by Laurie Paige
His gaze was drawn to his companion who was studying the menu with the grave seriousness she apparently brought to everything she did.
He frowned and peered at the menu he held. Getting mixed up with a woman whose father was a sworn enemy of the family would be stupid beyond belief. But, he had to admit, something about her fascinated him, this beautiful enemy who was as aware of him as he was of her.
“Are you ready to order?” the pretty young waitress inquired, her pad and pencil ready.
“Hmm, it’s Tuesday,” he recalled. “The blue plate special is elk hash, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.” She read the day’s special, which was written on a chalkboard near the cash register, as if he couldn’t read or maybe couldn’t see that far.
He frowned. The young woman evidently thought he was ancient. Catching the brief curving of Hope’s mouth before she sternly disciplined the mirth at his expense, he grinned and winked at her before ordering the special and a glass of raspberry iced tea.
“I’ll have the same,” she said, handing the menu to the teenage waitress and settling back in the chair, her eyes on the traffic moving slowly along the street. “Superior court is in session,” she noted.
“Mmm-hmm. I see Judge Kate Randall Walker in a booth with the local psychic. Wonder where Lily Mae Wheeler is. She’s usually holding court here in the Hip Hop at noon everyday.”
This time Hope did smile. She even laughed, a tiny gurgle of sound that enchanted him. She was a mystery, this woman, one he would like very much to unravel. He backed off from the thought. She had pretty much made it clear that she, like her father, wouldn’t give a Kincaid the time of day if she could avoid it.
“I’m glad Emma was cleared of that murder charge,” Hope murmured. “It’s so odd to find a new relative, to learn my father and Emma’s mother are first cousins, after all these years of thinking there was no one else.”
“The notorious Lexine Baxter,” Collin said, referring to Emma’s mother, who evidently killed anyone who stood in the way of her ambitions, including a former partner, a husband, and finally Jeremiah Kincaid, her father-in-law. The woman was now in prison for her crimes.
A blush highlighted the porcelain skin of his dining companion as if she was embarrassed at the mention of her infamous relative. Collin couldn’t look away.
Hope Baxter was a natural blonde. Her eyes were large and of a soft blue-gray with a hint of vulnerability buried deep in them that was at odds with her cool, professional manner. Sometimes he thought he detected a hint of sadness in her. It made him wonder about her life.
With divorced parents and a profligate father he could never depend on, Collin knew how a person’s family could cause wounds that were hard to heal, if they ever did. His grandfather, Garrett Kincaid, had taken him in hand when he was fourteen and probably saved him from a senseless life of dissipation similar to his father’s.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to pull your family skeletons out of the closet.”
“I never knew Lexine. My father never mentioned her. So she doesn’t really seem like family.” She paused and looked troubled. “I would like to know Emma, though. I always wanted a sister. It’s lonely, growing up with no relatives. My father was always so busy—”
She stopped abruptly, looking surprised and irritated with herself, as if she’d given away family secrets. She was very protective of her father. Collin had seen that in the brief meetings with the older men present, meetings that more than once had ended in anger and a shouting match between her father and his granddad.
Collin mentally shook his head. He didn’t have much hope of doing any better than his grandfather, but he had promised he would try. If only he could find a way to breach the barriers he sensed in her….
“Your father doesn’t have a chance of winning this case,” he said, switching back to the subject of their meeting. “His claim is too old. He should have pursued it at the time of the sale to Jeremiah.”
“He didn’t have the means then.” She directed a hard look his way. “Nor the evidence we have now. Jeremiah made sure of that.”
“We both have interesting characters in our respective families,” he said with grim humor. Jeremiah Kincaid had been a womanizer just as his own father had been. However, unlike Larry with his six, maybe seven, illegitimate kids, Jeremiah had only two that they knew of.
She ignored his attempt to put them on common ground. Her face stern, she reminded him, “There is no statute of limitations on fraud.”
“Yeah, I remember that from business law.”
He had studied business management from a ranching viewpoint. Business law had focused on land ownership and legal decisions involving ranches and cattle disputes, or the inheritance of those.
“Then you must admit we have a very strong case,” Hope said. “It would be in your family’s interests to settle it now.”
He couldn’t help the sardonic tinge in his voice. “Well, now, if it were up to me, I would, but with the sale of those two parcels—one of which was to the Laughing Horse Reservation—others are involved. Jackson Hawk says the res won’t give up the land. They’re too far along with plans for a resort on it.”
Her eyes turned frosty. “That land belongs to my father. The trustees had no right to sell it. Surely with the famous Kincaid influence and charm, your grandfather can persuade the tribal elders to give up their claim. I’m sure the Kincaids can afford to return their money.”
“With interest,” he agreed, his own tone hardening.
The waitress arrived with their food, forestalling the argument. Damn, but he was tired of this whole thing. They had been at a stalemate for months. What made his granddad think he could break through the impasse? Baxter’s daughter was as tough and stubborn as her old man.
Silence engulfed them when they were alone again. He began eating the meal, one of his favorites, without tasting it. When the door of the café opened, he watched the new arrivals with a jaundiced eye. He recognized the woman as a local florist and wedding planner. She carried her son in her arms.
The kid, who looked about two years old, glanced his way and shouted, “Ope. Ope.”
Collin felt decidedly uncomfortable, as if the boy had named him the absent and unknown father of the florist’s son. Heat suffused his ears.
The woman laughed and came toward him. Hell, what was going on?
“Hope,” she said to her son. “Hope.”
“Ope. Ope,” the boy said.
Hope laughed, startling him. It was a truly joyous sound, a welcoming sound rather than an amused gurgle. He was instantly fascinated. She held out her arms.
For a second Collin thought heaven had opened its gates and was inviting him inside. He was totally fascinated by the change in her. Whereas a moment ago she’d been all frosty professionalism, there was now tenderness and laughter in her eyes. But she wasn’t looking at him. He swallowed hard and watched the woman with the kid stop at the table.
“Here, he’s yours.” The mother dumped the child into Hope’s willing embrace. “Gabe can say ‘Ope,’ but can’t seem to get the H on the front of Hope,” she explained to Collin.
“Hey, big boy,” Hope murmured.
“Shug,” the child said in an insistent voice.
“You have some sugar for me?” she asked in make-believe surprise, her eyes going wide.
The kid nodded and grinned happily.
To Collin’s further amazement, the cool, serious attorney planted loud, smacking kisses on the toddler’s neck and ear until he giggled with delight. The kid caught chubby fists in her smooth hair and left it in tangles when she settled him on her lap.
Seeing his gaze on them, the blush hit her cheeks again. “This is Meg Reilly and her son, Gabe. Have you two met?” Hope asked, reverting to the polite persona he suddenly disliked.
“No, we haven’t. Glad to meet you,” he said.
“You’re Collin, right?” Meg asked. “It’s hard to keep all the Kincaid
brothers straight. Oh, I’m sorry. That was extremely rude of me.”
With green eyes and wavy brown hair, she was a pretty woman a few years older than he. He liked her rueful smile and straightforward manner when she apologized.
“No problem,” he assured her. “I had trouble keeping the names straight myself when it was discovered I had six half brothers.”
Her frank gaze was discerning. “That must have been a startling revelation.”
“To put it mildly.”
“From all evidence, you’ve handled it well.” She turned to her son who was playing some kind of clapping game with Hope. “Okay, young man, I know you hate to leave the love of your young life, but Mommy needs to eat. It’s been a hectic morning with a bridal shower and two funerals,” she explained to the adults.
“Who’s dead?” Collin asked.
Sorrow rippled over her face. “A baby that was stillborn, and the son of a rancher who lives at the far northern reaches of the county. The son was from New York. He was in advertising and dropped dead of a heart attack in a meeting with a client. His father brought him back here to be buried in the family cemetery.”
“It must be terrible to lose a child,” Hope said, handing the boy to Meg. Her eyes were as soft as velvet.
“Yes,” Meg agreed after a beat of silence. “See you later. Don’t forget you’re coming to supper Thursday night.”
“I won’t.”
Watching Hope with her friend, Collin had an idea. He considered it from every angle, looking for flaws and planning an argument to win her to the plan, which, in his estimation, was a sound one.
When Meg and Gabe left them to sit at the counter, he ate the tasty hash and studied Hope for a moment before speaking what was on his mind.
“I think you should come out to the ranch and look the land over before presenting our offer to your father. That way you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. I can show you the two parcels in dispute.”
He liked the way her eyes opened wide as surprise darted through them. He waited impatiently for her answer.
Two
“No,” Hope said, sounding as horrified as she felt.
She had done some stupid things in her life, such as getting mixed up with a fortune hunter in law school, but becoming involved with Collin Kincaid wasn’t going to be added to the list. She knew all about his father and the women the man had seduced—there were six known bastard sons to verify that. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be seduced by the current Kincaid heir. Going to the ranch with Collin would be the first step on that slippery slope.
“It would be logical,” he insisted, leaning forward over the table, his expression serious.
“’Logical’?” she questioned. That was the last word she would have expected him to use.
“Sure. You can view the two parcels that were sold, then you’ll know exactly what you’re talking about when you approach your father with our offer. Or don’t you care to see the land you’re fighting so hard over?”
The sardonic undertone hit a nerve. She had, of course, been out to the old Baxter spread. From what she could see, it was mostly hills and sharp peaks, but in truth she had only gone a short distance. The original ranch road had been too overgrown with shrubs and pine seedlings to navigate and the old mining road had been too rough for her car. A four-wheel-drive vehicle was the only practical way to get around in this country if one intended to really explore it in detail.
“And when I’ve seen it?” she inquired.
“Then, as a fully informed attorney, you can truly advise your father as to its value and if it’s worth another year of wrangling over.”
His tone as much as his words challenged her legal expertise. She stiffened in resentment.
But her next thought was that she wanted to see the ranch, not so much because of the case but because it was part of her history. The Baxter roots in Montana went back as far as the Kincaid roots did. Somehow her family had lost its heritage.
Somehow? She knew the “how” of that loss. Jeremiah Kincaid and his lying, cheating ways.
“What time shall I pick you up on Friday?” Collin asked, smoothly diverting her thoughts from the past.
“Pick me up?” she asked, puzzled. Had she lost track of the conversation?
“The old Baxter spread is a substantial piece of land. We’ll need a couple of days to see it all. The weekend would be a good time for me. You can stay over at the ranch house. We have plenty of room.”
He leaned back in the chair, as if sure that she would fall in with his plan, which would put her right in the middle of the Kincaid compound and the multiple relatives who now lived there as if it were already theirs.
“What arrogance,” she said, keeping her voice soft, amused. “My father doesn’t jump to your bidding. Neither do I. This lawsuit isn’t going to be disposed of at the whim of the current Kincaid family. We’re willing to pay top dollar for the Baxter place, which rightfully belongs to my family. Will the court believe the trustees are acting in Jennifer McCallum’s best interest to sell for less?”
“If Jordan can pull that much money together. It seems to me he’s spread pretty thin, what with all the developing he’s doing south of town, plus, the fancy new headquarters building.”
Collin’s manner was coolly sardonic now, but edged with the Kincaid fury that was as well known as their legendary charm. She was angry, too. She didn’t appreciate his trying to manipulate her into doing as he wanted, nor his casting doubts on her father’s business acumen.
“My father has more than enough resources to handle the ranch sale, which has nothing to do with Baxter Development Corporation.”
Unable to finish the meal, she laid her fork down and stood. Collin, polite as usual, immediately got to his feet, tall and intimidating.
“You Kincaids stick together like flies on honey, but you won’t win this case,” she informed him heatedly.
“Don’t take that to the bank quite yet,” he advised with an amused glance at the gaping faces around them.
A couple of ranchers chuckled openly while several of the local residents grinned behind their hands. Hope was the outsider, and she was acutely aware of that fact.
“I wouldn’t think of it. I’ll see you in court,” she said, flashing him a breezy smile and answering the challenge in his eyes with a confident lift of her chin.
She walked out of the quaint café, aware of multiple stares as she did, and especially that of Collin Kincaid’s.
Collin remained at the table, his face impassive as he observed her departure.
Outside, she spotted another employee of the corporation and got a ride to her office. There, she closed her door and paced restlessly to and fro, aware of a trembling deep inside her. She felt she’d braved the lion in his den and had gotten out alive—but not unscathed.
Sighing, she calmed herself and admitted she’d blown the meeting, walking out in a huff that way. As if emotion ever solved anything. She was more angry with herself than with Collin. It was his job to persuade her to see things his way just as it was hers to see that things were settled in her father’s favor.
Oh, what tangled webs…
Sitting at the desk, she pressed her forehand against her hands and wished this whole thing was over. She was so tired of the Baxter ranch and her father’s obsession—
Biting back the rest of the disloyal thought, she rubbed her temples where a headache pinged insistently. She removed the folder from her briefcase and again studied the facts in minute detail. Yes, they definitely had a case.
She wondered if she could get the venue changed to Great Falls or Billings. She would have to show a higher court that the local judge could be prejudiced in favor of the Kincaids. If she lost, though, the case would go that much harder for her side.
Before she could think this through, the door opened. Only her father would dare intrude without an announcement. She looked up and met his eyes.
“Good afternoon, Father
.”
“What’s this I hear about you having lunch with the Kincaid grandson?”
Her father refused to recognize any of the bastard grandsons, so for him there was only one—Collin, the legal heir to Garrett Kincaid’s holdings.
“I thought I told you I had a meeting with Collin today.” She knew she had. She was also pretty sure she knew who had mentioned the luncheon to her dad. Kurt Peters curried her father’s favor in every way he could.
“What did he say?”
She considered how much to tell him, not just the facts, but the nuances of the meeting. “They’re tired of wrangling over the land. They’ll ask the trustees to sell us the remainder of the Baxter land for the price they offered it to Garrett Kincaid.”
Her father’s face darkened dangerously. “They’ll sell all the Baxter land to me.”
“Jackson Hawk is representing the reservation. Collin said their plans are too far along to stop. I’ve spoken with Hawk prior to this. The tribal elders refuse to give up the land and will press their own suit if need be.”
“Have they started building?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. Legally, it doesn’t matter to our case. By buying land without a clear title, they aren’t entitled to any special consideration. However, their suit will complicate things for us.”
Her father sat on the corner of her desk, another perk only he was allowed. “Those blasted Indians. We need to check on what they’re doing. I have to fly to New York tomorrow on that bank merger since I’m on the board of directors. You’ll have to go out there.”
Surprised at this announcement, she said, “Collin invited me to spend the weekend at the Kincaid place. He thought I should look the Baxter land over. That sounds like a case of ‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,’ doesn’t it?” She smiled in ironic amusement.
Instead of seeing the humor in the idea of her being at the Kincaid compound, surrounded by their opponents and those loyal to them, her father slapped his hand on his thigh and chortled.
