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“Quiet!” Jed snapped his fingers. “Sit!”
The dog sat.
With soundless steps, Jedidiah headed along the shadowy corridor to the kitchen. Ahead, the kitchen door was ajar; the room in darkness.
He halted just outside the doorway and listened. He heard nothing but the faint hum of the fridge. The room had that ‘empty’ feel to it.
Nerves jumping nevertheless, he snapped on the light.
Everything looked as it had when he’d left.
He opened the fridge door. And was about to close it when he noticed that yesterday’s leftover soup was gone.
Frowning, he opened the dishwasher.
The soup bowl was in the lower rack. Along with two soup plates and two side plates. Two spoons and a knife were slotted in the cutlery rack.
Adrenaline rushed through his veins. Someone had been here. Had eaten in his kitchen—
From the foyer came the sound of Max growling. A low, menacing sound, deep in the animal’s throat, a growl that stirred the hair at Jed’s nape.
He headed back along the corridor, keeping close to the wall.
Max was in his line of sight.
The intruder was not.
The Lab’s hackles were up, and he was staring at somebody Jed couldn’t see. Max’s fangs gleamed white as he pulled his mouth back in a hostile snarl.
Warily, Jed edged forward, inch by inch, till he could peek around the corner—
The intruder was a woman. And one he had never seen before.
His astonished gaze flicked over her. Young and attractive, the stranger had a petite figure swamped in an oversize white shirt that billowed out over a pair of jeans. Her hair was honey-blond and long. Her face was heart-shaped and white. Her eyes were dark-lashed and gray.
And those dark-lashed gray eyes were fixed, with a wide look of terror, on Max.
Max was glaring, equally intensely, at her.
She took a cautious half step forward. Max growled.
She swiftly stepped back. Max barked.
She looked as if she was about to start crying.
Jed muttered, “Damn!” and walked into the foyer.
When she saw him, she almost jumped out of her skin. Good grief, he thought, she’s a bag of nerves. But what the hell was she doing in his house?
“Max, shut up!” He signaled and the dog slunk over. “Kitchen!”
The Lab departed. With obvious reluctance.
Jed turned again to the stranger and felt a jolt of alarm when he saw that her face had gone from deathly white to a sickly green. She was staring at him as if he were a specter. For the first time he noticed the purple shadows smudging the skin under her eyes—eyes that had taken on the glazed expression of somebody in deep shock.
Was she going to pass out? He poised to move and catch her if it became necessary.
She pressed the fingertips of her left hand to her throat. He saw she was wearing a plain gold band on her ring finger.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice came out in a raw whisper. “It’s just that…I thought for a moment…”
He glowered at her. “Thought what?”
“I thought—” she cleared her throat of its huskiness “—I thought…for a second…that you were…Chance.”
Chance? Now Jed was the one who was shocked. Shocked and utterly confused. What did this woman want? And why was she standing, in his house, talking about the one person in the world he hated with an obsession that bordered on insanity?
“Who the hell are you?” He clenched his hands into fists…and saw her flinch.
Drawing in a sharp breath, she stared at him. “I’m Sarah.” Her voice held a tremor. “Sarah Morgan.”
“Morgan?”
“Your…sister-in-law.”
“Sister-in-law?” He was beginning to sound like an imbecilic parrot.
“Yes.” Her voice had steadied somewhat. “I’m Chance’s wife—” she grimaced “—Chance’s widow, I mean. I find it difficult to get used to saying that, after—”
“Chance is dead?”
“He died, in a car accident, seven months ago.”
Sarah had never seen anyone lose color so quickly.
But even as she felt a surge of compassion for him, she struggled to regain her own equilibrium after the shock she had just received. It had never occurred to her that Chance and his brother would be so alike.
The hair was the same: coal-black, rich. The features were the same: lean, rugged. The eyes: green, deep set. The nose: ridged. The figure: tall, rangy…
The only difference she could see was one of attitude. Whereas Chance had had the con man’s built-in charm, his older brother had a dark, brooding aura reminiscent of a character in some Gothic novel.
“You just turn up here, out of the blue, to tell me my brother’s dead?” His tone was harsh with animosity. “Okay, you’ve told me.” His black eyebrows beetled down over his hostile eyes. “So now you can go.”
Good grief, the man was a Heathcliff clone! Sarah speared him with an incredulous glare. “You’d put us out in this storm?”
His lips thinned. “Ah, yes. Us. Two plates, two spoons. So…who did Goldilocks bring with her? A lover perhaps?”
Sarah’s mouth fell open. She’d just told this man her husband was dead and he was accusing her of—oh, unbelievable! Her outrage almost choked her.
“Not a lover?” He raised the dark eyebrows cynically. “Then just…a friend?”
“No.” She sent him a look as hostile as any of his own. “I have my children with me. Emma and Jamie. They’re sleeping, at the moment, in your sitting room.”
He looked at her for a long, stark moment, and then he laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “So you’ve brought children with you. Chance’s children, I presume?”
“Of course!” Anger sent blood racing to her cheeks. “Of course they’re Chance’s children!”
“Then you have even more nerve than I’d imagined, Mrs. Sarah Morgan.’ His face had become completely devoid of emotion. “Now if you’ll tell me what you’ve really come for, we can get it over with and you can be on your way.”
Her expression must have told its own story.
His smile was grim. “How did I know? Well, if you’d just wanted to tell me my brother was dead, a phone call—even a letter—would have done the trick. So, Mrs. Morgan, what is it that you want from me?”
She hated him. Didn’t even know him but hated him already. “I need money,” she said in a frigid tone. “When your brother died, I discovered he’d left a mountain of unpaid bills. I can’t afford to pay them, and—”
“How cleverly put,” he jeered. “‘My brother.’ Let me put that another way for you. Shall we call him…your husband?”
Hateful, despicable…malicious. “All right,” she retorted. “My husband. But he was your brother.”
“So,” he said. “How much?”
It was a huge amount. She tried not to stumble over it.
He shrugged. “Fine. When you get where you’re going, send me the request in writing, and I’ll courier you a certified cheque.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I appreciate—”
“If that’s it—” his tone was brusque “—I’d like you to get in your car—I assume you came by car?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’d like you to take your children, and get in your car, and get off the mountain right now.”
Sarah tried not to wither under his glittering green gaze. “The children are exhausted. Could we possibly stay here, just for tonight?”
“And have me risk being stuck with you if the track gets washed out before morning? No way!”
“Please?” She hated begging, but hated even more the prospect of waking Emma and Jamie and then trying to maneuver the Cutlass downhill in the stormy dark. And where to go from there? She suppressed a shudder. “I promise,” she said, “I’ll be out of here first thing in the morning.”
His lips compressed so tightly they almost disappeared.
“All right,” he snapped. “You can use the sitting room and the main floor powder room, just for tonight. But in the morning, you’re history. Understood?”
“Heard and understood.” She almost added a sarcastic ‘sir,’ but thought better of it. He was, after all, doing her a favor. So she just said, “Thank you. And thank you for agreeing to pay Chance’s debts—I’ll pay you back no matter how long it takes….”
But he’d already taken off, heading for the kitchen. His steps were purposeful. The steps of a man who knew where he was going and would let no one stand in his way.
Sarah slumped, feeling as if she’d been put through a wringer. But she’d achieved one goal—though it wasn’t the main one that had drawn her here, the one that was far more important than borrowing money to pay off Chance’s debts.
He’d never know her real reason for seeking him out. He’d never know how she’d hoped and prayed that Jedidiah Morgan would turn out to be a kindly man. A man who’d give his brother’s family a warm welcome and let her stay at his home, with her children, till such time as she could once more cope with the difficult time that lay ahead.
What a fool she’d been. ‘Kindly’ was the very last word anyone would use to describe Jedidiah Morgan. The man was heartless. And whatever the cause of the estrangement between him and his brother, it was obvious the bitterness of it still remained, even now that Chance was gone.
Jed stared out into the dark, his hands braced against the side frames of his bedroom window.
Chance was dead.
It was the last thing he’d expected to hear.
Six years now since Jeralyn’s death. Six years since his younger brother had fled and disappeared without a trace. Six years during which time he’d let his hatred of Chance build and build and build till now it almost consumed him.
His lips twisted in a bitter smile. So…Chance had never changed. Even in death, he left trouble in his wake. “A mountain of unpaid bills,” she’d called it. Well, to Sarah Morgan it might seem like a mountain; to him it was peanuts. And he was glad to pay the bill. Anything to get rid of that woman and her family, get them off the mountain.
All he wanted, in this life, was to be left alone.
CHAPTER TWO
SARAH woke next morning to the sound of a terse voice saying, “I’m going down the mountain to check that the road hasn’t been washed out. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Before she’d even blinked the sleep from her eyes, the sitting-room door snapped shut. And seconds later, she heard the front door slam.
Pushing aside her blanket, she sat up on the low-slung sofa. She hadn’t drawn the curtains last night, and the room was now filled with gray shadows.
The children were still asleep, Emma on a love seat, Jamie in the depths of a recliner. Sarah felt her heart ache as she looked at them.
They’d adored Chance, and his death had left a big hole in their lives, a hole she tried her best to fill by lavishing all her love on them. But was it enough? She’d been eight when her own father had died, and the loss had been devastating. Years had passed before she’d finally given up hoping that by some miracle he would come back.
Now she was a single mom with a dream that seemed as out of reach as the stars: to have her children grow up in a warm and happy two-parent family.
Rising with a sigh, she tucked her hair behind her ears and crossed to the window. Rain bucketed down and the gale screamed around the corners. She shivered. Not a day to be traveling—
A movement just beyond her Cutlass caught her attention. Jedidiah Morgan was striding across the forecourt, his hair flattened by rain, his rangy frame encased in a navy anorak and jeans. At his heels loped Max. They were headed toward a Range Rover parked under a tree.
As she watched, he opened the driver’s door. The dog leaped up into the vehicle; Jedidiah jumped up after him.
White gravel chips spurted from the wheels as he took off—in a hurry, Sarah thought gloomily, to be rid of her.
Emma stirred.
Sarah went over to sit on the edge of the love seat. “Good morning, honey.” She cuddled her daughter, savoring the sleepy scent from her warm skin. “Time to get up.”
As Emma feathered her tousled hair from her face with spread fingers, her pink cloth doll slid to the floor. Sarah bent to pick it up. Chance had bought the doll for Emma the day she was born, but it had remained nameless till Emma was over a year old, when she’d held it out one day and said proudly, “Girl!” The name had stuck.
Sarah set Girl on the coffee table, and as she did, Jamie stirred. Drowsily, he opened his eyes.
“Good morning, sweetie!” Sarah scooped him up and gave him a big hug.
He twined his arms around her neck. “I’s hungry.”
