre admitted, probably would be getting pulverized by Moe and Curly, there. But Stone examined a piece of lint on his black T-shirt as if it were the most pressing thing he had to deal with at the moment. He flicked the speck off his bunched biceps. “Due process is a beautiful thing. Gotta love truth, justice and the American way.”

A chill ran down Deirdre’s spine. Stone was all but admitting he’d killed someone. Murdered them, if Swastika’s accusation was to be believed. And Stone wasn’t denying it. For an instant she thought about quietly backing out of the door, but she dug in, stubborn. She didn’t know where else to go.

“Don’t talk to me about justice, Stone,” Swastika fumed. “You send me to prison for breakin’ someone’s neck in a bar fight, but you can gun down an unarmed man and your badge gives you a get-out-of-jail-free card?”

“Not free.” An edge crept into Stone’s voice, his tone even softer. “Never free.” Deirdre saw his eyes flash, then go flat again, emotionless. She wondered what darkness Stone’s words had betrayed.

“Face it,” Stone drawled. “I got dealt the lucky hand this game. Better cut your losses and walk away. Think about how you can play your cards better next time you end up in front of the docket. I might even be able to give you a few pointers.”

“Hell, you hear that?” Swastika’s fuzzy haired crony grumbled. “He doesn’t even have the brains to deny he got special treatment!”

“You owe me, Stone!” Swastika snarled. “And I’m not leavin’ here until I get some of my own back!”

Deirdre swallowed hard. She could understand where King Kong was coming from. If she’d been his size six years ago she might have been tempted to take a swing at Stone herself. Once again she was the queen of rotten timing.

Stone couldn’t have gotten the crap beat out of him the hundred other times she’d wished him ill. No, he had to wait until she actually needed him standing upright with his brain functioning to take on three house-size cons at once.

“Ten years,” Swastika griped. “I spent ten years in the joint.”

“And I’ve spent eight off the force. Let’s call it even.”

“Just tell me how much it cost, Stone,” Swastika demanded. “To make your murder rap go away.”

“Hedron, I know how it is for you,” Stone said, quietly persuasive. “You go and get yourself all drunked up and crazy, and there’s my ugly mug staring at you from Conlan’s wall. So he stokes you up and sends you over here looking for a fight. Why not? Conlan’s got nothing to lose. But you, Hedron, you’re gonna lose plenty, breaking parole. All you’re gonna get here is another aggravated assault charge and a few broken bones in the bargain.”

Two of the cons looked downright edgy, Deirdre marveled. But the ink the tattoo artist squirted into Hedron’s skull must have pickled the part of his brain that dealt with impulse control. He didn’t look daunted in the least.

“Hell, man, I’m not worth it,” Stone said.

He meant it, Deirdre thought astonished, wondering at the shadows that suddenly stormed in his remarkable eyes.

Stone spoke so quietly, so evenly, as if he were trying to talk someone down off a ledge. “Just get the hell out of here, climb on your bikes and head for the nearest bar,” Stone urged. “We’ll forget this whole thing.”

Swastika’s eyes narrowed, as if he could sense a chink in Stone’s armor, was trying to sniff out the best place to draw blood. “You know, I remember that pretty little wife of yours.” Stone was married? Deirdre glanced at his left hand—no ring in sight.

“Police chief’s baby girl, wasn’t she?” Hedron taunted. “Did she go crying to daddy to save your ass?”

A muscle in Stone’s jaw twitched. “That’s none of your damn business.”

“Oh, I think it is. Tell me, Stone. Why did I spend ten years with only my hand and Miss November while you spent it screwing a real-live woman’s brains out? Come on, Stone. Explain it to me.”

Something shifted in Stone’s face, hardening the planes and angles, turning his gray gaze flinty. “Sorry. I only use reason on animals that are at least in throwing distance from me on the evolutionary scale. My dog, for instance.”

Hedron’s lips snaked over teeth whose repair would have paid for a dentist’s summer home. “You still think you’re untouchable, don’t you, you arrogant son of a bitch. I’m not leaving until I prove that you bleed red just like the rest of us.”

Stone’s eyes narrowed, his powerful body taut, ready. No, Deirdre realized—not just ready—eager to fight. “I bleed plenty red,” Stone said. “But today I’m all out of Band-Aids.”

“Stop it!” Deirdre cried out. All four men nearly jumped out of their skin, heads jerking around to look at her, but only Stone’s gaze pierced deep, stark recognition registered on his face.

“What the hell? Deirdre?”

He recognized her, remembered her after six years, Deirdre realized, stunned. Cornered as he was, Stone lunged, trying to bulldoze his way between Swastika and Curly in an effort to put his body between her and the other men. But she’d obviously shattered his concentration. He didn’t even see Swastika as the giant man’s fist drove into his midsection. Air whooshed out of Stone’s lungs, and Deirdre expected him to go down, out cold, but he stayed on his feet, bellowing warning.

“Get out of here!”

Good advice, Deirdre realized. But instinct kept the soles of her shoes glued to the floor. It wasn’t a fair fight. McDaniels never deserted—Pain shot through her, the letter and its ugly truth surging into her mind.

So what if she wasn’t a McDaniel. She couldn’t leave Stone to get pulverized. The man wasn’t going to do her any good in the hospital.

“Lookit Stone’s face,” Swastika gloated. “We’ve got his girlfriend.”

Stone sucked in a painful breath. “She’s not…my girlfriend.”

Deirdre met the bikers’ gaze with a fearless one of her own. Well, almost fearless. “I wouldn’t date Jake Stone if he was the last man on earth.”

“Then how about giving me a test drive, sweet thing, and we’ll call it even? It’s been a long time since I had me a woman.”

The con turned toward Deirdre, the stench of cheap whiskey rolling over her in suffocating waves as Swastika closed in on her.

Stone lunged, lightning fast, just as Moe swung some kind of club—a blackjack, Deirdre realized from fights in the nightclubs she’d sung in so long ago. Stone dodged, the blur of black leather glancing off his jaw instead of breaking it.

Deirdre cried out, her voice drowned by Stone’s bellow as he fought to keep his feet under him. Deirdre grabbed Stone’s arm, tried to steady him, but the P.I. tore away from her.

“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled. But Swastika’s arm snaked around her ribs, yanking her back hard against him. The stench of cheap liquor made Deirdre’s stomach churn, panic welling through her. Helpless. She felt so helpless. No. She’d sworn she’d never be helpless again.

Deirdre drove the sharp edge of her heel hard against the ex-con’s instep, just like the Captain had taught her. Swastika howled as she yanked free.

“Run!” Stone yelled, plunging between her and the raging men. She had a straight shot to the door. But the blows had dulled Stone’s reflexes, slowed his speed. Even if she could reach her cell phone, Stone would be toast before anyone could get here.

She didn’t owe Stone any kind of loyalty. He was the last person she should be defending. And yet…She stared, suddenly frozen, as a thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of the P.I.’s mouth.

“It’s red,” she cried, inanely.

All four men looked like she was insane. “What the hell?” Swastika snarled.

“His blood,” she insisted. “It’s red!” Her cheeks flamed. “You’ve proved he bleeds, now why…why don’t you all leave.” She thought longingly of her cell phone, wished she’d had the brains to call before she’d barged into the office. But then, Moe, Curly and Swastika didn’t know she hadn’t. She drew herself up as if she were a six-foot Amazon instead of a five-foot-three midget the three stooges there could snap with one hand. “I called the police from my cell phone before I came in here,” Deirdre said.

Swastika chortled. “Sure you did, lady.”

Deirdre glared right into Swastika’s mud-colored eyes. “The dispatcher said they’d be right here. Her name was Joan.”

“Joanie?” Stone feigned recognition. “She’s a hell of a looker, that one. Too bad you won’t have a chance to romance her, Hedron. She doesn’t like men in orange jumpsuits.”

Swastika’s buddies glanced uneasily toward the door.

Swastika sneered, pacing toward Stone. “He’s laughing his ass off at you,” he told Moe and Curly, taking a menacing step toward the P.I. “You two can be cowards if you want. I’ll beat the shit out of him myself.”

In a split second Stone coiled like a whip, sprang into action. Whatever grogginess he’d felt from the blows evaporated. Deirdre watched, stunned as Stone hurtled his body through space, fists cracking bone, long powerful legs executing rib-crushing kicks to Swastika’s midsection in such fast succession he drove the man across the room.

Moe and Curly gaped as if they’d fallen into a Lethal Weapon movie. Moe dropped his blackjack. Curly fumbled for something in his pocket—a knife. But he was shaking so hard he struggled to open it. Dee grabbed a bronze statue of lady justice from Stone’s desk, slamming it down toward the con’s head. Curly ducked, the heavy base grazing his temple, exactly the kind of blow the Captain always said only made combatants madder than hell.

Only strike if you’ve got a clear shot, the old man had drilled her. Hit to kill. A woman’s got only one chance to surprise an attacker. She’d already used that up when she’d stomped Swastika’s instep flat. But Curly wasn’t coming back for more. He and Moe cowered like whipped dogs as Stone kicked Swastika square in the face. The con doubled over, blood spurting from his nose. Stone bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, his whole body ready to fly into action as he turned toward the other two men. “Who’s next?” he dared them. “Any more takers?” But Swastika’s streaming nose was as effective as a flag of surrender. The three cons bolted out the door.

Deirdre braced her trembling body against a chair, trying to remember how to breathe, as she heard the bikes’ engines fire up, roar down the street. But before she could get oxygen into her straining lungs, a hard hand gripped her shoulder. Stone whipped her around to face him. He crushed her against him for a heartbeat, his big body hard and overwhelmingly male. Then, as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go.

Deirdre stared, momentarily struck dumb. Mr. Cool was mad as hell. Not roaring mad—roaring mad she could handle. Quiet, nuclear-meltdown kind of mad—eye-of-the-hurricane kind of mad. Tornado-warning, head-to-the-basement-before-you-get-blasted-to-smithereens kind of mad. Deirdre pulled away from his grip, unconsciously tried to take a step back. Her bottom collided with the chair.

Stone swiped the blood from his bottom lip with the back of his hand. A strange flutter awoke in Deirdre’s middle. She had seen just how lethal a weapon those hands could be moments before. Skilled and powerful—his eyes alive with rage. She stared at his mouth, lips knee-meltingly sexy, as if he could drive a woman’s common sense right out of her body if he kissed her. She wondered if he knew she was immune to all that animal magnetism.

The last thing she wanted in her life was a man—someone who thought he could tell her what to do, someone to report in to, someone who might slip past her guard to find things she had to keep buried.

“What in the hell did you think you were doing barging into the middle of a fight like that?” Stone pinned her with his glare. Deirdre met his gaze, determined not to let him see how much the encounter had shaken her.

She clenched her fists to keep her hands from trembling. Story of her life. Deirdre McDaniel—great in a crisis, but once it was over, she’d start shaking like a scared puppy.

“I was trying to hire a private investigator,” she said, with as much cool as she could muster. “Preferably one who wasn’t in traction. I still need to, by the way. Hire you, I mean.”

Stone scowled. “What the hell do you need a P.I. for—never mind,” he said, sounding so damn certain, Deirdre wanted to deck him. “I’m all booked up.”

After everything she’d gone through in this hideous day, she wasn’t about to back down. Stone might be an arrogant bastard. He might even have killed someone, just like Swastika had said. But he hadn’t been thrown in jail for it. And somehow, the instant she’d seen his name in the phone book, she’d felt in her gut that he could help her. She’d learned from hard experience how bad it could be when she ignored her instinct. But he didn’t look like a man who would easily change his mind. He’d said no. Case closed. But Deirdre doubted he’d ever met anyone as stubborn as she could be.

“I’ll pay double what you usually get,” Deirdre said boldly.

“A thousand dollars an hour?”

Deirdre faltered. Maybe the man didn’t have his office in some sleazy low-rent building, but this wasn’t the Taj Mahal, either. Surely that sum was ridiculous. No one could possibly…then she glimpsed the edgy humor in his eyes. He was just trying to pull her chain. “Damn you, very funny. I’ll pay you whatever you’re worth.”

Stone arched one thick black eyebrow. “About as much as pond scum. At least, that’s what you seemed to think last time I saw you. You hated my guts on sight.”

He remembered that? She’d only seen the man a few times. She’d been front and center when he’d told Finn the life-shattering news about her father. And she’d been around a few more times when he’d come to organize a payment schedule with the newlyweds. Hell of a way to start out a marriage—a hundred thousand dollars in debt. Cade had sold the antique plane that had been his most cherished possession to save Finn’s dreams for the old house she’d loved. And Deirdre had told Stone off with true McDaniel flare. Back when she’d still believed she had fighting blood in her veins.

“Why the hell should I help you?” Stone challenged.

“Because I…” It was harder than she’d imagined, telling the horrible truth to a stranger. Or was it something about this man that made her throat feel too choked to let the words squeeze past? “I need to find someone.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

Stone frowned. “Your father went missing? From the background check I did on all of you before I contacted Ms. O’Grady, Captain McDaniel is a capable, crusty old son of a…gentleman. He’s probably out hunting rattlesnakes or wrestling alligators. He’ll turn up when he feels like it.”

Deirdre’s cheeks burned. “I’m not looking for the Captain…I mean, I’m searching for my real one. Uh, my birth father. A man named Jimmy Rivermont.”

“You’re adopted?” One brow arched in astonishment. “I never would have guessed it.”

“I’m not.” Deirdre drew in a deep breath, saying the words she’d practiced a dozen times on her drive to Stone’s office. Practice hadn’t made it any easier. “My mother slept with this guy when the Captain was out of the country on some mission. I found this.”

She withdrew the yellowing envelope from the purse she’d abandoned when she’d tussled with the Three Stooges. She held the thing out to Stone. He took it, scanned the envelope, then the letter inside, his gray eyes so fierce, so intent, Deirdre felt some of the crushing misery in her chest lift.

She’d been right to come here, she thought, watching him absorb the letter’s contents. With Stone’s razor-sharp intelligence, street smarts and tenacity, he’d get to the bottom of all this in a hurry. He’d find the truth and tell it to her, no matter how harsh it was or who got hurt in the process. He’d proved that when he’d told Finn about her father.

Deirdre winced, remembering the way her sister-in-law adored the Captain, how many times she’d said how lucky Deirdre and Cade were…

Deirdre ripped her thoughts away from her best friend and the hundred small kindnesses the Captain had done to make Finn feel a part of the family. If only he’d reached out the same way today, when Deirdre’s heart lay trampled, bleeding. Suddenly Deirdre felt something almost tangible touch her face. Stone. He was leveling that terrifyingly sharp gaze at her.

She felt as if he were unscrewing the top of her head, trying to get a look inside. Deirdre met his gaze, defying him to see past defenses she’d had up forever. A force field nobody had been able to penetrate since she was an awkward teenager, so hungry to be loved. Sometimes it made her sad to know that now no man ever would. She’d been alone too long.

After a moment Stone took her hand, folded her fingers around the letter with unexpected gentleness. “Here’s a bit of free advice. You’ve got a real nice family back home, from what I remember. Digging around after some guy who might have made a sperm donation—well, I don’t advise it. I mean, I wouldn’t advise it even if I was willing to take your case, which I’m not.”

His hand engulfed her smaller one, long fingers so strong, an artist’s hands. Who would have guessed Jake Stone would be capable of tenderness. “Go home, Deirdre. Forget you ever saw this letter.”

“I can’t. I need to know where I belong.”

“Go home to your father and your brother and that sweet Finn O’Grady. Go home to your little girl. Emma.”

He even remembered Emma’s name? Some part of her marveled before disappointment washed over Deirdre, followed by desperation. “It’s not up to you to make that decision. Help me. Please.”

Stone would never know how much that plea cost her. She looked into those stormy gray eyes, the irises ringed with a thin line of blue, the black lashes so thick and rich Emma’s high school friends would have envied them. But there was nothing soft about the emotions roiling beyond those lashes. Stone’s gaze, full of power, full of heat, full of fight. Traits Deirdre would do anything to have him use on her behalf at the moment.

Anything? A voice whispered in her head. Her gaze flicked, unbidden, to Stone’s mouth. A James Bond kind of mouth that kissed women senseless in secret fantasies all over America, and then vanished once the danger was over to seduce someone else. The kind of mouth Deirdre would never let within kissing distance of her own.

The phone rang. Deirdre jumped, startled, expecting him to ignore it. Stone glanced down at the caller ID. A faint smile played about his lips, something that irritated Deirdre driving shadows out of the investigator’s eyes.

He palmed the receiver and held it to his ear. “Trula Devine,” he said in a voice so rich it could probably unsnap a woman’s bra without so much as a touch. Of course, Deirdre doubted anyone with an outlandish name like that would put up much of a fight. “Hey, baby, you finally decide to put me out of my misery and call? Damn it, woman, you’ve been making me crazy!”

Stone hovering over the phone waiting for a woman to call? It just didn’t seem in character. But then, if she’d learned one thing on the road with the band all those years it was that most men didn’t have much restraint when their libidos were involved. Stone wouldn’t be the first man who’d turned idiot over a woman.

“What about the money?” Stone asked, a smile quirking his mouth—the slightly swollen place at the corner of his lips making him look all the more maddeningly sexy—as if he’d just come up for air after one soul-sucking kiss. “Hell, yes, sugar. I’ll pay. Whatever you want.”

Deirdre could hear a murmur from the other end of the phone. Stone laughed, and for an instant Deirdre felt a stab of envy, wondering what it would be like if he ever turned that thousand-watt smile onto her.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Yeah, Trula. You’ve still got the best legs in Vegas. With that body of yours you could bleed a man dry and he’d be smiling all the way to the bank to empty his accounts for you.”

Deirdre clamped her mouth shut, some of the grudging respect she had for Stone melting away. It was nauseating, the way Stone was talking. It irritated the blazes out of her—on principle of course. She didn’t want his mind on some other woman’s legs. She wanted it on the case she was hiring him to solve.

Stone turned away, tension evident in his shoulders, his voice suddenly stern. “Fine. I’ll pay whatever you want. But no more games, Trula…you heard me. When you wouldn’t pick up the phone I even stopped over. You weren’t there. I didn’t know where you were…”

Controlling bastard! He expected this Trula woman to check in with him before she stepped out of the house? The thought made Deirdre’s temper burn.

Breathe, Deirdre, she thought, trying to keep the lid on. Long, deep breaths. You can’t lose your temper. It doesn’t matter if Stone is a pig to his girlfriend. You need this man…even if he is a first rate son of a—Count backward from one hundred. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight…

Stone chuckled, the sound raking at Deirdre’s nerves, startling her, scaring her. Making her wonder for an instant if he’d seen…No, Deirdre told herself. That laugh was for Trula Devine. Piercing as Stone’s eyes might be, he couldn’t read Deirdre’s mind.

“Do I love you?” he asked in that low, rough-edged voice that made Deirdre feel as if he’d run his hand over her skin. “What do you think, woman? You better have your dancing shoes on next time I knock on that door, and be ready to tango. That’s an order.”

He hung up the phone, glanced at Deirdre from beneath hooded lids. What was he trying to do? Hide the fact that he was aroused from talking to his sex kitten? Or exploit the fact that the conversation had made Deirdre uncomfortable?

“You’re still here?” Stone asked, feigning surprise. “I thought I made it clear my caseload is too heavy to take you on.”

“An army of men like you couldn’t take me on!” Deirdre fumed. “Maybe you’re used to ordering women around like they’re—they’re slaves or something, but—”

“Oh, honey, believe me, there’s nothing, er, involuntary about the way Trula serves me.”

“You did everything but order her to wrap herself up in cellophane so you could run right over.”

Stone grinned. “I did tell you I was busy. Of course, I can’t wait to pass on your suggestion. Believe me, Trula will love it.”

“You know what? If I’d had any idea how you treat women, I would have hit you over the head with that statue and let the Three Stooges use you for a punching bag.”

“The Three Stooges?” Stone chuckled, then his face drew back into unyielding lines. “Lucky for me you didn’t find out what a male chauvinist jerk I was until it was too late.”

Deirdre fought back tears of exhaustion, exasperation. She’d despised Stone for years. Hated him. And yet…she’d been so sure he would untangle this mess. She’d never even considered he might say no. What was she going to do now?

Well, she sure wasn’t going to lie down and quit, she thought grimly. She’d fought her way through plenty of trouble before with no help from anyone.

“Know what?” she said, with a wave of her hand. “Forget I ever came here. I’ll find Jimmy Rivermont myself.”

She should have turned and walked out, chin high, shoulders squared—in what the Captain had always called her “Queen Elizabeth walking the plank” imitation. But for once she couldn’t carry it off. Why did it matter so much that Jake Stone was turning her away? Because she didn’t know what else to do. Couldn’t imagine where to begin. Because finding that letter had shaken everything she’d been sure of for thirty-two years. And she’d needed someone on her side.

Her memory filled with Finn’s gaze—full of empathy and love. Cade’s fierce blue one, angry, sad, for once not knowing what to do. And the Captain…it wasn’t his eyes she’d never forget. It was the sight of his back as he turned and walked away.

She looked straight into Stone’s eyes and fought to keep her voice from breaking. “You’re a real son of a bitch.”

Stone’s grin faded, his gaze holding hers, dark with secrets of his own. “I thought you had that figured out a long time ago.”

CHAPTER 4

JAKE PRESSED THE ICE PACK to his swelling jaw, hoping the ache would distract him. But even the memory of Deirdre McDaniel would be damned before it cooperated with him.

He closed his eyes, arched his head back, trying to blot out the feline angles of her face, the defiance in her I-dare-you eyes and the taunting softness of lips that had haunted his dreams more times in the past six years than he would admit even to himself.

She was still every bit as wild and beautiful as the mustang mare he’d rescued from the glue factory as a kid back in Nevada. He’d been determined to get past the horse’s defenses, teach her to trust. He’d gotten a broken collarbone and three cracked ribs before his grandmother had drawn the line. She’d told him some creatures were broken inside, too deep for anyone to fix. Sometimes the kindest thing to do was leave them alone.

Where Deirdre McDaniel was concerned, Jake had sure the hell tried to do just that. Stay as far away from the lady as possible.

And yet, down in Jake’s gut where instinct lived, he’d always known she’d walk back into his life someday. And that she’d hate him.

Jake stalked through the open door joining his office to the private part of his house and turned to glare down at the occupant of a giant-size cedar pillow on the floor near the heating vent. The mass of wrinkles around the bloodhound’s droopy face made her look as if she had melted into the Black Watch plaid fabric.

“I could have used some help in there,” Jake complained, nudging a hindquarter gently with the toe of his boot. The dog opened an eye and thumped her tail once on the pillow as if to say, I knew you had it covered, boss.

“Oh, yeah. I had it covered all right,” Jake murmured irritably. Three cons he could handle. What he couldn’t handle was five feet three inches of woman with a giant-size chip on her shoulder. What a kick in the gut it had been when he’d seen Deirdre standing there. All that fire still in her eyes.

Hell, any red-blooded man alive would wonder if she was as hot in bed as that mouth of hers promised. It had been lust at first sight. Her skin creamy smooth, touched with roses, her chin-length hair tousled as if mussed by a lover’s hands, her eyes so blue a man could swim in them if he had the guts. Because, in spite of her petite size and the feminine curves of her body, there were dangerous waters running deep in Deirdre McDaniel, monsters under the surface she didn’t let anyone see.

And what had he done? Blurted out her name like some idiot. It was damned embarrassing remembering the stunned expression on her face. He’d made it plain he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind all these years, and put her in even more danger when Hedron and his boys got the crazy idea that he’d had his hands all over her. Yeah, right. In his dreams.

“So I remember her name. So what? I’m just a kick-ass detective, right, Ellie May? It’s my job to remember details. And the woman did slam my foot in her door the first time we met.”

Deirdre had been as fierce as a lioness that day, defending Finn, a woman she’d known only a few days. God, she’d been magnificent—all righteous indignation, so damned loving and brave. She’d made him want her from that first moment. Want her beneath him, want to bury himself in her heat, see if he could make all that fiery passion break free and warm the cold places inside him no one else could ever touch. He got hard even now, just thinking about—

Yeah, that kind of thinking could land a man in big trouble.

It was a damned good thing Trula had called, just the sound of her voice bringing him back to his senses. Because when he’d been standing there, looking into Deirdre McDaniel’s eyes, listening to a woman so proud, pleading for him to help her…he’d been on the brink of making one spectacularly stupid move.

But then, he’d always had a hard time saying no to damsels in distress. Not that Deirdre was his usual type. He liked his women leggy and gorgeous and feminine, adoring him, making him feel invincible. The way Jessica had before a smoking gun had destroyed their future.

Ellie May pawed at his leg, sensing his dark thoughts. She gazed up at him soulfully, as if to say he didn’t need any other woman but her. She loved him. Adored him.

The dog rolled over, exposing her belly. Her pink tongue lolled out the side of her mouth, the animal certain that looking ridiculous would make scratching her belly irresistible to Jake.

“You’re pathetic.” He hunkered down, running his fingernails lightly over Ellie’s sleek chest. “No wonder the K-9 squad washed you out.” Ellie wriggled in delight.

“I know, I know. Masters who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw bones. You’re right. This is crazy. I just need to forget this whole deal. I told Deirdre I wouldn’t take the case, didn’t I? I’ll be damned if I’m going to help her destroy her life, hurt her family. I’ve had a bellyful of that, especially where the McDaniels are concerned.”

He remembered the brother—Cade—and his pretty wife solemnly handing over the first check to repay the money Ms. O’Grady’s father had stolen. The two had moved heaven and earth to make good on Patrick O’Grady’s debt. They’d surprised Jake, made him realize just how jaded he’d become, how little he believed in people anymore. Honest people. Decent people. People who did what was right even when they could just turn and walk away. But then, cynicism was an occupational hazard when you made a career out of exposing people’s dirty laundry.

Deirdre McDaniel should get down on her knees every night and thank God she had the family she did. Burn the letter and forget she had any father but that irascible character, Martin McDaniel.

That would happen when Ellie May had a face-lift, Jake thought grimly. Deirdre McDaniel would never let this thing go. She’d worry it until there was nothing left of her.

And she’d lose. Lose big. There were plenty of people who would rake the past up for the right price and wouldn’t give a damn…

Well, too damned bad. He’d warned her, hadn’t he? If she was too stubborn to listen, fine. Let her have at it. She wasn’t his responsibility. He’d seen too many people disillusioned. He didn’t want to see her that way. He wanted to keep her in his memory the way she’d been that first day, all fight and fire and fierce, bright love.

Except that now he’d spend forever wondering what she’d uncovered, how it had changed her. Wondering if she’d let anyone catch her when she fell.

Jake paced to the sink, let the ice pack fall. Gingerly he touched the swelling where the blackjack had grazed him. Deirdre would be fine. She was far from helpless, he reminded himself.

She was a fighter.

After all, an hour ago the woman had even fought for him.

What had she been thinking jumping in like that? Irritation burned through him afresh. She could have been hurt. Hell, once things turned ugly, she could have been killed. One of the cons had tried to pull a knife. Hedron hadn’t come into the office bent on murder. He’d just been juiced up by Conlan, and aching for a fistfight to teach Stone a lesson. But if that knife had driven home, all three cons would have been desperate to cover their tracks, keep out of jail. They might not be the brightest crayons in the box, but they’d have to be cretins to trust Deirdre to keep her mouth shut. And the only way they could be sure of her silence was a permanent solution.

But now Hedron wouldn’t be back. Thank God he was basically a coward, not evil the way some of the lowlifes Jake had to deal with were. Still, there was plenty of scum out there.

How could Jake know for sure that this Jimmy Rivermont wasn’t one of them? A leech or a con man or worse still, some sociopath ready to suck Deirdre dry? Destroy her family? He remembered her little girl, Emma. All big, dark eyes, a face too tender for the real world. What if Deirdre was unwittingly bringing a monster into her daughter’s life?

He heard the lazy click of Ellie May’s nails on the slate floor, glanced down to see her gazing up at him as if he were some kind of hero. One who would never leave Deirdre and Emma McDaniel to the wolves.

“Quit looking at me like that!” he told the dog. “She’s not my problem.”

Ellie May licked his hand. He shot her the glare that made grown men back down. She wasn’t impressed.

“Fine,” he snarled. “Have it your way. I’ll be damage control for the woman, if nothing else. I’ve never met any woman more likely to get herself in trouble.”

Ellie tipped her head. He’d never seen a more eloquent expression saying the canine equivalent of “yeah, right.” He could almost hear the dog laughing her wrinkles off.

She eyed the jar of dog treats on the counter longingly. Now she wanted him to reward her for being a world-class nag? Not in this lifetime.

“Know what, Ellie?” he grumbled. “You’re a real bitch.”

Then he threw her a goddamn Milk-Bone.

DEIRDRE HAD BEEN DREADING the slam of the screen door for hours. She pulled the covers up higher over her pajamas and glanced at the clock on her bedside table, knowing Emma was home. The girl was more reliable than Old Faithful. Always on time or calling to check in if something earth-shattering was making her late. It made Deirdre a little sad, knowing how careful her daughter had become in the years since Deirdre had left her with Cade for those nine long months. It was as if some part of Emma were still afraid Deirdre might leave her again if the going got rough.

And in the near future things around here were bound to get rough indeed. Because Jake Stone or no Jake Stone, Deirdre wasn’t about to give up on finding her real father. A musician, just like she was, she thought with a tingle of anticipation. She wanted to see him, wanted to know how she looked like him, how they were alike. Wanted to see unreserved approval in a parent’s eyes and know…know that someone believed her perfect, just the way she was.

There is no guarantee he’ll feel that way, her subconscious warned in a voice annoyingly like Jake Stone’s.

But she had to believe Jimmy Rivermont would understand how it felt to make mistakes, and fear you could never make things right. After all, he’d had an affair with a married woman, gotten her pregnant. Had he known he’d fathered a child? The letter made it sound as if her mother had never told him.

“Mom?” Emma called softly, knocking on the bedroom door.

Deirdre’s heart squeezed. “I’ve told you a jillion times you can just come in.”

Emma carefully opened the door and peered inside, her face far too pale, too sad, too young. Deirdre’s heart ached for her. This was supposed to be Emma’s big day—getting the part she’d worked so hard for, defying the high school pecking order and earning the chance to prove to everyone that she was the finest actress Whitewater High had ever seen.

“Come in already,” Deirdre urged with tender impatience. “What are you waiting for?”

“I keep hoping someday I’ll knock and you’ll surprise me.” Emma gave a wan smile. “You’ll get all embarrassed and say, ‘Just a minute, sweetheart, let Mel Gibson here get on his clothes.’”

“Emmaline!”

“I can’t help it. I won’t be around forever, Mom. I…worry about you.”

Deirdre surrendered any effort to keep her game face on. “Children aren’t supposed to worry about their parents. It’s meant to be the other way around.”

“Tell that to Uncle Cade.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. I’m an adult. I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think so. Especially after…well, after today. That letter.” Emma fretted her lower lip. “You looked like—like it was the end of the world when you read it. I called Uncle Cade on my break, to warn him, you know…about what you read. So he could fix it.”

“Oh, Emma!”

“You should have heard him, Mom. He said you’d already been there. He sounded like…I hadn’t heard him sound like that since the morning when I was ten and we woke up and you were gone.”

Deirdre tensed. Imagining that morning had become the stuff of her worst nightmares. “The information in the letter wasn’t exactly news to your uncle,” Deirdre said, feeling defensive.

“It was to Grandpa. He’s really upset, Mom.”

Deirdre’s heart sank. Sometimes she almost felt jealous over the relationship between her daughter and Martin McDaniel. Envied their easy camaraderie. Who ever would have believed two people as night-and-day different from each other as Emma and her grandfather could understand each other perfectly? “You saw the Captain?” Deirdre said, already guessing the answer.

“I took off a little early.” Emma blushed—and no wonder, Deirdre thought. She’d broken McDaniel rule number 563—never take off work unless you’re in the hospital, a car accident or dead.

“Miss Madison said I looked sick.” Emma’s eyes turned pleading. “It wasn’t a lie. I felt like I was going to throw up.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Deirdre threw back part of the covers and opened her arms. Emma crossed to the bed and climbed stiffly in beside her. It had been too long since Emma had done this, Deirdre thought with a tug of regret.

Once this had been an every-night treat, Emma snuggling up in her mother’s bed before she’d toddled off to her own. Emma had talked and talked in her adorable, ohso-serious way, confident her mother could explain all the mysteries of the universe. But once she’d turned thirteen, Emma had guarded her new dignity so fiercely the nighttime ritual had all but vanished.

Deirdre wished that she could just relax and enjoy this night and the closeness she’d once taken for granted, Emma warm beside her, baring the secrets of her heart. But what had happened today had changed everything. There was no going back. Even Emma would have to understand that.

“Mom, everybody’s a mess over at the cabin,” Emma confided. “Aunt Finn’s been crying until her eyes are all swollen. And Uncle Cade’s gritting his teeth so hard his jaw looks like it’s going to crack. And the Captain, he wouldn’t even let me talk to him about—well, about the letter. But I wouldn’t go away. I cornered him and I told him not to worry. You always told me it didn’t matter who my father was. What mattered was who I was.”

Deirdre flinched, Emma’s words digging deep. She cuddled Emma close, burying her nose in the crown of her head. A sweet, fruity scent filled Deirdre’s nose—no simple baby shampoo for Emma anymore. She’d changed to something that promised to tame the wild curl in her hair. Thank God it hadn’t really worked.

Deirdre closed her eyes, thinking about how many times she had told her baby how wonderful she was, had said her father didn’t matter. Deirdre had tried to shield Emma, protect her, give her armor against inevitable gossip, even though she knew plenty of nasty jabs would slip through. Everyone in Whitewater was aware that Emma had never known her father. And she never would.

Deirdre started, realizing Emma had kept on talking, certain her mother was hanging on every word. “That’s why I had to see Grandpa and tell him that as soon as you cooled off, you’d know it doesn’t matter who your birth father is, either. Because that’s what you told me.”

“Oh, Emma.”

“I hate that tone of voice. It’s your ‘poor little Emma can’t understand something so grown-up’ voice. But nobody in the whole world understands better than I do about this. Wondering who your father is. Wondering if he’d love you or if he’d turn away, trying to pretend you didn’t know each other.”

Deirdre swallowed hard, tried to grasp the least painful way to tell her daughter the truth. “Emma, I know this is hard.”

“Yeah, well, hard is starting over at new schools so often you don’t even bother trying to make friends anymore. Hard is getting stuck in fifth grade with kids who’d known each other since kindergarten. It’s not like I don’t know what ‘hard’ means.”

Deirdre’s eyes stung. “Emma, you’re a smart girl. You have to know things have never been great between the Captain and me.”

“It’s because you’re too much alike. You just keep butting heads and no one will say they’re sorry, even when you both are.”

“This is my decision. Can you understand that? Trust me to know—know what I need to do?”

“You can do whatever you want. But I’m keeping the family I’ve got. I’m not calling anyone but the Captain Grandpa. It would break his heart.”

And I always thought he was more concerned about his pride. Deirdre bit her lip until it stung to keep from saying the words aloud. Her daughter didn’t need to hear them.

“What are you going to do?” Emma asked. “How are you going to…well, how does a person look for their father if they don’t know him?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, thinking of Jake Stone, a knot of helplessness and frustration balling up under her ribs. “But I intend to find out.”

“Mom?” Emma hung on to Deirdre, tight.

“What, angel girl?”

“I’m scared.”

“I am, too. But we’ll…we’ll get through this together, okay? Nothing can come between the two of us, right?”

Emma gazed up at her, doubtful.

“Enough of all this gloom and doom. I want to hear about you. Tell me about the play. About rehearsals and running lines and all those things you love.”

A shadow of a smile curved Emma’s lips, and Deirdre burned at the injustice that the disastrous letter and Emma’s triumph had surfaced on the same day.

“Mom, we can talk about all that later. I know you don’t feel like—”

“Hearing how my baby turned the whole drama department on its ear? Oh, yes, I do. Come on,” Deirdre encouraged, forcing a smile of her own. “You must be excited.”

“Yeah. Most of the time. But sometimes, well, it’s scary, too.”

“You’ve never had stage fright in your life!” Deirdre said, surprised.

“All the popular kids in school want me to fall flat on my face,” Emma confided. “They say Juliet was Brandi’s part. She was so sure she was going to get it that her mom volunteered to donate costumes for the play. She had this place in the Quad Cities sew a velvet Juliet gown to die for.”

“I’m sure it will look wonderful on you.”

“I suppose. But it’s a lot of pressure, you know? I’m going to have to practice real hard. And at school, well, it’s going to be awful tense with everybody hoping I’ll screw up.”

The little jerks, Deirdre thought, wishing she could spank every one of the spoiled, undertalented brats.

“Anyway, I was thinking, well, I wanted to ask you if you’d mind…”

“Mind what?” Deirdre said, knowing she’d do anything in her power to drive the self-doubt from her precious daughter’s face.

“If Drew and I practiced here after school sometimes. Away from all the craziness.” Emma’s gaze flitted like a butterfly, landing anywhere but her mother’s face. “We could use the gazebo.”

Deirdre closed her eyes. She was always thrilled when Emma had friends over; her daughter’s close little crowd had always been a delight. But right now, with her insides churning, her mind racing, trying to think how to begin this search—for once, Deirdre just wanted to be alone.

“You’re not going to let little witches like Brandi Bates ruin this for you, are you?” she hedged, trying to sort things through.

“Of course not. I just…she’s acting so weird. All jealous. It’s ridiculous. She’s gorgeous and I’m…well…I’m me. It isn’t like she has any reason to think I could steal her boyfriend even if I wanted to.”

Deirdre’s heart skipped a beat. “But you don’t want to.”

“Mom!” Emma drew out the word in the age-old voice of teenage disgust. Deirdre tried not to worry that Emma wasn’t looking her straight in the eye. “I know things are crazy right now, but Drew and I won’t get in the way. I promise. You won’t even know we’re here.”

“All right,” Deirdre said, giving Emma one last hug. The whole Romeo and Juliet thing made her nerves twitch. But if Emma was going to be making big eyes at this Drew person, better Deirdre should be around to keep an eye on things instead of some brain-dead teacher who obviously thought all this teenage romance stuff was exquisite drama.

Deirdre knew better. She’d found out the truth the night her daughter was conceived.

DEIRDRE WOKE WITH A JOLT, a bright ray of sun squeezing between cracks in the plantation shutters sending frissons of panic racing through her. She glanced at the alarm clock, but the ringer was off. Did she forget to set it last night? Finn was going to kill her. The giant oak table in the dining room should be full of guests expecting one of March Winds’ famous breakfasts of freshbaked muffins and spinach omelets and there wouldn’t be a crumb in sight. Why hadn’t Finn wakened her when she came over to help serve?

Deirdre scrambled into jeans and a T-shirt, raked a brush through her unruly hair, swiped a toothbrush across her teeth and ran for the kitchen. She was halfway down the stairs when it hit her—the cold, clear memory of the day before. Deirdre stumbled to a halt, loss, betrayal and anger washing over her as if they were brand-new.

Her stomach turned over, and for an instant she wished it was yesterday morning again. She and Finn preparing breakfast together, laughing over one of the twins’ latest escapades.

Deirdre had never had a friend like Finn before, someone she felt completely safe with, trusted enough to let glimpse her softer side. Someone she trusted—who had been lying to her the whole time.

How long had Finn known the whole sordid story? How much of Finn’s friendship was based on plain, ugly pity?

Poor Deirdre…not her fault…She could just imagine the scene at the cabin, even without Emma’s description the night before.

Thank God no one else in Whitewater knew the truth. Only Emma and Cade and Finn and the Captain. More humiliating still was her encounter with Jake Stone. She squirmed inwardly. Never before in her life had she begged anyone for anything. But she’d begged him to help her. Probably given him something to laugh about with Miss Great Legs, Trula Devine.

Deirdre’s cheeks burned. She wished she could turn around and run back to her bedroom, lock the whole world out until…

Until she was in control again. Control of her feelings, her life, her past…but then, anyone in town could have told her a long time ago that she was out of control.

Still, dodging breakfast duty wouldn’t change any of that. She’d have to face Finn sometime. Better get it over with now.

Deirdre opened the kitchen door, but instead of chaos, an amazing serenity reigned, the kitchen smelling of cinnamon apple muffins, the antique china Finn cherished neatly rinsed, stacked and waiting to be loaded into one of the dishwashers. Finn leaned over her very pregnant stomach, settling teacups in the top rack.

“It was supposed to be your day off kitchen duty,” Deirdre said.

Finn shot her a searching look, then shrugged. “I told Emma to shut your alarm off before she went to bed.”

Was that why Emma had slipped into bed with her last night? Because she was on some subversive mission from the enemy? Deirdre wanted to be aggravated, but it was so like Finn to think about her, do something kind. Deirdre’s throat ached.

“What did you think? If I took a nap like a good girl I’d get over the crazy notion of trying to find my real father?”

“No. I thought you might be tired.” Finn poured a mug of coffee and pressed it into Deirdre’s hands. “You aren’t a morning person on the best of days.”

And she never would be, Deirdre thought. All those years of singing in clubs had thrown her body clock completely out of whack. One more way Deirdre had been out of sync with the early-bird McDaniels. But maybe Jimmy Rivermont would understand. Musician to musician.

Not that she was a musician anymore, she told herself firmly. She’d hadn’t sung anything besides “Happy Birthday” in six years.

“Finn, listen, I appreciate you coming over and playing back-up. But I’m here now, and I’m in a real barn burner of a mood, so if you have to hover over somebody, hover over Cade and the—”

A sharp knock on the door cut Deirdre off midsentence. Please, God, she thought, exhausted, don’t make this one of those “speaking of the devil” deals. Facing Finn was one thing. Cade and the Captain? That was one confrontation she just wasn’t ready for.

“The Captain and Cade have the old Porsche in pieces all over the garage. With Amy and Will ‘helping,’ they may never get it back together again,” Finn supplied, able to read her thoughts as usual.

Deirdre should have guessed what her brother would be up to. It was vintage Cade McDaniel, trying to fix the nearest engine the way he could never mend his family.

Deirdre started toward the door, but Finn cut her off. “I’ll answer it. You’ll scare the guests away glaring like that.”

Finn opened the door, but her “Welcome to March Winds” speech died on her lips. Deirdre’s heart jumped, wondering what was wrong. “M-Mr. Stone?” Finn’s voice quavered. “Did something happen to Mrs. Aronson?”

Deirdre quelled the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Trust Finn to inquire after the woman she and Cade had written all those checks to over the years.

“No, ma’am,” Stone said, so respectfully Finn might have been the Queen Mum. “Mrs. Aronson is just fine. I’ve come to see Deirdre.”

“Deirdre?”

“She visited my office last night regarding a private matter.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.” Finn shot a searching look Deirdre’s way. Finn was white as March Winds’ ghost. And what was this “I see” garbage? Why didn’t she just say, “How could you hire this man who reminds me that my father was a thief?”

Stone stepped inside. He wore black jeans, another black T-shirt and a black Stetson. Who’d he think he was? Johnny Cash? Stone removed the Stetson, cradling it in one strong hand. His gaze dipped to Finn’s impressive stomach. “You look wonderful, Mrs. McDaniel. Happy. I’m glad.”

Yeah, Deirdre thought. Her sister-in-law was so happy at the moment Deirdre would be lucky if Finn didn’t deck her later.

“Stone,” Deirdre said, trying not to hope he’d changed his mind about helping her. But then, why else would he be here? To try to talk her out of pursuing the whole thing? Deirdre grimaced—she’d just tell him to get in line.

He turned toward her, and Deirdre found herself staring smack in the middle of all that imposing male chest. “I’ve been considering your case. Talked it over with someone and decided I might have time to take it after all.”

Deirdre tracked her gaze up his corded neck, past his square, chiseled jaw and hawklike nose so she could glare right into his eyes. “Let me guess. Ms. Great Legs Trula Devine needed more cash than you had on hand?”

Finn looked as if she’d swallowed a teacup.

“Actually, another lady friend of mine convinced me to come. She’s a real looker, too, with sensational red hair. And she’s definitely less expensive than Trula. All this lady wants is a meal.”

Great. He had two cheap bimbos on the string. Jake Stone could be the poster boy for why Deirdre had sworn off men.

Stone fingered the brim of his hat. “I was hoping I could get some information from you. Interview anyone who might give me a place to start.”

“My brother. He’s the only one our mother ever spoke to about—well, about my father. He’s at the cabin.”

Finn started to object, stopped. Deirdre figured she knew better. “I could go to the cabin and send him over here.” Finn offered. “That way no one else needs to know.” She looked more McDaniel-like than ever before—dead stubborn—and Deirdre knew who she was trying to protect. The crotchety old man whose heart Emma feared might break.

Finn dodged out the kitchen door as quickly as her advanced pregnancy would allow. Deirdre could almost see her, hurrying through the garden, disappearing beyond the white picket gate as she headed home.

Deirdre should have been glad she was gone, taking her reproachful eyes with her. But the kitchen seemed to shrink with Stone’s big body in it, the intensity of the P.I. sucking all the oxygen from the room. It was too easy to remember how he’d felt those few moments when he’d held her after the fight. Powerful, dangerous. Fierce and forbidden. Hot and hard and blatantly male. He’d towered over her, making her want…

Want what? Total disaster? Jake Stone was a prime example of Mother Nature’s cunning, ready to trick an intelligent woman into spinning completely out of control. Surrendering independence to taste physical pleasure. No question Stone was temptation incarnate. Let Trula Devine and his gorgeous redhead play with Stone’s brand of fire. Deirdre wasn’t about to get burned by any man.

Again.

The word echoed through Deirdre’s mind. She started, suddenly aware of Stone’s cool, assessing gaze on her face. She could almost hear the gears in his head spinning, trying to figure her out. Her cheeks burned, an instinctive need to flee racing through her veins. She needed a few moments alone to compose herself, put herself back together. So she could face her brother, she told herself firmly.

Deirdre made her excuses, and went to fetch the letter from her room. If anything had the power to drain some of Stone’s undeniable magnetism it was the prospect of seeing her brother.

She fought down a surge of guilt. Old habits die hard, she told herself. For once, a mess wasn’t her fault. Cade was the one who’d had choices all these years. She had every right to be furious with him. All she was trying to do was find out the truth.

By the time she got back to the kitchen, Cade was standing two steps inside the door, arms crossed over his chest as he told Stone exactly what a rotten idea he thought this search was.

Deirdre cut him off. “Either tell him what you know, Cade, or don’t. It’s up to you. I intend to get to the bottom of this with or without your help.”

“I’m sure you’ll run it down to the bitter end no matter who gets caught in the cross fire,” Cade said.

“The Captain knows I’m not his daughter. So does Emma, thanks to your sending her over to the house to babysit me when I opened the hope chest yesterday. And Mom’s dead. There’s no one left to protect.”

“There’s a sick old man over at the cabin and he’s tearing himself up inside over this—”

“Over Mom’s affair. His sullied honor.” Deirdre kept her gaze carefully away from Stone. “Truth to tell, he’s probably relieved to know he doesn’t have to take any responsibility for my screw-ups anymore. He’s got the perfect out—”

“You don’t believe that,” Cade insisted.

“Don’t I?” She struggled to push down a lifetime of insecurity, hide her raw, secret places from Stone. But the words spilled out, in spite of her efforts. “If the Captain loves me so much, why didn’t he tell me so? Right then and there, in front of you and Finn? Why didn’t he say the stuff in that letter didn’t change anything?”

“God, Dee, you should have seen your face! If you had, you’d know why he acted the way he did!”

“What would you have done, Cade? If you had found out something horrendous like this about Amy or Will?”

Cade scowled. “How would I know?”

“You’d do the same thing you did when Finn was trying to be noble and call off your wedding. You’d dig in your heels and wouldn’t leave until you’d pounded the fact that you loved them into their heads. You’d tell them to hell with what that letter said. You’re their father.”

“The Captain is your father. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, damn it.”

“That’s right,” Deirdre said, excruciatingly aware of Stone watching them, weighing them, unraveling far more than the words should have revealed. “That’s what you’ve been trying to tell me. The Captain just turned and walked away.”

Cade looked like she’d punched him in the gut. She could see him scramble for excuses. “Dee, Dad is an old man. A proud one. And, damn it, he’s in so much pain he can’t even walk up the stairs to go to the bathroom. He’s feeling weaker than he’s ever been in his life. And you hit him with the fact that even when he was at his strongest, his most invincible, it was all an illusion.”

“Guess even Superman had to deal with kryptonite.” She tried so hard to sound flippant. Instead she sounded cruel. And hated it. But she’d hate breaking down in tears far more, especially with Stone’s laser beam attention focused on her. Was he trying to judge what she’d say? she wondered. Or trying to figure out what she couldn’t put into words.

“Mom lied to Dad, Dee. Can you imagine how much that must hurt?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I don’t have to imagine anything at all when it comes to being lied to by the person you trusted most in the whole world.” She glared at Cade, saw his face twist with pain. Direct hit. Score one for her side.

Cade’s voice roughened. “Mom carried another man’s child. And you’re practically rolling out a banner to announce Dad’s humiliation to the whole world?”

“That’s right! I’m supposed to be interviewed on the news at noon.”

“Damn it, you don’t think this is a joke, no matter what you’re saying. You know how painful this is, and how damaging. Not only do you throw the past in Dad’s face, but you outright reject him right there in front of Finn and me.”

“I rejected him?” Deirdre snorted, incredulous. “In case you failed to notice, I’m not the one who walked out of that room yesterday.”

“Hell, no. You didn’t have to. It was perfectly clear you had already made up your mind to track down this other guy before you set foot in the cabin.”

“Mr. McDaniel,” Stone cut in smoothly, “arguing about what happened yesterday isn’t going to get us anywhere. Deirdre’s made it clear she intends to pursue this matter. Perhaps we can agree the least painful way to settle things for all concerned is to get to the bottom of this as expediently as possible. With time—”

“My father is seventy-six and can’t even walk up stairs,” Cade snapped. “Just how much time do you think he has?”

Something like empathy sparked for a fleeting moment in Stone’s hooded eyes. “Whatever time is left, we’re wasting it right now.”

Cade paced across to the sink, leaned against the white porcelain, glaring intently out the window. Deirdre stared at his profile, catching sight of a glint of moisture at the corner of her brother’s eye. “What do you want from me?”

“Deirdre says you’re the only person Mrs. McDaniel spoke to about her relationship with the birth father. Is that true?”

“As far as I know. I hardly think she discussed it with the wives down at the officers’ club.”

“It’s not something I’d imagine you’d discuss with your son, either,” Stone observed. “So how did you come to know about Deirdre’s parentage?”

Cade’s features darkened. “There was an accident. The doctors thought Deirdre might need a kidney transplant. I overheard the doctor telling Mom that our father was not a compatible donor. It was biologically impossible that Deirdre was his child.”

“Your father wasn’t there to get the doctor’s report?” Stone didn’t manage to mask disapproval.

“No. He was gone.”

Deirdre figured Cade must have sensed some kind of censure in Stone. Cade’s temper sparked. “Dad was feeding Dee’s dog. Dad and Spot had this kind of love/hate relationship. But the old man knew the first thing out of Dee’s mouth when she regained consciousness would be asking after that damned dog. He wanted to show her he hadn’t forgotten.”

Deirdre winced.

Cade turned to Deirdre, gaze fiercely intense. “Don’t you call that love, Dee? He was worried sick, wanted to stay at the hospital, hear the first word when the doc reported in. But he knew what mattered most to you. He tried to—to put your mind at ease.”

She didn’t dare show the effect his words had had on her, or Cade would hammer her forever, hoping he could make her call this whole search off. She could handle Cade furious. But pleading, sorrowful, hurting…those were a more dangerous approach.

Deirdre tossed her head. “It’s more likely he just couldn’t stand to deviate from the schedule,” she said. “Feed dog at 0800 hours.”

Cade swore.

Stone cleared his throat and continued. “So you and your mother were alone in the waiting room, Mr. McDaniel. The doctor walks in and reveals something this explosive in front of you?”

“They both thought I was asleep. Even so, the doctor asked Mom to step out of the waiting room into the hall. But I could tell from the man’s voice something had gone horribly wrong. I…thought my sister was dead.”

Deirdre had to clench her hands into fists to keep from reaching out to Cade, touching him. The breach yawned between them, so painful it hurt to breathe. She could see Cade there, at the hospital, his body not yet filled out with a man’s muscles, his face still boyish, the scar on his chin still new. He must have been devastated, feeling responsible for anything that went wrong in the family, the way he always did. She could almost hear the litany of self-blame running through his head.

I should have foreseen she was going to fall, stopped her from being so reckless.

I should have hurled myself on the open toolbox so she wouldn’t have hit the sharp metal edges when she fell.

He’d thought she was dead. He must have been going through hell. It should have been over once the doctor said she’d live, but he’d only exchanged one level of hell for an even deeper one.

Cade blew out a steadying breath. “Mom begged the doctor not to tell our father unless it was a question of saving Deirdre’s life. She prayed Deirdre would recover without needing that kidney. Deirdre did. Mom made me promise I would never tell. I never did.”

“So, that’s the Cliff’s Notes version,” Stone said. “Think you can add anything more?”

“Cade, for God’s sake! I know you’re doing this under duress, okay? Your objection has been duly noted and thrown in the circular file. Now tell the man something useful or stop wasting his time.”

“This isn’t easy, Dee. I don’t want my family hurt.”

“Oh, yeah, and I’m just loving this. It’s so much fun,” Deirdre snapped.

“Mom said she’d had an affair with a man named Jimmy Rivermont. He was selling band instruments in the area, or something. She would leave me with another army wife while she…” Cade shrugged. “I don’t know the woman’s name. She lived next door to our parents.”

“In military housing?”

“Yes.”

“Where were they stationed?” Stone asked.

“Fort Benning, Georgia. Must have been, what? Thirty-three years ago.”

“Did this friend of your mother’s have a name?” Stone probed.

“I sure as hell never asked what it was.”

Deirdre tried to sound confident. “The Captain would know who Mom’s friends on base were, wouldn’t he?”

“You can’t ask him that!” Cade raged. “For God’s sake, Dee!”

“We’ll try other avenues first,” Stone said. “I promise you, Mr. McDaniel, I’ll try to make this inquiry as painless as possible for you and your family.”

“I’d be…grateful. Anyway, I’m out of here. I’ve told you all I know.” Cade’s jaw tipped up at that angle that always made Deirdre want to take a swing at it. “Except that Deirdre already has a father who loves her.”

“Damn it, Cade!”

“I know,” Stone said. “I mentioned that myself.”

Cade stalked to the door. Stopped. “I just have to say this one last time, then I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Yeah, right!” Deirdre scoffed, turning her back on him and bracing herself against the counter.

“Don’t do this, Dee.”

“It’s already done.”

CHAPTER 5

CADE SLAMMED THE SCREEN on his way out. The sound reverberated through the roomy kitchen of March Winds. Deirdre and Stone stood in silence a long time. She rubbed her eyes, disgusted that she was close to tears. Damn, she wasn’t going to cry.

“So,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Is that enough to start on?” She grabbed her purse from the counter, started digging in what Emma called “theworld’s smallest landfill.”

“How much do I owe you for a retainer?”

She didn’t expect Stone to cross the room, circle her wrist with his warm fingers. Deirdre tried to keep from shaking. But Stone wasn’t buying her tough act. He slid the purse out of her reach, then stunned her by tugging her gently until her back flattened against the hard wall of his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.

Oh, God, Deirdre thought, breathing in the scent of him, exotic, dangerous, deliciously male. He felt so solid, so big, as if he could hold back crumbling mountains, or crumbling lives.

For a heartbeat she wanted to stay there, safe. Protected. Not alone.

He leaned his cheek against her. “It’s all right,” he breathed against her temple, stroking her hair. “Cry if you need to.”

Damn the man! What did he think? She was going to fall apart right in front of his eyes? But then, between Trula and the redhead, he was probably inundated with feminine tears.

Indignation sizzled through Deirdre. She tried to wriggle free, but he held her, determined to what? Comfort her? She stomped hard on his foot.

Stone yelped, yanked away, glaring at her. “What did you do that for?”

“Because I—” Because it felt too good. Because you smelled heavenly. Because I was afraid part of me would be weak enough to like it. Like being held, even by a jerk like you.

“Mom?” Emma’s voice dashed like cold water over Deirdre. She wheeled to see her daughter staring wide-eyed at Stone. Did she remember him? Deirdre wondered, recalling the tumultuous period when the P.I. had first charged into the McDaniels’ lives. But if Emma had any idea Stone was a private investigator she’d be doing her finest Snow Queen imitation instead of standing there grinning like a cat who’d just swallowed Tweety Bird whole.

No. Emma didn’t have a clue who Stone was, nor why he was at March Winds. The flabbergasted expression on the girl’s face was just plain astonishment because she’d never once seen her mother in a man’s arms.

For an instant Deirdre considered blurting out the whole truth. But Emma’s world had been so badly shaken in the past twenty-four hours that the thought of wiping a genuine smile off her daughter’s face was just too miserable to handle at the moment. Defying Cade and Finn and the Captain was difficult enough. Knowing Emma would take their side hurt more than Deirdre could bear. The thought of any rift between her and her daughter terrified her, carrying her back to the wall that had separated Deirdre from her own mother for so long.

Deirdre had sworn she’d never let anything get between her and Emma again. She’d come close enough to losing her daughter six years ago.

Yet, during that upheaval, Deirdre had managed to shield Emma from Jake Stone and his business with the McDaniel family. She’d do the same thing now. Until she could find a way to make Emma understand.

As if her daughter would ever be able to understand doing anything that might hurt her beloved grandpa.

“Yo, Mom, guess you took that advice I gave you last night after all. Talk about fast work!” She might as well have broken into a chorus of “It’s Raining Men, Alleluia.” Deirdre swept to the far side of the room, cheeks burning.

“This isn’t what you think,” Deirdre cautioned. “Mr. Stone is a professional…in restoration.”

Stone regarded her silently. It wasn’t a lie, Deirdre insisted to herself. The man restored things. Like sanity to lovesick idiots, and the money he’d gotten Finn and Cade to pay. He’d restored it to the person Finn’s father had stolen it from.

Whatever Stone’s thoughts on her evasion, he took his cue from her. “Your mother and I are working together on an historical project of sorts,” he said.

Emma flashed Stone her brightest smile. “So then we’ll be seeing a lot of you? I mean, if you’re working on March Winds’ ballroom. Aunt Finn has been saying for months she wants to expand something besides her waistline, Mr.—?”

“Stone. Jake Stone.” He extended his hand. Emma intentionally misunderstood and took both his hands to shake instead of the one. Deirdre died of embarrassment as her daughter none too subtly inspected the ring finger of Stone’s left hand.

Emma fluttered her lashes at him. “Awesome name. You should be an actor. And you’ve got a great face. All rugged and rough, like you’ve lived real hard. Not too pretty, know what I mean? Nothing more boring than a pretty man, right, Mom?”

Deirdre made a garbled sound that might be assent as she considered ways to throttle her daughter.

Stone ate the praise up. “Thank you,” he said. “You must be Emma. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Emma beamed. “Mom’s been talking about me again, huh? I promise she gets off the subject of how wonderful I am eventually. Then she’s a real crack-up.”

Stone raised one silky black eyebrow. “I’ll bet.”

“Hey! That is way cool!” Emma enthused. “That thing you do with your eyebrow. Can you teach me how? It would be great for character parts. Not that I intend to do many of those. I’m an actress. I just got the part of Juliet. But that’s just high school stuff. Mom sent me to camp last summer at the coolest drama school in the world. And my teachers offered me early enrollment. If everything works out right, I’ll take early graduation and be in New York by spring.”

Stone whistled. “New York is a long way from home. What’s your mom think about that?” The P.I. looked as if he really cared.

“She’s happier about it than I am!” Emma wrinkled her nose. “She doesn’t want me to get stuck in this little town. Like I would, ever!”

Deirdre wondered if her daughter had any idea how many times Deirdre herself had vowed the same thing. But life was tricky, dangerous. And what was that saying Cade quoted so often? If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

“I know you’re loving this scintillating conversation with Mr. Stone, Emma, but he’s a busy man. I’m sure he has business to take care of.” Deirdre shot Stone a glance of dismissal impossible to misunderstand.

But Stone was regarding her with infuriating innocence. “Actually, my morning is free. And I’d love a chance to talk theater with someone who really understands quality performing. I saw a lot of it when I was growing up.”

Oh, yeah, that line of baloney fit the Stone she loved to hate. Mr. Broadway. He’d probably had front-row seats at striptease clubs and burlesque shows.

Damn the man! Couldn’t he see she was trying to get him out of here?

Deirdre wished she could demand to know what the real story of this little performance was. But she couldn’t do that without tipping her own hand—something she couldn’t risk doing in front of her daughter.

But if Deirdre could see right through Stone, Emma was blinded by his action-hero looks and lethal charm. No wonder Stone was such a successful private investigator. He could wrap women around those powerful, long fingers of his and make them want to thank him for it. A dangerous skill, and an unforgivable flaw where Deirdre was concerned. But Emma was utterly enchanted.

The teenager laughed, looking so adorable Deirdre doubted Attila the Hun could deny her anything she asked. “Mom and I have this tradition that when I get a new part,” she confided, “we go out for breakfast at this really cool place called Lagomarcino’s. It’s like an old-fashioned soda fountain from a jillion years ago.”

“More like a hundred,” Deirdre grudgingly corrected.

“Whatever,” Emma conceded breezily. “Want to come along, Mr. Stone?”

Duct tape, Deirdre thought inanely. Duct tape was the only solution. If she could just tear off a strip and plaster it across Emma’s mouth, she could put an end to this whole situation once and for all. But that would be child abuse, unless, of course, she got a jury stacked with mothers of teenage girls.

A rogue ex-cop who’d done something so bad he’d lost his badge wouldn’t be the kind of company Deirdre would want her daughter around, period. The danger of Emma discovering exactly what Deirdre had hired Stone to “restore” made the invitation even more alarming.

“Emma, Mr. Stone is a very busy man,” Deirdre began.

“Everybody has to eat. Please, Mr. Stone!” Emma didn’t bother trying to wheedle her mother into it. She turned the Big Eyes directly at Stone. “This town is the cultural armpit of the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m starving for news of the big wide world out there.” The girl all but pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, playing out her best death scene. “It would be heaven to talk to somebody who really knows theater. Besides, Mom and I never get the chance to be escorted by a dark, mysterious stranger around here. We’ll have the whole town talking. Think what fun that would be.”

“Being the subject of town gossip is highly overrated,” Deirdre said.

She felt Stone’s gaze rivet on her, knew that something in the tone of her voice had intrigued him, impelled him to try to chip away at secrets. Panic fluttered under her breastbone. She crushed it. Let him dig away. Deirdre figured before the end of this case he was bound to find out that she’d been number one on Whitewater’s Most Talked About List often enough.

Deirdre started to make excuses, but Stone either jumped at another chance to irritate her or had fallen under Emma’s spell.

He crooked Emma that killer smile. “Who could pass up an opportunity to get the whole town buzzing? And enjoy the company of two such beautiful ladies in the bargain?”

What in the name of heaven was the man thinking? Stone was one of the most calculating people Deirdre had ever known, with a reason for everything. Why on God’s green earth would he want to spend the next hour eating pancakes at some quaint little restaurant with a woman he didn’t much like and a star-crazed sixteen-year-old who would obviously talk until his ear shriveled up and fell off?

He had to know she was concealing things from Emma. They couldn’t say a word about the case. What possible reason could a man like Stone have for wasting his morning this way?

Deirdre groped for some way, any way, to send the man packing. “Two’s company, four’s a crowd,” Deirdre warned. “Don’t you think Trula and your redheaded lady friend would object? Or aren’t they the jealous type?”

The corners of Stone’s eyes crinkled, his sexy laugh setting alarm bells jangling up and down Deirdre’s spine. “Oh, my ladies are plenty jealous, but I’ll charm my way out of trouble. I can be irresistible when I want to be.”

“I’ll bet.” Emma laughed, softening the lines of strain etched in her face from the night before. “Come on, Mom. This’ll be great. No offense, Mr. Stone, but with just the two of us at the table, conversation gets a little dull sometimes.”

Deirdre forced a smile. “It won’t be boring next time, Emmaline Kate. I promise you that.”

Ignoring the warning in grand style, Emma slid her arm into Stone’s and grinned. “My mom is really, really picky about men. She wouldn’t go out with just anybody, you know. This is your lucky day.”

THE KID WAS DEFINITELY on the make—for her mother, that is. And if they gave Oscars for performances designed to get Mom a date, Emma McDaniel would be giving a hell of an acceptance speech come next year.

That is, if she survived her mother’s wrath in the hours to come. Steam might as well have been rolling out of Deirdre’s ears, the woman twitchy as hell. But then, Deirdre was usually so blunt, Stone supposed it was tough for her, trying to keep the lid on the reason he’d been hired. The more time he spent with Emma, the more likely the kid would figure out she’d been duped. And in Stone’s experience royalty objected to being made to look a fool.

Her Royal Highness deftly maneuvered them to her “lucky” table, set up for three, where she was able to manipulate her mother into sitting next to Jake on a crowded bench. Emma made her move with such cunning there was no way out of the predicament unless Deirdre was willing to be completely rude.

He figured Deirdre could be plenty rude on occasion, but to do so now would reveal to Emma that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. And once that happened, Stone wagered Emma would latch on to the mystery and never let go.

Besides, Stone figured he owed the teenager big-time. He was devil enough to enjoy Deirdre’s discomfiture and man enough to savor the pleasure of being close enough to touch the woman who’d been prickly toward him for so long.

He could have been a gentleman and squashed himself against the wall so he wouldn’t touch her, but what fun would that be?

He let his big body take up all the space it needed. His thigh touched Deirdre’s, his elbow brushing her arm whenever he moved. She was so near he could smell scents that had haunted him for so long—something exotic like bergamot or oranges alerting every one of his senses that this wasn’t your average woman—something so spicy and defiant it barely seemed possible so much emotion could be contained in such a small woman, a wild inner freedom that wouldn’t buckle to any man.

He wondered if Deirdre knew that such obvious reluctance on her part was the most addictive aphrodisiac of all. Could she guess how many questions she awoke in a man because of the boundaries she’d drawn so clearly?

She made it easy for Stone to understand why his ancestors had raided proud highland villages in ages past, so they could fill their beds with such strong, defiant beauties and have their sons carry the women’s fighting blood in their veins.

An all-too-vivid imagination flashed a scene from The Quiet Man in his head—but instead of Maureen O’Hara, it was Deirdre who struggled in Stone’s arms as he carried her into a thatched cottage, dead set on making love to her.

Stone yanked himself up short. Get a grip, he told himself. Stick to basics. The reasons you took this case. You’re here because you’re attracted to the woman. And because somehow she slipped past your guard to where your guilty conscience hides.

Remember who you are: a hard-nosed private investigator who can’t afford to feel emotions like these. Hell, he hadn’t even realized he still had it in him, thought he’d left them behind with the badge that had been taken away.

The cop he’d been back then had seemed like a stranger for years. An idealistic fool too damned young, too involved, too emotional, who cared too much even when he damned well knew throwing himself into a case that way was going to bite him in the ass and leave him bleeding.

When he’d walked away from the force, he’d thought he was done playing Sir Galahad. From that moment on he’d see the world with all its hard edges, people taking whatever they could get, even the best ones looking for ways to wriggle out of nasty situations.

And damned if it hadn’t worked until he’d crashed into the McDaniel clan, a family more stubbornly honorable than anyone he’d known since he’d crossed swords with Sergeant Tony Manoletti at twelve years old.

Stone fought to quell the memories of that dark Italian face, and the uncomfortable emotions Deirdre and her family loosed in him.

Concentrate on the entertainment value, he told himself. Here he was, sitting close enough to kiss a woman he figured would never so much as stay in the same room once he’d entered it. Yeah, it was big fun, Stone told himself cynically, except it only made him wonder what she’d taste like. Deirdre was so small, he’d have to bend way over, gather her up against him and—

“…and Hugh Jackman in The Boy from Oz played this gay singer who—Mr. Stone, you’re not listening,” Emma accused.

Stone actually felt the back of his neck get hot.

“Whatever you’re thinking about, it sure isn’t theater,” the girl scolded. “I expect you to tell me right—oh!”

Saved by the bell. Literally. The old-fashioned brass bell above Lagomarcino’s door jangled. Emma’s eyes widened, her face turning a shade pinker than the moment before as a tall kid of about seventeen entered the diner, his sun-streaked blond hair and angular, wind-burned face giving him a kind of Ralph Lauren, preppie outdoorsman look. For a heartbeat, Stone could see the incredible woman Emma would grow into. Then, between one moment and the next, she transformed back into a fluttery teenage girl.

“Ohmigod,” she breathed. Her mother’s gaze pinned her.

“Emma? Are you all right?”

“Mom, cut it out!” Emma hissed under her breath, one hand sweeping up in an effort to smooth her flyaway hair. Wasted effort, Stone wanted to tell her. Like her mother’s unruly locks, Emma’s hair looked best a little tousled.

Of course, on Emma it looked cute. On Deirdre it looked like a man had just buried his hands in the silky locks. Unless, Stone figured, the guy looking at the two McDaniel women was seventeen. There was no missing the appreciation lighting the boy’s hazel eyes. Trula would have called them bedroom eyes. Stone figured they were closer to a golden retriever’s—and not one that had honored the humane society’s mandate for neutering.

Ignoring her daughter’s stammered plea not to embarrass her, Deirdre glanced over her shoulder to see what held her daughter’s attention. She needn’t have bothered. The boy nabbed a can of Dr Pepper from the pop machine, then headed straight for them.

The kid smiled at Emma, something about him so damned shiny and new it made Stone feel a hundred years old.

“Hey, Juliet,” the kid said, shoving one hand into the pocket of jeans his mom had obviously pressed.

“Hey, Romeo.”

So this must be the kid cast opposite Emma in the play. “Romeo” had that soulful, romantic look that would give all the impressionable girls watching the performance something to dream about for months.

So why did the look on Deirdre’s face make Stone wonder if the kid would be giving her nightmares?

Romeo turned respectfully to Deirdre. “You’re Emma’s mom, aren’t you? I’m Drew Lawson.”

“Hello, Drew,” Deirdre replied. Stone knew that tone. It was the icy one she’d used on him so often. Stone had to credit the kid for guts as Drew awkwardly offered the Ice Queen his hand. Deirdre glanced at his fingers, then away, a pointed rejection that astonished Stone. Why didn’t she just kick that poor puppy and be done with it?

Drew tugged at the open collar of a purple-and-green-striped rugby shirt. It looked like the kid registered Deirdre’s chilly reception loud and clear. Even so, the kid didn’t beat feet for the door. He stood there, nervous but determined. “I just want to tell you how glad I am Emma got the lead,” Drew said. “Her audition had half the teachers bawling.”

Drew slid Emma another glance. “I’m looking forward to working with her.”

Yeah, kid, I’ll bet you are, Stone thought. Wasn’t there a kissing scene or two in the play? And it didn’t look like Emma would object to rehearsing it with this particular Romeo. So why was Deirdre giving the kid a glare that could be aimed at barbarian hordes bent on pillage?

The kid wasn’t wearing a Marilyn Manson shirt or sporting enough body-piercing to fill Jake’s grandmother’s pincushion. And he could hardly have offended Deirdre. Drew had just introduced himself.

Besides, Emma was sixteen—and a real looker, like her mother. Even if, by some miracle, Emma hadn’t been kissed yet, it was going to happen and soon. Wasn’t this clean-cut, all-American type kid every mother’s dream boyfriend for her daughter?

“Emma is very talented,” Deirdre said firmly. “But I can’t say Juliet is a part I think she’s suited for.”

“Really?” Drew asked, incredulous.

“Emma’s got far too good a head on her shoulders to be sucked into that whole star-crossed-lover bit—she’s going to have to work hard to make it believable. I mean, the whole thing—the poison, the suicide, the whole parents-being-evil bit just isn’t her style.”

Emma grimaced. “That’s why they call it acting, Mom.”

“I knew there had to be a reason.” Deirdre smiled at her daughter. “I’m glad Emma got the part, and I know she’ll be phenomenal, but the role of Juliet seems a better fit for your girlfriend.”

“Huh?” Drew glanced from mother to daughter in genuine puzzlement.

Emma kicked under the table, missing her intended target and slamming square into Stone’s shin instead.

“Yeow!” Stone exclaimed as pain shot up his leg. He felt the press of three pairs of eyes on his face, both McDaniel females and this Drew character looking at him as if he’d gone crazy. “Y’all know, I, uh, really need some coffee,” he improvised, signaling the waitress, a high school girl with bottle-blond hair and inch-thick makeup who seemed to be studiously ignoring them.

Was Stone imagining it, or did the waitress really give Emma a nasty look from above the edge of her order pad? Drew looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Chris,” he called, the girl unable to ignore his summons. “They’d like to order over here.”

“Be right there,” the girl said sourly, turning to fiddle with a tray of water glasses. Stone wondered what the story was.

But Emma was too busy trying to do damage control to notice. “I was telling my mom that everybody assumed Brandi Bates would get the part and that the two of you were going out.”

“People assume a lot of things,” Drew said, his gaze holding Emma’s a little too intently. “That doesn’t mean they’re true.”

Emma blushed. “Listen, about rehearsing—Mom said we could use the gazebo out in the garden at March Winds.”

Deirdre’s eyes flashed. “You know, I’m not so sure that’s such a good idea. The guests love the gazebo and—”

“The guests will understand,” Stone interrupted, figuring he could lend Emma and Romeo a hand. “What mom could resist looking out her kitchen window to watch the whole process of her daughter developing her lead performance? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

Emma didn’t look pleased about the setup he’d described, but Deirdre seemed to reconsider. “I don’t know,” she mused grudgingly.

“Emma’s dad will be jealous as hell.” Stone told himself he wasn’t fishing for information. He was just trying to make the deal irresistible. From what he’d seen of broken marriages, nothing delighted an ex-spouse more than sticking the knife in and breaking it off. But the flash of something in Deirdre’s all-too-expressive eyes made the back of his neck prickle.

“Emma’s father isn’t—”

“He vanished before I was born and never cared about seeing me again. And that’s fine with me. I never needed a dad, anyway.” Emma gave her mother a pointed glance. “I have Uncle Cade and the Captain.”

Drew looked even more uncomfortable than he’d been moments before. If Deirdre’s obvious disapproval hadn’t chased him off, the tension thickening the air this time seemed to make him look for an exit line.

“Actually, I’d better get going,” he said. “I was heading home to work on learning my lines now.”

“Oh.” Emma wasn’t quite a good enough actress to hide her disappointment. “Yeah, sure.”

Drew hung in there a moment longer in spite of The Mother from Hell. “Some of the language in this play…well, it’s not like normal dialogue, you know? It doesn’t exactly roll real easy off my tongue.”

“It can’t be too difficult,” Deirdre said. “People have been performing it for five hundred years.”

“It’s brilliant,” Drew said, brave enough to risk the evil eye in defense of the Bard. “I love listening to it, reading it, seeing it performed. I just feel a little dorky doing it alone. My kid brother and I share a room, and he’s a real pain in the a—neck when I try to practice lines. You know how brothers are.”

“No, I don’t,” Emma said. Was that wistfulness Stone detected in her voice? “It’s just Mom and me at home.”

Drew almost looked envious. “Wow. That must be awesome when you’re trying to practice.”

Maybe it was great at times like that, Stone mused, the hint of loneliness in Emma’s dark eyes echoing memories of his own childhood. It was the rest of the time that stunk.

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