by Robyn Carr
“Everything is fine.” She performed the introductions and the two men shook hands.
“Caleb helps me keep the grounds in order, as well as running the stables,” she explained a few minutes later, when they were on their way to the main house. “He’s a genius with horses.”
“A large genius,” Sin added. “And he seems very protective of you.”
“He is.” She grinned. “Both large and protective. He’s worked for me from the beginning, which was five years ago.”
They stopped at the edge of the wide, sloping lawn in front of the main house. Sophie told him more about the Mountain Star. “I have a fifteen-year lease on five acres—the crucial five acres we’re standing on, which includes the main house, the barn, the stables and corrals, and the guest house, too, where I live. The local teachers’ association owns it all—or at least they did.”
His shadowy gaze was on her. “They did? Past tense?”
Something in his tone bothered her, though she couldn’t have said what, and a small tremor of alarm skittered through her-a sudden sense that all was not as it should be.
But then she told herself not to overreact. She felt apprehensive about this particular subject, that was all. It had nothing to do with Sinclair.
She’d received the notice from the San Francisco bank just a week before, and since then she’d been trying not to stew over what it might mean to the Mountain Star. She’d asked around, but the sale had been accomplished through intermediaries, and no one seemed to know much about the new owner.
She explained, “Some corporation owns the ranch now. In San Francisco, I think. I got a letter about it just last week. It said to send the lease payments to a Bay Area bank, and make the checks out to something called Inkerris, Incorporated.”
“Inkerris, Incorporated?”
“Yes. Have you heard of it?”
He shrugged, which she took to mean “no.”
She sighed. “I have to admit, I wasn’t surprised to hear about a new owner.”
“Why not?”
“The teachers’ association has been wanting to sell for a long time. They bought the ranch because they had a plan to build tract homes here. But somehow the plan never got off the ground. That’s when I came in. They wanted some kind of return on their investment. I made them an offer.”
Two serpentine boulders flanked the base of the walk that led up to the main house. Sophie perched on one, smoothed her skirt and wrapped her hands around her knees. “It’s worked out great for me. I have the run of the rest of the place—all nine hundred and ninety-five acres. A lot of the guests like to hike. And the folks who board their horses with us appreciate the convenience of being able to just come in, saddle up and ride for miles without seeing any houses or highways.”
Sinclair stood over her, his hands in his pockets. “It does sound like a good deal for you.”
“It has been. Too bad the teachers’ association didn’t feel the same way.”
“You couldn’t expect them to hold on to a losing investment forever.”
“Of course not.” She looked up at him, and they shared a smile. “I only wished that they would.”
In a sleek, easy motion, he dropped to a crouch before her, so he was the one looking up. “You love it here, don’t you?”
She nodded, thinking again how unbelievably good-looking he was, a dark angel, so lean and fine. “I’ve been fortunate,” she said, “to have all this, though I know it isn’t really mine. I would have bought it myself—if I could have afforded it. But I’m never likely to get that kind of money together.” She smoothed her skirt again. “Oh, well. Maybe in ten years, when my lease is up, whatever corporation owns it then will let me renew.”
Thinking about the tenuous nature of her hold on the Mountain Star always bothered Sophie. And lately, since the letter from the San Francisco bank, it disturbed her more than ever.
She looked off, beyond Sinclair’s shoulder. In the center of the lawn, she could see the fountain. Caleb had put in a good deal of work on that fountain, cleaning out rusted pipes so it would work again. At its center stood a statue of a little girl, holding out her skirt to capture the shimmering streams of water as they cascaded down. The little girl was laughing—even by moonlight, her delight came across. Sophie loved that statue, and the sight of it cheered her.
Pointless to worry, needless to fret, her aunt Sophie always used to say….
“Hey.” The man before her reached out. His fingers whispered along the line of her cheek. She forgot her worries—she even forgot the laughing little girl—as she met his eyes again.
Incredible, she thought, how good it felt, to have him touch her. As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
So strange. She felt so close to him. As if they’d known each other forever, as if they had a history of shared experience, as if she’d long ago grown accustomed to his touch.
Accustomed, but never weary of it.
Oh, no. She could never grow weary of his touch. Featherlight, it was. And at the same time, like a brand. Burning…
Gentle as a breath, he touched her hair. Right then, his eyes seemed full of timeless mystery as the Sierra night around them. “Do you really think that’s likely?”
What were they talking about? She couldn’t for the life of her remember. “Do I think what’s likely?”
“That you’ll convince some faceless corporation to renew your lease when your time here runs out?”
She knew it wasn’t. Only a combination of good fortune and good timing had made the Mountain Star a reality. She shook her head. “But I have what I want now. And as for the future—a girl can dream, can’t she?”
“Absolutely.” Once more, his fingers touched her cheek. And then they fell away. He rose above her again, with the same seamless ease of movement as before. She felt regret, as if some precious impossible intimacy had been lost.
And then she stood as well, smoothing the back of her skirt as she did. “Shall we go in?”
He frowned.
She knew immediately what that frown meant: he didn’t want to go in.
And no wonder. There were probably hard memories for him in that house. The old story went that the boy, Sinclair, had been the one who found his father’s body—in one of the two attic rooms, dangling from a rafter beam.
“Would you rather just skip the house?” she suggested gingerly.
“Of course not.” His voice had turned cold as a night in midwinter. “Let’s go.” He held out his arm for her again. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it. They started up the walk, past the bubbling fountain with its laughing little girl, toward the house where the man beside her had spent the first six years of his life.
Riker Cottage, as the house had always been called, was a steep-roofed structure built of natural stone, with redbrick trim in the dormers and around the window casements. Sinclair said nothing as they went under the brick-lined arch that framed the front door.
Sophie had learned already that he was a man prone to silences. But his silence now had a strange edge to it, an edge she didn’t like at all. She almost suggested for the second time that they not go in. But she knew from his response a moment ago that it would do no good.
There was nothing else for it. She reached for the iron latch on the heavy oak door.
The door opened on a large central foyer. From there, a switch-back staircase led up to the guest rooms. Twin parlors branched off to either side.
Sophie showed Sinclair the ground floor first. In the east parlor, they found two guests playing chess. Sinclair nodded when she introduced him to the chess players—a brief, aloof nod. Her guests seemed to take no offense to his coldness. They bent over their game again right away. But it did bother Sophie—because she sensed his chilly manner was only a cover-up for distress.
He did not want to be here, she knew it. She could feel it in her bones. He said nothing when she showed him the library, where his father’s books still stood in the t
all, glass-fronted cases.
In an effort to fill the ominous silence that seemed to emanate from him, Sophie talked about the small changes she’d made. “I couldn’t bear to tear out the wainscotting,” she said of the shoulder-high paneling that lined the walls of most of the rooms. “But the old wallpaper had to go. Cabbage roses on a black background, if you remember. It was just way too dark. I chose only light colors for the ceilings and upper walls. I think it helps.”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “It helps.”
In the kitchen, he seemed to relax a little—enough to point out deficiencies of which she was already fully aware. “How old is that stove?”
“Too old,” she confessed. “Myra, the cook, is always saying rude things about it.”
“Myra is right.” He looked in the too-small refrigerator and ran a hand over the chipped counter tiles. “You could use a serious upgrade here.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So why haven’t you done something?”
She had. She’d gotten some estimates. Even without the chef-style range and refrigerator Myra wanted, a remodel of the kitchen would cost at least fifteen thousand dollars. It was fifteen thousand more than she had.
But that wasn’t his problem, so she only said, “I’ll get around to it. Eventually.”
He looked at her then, one of those looks she couldn’t read at all. “You’re sure about that?”
“I like to think positive.”
“I noticed.” It sounded like a criticism, but she let it pass.
She led him up the narrow, dark back stairs next. “I can’t show you much of the other two floors,” she explained as they climbed. “This is my peak season and all of the rooms are occupied. But we can at least take a quick look around.”
He followed behind her, saying nothing. She didn’t like his silence. It spoke to her of a deep unease. He did not want to be here, and yet he was forcing himself to stay, to carry on with this unnecessary tour.
Finally she couldn’t stand it. She stopped midway and turned to him in the confined space.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather forget about this?”
He just looked at her, his face a blank.
“Sinclair? Can you hear me?”
Sin did hear. And he wanted to reply. He wanted to tell her that he was fine, to order her to get going, get it over with, show him the rest of the damn place and be done with it.
But somehow, he couldn’t make any words come out. Too many memories swirled around him: smells and sights and sounds. Fleeting impressions of the life he’d once lived here.
The smell of his mother’s cinnamon cookies baking. Even in their last days here, when money got so tight they rarely had meat, she still baked those cookies. For him. Because he loved them.
Cinnamon cookies. And roses.
His mother had loved roses. She would pick them from the poorly tended garden, where they grew in a wild tangle, and put them in vases all over the house. And stories.
His father used to tell him stories. About Great-grandfather Riker, who had labored in the gold mines, deep in the earth, alongside the Cornishmen who came all the way from England to work the mother lode. Great-Grandfather Riker had died in a cave-in, but not before he’d borne a son, Sinclair—for whom Sin had later been named. The first Sinclair Riker had grown up smart and lucky and used every penny he could scrape together to buy land, to create the Riker Ranch.
Which Anthony had lost barely a decade after the first Sinclair’s death.
Yes, his father’s voice. He could hear it now. Telling the old stories.
And his father’s laughter, deep and rich, he could hear that, as well.
And his mother, he could hear her, too, singing to him.
She used to sing all the time, when he was little. She would move through the dark rooms of the cottage, filling them with roses, making them seem light with her smiles and her songs. But then had come the bad day, the day they had to leave their home forever, the day when he stumbled down from the attic, unable to speak.
His mother had been standing at the window in the west parlor, staring out at the sunshine and the overgrown lawn. He had run to her, buried his face against her skirt.
Her soft arms went around him. She knelt down. “Sinclair. Darling. What’s happened? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” He backed from her embrace, grabbed for her pretty white hand. Ridiculous squawking noises were coming from his mouth.
“Sweetheart, slow down. What is it? What’s wrong?”
He gave up on trying to talk and started yanking on her hand.
“All right, I’m coming. I’m coming. Settle down.”
He ran then, through the hall to the kitchen, up the back stairs—these very stairs he stood on now—pulling his mother along behind, all the way, up and up, to what used to be the maid’s room, long ago when they could afford a maid.
When she saw it, she screamed. A terrible, never-ending scream of despair.
And after that day, she never sang again.
A cool hand touched his face. “Sinclair?”
He realized he was clammy under the arms and across his chest. He lifted a hand to swipe at his brow. It came away dripping with his own sweat.
“Let’s go outside,” the Jones woman said. She stood so close to him. God, the scent of her. Like sunshine and flowers, like something so clean and fresh. The reality of her, the life in her, seemed to reach out to him….
He put out both hands and took her around the waist. She gasped. He felt her stiffen under his touch, but he couldn’t help himself. He yanked her tight against him and buried his face in the thick, sweet tangle of her hair.
Chapter 3
Sophie’s first instinct was to push him away.
Her second was to gather him close.
She never acted on the first. It passed as swiftly as her own sharply indrawn gasp of dismay. She was already wrapping her arms around him as they fell together against the wall of the stairwell. His lean body shook under her hands.
“It’s okay,” she murmured, so low the words were barely audible, even to herself. “Shh. It’s all right.”
He held on, tight enough to squeeze the breath from her lungs. His heart beat fast and furious, in time with her own. His face pressed first against her hair, then lower, into the curve of her neck. She felt his mouth on her skin in a caress that wasn’t so much a kiss as a hungry demand for shelter from the chaos inside his own mind and heart.
He needed to touch someone. He needed someone to hold him.
She understood that. She let him touch. And she held him tight, his body branding all along hers, hot and needful, pleading without words.
How long they stood like that, pressed against the wall, she couldn’t have said. Gradually, though, his heartbeat calmed and his breathing slowed. His hard grip loosened. She found she could breathe again.
He lifted a hand and stroked her hair. She felt his lips move at her neck in a tender kiss, sweet with gratitude.
And then at last he pulled away, grasping her shoulders and stepping back in the cramped space. His baffled gaze found hers. “God. I’m sorry.” A dark curse escaped him. “I don’t know what—”
She reached across the distance he’d made, put a finger on his mouth. It felt so soft. Tender. Bruised. “Let’s just go. Outside.”
He stared at her for an endless moment—and then he captured her hand. “Yes. Now.”
He turned and headed down the stairs, into the kitchen, through the pantry, and out the door there—fleeing that house, and pulling her after him.
They ran across the rear lawn and into the grove of oaks that grew just beyond the edge of the grass. There, at last, he stopped. He threw himself back against one thick twisted trunk. He still held her hand. He gave a tug.
She fell against him. And she dared to laugh, a nervous sound, breathless and vivid at the same time. “Sinclair?”
He took her face in his hands and tipped it up so the dappling of moon
light through the branches showed her to him.
He felt so angry suddenly. Angry, exposed—and aroused, as well.
He pressed himself against her, wanting her to feel his desire—half hoping she would jerk away in outrage, close herself off from him—and thus allow him to close himself off from her.
But she didn’t jerk away. Her body seemed to melt into his.
“I don’t know you,” he said, each word careful, determined.
Her soft, full mouth invited him. She said his name again—his grandfather’s name, the name she knew him by. “Sinclair…”
“I don’t know you.” He said it through clenched teeth that time.
She smiled, the softest, most beautiful smile. “You know me.”
“No…”
“Yes.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, to stop her from saying that—and discovered his error immediately. Her mouth was as soft as it looked. And as incredibly sweet. He moaned, the sound echoing inside his own head, as he plunged his tongue into that sweetness.
He was out of control, gone. Finished. Not himself. Not himself at all.
He took her by the arms, hard—and pushed her away. She let out one soft, bewildered cry—and then she just looked at him through those eyes that reproached him at the same time as they seemed to say that they understood.
She flinched. He realized he was holding her arms too tightly, hurting her. He let go. She stumbled a little, righted herself, and then gave him more distance, stepping backward until she could lean against another tree, not far from him.
For a time, all he knew were her eyes through the night—watching. Waiting. And the night sounds—crickets and plaintive birdsongs, some small creature moving about, rustling in the dried late-summer grass nearby.
Slowly he came back to himself. More or less. “I’m sorry,” he told her again, knowing as the pitiful words passed his lips that they weren’t nearly enough. “I don’t know what happened in there. Or just now, either.”
