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“Things happen for a reason, you know,” Yvette said softly. “You must learn to trust your heart once more.”
For a moment, his features were right there in her mind, as vivid and alive as the man himself. Brie could almost see the way the sun placed golden highlights in his hair. She could almost smell the scent of the ridiculously expensive aftershave he wore. And without even closing her eyes, she felt the power of his body as he drew her into the embrace she had craved for what seemed like eternity.
“No!”
Brie lowered her voice quickly. No one spared her a glance. She tried for a smile but was only partially successful. “Forget it, Yvette. I made the mistake of trusting my heart once before. It didn’t work out.”
Yvette gazed right through her pretense. “Was it really a mistake?”
Jolted, Brie mustered a glare. Everyone knew Brie’s young daughter, Nicole, was the joy of her life. While definitely an unplanned pregnancy, her daughter’s birth was a gift. Nicole was growing into a miniature version of both Brie and her mother. The three of them could have been clones, down to the unfortunate bright red hair, pale skin and light freckles sprinkled liberally across cheeks and noses.
Everything except their eyes.
While Brie and her mother’s eyes sparkled a clear, bewitching green, Nicole’s were a startlingly vivid, brilliant blue shade. Piercing. Expressive eyes. Old eyes, her mother had once mused. Brie didn’t know about that, but she did know that her daughter’s eyes were a constant, uncomfortable reminder of the incredibly sexy man who had fathered her.
“So maybe it wasn’t a total mistake,” she conceded, not wanting to think about Andrew Pierce. But her foolish, stupid heart gave its usual lurch at the memories she had never learned to suppress. “But falling in love is a mistake I won’t ever make again.”
“Perhaps that was not a mistake, either, just mistimed.”
Brie suppressed a bitter laugh. “Oh it was mistimed, all right. Take it from me, Yvette, I learned one important fact the summer Nicole was conceived. Princes have a disturbing habit of turning into frogs.”
She tore her gaze from the sympathy and understanding in Yvette’s sad expression, acutely grateful for the gruff, burly biker who indicated he and his companion were ready to place their order.
“I’ll be right with you, Rider,” she called out. To Yvette she added lightly, “Thanks just the same, but I’ll pass on any more princes. I don’t have time for fairy tales anymore.”
Or the Pierce family—Andrew Pierce in particular.
“Fairy tales can come true,” Yvette said softly.
“Ha! Mine would need a fairy godmother with the cure for cancer. If you meet any, feel free to send them my way. Have a good day, Yvette.”
Brie moved briskly to where the two scruffy-looking bikers waited with stoic patience.
Andrew Pierce was undoubtedly some woman’s idea of a prince, she thought, but not hers. Not anymore.
WITH HER SCREAM reverberating in his ears, he watched in detachment as her delicate features twisted in comprehension and horror.
“Ursula.”
He said her name sharply, reaching for her. She scuttled away with surprising speed. How unfortunate. She was going to make him do this the hard way. The bloodied gloves made getting a good grip on her all but impossible. Terror gave her a strength she wouldn’t normally have.
He peeled the gloves from his hands. They dropped to the floor with a wet plopping sound.
“Ursula, stop this.”
“My God! My God!”
Fists pressed against parted lips, her eyes wide, dark pools of horror. Her gaze seemed mesmerized by the still figure on the table, bathed in the bright surgical lights. He had peeled back the skull to reveal the all important brain.
“You killed her!”
“Calm down.”
The hand pressing against her mouth trembled violently. “You killed her!”
She backed into a lab table deep in the shadows of the room. Objects clattered in protest. A pair of test tubes fell together with a jarring crash. He took a step closer. Frantically, her hand swept the table in search of a weapon.
She really was quite beautiful, he decided in detachment. Beautiful, sensual—immoral. Yet even in her panic there was a delicate grace about her.
“This is unfortunate. You shouldn’t have come in here,” he told her regretfully.
A test tube hurled toward his face. He turned his head and the empty vial bounced off his shoulder, falling harmlessly to the floor. She twisted, turning to run. His lips curved. Grotesque shadows danced about the lab, thrown by those bright lights over the exam table where the nude body lay still as marble.
“You’re being foolish, my dear. There’s nowhere for you to run, you know.”
Her panicked breathing made harsh, raspy sounds as she scrambled around a bank of storage cases, nearly falling. He’d planned to confront her later, after he’d finished his work. What had made her decide to come in here now? Not that it mattered. The results would have been the same either way.
His footfalls were the only other sound in the room as he stalked her, cutting off each avenue of escape. She was lost. Confused by the darkness. When she fled between a tall storage cabinet and the untidy stack of large pine boxes, he had her. She’d chosen a dead end in the maze of disorganized equipment.
“Stay away from me! Don’t come near me!”
“Poor Ursula.”
“Let me go!”
“You know I can’t do that. Not now. It’s too bad, really. I’d hoped this would work out much differently.”
She screamed, the shrill sound hurting his ears. Even in the darkness he could see that her eyes were so wide with fear they dominated her small face. His pity was cold comfort for both of them.
“Poor, traitorous Ursula. You really shouldn’t have come in here,” he said sadly, pinning her flailing arms in a grip she had no chance of breaking. “You’ve left me no choice. None at all.”
Chapter One
Andrew “Drew” Pierce gazed around at the large crowd gathered outside the firing range in frustration. “Where’s Carey?”
“He had to see a man about a horse,” Zach announced.
At the same time, Nancy Bell replied, “He went to use the men’s room.”
Drew gave the attractive brunette an apologetic look before scolding his much younger brother with a frown of reprimand. Zach shrugged, but his grin was unrepentant.
“That was his expression, not mine,” Zach said. “How much do you two have riding on this bet? They’re always competing with each other,” he said in an aside to Nancy. “I think you scared the—”
“There is no bet,” Drew said sharply. “And watch your language, Zach.”
“It’s all right, Andrew,” Nancy told him, her soft, graceful hand a stark contrast against his tanned arm. “I could probably even teach Zach a few phrases.”
Drew rolled his eyes. “Please don’t.”
“Think so?” Zach inquired with a broad smile that revealed two hidden dimples.
“You’d be amazed at what I deal with in my line of work.”
“Maybe so, but you don’t have to deal with it from Zach,” Drew warned.
Zach held up his palms. “Sorry, big brother, for a moment there I forgot about your image.”
Drew’s frown deepened. There was an edge to his brother’s tone and a strange undercurrent of emotion beneath the impish expression. Drew turned away thoughtfully. He sensed, rather than saw, Zach lean toward Nancy. Sotto voce, Zach asked, “Like what, for example?”
Drew never heard her response. The tournament had brought out a large crowd as always, and there was a festive air despite the heat. People milled in scattered clumps, chatting and laughing loudly as they waited for their turn to compete. The scent of grilled hot dogs and fresh popcorn mingled bizarrely with the scent of cordite in the heavy air.
A disturbing sensation pulled Drew’s attention to the thick clump of trees that began halfway up the slope on one side of the pistol range. He stared at the dark line of woods, puzzled. Something had changed a short way into the tree line, but he wasn’t sure what that something was.
Deer?
The woods were filled with the animals, but no deer would be within twenty miles of the noise coming from the firing range. Nancy and Zach added laughter to the din. Drew tuned them out. His attention centered on the shadows up the slope. Without knowing why, he concentrated on a dark patch near a wide maple tree. Beads of sweat collected at his hairline and trickled warmly down his back beneath his light summer shirt.
Nothing moved in the patch of trees, yet Drew sensed a presence there. Someone was watching him.
His fingers tightened on the gun case. He had a strange impulse to pull his weapon and aim it toward that spot on the hill.
As if sensing that thought, the darkness stirred.
The motion was slight, hardly a movement at all, but Drew waited, rigid with expectation. A face suddenly appeared, for all the world looking like a disembodied head floating in midair.
Eyes clashed and held.
Drew swore viciously under his breath. The features were unmistakable.
Zach broke off midsentence, coming alert. “What’s the matter?”
“Andrew?” Nancy asked in concern.
“Bryson,” he growled.
The face melted back into the shadows as if it had never been there at all.
“David Bryson?” Zach demanded. “Where?”
“Who’s David Bryson?” Nancy questioned.
“In the trees up the hill,” Drew told his brother with a small nod.
“I don’t see anything.”
Nancy squeezed his arm in a bid for attention. “Andrew? Who is David Bryson?”
In that brief moment of eye contact with the man, rage had surged inside Drew, welling from the recesses where he kept it mostly caged. Now he worked to contain a whole host of emotions, feeling his jaw clench. His knuckles whitened on the case in his hand. He looked at Nancy without really seeing her.
“David Bryson is the bastard who killed our sister.”
“What?”
“I still don’t see anyone,” Zach said, watching the trees with the same tense wariness Drew had felt only moments earlier.
“He’s gone now,” Drew told him with certainty. “Back to the shadows where he belongs.”
“I thought your sister’s death was an accident,” Nancy said sharply.
“That’s how they classified it,” Zach agreed, equally grim.
Drew didn’t believe those findings. He never had. Their beautiful sister, Tasha, would have been alive today if it hadn’t been for David Bryson. One day, Drew would prove he’d been responsible for what happened. In the meantime, he’d concentrate on winning the mayoral election. Then he’d be in a position to make Dr. David Bryson wish he’d died in that boat explosion as well.
“Oh, hell,” Zach said, abruptly. “Just what we need. More trouble. Ten o’clock high.”
Frederick Thane was working the crowd, moving in their direction. The current mayor stopped abruptly, his double chin quivering when he spotted Drew. For an instant, dark squinty eyes flashed with hate. Then the professional smile slid into place. Only his eyes stayed hard and cold. He strutted forward, hand outstretched, his rounded stomach extending over his fancy belt buckle.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my esteemed opponent.”
There was no way to avoid the pudgy fingers or the wet clasp of his grip. Despite his slight paunch and that double chin, Frederick Thane wasn’t a big man. At least not yet. At fifty-five or thereabouts, he still had deep black hair, probably due to a little chemical assistance, and he was taller than Drew remembered. Lifts, Drew decided. Even so, the other man still had to look up to meet Drew’s eyes, which obviously rankled.
“Mayor,” he greeted.
“Saw your name on the other sign-up sheet.” He shifted his rifle and stared at the handgun case. “We aren’t competing in the same category.” He swiped at the rivulets of sweat running down the sides of his face with a crumpled blue handkerchief.
“Not this time.”
Thane’s lips pursed tightly, as though he was trying to decide if there was another meaning beneath those words. “Hot enough for you?”
“I imagine it will get hotter before there is a winner.”
Thane’s eyes narrowed. “Count on it.”
They were not talking about the weather or the contest. It was no secret that Frederick Thane was furious over Drew’s decision to run against him. Thane had scared off every other opponent who dared consider throwing a hat in the ring for the mayoral election. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have any leverage to use against the Pierce family. Now he stared pointedly at Nancy Bell.
“And this must be the fancy publicist I heard your grandpa hired for you.”
A sneer licked the edges of his words.
“Fancy?” he heard Nancy whisper to his brother. She sounded amused rather than annoyed.
“Nancy Bell, Frederick Thane,” Drew introduced. “And you know my brother, Zach, of course.”
“Of course, of course. Young Zach.”
Zach winced visibly. He didn’t offer to shake hands. Nancy, however, did. “Mayor Thane.”
“Charmed, I’m sure.”
