His By Any Means: The Black Sheep's Inheritance

She took a sip of wine and he watched, hypnotized by the movement in her throat as she swallowed. Not good.

“Eleven years,” she said, setting the goblet back onto the table and sliding her fingertips up and down the long, elegant stem.

Sage’s gaze fixed on to that motion, and his brain fogged over even as his body went rock hard. He had to force himself to pay attention when she continued to speak quietly.

“When my father got sick, it was such a blessing to be able to help my mom take care of him.” Old pain etched itself into her eyes briefly. “After he died, I realized that I was more interested in taking care of people one-on-one than in a hospital setting. I decided to become a private nurse. So I could make a real difference in the lives of families who were going through what we went through.”

Was she really as selfless and kind as she appeared? He wanted to spot deception, gamesmanship in her eyes, but those soft blue depths remained as clear and guileless as ever. Was she really that good an actress, he wondered. Or was she really an innocent?

No, he mentally assured himself. There were no innocents anymore. And a woman this staggeringly beautiful had no doubt learned before she was five just how to work a man.

Pleased that he’d managed to wrest control of his own urges, he asked, “How long ago did you lose your father?”

“Six years,” she said softly and her features once again twisted with sorrow.

“Then,” she added, “Mom and I both decided we needed a change, a chance to get away from the memories, so we left California and came here.”

“Why Cheyenne?”

She laughed a little and her blue eyes sparkled with it. Instantly, his control drowned in a sea of pulsing desire that grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let go.

“You won’t believe it.”

“Try me.”

“Okay.” She leaned in a little closer, as if telling a funny story. Unfortunately, this increased his view of the delectable cleavage that dress displayed.

“We laid a map of the U.S. out on the dining room table and Mom closed her eyes and poked her finger down. She hit Cheyenne and here we are.”

Surprise and a bit of admiration rose up inside him, however reluctantly. “Just like that. You packed up and moved to somewhere you’d never been before.”

“It was an adventure,” she told him with a smile. “And we both needed one. Watching someone you love die by inches is horrible. At least you were spared that. I know it’s not much comfort though.”

He didn’t speak because, frankly, what the hell could he say? She’d obviously had a much better relationship with her father than he’d had with his.

“Although,” she added, “the snow was hard to get used to. We’re California girls through and through, so we needed a whole new wardrobe when we got here.”

“I can imagine.” His mind brought up the image of her seeing her first snowfall, and he almost wished he’d been there to witness it.

“When your winter coat is a sweatshirt and you can wear flip-flops year-round...” Another bright smile. “Let’s just say it was even more of an adventure than we’d thought it would be.”

“But you enjoy it?”

“I love it,” she said simply. “I’d never had a change of season before. I love the fall. And the snow is so beautiful. Then the spring when everything comes alive again. Mostly though, I love the mountains.”

“Me, too.” Funny, he hadn’t thought they’d find common ground, but here it was. Unless, his mind chided, she was saying what she thought he wanted to hear. After all, if J.D. had talked about him as she said, then she knew Sage owned a ranch in the high country, and why else would he do that if he didn’t love the mountains?

“I know... J.D. told me about your ranch.”

Ha! Proof then. But he played along. “If I can help it, I rarely come down off the mountain into the city.”

“I know that, too,” she said, her hand stilling on the wineglass. “J.D. talked about you a lot. How you preferred your ranch to anywhere else in the world. He missed seeing you, but said that you almost never left the ranch.”

A flare of something hot slashed through him. Guilt? He didn’t do guilt. “J.D. didn’t have much room to talk. You could hardly blast him off the Big Blue with a stick of dynamite.”

“True,” she said, agreeing with him. “He told me. Truth is, he used to worry that you were too much like him. Too ready to cut yourself off from everything.”

“I’m not cut off.” Hadn’t Dylan said the same thing to him just hours ago? Why did everyone assume that because a man was happy where he was that he was missing out on other things?

“Aren’t you?” It was softly asked, but no less invasive.

He stiffened and the desire pumping through him edged back just a little. Sage hadn’t brought her there to talk about him.

“No,” he assured her, and even he heard the coolness in his tone. “Just because I didn’t visit J.D. doesn’t mean I’m a damn hermit.”

Hermits had a hell of a lot more peace and quiet than he ever got. It wasn’t that Sage didn’t love his family, he did. He only preferred the solitude of his ranch because nothing good ever came of mixing with people—

He cut that thought off and buried it amid the rubble of his memories.

“He missed you.”

Three words that hurt more than he would have thought possible. Sage and J.D. had been at odds for so many years, it was hard to remember a time when things were different. He didn’t want to feel another sting of guilt, but how the hell could he avoid it? J.D. had been old and sick and still Sage hadn’t been able to get past their differences. Would that haunt him for the rest of his life? Would he have yet another regret to add to the multitude he already carried?

Shaking his head, he told her, “Our arguments were legendary. J.D. and I mixed about as well as oil and water. There’s just no way he missed me, so you don’t have to worry about telling pretty lies and trying to make me feel better. I know the truth.”

About that, anyway.

“It’s not a lie,” she said, pausing for another sip of her wine.

What was it about the woman’s throat and the slim elegance of it that fascinated him?

“He did miss you.” She smiled at him again and the warmth in her eyes washed over him. “He told me about your arguments. And really, I think he missed them. He had no one to butt heads with, and that must have been frustrating for a man as strong and powerful as he once was.”

Frowning now, Sage saw that she might just have a point. Even though his relationship with J.D. had never been a close one, he knew that his adoptive father had gone through life like a charging bull. Putting his head down and rushing at problems, determined to knock them out of his way through sheer force of will.

J.D. Lassiter had been the kind of man who let nothing stand between him and his goals. He’d bent the world to his whim and pushed those around him into line—or in Sage’s case, had tried to. For him to be reduced to a sick bed because his heart had turned on him must have been wildly frustrating. Surprisingly, Sage felt a twinge of sympathy for the old man rattle around inside him before he could stop it.

“He told me that he and his wife adopted you and Dylan when you were boys.”

Seemed J.D. had talked her damn ears off. Which gave him hope that somewhere in there, he might have confessed the reasons behind his will.

“They did,” he said and reluctantly was tossed into the past.

He had been six and Dylan four when they went to live on Big Blue. Their parents had just been killed in a traffic accident and they’d clung to each other in an unfamiliar world. Then J.D. and Ellie had swooped in and suddenly, everything was different. Their lives. Their home. Their parents. All new. All so damned hard to accept. At least for Sage. Dylan, maybe because he was younger, had accepted the change in their lives with much more ease.

Sage had refused to let go of his memories...of the life he’d been forced to surrender. He’d bucked against the rules, had fought with his new parents and in general been a pain in the ass, now that he thought about it. He’d grumbled about everything, comparing their new life to the old and the new always came up short.

Ellie had tried relentlessly, through patience and love, to get through to Sage and eventually she’d succeeded. But J.D. hadn’t had the patience to carefully win Sage over. Instead, he’d simply demanded respect and affection and Sage had refused to give either.