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He fitted a smile on his face but was interrupted again. This time his phone erupted with the sounds of a siren. People stopped, turned and stared. She stepped back farther.
“That sounds like an emergency,” she hinted.
* * *
Chance fumbled in his jacket pocket and found the blasted phone. He planned to cheerfully kill whichever brother had reprogrammed his ring tones. Stabbing at the screen, he growled, “What!” He held up an index finger to indicate it would be a short conversation, hoping she’d stay.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?”
Chance could feel his brother’s smirk through the phone. “It’s always a bad time when you call, Cord. Tell the old man not even he can control the weather. I’m stuck in Chicago until this freaking blizzard blows over.”
Chance barely listened, his attention focused on the blonde. Something in her expression captured his interest. Every time she blinked, her lashes appeared to leave bruises under her eyes. He peered closer and noticed the dark circles marring the delicate skin. Sadness. That’s what he saw on her face and in her eyes.
“Chancellor! Are you even listening to me?”
“No.” Not even the use of his full name could distract him.
“Well, you better. He called a family meeting for tomorrow. Clay is flying in from Washington. The old man tried to send one of the planes for you, but every pilot on staff refused to fly because of the weather. Pissed him off to no end, but he couldn’t fire all of them.”
Chance resisted the urge to scrub at his forehead. The old man’s temper and propensity for firing people kept Chance hip deep in fixing the messes made by his father. In fact, he cleaned up all the predicaments his family got embroiled in. It was his duty, according to Cyrus Barron, and part of the price to pay for being a member of one of Oklahoma’s richest and most powerful families. The perks of being a Barron were many, so Chance paid the dues.
“I have a seat on the first flight out in the morning. Any clue about the hornet’s nest we’re walking into?”
“Trouble with a capital T. The old man’s worn a path in the carpet from all his pacing. He keeps muttering something about ‘that old bastard thinks he can outsmart me by dying’ with a lot more choice cuss words sprinkled liberally throughout. He had a map spread out on the conference table, so I have the feeling he’s in acquisition mode and isn’t going to take no for an answer.”
“So what else is new?” The rhetorical nature of the question was lost on Cord. Chance resisted the urge to hang up on his brother as he continued to watch the girl. He liked her looks, but the playboy side of his brain told him to run. The abiding sorrow in her eyes boded nothing but trouble—and entanglements. With his father on the warpath, he couldn’t afford either one. He tuned back in to his brother’s voice.
“It’s not enough that Clay is a senator. The old man is bugging Chase to run for governor next year.”
This was a conversation he didn’t want a stranger to overhear. He turned his back and stepped a few feet away. “Chase? In politics? Oh hell, no. Trouble follows him like an ambulance-chasing lawyer. The old man must be losing his grip on reality.”
“Hey, at least he’s not after you or me, bro.”
Chance snorted. “I had that conversation with the old man when I was twelve.”
Cord laughed again, harder this time. “Yeah, I remember that. You couldn’t sit a saddle for almost a week after he finished tanning your hide with that switch. And he got back at you by making you go to law school.”
Chance turned around just in time to see his plans evaporate behind the elevator doors. He laughed as he saw the woman lean over to continue watching him until the doors closed. His intellect remained curious about her. His body had a more basic interest involving naked skin and sheets. He could still smell the scent of her perfume, or shampoo or simply her. Almonds, orange and a hint of cinnamon—the fragrance as distinctive as the woman. With a frustrated snarl, he focused on his brother’s voice yammering in his ear.
“The old man is livid, Chance. I’ve never seen him like this. Not even when Tammy ran off with the foreman. I’m worried he’s actually going to stroke out.”
Chance rolled his eyes. Tammy was wife number six. Or seven. Half his father’s age and built like Dolly Parton, she’d turned her charms on the ranch foreman and convinced him to take off with her. The Barrons owned the two major papers in Oklahoma so she’d threatened to go to the tabloids with fabricated family secrets. She would sink to that level to cause a scandal. As the family lawyer, Chance negotiated a monetary settlement to avoid the nuisance and filed the divorce papers while the ink was still wet on her signature.
“So what the hell’s going on, Cord? You just cost me a roll in the hay. There’d better be a damn good reason for the old man’s fit.”
“Does the name Ben Morgan mean anything to you?”
Chance rifled through his memory. “Vaguely. Old rodeo cowboy, right?”
“That’s him. The old man and Morgan butted heads a few times, including once over a woman.”
“Aw, hell... Which one of the stepmonsters?”
“That’s the funny thing. None of them. This was years ago. Before he married Mom.”
Chance rubbed his forehead. “Damn, Cord. I know the old man is legendary for holding a grudge, but that’s a little ridiculous.”
“You’re telling me? I’m the one he’s been cussing the last few minutes, ever since he found out Morgan died tonight.” Cord paused for a breath. “He’s upset enough he forgot about your failure to find the colt.”
“Now you’re giving me grief about that, too? Come on.”
“Hey, you know how he reacts to losing, little brother. The good news, he’s distracted. There’s some sort of legal BS involving this Ben Morgan guy. The old man wants you to wade through it. Thought I’d give you a heads-up so you don’t walk in blind.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll fire up the laptop and do some research.”
“I’ll email the particulars. And Chance? Sorry if I messed up any sort of extracurricular activity you might have planned for later.”
“Yeah, right. I can hear the remorse ringing in your voice. I’ll head to the office straight from the airport when I get back tomorrow.”
“I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Chance tapped his phone and dropped it into his pocket. This whole trip had gone to hell in a handbasket, and now he was quoting the old man’s clichés. That was so not a good sign. He glanced toward the bar. The waitress would get off sooner or later but after getting up close and personal with the blonde, his desire for any other woman waned—at least for tonight. In three strides, he reached the elevator and stabbed the button. He had work to do.
Two (#u4ff283cb-3456-5b7a-be51-1f50fa1db1d1)
Cass loosened her seat belt as the flight attendant announced the flight would be delayed. Seemed a passenger was running late. The economy section was packed, so it had to be somebody in first class. She rolled her head on her neck and listened as her vertebrae snapped, crackled and popped. Better to sound like a bowlful of Rice Krispies than suffer the headache that would follow.
She closed her eyes and tried to forget her situation. Going home was always hard—that’s why she’d avoided it for so long, even though Boots had urged her to visit. And now with her dad gone—with things left unsaid and apologies not made, her heart hurt. She swallowed her guilt but it churned in her stomach like raw jalapeños. Cass forced her thoughts away from her dad. She’d say goodbye when she got to the funeral home, but until then, she’d just have to hope he had heard what was in her heart when she talked to him last night.
The pilot’s voice echoed over the intercom, scratchy and hard to hear over the hum of conversations. Evidently, whoever they’d been waiting for had arrived, and they were finally ready for takeoff. She braced her feet against the floor and clasped her hands in her lap. Flying was not her favorite activity, especially getting off the ground and landing. She measured her breathing, concentrating on remaining calm, then remembered the scent of the guy in the hotel. Leather and rain on a hot day. That’s what he smelled like—an odd combination that evoked memories of her childhood growing up on the ranch and around rodeo arenas all over the West.
He’d been wearing a starched white shirt with a button-down collar, like a banker, but it was tucked into a pair of well-fitting jeans, even if they were pressed to a knife-edged crease. Her brow furrowed. He’d also been wearing boots. Not that people in Chicago didn’t wear Western boots. Some of them even wore them “for real,” not just as a fashion statement.
Her stomach dropped away as the plane rumbled into the cloudy skies, chasing all thoughts of the guy out of her head. The fuselage shuddered several times before she heard grinding as the landing gear retracted. The plane continued to climb at a steep incline, and the pilot mumbled something about weather and flying altitude that she couldn’t really hear over the throbbing in her ears. She swallowed to make her eardrums pop, pushed back against her seat and returned to thinking about her close encounter.
Had the timing been different, she might have let the guy buy her a drink, just to see what percolated between them. He was sexy as all get-out. Tall. Muscular. His hands strong as they gripped her arms, but with a certain amount of gentleness. She wasn’t petite by any measure, but he’d towered over her. He radiated heat, too, or maybe he just touched something in her that created heat. She hadn’t been so intrigued by a man in ages. Then she remembered the reason for her trip, and all thoughts of the sexy encounter fled.
I’m sorry, Daddy. She offered the apology to the heavens, knowing it covered so much more than her wayward thoughts. Cass squiggled her nose, fighting the burn of tears. She couldn’t cry. Not here. Not now.
Her dad’s voice echoed softly in her memory, reminding her to be strong. She flashed back to the time she’d just lost the final round of a barrel-racing event by mere tenths of a second. That she’d lost to the reigning national champion, who was twenty years older didn’t mean a thing. At the age of seven, all she’d wanted was that shiny buckle and the saddle that went with it for winning.
“No, Daddy. No time for tears. Cowgirls just get back on and ride.” Back in the present, she whispered the words in the hopes that saying them out loud would make them true. She hadn’t been a cowgirl for ten years. Not since she’d left home to attend college back East. Not since she’d taken the job in Chicago. In fact, she’d only been on a horse a handful of times since then. She hated going home. Hated the heat and dust, the smell of cattle manure.
She didn’t want to be a cowgirl. She’d liquidate the ranch, get Boots set up somewhere comfortable and haul ass back to Chicago where she belonged. No regrets. It’s what her dad would expect her to do. She’d told him often enough she’d never be back, never take over the ranch.
Those guilty jalapeños boiled and raged in her stomach again. Returning to Chicago was the right thing. Really. She conjured up the picture of her close encounter from the night before in her mind, shutting out the remorse. His chiseled face still seemed familiar, and she felt as if she should know him. Was he an actor? Or maybe a professional cowboy? She nudged the feeling this way and that, seeking an answer, but didn’t find one.
The passenger in front of her shoved his seat all the way back jostling her tray table so that the coffee, served moments before by the flight attendant, sloshed out. The man on her right in the window seat snored as his head fell over toward her shoulder. She dodged him but bumped the woman on her left. That earned her a scathing look. Cass rolled her eyes and shrugged. She could only hope this flight from hell ended sooner rather than later.
She gulped what little coffee didn’t spill and passed off the sodden napkin and cup to the attendant as she came back down the aisle. Feeling far too much like a sardine for comfort, Cass closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Thoughts of the handsome cowboy danced in her head. She was positive she knew him from somewhere. Since she didn’t watch much TV, she discarded the idea he might be an actor. Could he be someone she’d met in college? Or, heaven forbid, high school? She didn’t have the best memory for faces, but there was just something about the man.
Giving up any pretense of relaxation, she shoved her tray table up and fastened it with the little lever, using a lot more force than technically necessary. Then she stretched her legs under the seat in front of her and drummed her toes against the bottom of it. When the occupant twisted to stare at her over the top of the reclined seatback, she flashed the smile of a two-year-old brat. And didn’t care. The man eventually turned around and since he raised the seat a few inches, she quit kicking.
More memories of her dad swamped her. Moisture filled her eyes, and her nose stung. She blinked rapidly and had to sort through more guilt. She was a terrible daughter. Her dad had died, and she couldn’t be bothered to get there in time to say goodbye. If she never saw the ranch again, never saw Oklahoma again, it would suit her just fine. Yes, she was selfish. She admitted it. So there. Boots had begged her for months to come, and she’d stalled. Her dad had been too proud to call. And she’d been too proud to bend. Now it was too late.
When the tears finally came, Cass dashed them from her eyes with the back of her hand. Her elbow caught the arm of the passenger sitting on her left. The woman exhaled, the sound uncompromisingly disdainful as she shifted away from the contact. The guy on her right just snored, mouth open and drool threatening Cassie’s wool blazer.
Already walking a fine line between anger and grief, Cass lost control. “Well, pardon my tears.” She didn’t bother to keep her voice down. “My father died last night, and I was stuck in a freakin’ blizzard and didn’t get there in time. I’m on my way home to bury him. If my crying is too much of an imposition, you can just move your...self to another seat.”
Around her, the hum of conversation petered off into silence. She could tell from the heat radiating off her face that she’d turned beet-red—a legacy from her mother. She flushed scarlet whenever she got mad, cried or laughed too hard. Yeah, that was Cassidy Morgan. She wasn’t pretty when her emotions ruled. Unfortunately, that was a great deal of the time. At the moment, her emotions slammed her with a double whammy.
The woman stared, mouth gaping, left speechless by Cassie’s outburst.
Cassie bit back any further retort, instead, settling back into her seat. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared stone-faced straight ahead, ignoring everyone.
* * *
Chance sipped his French roast coffee from a ceramic mug and skimmed the information on his laptop screen. He was learning all sorts of interesting things about his father he couldn’t wait to share with his brothers. To hear the old man tell it now, he’d been born with a gold spoon up his... Chance reined in that thought and tried to scrub the image from his brain.
But back when Chance’s mother was still alive, the old man had been all about hard work and scrabbling to put the Barron name on the map. Chance’s research from the night before showed Cyrus had worked the oil patch, ranched and even been a rodeo rider on the side.
And he’d loved a woman named Colleen before he’d met and married Chance’s mother, Alice. According to the papers at the time, Cyrus Barron had done a stint in county jail after a spectacular fight at a rodeo in Fort Worth. He’d put Ben Morgan in the hospital and ended the man’s promising bronc-riding career. Colleen had turned her back on Cyrus and married Ben within weeks. Oh, yeah. The old man didn’t hold a grudge; he got even. He’d been dogging Ben Morgan’s steps ever since, throwing up roadblocks in an attempt to grind the other man beneath his boot heel. But Ben Morgan didn’t have any “give up” in him. He’d made a life for his wife, first as a supplier of rodeo stock then as a horse trainer.
Chance rubbed the back of his neck. His father was a royal jerk. He couldn’t even let the man have peace in the grave. The email from Cord first thing this morning had confirmed that Morgan had taken out a loan at a small bank—the bank recently purchased by a subsidiary of Barron Enterprises, and he’d used the ranch as collateral. The old man wanted Chance to stop off and pick up the file before coming into the office. Since he could no longer screw with Ben Morgan, Cyrus planned to screw with any heirs or successors his old nemesis might have by calling the note.
Yeah, leave it to his father to be four moves ahead of any opponent. Chance had to admire the old man’s business acumen. He’d thought the acquisition foolish at the time and certainly not worth the hassle of the federal and state banking regulators’ paperwork. Chance had hired a couple of experts in banking law to handle it because Cyrus had remained adamant. The old man wanted the bank. So they’d bought it. Chance knew why now. He tossed off a mental shrug. Barron Enterprises could afford it.
Closing the laptop, he held up his mug for a refill as the flight attendant hovered, a ready smile on her face.
“You know, I have layovers in OKC sometimes,” she whispered. She wrapped one hand around his to steady the cup as she poured, a move he recognized as an excuse to touch him.
Chance glanced up. She was a brunette, in her late twenties, and her trim uniform fit in all the right places. The girl was just his type—female—but even as he smiled, another face appeared in his memory. The blonde from the hotel. His abdomen contracted, and his heart thundered for a few beats. He hadn’t even gotten her name, yet here she was haunting him.
“Sorry, hon. This is just a quick trip for me.” The lie flowed smooth as honey from his mouth. As disappointment registered on her face, Chance wondered what the hell had gotten into him. Why would he turn down a sure thing?
While it was unlikely he’d ever cross paths with the woman, he did have a brother who was a private investigator and ran Barron Security. He’d sic Cash on her trail. All Chance wanted was one night to get her out of his system. That’s all it would take.
He shifted in his seat, glad the tray table and computer disguised his discomfort. He couldn’t pinpoint why the woman had gotten under his skin but she had, like a burr under his saddle. He shoved thoughts of her away and opened his laptop again, hoping to concentrate on the task at hand. He had to squelch his libido and his uneasiness over what his father wanted—the combination made for an odd sensation in and of itself.
The flight attendant scurried toward the economy section. He leaned into the aisle to see what was happening. Three attendants hovered around a row of seats toward the back of the plane. Everyone with aisle seats had twisted to watch the commotion, too. He heard raised voices, but the conversation was too indistinct. Within moments, the situation calmed. He returned his attention to the problem at hand.
Once the plane landed, he was the first one off. With no luggage to retrieve, he headed straight for the parking lot. He stepped into the gentle March sunshine, glad he hadn’t bothered to shrug into his heavy winter jacket. The storm pounding the upper Midwest hadn’t dipped as far south as Oklahoma, and Chance was thankful. He hated cold weather. Of course, he hated hot weather, too. If he had his way, he’d live somewhere where the temperature remained at a balmy sixty-eight degrees year-round.
He dug out his car keys, hit the button for the auto-unlock and dumped his carry-on suitcase and laptop case in the passenger seat before settling behind the wheel. With a reckless abandon born from experience, Chance maneuvered his sleek, phantom-black Audi R8 sports car toward the parking lot exit. The car swooped down the exit ramp, slowing to a stop just long enough for him to pay the attendant.
Without looking for merging traffic from other lanes, he downshifted and gunned the powerful 571 horsepower V10 engine. A flash of rust in the corner of his eye and the sound of squealing tires had him handling the powerful vehicle like a race car to avoid a collision. Caught by the next traffic light, Chance glanced over at the beat-up old pickup in the next lane. He looked away then looked back. He didn’t recognize the old man in the driver’s seat but the passenger? Oh, yeah. It was her! The blonde from the hotel. She’d rolled down the window, and her glare could melt the metallic paint right off the Audi.
His windows were tinted dark, and he doubted she could see him. When the light changed, instead of accelerating the way he normally would, he eased off the clutch, making sure the clunker pulled ahead of him. He made a mental note of the license plate. Now he’d have a chance to sic Cash on her and move in for the kill after all. He grinned, unable to calculate the odds of seeing her again, especially here on his home ground. Excitement tingled in his fingertips. Life was looking up. Gunning his engine, he headed toward I-40 and the command performance he had to attend.
Three (#u4ff283cb-3456-5b7a-be51-1f50fa1db1d1)
“Did you see that idiot? He could have killed us!”
“City folks drive a bit faster, sugar. That’s all. We didn’t wreck.” Boots turned his head and spit out the window.
“You shouldn’t chew, Uncle Boots. That stuff’s bad for you.”
“It’s the only vice I got left, Cassie, and I ain’t gonna live forever. Give an old man some peace.”
She ground her back teeth together but held her tongue. The seat cover—an old horse blanket—made her back itch through her cotton turtleneck. She’d shed her heavy jacket as soon as she’d stepped out of the terminal. Compared to Chicago, the fifty degree temperature in Oklahoma City felt positively balmy. The Australian shepherd sprawled on the bench seat between them yawned, and she absently scratched his ears.
“I want your life, Buddy. Nothing to do all day but nap in the sun and chase squirrels. And you don’t have to put up with the stupid people of the world. You can just bite ’em or piss on ’em.”
“You watch your mouth, Cassidy Anne Morgan. I won’t have you corrupting this poor dog with such language. Ol’ Buddy here is sensitive.”
She rolled her eyes but reached over to pat Boots on the shoulder. “Yessir.”
They rode in silence for several minutes. The old man cleared his throat but didn’t speak. A few blocks later, caught by another red light, he glanced at Cassie. “I’m gonna miss him, sugar.” Buddy whined softly and shifted to lay his head on the man’s thigh, as if to say he’d miss Ben, too.
Cass pressed her lips together and lost the battle with her tears. They streaked her cheeks even as Boots pulled a faded red bandanna from his pocket and offered it to her. She took it and dabbed at her runny nose, but the tears continued. She leaned her head against the window.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what, Cassie? I asked you to come home lots of times.”
“You could have told me he was dying.”
“I told you he was sick.”
Her temper flared. “There’s a big damn difference between sick and dying, Boots!” Her tears stopped as her anger surged.
“And there’s a big damn difference between being too stubborn to come home and make amends and being too busy to worry about your daddy.”
“He started it.” She winced. That sounded so petulant. But it was true. Her dad had fought her plans the whole way. If she had to go to college, why wasn’t one of the local universities good enough? Why did she have to go traipsing off where he’d never get to see her? She’d saved her barrel-racing money and made straight As to get an academic scholarship. Even so, she’d had to wait tables to make ends meet while in college. Then she got a job with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Granted, she was far from rich, but she didn’t have to haul her butt out of bed at the crack of dawn to do barn chores. She didn’t have to muck the manure out of stalls or round up cattle too stupid to seek shelter in a storm.
Boots made a choking noise so she glanced over at him. His face shone with tears and his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel indicated how upset he was. She leaned over the dog and placed her hand on his.
“You’re right, Uncle Boots.”
“Aw, honey. The two of you are so dang much alike. Stubborn to the core. But he loved you. And he was proud of you.”
“No.” She shook her head, unable to believe that. “No, he wasn’t. I disappointed him. I didn’t stay here to help with the ranch. I didn’t get married and give him grandbabies. I didn’t do anything with my life that he wanted me to do.”
“All he ever wanted was for you to be happy, baby girl.”
Cass didn’t know what to say. She knew in her heart Boots was wrong. She’d disappointed her dad from the day she’d turned eighteen, lost her virginity in the back of a pickup at the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo in Denver and decided she’d never get on a horse again.
The old truck rattled across a speed bump as Boots turned it into the parking lot at the funeral home. He pulled into a parking space and shoved the transmission into Park. Neither of them moved. She did not want to get out and walk inside that building. With its white-washed stucco and blue shutters topped by a red-tiled roof, the place looked more like a Mexican restaurant than a funeral home. Part of her wanted to ask Boots to just drive away. The other part knew that if she turned tail and ran she’d regret it for the rest of her life.
