“It’s time for you to mind your own business.”

Sarah stepped back from him. “As I’ve already said, what you’re trying to do is my business.”

“So if you haven’t already told Joseph and Alexander that I tried to ruin the grand opening, do it.” Cooper didn’t want her charity.

A sound at the door stopped her from replying and drew their attention.

None other than Joseph McCoy walked in, followed closely by Alexander. Neither man looked as though he’d been told that the newest member of the family had tried hard to cost the McCoys millions today.

Cooper didn’t have to wait long to be sure.

As Alexander closed the door behind him, Joseph came to Cooper and jovially slapped him on the back. “Shame you couldn’t get away to show us around that impressive remodel you did, grandson—but I have to say I’m pleased with your priorities. Good to know you put the success of the grand opening first and foremost.”

Cooper looked at Sarah, half dreading, half daring her to end this farce and tell Joseph the truth….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Dependable, Missouri, home of the McCoys and their billion-dollar retail empire, built on the motto Don’t Trust It If It’s Not From The Real McCoy!

Too bad the McCoy heir wasn’t trustworthy, at least where the ladies were concerned. And after Marcus “Hound Dog” McCoy met a sadly fitting end during an encounter with a grizzly bear while fly-fishing, the truth comes out during the reading of his will. His younger brother is actually his eldest son, and he kept the rest of his scattered progeny secret by paying the mothers a million dollars each in hush money. Can his father, Joseph McCoy, maintain his moral reputation but still bring these newly discovered grandchildren, these Lost Millionaires, into the family without scandal?

Not if Cooper Anders has his way. Cooper has known since his early teens that he was a real McCoy, and he burns with the need to avenge his mother.

Can Sara Barnes, a trusted employee who yearns to be more, bring Cooper into the fold? Or will he make her choose between love and the family she’s devoted her life to serving? I hope you enjoy finding out!

Please visit my Web site, www.leahvale.com.

Leah Vale

Books by Leah Vale

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

924—THE RICH MAN’S BABY

936—THE RICH GIRL GOES WILD

957—BIG-BUCKS BACHELOR

1026—THE BAD BOY

The Bad Boy

Leah Vale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Melissa, Terri and Nicole, for your bodacious minds; and to my family, for your most excellent support. I love you all.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

Dear Mr. Anders:

It is our duty at this time to inform you of the death of Marcus McCoy due to an unfortunate, unforeseen encounter with a grizzly bear while fly-fishing in Alaska on June 8 of this year, and per the stipulations set forth in his last will and testament, to make formal his acknowledgment of one Cooper Anders, age 30, of 785 Westmark Street, Dependable, Missouri, as being his son and heir to an equal portion of his estate.

It is the wish of Joseph McCoy, father to Marcus McCoy, grandfather to Cooper Anders and founder of McCoy Enterprises, that you immediately assume your rightful place in the family home and business with all due haste and utmost discretion to preserve the family’s privacy.

Regards,

David Weidman, Esq.

Weidman, Biddermier, Stark

Cooper rocked back on the heels of his black work boots, the air stalled in his lungs. Shock nearly made him plop right down on the concrete county-jail steps. Instead he looked up from the letter to the cloudless, late-morning sky, then thought better of it and dropped his gaze to the space between his feet. Marcus McCoy, you son of a—

“Mr. Anders?” The gorgeous, petite brunette who’d handed him the letter drew his attention, a touching concern sharp in her bright green eyes. “Are you all right? You weren’t hurt during the, er, altercation last night, were you?”

He waved off her worry and his reaction to it. “No. No one laid a hand on me.”

“But I thought you’d been arrested for involvement in a bar fight.”

Cooper snorted. “I mostly just sat on the biggest guy so it’d be a fair fight.” He raised the letter and his brows. “So this is why you bailed me out of the klink? You were sent by them?”

She smiled as if they were a good thing, showing white teeth to match the rest of the pretty package. “Yes. I work for McCoy Enterprises.”

Eyeing the curves beneath her brown sweater and beige slacks, he snorted again. Seemed it was a snorting kind of morning. “So much for a favorite male fantasy coming true.”

A frown marred her smooth forehead. “Excuse me?”

“You know, the one about being sprung from jail to become some babe’s cabana boy?”

She blinked, then her eyes widened and splotches of red spread over her high cheekbones. On any other day he would have tried for a full-body blush.

On any other day he would have sworn this day would never come.

He looked back down at the inarguably official letter. Adrenaline surged and his heart started to pound. He hadn’t had a clue how to deal with the news of Marcus’s death when he’d first heard of it on the news a few days ago. Now he did. “Though an altogether different fantasy of mine is about to come true.”

“I can imagine.”

Something in her tone, a wistfulness, made him look back up, but her smile implied he’d simply reassured her. She probably wasn’t the only person in town who’d think that suddenly becoming a part of the McCoy family would be a dream come true. But for a very different reason from his. Appearances could be so deceiving.

He eyed her glossy brown hair, cut so the ends flipped up just as it reached her slender shoulders, her subtle makeup, her lack of jewelry other than a tiny gold anchor on a necklace and her business-casual outfit. Her appearance, though extremely attractive, screamed corporate drone. He seriously doubted anything deceptive was going on with her.

He nodded at the letter. “So you are aware of what this says?”

She cleared her throat. “Yes, actually, I am.” She folded her hands in front of her, all professional-like, but her discomfort sneaked through in the way she held her neck stiff and her gaze darted from his to the letter and back.

A strong sense of kinship stirred in him. He knew all too well what it felt like to be caught after doing something he shouldn’t have. “I admire your honesty.” But since he’d yet to completely shake the habit of acting how he was expected to in this town, he once again let his interest roam over the conservative sweater and slacks that failed to hide the curves underneath. “Among other things.”

She made a soft, strangled sound that brought his attention to her wide eyes. She must not get out much.

He kicked up a corner of his mouth and shrugged. “I suppose you can’t be blamed for taking a peek, since they didn’t bother to seal the envelope. And I doubt the vaunted McCoys bail people out of the slammer on a regular basis. That would get anyone’s curiosity up.”

Her sculpted dark eyebrows came down and she shook her head. Her nicely formed lips, accented with a subtle brownish lipstick, opened to protest.

He raised his hand to stop her. “No big deal. Really.” Though a very big part of him would have just as soon kissed her. She was so his type. Great eyes, hair, shapely, and roughly his age. A woman who’d know how and still consider it fun. ’Cause fun was all he was ever after, thanks to what his mother had experienced.

“But you don’t understand—”

“Unfortunately, I understand perfectly.” He stopped her once more, and gestured at her with the letter. “The McCoys send a pretty piece of fluff—a secretary with an eye on moving up, I bet—to be sure I’d realize just how lucky I am, on the off chance that being told out of the blue that I’m a member of one of the richest families in the country isn’t enough.” He winked and smiled tightly. “No offense, of course.”

Obviously offended, anyway, she pulled her chin back and her frown deepened into a scowl. “First of all, please don’t interrupt me. Second, I beg your pardon.” Her tone confirmed it.

While he’d never purposefully ticked off a woman before, finding many more benefits to having them like him, the bitterness that had festered far too long deep inside him gurgled to life and kept him from apologizing.

But since she had saved him the embarrassment of having to call his business partner, Ted, to bail him out of jail, the least he could do was explain. He lifted the letter held in his tightening grip. “The thing is, I already knew about my paternity.”

Her jaw went slack.

He leaned toward her, and despite his surging resentment, the sweet floral scent of her perfume went straight to his head after the bleach-laced stink of the jail and the bar scum he’d tangled with the night before.

“You see, when I was thirteen years old my mother told me—on her deathbed, mind you—that I was a Real McCoy, that Marcus McCoy, the only man she’d ever loved, was my father.” Cooper straightened and grappled for control over emotions that had always been at least an inch beyond his reach. Emotions that had led him to test any and all boundaries placed on him by those who didn’t understand his torment. “And all that time I’d thought I was just another kid whose dad hadn’t cared enough to give him his name. But mine had paid to keep it a secret.”

He pasted on a stiff smile. “Funny how no one would believe me. But my mom didn’t have the best reputation for credibility.”

Shock, empathy—no, make that pity—flared in her eyes, and she opened her mouth as if to say something, but snapped it shut.

He clenched his back teeth against the old, cankered hurt. Only years of practice allowed him to loosen his jaw enough to continue. “And oh, how they tried to talk me out of it.”

He puffed up his chest beneath his light blue denim shirt, mimicking Grandpa Ned’s gravelly voice. “‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, boy. This town wouldn’t be what it is without the McCoys.’”

Cooper gestured to the large building he’d just exited, built in the colonial style, with lots of brick and white shutters and emblazoned with the words Joseph McCoy Municipal Building. Pretty much all the public buildings in the modest town of ten thousand souls had that name attached to them somewhere. “‘We’d have nuthin’ if it weren’t for the McCoys, so you’d best shut your yap and keep it shut.’” Joseph McCoy had taken a Podunk town with very little going for it but a symbolic name and built it into a heartland postcard.

She blinked several times, obviously unsure what to make of his outburst. Finally, she asked, “Who said that to you?”

“Ned Anders, my mom’s dad. Had the joy of spending five years under his roof.” Cooper looked back at the jail, a place he’d finally grown smart enough to avoid once he’d squeaked his way past high school. Mostly. “That is, when he wasn’t rightly kicking me out for acting up. Something hurt, angry teenagers tend to do.”

Pushing memories of the cause of his hurt and anger aside, he slapped the letter against his jeans, met her stunned gaze and smiled mirthlessly. “I have a sneaking suspicion Marcus didn’t plan on the truth coming out so soon. Though why it did at all is beyond me. To think I owe it all to a hungry grizzly bear. That’s the sort of cosmic justice I really like.”

At the mention of justice, determination surged through him. Cooper turned and started down the steps.

The tap of low-heeled pumps on concrete chased him as she hurried to catch up. “Mr. Anders, please. I’m sure everyone was simply acting for your own benefit.” Her tone was so lacking in conviction Cooper didn’t bother to argue the point. Apparently, she was one of the rare few who “got” where he was coming from. A real pity she was from the enemy camp.

She jumped down a step ahead of him and faced him, blocking his descent. The late-morning sun caught in her hair and set the deep, chestnut-brown strands aglow. Damn, she was a pretty piece of fluff. But nothing was going to distract him from making the most of this little revelation she’d delivered to him.

Regret seared his lungs. His mom hadn’t been lying after all. She hadn’t illegally earned the money they’d lived on as they’d bounced from place to place throughout Missouri, then used to pay for her medical treatment—something he’d secretly feared, thanks to Ned’s implications.

Pointing to the letter in his grip, she said, “Marcus did acknowledge you in his will. There’s no disputing that. You now have the chance to take your rightful place in the family, a family more than worth the admiration they receive.”

“No, what I have is the chance for payback.”

She stilled. “What do you mean?”

Cooper bent toward her, using the opportunity to run his gaze over her perfectly suited features. The extra color he’d put in her cheeks made her even prettier. The fear in her eyes, though, grabbed at his guts. He really shouldn’t have shot the messenger. He knew what it was like when something didn’t go as you’d hoped.

That kinship he felt with her had him explaining gruffly, “Honey, they say revenge is sweet. Well, guess what? It turns out I have a monster sweet tooth.”

With her earnest face turned up to him, Cooper was struck with the strongest urge to kiss her. He brought his face closer still, until he could feel her quick, warm breaths on his lips.

As much as he’d love to stay true to his nature and succumb to the urge, instead he pulled away. “Sorry, honey, but I have to go. I’ve a company to ruin.”

A BOLT OF LIGHTNING couldn’t have stunned Sara Barnes more. The combined force of Cooper Anders’s wholly unexpected and inappropriate behavior and parting statement kept her fused to the spot. She watched him saunter down the rest of the stairs and away from the county-jail facility in a powerful, confident way only a rare few men could honestly claim.

She purposely chose to label the hot, zinging sensation raising goose bumps all over her as discomfort, stubbornly discounting the undeniable sexuality radiating off his big, fit body and black-haired, blue-eyed masculine beauty.

The pain she’d seen in his eyes and heard in his words I’ve a company to ruin replaced the heat with icy cold dread and set her in motion.

“Mr. Anders!” she called as she hurried after him.

This was going all wrong. Joseph had honored her with his trust to handle retrieving Cooper as quickly and as quietly as possible. Joseph had said he trusted her, as he’d trusted her father, to do this for him. He’d even praised her for being her father’s daughter, which allowed him to count on her completely. There was no higher praise in Sara’s mind.

She couldn’t mess up after finally achieving what she’d worked so hard for. Granted, she’d initially been given her current position at McCoy Enterprises because Alexander, the youngest McCoy—at the time—had been needed to fill the role Marcus had rejected, but she refused to let Joseph down. Especially in this.

Despite her yelling his name, Cooper Anders didn’t slow his pace, turning left when he reached Dependable’s quaint Main Street. Sara broke into a trot and prayed she wasn’t drawing attention to them. Currently, no one seemed to be around and there wasn’t much traffic on the two-lane road, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be watching through a window of the municipal buildings or the little deli-and-copy shop on the opposite side of the street. She wasn’t as well known in town as the McCoys, but she should still be careful.

Clearly aware that she was chasing after him, Cooper said over his shoulder, “Do you suppose they’ll make me change my name to McCoy?”

Before she could reply, he continued with a shake of his head. “Nah, that would let the scandal out of the bag for sure.”

As loud as she dared, she answered, “Joseph doesn’t intend to hide your paternity.” Exactly. Not for the first time, she mentally wrung her hands over Joseph’s plan to make public the existence of Marcus’s unplanned children while keeping private as many details as possible.

Cooper came to an abrupt stop beside a flowerpot filled with red petunias, staring at a bus-stop bench displaying McCoy Enterprises’ core advertising slogan, used since Joseph McCoy moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to Dependable and opened his first general retail store, selling everything from toothpaste to tires, forty-five years ago: Don’t trust it if it’s not from the Real McCoy. And in the Show Me State, that trust had had to be earned.

The letter she’d given Cooper crinkled in his tightening grip. “I find that a little hard to believe. Everyone knows how much stock old Joe puts in his upstanding reputation.”

He glanced at her, his disturbingly deep blue eyes so turbulent her heart clutched with empathy. “What I won’t do is drag my mother’s name through the mud with them. The only thing she did wrong was fall in love. A mistake you’ll never catch me making.”

Sara inwardly cringed, appreciating his motivation a little too well. She, too, had learned the hard way that girlish fantasies didn’t translate well to reality.

Then he was off again, his long, muscular legs eating up so much sidewalk Sara had to practically race-walk to keep up. “But, Mr. Anders—”

“Cooper. Mr. Anders was my mom’s dad.”

Considering he’d stood so close to her their breath had mingled, she supposed she could call him by his first name. Besides, he was Joseph’s grandson. “All right, Cooper.”

She dodged water dripping from one of the large flower baskets hung from the lampposts and maintained by McCoy Enterprises’ gardeners as part of Joseph’s town-beautification program, and darted to Cooper’s other side to avoid the next dribbling basket. “This is not about assigning guilt or blame. The fact is, you are Marcus McCoy’s son and your paternal grandfather wants you to take your place in the family.”

Cooper sent her a shrewd glance. “And the family business, right?”

Despite what Cooper had said about having a company to ruin, she couldn’t lie about the stipulations in Marcus’s will. “Yes, and the family business.”

Cooper stopped dead again in the middle of the sidewalk, right in front of the Dependable post office, remodeled years ago to match the municipal building, and faced her. “Why?”

Joseph had trusted her to keep this discreet. With that in mind, she pitched her voice low. “You can ask him yourself. I’m supposed to take you to see him right now. But I imagine he’ll tell you he’s bringing you into the fold, so to speak, because it’s the right thing to do.”

“And he always does the right thing?”

She bristled. “As a matter of fact, he does.”

“Ah.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. The muscles in his forearms, visible because of his rolled-up sleeves, corded. They’d discovered he was part owner of a construction company. Clearly, he was the working part.

He nodded sagely. “So you think paying a scared, young, pregnant woman to disappear and somehow convincing her to never reveal the identity of her baby’s father is the right thing?”

Despite her sympathy for what Cooper and his mother had gone through, she adamantly shook her head. “Joseph wasn’t a part of that. After the first time, Marcus kept—”

“Oh, yeah, because a million dollars is so easy to—The first time?” he nearly shouted. “There were other—?”

“Not here!” Sara grabbed his arm, his biceps thick and hard beneath her fingers, and pulled him away from the post office door. “I think it’s time I finish what I was sent to do and take you to see Joseph at The Big House—”

“Babe, I just escaped the risk of ending up in the big house.” He aimed a thumb back at the county jail.

“No! The Big House is the name of the McCoys’ home on their estate.”

“So there’re Little Houses?”

She shook her head in frustration. How had she allowed him to fluster her so? “Please, Cooper. Come with me and meet your grandfather. Then you’ll understand everything.”

He dipped his shoulder and lowered his face close to hers again, his breath warm and frighteningly disarming on her cheek. “Honey, like I said before, I understand perfectly. And normally I’d be more than willing to let a cute thing like you drag me off somewhere more private. Hell, I’d let you drag me anywhere. But today is the beginning of what I was put on this earth to do.”

Every bit of her that was forever in debt to the McCoys told her she didn’t want to know, but because of that debt, she had to ask, “Which is?”

“Bring the arrogant McCoy machine to its knees.” He lowered his head yet farther, as if he really was going to kiss her, making the muscles low in her stomach contract. But this time she was prepared.

And mad.

She jerked away, releasing his arm. “How can you say such a thing? Especially without even speaking to Joseph?”

He straightened and gave her an unconcerned shrug. “Easy. And I found out all I needed to know a long time ago. Thanks for bailing me out, babe.” Saluting her, he started walking again.

Irritated that this was turning out so wrong, not to mention a little scared by the determination in his dark blue eyes, she called, “Where are you going?”

“To the office, babe. To the office.”

Her heart pounding from fear that he had thought of some way to damage McCoy Enterprises so quickly, she spun away and ran to her car. She’d get to the McCoy corporate headquarters just outside of town before Cooper and figure out a way to bar his entry without creating a scene.

Hopefully, she could defuse the situation and change Cooper’s mind about the McCoys before Joseph found out the grandson he was at home eagerly waiting to meet meant him harm. Because harming McCoy Enterprises was one and the same as harming Joseph personally. The company was his lifeblood, as it had been her father’s, Joseph’s right-hand man.

As it was hers.

Which made the fact that she was failing this seemingly simple assignment even worse.

How could the employee Joseph had placed so much trust in nearly melt beneath the hot gaze of the grandson who wished them ill?

Chapter Two

“Joseph, I need to—” Sara broke off when she saw who stood next to the man who had stepped into her life and filled the void left by her father’s death. Cooper must have parked in front of the eight-car garage on the side of the house. He appeared far too satisfied at having his newly found grandfather’s hand resting proudly on his shoulder.

While Sara had always seen Joseph as being a little larger than life, Cooper was a good head taller than him. Even so, their stature and stance—not to mention their arresting blue eyes and strong jaws—screamed family resemblance.

And Joseph’s misty gaze told her he was very happy to have Cooper with him. Her grip tightened on the handles of the doors to Joseph’s study.

Crap.

Cooper’s smile gave new meaning to the word gloating. “What took you so long, babe?”

His declaration of war on the steps of the county jail still rang in her ears. Despite the empathy she’d felt for him, she could barely keep from snarling. “I made it halfway to McCoy Enterprises headquarters before I remembered that the shabby little bar where you were arrested for brawling is named The Office.”

Cooper shrugged and said to Joseph, “Had to get my rig.”

Joseph raised his bushy gray brows and looked to her. “Sara was supposed to have driven you here.”

Cooper shook his head. “I wasn’t sure my truck would make it through the night without being stripped or swiped from the bar parking lot. Fortunately, neither happened, but I didn’t want to leave it there any longer than I had to. And The Office is only a block off Main Street, so not much of a walk.”

Unfortunately for Sara, the McCoy estate was on the opposite side of town from what she considered the office, so she’d had to double back, allowing Cooper to get to the house first. As much as she admired Joseph for building his headquarters in a part of town that had needed revitalization, the extra time it’d taken to get back here had stretched her nerves to the snapping point.

When her father had died ten years after her mother and the McCoys had been so kind to Sara, she’d sworn she would do anything for them. A failure like this could cost her everything. She had to warn Joseph about Cooper Anders’s intentions.

She refused to consider the motivations behind those intentions. On the way here, she’d focused on steering her car down the tree-bordered road to the estate, not on her memory of the pain clouding his blue eyes, the hard line he’d pressed his sensuous mouth into, the poorly contained emotions in his gruff voice. Her own throat tightened. To be that adrift in the world…

She frowned fiercely and released her death grip on the door handles. Cooper had simply startled her. That was the only reason she’d been so affected by him.

Joseph gave Cooper an altogether too affectionate squeeze before releasing him. “You still should have let Sara drive you. That was partly why I sent her to the jail.”

Cooper in turn sent her a look full of sexual innuendo and heat, to remind her exactly what he’d believed she’d been sent for. His mouth quirked. “You’re very thoughtful.”

Sara’s mouth went dry. But she would not be attracted to him. Not after what he’d said, regardless of her compassion for him and her understanding of his reasons. She shot Cooper a glare before shifting her gaze to the older man’s. “Joseph, I need to speak to you immediately.”

“What is it?”

She darted a glance at Cooper, who raised his eyebrows at her as if daring her to tattle on him.

She dropped her chin and asserted, “In private, please.”

Joseph shook his head and placed a big hand on his grandson’s broad shoulder again. “Cooper is a part of my family now, Sara.”

Her heart stuttered. A part of his family. Something Sara would never truly be. But that didn’t diminish her loyalty one bit, regardless of how much it had already cost her.

Joseph’s voice was thick with pride. “A McCoy by blood, if not name. Though I’ll want to discuss the name thing some time down the road.”

She met Cooper’s gaze, but his hooded expression revealed nothing of the animosity she’d seen there when he’d speculated about being required to change his name. His ability to hide his true feelings hardened her resolve and drew her farther into the high-ceilinged room that was as much a library as a place for Joseph to work at home. “Joseph, please—”

“As such—” Joseph interrupted her and moved to stand behind the massive cherrywood desk he routinely ran an empire from. When he spread his hands wide on the gleaming wood and braced his weight on his fingertips, as he did now, he always reminded her of a captain taking the wheel of a great ship. “I expect you to speak freely in his presence, just as you would with Alexander or would have with my poor Marcus, God rest his soul.”

Only a week had passed since Marcus’s death. But after the memorial service on Thursday, where Joseph had grieved so heavily Sara hadn’t been able to stop crying, Joseph had declared that because of the revelations in the will, it was time to move on. And he seemed to be doing just that, with his trademark gusto.

That didn’t mean he was seeing things clearly again, though. “But Joseph—”

He heaved a sigh. “Spit it out, girl.”

She glanced at Cooper again and her gaze snagged on the challenge in his. He kicked up a corner of his way-too-sensual mouth in a silent I double-dare you.

She raised her chin, more than willing to meet his challenge now. “It seems Mr. Anders bears the McCoy family ill will.”

Joseph scoffed. “Ill will? Whatever made you think that?”

She looked back at Joseph, the man her own father had admired more than anyone on earth, the man who’d always been there for her, and just said it. “He told me he plans to ruin the company.”

Joseph chuckled. “You misunderstood him, Sara. Which surprises me. You’re normally such a good listener.” He lowered himself into his large, dark brown leather desk chair.

Sara blinked. “I misunderstood him?”

Joseph nodded with certainty. “Cooper has already expressed to me his concern that his inexperience might harm the corporation. I was just reassuring him that he knows more about big business than he realizes.”

To Cooper he said, “Your construction company is successful, is it not?”

Cooper tucked his thumbs in his back jeans pockets, drawing her attention unwillingly to the hard contours beneath the snug denim. She jerked her eyes upward, but landed on the muscular chest beneath his chambray work shirt before making it to his remarkably handsome face. That she noticed such things added to her growing frustration and incredulity. How could Joseph believe him over her?

Cooper said, “It’s not just my company. I have a partner, Ted Orson, who fortunately can handle things while I’m…otherwise engaged. But yeah, we’ve operated in the black for some time now, doing custom residential and small commercial remodels.”

They were already aware of as much. In the few days since the reading of Marcus’s will, Joseph had employed a local private investigator he trusted to be unquestionably discreet to augment his lawyers. Their goal had been to learn everything possible about those now referred to as the Lost Millionaires.

Joseph nodded again. “So you know how to implement a viable and sustainable business model. You’ll be doing the same thing at McCoy Enterprises, only on a much larger scale, of course.”

Cooper’s smile was tight. “By a few billion.”

Sara shook her head. She was not going to let this happen. “No, that’s not what he meant—”

Joseph cut her off. “You can’t fault a man for nerves. But he doesn’t give himself enough credit. That’s become plain in the short amount of time he’s been here.” A look of pride softened the wrinkles on Joseph’s face. “Humility is a very admirable quality in a businessman.”

Sara’s jaw went slack. In the space of, at most, twenty minutes, Cooper Anders had completely snowed Joseph McCoy, founder and chairman of the board of one of the most stunningly successful enterprises in the history of retail business.

Her heart started pounding hard enough to drum in her ears. Had he forgotten they’d begun the day with a phone call from the private investigator about the youngest of the Lost Millionaires landing himself in jail the night before? “But—”

Cooper spoke. “My grandfather is right, Sara.” His already deep voice dipped further, and intimately, at her name.

He was trying to mess with her. Judging by her current state, he was succeeding.

He lowered his chin. “You misunderstood me.”

She gaped at him, her earlier empathy disappearing as the anger and frustration rose like a tide of acid inside of her. “Misunderstood?” she choked out. “Why, you two-faced, lying—”

“Sara!”

The sharp edge to Joseph’s voice brought her up short, especially since she’d never heard that tone directed toward her before. Yet, she’d never lost her cool in front of Joseph, either.

Joseph’s slow rise to his feet wasn’t a sign of age—he’d turn seventy-five in a matter of weeks—but rather a reminder that he expected to receive the respect he’d rightfully earned. “Cooper is a McCoy now. I want you to treat him as such.”

She nodded curtly and kept her mouth tightly closed against all the reasons, heard straight from the source, that Cooper should not be given the same devotion she’d never questioned giving Joseph, Alexander or even Marcus on the rare occasions he’d been around before his unpleasant death. Joseph was grieving for Marcus, and she understood his need to embrace a grandchild he hadn’t known he had.

Even if that grandson had the heart of a snake.

She looked at Cooper. He’d cocked an eyebrow and watched her with a casual—no, make that innocent air—but the shadow of pain in his eyes made her feel for him despite what she was thinking.

Okay. So she did empathize with him. She would acknowledge that and then get over it. She refused to fall under his spell. He was a snake with the ability to trick unsuspecting women into aching for what he’d gone through as a child.

Or so he thought, she forcefully amended. While what he’d threatened was far more serious than a little game-playing, she had his number and would do everything in her power to stop him. And she knew of one person who wouldn’t be so blinded by grief to not hear what she had to say.

Remembering his shock over one of the details of Marcus’s will, she gave Cooper her sweetest smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I just remembered I have something important to discuss with Alexander McCoy. Your brother,” she added, launching a parting salvo of her own.

She left the study, her smile now one of grim satisfaction, certain his wide-eyed, slack-jawed look of surprise was more impressive than hers must have been after he’d dropped his bomb.

COOPER CLOSED HIS MOUTH with a snap.

Alexander McCoy was his brother?

He looked away from the door that Sara, the pretty piece of fluff who had to be old man McCoy’s personal secretary, had just sashayed through. He met Joseph McCoy’s gaze. “I myself must be having listening problems, because I could have sworn she just said that Alexander McCoy, your youngest son, is my brother.”

Joseph blew out a breath and slouched back in his chair, something that didn’t look quite right on the old man. “Marcus turned more than a few lives upside down in his time.”

Shock rocked Cooper back on his heels yet again that day. “Are you saying it’s true?”

Joseph ran a hand over his face, for the first time letting on that he wasn’t taking all the recent events in stride. “Yes. It’s true. Alexander is actually Marcus’s son. Your half brother.”

His knees unsteady, Cooper took a seat in one of the chairs facing the big desk. “Tell me everything.” He’d spent his entire life with so many questions, so many doubts, he wasn’t surprised his voice sounded strained.

Joseph rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and tented his fingers in front of him. “Marcus never really displayed the best judgment. Especially when it came to women.”

Cooper involuntarily thought of the wet one he’d wanted to plant on Joe’s secretary, and the fact that he still wanted to do it. Heaven help him if bad judgment around women was hereditary.

Joseph continued, “He was only nineteen when he seduced a young maid of ours. After the girl realized she was pregnant, everyone concerned felt it would be best if my wife, Elise, your grandmother, and I adopted the baby as our own rather than force Marcus and Helen—”

“Whoa, wait a second. Helen? The lady who showed me in here said her name was Helen. And that she’s the housekeeper.”

“Yes, Helen is still with us. By her choice, I might add.”

Cooper had to physically shake off his disbelief. He did not get these people.

“As I was saying, we decided not to force Marcus and Helen to wed. And we would have had to. Marcus did not want to marry. A sentiment he never outgrew. So Helen and Elise went to Europe for an extended holiday—”

“And returned with Marcus’s new baby brother, thus avoiding any messy scandal that would have trashed your image.”

Joseph met his gaze steadily, all trace of sentimentality gone. “We did what we thought was best.”

Cooper remembered what Sara had said, as well as the earnestness in her vivid green eyes, and echoed, “The right thing.”

Joseph inclined his head in agreement, apparently not picking up the sarcasm in Cooper’s tone. “We really believed that Marcus had learned from his first…indiscretion. But his irresponsibility apparently wasn’t hampered by the threat of being disowned.”

The burner simmering Cooper’s anger kicked up a notch, making him boil. “He simply learned how to keep it under wraps by buying the women off.”

“So it seems.”

Cooper sat back in his chair. He hadn’t expected Joseph to agree with him. “You knew about it, though, right?”

Joseph studied his hands. “I learned of my other grandchildren two days ago, during the reading of my son’s will.”

Cooper could barely contain his snort. That’s your story and you’re sticking to it.

The rest of what Joseph had said sank in and the muscles in Cooper’s chest clenched. “So how many half brothers and sisters do I have?”

“Three brothers confirmed. So far.”

Cooper scrubbed a hand over his face. “So far.” He blew out a breath. “Three, including Alexander, right?”

“Correct. You and he are the only ones in town, however. One has a ranch in Colorado and the other is in the process of being discharged from the service.”

Cooper struggled to process the information. He’d instantly gone from a man who’d grown up on the fringe of any sort of family to a man with three brothers. Half brothers, but brothers all the same. And one already lived in this very house. A strange tightness took hold of his heart.

He refused to let the existence of brothers matter, though. The memory of his mother’s unrelenting despair over being so coldly spurned by the man she’d given her heart to was still too visceral for him. His own shame was too rooted.

He looked around him at the expensively decorated study, which somehow managed to convey that this family deserved every one of their billions of dollars in a way the mansion built to resemble Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello on steroids couldn’t. His attention caught on an oil portrait of the McCoy family before Marcus had developed a raging case of hound-dog hormones.

Well, now Cooper knew where his black hair came from. All three people in the portrait had a variation of it. Marcus looked to be about ten in the painting, with a mop of wavy dark hair he’d later wear slicked back, and bright blue eyes that didn’t so much as hint at the lack of feeling they’d eventually radiate.

Cooper shifted his gaze back to Joseph, who at first glance had barely changed from the time the portrait had been painted except for his hair, which had turned steel-gray. But the death of Elise McCoy over a decade ago from cancer—according to the news, a more lingering sort than Cooper’s mother’s—and the recent death of his son had left their mark in the lines on Joseph McCoy’s face.

The knowledge did little to soothe Cooper’s bitterness. “Marcus went to such great lengths to keep us secret. Why did he put us in his will?” It sure as hell wasn’t guilt.

Joseph pulled in a deep breath that expanded his barrel chest. “I honestly don’t know, Cooper. But will or no will, I want you boys with me.”

Easier to manage, control and contain, Cooper thought sourly.

“Since I’ve decided to throw myself a big seventy-fifth birthday party next month to celebrate this unexpected gift on the heels of such a tragedy, I want you all here by then. Hopefully, the other two are being brought home as we speak, by people I trust.”

“Like Sara?”

“Yes, like Sara, though in truth I doubt there is anyone outside the family I trust more.”

There was at least one inside the family Grandpa shouldn’t trust. And the fact Sara knew Cooper couldn’t be trusted, meant he would have to keep her off balance if he wanted to exact any sort of revenge on the McCoys for their idea of the right thing.

And he did.

His mother had pined for Marcus McCoy right up to the moment of her death, fat lot of good it had done her. And the pain of a boy in desperate need of nothing more than love had resurfaced to haunt Cooper with a vengeance. The injustice of it all turned Cooper’s stomach and hardened his resolve.

As far as Sara was concerned, he’d simply have to distract her into thinking of something else besides convincing the McCoys of his true intentions. The memory of her little gasp of anticipation when he’d leaned close made distractions of a sexual nature a nobrainer. His own response to the closeness assured him the duty wouldn’t be an unpleasant one.

And she certainly posed no other risk to him, despite the shimmer of empathy he’d seen in her big green eyes. Because there was one thing his mother’s experience had taught him that he’d never forget.

Love stinks.

Chapter Three

Sara was out of breath by the time she reached the bottom of the sweet-william-lined brick path behind The Big House. And it had very little to do with the speed in which she’d descended the rise. The hurt she felt from Joseph’s easy dismissal of her warnings crowded the space normally occupied by her lungs.

But she had no choice other than to put her feelings aside for now. She had to tell Alexander McCoy what was happening.

She’d known Alex long enough to realize that when he hadn’t been in the study with his father, awaiting the arrival of the first of his half brothers to be brought home, then there was only one place he could be on such a monumental—not to mention potentially emotionally difficult—day.

The stables.

If he didn’t have such a love of and an innate knack for corporate business, she’d bet Alex would have focused entirely on breeding and racing Thoroughbreds. As it was, he could spend no more time on it than one would a hobby, but she’d seen plenty of proof that being around the horses relaxed him, maybe even soothed him, the way nothing else could.

He’d spent the past two days—since the reading of Marcus’s will—out here, not going to the office at all.

Very, very telling as far as Sara was concerned, and her already besieged heart ached for him.

She continued down the walkway, passing through the honeysuckle arch that provided a visual and aromatic buffer between the house and the stables, but the sharp, sweet scent of the buff-yellow flowers and the subtle buzzing of bees did nothing to calm her nerves. She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if Alex was too upset to listen to her about Cooper.

She entered the stable through the wide doorway on the closest end of the long, low structure, built to match The Big House, with redbrick, white shutters and a miniature version of the white dome. Pulling in a lungful of the earthy, straw-and-horse-scented air that was such a contrast to the flowers outside, she looked immediately to the stall where Alex’s favorite saddle horse, a former racer retired to an easier life, was kept.

The big bay was there, but his attention lay firmly on the tack room across from him on Sara’s right, just inside the stable door. Sure enough, through the interior window she could see Alex, dressed for riding and replacing the cheek strap on a bridle at the workbench.

She stepped into the small room, the stable smells usurped by the heady scent of well-oiled leather. “Alex, I need to talk to you.”

He turned enough to glance at her, but then went back to what he was doing. She’d known him all her life, like a cousin if not a brother, but she’d never seen him look the way he did—weary, disillusioned. It was little wonder. Good heavens, to find out you were actually your brother’s son?

“What can I do for you, Sara?”

She couldn’t speak for a moment, stunned even more by Alex and Cooper’s similarities, despite the four-year difference in their ages. Alex’s black hair was shorter than Cooper’s, so she’d never really noticed it was equally thick and glossy, though not enough to make her fingers itch to burrow into it as Cooper’s did. Alex also had the same strong, square jaw and well-proportioned nose Cooper possessed, as well as a similar build.

How could these two men grow up in the same town and no one notice their resemblance?

Because the improbable rarely occurred to people. They were of different worlds. Plus, Joseph had worked hard to establish himself as the symbol of high moral standards in town, so any connection would have seemed impossible. But clearly Marcus hadn’t followed his father’s standards, at least in private. He’d been so much older and traveled so often that she really hadn’t been that well-acquainted with him. Maybe he’d been secretly lashing out at his father. Or overexcelling at the one thing he was good at—charming women—though too self-absorbed to consider the consequences.

When she still hadn’t said anything, Alex turned to her again, a familiar black eyebrow arched, though not quite as high or as sardonically. His eyes also had more gray in them, which softened the blue, and his mouth wasn’t quite as sensuous. Or tempting. At least to her. She’d known him too long, too closely, to be attracted to him.

“Sara?”

She blinked a few times to focus. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little stunned. You and Cooper Anders look a lot alike.”

His mouth hardened and he went back to working on the bridle. “So he’s here?”

She took a step nearer. “Yes. I just left him and your father.”

He stilled. “You mean my grandfather.”

She cringed at her mistake. To change a lifetime’s way of thinking would take effort. So much in their lives had changed. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “This must be very diffi—”

“Were you sent to fetch me? Because if you were, I’m busy.” His posture was stiff, and his tone was as sharp as Joseph’s had been when he’d reprimanded her.

But this was Alexander, whom she’d played with in the small lake on the property on sweltering summer days and who’d kept a stash of tissues in his pocket for her in the weeks following her father’s death. She planted her hands on her hips. “I swear, if one more person interrupts me today…”

He glanced at her, eyebrows raised curiously, then away.

She inhaled deeply and tried to calm down. “That’s not why I came to find you. Joseph understands your…your…” She trailed off, not wanting to put to words his obvious turmoil. That would not be the way to secure his help. “I’m here because I need to talk to you. About Cooper.” His name alone was enough to bring the heat back to her cheeks and the dampness back to her palms. Damn the man for rattling her so.

“What about him? Is he buying stuff already? Beats winning the lottery, if you ask me. He doesn’t have to wait all that long to get his money.” Alexander looked at her over his shoulder, his lip curled into an expression she’d never seen on him. “I imagine he’s in hog heaven.”

Thinking of a similar expression on Cooper’s face—a contempt born of hurt and betrayal—she shook her head adamantly. “No. Just the opposite. When I took his letter to him this morning he told me he plans to ruin the company.”

Alex heaved a sigh and faced her. “He plans to ruin the company? Why in the world would he say something like that?”

“He says he’s known since he was thirteen that he was Marcus’s son.”

Alex’s brows shot up.

She repeated what Cooper had told her on the county-jail steps—nearly word for word, because she really was a very good listener.

By the time she’d finished Alex was rubbing his temple. “Why didn’t you tell my da—my grandfather this?”

She heaved a similar sigh, unaccustomed to being brushed aside by the man who’d given her a top spot in the company despite her being only thirty. But Alexander had been needed to fill Marcus’s shoes while Marcus gallivanted around doing client relations. Now, there was a euphemism.

“I did. Sort of.” She pointed toward the house. “But he got to Joseph before me.”

“He?”

“Cooper. He arrived at the house first after I’d bailed him out of jail.”

“Jail?”

“Yes. The county lockup. Alison Sullivan—the private investigator Joseph hired—had been on her way out of town early this morning to deliver the Colorado letter—”

A muscle twitched in Alex’s jaw at her offhand mention of yet another half brother.

Sara swallowed and forged on. “When she noticed Cooper’s truck in the parking lot of a bar that should have been closed, and people were hauling broken chairs out the door. Clearly, there had been a ruckus of some kind. She stopped to check it out and was told that Cooper had been one of the people arrested last night for being involved in a fight at the bar. Joseph thought it best if I went immediately to get him out as discreetly as possible and give him his letter rather than waiting until the other letters were delivered.”

Alex closed his eyes and shook his head. “Jail. Beautiful.”

“Anyway, he gave Joseph some cock-and-bull story about telling me he was worried his inexperience would cause the company harm. Now Joseph thinks I just misunderstood Cooper.”

Alex leaned back against the workbench. “Could you have?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin. “No. Absolutely not. He was very succinct.”

“Fine. So what would you have me do about it?”

She let her arms fall to her sides again, confused about why he’d ask such a question when the solution was obvious. “Stop him!” What was with these McCoy men?

“How?”

She started to pace, sorely limited by the small size of the tack room. “I don’t know…keep him from going to work for McCoy Enterprises or something.” Maybe that would protect the company her father had helped build at Joseph’s side.

Alexander shook his head again and turned back to the workbench to resume fixing the bridle. “Marcus’s will was equally succinct, Sara. Cooper is to be given a job at McCoy Enterprises befitting a ‘Real McCoy.’ We couldn’t keep him from the company even if we wanted to.”

She wrapped her arms around her middle to still her churning stomach. “Then what do you suggest we do about him?”

He waved a negligent hand. “You can baby-sit him.”

That stopped her dead. “What?” she croaked.

“You keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t do any damage.”

Her lungs refused to work properly and a feeling akin to panic spread through her. “Me? How? No!” Not after what had happened on the jail steps and in Joseph’s office. She couldn’t think clearly around Cooper “McCoy” Anders.

Alexander set the bridle down with a clatter and let out a noisy breath as he faced her. “Why not? If he really told you what he did—”

She unwrapped her hands from around her waist to plant her fists on her hips again. “He did. Why won’t any of you take my word for it?”

He raised his hands at her indignation. “Okay, he did. But why would he? Why would he admit such a thing to you, of all people.”

She rolled her eyes at the rough-beamed ceiling. “He thinks I’m some secretary the ‘McCoy machine’ sent as ‘eye candy’ to further sweeten the deal.”

She returned her attention to Alex in time to see him make a face and give a little shrug that said the assumption seemed a reasonable one to him.

“Alex!” Heaven help her if he and his newfound half brother proved to be more alike than she’d thought possible.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, the weary air about him returning. “Sara, I need you to handle this. Considering…everything, I can’t deal with this, too.”

Her anger and frustration left in a rush. Everyone thought Alexander had moved on from being Marcus’s brother to his son with his usual aplomb. But it was clearly a struggle for him. His entire world had been shaken and stirred. The least she could do was deal with the issue of Cooper Anders.

She spread her hands in capitulation. “Any suggestion how?” The image of a muzzle and leash popped into her mind. But a bar-brawling guy like Cooper would probably like that, so she nixed the idea.

“I’ll think on it,” he said resignedly.

She started to leave, then stopped. As gently as she could, she said, “You’re going to have to meet him sometime, you know.”

He turned again and picked up the bridle. “I know. And I trust you to keep him from causing trouble.”

His faith in her filled her with warmth and renewed her determination. “I’ll do my best, Alex.”

“You always do, Sara.”

Sara left the tack room and stable nevertheless feeling as if she’d just been ordered to keep Judas in line. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

How was she supposed to thwart Cooper when, despite her best intentions, all she could do was think about how attractive and rightly tormented he was?

The memory of his handsome face near hers sent an unwelcome tingle along her skin and brought her up short at the beginning of the brick path. She took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate.

An image of Alexander’s pain-filled eyes came to mind.

So like Cooper’s.

Something in her heart shifted.

Maybe thwarting Cooper wasn’t the right approach. Maybe she should try to soothe his wounded psyche. Once Cooper was no longer tormented by the circumstances of his birth, she could win him over to the McCoy team and give Joseph what he craved—the love of at least one of his newly found grandsons.

Without becoming involved with him, of course, having learned her lesson with Rob Ward when it came to mixing business with pleasure.

COOPER ONLY HALF LISTENED to Joseph rambling on about what a good boy his son Marcus had been. The old guy seemed to have conveniently forgotten what a sleaze of a man Marcus had grown up to be. Instead, Cooper focused on formulating a game plan.

Revealing his intentions to the woman who had to be the best-looking secretary he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting had been a tactical error. But with her being ordered to treat him like a McCoy, she wouldn’t be able to hamper him much. Though she did have the advantage of undoubtedly knowing the workings of the family company, which would take him a while to figure out himself.

He ran a hand over his whiskered jaw, considering his options, none of which would earn him any Boy Scout badges. He mentally scoffed. As if he had ever fit that upstanding mold. There had been one too many Dumpster fires and sweet cars in need of momentary liberation in his background.

But he had to keep Sara distracted. Maybe he should ask Grandpa Joe if he could have her as his very own personal secretary. Who knew? Maybe with a little encouragement, a big desk like Joe’s and long lunch hours, they could redefine the term personal.

A tapping sounded behind him, halting Joseph’s ramble down memory lane and pulling Cooper from his raunchy thoughts. He glanced over his shoulder to find the star of his fantasies standing between the doors she hadn’t bothered to close behind her when she’d stormed out.

The color was still high in her sculpted cheeks and her rich, brown hair wasn’t as sleek and controlled as it had been earlier. Her full breasts rose and fell rapidly beneath her sweater as if she were out of breath.

Hopefully, from thinking of him. The power to ruffle her would definitely be an asset to him.

“May I?” she asked Joseph.

“Of course. Come in.” Joseph indicated for her to take a seat in the other chair facing the desk. Right next to Cooper. “Did you find Alexander?”

She settled herself in the chair and crossed her legs with a distinct air of determination. Even though she was wearing slacks, there was no doubt her legs were shapely. It was all Cooper could do not to smack his lips.

Her attention studiously off him, she answered, “I did. In the stable.”

Joseph nodded. “Not surprising. Will he be joining us soon?” Gramps appeared eager for Cooper to meet his half brother. His hope was plain to see. As far as Cooper was concerned, Joe was definitely alone in that hope.

Sara finally looked Cooper’s way, and he was shocked by an unexpected softness that warmed her pretty green eyes to a deep jade. “I don’t think so.”

His stomach muscles clenched and he pulled his chin back. Here he’d been expecting some high-sticking from her after his earlier shenanigans. The squishies surprised the heck out of him.

Joseph let out a heavy breath, which drew Cooper’s attention. The old man’s disappointment was palpable.

Cooper had to fight not to tell him that was what he got for making Alexander’s life one big, fat lie. But Cooper needed Grandpa Joe on his side for his plan to work, so he kept his mouth shut.

Pushing to his feet, Joseph grumbled, “He should be here so we can discuss the role Cooper will take in the company. Excuse me for a moment.” He rounded the desk. “Sara, why don’t you go over our corporate structure with Cooper. Maybe one of the divisions will sound especially appealing to him,” Joseph suggested as he walked to the doors.

Cooper looked at her in time to see her press her full lips into a thin line, as if Joe had suggested she hop up onto the desk and give Cooper a show.

Thinking it a shame, he propped his elbow on the arm of his chair and leaned toward her to lessen the two-foot gap between them. He really should make an effort to smooth things over with her. “Aw, come on, now, I’m not all that bad.”

Challenge sparked in her eyes and she mimicked his movement, bringing herself face-to-face with him in a way that made Cooper’s body hum. “I’m not going to forget what you said, Mr. Anders, and we both know darn well I didn’t misunderstand you.”

Her expression softened again and she gently put a hand over his, the slight contact enough to warm his blood. “But I want you to know that I understand other things, also.”

While the last thing he wanted was anyone’s understanding, he smiled, liking her spirit. Whether or not she had the power to make things difficult for him, he had to keep her focus elsewhere. His gaze strayed to her full mouth. She hadn’t put on more lipstick since he’d been a breath away from her earlier, so her lips were a dusky pink that tempted him like nobody’s business. Julia Roberts had nothing on this pretty woman.

He pulled a lopsided smile. “Wouldn’t it be something if you ended up working for me? We could have a lot of fun, you know.”

Those pink lips parted and she reared back, wide-eyed, wedging herself against the far arm of her chair. Before he could decide if the flare of her pupils meant the notion aroused her or horrified her, she narrowed her eyes and skewered him with a speculative look. “You were arrested for what again?”

Appreciating her spunk, he settled back in his own chair. “Disorderly conduct. Should have been nothing more than a ticket, but it took them a while to sort everything out due to varying levels of intoxication and trustworthiness.”

She made a very indelicate noise. “I can imagine. But didn’t you say something about sitting on the biggest guy in the place? Not exactly the most masculine way to fight, is it?”

Loving that she was trying to take him down a notch or two now instead of coddling him, Cooper grinned at her. “‘Sitting’ isn’t a very accurate description of what I did.” He stood up and stepped in front of her. “Here, let me show you.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.

She gasped, then protested, “No, that’s okay.”

She tried to sit down again, but he turned her so her back was to him, slipped his arms under hers and brought his hands up behind her satiny neck to link his fingers, which forced her to raise her arms above her head.

“Cooper!”

Her sweet scent filling his head again, he put his mouth next to her ear. “It’s your basic wrestling move. Quick, effective and painless—right?—though I have to confess I wasn’t as gentle with the bozo in the bar.”

He felt her spine stiffen. “But he could still peel you bald.” She demonstrated her point by burying her hands in his hair on both sides of his head and gathering a handful. But the tug she gave him reminded him more of what would happen in a bedroom rather than a barroom. His blood pressure rocketed.

He unlinked his fingers so he could move his hands into her silky, thick brown hair. “He was a heck of a lot taller than you, honey, and couldn’t reach me. The more he tried, the more I tightened my hold.”

He brought his elbows up just a bit, and she arched her back in response to the pressure, her full breasts straining against her sweater. Suddenly, he found himself doing some straining of his own. The woman could sure heat him up.

He had to swallow before he continued. “Which really annoyed him. I didn’t have much choice but to keep a hold of him until someone took him off my hands. Unfortunately, that someone happened to be the law.”

“Very nice. Now, let go.” Her voice was airy. And she still had her hands in his hair.

Cooper chuckled. Knowing it would probably be a while before he could convince her to let him this close again, he murmured, “Do you have any idea how good you smell?” and indulged himself by rubbing his cheek against her hair, remembering too late that he hadn’t shaved since before he’d gone to watch the ball game at the bar.

She relaxed against him and her fingers started moving in his hair. He could have sworn he heard her murmur, “Oh, crap.”

Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor out in the hall, clearly heading toward the den, and they both froze.

Cooper released her and stepped away, but a few strands of her hair followed him, leaving her looking like someone had rubbed a balloon against the side of her head. She fixed her wide, surprisingly censure-free gaze on him just before Joseph reentered the room.

“Hopefully, Alexander will be joining us soon,” Joseph said, returning to his chair behind the desk and allowing Cooper and Sara time to regain their respective seats. His smile of encouragement suggested he was oblivious to what had just been going on in his den. “Do you have a better grasp of things now, Cooper?”

A cough sounded from the chair next to him, but Cooper simply smiled and shrugged. “There’s still so much to know. But I’m eager for the chance to feel my way along.”

Old Joe nodded sagely, definitely oblivious to what Cooper was really referring to. “You’ll get to it all, I’m sure.”

Cooper couldn’t keep from glancing at Sara, who was staring straight ahead, doing a bang-up job of appearing only mildly interested, aside from the raging blush on her cheeks and elegant throat. He added, “One can hope.”

She didn’t look at him, but her nostrils flared and her chin went up a notch.

Joseph asked, “Did any of our divisions snag your interest?”

Cooper cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Well…”

From the doorway behind them a deep voice said, “I know the perfect place for him in the company.”

Cooper’s pulse jumped and he turned in his seat, seeing Alexander McCoy up close for the first time.

In the past, Cooper had always thought of Alexander’s physical appearance as nothing more than a younger version of Marcus’s, though their similarities weren’t striking. Now he realized Alexander was more an older version of himself. They were roughly the same size and put together the same way. Definitely the same hair and eyes. Guilt and remorse sparked white hot. How could he have doubted his mother for a second?

But because of that doubt, he’d generally tried to avoid anything having to do with the McCoys, doing his damnedest to pretend they didn’t exist. Though he was aware that the media had portrayed Alexander as the serious, down-to-business McCoy, well equipped to take the corporation into the next era.

Jaw tight, he stood and met the other man’s gaze.

Alexander’s expression was just as wary. This man didn’t trust easily. No big shock there, considering recent revelations. He wasn’t going to embrace anyone without question for a long time, if ever. Maybe making the McCoys pay wouldn’t be as easy as Cooper had thought. Alexander looked as though he wouldn’t miss much.

But Cooper never could resist a challenge.

Apparently equally clueless to the tension between the two younger men, Joseph said, “Excellent. Where?”

Not breaking eye contact with Cooper, Alexander answered, “With his construction experience, he’d do well handling the new stores—”

Sara made an odd sort of noise, but Cooper couldn’t tear his gaze away from his half brother’s. There was so much of himself in the other man’s eyes, and so much he’d never seen before. Primarily, what it was like growing up a McCoy in name, as well as blood.

Cooper thought it amazing that Marcus had looked at this guy every damn day and lied like the dog he was.

Shifting his attention finally to Joseph, Alexander concluded, “Under the guidance of the VP of Operations, of course.”

“Of course,” Joseph concurred, sounding pleased. “At least, at first. So what do you think, Cooper? You interested in working for Ms. Barnes?”

Cooper glanced at Joseph. “Ms. Barnes?”

Alexander came to stand behind Sara’s chair, a suspicious glint in his steel-blue eyes. “Let me guess—no formal introductions were made. Allow me. Cooper Anders, I’d like you to meet Sara Barnes, vice president of Operations. Your new boss.”

Cooper had to snap his mouth shut for the second time that day.

Damn. He’d nearly felt up his boss.

Chapter Four

Monday morning, Cooper unbuttoned his charcoal suit coat as he turned the desk chair he occupied away from the bucolic view out the office window of Vice President of Operations Sara Barnes on the fifteenth floor of McCoy Enterprises headquarters. He faced the expanse of her orderly desk.

Just as he’d expected: no messy piles of papers, In basket clearly tackled on a regular basis, a crystal candy dish half full of red heart candies sharing a corner with a photo frame that matched the dark burgundy of her desk chair and the other pieces of upholstered furniture in the spacious corner office. The picture was of a fresh-faced Sara with her arms wrapped around an older gentleman sporting the same wide smile.

Probably her dad. The twinge of an ancient hurt made Cooper pull his gaze away. There’d been no father-son photo-ops in his life.

The day’s agenda, typed on McCoy corporate letterhead, awaited her front and center. Meetings, meetings and more meetings. My, but she was a busy girl. Hopefully, too busy to notice whatever he might be up to.

He figured she’d come blasting through the door any second, furious that he’d slipped out of The Big House—he still couldn’t believe they called their mansion that—and made it to the office while she waited patiently downstairs for him to roll out of the sack.

He’d been up and ready long before dawn, prowling his new home. Sleeping hadn’t exactly been easy since old Joe had insisted Cooper move his stuff into a suite of rooms in The Big House, accommodations that were larger than Cooper’s whole apartment. He’d roamed around, feeling like a thief with a burning desire to take the one thing he couldn’t get his hands on: what was to him a false veneer of moral purity and trustworthiness still clinging stubbornly to the McCoy name.

Sorry, but in his book, if you were willing to do the crime you had to be willing to do the time. After his mother’s death, he’d made the bad choice more often than he cared to count, but at least he had always owned up to the mistakes. Unlike his hound-dog father.

Cooper fisted his hands on the arms of the chair. Marcus had gotten off way too easy becoming a grizzly snack. And clearly Cooper had a much different definition of the right thing than had Joseph.

And he’d see to it that there were consequences.

Since Sara always seemed to be around, he’d initially been concerned that she’d dog his every step. But the housekeeper, Helen—Alexander’s mother, no less, still working for the McCoys as a glorified servant—had told him the first night that Ms. Barnes lived in a quaint apartment above the carriage-house–style detached garage. He supposed that qualified as a “little house.”

If he hadn’t seen firsthand the adoration for the McCoys shining in her big green eyes, he would assume her loyalty stemmed from a desire to keep her cozy digs. Which happened to be located a little too close for Cooper’s comfort and did absolutely nothing to help him sleep.

But thinking about her silky hair beneath his cheek, the sweet, cinnamony smell of her breath—he jerked his gaze to the candy dish and smiled—beat the hell out of remembering the feel of Joseph’s hand on his shoulder and the warmth in the old man’s eyes. A look he’d never seen once from his mother’s father.

His smile faded and the twinge became a twist that had him clenching his jaw.

Right up until his death eleven years ago, Ned Anders hadn’t had the bank account, Swiss or otherwise, that Joseph McCoy had, though, so being stuck with another mouth to feed hadn’t endeared Cooper to Ned any from the get-go. Joseph could afford to haul in a hundred strays to play grandpa with. If Marcus had lived longer, Joe might have had to.

Cooper would have to remember to hoist a cold one to a certain grizzly bear the next time he visited what he considered “the office.” Marcus had had his quota of lives to mess up.

Cooper leaned forward and placed his palms flat on the cool, smooth surface of Sara’s desk, his arms spread wide. This particular stray wasn’t about to come crawling in on his belly, wagging his tail in gratitude for the scraps finally thrown his way. This stray had teeth, and every intention of using them.

Thanks to the new designer suits Joseph had procured for him, the McCoys would never see his bite coming. He sarcastically wondered if the county jail had been kind enough to relay the size of the orange jumpsuit they were going to outfit him in if he hadn’t made bail. Hopefully, he looked as though he was trying to make the best impression he could, not ferreting out the best way to strike a blow to the company that had allowed Marcus McCoy to charm everyone into trusting him. Everyone who didn’t happen to know the truth, that is; then his true nature would come out.

A noise from the doorway jerked him from his thoughts and he looked to where Sara Barnes, briefcase in hand, stood poised just inside her office as if the sight of him had stopped her in her tracks.

The sight of her stopped his breath in his lungs.

The sun shining through the big, tinted windows behind him really brought out the chestnut tones in her hair, which she’d styled in soft curls that made her far more tempting and far less “all business” than she’d seemed previously. Though her cream linen suit was unarguably professional, the nipped-in waist of the long jacket and above-the-knee length of the skirt drew attention to her curves like a red neon arrow with the words hot babe flashing over her.

But the suit had nothing on the pointy-toe cream pumps on her feet that added height to her petite frame and gave her an aura of class, power and confident sexuality. He had to work to swallow. How could he have ever mistaken her for a corporate drone? Or even a personal secretary. Sara Barnes looked every inch the high-powered boss lady.

Except for the fact that as her gaze traveled over him in return, her eyes grew huge and her jaw went slack. He hadn’t consciously sat behind her desk to make a statement regarding his place in the grand scheme of her apparently limited world, but the fact that he clearly had was a bonus. Every little reminder would aid him in achieving his goal without her misguided interference.

He sat back in her chair and folded his arms over his dark blue tie. “Well, good morning, Sara.”

His greeting seemed to snap her out of whatever had derailed her. But instead of frowning fiercely at him for dodging her at the house and making himself at home in her office, she smiled brightly at him. The force of her appeal hit him like a sucker punch in the gut.

“Good morning!” She came farther into the room and put her briefcase down on one of the chairs facing her desk. “I’m so glad you’re already here. Any problems finding your way?”

He opened his mouth to remind her that everyone within a twenty-mile radius knew exactly where the corporate headquarters of McCoy Enterprises was located. And the main-floor receptionist had been quite capable of directing him to this particular office, but Sara didn’t give him a chance.

“I came to The Big House this morning and waited for you, with the thought of bringing you here myself today. It being your first day at work here and all.” She shrugged, her smile impossibly brighter still. “Guess I missed you.”

Cooper regarded her with suspicion. She had to know he’d slipped out the back. Several of the staff, Helen included, had seen him do it. Helen, seemingly unflappable, with her only slightly graying short dark hair always curled and her white blouse and dark blue slacks pressed, had called to him that Ms. Barnes was waiting for him in the foyer, but he’d blown her off. She had to have busted him to Sara.

But Sara’s smile struck him as genuine, warming her green eyes until they matched the dairy-cow pasture behind him, which looked too perfect not to be maintained as carefully as a high-end golf course. Not that she’d appreciate the comparison.

He uncrossed his arms and rested his elbows on the arms of her chair so he could tent his fingers in front of him. Until he could figure out her game, he’d reply with a noncommittal “Hmm.”

This was, after all, the same woman who’d done her best to clip him from behind for threatening her beloved McCoys before Joseph had cut her off. Not exactly a car-pool-buddy candidate.

At his continued scrutiny, her smile dimmed a little and the color rose in her cheeks. Inhaling so deeply her distracting breasts lifted beneath her smart little cream linen jacket, she gripped her hands in front of her. “Okay. I know we didn’t get off to the best start, you and I, exactly—”

“Something about me being a two-faced, lying…” He tilted his head and considered her with a challenging, one-sided grin. “What, exactly?”

Her knuckles whitened. “Snake, I believe.”

His admiration for her notched upward at her close-to-the-mark insult.

She rushed to add, “But that was then. I no longer feel that way.”

Yeah, right, babe. No doubt she had some great property in Florida for sale, too. He rocked back in the chair. “Really. Why’s that, sweet cheeks?”

She loosened her grip on her hands, only to wring them. An action severely at odds with her appearance.

And one that had him rethinking the ornery tack he’d taken with her.

“Well…after talking to Alexander—”

The mention of his newfound brother—half brother—sent Cooper to his feet and moving around the chair to stare out the window. As much as he would like to watch her face for clues to what was really going on in that beautiful head of hers, he preferred not to let her see how much the mere mention of Alexander affected him.

To know he had a sibling of any sort, let alone one who was a Real McCoy, weirded him out. He and Alex had nothing in common once they’d hopped out of the gene pool. How could Cooper ever hope to form any sort of connection with the guy? The sort that would have been nice to have when he was younger, where the big brother yanks his little brother back by the collar and saves him from his own stupidity.

Besides, what Cooper was up to now would always be a wall between them. An ache that had become annoyingly familiar thudded in his chest.

Sara paused for a beat, then continued. “I think I have a better understanding of why you said the things you did in front of the jail.”

“And the post office. Don’t forget what I said in front of the post office.” Though admitting to his hatred of all things McCoy and his plan to ruin the company to her had been a serious “oops” moment, when they were alone there was no point pretending it hadn’t happened.

“Not likely.”

Her tight tone made him turn enough to look at her. She’d pressed her lips together just as she had in Joseph’s office. While nothing more than a casual poker player himself, Cooper knew Sara would be fleeced in a heartbeat with such an obvious “tell” that she was fighting to maintain control. Clearly, all was not forgiven.

At his curious look, she pulled her hands apart and lowered them quickly to her sides. “But after talking to Alexander and seeing the same frustration and hurt—”

He quickly faced her. “Hold it right there, hon. Save the psychobabble for your girlfriends, all right?” He rounded the desk and moved toward her with slow intent. “You do have some, don’t you? Girlfriends, that is?”

She admirably stood her ground and raised her chin. “Probably not as many as you at any given time.”

Even though she was way off the mark, at least regarding recent years, he shrugged. “You can’t blame a guy for being popular.”

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