Holiday Homecoming

“Bah, humbug,” Cain said with a slight smile, wishing that the feeble joke would ease the growing tension in him. A tension that had started when Jack had first asked him to return to Silver Creek. “You know that for people like us there are no holidays. They’re the heavy times in the year. I look forward to Christmas the way Ebenezer did. You get through it and make as much money as you can.”

Jack didn’t respond with any semblance of a smile. Instead, he muttered, “God, you’re cynical.”

“Realistic,” Cain amended with a shrug. “But is it so important to you that I go to Silver Creek now?”

“Like I said, it’s the holidays, and that means friends. Josh is there, and Gordie, who’s at his clinic twenty-four hours a day. We can get drunk, ski down Main Street or take on Killer Run again. Whatever you want.”

Jack, Josh and Gordie were as close to a family as Cain had had as a child. The orphanage hadn’t been anything out of Dickens, but it hadn’t been family. His three friends were. The four of them had done everything together, including getting into trouble and wiping out on Killer Run. “Tempting,” Cain said, a pure lie at that moment. “But no deal.”

“I won’t stop asking,” Jack said.

Cain stood and crossed to the built-in bar by the bank of windows. He ignored the alcohol and glasses and picked up a pack of unopened cards, one of several. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrors behind the bar before he turned to Jack. He was tall, about Jack’s height at six foot one or so, with dark hair worn a bit long like Jack’s, and brushed by gray like Jack’s. His eyes, though, were deep blue, in contrast to Jack’s, which were almost black.

Cain was sure he could match Jack dollar for dollar if he had to, and just as Jack didn’t look like the richest man in Silver Creek, Cain didn’t fit the image of a wealthy hotel-casino owner in Las Vegas. Few owners dressed in Levi’s and T-shirts; even fewer went without any jewelry, including a watch. He had a closet full of expensive suits and silk shirts, but he hardly ever wore them. Still, he fit in at the Dream Catcher Hotel and Casino. It was about the only place he’d ever fit in. He didn’t fit in Silver Creek. He never had.

He went back to Jack with the cards, broke the seal on the deck, and as he slipped the cards out of the package, he said, “Let’s settle this once and for all.”

“I’m not going to play poker with you,” Jack told him. “I don’t stand a chance.”

Cain eyed his friend as he sat by him on the couch. “We’ll keep it simple,” he murmured. He took the cards out of the box, tossed the empty box on the onyx coffee table in front of them and shuffled the deck. “We’ll cut for it. I’ll even let you pick high or low to win.”

“What’s at stake?” Jack asked.

“If you win, I’ll head north to Silver Creek for a few days around the holidays.”

Jack took the deck when Cain offered it to him. He shuffled the cards again, then put them facedown on the coffee table. But he didn’t cut them. He cast Cain a sideways glance. “How much time does this cover—your not returning to Silver Creek?”

“Forever, or until I decide that I want to go back.”

Jack hesitated. He wasn’t a gambler like Cain. He’d been born to money. Cain had been born to nothing, and finally had something. Cain was used to gambling in every sense of the word. And he was used to winning. “High card wins?” Jack finally said.

Cain nodded.

“Okay.” Jack picked up a third of the deck and turned the bottom card up so they could both see it. An ace of hearts. Usually the best card in the deck. But not for Cain this time. “Two out of three?” he suggested.

Jack laughed. “Hell, no, I’m standing pat.”

Cain sat back, raking his fingers through his dark hair with a rough sigh. “I thought you would.”

Jack stood and reached for his suede jacket. “When will you be home?” he asked.

Cain glanced up at him. He wouldn’t argue with Jack about where home was. Instead, he spoke truthfully. “I’ve got a lot to do here. I’ll call you and tell you.”

Jack didn’t move. “When?” he repeated.

Cain held up both hands, palms out to Jack in surrender. “Okay, okay, let me check my calendar.”

“Oh, sure, what calendar? You sleep, you work, you eat. Take out the work part, and you can eat and sleep in Silver Creek.” He grinned. “And we’ve got the best snow this year. The skiing is fantastic.”

Cain never skied anymore. Once the sport had been his lifeline. He’d sneak out of the orphanage and head for the mountain to Killer Run—the Killer, as they’d called it. At dawn it had been all his, and he’d savored the freedom of it. “Did you ever get the land with the Killer on it from Old Man Jennings?” he asked, remembering that some time ago Jack had said he wanted to include the run in the runs at the resort, for advanced skiers.

Jack shook his head. “No, the old man’s as stubborn in death as he was when he was alive. His heir doesn’t want to part with it.” He smiled slightly as he shrugged into his jacket. “But I can change that.”

Cain stood to face Jack. “I’m sure you will,” he said. “Okay, I’ll be up sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.”

Jack clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m holding you to it, Cain. I’ll tell Joshua and Gordie and the four of us will be together for a few days.”

“You do that,” he murmured as he walked with Jack to the elevator.

Jack turned back to Cain as the elevator door opened. “I can’t wait,” he said, and got into the car.

Cain didn’t move until the door had slid shut behind Jack, then he headed for his office off the living area. He’d figure how to get out of going back to Silver Creek later, but right now, he had work that wouldn’t keep.

He didn’t make it to the office before the phone sitting on the black enamel table behind the couch rang. He reached for it, glanced at the caller ID and recognized the cell phone number on the readout. “Jack?” he said as he answered it.

Jack didn’t hesitate. “Stop thinking about ways to get out of this bet. You can come up before Christmas. I’ll reserve a cabin for you from the twelfth with an open departure date.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jack said, and hung up.

Cain put the phone back and kept going to his office. He dropped into the black leather chair behind his glass-topped desk in the book-lined room and stared down at the Strip.

Going back. He exhaled, and speculated he should have stacked the cards. Anything not to be in the position he was now in. He’d have to go back to Silver Creek, stay a few days, then leave. But he knew with a certainty that after he left, he’d never go back to Silver Creek again.

Chapter One

Cain returned to Silver Creek exactly one week before Christmas. He drove through the massive stone-pillar gates of the Inn at Silver Creek and wended his way up the brick drive, banked on either side with plowed snow. He went toward the main lodge, a meandering building that ran north-south and changed in height from three stories to one, then to two and back to three. Against the backdrop of snow, the wood-and-stone structure looked determinedly rustic. No, it looked like a rich man’s version of rustic, from the stained glass windows that rivaled those of Italian cathedrals, to the massive stone chimneys puffing smoke into the late-afternoon air.

He drove past the main entrance and valet parking and headed to the far end of the lodge, which rose three stories into the darkening skies. He pulled his new SUV into a slot marked Private and stopped, then pushed the door. A blast of frigid air hit him as he stepped onto the cleared cobbled pavement. He’d made good on the payment for his bet. He was in Silver Creek. He’d stay for a few days, maybe leave after two, if he could work it out. He’d play things by ear.

He hunched into the chilling wind that whipped off the towering Sierra Nevada, which framed the town on the east and west, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black leather bomber jacket. He looked around at the grounds of the Inn at Silver Creek—Jack’s project that had been going on forever. A posh, expensive, very private ski resort for the rich and sometimes famous or infamous, built on land that Jack’s family had owned since the founding of the town.

The resort now sprawled over acres and acres of mountain terrain, offering secluded cabins for those who could afford them and promising the most precious commodity money could buy: privacy. The main building contained suites, gathering rooms and two separate restaurants, with enough luxury to satisfy the most discriminating guest.

Cain turned to the lodge and took the cleared steps to the door marked Private. Without warning, the door opened and a young guy in slouchy snow gear rushed out. “Sorry, dude,” the guy muttered as he barely avoided a collision with Cain. Then, with a “Merry Christmas!” tossed over his shoulder, he jumped down the steps and loped toward the main trail that led to the scattered private lodges.

“Bah, humbug,” Cain breathed roughly.

He stepped inside, into a wide hallway with stone floors, aged wooden walls in a deep cherrywood polished to a mellow glow and the sense of luxury—from the Persian rug runners to the paintings on the wall, which had their own security system to protect them. Christmas music was piped in, and someone had discreetly nestled small twinkling lights in the crown molding between the wood of the wall and the beamed ceiling.

He never had been comfortable with wealthy trappings, even at the casino, and at this time of year, the extras for the holidays made his discomfort even worse. He suspected that was why he kept his penthouse sparsely furnished, without any great works of art or any antiques. There wasn’t a trace of gold in the place or a trace of Christmas. You could take the orphan out of the orphanage, but you couldn’t take the orphanage out of the orphan, he mused as he undid his jacket and headed toward a barely visible door in the paneling to his left.

He hit a button that exposed a security number panel, put in the code, then stood back, waiting for the elevator. He didn’t want to be here, but he’d see his friends, then he’d leave. For good. He couldn’t think of one reason to come back here again.

The elevator went directly to Jack’s living quarters on the third floor, and when the door finally slid open for Cain to get into the elevator, he wasn’t expecting to encounter anyone. If he had, he would have expected it to be with Jack, or possibly Jack’s second-in-command, a huge man named Malone.

Instead, Cain came face-to-face with a woman. She was tiny, barely five feet in height, he’d guess, almost drowning in a heavy navy jacket, jeans and huge snow boots. Fiery auburn hair was caught back in a high ponytail, and he could make out a suggestion of freckles dusting an upturned nose on a finely boned face. His eyes roamed her face. She didn’t appear to be wearing any makeup, not even lipstick on provocatively full lips. Then he met her gaze. Amber eyes, and they were staring at him.