At First Sight
Tamara Sneed

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to all the sisters out there.

A sister is your best friend, your confidante, your

toughest critic, your strongest ally and your loudest

cheerleader. She can work your nerve like no one

else, but, when the chips are down, she alone has

your back without question or pause.

To my sister, Alyson, I love you!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always I must thank my mother, Patricia Sneed, my sister, Alyson Turner, and my two delightful nieces, Lauren and Erin, for their unwavering support in all I do. Whether I accomplish it or not, they are there for me. I also must thank my good friend and fellow writer, Reon Laudat, for always being a calm port in the unpredictable storm that is the publishing industry. In addition, I have to give a shout-out to my agent, Paige Wheeler, whose excitement for this business makes me excited. And, lastly, I must thank Mavis Allen and all the other folks at Kimani Press, who are keeping African-American romance fiction alive.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Chapter 1

“Grandpa Max is trying to punish us from beyond the grave, isn’t he?” Quinn Sibley wailed, as she stared at the dilapidated house standing—just barely—in front of her.

Charlie Sibley pulled a bulging black suitcase from the trunk of the silver Jaguar that their older sister, Kendra, had haphazardly parked next to the house, and dropped it on the ground. Dirt billowed around it. She frowned. There was dirt everywhere. Charlie was far from a neat freak, but from the two-lane highway that had branched off the main highway to the small town of Sibleyville, California, to the narrow dirt road that had led to the house, there had been dirt. On the sides of the road, on the road, flying in her mouth when Kendra had allowed her to roll down the window. There was no escaping it.

But, besides the dirt, Charlie had more important things on her mind, like finding her emergency bag of chocolate amidst her sisters’ designer suitcases jamming the trunk. Charlie needed that bag. It housed her entire two-week supply of chocolate. And if ever there was a time for chocolate, it was now.

“Have you seen my duffel bag?” she asked Quinn absently. “It’s small and dark blue—”

“Look at it, Charlie,” Quinn ordered, sounding close to tears. “Look at where we’re supposed to live for the next two weeks and tell me that this isn’t some form of punishment. Grandpa Max’s last attempt to make us suffer.”

Charlie followed her sister’s command and turned to stare at the house. She had to admit, the house wasn’t just bad. It was abominable.

The narrow split-level home had probably once been charming. Now, the white wood was rotting and crumbling at an alarming rate. Portions of the roof hung in jagged edges over the front porch, like a medieval defense system against intruders. What had probably once been a comfortable covered porch that had held a few rocking chairs, now was a death trap waiting to ensnare its next victim, from the rotted steps leading to the porch to the chipped and peeling railing. The blue shutters on either side of the front door hung lopsided as if someone had tried to pull them off, but had grown tired before finishing. Charlie hadn’t been inside—and she wished she could keep it that way—but she had a feeling that it would be even worse.

Kendra had disappeared inside the house ten minutes before, and neither Charlie or Quinn had heard anything from her since.

Charlie glanced around the quiet stillness of the country. Cloudless blue skies, free of the smog and towering skyscrapers of Los Angeles, and rolling green hills greeted her. Across the dirt road from the house was a line of imposing redwoods that were so dense that Charlie couldn’t see past the first few rows. There was not another house or car or any other sign of civilization in sight. All the trees and stillness and fresh air made her uncomfortable.

Charlie returned her attention to her younger sister and forced a smile. Quinn was dramatic by nature. Being an actress on the popular daytime soap, Diamond Valley, didn’t help matters. Nor did the fact that Quinn was gorgeous, with the ability to make men do her bidding with one bright smile. She was tall, thin, as most actresses were, had vanilla skin, hazel eyes and long, silky, sandy-brown hair. Quinn would never be caught without makeup or a pair of stiletto heels.

“It’s not that bad, Quinn,” Charlie lied. “In fact, it’s almost…sort of charming. Quaint.”

“Quaint?” Quinn repeated, her hazel eyes widened with disbelief.

Charlie nodded vigorously and added, “It just needs a little elbow grease and soap.”

“Elbow grease and soap?” Quinn repeated, with the same tone of stunned disbelief. When Charlie smiled, Quinn exploded, hysterically, “The only thing that house needs is a wrecking ball.”

Charlie threw up her hands in surrender then turned back to the trunk. She dropped another suitcase onto the dirt and peered into the dark recesses of the trunk for her bag. Her need for chocolate was reaching a critical level. While Quinn, who stood over five foot nine and weighed probably half as much as the shorter Charlie, literally flinched from chocolate like a vampire confronted with garlic, Charlie needed chocolate the way she needed oxygen. And, of course, it showed on her wide hips and thighs.

Charlie grunted from the weight of another bag then threw it on the ground.

“Careful with that,” Quinn cried, tearing her gaze from the house at the sound of the suitcase hitting the ground. She wobbled on four-inch designer stiletto heels towards the suitcase. “I have shoes in there.”

“You have a whole suitcase devoted to shoes?”

“Of course. Don’t you?” Quinn asked, blankly.

Not for the first time, Charlie wondered how she and Quinn could be related.

“This just can’t be real,” Quinn murmured, shaking her head.

“Shoes don’t break, Quinn—”

“Not the shoes. This house. The will. Us living together again, after all these years. It’s unreal.” She paused for obvious effect then whispered dramatically, “It’s as if Fate, that fickle mistress, is punishing me for my success.”

Charlie knew it wasn’t the reaction Quinn was looking for, but she bit her bottom lip to restrain a burst of laughter. She had watched Quinn whisper that same phrase, with that same expression of overplayed guilt, on Diamond Valley. At the time, Quinn’s character, Sephora, had been wracked with guilt because her husband’s brother had jumped off a bridge after Sephora had ended their affair. Of course, his body had never been found, so there was always a possibility that Sephora was not out of the woods.

Charlie sighed then said, “Grandpa Max is not punishing you, and although I can’t speak for Fate, I also doubt that she’s punishing you.”

Quinn stared at Charlie and asked, in a hoarse voice, “Then why would he sentence me to two weeks in this hellhole?”

“It’s his childhood home, Quinn. He was born and raised in this town. The town is named after him, after us. Maybe Grandpa Max wanted us to see where he came from, what we come from. He didn’t always live in a mansion in Beverly Hills, and maybe he wanted us to know that.”

“Couldn’t he just have said that then?” Quinn protested, nearly screeching. “I, personally, don’t need the up-close-and-personal history lesson.”

The torn screen door opened with a creak that echoed across the yard. Their oldest sister, Kendra, stepped onto the porch. The disgusted expression on her flawlessly made-up face told Charlie everything she needed to know. The inside of the house matched the abandoned and neglected exterior.

The screen door flapped closed behind Kendra and promptly one side of the lightweight wire crashed to the floor. Quinn flinched in surprise, while Charlie laughed at Kendra’s expression. She wiped her hands on an immaculately tailored dark skirt and looked over her two younger sisters with the mask of calm disdained boredom that she had perfected in junior high school.

She coolly eyed Quinn then said, “I heard your complaining all the way in the house, Quinn. Feel free to leave at any time. No one will stop you.”

Charlie groaned and raked both hands through her chin-length hair. It seemed to have doubled in size from the heat and stress of the past few hours since the sisters had left Los Angeles and driven four hours into California’s heartland to Sibleyville, population fifteen thousand. Quinn and Kendra had been at each other’s throats for the entire four-hour drive. Actually, Quinn and Kendra had been at each other’s throats since birth.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Quinn shot back, with narrowed eyes. She tossed her long hair over her shoulder in a move worthy of Sephora and said, “Of course, if I left then you wouldn’t get any of the money. Remember that part of Grandpa’s will, Kendra, the part where the three of us have to remain in this house together for two weeks or else all three of us lose our inheritance. Do you still want me to leave?”

Charlie pleaded, “You guys, come on. It’s been a long day—”

“Why did you even agree to this, Quinn?” Kendra demanded, ignoring Charlie’s plea for peace. “You’re a big actress, if one could consider what you do acting—”

“You’re just jealous,” Quinn shot back. “You’ve always been jealous.”

“Of what?” Kendra asked, with an amused laugh.

Kendra’s smile would have been gorgeous if Charlie had thought for one second that she was sincere. Kendra was a few inches shorter than Quinn, but still taller than most women. Instead of being tall and thin like Quinn, or short and curvy like Charlie, Kendra was like a gazelle: lean muscles, athletic grace and awesome power. She was mocha-chocolate, with bone-straight midnight-black hair that she wore in a straight bob to her shoulders. Her razor-sharp bangs would never dream of not hanging how Kendra wanted them to.

“That I have a life. Friends. Lovers. People like me, they want to take a picture with me. Who wants to be around you, except old men because you make them rich?”

Kendra’s remained calm as she said, in a bored tone, “People don’t want a picture of you. They want a picture of your breasts. Those two things are more famous than you are.”

Charlie inwardly groaned as Quinn’s mouth dropped open in shock. She really should intervene, before the two women came to blows, but Charlie had learned long ago to stay out of their way when they started an argument. It had been almost two years since Charlie had been in the same room with both of her sisters, and Charlie wished it could have been another two years.

But, their grandfather—the man who had raised them after their parents’ death—had died, and decreed in his will that his three granddaughters spend two weeks in his childhood home as a condition to inheriting an undisclosed sum of money that could possibly number in the millions. Max Sibley had built Sibley Corporation from the ground up in his twenties and had been worth over millions of dollars at his death. Kendra had estimated that they should each receive over ten million dollars a piece after taxes.

“Just go away, Kendra,” Quinn ordered, pointing her finger towards the road.

Kendra rolled her eyes then said, “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. For some reason, the old man thought it would be a riot to throw the three of us together in this dump. If we don’t survive, then we’ll never see a penny of our inheritance and all of the Sibley millions will go to some charitable organization that probably wants to save the whales or grasshoppers or something. I have my own money—a lot of my own money, but I will rot in hell before I allow the Sibley millions to be wasted like that.”

“At least we agree on something,” Quinn said, begrudgingly, while crossing her arms over her ample breasts.

“So, for the next two weeks, I intend to pretend that you don’t exist and that I’m living in the lap of luxury on a small, deserted, primitive island,” Kendra continued as if Quinn had never spoken. “I suggest you do the same.”

“I don’t need or want your suggestions,” Quinn said, with a snort.

“Will you two stop it!” Charlie exploded. Both women turned to her with identical expressions of shock and a little guilt.

As usual, they had forgotten that there was a third Sibley sister.

“I’ve listened to you two argue and complain since six o’clock this morning, and I’m sick of it,” Charlie screamed, as tears of frustration, fatigue and chocolate deprivation filled her eyes. “I don’t know why Grandpa Max did this, but he did and we’re stuck here for the next two weeks. So, maybe we should try to use this time as an opportunity to get to know each other again. We are sisters. And with Grandpa Max dead, the three of us are it. There aren’t any more Sibleys. I don’t know about you two, but that scares me.”

Her sisters’ expressions grew guarded, and Charlie knew it wasn’t because she was waving the white flag. It was because she was close to crying, and the Sibley sisters did not cry, especially in front of each other.

In a characteristically un-Charlie Sibley move, she screeched in frustration and kicked the Jaguar’s rear tire.

She screamed in surprise as the heel on one of her shoes snapped, and she fell to the dirt in a heap of swirling dust. Both her sisters appeared frozen in place. Neither made a move to assist her. Not that Charlie had expected them to. She cursed, more from her annoyance with them than pain, even though her right foot was beginning to throb.

“That hurt,” Charlie muttered.

“Remind me never to make you angry,” drawled a deep, amused voice.

Charlie prayed that the owner of the voice did not look as gorgeous as he sounded. Judging from Quinn’s and Kendra’s slack-jawed expressions however, her prayers were not to be answered. She looked over her shoulder. And gulped.

Her gaze traveled from the dirt-covered genuine cowboy boots to the worn, well-fitted jeans that emphasized long, muscular legs. She gulped again at the slight bulge in his pants at the zipper then at the white T-shirt that settled over his flat stomach and emphasized finely muscled cinnamon-colored arms.

He wore a cowboy hat. A large charcoal-gray cowboy hat that shadowed the sharp lines and angles of his face. He had full lips, a strong nose and piercing brown eyes that were focused intently on her. His profile had probably been chiseled on a African coin.

Charlie wanted to kick the tire again because she realized that despite her supposed cynicism and analytical mind, she had just fallen in love at first sight. And judging from the sudden come-hither smiles that were fixed on Quinn’s and Kendra’s faces, she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.

Chapter 2

“Are you all right, ma’am?” the man spoke again in a deep, rumbling voice that slid down Charlie’s body to lodge like a ball of lead in her stomach.

When she didn’t respond, he took a step toward her, as if to help her stand. Charlie quickly stood to her feet, ignoring his outstretched large hand. The embarrassment flooded her face so quickly that she thought her body would incinerate. That would have been preferable to being subjected to the man’s direct, unflinching stare.

She averted her gaze to his right shoulder and noticed the black pickup truck parked at the mouth of the driveway. He must have driven up while she had been screeching at her sisters. Charlie was a twenty-nine-year-old grown woman who had a master’s degree in Art History, and who regularly gave lectures and presentations on varied subjects as a curator for the privately owned African-American Art Center in Los Angeles. In other words, she was an intelligent, successful, professional woman who shouldn’t have cared that a cowboy had seen her meltdown, but her heart slamming against her chest ignored her reasoned lecture and continued pounding.

“Charlie, you’re a mess. Let me help you,” Quinn said soothingly, as she quickly ran to her side.

Charlie watched in numb surprise as Quinn brushed the dirt off Charlie’s gray slacks. When Charlie saw the look Quinn sent the cowboy, Charlie wanted to strangle her.

“My poor sister is just frazzled after our long drive here,” Quinn said, with a flirtatious smile at the man, who Charlie noted with annoyance, sent a flirtatious smile back at her.

Not to be outdone by Quinn, Kendra stepped towards the man, her hand outstretched.

Kendra actually smiled as she purred, “Please tell me that you’re a resident of Sibleyville and not just a visitor.”

The man directed his thousand-watt smile at Kendra as he shook her hand. Charlie’s mood darkened when she noted that they held on to each other’s hands far longer than was appropriate.

“I’m a resident…for the moment. I live down the road,” he said, with the trace of a sardonic smile that made Charlie’s heart clog in her throat. He looked from Quinn to Kendra, skipping over Charlie. “I’m Graham Forbes, and you lovely ladies must be the Sibley sisters.”

“At your service,” Quinn murmured, as her gaze greedily drank him in from head to toe.

Charlie would have been embarrassed by Quinn’s boldness if she hadn’t been wishing she had the nerve to do and say the same thing.

“We heard you ladies were coming. Your grandpa’s lawyer asked us to turn on the power and lights, and we cleaned up the place as best we could…” His voice trailed off. Then he asked with a perplexed expression, “How long are you here for?”

Kendra took a few steps closer to the man. She planted her shapely legs in a wide stance and cocked her hip to one side like the pose of a glamorous model at the end of a catwalk. It would have been comical if she hadn’t looked so damn sexy.

“We’re here for two weeks. By the way, I’m Kendra Sibley, the oldest.”

Quinn quickly stepped next to Kendra and slightly bent forward, exposing the tops of her exquisite vanilla-tinted breasts. “And I’m Quinn, the youngest.”

Charlie knew it was her turn to step forward, but her legs felt too unsteady to consider operating them right now.

Besides, as with most men who stood within radius of the three sisters, Graham Forbes had forgotten that Charlie Sibley—the middle one, as she was more often known—existed.

“I didn’t expect you ladies to actually stay here, not with the state of this place. For a long time, we all thought that your grandpa had forgotten it,” he said, while nodding towards the house.

“Apparently, he did,” Kendra said, darkly, then flashed a smile at Graham. “But, we’re staying here. If it’s good enough for our grandfather, then it’s good enough for us. After his death, we figured what better way to feel closer to him and to understand him than to come to his childhood home. If it was just me, I could handle the dirt and rodents—I’ve dealt with worse vermin on Wall Street, but I don’t think my sisters can handle it. They’re not as accommodating as I can be.”

Charlie didn’t miss Kendra’s emphasis on the word accommodating. Judging from the amused and interested glint that entered Graham’s eyes he hadn’t either. Charlie wanted to smack them both.

“Kendra’s right. I’m not as hardy and masculine as her,” Quinn said, loudly, drawing Graham’s attention. Her voice softened to a bedroom whisper, as she said, “I’m more soft and open.”

Charlie couldn’t withhold her snort of disbelief. Apparently, it had also been a loud snort because all three turned to her. Charlie’s face burned with embarrassment once more as she tried to withstand the laser-sharp gaze of Graham Forbes. Against her will, her gaze dropped to his full lips. His lower lip was slightly more plump than the upper one.

She actually had to fight the urge to cross the dirt lot and take his lip between her teeth.

“So, you must be the middle sister,” Graham said, his tone polite and neighborly. One corner of his mouth lifted as he added, “Judging from the beating you gave that tire, you’re the one I should watch out for in a bar fight, right?”

Quinn and Kendra laughed, while Charlie just stared at him. His voice was so deep and warm. It reminded her of molasses, or grits or something hot and Southern. The baritone sound poured into her body and curled into something warm and welcoming.

Then she realized that she had been rendered mute by a cowboy. It was humiliating. When she still couldn’t force her mouth to open, she averted her gaze again and instantly spied her chocolate-laden bag in the trunk.

She grabbed it, murmured a choked “Excuse me,” and limped towards the house as fast as she could with her foot throbbing with pain and her dignity in shreds.

Chapter 3

“As members of the city council, it’s your job to look out for this town’s best interests. And the best interests of this town…”

Graham Forbes blocked out the rest of the speech being given by Mayor Boyd Robbins. He had heard it all before during the six months he had spent on the Sibleyville City Council, a position he was still trying to figure out how he had gotten. The issue might change, but Robbins always found something supposedly in the town’s best interests that usually involved either he or his two sons profiting in one form or another.

Graham felt an ache growing at his temples and rubbed his forehead to soothe the pressure. He glanced around the small cramped meeting room in city hall. As usual, all the windows were shut tight, even though it was the middle of summer and the old building had never been upgraded to air conditioning. As usual, Robbins’ long-suffering wife, Alma, sat in a chair in the corner of the room, taking notes of everything Robbins said, although she usually stopped writing whenever anyone else spoke. And, as usual, the four other city council members managed to look intrigued, as if they had never heard this exact same speech before. And since the other four had gotten elected to the city council around the same time the telephone had been invented—and Robbins had been making the same speech about that long—Graham knew they must have.

Graham was the youngest person in the room by about three decades, and considering he was thirty-two years old, he wasn’t exactly young, and he was feeling older by the second. He wondered how his father had done this, year after year. Not only this, but everything else that came with living and operating a ranch in Sibleyville. Yet now Lance Forbes was finding it difficult even to endure the physical therapy that would get him back on track after a heart attack six months ago.

What had started as a three-week vacation to visit his father and help his mother with the farm had turned into six months and a city council position. Graham had started avoiding the increasingly insistent calls from his job, because he didn’t know what to say. His father was still playing sick and his mother’s eyes lit up every time she saw Graham walk into the house. The guilt was unbearable, but Graham had vowed to return to Tokyo after planting season ended. There were only three weeks remaining in the season, and given the long hours he and the workers had been putting in over the last month, Graham figured the farm was ahead of schedule.

“We have to get Max Sibley’s girls to see what a great place Sibleyville is, or they could sell the land right from under us.”

Graham snapped out of his brooding at the mention of the Sibleys. He hadn’t been able to get Quinn and Kendra Sibley out of his thoughts since leaving their property an hour ago. There definitely weren’t women like those two in this small town. The women were gorgeous and sophisticated, like the women he dated in Tokyo.

He had to admit there was no one like the other Sibley sister either. She had looked nothing like Quinn or Kendra. She had been thicker than the other women, more curvy than Kendra and less silicone-assisted than Quinn. Her thick brown hair had hung in limp waves to her shoulders.

Also, unlike her sisters, she had looked at him as if he were evil personified. Graham vowed to stay away from her. Bringing his attention back to the meeting at hand, he demanded more sharply then he intended, “What are you talking about, Robbins? The town owns the land.” Robbins glared at him. The two men had a mutual distrust and dislike for each other.

As six pairs of shocked eyes swung to him, Graham grimaced. He had forgotten his rule of not speaking at the meetings.

“We had a small problem in the seventies, Graham,” Velma Spears explained, her oversized eyeglasses obscuring half of her wrinkled, kind face. Velma told every citizen who came to speak at city council meeting that their speech was “lovely.” And she meant it.

“Small problem.” Boyd Robbins snorted at Velma’s understatement. “We had some real issues in this town. If you haven’t noticed, Forbes, this ain’t Tokyo—”

“I’ve noticed,” Graham muttered, dryly.

Boyd’s red face grew even more red. Boyd had been in the military for thirty years and it showed in his ramrod-straight posture, buzz-cut graying brown hair and constantly clenched jaw. He was in his late fifties, but after a lifetime in the sun, he looked closer to seventy. His skin was constantly a shade of red or maroon, and just looking at Graham sometimes made him turn purple.

“Boyd means that when we fall on our hard times, we can’t rely on tourist dollars or exports to hold us until times get better,” Angus Affleck, Graham’s father’s best friend, chimed in from the seat on Graham’s right. “The seventies were tough for all small towns. A lot of people left for big cities like San Francisco and L.A. We almost had to shut down the local elementary school. And without residents, we didn’t have a tax base or a consumer base. Main Street was almost shut down, not to mention the problems we had selling our crops. We needed help, and Max helped us.”

“He bailed out an entire town?” Graham asked, surprised.

“At a steep price,” Boyd said, his voice echoing in the small room because of his close proximity to the microphone on the table. As if he needed it. “He wanted the deeds to all the stores on Main Street.”

“He let us keep our ranches, Boyd,” Velma said, softly.

“Because he knew we’d stuff his lawyers down his throat, if he tried that,” Paul Robbins, Boyd’s brother and loyal supporter, chimed in from his seat on Graham’s left.

“Although his bank damn near owns half the ranches in town anyway,” Boyd grumbled.

“He made a lot of improvements to Main Street. We wouldn’t have the clock tower or the movie theatre without Max,” Velma continued, her voice becoming more insistent.

“Some people think throwing around money will buy them respect. Max Sibley was a rat.” Boyd’s face had gotten so red, he looked on the verge of imploding.

“From what I understand of those Sibley girls, they’re just as bad as Max,” Paul said, taking over for his brother, who was too overcome with anger to continue. “One of them is even an actor on one of those soap operas.”

“Diamond Valley,” Angus offered, cheerfully. Graham looked over in surprise at the grizzled rancher and part-time sheriff of the town, whose skin was like well-worn leather after decades in the sun.

“I don’t care about the name of her stupid show,” Paul snapped, sending Angus an annoyed glance. “The point is, she’s an actress, and we all know what those people are like. We don’t want an actress in charge of the future of this town, nor the other ones. One is a stockbroker in New York—”

“I bet she had something to do with Enron,” Boyd interrupted, suspiciously.

Paul continued, “And the other one works at some Black museum… Oh, excuse me, Graham, African-American museum.”

Graham ignored the dig and concentrated on the Sibley sisters. Judging from Kendra’s conservative dark suit, tight enough to display that she worked out on a consistent basis and could probably kick a grown man’s ass, Kendra was the stockbroker. Quinn’s almost luminous glow obviously meant that she was the actress. That left the mute one as the museum worker. It figured.

“A bunch of liberals,” Boyd summarized his brother’s lecture. “We’re looking at our town being controlled by a bunch of female liberals. What are they even doing here? Those girls live in the lap of luxury all of their lives and now they willingly move into a shack that hasn’t been inhabited by anything more than raccoons and snakes in over fifteen years? By any means necessary, we have got to get those girls to give us back our town before they cause irreparable damage.”

“On that cheerful note, how about we conclude this meeting for the night and go our separate ways to think about how we’re going to swindle the Sibley sisters?” Graham said.

“I second that,” Angus said, smiling proudly at him.

“Wait, we’re not finished—” Boyd started.

“All in favor say ‘aye,’” Graham said. A murmur of “ayes” followed his statement, besides Paul’s tentative “no.” Graham pounded the mayor’s gavel and announced, “This meeting is adjourned. Until next week, folks.”

He stood, took a few moments to make certain that Velma had a ride home, avoided Angus’s attempt to get his attention, ignored Boyd’s poisonous glares and slipped out of the claustrophobic town hall.

He breathed in the fresh night air as he strolled towards his truck parked in one of the marked spots on Main Street. The nights in Sibleyville were like nowhere else that Graham had ever been, and he had been all over the world as an executive with the conglomerate, Shoeford Industries. There was something about the mixture of dirt, mountains, green trees and water that combined to make Sibleyville smell…smell like something comforting and inviting.

Graham stopped his thoughts. He was standing on Main Street in a town that had one stoplight, one movie theatre and where the big social event of the year was David Markham’s Fourth of July hoedown. There was nothing in Sibleyville that made him want to stay. Graham could not survive in this environment, after having spent the last fifteen years living in major cities around the world. He needed excitement, luxury, glamour. And not even Boyd could lie and say that Sibleyville had that.

“I’m sick of you railroading me in city council meetings, young man,” came Boyd’s angry voice behind him.

Graham inwardly groaned. He remembered his grandmother’s old phrase: Speak of the devil, and he’ll appear.

Graham turned to face Boyd. Graham was tall at six foot two, but Boyd was probably stronger and showed no signs of allowing age to slow him down.

Graham nodded a greeting to Boyd’s wife, Alma, who cowered behind him. As large and intimidating as her husband was, she was small and petite. Graham tried not to think about it, but he still wondered how they… Well, they had two big sons, so they must have figured out a way.

“Good evening, Alma,” Graham said, smiling politely.

Alma smiled shyly in response.

Boyd grumbled, then said, abruptly, “I got your number. I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” Graham asked, curiously.

“You’re trying to bring your big-city ideas here. This isn’t New York City,” Boyd informed him, while drawing out “New York City” as if he was saying “Sodom and Gomorrah.” “You think you’re so special because you have a few stamps on your passport. I’ve been to all of those places, too, with the service, and there’s no place like Sibleyville, U.S.A.”

“I’m not trying to do anything, Boyd. I just don’t think threatening the Sibley sisters is going to make them hand back the keys of the town. They either will or won’t, but it’s their decision to make.”

Boyd’s eyes narrowed then he poked a gnarled finger in Graham’s face and warned, “I’m watching you. You get in the way of this town’s progress, and I’ll rip you a new one.”

Boyd stomped off towards his town car. Alma smiled apologetically at Graham then raced after Boyd. Graham shook his head in disbelief then laughed. He had spent the last ten years working and living in almost every major city around the world, and the only time he had been threatened with bodily harm was by the mayor of Sibleyville.

Chapter 4

For one glorious moment when Charlie woke up, she thought she was back in her apartment in Los Angeles. She smiled and stretched her arms over her head. She couldn’t wait to walk to the deli down the street. She loved the tuna sandwiches there, and the canolis. Delicious cream bursting from the delicate shell, all covered in gooey chocolate. Her mouth watered just thinking about it.

Then she felt her sweat-soaked nightgown plastered against her skin. Something else was wrong…. That smell. Usually, she got the ocean breeze, but now all she smelled was dust and…and fresh, country air. Country. Charlie gasped and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a large brown water stain at the corner of the white ceiling. And then she heard the sound of glass breaking followed by Kendra shrilly berating Quinn.

Charlie placed an arm over her eyes, as it all came rushing back. The long drive to Sibleyville, Kendra and Quinn and—even worse—the gorgeous cowboy. It hadn’t been a nightmare. Charlie seriously contemplated remaining in her bed for the rest of the two weeks, but she suddenly noticed the bedspring poking into her back and rolled out. Her feet hit the hardwood floor and the dust that lay on the floor like a carpet billowed around her.

Charlie glanced around the bedroom that she had been given by default last night. Quinn and Kendra had both claimed larger—and coincidentally cleaner—bedrooms upstairs. Charlie had been stuck with the only bedroom on the ground floor. It had one squeaking bed, an antique dresser with a cracked mirror and a window that was covered with a faded, daisy-covered sheet. She shuddered in disgust at the filth in the room. The night before, she had willed herself not to notice the dirt and had simply unrolled a sleeping bag on top of the bed and climbed in. But, now, in the sunlight that streamed unimpeded through the sheet, she saw everything. Goosebumps raised on her skin. She could not believe that she had slept in this room. It was disgusting.

Charlie heard more screaming in the kitchen. She slipped her bare feet into her tennis shoes and stood up from the bed, groaning at the protesting ache in her back. She wiped the sleep from her eyes then shuffled down the hallway into the living room.

She could hear chaos behind the door to the kitchen. Since she couldn’t avoid her sisters forever, Charlie took a deep breath and pushed open the swinging kitchen door.

Black smoke was curling out of the brand-new silver toaster on the counter that Charlie had brought from home. Quinn stood in a sheer white minidress with her arms crossed, glaring at Kendra, who wore skin-tight, black workout pants and a black sports bra. Both of her sisters looked showered and refreshed, and Charlie reminded herself to check their bathroom first.

“What in the world is going on?” Her sisters turned to her and both began speaking at once. Charlie instantly held up her hands for silence. Surprisingly, Quinn and Kendra both fell silent. “First, I need coffee. And, second, I need to find the closest Wal-Mart so we can start disinfecting this place.”

“Wal-Mart?” Kendra gasped in horror at the same time that Quinn whispered in dismay, “Disinfecting?”

“If we’re lucky,” Charlie muttered. “There may not be a Wal-Mart around here, which is great for the local small businesses, but very bad for us.”

Charlie shuffled to the coffeemaker that she had also brought from home. Kendra wordlessly handed her a coffee cup with the name of her alma mater, Harvard, emblazoned on the side. Charlie smiled gratefully then filled the mug with the steaming liquid. She usually liberally sprinkled sugar into her coffee, but since she knew neither of her sisters would think to pack something as caloric as sugar, she just gulped it down and cringed.

“You’re not actually expecting us to clean this place, are you, Charlie?” Quinn asked, nervously. “We don’t have the skills for this—”

“Skills,” Kendra snorted. “We’re just cleaning, Quinn, not launching a space shuttle.”

“But, there could be rodents or something,” Quinn said, with wide eyes. She rubbed the back of her neck, as if brushing something off her skin. “Can’t we hire someone to do this?”

“I hate to admit this, but I actually agree with Bimbette here,” Kendra said to Charlie. Ignoring Quinn’s glare, she continued, “We need this entire house cleaned from top to bottom, and I’d rather not get buried alive if it collapses, so we need to have someone secure the frame and foundation. And then I need to contact the office—”

Charlie interrupted her, “We’re not allowed to use our personal bank accounts, call friends or boyfriends, or to work—”

Kendra’s eyes turned cold, and Charlie fought to hold her gaze. Kendra could be intimidating when she wanted to be, and she usually wanted to be. “You don’t seriously expect us to live by the draconian conditions of the will?”

“We agreed,” Charlie replied, simply.

“I can’t disappear from my job for two weeks, Charlie,” Kendra snarled.

“Then you shouldn’t have agreed to come,” Charlie said, quietly. She focused on the dust bunnies in the corners of the room and said, “If we’re going to live here for the next two weeks, we need to clean this house. We also need food, besides coffee.”

“I should have known you would be Ms. Rules,” Kendra said in a tone that told Charlie she was not complimenting her.

“Stop being a baby, Kendra,” Quinn finally chimed in. “Charlie’s right. We agreed to do this Grandpa’s way. And that means no cleaning ladies, no Internet and no contact with our real lives. No one in our lives or in this town is supposed to know the reason we’re here. And, considering the fact that this town benefits if we fail, we should definitely stick to the strict-confidence policy.”

Charlie stared at Quinn surprised. She had never heard Quinn sound so forceful or serious. Then Quinn added, with a giggle, “Besides, how will I be able to ask the cowboy to show me his barn if I’m stuck out here?”

Charlie choked on her coffee, but neither woman noticed as they squared off like two old-time cowboys.

“He’s mine, Quinn. I saw him first,” Kendra retorted angrily.

“Whoever saw him first won’t matter once I work the Quinn Sibley magic on him,” Quinn challenged.

Kendra laughed, while Charlie finally was able to swallow unimpeded. Kendra crossed the kitchen to stand in front of Quinn.

“Are you actually considering going head-to-head with me on the cowboy?” Kendra asked Quinn, one finely arched eyebrow raised in disbelief.

“If you’re not too scared to go head-to-head with me,” Quinn responded, mirroring Kendra’s expression.

Kendra shook her head, obviously amused. “Well, this should add some excitement to our time here. You’re on, Quinn. We both go for the cowboy and he decides.”

“He has a name,” Charlie blurted out, before she could stop herself. Her sisters turned to her and Charlie averted her gaze when she saw their identical curious expressions. She poured herself another cup of coffee, hoping her sisters didn’t notice her trembling hands. “I just… You’re both being childish. He’s not some toy or a— He’s a person.”

Kendra tilted her head to one side and studied Charlie. “You can try for Graham, too, Charlie,” she finally said, placing emphasis on his name.

Charlie felt her face burn in embarrassment, while Quinn grinned and bobbed her head excitedly. Charlie had spent most of the previous sleepless night dreaming about Graham. She still wanted to tie him to a bed and just look at him for an hour, but now it seemed gross that that Kendra and Quinn obviously had the same feelings.

Charlie squared her shoulders and said, “I won’t try for him, like he’s some kind of…of carnival prize.”

Kendra shrugged then said, “All right, but I don’t want to hear your mouth. There was nothing in Max’s will about not trying to make things a little exciting around here. Give me a few minutes and we’ll head into town and find something to clean the house with.”

Quinn looked down at her spotless white dress then back at Charlie. “I’m going to get really dirty today, aren’t I?”

Charlie ignored Quinn and looked down at her nightgown. She needed to shower, brush her teeth and get dressed, but then there was her refusal to share the shower with the fungus growing at the bottom.

“You’re right, Quinn. We’re going to get really dirty, so there’s hardly any use changing clothes,” Charlie said, with a relieved sigh.

She had been saved once more.

It was one of those perfect summer days that only exist in Smalltown, U.S.A. Cloudless blue skies, birds chirping in the distance, children running down the sidewalks and young men standing at the town water fountain watching young women walk past. If Graham wasn’t dead-set on leaving all of it as soon as possible, he would be appreciating this scene right now.

Instead, Graham ignored the scene around him and steered his truck to a stop in front of the town’s all-purpose store. One thing that Graham could admit to feeling grateful about was that there was always convenient parking downtown. He got out of the truck then slapped on a pair of headphones. The soothing sound of a cultured voice speaking Japanese filled his ears.

His Japanese had gotten rusty in the six months he had spent in Sibleyville. He had never been that good to begin with, but if there was one thing Graham could say about Sibleyville, the small-town afforded him plenty of time to practice, when he wasn’t working.

“Afternoon, Graham,” Velma called out from the entrance of her clothing boutique.

“Konnichiwa,” Graham greeted in return, with a slight bow.

“Ogenki-desu-ka?” Velma returned.

Graham stopped in mid-stride, took off the headphones and gaped at the older woman. Velma speaking Japanese was about as likely as…as Graham speaking Japanese.

Velma winked at him then turned back into her boutique. Graham laughed to himself and shook his head.

“Don’t you have anything better to do, besides stand in the middle of the street, grinning like a fool?”

Graham grinned at the sound of Wyatt Granger’s voice. Graham had known Wyatt almost as long as he had known himself. Their families had been the only black people in Sibleyville, when the two had been growing up. And it had remained that way until the arrival of the Sibley sisters, who had increased the African-American population in town by a full thirty percent.

“What are you doing out and about? Business slow as usual at the funeral home?” Graham asked then winced when he noticed Wyatt’s honey-brown skin turn a light shade of gray at the mention of anything related to his family’s funeral parlor.

The Grangers had been Sibleyville’s only morticians for the last three generations, and Graham had a feeling that Wyatt would have put an end to the family business if he could have. But Wyatt’s father had died five years ago, and his mother had never recovered from her husband’s death, which had left Wyatt to continue the family business.

“No one has died in Sibleyville since Ted Gravis. Business is slow,” Wyatt replied.

“I hear Ron Walker had a severe case of heartburn last night,” Charlie said then winced again when Wyatt narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m just trying to help you out.”

“That’s real funny, Graham,” Wyatt responded dryly.

“I just don’t want you to pass out again when someone asks you about the embalming process.”

Wyatt’s jaw twitched before he protested through clenched teeth, “I did not pass out. I told you, I just hadn’t had a lot to eat that night and my blood sugar was low and then the heat—”

Graham patted Wyatt on the shoulder and said, somberly, “Your secret is safe with me, Wyatt.”

“What secret?”

Graham hid his smile and changed the subject, “Do you want to grab some lunch? I’m supposed to be getting wood to fix a fence on the east end, but a man has to eat, right?”

Wyatt smiled instantly and said, “It’s Thursday, and you know what that means, right?”

“No.”

“Pot roast at Annie’s.” Wyatt’s wide grin made Graham shake his head with regret.

He didn’t know which was more pathetic: the fact that he was probably just as excited as Wyatt was at the idea of forking down some of the delicious pot roast at the diner in town, or that this time last year, he had been eating in some of the best restaurants in Tokyo, ordering caviar, champagne and other delicacies.

“Pot roast, it is,” Graham said, with a resigned sigh.

The two men started the short walk towards the diner on the other end of Main Street.

Graham nodded in greeting at other residents they passed on the sidewalk, while Wyatt was glad to shake everyone’s hand and have boring conversations about the weather and the predictions for the fall harvest. A few minutes later, the two men settled in their regular corner booth at Annie’s, where the eponymous Annie was taking orders from another table. Annie’s husband stood over the grill visible through the open window behind the counter.

“I heard you met the Sibley sisters,” Wyatt said, while passing Graham one of the plastic menus on the table. “What are they like? No one around here has seen them yet.”

“I just met them. Did a carrier pigeon spread the word?” Wyatt shrugged, noncommitally. “Hey, what do you expect? This is Sibleyville. So, tell me about them. Please let one—at least one—be somewhat decent-looking. The pickings around here have gotten pretty slim since the Hodgkin girls moved back to Oregon.”

“The Hodgkin girls are forty-three and forty-four years old, respectively,” Graham deadpanned.

Wyatt shrugged again. “I take what I can get.”

Graham rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Why do you stay, Wyatt?”

“It’s my home.” Graham stared speechlessly at Wyatt: to him it was really that simple. To Graham, nothing was that simple. “So, you haven’t told me about the Sibley sisters, which must mean they’re as ugly as a pimple on a horse’s butt.”

“Not quite,” Graham said, smiling.

In fact, there was nothing remotely ugly about any of the sisters. Quinn had marvelous breasts that would make a grown man weep, Kendra had a body that could make a grown man beg and then… Well, and then there was the third sister. Whatever her name was—he couldn’t even remember now. She had… Graham couldn’t really remember what she had because he had been so transfixed by Quinn’s breasts and Kendra’s rock-hard body.

“You’re smiling,” Wyatt noted. “That’s a good thing. Please tell me that’s a good thing.”

“Let’s just say you won’t be disappointed.”

Wyatt grinned then prodded, “Tell me more. Details. Stats.”

“Words don’t do them justice. Two of them, at least. Probably about thirty years old and twenty-six years old. Then there’s the third sister. She’s the middle one. She’s different, I think—”

“Different how?” Wyatt demanded, sounding worried again.

“She’s not like her sisters. She’s…different.” The look of distaste that had crossed her expression as she had glared at him floated through his mind again. He abruptly smiled and said, “She kind of reminds me of Mrs. Smythe.”

“Our fourth-grade teacher you had a crush on?”

Graham frowned at his friend. “I did not have a crush on Mrs. Smythe.”

“Do not try to stick me with that one,” Wyatt said, cringing in distaste, ignoring Graham’s annoyance. “I always get stuck with the plain ones.”

“I did not have a crush on Mrs. Smythe,” Graham repeated to make certain Wyatt heard him. When Wyatt only shrugged in response, Graham muttered, “Don’t worry. Her sisters more than make up for her.”

“Did you get anything out of them about why they’re here?”

“I didn’t ask. As the saying goes, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Wyatt’s grin nearly spilt his face. “That good, huh?”

Graham remembered the come-hither look in Kendra’s eyes as she had grinned at him. “Better.”

Wyatt whooped like the cowboy he sort of was, then laughed as the other diners glanced curiously at them. Wyatt waved at them then turned back to Graham.

Graham laughed then added, “Besides, Boyd thinks they’re here to settle their grandfather’s business with the town. He has ordered each of us on the city council to roll out the red carpet. Butter them up. I initially thought this whole thing would be another one of Boyd’s idiotic ideas, but the more I think about it…and them…the more I think he might not be so dumb.”

“About rolling out the red carpet, or about their reason for being in town?”

“The red carpet, Wyatt,” Graham said, impatiently. “I don’t care about their plans for this town.”

“So, when are we going out with them?” Wyatt asked, eagerly.

“Out? Out where?” Graham asked, frustrated. “Maybe the hoedown next week or the next four-wheel-drive tailgate at the lake?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said excitedly, obviously missing Graham’s sarcasm.

Graham rolled his eyes, annoyed. “Wyatt, these women… These women are not like the women around here. We can’t take them to a hoedown. They’re used to lobster and champagne, not hot dogs and beer.”

Wyatt’s grin disappeared before he said, matter-of-factly, “Well, while you’re trying to find five-star restaurants and champagne, someone else in this town is going to invite them to that hoedown or a tailgate, because what you seem to be forgetting, my friend, is that regardless of what these women are used to, they’re in Sibleyville now.”

Graham mulled over his friend’s words then muttered, reluctantly, “I guess I’ll be stopping by their house to invite them for a night of Sibleyville revelry.”

Wyatt smiled, satisfied, then signaled to Annie that they were ready to order.

Chapter 5

“Graham, is that you? Did you get the wood for the fence?”

Graham inwardly cringed as his father’s booming voice echoed through the house the moment Graham stepped inside. He closed the front door and glanced around the familiar foyer of the house. Nothing ever changed in his parents’ house. It was all wood and comfortable furniture, and it always smelled like lemons.

His father’s charcoal drawing of the view behind their house still hung framed in the hallway leading to the living room on the right and the kitchen on the left, even though Lance had done many sketches and paintings since then. The charcoal drawing had apparently been the first gift Lance Forbes had given his young bride.

The same Navajo rug that had lain on the entry floor when Graham had been in junior high school still remained on the floor—faded and almost threadbare from many washings. His parents did not like change. The perfect day for his parents was to do the exact same thing that they had done the day before. Graham didn’t know how in the world he came to be so different from his parents, because he longed for change. He didn’t just want to read about South Africa, he wanted to go there. And he had. He had been everywhere else on his wish list, and now… Well, now, Graham’s goal was to become a vice president in Shoeford Industries—if he could ever get back to his job. Then he’d think of something else to do.

“Yes, Dad,” Graham called back to his father, who was no doubt upstairs in the study that overlooked their lands with his binoculars watching the farmhands. Lance would stay in the study, alternating between working on the computer and using his binoculars to spy on the work in the field until Graham and the farmhands quit for the day. Then, during dinner, Graham would be treated to a fifteen-minute evaluation of every move he had made.

“Did you check the corn?” Lance called back.

Graham struggled for patience. He loved his father, but the man did not know how to be an invalid.

“Yes, Dad, I checked the corn,” he called back through clenched teeth.

He heard his mother’s soft laughter behind him. Graham turned to her, taking in her amused expression and glowing brown skin. Her short black hair was liberally sprinkled with gray, but she still had a smile that could light a room. No matter how much Graham wished and hoped and dreamed to get the hell out of Sibleyville and return to his life, he also could admit that he would miss his parents. Especially his mother.

Eliza Forbes was not a Sibleyville native. She had met Graham’s father in New York thirty-five years ago, and after dating long-distance for three months, she had married him and moved to California. And, as far as Graham knew, she had never looked back, despite the disdain and shock of her decidedly east-coast family. But Eliza might as well have been a Sibleyville native. She could out-ride and out-shoot most men, and seemed to thrive on the sometimes extreme weather and rigorous farm life.

“He’s driving me crazy,” Graham muttered, motioning up the stairs, where Lance no doubt sat with his binoculars.

Eliza smiled in understanding, but said, “You know he loves having you around.”

Graham felt that flash of guilt he always felt whenever his parents expressed their joy at having him near after years of his living overseas and only visiting during the holidays.

“And I like being here,” he murmured, then added, “But, Dad is driving me crazy. Either he has to let me do the planting my way, or he can limp out to the fields and do it himself.”

“I heard that,” came Lance’s voice as he teetered down the stairs with the aid of a cane.

Graham rolled his eyes, but couldn’t restrain his grin. His heart had momentarily stopped when his mother had called him with the news of his father’s heart attack. After rushing home and standing over his father’s hospital bed, Graham had finally realized that his father was only human. Graham had never fully recovered from the idea of losing his father. That fear—along with a fair amount of guilt—had kept him in Sibleyville for six months. And his father knew it. The old man was as healthy as a horse now, and Graham swore Lance needed his omnipresent cane as much as Graham did. But he just wouldn’t own up to it.

“I also checked the soy beans, the animals and I lassoed the moon, so it would shine specifically on our house,” Graham added.

His mother smothered a giggle while Lance’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re a real smartass, y’know that?” Lance muttered, as amusement twinkled in his eyes.

“I wonder where he got it from,” Eliza teased Lance, caressing one of his stubble-covered cheeks. Lance smiled down at his wife and for a moment Graham knew that neither of his parents remembered that he was in the room.

Graham was used to their moments of total immersion in each other. A small part of him wanted to ask his parents how they did it, but that would have led to too many hopeful questions on their part. Graham was thirty-two years old and their only child. He knew their grandparenting biological clock was clicking.

Eliza turned back to her son and said, “Someone called for you earlier. I took down the message in the kitchen.”

Graham left his parents to their secret caresses and walked into the kitchen. His mother’s kitchen looked like every television or movie kitchen set in the country. Warm, shades of yellow, sturdy wood furniture and even a cookie jar shaped like a cow on the counter. He took a still-warm chocolate chip cookie from the jar then grabbed the telephone mounted on the wall. He read his mother’s elegant handwriting on the notepad next to the phone and smiled to himself. He should have known. He quickly dialed the international number.

“Speak,” greeted the male voice on the other end of the telephone.

“Do you answer all your calls that way?” Graham demanded of his best friend and financial day trader, Theo Morgan.

“Only when they come from area codes belonging to some godforsaken small town in the middle of nowhere,” came the prompt reply.

“Glad to know you haven’t become all warm and cuddly in the six months I’ve been gone.”

“Warm and cuddly? Not in this life,” Theo grumbled. “Hold the phone a second, Forbes.”

Graham heard the muffled sound of Theo ordering people around and then the rapid-fire sound of computer keys being struck. Graham felt a brief pang of jealousy. While Graham was rotting away in Sibleyville, Theo was in Tokyo. Living. Graham and Theo were the same age, but Graham had several more years of experience at Shoeford than Theo and was eligible for the next promotion while Theo was not. That, Graham suspected privately, drove the competitive Theo insane. However, the two men had become friends, or as close to friends as one could be with Theo.

“Forbes, I will deny it to my dying day, but things just aren’t the same without you here,” Theo said, coming back on the line, without preamble. “I feel like the lone Black man on the planet. When are you going to stop playing John Wayne and get back to work?”

Graham leaned against the wall and stared out the window over the sink at the pasture and trees growing unimpeded in the distance. There weren’t views like that in Tokyo. Whether that was a good or bad thing, Graham still hadn’t decided.

“I’m in farm country, Theo. I am the lone Black man on the planet,” Graham retorted.

“You have a point,” Theo responded. His voice lowered to a whisper as he said, almost desperately, “Seriously, man, when are you getting back here? How long does it take to find a private nurse for your father and a guy to temporarily run the ranch? I mean, it’s one ranch, Graham. We make in ten minutes what that ranch probably puts out in a year.”

“Breathe in deep, Theo, because I’m about to tell you something that may rock the foundation of your world,” Graham said, then waited a beat, before whispering dramatically, “Sometimes it’s not about money.”

“Now, you’re truly talking crazy.”

“This ranch has been in my family for five generations. We don’t turn it over to strangers.”

“Depp is retiring,” Theo said flatly.

Graham widened his eyes and tried to speak, but no sound came out. Depp Shoeford was the brother of the CEO and owner of Shoeford Industries. He also happened to be two hundred pounds of dead weight, whose only contribution to the company was to help usher in Casual Friday. But, his brother loved him—or, at least, pretended to in public—and Depp had been one of four vice-presidents approved by the Board of Directors.

“I’m sure you know exactly what this means,” Theo said. “The Board is voting on the new VP in two weeks. You have to get back here for the vote…like yesterday.”

“Jude wouldn’t dare appoint anyone else. It’s mine. He knows it. The Board knows it. Everyone knows it,” Graham said, but even he heard the doubt in his words.

“Big words coming from a man in a small town,” Theo shot back. “While the secretaries may swoon over your dedication to hearth and home, it hasn’t won you any fans in corporate.”

“I’m trying,” Graham muttered, frustrated, while running a hand down his face.

“Try harder,” Theo snapped. “Kent is trying to snatch this thing from under your feet. And you know what they say—out of sight, out of mind.”

Graham cursed and tried not to strangle the phone. He should have known. He and Dennis Kent had been competing for the same raises and promotions since they had started at the company ten years ago. Fortunately for Graham, Kent had the personality of a wet rag. Unfortunately for Graham, Kent had the work ethic of an indentured servant. He took the assignments no one wanted, he worked weekends and holidays and made certain the right people knew it and he puckered up whenever the powers-that-be were around.

“Kent would never get it. He’s a yes-man, not a VP.”

“You know that. I know that. But, I’m not sure if the people who make the decisions know that.”

Graham itched to slam down the phone, rent a charter plane to Los Angeles and catch the first thing smoking to Tokyo.

Instead, he took a deep breath and murmured, “I’ll talk to my folks.”

“That’s not good enough, Forbes.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“The best you can do?” Theo sputtered in disbelief. “Do you want this thing or not?”

“Of course, I do… Wait. Why do you care?”

“I am hurt by your implication,” Theo said, and actually made a good attempt at sounding wounded. “Aren’t we brothers, man? Compadres? Friends—”

“Ahh, I get it. You think if I make VP, I can promote my brother, compadre and friend, right?” Graham said, more amused than offended that Theo had an ulterior motive. He should have guessed immediately. With Theo, there was always an ulterior motive. Plus, Graham would have been thinking the same thing if he had been in Theo’s position.

“Hey, each one teach one, isn’t that another thing they say?” Theo said, the self-satisfied grin obvious in his voice.

Graham rolled his eyes in disbelief. “Suddenly, you’re Black Power?”

“We brothers have to stick together.”

Graham shook his head in amusement, despite his sick feeling about the impending destruction of his career.

Theo continued in an urgent tone, “And because, my brother, I cannot afford to let you pass up the opportunity that will eventually mean opportunities for me, I’m coming to that flea-bag town tomorrow and I’m dragging you back to Tokyo whether you like it or not.”

Graham felt a surge of panic at the idea of Theo Morgan in Sibleyville.

“Theo, I don’t need you to come here—”

“Too late. A car is waiting downstairs to take me to the airport. I should be in Nowheresville by tomorrow at eleven o’clock. I was told that there is no airport in Sibleyville, so that I have to fly into a town called Bentonville. Trying to get to your town was more difficult than getting to Sri Lanka last year. I have three connections… Anyway, be on time, Graham. I’d hate to imagine what would happen to a Black sitting alone in the middle of the country for too long.”

Without another word, Theo hung up. Graham inwardly groaned, then hung up the receiver. He leaned his forehead on the kitchen wall. Theo Morgan in Sibleyville was not a good idea.

Chapter 6

Whenever Graham and Wyatt wound up at The Bar—capital T and capital B, thank you very much—the only place that could remotely meet the definition of a club in Sibleyville, they usually sat at the bar, joked around with people they had joked around with since childhood, and flirted with the same women they had flirted with since childhood. There was a certain charm to The Bar that even Graham couldn’t deny. It sat just outside the border of Sibleyville on a remote stretch of Highway 2 and attracted farmers and ranchers from over one hundred miles since it had the only live entertainment in the area and the cheapest beers.

Usually, there was a band on stage, with a male singer groaning about heartache and being in love, the place would be packed and the cement floor would be sticky with spilled beer and peanut shells. The Bar’s charm was not necessarily its cleanliness.

The only difference between this night when Graham and Wyatt walked into The Bar versus any other night was that every man in the bar was on one side of the room, every woman in the bar was on the other side of the room and Kendra and Quinn were dancing in the middle. Not just dancing, but… Was striptease too harsh? Both women wore short tight clothes and underneath the bar lights they looked like two goddesses, granting the men of The Bar a special performance.

Wyatt grinned like a man who had found heaven, and stared transfixed at the Sibley sisters. Graham scanned the crowd in search of the other sister. He didn’t see her, not that he would have expected her to be wearing a short skirt in a bar and gyrating next to her sisters, but still… Graham laughed at the roar of male approval as Kendra took her moves to the floor, until she was practically sitting. The singer onstage actually stopped singing to stare transfixed at her.

Meanwhile, Quinn, not to be outdone, was moving her hips in some semblance of an X-rated belly dance while she waved her hands over her head. The only problem—or not problem—was that her already short skirt kept creeping farther and farther up her thighs until… Graham’s eyes widened. A black G-string. The men in the building roared again, while several women stalked out the bar.

Wyatt clamped Graham’s shoulder and his voice was unsteady as he said, “Graham, please, please, please tell me that those are the Sibley sisters.”

Graham grinned, just as the two women turned and spotted him. Both waved energetically, motioning for him to join them. Quinn’s gaze remained on him as she licked her lips and ran her hands over her breasts then down to her slim hips, making no secret of the fact that she wanted his hands to follow the same route. Kendra stepped in front of Quinn, drawing Graham’s attention, and went low to the floor again while gyrating her hips.

Pretending not to notice the looks of pure hatred and envy from the other men in the room, Graham casually waved to the women.

He yelled to Wyatt over the loud music, “Those are the two Sibley sisters I was telling you about. Kendra and Quinn.”

Wyatt cursed softly in appreciation. “Which is which?”

“Kendra is the one who just did the splits. Quinn is the one shaking her behind. Apparently, Quinn is on television.”

“Diamond Valley,” Wyatt said automatically, his gaze still on the women.

“How do you know that?”

Wyatt shrugged in response and seemed no longer capable of conversation. Graham shook his head, realizing that Wyatt was a lost cause, then glanced around the bar once more. Even though the building was packed and the noise level was near deafening, Graham knew he would have spotted the other sister if she had been there. Maybe she had stayed home. Graham frowned at the idea of her staying alone in that death trap she and her sisters had insisted on living in for their visit.

Graham glanced back at Kendra and Quinn. Both women were still watching him. He smiled nervously, suddenly understanding how cows must feel when ranchers stared at them before leading them to slaughter. Both women began to motion to him to join them on the dance floor.

Wyatt gripped Graham’s shoulder and choked out, “One more question, man. Please tell me that you’re taking me out there with you to dance with them.”

“Go out there now, and tell the ladies I’ll be right there with drinks.”

Wyatt actually looked as if he wanted to kiss Graham. Instead, he briefly hugged him then practically ran onto the dance floor. Graham laughed and every other man in the place looked shocked as the women started dancing with Wyatt, whereas before they had turned their backs on all other comers.

Graham walked towards the bar to order a round of drinks and scanned the bar once more. He stopped himself. He had two gorgeous women waiting for him on the dance floor. And, if he played his cards right, he could actually get lucky—something that hadn’t happened, God help him, in six months. And, instead of running onto the dance floor, he was searching for a woman who clearly did not like him, if her look of disdain in the driveway had been any indication.

Graham had just signaled the bartender, when out the corner of his eye, he saw a brown-skinned woman walk out of the bar. Since there were only three Black women in Sibleyville who would have been at The Bar, and two were doing a burlesque number on the dance floor, Graham could guess who she was. Before he even made the decision to follow her, he was making his way through the crowd and towards the exit.

Graham pushed open the door and walked into the cool night air. It was too dark to see much, besides the outlines of the trucks and cars in the parking lot. There was one dim light bulb over the door, but that cast barely enough illumination to see fifty feet in front of him.

Graham finally saw a woman standing on the outskirts of the parking lot, next to a large stallion that had been tied to the wooden fence. The huge horse meant only one thing—Earl McPhee was nearby. Except Earl—all six foot five inches and two hundred and sixty pounds of him—wasn’t just nearby. He was standing in front of Charlie—that was her name!—who was screaming at him, obviously having no idea that she was facing the meanest, cruelest sonofabitch in town. A man that even Boyd Robbins had the good sense to give a wide berth to whenever Earl made one of his rare appearances in town.

Graham muttered a curse and wished he’d had the good sense to stay inside the bar to watch the Kendra-and-Quinn show. Instead, he was about two seconds away from having his ass handed to him on a platter.

“…you have no right to treat this animal that way!” Charlie was screeching at Earl, as Graham reluctantly walked closer. Her breasts were heaving inside the plain white T-shirt she wore, her caramel face was flushed red and her eyes glinted with fire. It was a very inopportune time to notice, but Graham realized that the third Sibley sister was actually decent-looking.

Earl, on the other hand, was even bigger and more frightening than Graham remembered. His forearms were easily the size of most men’s biceps.

“Get out of my way, lady,” Earl growled, towering over her more than the horse did. “That is my horse. I’ll do with him whatever I want.”

“You will not leave this parking lot with this horse,” she responded with such deadly calm that Graham believed her.

Earl, on the other hand, laughed. Or, at least, Graham thought it was a laugh. It sounded so evil that the horse even shuffled his feet in an attempt to get away.

Earl leaned down until he was almost nose to nose with Charlie. “And who is going to stop me? You?”

As Charlie’s eyes widened with fear, something ugly coiled in Graham’s stomach. Graham was not a fighting man. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last fight he had been in, but as Earl towered over Charlie, every one of Graham’s fighting instincts propelled him across the parking lot.

“Charlie, I see you made a new friend,” Graham said, with as much casualness as he could muster, as he inserted himself between Earl and Charlie.

The relieved look she sent in his direction nearly made Graham change his characterization of her from “decent-looking” to “kind of pretty.” He forced himself to turn to Earl, who had impossibly bulked up even more since Graham had crossed the parking lot. He gulped as he remembered whispers years ago about Earl having stabbed a man in a bar fight in Boise.

“Good evening, Earl,” Graham greeted, keeping his tone light. “I haven’t seen you since I’ve been back in town. How have you been?”

Earl growled, “Talk to your woman, Graham. I want my horse, and I want him now.”

“Never,” Charlie retorted, over Graham’s shoulder. She turned to Graham, grabbing his arm. Her grip was a little too tight, but for some reason, Graham didn’t mind. Her eyes were huge and shining in the moonlight as she said, “I saw him…abusing this horse, Graham. He kicked him in the side and then punched him in the face. I will not allow any creature—man or horse—to be abused in my presence. We cannot send this horse home with this monster.”

Graham barely restrained himself from raising his eyebrow at her use of the word we. He also wondered if Charlie should have been the actress, instead of Quinn. She certainly was dramatic enough. Sure, everyone knew that Earl was not the nicest guy around, but even Earl wouldn’t be stupid enough to abuse an animal that he had to rely on for his livelihood.

“Now, Charlie, I’m sure you didn’t see what you thought you saw,” he said, in what he hoped was a soothing voice. “Just give the man back his horse, and we can straighten this all out in the morning. I’m sure Earl would let us come to his ranch and see in the sunlight that this horse has suffered no abuse—”

“Like hell,” Earl spat out, directing his rage at Graham.

Graham was glad that at least Earl was no longer looking like he wanted to throw Charlie across the parking lot. Instead, he looked like he wanted to throw Graham across the parking lot.

Graham focused on Charlie again and fought hard not to be affected by the silent pleading in her eyes. Had any woman ever looked at him like that? Obviously trusting him to do the right thing, to support her?

His hand caressed her cheek before he even realized that he had moved. Her skin was soft. Like a rose petal or something…something really soft. He lowered his voice to a whisper, “It’s his horse, Charlie. We have to give him back.”

Disappointment swam in the depths of her eyes. Graham hesitated. Her disappointment made him hesitate.

“I don’t have time for this,” Earl snarled. “You have five seconds to give me my horse.”

Charlie continued to stare at Graham. Then she bit her bottom lip, chewed on it actually, drawing his attention to how plump and sweet it looked. She looked. That was it. Graham silently cursed again then turned back to Earl.

“Look, Earl, Charlie’s upset and you’re upset. Why don’t we let her take the horse home tonight and, in the morning, I’ll personally deliver him to you. And I’ll throw in a case of beer. Deal?”

Earl’s eyes narrowed with rage. “You’ve spent your whole life trying to talk this town into doing one thing or another, but I’m not falling for it. You don’t control nothing out here, Graham Forbes. I don’t care if you’re on the city council, or if you’re the mayor himself, but I will clean this parking lot with your ass if you don’t get out the way.

“And then after I’ve beaten you into a bloody pulp, I’m going to teach your girlfriend here some manners. I don’t know where you found this one, but you should have taught her that we do things different here in Sibleyville. And little girls do not become involved in grown men’s business.”

Graham stared at Earl for a moment, as anger warred with rage, making him incapable of speech at that moment. He didn’t care that Earl had insulted him. Graham had heard better insults in three different languages. The rage came from the lascivious glare he had sent Charlie when he had talked about teaching her “manners.” If anyone was going to teach Charlie Sibley manners, it was going to be Graham, and he hoped she would love every minute of it.

“You’ve terrorized people in this town long enough.” Graham said, then tried not to laugh at his own canned speech. He had watched one too many Jet Li movies. He could have come up with something a little more clever, or, at least, funny. He didn’t want to get into the first fistfight of his adult life with that corny line hanging in the air.

Charlie’s grip on his arm tightened even more as she rose on her toes to whisper in his ear, “What are you doing? He’ll kill you.”

Graham stopped his glaring contest with Earl and glanced down at her. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’ll give him the horse, Graham. I don’t want—”

“You said you would never give him the horse.”

“I know, but I can call the animal cruelty society tomorrow—”

“There is no animal cruelty society out here.”

“Have you conferred with your girlfriend long enough?” Earl demanded, rolling up his shirtsleeves.

Graham turned to Earl and silently cursed again. It was obvious that Earl knew exactly what to do in a fight in a dark parking lot. Graham felt a brief flash of nerves. He had been taking boxing lessons in Tokyo before he had to come to Sibleyville, but he had a feeling that Earl would not pull punches the way the trainer at the exclusive health club had.

In fact, as Earl’s fist slammed into Graham’s jaw, Graham realized that his trainer had been treating Graham like a two-year-old. Graham barely managed to stay on his feet as white-hot pain flashed in his jaw.

Charlie screamed then dropped the reins and ran towards the bar. Graham mentally thanked her for leaving him to this humiliation in private. He spat out a bit of blood swimming in his mouth and briefly wondered if his jaw was broken. That pain hadn’t felt natural. He managed to duck Earl’s next compact swing at his face and then get off a swing of his own.

There was a satisfying crunch as Graham’s fist connected with Earl’s chin. Earl mildly shook his head, but to Graham’s utter disbelief and horror, seemed relatively unfazed. And then Graham felt the pain in his own hand from the punch. He barely managed to hold back his own scream. That didn’t happen on television when the good guy hit the bad guy.

Graham heard several female screams. Charlie was running out of the bar followed by her two sisters and every other patron. Graham’s distraction ended as Earl plowed a fist into his stomach followed by another one. Charlie screamed his name and Graham felt a burst of energy as he gave up trading punches and talked Earl to the ground.

Earl and Graham rolled around as the men from The Bar began hollering and whistling, forming a circle around them, just like kids in an elementary schoolyard. Graham deflected Earl’s powerful blows and landed a few of his own that at least slowed Earl down a little bit. The two men scrambled to their feet and Earl managed to land a few more punches. The crowd cheered in approval as one of Graham’s fists plowed into Earl’s nose and blood spewed in one direction. Earl stumbled several steps backwards, prompting a round of applause. For the first time since the fight began, Earl hesitated.

The sound of sirens suddenly rang in the air, and Graham caught a glimpse of the town’s two police cars speeding towards The Bar. Like cockroaches, people began to scatter. Graham held up his fists, prepared to continue, as Earl looked from the approaching police to Graham. Wyatt suddenly ran to Graham’s side, and Graham refused to acknowledge the relief he felt that he wouldn’t have to face the giant by himself again.

“Graham, what the hell is going on? I go to the bathroom and come out to find the bar empty…” Wyatt’s voice trailed off, as he followed Graham’s glare in the direction of Earl and cursed. “Your first fight in twenty years and you pick Earl McPhee?”

Earl abruptly ran towards a parked truck filled with a group of men who looked at each other with horror at the thought of giving Earl a ride. Graham didn’t lower his fists until Earl ordered the driver to drive and the truck sped down the road, away from the police cars. Graham released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding, then collapsed to his knees, drawing in the air that he had been deprived of during the last several seconds.

“Graham, my God, are you all right?” Quinn screeched, running to his side.

“He’ll live. It’s just a few scrapes,” Wyatt muttered, sounding suspiciously annoyed as he watched Quinn check Graham’s injuries.

“Scrapes, my ass. That man could have killed him,” Kendra chimed in, running to his other side.

Graham never thought it would have been possible, but he barely noticed the two women as he stared up at Charlie, who stood next to Wyatt. She sent him a small smile then walked towards the horse. And dammit if that wasn’t all Graham needed to see to make the whole thing worth it.

Chapter 7

“I don’t know about you all, but last night at The Bar confirmed two things for me,” Quinn announced the next morning, as she massaged sun block onto her shoulders then settled onto the lawn chair for optimal sun coverage of her bikini-clad body.

Charlie looked down from her perch on the ladder where she was attempting to repair the roof trim that had come loose. Charlie had become handy with a hammer from the constant small repairs that needed to be done around the African-American Art Center, despite the fact that the budget didn’t allow constant small repairs. But even Charlie had to admit that the repairs needed on this house went beyond her mediocre skills.

She had spent most of the morning scrubbing and disinfecting every inch of the house. She had gone through one whole bottle of disinfectant on her bathroom alone, but at least now she didn’t feel as though she had to put a toilet liner on the seat before sitting down or needed to take a shower with her bathing suit and flipflops on.

She grimaced as she almost hammered her thumb instead of the nailhead. After she dealt with the hammer, she still had ten cans of paint waiting on the porch for her. She was going to kill herself before this was all over.

“What was confirmed for you last night, Quinn? That you’re a bad dancer and that I’m a better dancer?” Kendra grunted from the front porch in midpush-up. Sweat gleamed off every taut and toned inch of her dark skin.

While Charlie had been cleaning, Kendra had been stretching, pulling, exercising and generally driving both Charlie and Quinn insane.

“You are not a better dancer than me, Kendra,” Quinn said, obviously insulted.

“If we’re having a contest over who can dance like a stripper, then you’re right, Quinn, you’d win hands-down. But, if we’re talking about real dancing, then you know I’d win hands-down,” Kendra shot back as she flipped onto her back to begin a dizzying assortment of sit-ups.

“What did you learn last night?” Charlie asked, interrupting Quinn’s retort to keep the fragile peace.

Quinn glared at Kendra one moment longer then looked at Charlie and said excitedly, “Graham Forbes is the most gorgeous man in this town, and I think we’ve seen them all, between the group that followed us when we went into town yesterday and the group at The Bar. I chose well, and I’m going to be very, very happy when I win our little contest. Did you see those muscles? There’s nothing like a man after a fight. All that testosterone and wounded male ego. Sephora and Niles, her third husband, had one of their best love scenes after his fight with his bitter rival, Milan.”

Charlie steadied herself on the ladder as her mouth became dry and her heart began to pound at the mention of Graham’s name. She had noticed Graham’s muscles. She had noticed everything about him. Just when she had written him off as another pretty face, as someone she would never deign to talk to even if he actually paid attention to her, he had stood up for her. No man, besides her grandfather, had ever defended her, and even then Grandpa Max had done it reluctantly.

Of course, afterwards, Graham had eagerly turned to Quinn’s and Kendra’s arms for their ministrations after the fight. Maybe Graham wasn’t the jerk she had thought he was, but he was still a normal red-blooded man. Unfortunately, that knowledge hadn’t stopped Charlie from dreaming about Graham for another night in a row. Vivid, erotic dreams that she usually only had after watching a Henry Simmons NYPD Blue episode.

Kendra paused mid sit-up to mutter, “I have to agree with you, Quinn.”

“That she’s going to win the bet?” Charlie asked, surprised, snapping from her daydreams.

“Of course not,” Kendra said, with a snort of disbelief. “I agree with her that Graham is the best product this town has. I’m going to have so much fun with him. All of that cowboy manliness and aggression…” Kendra visibly shivered in delight, then murmured with a grin, “I may even have to take him with me back to NewYork.”

Charlie pounded the next nail a little too hard and the sound echoed through the yard. Both of her sisters glanced at her.

“Are you all right, Charlie?” Quinn asked, concerned. “That ladder looks a little unsteady.”

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

“Charlie, you were outside when the fight between Graham and Andre the Giant started. What caused it?” Kendra asked curiously.

Charlie pretended to focus on the trim as she murmured, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know—” Kendra’s question was cut off by the sound of a truck roaring down the driveway towards their house.

Charlie twisted on the ladder to see who the unexpected visitor was. Her palms became damp with sweat and her chest felt tight as she recognized Graham’s profile behind the steering wheel of the truck.

Quinn immediately positioned her body to the best advantage, while Kendra quickly dotted the sweat off her face with a towel. Even Charlie tried to smooth sweat-dampened clumps of hair back towards her ponytail. But, considering she had been working and sweating all day, there wasn’t much she could do in five seconds to make herself look presentable.

Graham parked the truck and stepped out. Charlie couldn’t help the sigh that escaped her lips. He wore his ubiquitous cowboy hat, jeans and another T-shirt. And his sexy smile. He was dangerous.

Quinn jumped to her feet as Kendra walked down the stairs. They reached him at the same time.

“Graham, your face,” Quinn gasped, as Kendra asked, “Does it hurt?”

Charlie swallowed the lump in her throat. He had a reddish-purple bruise on his right cheekbone and along his jaw, but otherwise he was no worse for the wear. In fact, his bruises hardened his almost too-perfect features, coincidentally enough, making him look more perfect. More manly.

“It only hurts when I breathe,” he replied, grinning at Kendra and Quinn. Or, more appropriately, grinning at their breasts, which were pushed forward for his display. Charlie narrowed her eyes as each woman pressed a kiss against his cheek and Graham didn’t seem to mind.

“You were very brave to take on that awful man,” Quinn cooed. “He could have killed you.”

Before Graham could respond, Kendra asked, “What in the world possessed you to take on that freak of nature? If you want to wrestle with someone, all you have to do is say the word. I’ll even let you win.”

Graham laughed, while Quinn glowered and Charlie gripped the hammer a little tighter. Graham stared across the yard at Charlie for the first time. His smile instantly disappeared.

“Charlie, that ladder doesn’t look steady,” he said, gruffly. “Get down from there before you break your neck.”

Charlie gritted her teeth at the flash of anger. Kendra and Quinn got grins and kisses, while she got a dismissive order. She had been killing herself all morning, trying to make the house remotely habitable while her sisters had sat on their butts, and they got Graham’s smiles and she got an order? She suddenly wanted to slap his too-perfect face.

“I’ve been on this ladder all afternoon. It’s fine,” she responded stiffly then turned back to the house.

Except she turned too fast. Suddenly, the ladder was wobbling and Charlie was wobbling. Her stomach sank as she realized that she was about to fall and break something. She dropped the hammer to hang onto the ladder with both hands, but instead her shifting weight caused the ladder to tilt farther to one side. She screamed as the ladder balanced on one stem for a moment then began to fall. She was propelled into the air.

But instead of hitting the porch, Charlie slammed into a just-as-hard but distinctly fleshy surface. Graham. Before they hit the ground, Graham’s strong arms wrapped around her and he twisted so that he hit the porch first, taking the brunt of the fall. She slammed onto his body, as the ladder fell harmlessly to one side. Just when she thought the worst had passed, she felt the spread of thick, warm paint spreading across her back and neck and, unfortunately, onto Graham, who was beneath her.

Silence covered the porch after the screams and collapse. Charlie did not want to open her eyes, but she did and stared straight into Graham’s enraged expression. His face, neck and shirt were covered with white paint, which looked ridiculously funny.

Charlie knew it would only make matters worse, but a giggle slipped past her lips. Graham’s eyes narrowed at her bubbling laughter and that instantly terminated all of her amusement.

She tried to scramble off him, and, instead, accidentally dug her elbow into his stomach. He winced in pain.

“Charlie, you’re killing him,” Quinn cried, running up onto the porch.

“Sorry,” she said, frantically, as Quinn and Kendra practically pulled her away to get to Graham. Charlie felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach as Graham, with paint dripping off him, limped to the railing of the porch.

“Do you need water or something?” Kendra asked, wiping paint off his face, which only worked to smear it into a war-paint decoration á la Braveheart cowboy.

“I think she knocked the breath out of you when you two went down,” Quinn said, worriedly, then asked Kendra, “Should we call an ambulance?”

Graham ignored her sisters and kept his laser gaze on Charlie. She picked up one of her discarded rags on the porch and hesitantly approached him. She moved to wipe paint off his arm, but he abruptly snatched the rag from her hand. He was more angry than she had thought, and that made her angry. Accidents happened. They seemed to happen more often when he was around, but it was just an accident.

“You’re a menace, lady,” he abruptly declared. “An honest-to-God menace. You could have killed yourself.”

“It was an accident,” she shot back through clenched teeth. After all, she was covered in paint, too. It would take her an hour to wash the paint out of her hair.

“Was last night an accident?” he shot back. “At the rate you’re going, I’ll be dead in another week.”

“What happened last night?” Kendra asked, surprised.

Neither Charlie nor Graham spared her a glance. Charlie informed Graham, icily, “I didn’t ask for your help last night. And I didn’t ask for your help now.”

Graham’s mouth flapped open in disbelief and outrage, and Charlie inwardly cursed because, even covered in paint and acting like an ogre, the man made her knees weak.

“You were about to run screaming into the night before I showed up,” he growled through clenched teeth.

“I don’t run from anything, including men like Earl McPhee or men like you. I dealt with Max Sibley for twenty-eight years. Believe that dealing with you two is a piece of cake,” she retorted.

His nostrils flared in anger as he said in a low and dangerous tone, “Are you actually comparing me to Earl McPhee?”

“Of course not,” she said, annoyed. “But, I didn’t ask you to step in last night, and I didn’t ask you to step in just now.”

Graham snorted in disbelief then threw the rag on the porch. He cast a quick glance at her sisters and said tightly, “Kendra and Quinn, always a pleasure.”

He shot Charlie another venom-filled look then stormed off the porch. He climbed into his truck and slammed the door so hard that Charlie briefly wondered if the glass would break. The truck kicked up dirt as it fishtailed then righted before Graham sped from the yard.

Tears coated Charlie’s eyes, and she blamed it on her stinging elbow that she had bumped on the ladder on her way down. Graham’s obvious dislike for her had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Quinn and Kendra suddenly moved in front of her, with identical expressions of murder on their faces.

“If you’ve run off Graham, I will never forgive you,” Quinn announced, then gingerly stepped over the paint puddles to walk into the house.

“Do you have to do everything in your power to alienate the one decent-looking man in this town?” Kendra asked, angrily. “I’m not even going to ask what happened last night because I don’t want to know, but you better make this right, Charlie. If I have to spend the next two weeks with just you two for company, things are going to get real unpleasant around here.”

Kendra jogged off the porch and down the road. Charlie sighed then looked at the paint-splattered porch. She should have stayed in L.A. She didn’t belong here. That much was clear.

Graham sped down the highway towards Bentonville. After his detour to the Sibley house, and then the return trip to his house to shower and change, he was running an hour late to pick up Theo from the local airport in Bentonville. Graham had turned off his cell phone fifty miles back after Theo’s sixth call demanding to know where he was. Theo and his Armani suits would not be able to tolerate the Bentonville airport for long, although airport was too nice a term for the one-room building with three chairs and a counter for the guard, Old Man Harris, to sit at and read the paper.

Graham knew exactly who to blame for the complaining he would have to endure from Theo during the one-hour drive back to Sibleyville. Charlie Sibley. He had not been exaggerating. The woman was a menace. Practically every time he was around her, he ended up with a bruise somewhere.

Graham refused to feel the slightest bit of guilt as her hurt expression swam through his mind. Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have screamed at her, but his heart had leaped into his throat when he had seen her balancing on a wooden ladder as old as he was. Graham had stopped at their house to ask them to dinner that night, but he had gotten distracted by Charlie. First, he had noticed her very nice-looking legs in a pair of shorts, then he had noticed her obvious plan to break those gorgeous legs. He had envisioned her tumbling from the ladder and breaking her neck, and that thought had shaken him, which had made him more curt than usual. And then the little fool had fallen.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel. He refused to dwell on the sight of her falling off the ladder. It was too disturbing.

Graham cursed again because he remembered the feel of Charlie on top of him. He usually liked his women slim, sophisticated and lethal, like Kendra, but he had momentarily forgotten that when Charlie’s softness and curves had been pressed against him. His one thought at that moment had been to hold her as long as he could. And maybe that was why Graham had become so angry at her. Yes, she was a menace and didn’t know her right hand from her left, but…there was something there.

Charlie shook his head at his thoughts. He had always been honest with himself and the idea of plunging in between her thighs and getting his hands on those luscious breasts had been his one driving thought since he had dodged Earl’s first punch. All of his dreams, or, more appropriately, porn-star fantasies last night had been about her—that is when the aches and pains from the fight weren’t enough to keep him awake.

The one-room Bentonville Airport came into view around the next bend. It wasn’t really an airport. It was just a building that local pilots used to hang out in while refueling. Graham pulled into the parking lot and bit his bottom lip to keep from laughing.

Theo sat on the sidewalk curb, next to one large designer suitcase. Old Man Harris’s beagle sat next to Theo, or actually on top of Theo, his nose close to Theo’s crotch. Graham could not picture Theo willingly allowing a dog to come near his designer suit, but then again Graham could not picture Theo anywhere near Sibleyville.

Theo was fastidious about his appearance and his surroundings. Three-piece suits and wingtips were not just part of his professional appearance, but a way of life. Graham would bet that Theo did not own a pair of jeans or tennis shoes. Nike and Adidas did not exist in Theo’s world. Theo’s ruthlessly short black hair was neat to the point of obsession. His chocolate-brown skin always gleamed, and his teeth were sparkling white and even.

Theo stood when he saw Graham get out of the truck. He whipped off his designer sunglasses and crossed his arms over his chest.

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