The Marriage Maker

With one more searching look at her face, Edward smoothed the front page absently, then bent his head. “Well,” he said, smoothing the paper again. “Lyle Brooks finally broke ground for that resort/casino complex he’s been talking up all over town.”

Celeste frowned. That young man was some sort of kin on the Kincaid side and she’d never felt comfortable around him. “But isn’t the casino part of the Laughing Horse Reservation? How is Lyle involved?”

It was banker Frannie who answered. “Because Indian laws allow gambling, the casino will be on the Laughing Horse reservation, Aunt Celeste. But the accompanying resort will be on Kincaid land. Lyle’s put together the financing for both projects.” She didn’t look any more at ease about the young man than Celeste felt. “In ten years the whole thing will move out of Kincaid/Laughing Horse hands and into those of a joint corporation, headed by Lyle.”

Celeste should have been happy that they were off the subject of her nightmares, but suddenly the whole notion of Lyle and the disturbance of Kincaid land chilled her. A shiver racked her body. Yvette’s hand moved across the table to cover Celeste’s left one, the ache in it more pronounced than usual.

“Celeste, what’s the matter?” Yvette asked.

Another shiver rattled over Celeste’s spine. “There’s just something about Lyle I don’t like,” she said to her sister. “Maybe it’s because he reminds me of Jeremiah.”

At the mention of their elder brother’s name, silence fell around the table. When he’d been murdered, the violence had been shocking, but they hadn’t mourned him. He’d been cold and controlling all his life.

Celeste took a long breath, sorry to have brought her brother’s name into their warm circle. She looked from face to face, trying to gauge their moods. Edward and Yvette were concerned about her, she could see, while Frannie looked almost embarrassed. Standing behind Cleo, two worry lines bisected Jasmine’s smooth forehead. And Cleo—her beautiful, motherly Cleo—looked ready to fight tigers on Celeste’s behalf. But even underneath all her bristling protectiveness Celeste sensed in her older daughter another kind of sadness…

Yvette squeezed Celeste’s hand. “We love you,” she said.

Oh. And she loved them all and wanted them so much to be happy. With her right hand she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, intent on moistening her throat to tell them so.

But the coffee sloshed over her hand instead, and she didn’t even notice the slight scald, because suddenly that frightening maelstrom of emotion, that nightmare hangover, rose up within her once again. There was no controlling it.

She looked around at the faces of her family, but the feeling stayed, pulsing inside her.

It was powerful and dark and she finally, finally, knew its terrifying name.

The emotion that always remained with her after the horrible dream was…shame.

Celeste dropped her gaze, unable to meet the eyes of her caring, beloved family. Because just as certain as she was that it was shame trying to claw its way out of her heart, she was quite sure her family would condemn her if they knew that long ago she had…she had…

What?

Oh, God. Despite the acknowledgment of that feeling of shame, despite thirty years of terror-filled nights, Celeste just didn’t know.

She didn’t know what terrifying, shameful thing she had done.

Two

Ethan Redford sat in his newly purchased Range Rover outside White horn, Montana’s Bean sprouts day care center. Out his tinted windows he had a perfect view of the center’s fenced playground. Under the watchful gaze of several women he didn’t recognize, little kids built sandcastles, slid down a wavy slide, made imaginary meals in a gaily painted playhouse. Pleasing though the sight was, Ethan’s fingertips drummed the saddle-colored leather armrest.

He was stalling.

As humbling as the confession might be, he had to admit to himself that the idea of confronting Cleo Monroe after his abrupt, three-month absence was making his palms sweat. Hell! And this from a man who’d faced down his drunken, raging father at nine years old and brokered his first multimillion-dollar merger at thirty.

He rubbed his hands against his deliberately casual khaki slacks. Though the deal he wanted to propose today was the most important of his life, he knew it wasn’t the moment for an Armani suit and his best silk tie. For Cleo, he needed to appear approachable instead of powerful. Friendly, not frightening.

Cleo.

As if thinking her name had summoned her, the woman he’d been fantasizing about for three months stepped from the back door of the stucco building onto the fenced play yard. Instantly she was surrounded, little kids clamoring for her attention, little hands patting her legs, little fingers grabbing her hands.

Kind of like what he wanted to do. Grabbing her sounded good to him, too.

Ethan closed his eyes and groaned, remembering the sweet, silky feel of Cleo’s skin. He saw the voluptuous rise of her breasts over her lacy bra and felt again the tremors shaking her body as he brushed his thumbs over her nipples. He groaned again.

When he’d left Cleo that night, he’d considered himself pretty damn heroic for backing away from the wildfire of their mutual physical attraction. He hadn’t wanted to lead her on. She was the marrying kind, and he wasn’t. She deserved a man prepared for the type of family life she undoubtedly desired, and that hadn’t been him, by any means.

Fate must be laughing its head off about right now.

To the faint echoes of its capricious guffaws, Ethan forced himself out of his car and then reached into the rear seat for what had brought him from Houston back to White horn, back to Cleo. He wrestled a bit with the latch that released the baby carrier from its car seat base, letting loose a soft curse.

Guilt gave him a little jab and he quickly apologized to the blond, wide-eyed baby staring up at him. “Sorry, Jonah.” And sorry to you too, Della. The boy’s mother wouldn’t appreciate the child’s first word being something better suited to a locker room than a nursery. He took a breath, pushing away the pain that came when he thought of Della. The only thing he could do for her now was to take care of Jonah.

That was where Cleo came in.

At the reception desk inside Bean sprouts, Ethan asked to speak with the center’s director—Cleo. The young receptionist gave him a friendly smile and after rising from her chair to peek at Jonah, told Ethan they didn’t take children until they were two years old. She would be happy to place his name on their waiting list.

Ethan bared his teeth in what he hoped would pass for a smile, and mildly asked once again to see the Bean sprouts director. When the still-friendly but outright curious receptionist gave in and showed him into a small office, she asked his name.

Ethan told her he wanted to keep it a surprise.

He sure as hell hoped Cleo liked surprises.

When she walked through the office door, it was obvious she didn’t. As she caught sight of him, her feet stopped before the rest of her body did and she grabbed the doorjamb to keep herself from pitching forward. Expressions chased them selves across her face. Ethan couldn’t separate them all—but the last one he read loud and clear.

It was as cool and distant as her voice. “Ethan Redford,” she said as if he’d never tasted the hot wetness of her mouth. Then her gaze dropped to the infant carrier he held against his chest as if it were a shield. She blinked, shook her head a little, blinked again.

“Who? What?” Her cheeks flushed a deep pink. “Oh,” she said.

Oh? What did she mean by that significant oh? And then it hit him.

Uh-oh.

“The baby’s not mine,” he said quickly. But then he had to correct himself. “Well, he is mine, but—” From the look on her face this wasn’t going well. He sighed. “It’s complicated.”

Cleo took a breath and Ethan pretended he wasn’t aware of the way her breasts pressed against the long-sleeved white T-shirt she wore. “What do you want, Ethan?”

He sighed again. “That’s complicated, too.” The smile he gave her was supposed to be charming, but she looked distinctly unmoved. “Could we talk?”

With a little roll of one of her shoulders, she fully entered the room and shut the office door behind her. Then she walked past him, the familiar, delicate flower scent of her perfume brushing by him nonchalantly. Cleo’s T-shirt was tucked into a long denim skirt that showed off her small waist and rounded hips and he had to look away until she was completely seated behind her desk.

She linked her fingers on the surface of a blotter-size calendar full of notations in neat, rounded handwriting. “What would you like to say, Ethan?”

He’d like to say he wished like hell they’d not been interrupted by her mother’s nightmare that evening. He’d like to say that he’d been thinking of her kisses, of her skin, of the beauty of her wavy, russet hair for the past three months. He’d like to say that even in the midst of grief and worry, the memory of her smile and laughter had been a warm beacon.

Instead he sat in a chair across from her, the infant carrier resting on his knees. “This is my nephew, Jonah,” he said simply. “And the day I left your mother’s bed-and-break fast, I was called away because Jonah’s mother, my sister, had been the victim of a carjacking.”

One of Cleo’s hands rose to cover her mouth.

He went on doggedly. It wasn’t an easy story to tell. “I probably should have left you some word, or called you when I reached Houston, but all I could think about was Della and Jonah. She was in intensive care with head injuries and Jonah was missing.”