Her job was wonderful, better than she’d ever imagined, but what kept her up at nights wasn’t her job.

It was Keir.

She wanted him. In her arms. In her bed, and to hell with whether or not he’d respect her in the morning. She already knew the answer. He wouldn’t…but she didn’t care anymore. She wanted Keir, wanted him, wanted him—

“You know what you need, Berk?” he said softly.

Her mouth was as dry as the Nevada desert. “Do you?”

“Yes.” His voice roughened, and she could feel her heart trying to leap from her breast.

“You need a lesson, and I’m the man to give it to you.”

“Keir…” His name came out a whisper. “Keir…”

“What time does lunch finish up?”

She blinked. Sex by appointment? “Four, but why do you—”

“Good.” He turned away. “Be ready to go at five-thirty.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the exciting, passion-filled world of the O’Connells. Meet Keir, the eldest O’Connell son, and Cassie, a young woman whom life has sometimes treated unkindly. Cassie’s worked at Keir’s hotel, but he never really noticed her. Now, in the first book in the O’Connell series, Keir lets us in on a secret. He can’t forget what happened between him and Cassie one magical night under a hot summer moon. Cassie can’t forget, either…and that’s when the fireworks begin.

You’ve told me how much you loved the Barons. I hope you’ll show that same generous warmth to the O’Connells. Please take Keir, Sean, Cullen, Fallon, Megan and Briana into your hearts. Then come along with me and their proud, powerful mother, Mary Elizabeth O’Connell Coyle, as we begin that most important of life’s journeys—a search for deep, passionate, all-enduring love.

With love,

You can e-mail Sandra at: www.sandramarton.com

Keir O’Connell’s Mistress
Sandra Marton

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 ONE

Late summer, on the road to Las Vegas:

THE sun was a hint of gold lighting the rim of the desert as Keir O’Connell crossed the state line into Nevada.

The road was empty and he was driving fast, the black Ferrari eating up the miles like the powerful thoroughbred it was. A sign flashed by, so quickly Keir couldn’t read it, but he didn’t have to. He knew what it said.

75 miles to Las Vegas. Welcome to the Desert Song Hotel and Casino.

Seventy-five miles. At the speed he was driving, little more than half an hour away.

Keir eased back on the gas pedal.

He’d been on the road for two days, driving almost nonstop, knowing he’d pushed things too far and if he didn’t hurry, he’d miss his mother’s wedding.

The thought was almost enough to make him smile.

Missing the duchess’s wedding wasn’t an option. She’d wait until all six of her children were gathered before taking her vows with Dan Coyle. Afterward, she’d peel the hide off whichever of them had caused the delay.

No, missing the wedding wasn’t a possibility. Besides—Keir checked the dashboard clock—besides, he’d make it in plenty of time. The ceremony wasn’t until tomorrow. He’d told himself he was driving hard because he wanted the chance to visit with his family and that was part of it, yes, but the greater truth was that driving fast relaxed him.

He knew, from long experience, that taking a car almost to its limit, seeing how far he could push the speed until he was hovering on that razor-sharp edge between control and the loss of it, was usually enough to drain him of tension. That, or being with a woman, but that was the last thing he wanted now.

He hadn’t touched a woman in the thirty days he’d been gone…in the month since he’d made an ass of himself in a moonlit Texas garden with Cassie Berk.

One month. Was that all the time he’d been away? Had he really made so many life-altering decisions in four short weeks? It didn’t seem possible, especially for him. He’d spent a lifetime with his brothers teasing him about being such a vigilant planner.

“Be careful,” his mother had said the year he’d gotten his pilot’s license, and one of his brothers—Sean, maybe—had laughed and hugged her and said there was no reason to worry, that Keir would never have an accident unless he planned it first.

Keir frowned.

Then, how come he was about to sign off as Chief Operating Officer of the Desert Song and move twenty-five hundred miles across the country to a vineyard in Connecticut—a vineyard into which he’d sunk a small fortune?

Keir shifted in his seat and tried to find a better angle for his legs. The Ferrari had more room under the dashboard than some cars he’d driven but it was built for speed, not comfort, especially if you topped six foot two.

What he was going to do would make anyone edgy. And, yeah, why lie to himself? The prospect of seeing Cassie again bothered him, too. It bothered him a lot. Nobody went through life without doing something stupid; despite what Cassie had called him, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think he was the exception to the rule. But what he’d done that night…

He owed her an apology. She’d be calmer by now, willing to let him eat crow and say he was sorry he’d come on to her. It had been the mood and the moment, that was all. Too much champagne, too much slow dancing, too much of the enforced togetherness that came of him being Gray Baron’s best man and Cassie being Dawn Lincoln’s maid of honor.

It was his fault, all of it, and he was prepared to admit it. He was her boss, dammit; he knew the rules about sexual harassment. Knew them? He’d written them at the Song, not just rules about harassment but others that clearly laid out what he expected of people.

Logic. Reason. Common sense. He believed in those principles. He’d built his life on them…and forgotten every last one, that night with Cassie.

“You’re an arrogant, self-centered, stupid son of a bitch,” she’d said, breathing fire when he’d done the right thing, stepped back and tried to say he was sorry.

Had she let him? No way. She’d rounded on him with fury and the worst of it was that the things she’d called him might have dented his ego, but they were true.

He’d made a move on her he never should have made and put her in the position where she’d been damned if she responded and damned if she didn’t.

She’d responded, all right.

He’d taken her in his arms in a dark corner of the garden at that Texas ranch. A second later, she’d been clinging to him, opening her mouth to his, moaning as he’d bunched up her skirt and slid his hands under her dress, that long, gauzy dress that made her look like an old-fashioned dream instead of a Las Vegas cocktail waitress…

This kind of crap wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He was maybe fifty miles from Vegas and exactly thirty days and nights from what had happened—what had almost happened—in that garden, and why was he thinking about it again?

He was hungry, that was why. His stomach wasn’t just growling, it was snarling. He’d pretty much been living on black coffee and catnaps, just pulling off the road long enough to fill the car with gas and his system with caffeine. It had been a long forty-eight hours from Connecticut to Nevada.

If you wanted to get philosophical, he thought, goosing the car back to speed, it had been the longest journey of his life.

Other cars were feeding onto the road now, all of them heading toward that glittering Mecca in the desert. Keir slowed the Ferrari to what seemed a crawl.

He’d gone to New York on vacation, though that hadn’t been his original plan. He’d intended to drive to Tucson, then to Phoenix, just get away for a couple of weeks, enjoy the feel of the car—he’d bought it only weeks before—on the long, straight desert roads.

And then, right after the ceremony, his mother and Dan Coyle, the Desert Song’s Head of Security, had taken him aside.

“Keir,” the duchess had said, clinging to Dan Coyle’s arm, “I know this will come as a surprise…darling, Dan and I are getting married.”

Keir smiled.

A surprise? Yeah, but once he’d thought about it, he realized it shouldn’t have been. He’d caught Dan casting longing looks at the duchess for quite a while and caught her blushing like a schoolgirl in response.

So he’d kissed his mother, clapped Dan on the back, and after they’d laughed and maybe cried a little, the duchess had taken his hands in hers and told him that he was to take a month’s holiday, at least.

“Orders from on high must be obeyed,” Dan had said with a wink, when Keir had begun to protest.

“You deserve a real vacation,” Mary had insisted. “Just be sure you’re back for the wedding.”

Dan had grinned, told him that they’d chosen a date, even a time, and then Keir had kissed his mother, shaken Dan’s hand, said if he expected him to start calling him Daddy he was in for a rude surprise.

And when all the good wishes and jokes were over, Keir had taken a deep breath and said he thought it might be time for Mary to take over the management of the Desert Song again, and for him to move on.

Dan had urged him to reconsider.

“Is it because I’m marrying your mother? Keir, that isn’t necessary. There’s no need for you to leave.”

“No,” Mary had said softly, “of course there isn’t.” Her smile had trembled a little. “But he wants to leave. Don’t you, Keir? Running the Song was never what you wanted to do in the first place.” She’d touched his arm. “I think I’ve always known that.”

It was the truth and Keir hadn’t denied it. They’d talked a bit, the three of them, of how things would be with him gone and Mary in charge.

“With Dan sharing responsibility,” she’d said firmly and Keir had nodded his agreement. He liked Coyle; he’d be good for the duchess and if anyone could keep her in line, Keir figured Dan could.

After that, he’d gone back to the wedding festivities…

And Cassie.

Keir frowned, took his sunglasses from the visor and slipped them on.

He’d intended to start for Tucson early the next morning but after the fiasco in the garden, he’d tossed his things in his car and headed east instead of west, not just in search of a holiday but in search of his own life.

It was one thing to be free of the responsibilities he’d assumed six years ago, but free to do what? The only thing he was sure of was that he didn’t want to go back to arbitrage. He’d made a fortune in the complex world of stocks and bonds before taking over the Song, but that was the past.

He had yet to glimpse the future.

To that end, and, yeah, maybe because he’d figured that keeping busy would block memories of how stupidly he’d behaved with Cassie, he’d made some discreet inquiries of colleagues once he reached New York. Within a couple of days, an attorney representing a French hotel conglomerate approached him about a five star facility planned for the East side of Manhattan. They wanted his expertise and were willing to pay handsomely for it. A lunch, then a couple of dinners, and Keir had begun thinking about becoming a consultant in New York. The idea pleased him. He loved the pace and power of the city and started looking to put down roots.

That was why he’d been standing on the terrace of a penthouse a few mornings ago, the realtor beside him gushing over the view, the rooms, the lap pool and spa, when suddenly her voice seemed to fade and Keir had found himself seeing not the view but himself, forever trapped inside a paneled office, forever doomed to wear a suit and a tie and sit behind a desk.

What had happened to the boy who’d wanted to be an astronaut? To the kid who’d wanted to slay dragons? A penthouse suite, a private pool and an expensive view had never been part of those dreams.

How could he have forgotten that?

He’d turned to the realtor, told her he was sorry but he’d just remembered an appointment. Then he’d gotten into the Ferrari, pointed it north and let the car eat up the miles until he’d found himself in Connecticut farmland.

He’d been driving without an agenda, figuring on turning back once he knew what in hell he was doing, but the weather was beautiful the car was purring. When he pulled out a map while he filled up at a gas station, he realized that if he went just another few miles he could check out the Song’s competition. A couple of northeastern Native American tribes had opened casinos and hotels in Connecticut. They were very successful. Why not combine business with pleasure and take a look? He might not be running the Song anymore, but he might find something interesting to pass on to Dan and his mother.

So Keir had piled back into his car and headed a little further north and east.

The Native American casinos had proved enlightening. He’d spent the rest of the morning strolling around, discreetly observing the operations. Then for reasons he’d never be able to fathom, he’d gotten back in the Ferrari and driven another hour, hour and a half, until he’d ended up on a road that knifed through tall stands of oak and maple, where his car was the only traffic and the only sound was the cry of a hawk, circling overhead.

He’d almost missed the sign.

DEER RUN VINEYARD, it read, Luncheon and Dinner Thursday thru Sunday, By Reservation Only.

It was Thursday, Keir had thought, glancing at his watch. It was almost two. A little late for lunch and besides, you needed a reservation but, what the hell?

So he’d turned down a narrow dirt road and found, at its end, a scene that might have been a painting: a handsome old barn converted into a small restaurant, a garden surrounding a patio filled with umbrella tables and a profusion of flowers, and beyond that, row after row of grapevines climbing a hill toward a handsome old stone house set against a cloudless blue sky.

Keir felt a tightening in his belly.

Yes, the hostess said, someone had just phoned to cancel a reservation for the second seating. If he’d just wait a few minutes…?

He’d accepted a glass of wine and gone for a stroll up the hill, walking through the rows of vines, drawing the rich smell of the earth and the grapes deep into his lungs…

And suddenly known that he belonged here.

He’d asked the owner to join him for coffee. Keir came straight to the point. He wanted to buy Deer Run. The proprietor beamed. His wife was ill; she needed a change of climate. They’d decided to put the place up for sale just days before. What a nice surprise, that Keir should have turned up wanting to buy it.

Keir hadn’t been surprised. Until that afternoon he’d never believed in anything a man couldn’t see or touch but something—he didn’t want to call it fate—something had been at work that day.

He’d looked at the books, had data faxed to his accountant and attorney. Before the sun dipped behind the gently rolling hills, he’d become the new owner of Deer Run.

Stupid? His accountant and attorney were too polite to say so. What they did say was “impulsive.”

Keir speeded up a little and changed lanes. Maybe they were right, but he had no regrets. He needed to change his life, and now he’d done it.

Las Vegas, ten miles.

The sign flashed by before he knew it—before he was ready. He slowed the car to a crawl.

He was not a man who ever acted on impulse and yet he’d done so three times in the past few weeks, walking out on the French deal, buying a winery…kissing a woman he shouldn’t have kissed.

Why regret any of it?

The kiss was just a kiss, the five star hotel and the penthouse in New York had been wrong for him, but the winery…the winery felt right.

No, he thought, he had no regrets at all. Not even about Cassie.

Keir turned on the radio and heard the pulse of hard, pounding rock. One thing he’d learned during this trip was you could tell where you were by listening to local DJ’s. Back east there’d been lots of Dylan and Debussy. The closer he’d come to the middle of the country, the more he’d heard Garth Brooks. Now, with the desert behind him and the Vegas strip just ahead, the sounds of rock and roll were kicking in.

Actually, what he liked best were the old standards, the stuff nobody played anymore. He’d grown up listening to those songs, Embraceable You and Starlight and the rest; his parents had always seen to it that music like that was featured in at least one lounge at the Desert Song.

The band had played lots of those numbers at Gray and Dawn’s wedding, especially as evening came on. He’d been dancing with Cassie, the two of them laughing as they moved to something by the Stones, when suddenly the music had become slow and smoky.

That was when he’d gathered her into his arms, as if the whole day had been leading up to that moment.

He knew the reasons.

People did things they’d never think of doing when they went to weddings and parties where the wine flowed and inhibitions got tossed aside.

How many toasts had he drunk? How many dances had he danced with Cassie, watching the flash of her long legs, the way her dress clung to her body when the summer breeze blew? How often had he inhaled her scent when he leaned close to ask if she wanted something from the buffet?

Why wouldn’t she have suddenly seemed a beautiful, mysterious creature of every man’s hottest dreams instead of a woman who might have been around the block more times than he wanted to count?

As he’d danced her into the garden, away from the lights, away from the other guests, he’d even imagined asking her to go with him the next day. He’d thought of what it might be like to be alone with her in some quiet, romantic hideaway.

“Cassie,” he’d murmured, tilting her face to his in the darkness. And he’d kissed her. Just kissed her…

Until she made a little sound, moved against him and dammit suddenly, his hands had been all over her, molding her to him, lifting her into him, sliding under her skirt against soft, silken skin.

Keir tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Great. He was right back where he’d been when he’d pointed his car east the night of the wedding, feeling like a damned fool for having hit on a woman who worked for him, who’d probably been afraid to say “no” or maybe figured making it with the boss would improve her chances of being something better than a cocktail waitress…

He could still feel the way she’d stiffened in his arms, hear the sound of her voice.

“Keir,” she’d said, “Keir, no.”

That was what had brought him back to sanity, the way she’d said his name, her voice shaking, her body losing its soft, warm pliancy—and maybe that had been part of the act, a game designed to make him want her all the more—except, if he’d wanted her any more, he’d have exploded.

Keir cursed, stepped on the brakes and brought the car to a skidding stop on the side of the road.

Okay. He’d made a fool of himself but he’d done that before and survived. Not with a woman. Never with a woman, but he’d done his fair share of dumb things. Like making cold phone calls as a trainee at a San Francisco brokerage house and being set up by one of the other trainees so that somehow he’d ended up phoning the wife of the firm’s CEO.

He’d sold her three hundred shares of stock.

Now there was Cassie. Well, yeah. He was sorry he’d kissed her, but seeing her again, apologizing, wasn’t going to be any problem at all. Wasn’t there some old Irish saying about a little humility lightening the load and being good for the soul?

If there wasn’t, there ought to be.

As for buying the vineyard…Keir took a deep breath and pulled the car back into traffic. Enough introspection. He was minutes from home, his mother was getting married tomorrow, and he had the feeling he was in for one hell of an old-fashioned, rowdy O’Connell family reunion.

Up ahead, a creature that looked like a small, slow-moving tank stepped out of the scrub. It looked from side to side, took a cautious step forward, then an equally cautious step back.

Keir braked, swung wide, and left the armadillo in the dust.

Half an hour later, he pulled into the employee lot at the Desert Song and parked his car in its usual space. The security guard at the back entrance gave him a big smile.

“Hey, Mr. O’Connell. You’re back.”

“How’re you doing, Howard?” Keir stuck out his hand. “How’s your wife? That baby’s due any time now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. Couple of weeks. How was the vacation?”

“Terrific.”

“And now it’s back to work, huh?”

“Something like that.” Keir clapped the guard on the shoulder. “Take care, Howard. Be sure and let me add my good wishes when the baby gets here.”

Keir stopped smiling as he stepped inside the hotel and walked down the hall that led past a series of offices. He could almost feel the place swallow him up. Even dragging a breath into his lungs seemed difficult.

A month away, and now he really knew how much he wanted out.

He stabbed the freight elevator call button, tucked his hands into the pockets of his well-worn Levi’s and tipped back a little on his heels.

The duchess had made it clear that she’d understand, if he left the Song.

Would she, really?

He’d come to Vegas to help run the place after his father’s death. He was the eldest son, the O’Connell offspring who’d proven himself Responsible with a capital R. Cullen wasn’t. He’d just left college, a dozen credits short of his degree, to do God only knew what. Sean had been—well, nobody had been quite sure of what Sean had been doing or where he’d been doing it. And the girls—Megan, Fallon and Briana—had all still been away at school.

“You’ll just stay for a bit,” his mother had said, “only until I can handle things on my own.”

After a year, he’d suggested they hire a Chief Operating Officer.

“I don’t know that I’d feel comfortable with someone outside the family,” Mary had told him. “Can you stay on a little longer, Keir?”

He had, and just when it looked as if his mother was ready to take the reins, she’d had a massive heart attack.

Keir pressed the call button again and made a mental note to have Maintenance check the elevators. There were only two cars in this bank and they got heavy use from employees. One, at least, should have been moving.

Now, by a twist of fate, he was free of the responsibility of the Song. Thanks to another twist, maybe he’d found what he’d been looking for, even if all he knew about wine was how to drink it.

Better not to think like that. Whatever he knew or didn’t know about grapes and wine, he was glad he’d bought Deer Run, glad he was finally getting on with his life. He felt as if it had been on hold for years, not just the six he’d spent working for his mother but the years he’d spent taking university courses that bored him.

He’d never let himself think about that while he was in school or even afterward, but during the trip east, the car eating up the miles, he’d felt something pushing for acknowledgment inside him, as if what had gone on in that garden had only been the first step toward acceptance of the truth.

He was restless.

He’d always been restless, though he’d fought against it. He’d kept it hidden like a dirty secret, even from his family.

“My strong, dependable boy,” his mother had told him once. “You’re just like my Ruarch.”

Dependable? His father? Ruarch O’Connell had been a gambler, shifting them all from place to place on the turn of a card and never giving a damn for a plan that stretched further than tomorrow.

The last thing he wanted was to be like his father. Keir believed in laying things out so you knew what was coming next. And he’d never so much as fed a coin into a slot machine in his entire life.

So, why was he gambling now?

He tightened his jaw and pressed the call button again.

Investing in a property wasn’t gambling. It was logical. Reasonable. As reasonable as knowing, knowing, dammit, a woman wanted you and then letting her pretend she didn’t…

He cursed under his breath, pounded a fist on the call button and glared at the light panel above the door.

What he needed was a shower, a quick nap and a meal. Then he’d have his head together. That was why he was going to his suite the back way, so he didn’t run into the duchess or any of his brothers or sisters, who were probably at the Song by now.

He certainly wasn’t going the back way to avoid seeing Cassie.

Funny, how he’d never much noticed her until that night in the garden. She was an employee. He probably wouldn’t have known her name if she hadn’t been Dawn’s friend—and the duchess had taken an interest in Dawn.

Hello, Cassie.

Goodbye, Cassie.

That had been the extent of his involvement with her. He didn’t even know how long she’d been working at the Song, just that she was there, serving free drinks in the casino, dressed in what he thought of as the casino uniform. A short black skirt topped by a low-cut blouse. Black fishnet stockings. High heels. Vegas was a town where scantily dressed women were the status quo. Why would he have noticed?

But she hadn’t looked like that in Texas. Maybe that was the reason he’d become aware of her. Okay, maybe he had noticed her once or twice before. Even in a town like this, where beautiful women were a dime a dozen, Cassie’s looks were special.

She’d gone into the night with him, let him touch her and kiss her, and then she’d said “no.” Why? She’d been as turned-on as he, as eager for what should have come next…

Keir’s mouth tightened.

Maybe she’d expected him to ignore that breathless little “no.” Maybe she’d expected him to offer her something to sweeten the deal. Whatever the reason, it was a damned good thing she’d decided to stop him. He’d been lucky to get out in time.

What was it his brother Sean had once said about men and hot-looking women? Maybe it was Cullen who’d said it. Not that it mattered. The message was what counted.

Men suffered from ZTS. Zipper Think Syndrome, meaning when it came to sex, guys thought with their zippers instead of their heads.

Keir grinned. Yeah, that was it. The old ZTS theory.

The light above the elevator was moving at last. Twelve. Ten. Eight. Six. Two. Keir gave a relieved sigh as the car announced its arrival with a soft ping.

Okay. One problem solved. For all he cared, the doors could slide open, the Berk babe could be standing there with nothing on but her skin and it wouldn’t mean a damn.

Except, that wasn’t quite the scene. Cassie was inside the elevator, all right, wearing that little skirt, the clingy top, the high-heeled shoes…

Correction. She had only one shoe on. She was bent over the other one, which seemed to be stuck to the floor, her cute little bottom pointed straight at him. Either she was too busy to know she had an audience or she just didn’t care.

And he was having trouble remembering that he was too old to be led astray by ZTS.

Man, he’d been on the road too long.

Keir cleared his throat and donned what he figured was his best Chief of Ops polite smile.

“Hello, Cassie.”

She jolted upright and swiveled toward him, the look on her face going quickly from surprise to recognition to displeasure.

“You!”

She filled the word with loathing. Well, he could hardly blame her. Her memories of the last time they’d met probably were no better than his. Be pleasant, he told himself. After all, he owed the lady an apology.

“Yeah, that’s right. Me.” Keir nodded at the shoe. “Having a problem?”

“No,” she snapped, “I always stand around like this, with one shoe on and one shoe—”

The car began to move. She hadn’t expected it and she jerked back.

“Careful!”

Keir grabbed for her but Cassie flung out a hand and caught the railing.

“Don’t touch me!”

So much for being polite. “No problem. You want to break your neck, be my guest.”

“I’m doing just fine on my own.”

“Oh, yeah. I can see that.” He watched, arms folded, as she tried to pull the shoe free again. “Stop being foolish, Berk. Let me help—or would you rather I put in a call to Maintenance and have them send up a work crew?”

“What? Those idiots? They’re the ones who left this damned piece of wood here in the first place.” She leaned down again. “I’ll fix it myself.”

Maybe. But he couldn’t promise what he’d do if she kept bending over like that.

“Not on my time,” he said sharply, “and not in my elevator. Dammit, why argue over something so simple?”

“Go ahead, then. Who am I to argue with the man in charge?”

“‘Thank you’ might be a more gracious response.” Keir squatted down, yanked the shoe free and rose to his feet. “Here. Next time you decide to wear stilts—”

The car shuddered to a halt. Cassie yelped, stumbled, and Keir caught her in his arms.

She caught her breath. So did he. She was pressed tightly against him, her back against his chest, her bottom against his groin. Don’t move, he thought, God, don’t move…

The doors swooshed open. Keir heard a sound. A snicker? No. A snort of laughter. He swung around, taking Cassie with him, and saw two very interested, all-too-familiar faces.

Cassie gave a little moan of despair. “Your brothers?” she whispered.

Keir nodded.

Sean and Cullen O’Connell simply grinned.

CHAPTER TWO

CASSIE’S day had gone really, really well.

She’d worked a double shift to cover for one of the other girls who’d either come down with the flu or had a new boyfriend—nobody was quite sure which—but that was okay.

No problem. She could use the extra money.

The only thing was that she’d started the first shift tired after a tough, three hour exam, the final one before she got her degree in restaurant management. Cassie had taken the course on the Internet after signing up, mostly out of curiosity, two years ago. The work had been interesting and, to her surprise, she’d done well at it.

Soon, she’d start looking for a job as far from Vegas as she could get. She’d already decided on an employment agency, a place called TopNotch, because the gossip mill said TopNotch provided almost all management employees to the Desert Song.

If it was good enough for the Song, it was good enough for her.

By the time her second shift was drawing to a close, Cassie was totally exhausted. Her mouth felt stiff from constant smiling, her eyes felt tired from the re-circulated air washing over her contacts, and her feet…

No. She wasn’t going to think about her feet. Rule One in Cassandra Bercovic’s Survival Guide: dancers and waitresses should never think about their feet until they no longer had to stand on them. Once you admitted they hurt, you were in deep trouble.

She was already in trouble.

Cassie winced as she eased one foot just a little way out of its silken, stiletto-heeled prison. Her toes felt as if they’d been jammed into a ball, her arches ached and the soles burned as if a sadist had gone at them with a blowtorch.

She sighed, plucked an empty glass from beside a silent slot machine and put it on her tray.

Toe shoes had been the bane of her existence until she’d given up ballet the day after her seventeenth birthday. Back then, she’d thought bloody feet were only the province of ballerinas.

Talk about being wrong…

Okay. Enough of feeling sorry for herself. Her feet hurt. Big deal. The good news was that she was almost out of here. It had to be close to seven. There was no way to tell because there were never clocks in casinos. The only time that mattered was how long a guest spent at the slots or at the tables.

She knew the time, though. She’d asked Chip on her last stop to put in an order at the bar.

“Pushing 6:15 in the old A.M.,” he’d told her.

Thank God.

Cassie swallowed a yawn. One last circuit of the room and that would be it. The casino was almost empty at this hour. Only the diehards played between dawn and breakfast, and there hadn’t been too many of them this morning.

“Miss?”

She knew who it was before she looked. The sweaty-faced guy at the dollar slots. Rule Number Two of the Bercovic Survival Guide: you could count on a minimum of one pig turning up, each and every shift.

“Yes, sir?” she said politely.

“Gimme another orange juice. And this time, do like I said, okay? I want a double shot of vodka, not a single.”

“It was a double shot the last time, sir,” Cassie replied, even more politely.

The man glared as he slapped his empty glass on her tray. She shot a quick look at the tall paper cup that held his coins. Last time she’d come by, it was full. Now, it was almost empty.

“Listen, toots, I can tell the difference between one shot or two, and that wasn’t no two. I want a double. You got that?”

Cassie could almost feel her blood pressure soar but she’d been a waitress long enough to manage a smile.

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right back with your drink.”

Her smile turned into a scowl when she reached the bar.

“Pig,” she muttered as she slapped down her tray.

Chip grinned. “Nothing’s as much fun as the early morning players, Cass. You should know that by now.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Cassie sighed. “Another OJ, double vodka.”

“Comin’ up.” Chip reached for a clean glass. “Guy’s an asshole, huh?”

“You got it.”

“Well, the shift’s almost over.”

“How soon?”

Chip pushed back his cuff and checked his watch. “Five minutes to go.”

“Hallelujah! I’m so tired I’m liable to fall asleep standing up.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He cleared his throat. “Coffee would help, right?”

“I don’t know if anything will help. I’m totally wiped.”

“Trust me. You need coffee. Espresso, black, lot of sugar to double the jolt.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And some food,” Chip said, adding OJ to the vodka. “Which is why I figured we could go someplace for breakfast, say a little place just opened a couple of blocks off the Strip.”

Cassie sighed. “Thanks, but all I’m up for is going home, taking a shower and falling into bed.”

“Alone,” the bartender said, with an easy smile that made it okay, “right?”

Cassie smiled, too. Chip was a nice guy and if she’d been interested in getting involved, he’d have been a good choice—but then, when it came to men and to life, she’d never managed to make good choices. One thing she’d learned, though. When it came to life, you had to take whatever it threw at you.

Men, at least, you could swear off, and she definitely had.

If only she’d remembered that before Keir O’Connell had come on to her at Dawn’s wedding.

“Keir keeps looking at you,” Dawn had whispered when they had a moment alone after the ceremony.

“Don’t be silly,” she’d whispered back. “He’s probably just trying to remember where he’s seen me before.”

Dawn had laughed, just as she was supposed to, but it was true, Keir had been looking at her, the way a man looks at a woman, giving her those sexy little grins, leaning in closer than necessary to ask if she wanted anything from the buffet, and he’d been so gorgeous in his tux, so dangerous with those dark as midnight eyes…

“If you change your mind about breakfast…” Chip said, and Cassie looked up and smiled.

“Sure.”

“Ouch. Was ever a word said with less enthusiasm?”

“Chip, I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me.”

“Double ouch. That’s the great-granddaddy of all brush-off lines.”

Cassie blushed. “Honestly, I’m just—”

“Hey, I’m teasing. It’s okay. Can’t blame a guy for trying, right?”

“I’m just not dating anybody for a while. You understand?”

“Sure.” He put the double OJ and vodka on her tray. “Bet the guy who ordered this hasn’t tipped you yet, right?”

“Clever man.”

“He gives you any trouble, you need any help, just sing out.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

“Hey, no need. I live to serve.”

Cassie laughed, plucked a couple of cocktail napkins from the stack on the bar and brought the drink to the guy at the dollar slots. She dipped her knees the way you were supposed to, put a napkin beside him and the glass on top of it.

“Your drink, sir.”

“I hope you got it right this time.”

“Double vodka and orange juice, just as you ordered.”

The man picked up the glass, slurped half of it down while he fed tokens into the machine. Cassie started to walk away.

“Hey! You take this back to that bartender and tell him—”

Coins began to cascade from the slot machine. Music played, lights blinked, and the river of silver kept coming.

“Lookit this! I hit the jackpot.”

It certainly looked as if he had. Coins were still pouring out.

“You must of brung me luck, little lady.” Grinning, the man stuck a beefy paw into the shimmering explosion of silver. “Here. This is for you.”

Cassie lifted her eyebrows. “Why, thank—”

The words caught in her throat. He’d handed her two dollars. She narrowed her eyes, opened her mouth—and felt a hand close around her elbow. Inez, her replacement, marched her away from the machine.

“Do not,” Inez said through a toothy smile, “tell el puerco what you think of him.”

“Two bucks,” Cassie hissed. “That’s what he gave me, after four drinks and a couple of hours worth of nastiness.” She craned her head, looked back over her shoulder. “He must have hit for a thousand.”

“Six thousand,” Inez said, still smiling and still hustling Cassie toward the employees’ exit, “and he is the slime of the universe, but you want to keep your job, right?”

“Inez…”

“Remember the rules, Cass. Employees are always polite to guests.”

The rules. The Desert Song’s rules. Keir O’Connell’s rules, not Cassie Bercovic’s. If she told the guy what she thought of him, O’Connell would sack her.

Too bad the boss didn’t have rules that governed his own behavior.

“Here.” Inez took Cassie’s tray and handed her the small purse she’d left behind the bar. “Now, go home.”

“Once, just once, I’d like to tell a guy like that what I think.”

“Wait until you’re ready to quit. Then come into the casino and security will give you special dispensation to clobber the sleazebag of the night.” Inez grinned. “Okay?”

Cassie sighed. “Okay.”

“Until then…you’re rude, you’re crude, you lose your job.”

“I know.”

“Good, ’cause the big man’s serious when he tells that to employees. If you have a legitimate beef with some SOB, you take it to O’Connell and let him handle it.”

Inez was right. That was Keir’s policy, and wasn’t that amazing because if you wanted to talk about rude, crude sons of bitches, he was your man.

And why did she keep thinking about him this morning? She wasn’t going to do it again, except maybe to consider that as bad as the guy up to his wrists in silver was, Keir was worse.

“Okay,” Cassie said, with the stretch-the-lips smile she’d learned putting in six nights a week strutting across a stage with the Eiffel Tower on her head. “I’m going home.”

“You do that. Just leave Mr. Big Tipper to me.” Inez fluttered her lashes. “I’ll be so sweet when I talk to him that he’ll pass out from a sugar overdose.”

Cassie laughed and gave the other woman a quick hug. “Good night.”

“You mean, good morning.”

“Whatever. Have a good one.”

“Yeah. You, too.”

Cassie thought about taking the stairs to the basement locker room but she was just too tired and her feet really were killing her. Maybe it was these shoes. They were new, and the straps cut into her flesh.

She pressed the call button for one of the employee elevators. Sighing, she slipped one foot from her shoe and rubbed her cramped toes against the carpet.

Wearing three inch heels wasn’t fun, especially if you’d spent most of your life torturing your tootsies.

Rule Number Three of Cassandra Bercovic’s Survival Guide, Cassie thought, grimacing as she pressed the call button again. If you started doing pliés at seven and high kicks at seventeen, forget about high heels because your feet would be a hundred years older than the rest of you by the time you hit twenty-nine.

The problem was, Rule Number Three was pitched into the dust by Rule Number Four.

The Higher The Heels, The Better The Tips.

It was the truest rule of all, and she needed every penny she could come by if she wanted to hold out for the right management job. She didn’t know where she’d find it or when. Her only criteria was that the place had to be small and pretty, and light-years from Las Vegas.

Then she could trade in these torturous stilettos for a nice comfy pair of orthopedics.

The thought made her smile.

Sighing, she slid her shoe back on, stepped out of the other one and flexed her toes.

Except for the one jerk, she’d had a pretty good shift. Two shifts. Most people had been pleasant, the tips had been decent, and the only guy who’d tried to hit on her was so decrepit that she’d almost felt sorry for him.

Cassie glanced up at the unblinking lights on the panel over the cars. What was taking so long? That hot shower and soft bed were calling to her…well, maybe she’d wait on the bed part. She’d sign on to her computer, see if, by some miracle, her grade was waiting in her e-mail in-box. And there was something she wanted to check on, a question she was pretty sure she’d gotten right on the exam but she wanted to look it up and be sure.

Tired or not, she preferred going online early in the day, while things were still relatively quiet in her apartment complex. It had been tough, getting into the habit of hitting the books after you’d been out of school for almost a dozen years, especially when you’d been such a miserable failure while you’d been there the first time.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t told anyone she was taking the course. This way, if she flunked out, nobody would know except her. She might have told Dawn, who was her best friend, but she’d sensed that Dawn had enough trouble of her own without having to worry about offering encouragement to a terrified student.

And then Dawn had fallen head over heels in love and she’d plunged into planning a beautiful wedding at Gray’s uncle’s ranch in Tex—

Cassie stiffened.

Uh uh. She wasn’t going there again. Forget Texas. She’d wasted enough time the past month, going over what had happened, what she’d said, what Keir had said, trying to figure out how she’d ended up in that garden, letting him make a fool of her.

Actually, it wasn’t was all that difficult to understand. The romantic setting would have softened even the most dedicated cynic. Add buckets of champagne, dreamy music, the no-way-out-of-it amount of time the maid of honor was expected to spend with the best man…

The best man. What a joke. The worst man was more like it, and where was that damned elevator?

Cassie banged on the call button.

She missed Dawn. All those late-night chats at the kitchen table, the two of them pigging out on pizza or takeout Chinese. If Dawn were still here, she’d not only have told her about the restaurant management course, she’d have told her about Keir O’Connell, too, how he’d gone slumming, how amazed he’d been when she’d stopped him from making love to her…

…how relieved.

Cassie’s mouth thinned.

Oh, his face when she’d told him to stop. All she’d meant was that things were moving too fast but Keir had blanched under that all-year tan. He’d let go of her so quickly that she’d almost fallen.

“Cassie,” he’d said, his voice hoarse. “Cassie, I’m so sorry…”

What he’d meant was, What the hell was I doing?

She knew, because she’d seen that look on men’s faces before, when she was a showgirl. You met someone, you hit it off, things were fine until the guy asked what you did for a living.

“I dance,” she’d say.

“Where?” he’d say.

From there on, it was all downhill.

By the time she’d been desperate enough to strip, she’d known better than to talk about it.

She wasn’t either a showgirl or a stripper anymore but it didn’t matter. She was still Cassie Berk and some things never changed…and where was that miserable elevator?

To hell with it. History was history. With a little luck she’d be out of Vegas soon enough. No more hearing the ping of the slots, even in her sleep. No more guys thinking she was smiling just for them. No more turning her feet into aching, leaden weights.

Best of all, no more seeing Keir.

He was away. On vacation, everybody said, as if it were a miracle the great man would do such a thing.

She’d already known he was going away.

“I’m taking some time off,” he’d told her as they sat alone at one of the little umbrella tables, smiling at each other because smiling had seemed a good thing to do right then.

He’d said her he was going to New York and then he’d hesitated as if he were going to tell her something else, and just for a minute, for the tiniest bit of eternity, she’d thought maybe, oh maybe he was going to say, “Cassie, come with me…”

The light panel blinked to life; the elevator doors slid open. Cassie was trying to jam her foot back into her shoe when the doors began to slide shut.

“Hey!”

She lunged forward, hobbled into the car and stepped on some plywood sheets one of the maintenance guys must have left on the floor. One heel sank into the wood.

“Idiot,” she mumbled, as the elevator doors closed.

She grimaced, tried to jerk her foot free, but the heel was wedged into a knothole.

“Major idiot,” she said, and jerked her foot out of the shoe. Tongue between her teeth, she bent over and began working the shoe free. It wobbled under the pressure of her hand and she knew she’d have to be careful or she’d snap the stupid heel off. It wasn’t just high, it was also thin, sharp and unstable.

Too bad she hadn’t been wearing this pair of torture devices at Dawn’s wedding. If she’d planted a heel like this in Keir’s instep, he’d still be limping.

“Dammit,” she hissed, “would-you-let-loose?”

The shoe didn’t budge. Maybe it had better sense than she did. If she hadn’t budged, hadn’t gone into that garden with him…

How could she have made such an ass of herself? She’d spent her life living by Rule Number Five, or maybe it was Six. Who cared what number it was? The rule was what mattered.

Never Make It With The Boss.

It was the most important rule of all, it let you avoid a whole mess of trouble, and she’d almost broken it. And what about the rules he’d broken? All those sexual harassment things that said employers were not to hit on their employees.

What about that?

She’d been foolish but no question, Keir was to blame for what had happened. Coming on to her, when he was her boss. Maybe he did it all the time. She’d never heard even a hint of gossip but when men who looked like he did—tall, broad-shouldered and altogether gorgeous—they set their own rules.

What was with this damn shoe?

If she never saw Keir again, it would be—

The car jerked to a stop. The doors slid open. She heard someone clear his throat and she almost laughed, thinking what a weird sight she probably made…

“Hello, Cassie.”

She froze. That voice. Male. Deep. A little husky. As removed as if they’d never had that midnight encounter in the garden.

But—but it couldn’t be. Keir was away. He was—

He was here, looking at her with a smile so polite she wanted to slap it away.

“You,” she said, and she knew her loathing for him was in the one word because that polite smile slipped from his face.

“Yeah, that’s right. Me.” He looked at her foot, then at her face. “Having a problem?” he said, his voice tinged with amusement.

“No,” she snapped, “I always stand around like this, with one shoe on and one shoe—”

The car began to move. She hadn’t expected it and she jerked back.

“Careful!”

Keir grabbed for her but Cassie flung out a hand and caught the railing.

“Don’t touch me!”

“No problem.” His voice was cool. “You want to break your neck, be my guest.”

“I’m doing just fine on my own.”

“Oh, yeah. I can see that.” He watched, arms folded, as she tried to pull the shoe free again. “Stop being foolish, Berk. Let me help—or would you rather I put in a call to Maintenance and have them send up a work crew?”

“What? Those idiots? They’re the ones who left this damned piece of wood here in the first place.”

She glared at him, then at her shoe. The truth was, he could probably free it in less time than it would take him to make the call. Besides, if the maintenance guys showed up, they’d have a good laugh and spread the story all over the hotel.

Cassie lifted her chin. “All right.”

“‘Thank you’ might be a more gracious response.” Keir squatted down, grabbed the shoe, yanked it free and rose to his feet. “Here. Next time you decide to wear stilts—”

The car jolted to a stop. Cassie stumbled, yelped, and Keir grabbed her before she could fall.

Grabbed her, so that she was pressed back against him, so that she could feel the warmth of his body, feel the swift hardening of it…

Somebody was laughing.

Keir swung around, still holding her. Cassie’s eyes widened. Two men were standing at the open doors of the elevator, taking in the scene with big grins on their faces.

They looked nothing like Keir or each other…and looked everything like Keir and each other.

Her heart dropped to her toes.

For days, the staff had been talking about the O’Connell clan, all Mary Elizabeth’s daughters and sons, and how they were going to descend on the hotel for the duchess’s wedding to Dan Coyle.

“Your brothers?” Cassie said, even though she already knew the answer.

Keir nodded, his brothers chuckled, and Cassie wondered what the odds were on the bottom falling out of the car so she could simply disappear.

CHAPTER THREE

BEYOND the perimeter of the Desert Song, the Strip was as brightly-lit, as busy and noisy as if it were midday instead of midnight, but everything was hushed deep within the hotel gardens. The lights in the oversized pool had been dimmed and emitted a soft, fairy glow.

Nice, Cullen O’Connell thought, as he drifted on a float in the warm, silky water. You could even see the stars. Not the way they blazed in the blackness over the vast grasslands of the Rift Valley or on a rare, clear night high on the snow-laden slopes of Mount McKinley, but nice, nevertheless.

Even in Vegas, it was nice to know that the stars were still there.

“You counting stars again, like when we were kids?” Sean O’Connell spoke softly, from a float just a few feet away.

“Better to count stars than count cards like you were doing at the blackjack table a little while ago,” Cullen said lazily.

Sean chuckled. “Now, Cullen, would I do that? Counting cards is illegal—if you do it when you play a hand, and I was only watching, not playing.”

“Counting stars is safer,” Cullen said with a smile in his voice.

“Considering that we’re back in Sin City, maybe the only thing we should be counting is babes.”

“Like that summer, you mean?” Cullen smiled up at the sky. “When I saved my allowance the whole year so I could buy a telescope? And Pop found you using it to girl-watch instead?”

“You mean, Pop found us using it.”

“Yeah, well, I was easily corrupted.”

Sean gave a soft laugh. “I’d almost forgotten that. Remember the blonde in the corner room on the fourteenth floor of the east wing?”

“How could I forget? She was the reason the old man threw out my telescope and paddled my behind so hard I couldn’t sit for a week.”

“Two days, and admit it, she was worth it.”

The men drifted in silence for a while, and then Sean spoke.

“How many times you think we sneaked out here at night, buddy? I figure it must have been at least a couple of hundred.”

“Heck, we probably got caught a couple of hundred.”

“Yeah. And got our bottoms warmed. Never stopped us, though, from sneaking out again.”

“That’s ’cause it was worth it, coming out here late at night, getting to use the pool without sharing it with a couple of trillion strangers.”

The brothers sighed, at ease as they drifted on the water and three decades of shared memories.

“So,” Cullen said, “where were you when you found out about Ma’s engagement to this guy?”

Sean turned over on the float and cushioned his face on his folded arms.

“Monte Carlo. At a private casino. I was up fifty grand when I got the cable.” His voice roughened. “I must have lost ten years of my life, just opening the envelope. I thought—”

“—that Ma had had another heart attack. I know. It was the same for me. I was downloading my e-mail and there was this message marked ‘urgent,’ with the Desert Song’s address on it and I figured…” Cullen sighed. “I was so relieved that it took me a while to start worrying about the actual message, you know? That she’s marrying this Dan Coyle, a man nobody knows.”

“Keir knows him, and seems to like him.”

“True.”

“And Ma’s crazy about him.”

“Well, those are both good signs, right?”

“Right.” Sean sighed. “It’s good to be back.”

“Temporarily.”

“Oh, yeah. That goes without saying. I wouldn’t want to live in this fishbowl again.” Sean dropped his hand and let his fingers glide through the water. “We owe Keir.”

“For taking over here, after Pop died? Yeah. Big time.”

“He looks…I don’t know. Edgy.”

“You think?”

“Maybe that’s the wrong word. I just get the feeling he’s got something on his mind.”

“The fox in the elevator, maybe.” Cullen grinned. “Man, what a scene to walk in on. Keir, holding an armful of female, looking at us as if he wished he could have dropped right through the floor of that car…”

Sean rolled off his float and into the water. “You think there was something really going on there?”

“In an elevator, in the Desert Song? That’s not big brother’s style. He’s too buttoned up to try something like that.”

“Too bad we didn’t get much chance to torment him about it.”

“Yeah. Bree’s and Meg’s timing sort of screwed things up.” Sean’s voice warmed as he spoke his sisters’ names. “It’s good to see the two of them. Last time we were all together was, what, Christmas?”

“I know. Well, it’s tough, with you traipsing around the world, me in New York, Bree in San Francisco, Meg in Boston, Fallon God knows where—”

“Paris, last I heard, for what she calls a fashion shoot.”

“Meanwhile, Keir’s trapped here in Vegas.”

“You think that’s the way he feels?”

“It’s the way I’d feel, in his place.”

Cullen hoisted himself out of the pool and dragged the float up beside him.

“You know what? I’m going to get him alone and ask him. I mean, maybe he wants to go on managing the Song, but if he doesn’t…Ma’s okay now. She looks wonderful, in fact. Seems to me it’s time we made other arrangements, like convincing her to hire someone to take over.”

“Someone is going to take over,” Keir said, stepping out of the shadows. “Under the duchess’s supervision, of course.”

“Of course,” Sean said, smiling. “How’d you get her to agree to that?”

“Actually, she suggested it.” Keir loosened his tie and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Her doctors gave her a clean bill of health and she’s been chomping at the bit, wanting to get back to work.”

“She’s up to handling things alone? Well, with the help of a Chief of Ops?”

“She won’t have to. She’s going to be a married lady this time tomorrow, remember?”

“Actually, we wanted to talk to you about that. This guy Coyle. He’s okay?”

“Yes. Definitely okay.”

“He’d better be.”

“I think he was pretty okay to you guys when you tried that CIA interrogation at dinner.” Keir grinned. “Considering he’s a retired captain of detectives with the New York City P.D., he let you get off easy.”

“Hey,” Sean said, straight-faced, “you can never be too careful about a man you’re going to call ‘Daddy.”’

“Tell him that, why don’t you?” Keir said, his tongue firmly tucked in his cheek.

“I did. That’s when I decided he was probably all right.”

“Because?”

“Because he said he’d slug me one, if I ever tried it.” The three brothers laughed. Then Sean climbed out of the pool, dumped his float over a chaise longue and thumbed his wet hair out of his eyes.

“So, let me get this straight. Ma’s going to hire somebody to manage the place, and he’ll report to her and Dan?”

“That’s the plan. Just to set your minds at ease, I trust Dan completely, not only because I ran an in-depth check on him before I brought him into the Song a few years back but also because I’ve gotten to know him well. He’s definitely one of the good guys. And he knows the Song, inside and out.” Keir shoved aside the damp towel Sean had tossed over a lounge chair and sat down. “That sound okay to you two?”

“It sounds fine,” Sean said.

“Fine,” Cullen echoed. “But where does that leave you?”

Keir cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, I’m moving on.”

The simple words stopped conversation. Until now, Keir hadn’t realized how ominous they sounded.

“Moving on?” Sean said. “Where?”

Keir hesitated. His mother had looked at him as if he’d lost his sanity when he’d told her his plans. Would his brothers?

“I’m going east. I bought a business in Connecticut.”

“You serious?”

“Dead serious. It looks like it’s going to be a lot of work. I mean, it’s small, but I think, given time, I can build it into something.”

“What kind of business?”

Keir shrugged. “A small one, like I said.”

“He’s being deliberately vague,” Sean said to Cullen, as if Keri weren’t there.

“Yup. In fact, I get the feeling BB doesn’t want to tell us what this business is,” Cullen replied, his grin hidden by the darkness.

“Don’t call me that!”

“Can you imagine? He doesn’t want to call him BB and he doesn’t want to tell us what this business is.” Sean gave a deep sigh. “What’s the good of having a brother if he won’t let you in on his secrets?”

“A Big Brother,” Cullen said solemnly.

“Uh huh.” There was a pause. “With a pair of capital B’s, for short.”

“Will you stop calling me that? And I didn’t say it was a secret!”

“Should we tell him he didn’t have to?” said Cullen. “Should we remind him that we’re his very own flesh and blood and we can read him like a book?”

Keir looked from Cullen to Sean. Despite all their teasing, they were worried about him. He knew, because he’d overheard more of their conversation than he’d let on. Well, why not tell them now? Get it over with, instead of dragging it out until after the wedding tomorrow. That was what he’d planned but being pronounced insane by all five of his siblings at once might be just a little intimidating.

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “You want to know what kind of business I bought?” Another deep breath. “A vineyard.”

For what seemed an eternity, neither Sean nor Cullen said anything. Sean was the first to break the silence.

“Did you say, vineyard? As in, where they grow grapes and make wine?”

“That’s right. With a small restaurant as part of the setup.”

“A vineyard,” Sean repeated.

“Yes.”

“In Connecticut,” Cullen added. “With a small restaurant as—”

“Dammit, will you stop that? Yes. A vineyard. And a restaurant. And I don’t care if you guys think I’m nuts or what, I’m glad I bought—Hey! Hey, what’re you doing?”

What they were doing was clapping him on the back hard enough to have sent a smaller man to his knees.

“Man, that’s terrific,” Cullen said happily. “I mean, it’s crazy as hell but it’s time you did something crazy. Right, Sean?”

“Absolutely. It’s so off the wall, it sounds like something I could have done.”

“And that’s a compliment?” Keir said, laughing.

“Damn right. Listen, you need to get in touch with anybody who’s into wine, let me know. I took a marker I never got around to collecting from a guy playing chemin de fer last summer. His family owns a vineyard in Burgundy.”

“And if you need legal advice, I’m your man,” Cullen said. “I know you have your own attorney but since you’ll be doing the deal closer to my turf, back east—”

“Wait a minute.” Keir stepped back and looked from one of his brothers to the other. “So, you don’t think I’m ready for a rubber room?”

“Well, of course we do but then, we’ve always thought that. Right, Cullen?”

“Absolutely right.” Cullen gave Keir a light punch in the shoulder. “Seriously, congratulations.”

“Yeah. I mean, thanks.”

“Just for the record, I’m impressed.”

A smile curved Keir’s mouth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Sounds like an interesting proposition.”

“Well, that’s good to hear because the vote, so far, is three to one that I’ve lost all my marbles.”

“Who’s voting?”

“The duchess. My accountant. And my lawyer pretty much made it unanimous.”

“Ma’ll come around. As for the accountant and the lawyer—all the more reason to dump them.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. Megan’ll be your CPA. I’ll be your attorney. We’ll only be a couple of hours away and besides, why deal with people who’ll look for the hole in your head each time you sit down at the table?”

Keir laughed. “You have a way with words, pal, you know that?” His smile tilted. “You want to know the truth, there’ve been moments I’ve doubted my own sanity.”

“Just because you’re starting to live dangerously? Hey, that’s what life’s all about.” Sean elbowed Cullen. “You got all this straight? The man’s bought himself a vineyard. He bought himself a restaurant. And if it hadn’t been for us, he’d have made it in the elevator with Cinderella.”

Keir’s mouth tightened. He’d been expecting this ever since his brothers walked in on the scene with Cassie.

Then why did the teasing words make his belly knot?

“We were not about to make it in the elevator, as you so delicately put it.”

“Whatever you say, big brother.”

“I hardly know the lady.”

“Well, that’s good news for me. Just tell me her name, give me her number—”

“Keep away from her.”

Keir’s voice was suddenly tense with warning. Cullen and Sean stared at him. He glared back, and then he groaned.

Cullen was only kidding but even if he wasn’t, so what? If he wanted to hit on Cassie, let him.

“I mean,” he said carefully, “we embarrassed her enough. Besides, she’s an employee. She works in the hotel. She’s a cocktail waitress.”

“Well, that certainly explains why the two of you were wrapped around each other. Doesn’t it, Sean?”

Keir folded his arms. “You’re never going to leave me alone about this, are you?”

“No,” Sean agreed pleasantly, “we’re not.”

“Look, the elevator stopped and Cassie was in it. And—“

“And?” Cullen said, with a lift of his eyebrows.

“And,” Keir said briskly, “her heel was stuck.” Two pairs of eyebrows lifted. He decided to ignore the warning signs. “Somebody from Maintenance had left some plywood on the floor, and her heel got wedged in a knothole.”

Sean gave a deep sigh. “Dangerous combination, plywood and elevators.”

Despite himself, Keir’s mouth twitched. “Listen, I’m warning you both—”

“No, it’s cool,” said Cullen. “We understand. As some men get older, they need more of, uh, more of a stimulus before they can get it on.”

“Older? I’m one year older. One year!”

“He’s right,” Sean said. “It wasn’t senile male hormones, it was a galloping case of ZTS.”

“Okay. It’s not going to work. I’ve explained what happened. You want to get some more mileage out of it, go on. Be my guest.”

“Trust us,” Sean replied solemnly, “we will.”

Keir looked from one of his brothers to the other and saw the laughter dancing in their eyes. A familiar warmth spread through his veins. This was the way it had always been, two of them needling the other, and it had never mattered which two it was because it changed from day to day. Hell, it changed from minute to minute.

But what bonded them together would never change. Shared memories and shared blood would always unite and sustain them, just as it had when they were growing up. Being the sons of Ruarch O’Connell had not been easy, despite the duchess’s misty-eyed memories.

He felt a catch in his throat. He’d missed his brothers. Missed this. The teasing, the laughter, the knowledge that nobody in the world knew him the way they did.

“All right.” He nodded, sighed, offered all the signs of peaceful surrender. “You guys want details, you’ll get them. Just come in a little closer…”

He moved fast, as if they were all still kids and these were the old times, when they’d played their own version of touch football whenever they’d been in one place long enough to find a flat field. He took Sean out first, his shoulder connecting with Sean’s flat belly and then he spun and got Cullen before he could sidestep. Both of them yelped and fell backward into the pool hard enough to raise a geyser of water that rivaled Old Faithful.

A spill of feminine laughter erupted behind Keir. He swung around and saw his three sisters standing next to one of the softly-lighted palm trees that ringed the pool.

“Hey.” He grinned. Briana, Fallon and Megan grinned back.

“And to think,” Fallon said archly, “that Mom sent us to find you gentlemen because she was afraid you were sitting around, having a long, solemn talk about what would happen now that BB’s leaving.”

Keir raised one dark eyebrow. “You see those guys in the pool? One of the things that put ’em there was calling me Big Brother.”

Megan rose on her toes and peered past Keir. “Poor babies,” she crooned.

Something in Briana’s smile made the hair rise on the back of Keir’s neck.

“What?”

Bree fluttered her lashes. “Enjoy your swim,” she purred.

He yelped as his brother’s hands clamped around his ankles. Keir hit the water hard, went under and came up, sputtering and laughing, between Sean and Cullen.

“Is this the respect you show your big brother?”

Cullen sighed. “All of a sudden, he wants the title back.”

“Damn right.” Keir smiled. “You know what? It’s great to have you home.”

“We agree,” Sean said, and he and Cullen proved it by shoving Keir right back under the water.

Keir awoke at five minutes before six the next morning. He reached out and shut off his alarm clock before its shrill cry could pierce his foggy brain, then sat up and swung his feet to the floor.

Four hours sleep was all he’d had. He and his brothers and sisters had ended up here in his suite, where they’d sat talking and laughing for hours. There’d been a lot of catching up to do. Only the prospect of having to look bright-eyed for their mother’s wedding had finally sent them scattering at almost two in the morning.

Keir yawned, got to his feet and walked into the bathroom. The wedding wasn’t until noon but he needed time to check on things, make sure the flowers, the music, the food and champagne were as close to perfect as he could get them.

It wasn’t every day a man had the chance to oversee his mother’s wedding, he thought as he stepped into the shower.

He had some last minute things to do for himself, too. Falling asleep last night, he’d decided there was no sense in delaying his departure. The sooner he left Vegas and began his new life in Connecticut, the better.

This morning he’d phone his attorney, tell him to fax some documents to Cullen’s New York office, then instruct his accountant to fax his files to Megan’s office in Boston. He’d already arranged for Deer Run’s vintner to stay on, but the woman who managed the restaurant had accepted a job in Florida.

“Too many cold New England winters for me,” she’d said.

That meant he’d need a new manager.

The restaurant was handsome and the food was great. Service had been a little erratic—his main course came out at the same time as his soup—but all that could be dealt with. Instinct told him there were probably other details that needed improving.

He didn’t know what, specifically. Restaurants weren’t his specialty. For the last six years his talent had been managing people and if he’d learned one thing, it was that the key to success was finding the right people, then trusting them enough to do the job.

Finding the right people was relatively simple. Whenever he’d needed a manager, someone with the necessary combination of talent and brass, he’d turned to the TopNotch Employment Agency.

They’d never let him down yet.

Well, why not continue dealing with TopNotch? They had contacts everywhere; they’d sent him people from virtually every state in the union.

Keir stepped from the shower and wrapped a towel around his hips.

Okay. He’d phone TopNotch, lay out what he wanted in a manager for the restaurant and leave finding the right person in their more than capable hands. Then he could devote himself to this new challenge. Deer Run. Wine-making. Life in the quiet hills of Connecticut, instead of the fast neon lanes of Vegas.

Maybe he’d even find himself a woman. Someone special. There hadn’t been anyone special, not for a very long time.

Swift as a heartbeat, an image flickered in his mind. He saw a woman in a long, old-fashioned gown that clung to her lush curves with each whisper of the wind…

“Hell,” he said, and blanked his thoughts to everything but his mother’s wedding.

Promptly at noon, he stood with his brothers and sisters at one side of the altar. Mary had insisted that all her daughters and sons give her away. Dan’s grown children stood near their father. Everyone was smiling.

Smiling—and quietly weeping.

Keir could hear his sisters sniffling into their lace hankies. He glanced at his brothers. Their eyes glittered in a way that told him their throats were as tight with emotion as his.

“…pronounce you man and wife,” the justice of the peace said.

Dan took Mary in his arms. Keir hugged his brothers, kissed his sisters…and suddenly found himself scanning the room filled with family and friends for a glimpse of a woman with sea-green eyes and coal-black hair.

She wasn’t there. Why would she be? And why should he be looking for her? There wasn’t a reason in the world to see her ever again.

“Keir,” his mother said.

He turned and took the duchess in his arms.

“I’m happy for you, Ma.” Dan held out his hand and Keir shook it. “I’m happy for you both.”

Mary laid her hand against his cheek. “You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?”

Keir drew a breath. “Yes. Tomorrow.” He smiled at Dan. “Now that I know you’re safe in good hands, and happy.”

“I want you to be happy, too, Keir,” Mary said softly.

“I already am.”

His mother’s eyes filled. “You need something more.”

Hours later as he packed, Keir thought about what his mother had said, and wondered if she was right.

CHAPTER FOUR

Bradley Airport, Connecticut, six weeks later:

CASSIE’S plane touched down on the runway just as the first bolt of lightning tore the sky apart.

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