Cara Colter - A Hasty Wedding p.03

Twelve

The tears chased down her cheeks, streaks of silver in the moonlit room. Blake kissed them away. They tasted of salt and dew and softness.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, agonized. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Hurt me?" She hiccuped and laughed. "I'm crying because I'm happy."

He tilted his head back and looked at her, saw the glow in her eyes, the high color in her cheeks, the smile, and he knew it was true. She was happy. Deliriously, blissfully.

"I've never heard that line in real life—that people cry when they're happy," he admitted, smiling. "I thought it was something Hollywood made up."

"It's like there's so much emotion in me right now, my body can't hold it. The tears are the overflow valve. Pure paradise. It's too big to keep inside of me." She sighed and leaned her head against his chest. Her hands, almost unconsciously, moved over the muscles in his chest and arms, giving him the heady feeling she could not get enough of him.

"Nothing," she murmured, "could have prepared me for this experience. I mean, I've read about it and seen a whole lot in movies, but nothing can come close to experiencing what that's like. No wonder I was a virgin so long. I had no idea."

"You should have told me," he said, gathering her to him, secretly thrilled that she had had no idea and that this gift had become his.

"Really? Exactly how do you broach that subject? 'Blake, while I'm filing under V, I've suddenly recalled my virginity'?"

He laughed. "How about 'Blake, take it easy. I've never done this before.' Actually, I think I probably should have guessed. Maybe even had guessed, and then in the heat of the moment, managed to forget."

"How embarrassing. You guessed? Do you want the whole humiliating truth? I'm a wallflower. I've never even had a boyfriend, let alone been intimate before."

He didn't think she should find that truth embarrassing. It certainly wasn't her fault that the male populace was completely blind when it came to most things that mattered. The fact that she had never had a boyfriend rather endeared her to him, made him feel protective and possessive in ways he had not felt either of those things before.

"I just might have changed a few things, if you'd warned me," he reassured her.

"Exactly!" she said. "And I wouldn't change one single thing about what just happened between us."

"Come to think of it, neither would I." He kissed her again, tasted the sweetness of her lips. "They were wrong," he told her, "Every one of those guys who passed you by was wrong, and I'm so glad. I have a feeling you're going to show me all kinds of things I've never known before."

"Me show you? You're going to show me all kinds of things I've never known before," she said, tracing his lips with her fingers. "Riding the motorcycle was a first, too."

"Which was better?" he growled.

"The motorcycle," she said, deadpan, and then cracked up laughing at the look on his face. He liked her laughter so much, it was a temptation to tickle her or pull faces just to keep her laughing. But he had a better idea.

"Are you ready for another first?" he asked her softly.

"If you stay here tonight, and I fall asleep in your arms, that will be a first," she said, with a certain bewitching shyness.

"Oh, you're stuck with me for the night," he told her, and didn't add at least. He didn't want to scare her away.

He wagged his eyebrows at her, leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, "I bet you've never showered with a man before."

Her eyes went very wide, and her shyness seemed to deepen. She blushed crimson. After all they had just done together!

"Come on," he coaxed. "You have no idea how much fun a shower can be."

"Blake," she pulled the covers right over her head, "I'm not sure I'm ready for that. I mean, it's dark in here at least."

"I know," he said, pulling the covers off her head, "I don't see the darkness as a good thing. I want to see you. All of you. And touch you."

"Oh, God," she moaned, and tried to get back under the covers.

"I want to cover you with soap and run my hands all over you," he told her, not letting her burrow out of his sight.

She couldn't hide the fact she was intrigued. "Maybe I'll do it. Under certain conditions. Can I keep my eyes closed?"

He sighed patiently. "No. How would you see me, all of me, if your eyes were closed? Plus, you might get soap in my eyes."

He remembered thinking over dinner that she had been blushing like a bride. He'd been mistaken. This blush was a bridal blush. She was shy and excited and exhilarated, and maybe a little ashamed of that glorious vessel that was her body.

She probably thought her thighs were too fat or her breasts were too small, and that wouldn't do at all.

He couldn't wait to convince her how perfect she was. He tugged her hand and flipped the covers back.

She squeaked and tried to get back under them.

"You're beautiful," he assured her. "Come on. Take a risk."

She snatched back the sheet. "Do you have any idea how many of those I've taken in the last few weeks?"

He smiled. "Great. That means you're getting good at it." He kissed her hand. "Come on."

She hesitated, debated, finally smiled. "All right."

He knew this was a fragile thing she was giving him, her trust. She hung behind him as he led her across the darkened bedroom to the ensuite. When he let go of her hand to switch on the light, she snatched a big white towel and wrapped it around herself.

He pretended to ignore her, adjusted the water, stepped under the hot spray. And then he reached out, yanked the towel away and took her hand and propelled her into the shower. He held her hard against him, as the water cascaded around them.

"You are beautiful," he told her sternly. "Absolutely gorgeous."

She sputtered indignantly for a few seconds, and then went very still against him.

"Oh, my," she said, as he moved his shoulders and slid his wet chest against the sweet curve of her breasts.

He reached for the soap, lathered it in his hands, and then, using large circular motions, began to wash her back, feeling the wet, beautiful slipperiness of her skin beneath his hands. She tucked in closer to him, but when he allowed his lathered hands to slip down to the delightful full curve of her buttocks, he felt her react, push herself into him.

He took it as a cue and stepped back from her. Slowly and with great tenderness, he soaped her breasts, her tummy. He knelt at her feet and soaped the length of her legs, and the miraculous place between them. He drank in her femininity, worshiped it, with his eyes and his touch and his senses. He let the water wash the soap away, trailed his lips over her rain-clean skin.

"Open your eyes," he told her over the drumming of the water, rising.

She did, lifted her chin, her gaze glued on his face, trying so hard not to look anywhere else.

He handed her the soap and folded her hand around it. "Your turn."

She gasped slightly, looked down at the soap in her hand, closed her eyes again and gulped.

"It's easy," he said, and guided her hand to his shoulder.

And then tentatively she touched him, worked the soapy lather into the slope of his shoulders, moved to the hair on his chest, kissed his pectoral muscles, moved on to his belly.

Her hands, gloved in the soap, brought him as close to heaven as he knew he was ever going to be on this earth.

She made him turn around and she soaped his back.

Her hands, her touch, held innocence and reverence and eagerness. Her fingers were tentative, gentle, unknowingly sensuous, growing more and more certain as she gave herself permission to touch him, to know him in this way.

She stopped and he turned back to face her. Her eyes were wide open now, the water sliding over the silken ribbons of her hair, cascading over the fullness of her breasts, beading on the slender hollow of her stomach, catching like dew in that tangled triangle of temptation between her legs.

"You missed a place," he told her softly.

She hesitated, and then her hands, the soap, found him. He groaned, gathered her in his embrace, let his tongue find and taste the clean wet surfaces of her skin. The water pounded down on them, and the shower stall filled with a warm, sultry mist, cloaking them.

He had never made love in a shower before.

He didn't even know if it was possible. But it wasn't fair to ask her to be the only one taking risks. Her arms wound around his neck, and he lifted her up, amazed by how light she was, amazed again when her legs went around him.

With the water beating down on them, his muscles straining to keep them both from crashing to the floor of the bathtub, one arm braced against the shower stall wall, and the other holding her fast to him, he found out all things are possible.

The water turned cold without warning, and Blake managed to slam down the lever that stopped it from flowing out the shower head. The icy water cascaded out the tap and over his feet, but he was oblivious to it.

He and Holly reached crescendo at exactly the same time.

Gently he set her down outside the tub, jumped out and wrapped her in the big towel. She opened it, and he stood in the folds with her. Her teeth were rattling, so he pulled the towel tighter around them, used his body heat to warm her.

When the worst of her shivering had stopped, he reached for another towel, dried every inch of her.

And then he handed her the towel.

And she dried every inch of him.

And by the time they were done, her shyness had gone, and the heat had risen between them again to nearly fever pitch.

"Race you back to bed," he said.

Laughing, unselfconscious, as uninhibited as a woodland nymph, she darted out of the bathroom and across the cold, rough floor. He was right on her heels when she took a flying leap into the bed, and he landed right beside her.

He took her lips and kissed her until she was breathless once again, her breast heaving against his naked chest.

"Are we going to get any sleep tonight?" she asked playfully, nipping at his ear with her straight, white teeth.

"I certainly hope not," he answered.

But she did sleep after that, in fact she fell asleep with the easy and utter exhaustion of a small child who had spent the day at the beach.

Blake looked at her, her hair scattered across the pillow, her lashes casting small shadows on the roundness of her cheeks, and he marveled.

Who would have ever thought? But the black leather jacket against the white eyelet bedcover should have been his first clue. All Holly Lamb's secrets had been in those startlingly sensual contrasts when he had first tossed her on the bed.

A virgin hiding a tigress at her core.

He knew now the part of Holly Lamb that no one who had ever looked at his prim and proper secretary would have ever guessed at.

Including himself.

The evening they had just spent together had taught him something that he hoped never to forget. That you could think you knew everything there was to know about something, and you might not know it at all.

He had thought, in his arrogance, he knew a thing or two about making love.

And found out what he knew about was sex. More accurately, what he knew about was the four-letter word that guys used so openly in the company of other guys, that word that was flung around so casually and abundantly in pool halls and taverns and the places with bars and locks where Blake had learned the language of being a certain kind of man.

That word had nothing to do with what had happened here tonight.

Or the kind of man he had seen reflected in the wonder in her eyes.

In her innocence and her awe, she had shown him what making love was about. It wasn't about a physical release.

It was about a spiritual joining.

It wasn't about some emptiness, longing to be filled.

It was about a lonely soul making its way unerringly toward completion.

Imagine. Educated about making love at the hands of Holly Lamb.

He thought of her hands and could feel his heat rising. Again. As if three times in amazingly quick succession had not been enough. Each time she had grown bolder, more uninhibited, more playful, more a woman than any he had ever known.

Tenderly, he pulled the blanket higher over her naked shoulder. She muttered something, her brow puckered and then her cheek found his chest, and her face relaxed and she went perfectly still. That her trust in him crossed over the barrier between waking and sleeping touched him in yet another way.

It was getting light outside the window.

He contemplated the gift she had given him, stroked her hair, and her cheek, before finally lying down beside her, pulling her into him, wrapping his arms protectively around her. She wriggled close in her sleep, sighed against him.

After all these weeks of feeling so confused, Blake Fallon knew exactly what he wanted.

He wanted to marry her.

That easy.

He wanted to be with her every night, and wake up with her every morning. He wanted to read newspapers in bed with her, and make her tea, and listen to her voice, and feel her eyes on him.

He wanted to make her blush, and make her laugh, and make her lose control over and over again.

He wanted to walk beaches with her, and ride motorcycles, and look at stars. He wanted to see the world through her eyes. He knew it would be a place brand-new to him, exhilarating, full of undiscovered wonders.

He wanted them to run this ranch together. Not him as the boss and her as the secretary, but the two of them as a team.

He realized, ever since she had first come, they had moved more and more in that direction without him realizing it. A team. He thought of her gentle way with the kids, her quick intelligence, her sense of humor, and he felt what she had felt earlier.

As if it was too much emotion, and it would overflow from him.

And the largest emotion was gratitude. That somehow, when he did not in the least deserve it, she had become his.

She was a woman a man could count on. Could relate to. Could lower his defenses with. She was a woman who allowed a man to be completely and utterly himself, and who did not flinch from what that meant.

No, embraced what it meant.

He was suddenly and humbly so grateful for all the days of her life that she had believed herself to be plain and had dressed the part, acted the part.

It might have been the very thing that saved her treasure for him. And now he would have the great privilege of coaxing her beauty out of her day by day, until she believed it. Radiated it. Was it.

He could picture them growing old together, which startled him. He had never ever looked at a woman and thought of her in terms of the future. Heaven forbid he should think about her hair turning white, and wrinkles appearing around her eyes. None of the women he dated would have much appreciated that projection either.

But with Holly it was a delightful picture. She was one of those women who truly would become better as she aged. She was like a fall-blooming flower, that hardy breed that put the bright blossoms of spring to shame. Fall flowers had strength and resilience, a depth that showed itself in the color that shone forth long after so much else had faded.

Holly Lamb possessed a beauty that went beyond the astonishing hazel shades of her eyes. She possessed a loveliness of soul, and he felt so fortunate that he had seen that first about her.

Blake startled himself further by realizing he could picture her pregnant. All the days of his life he had thought he would not have children. He had thought of the bitter days of his own childhood and reached the conclusion he had been left without the skills necessary to raise a child of his own. A child who was happy and healthy, who had enough self-worth to give the world the gift of himself or herself. The years as director of the Hopechest had, oddly, done nothing to change this assessment of himself.

But when he pictured Holly pregnant, her tummy blossoming with his baby within her, and her breasts growing full, he felt an exquisite tenderness, a yearning to one day have a family with her.

He knew why he had never been able to picture himself as a father before.

Because the magic ingredient had been missing.

The ingredient that could turn a man's hard years into his lessons and his gifts. The ingredient that healed the things a man might carry with him and inadvertently use to hurt others.

The ingredient was love.

With love a man who had spent his childhood either running or locked up would be able to put that aside. With love, a man who had never been read to, or held, would know how to hold his own children, how to cuddle close to them and read them bedtime stories. With love, a man who had played pool instead of Little League, could pitch balls to his own son or daughter.

With the love that shone in Holly's eyes, he could be more a man than he had ever hoped or believed before.

Tomorrow he would go and buy a ring.

The choice would be hers.

But he knew what her choice would be. He had seen it in her eyes. He had been looking at that choice in her eyes for a long, long time.

Imagine her being patient enough to wait until he got it.

He knew what her answer would be to his question "Will you marry me?" and he felt peace. Blake Fallon was a man who, for years now, had thought out each of his actions carefully, analytically, practically.

And lost some part of himself in the process.

The part of him that worked on instinct, survived on instinct, gloried in the adventure of the heart.

Tonight he felt returned to that part of himself. That finally his personality, all of it, could dwell within his own body in peace, integrated.

The wild part of him wanted her, now and forever.

The respectable part of him knew that meant marrying her.

But he let the wild side have the last word: soon. He would marry her with great haste. For her. So that she would never feel a moment's guilt about what had transpired between them. Or a moment's anxiety that it would not last, that it was a flash in the pan.

He would marry her with great haste. For him. To honor that voice within him that he had silenced for too long, that told him exactly what he needed to survive. More, it told him what he needed to be happy.

He needed Holly Lamb.

He needed her like air and water and sunshine. His soul needed her.

He needed her in order that he become the man he was meant to be. Not just a respected man, not just a man who had risen above the troubles of his youth, not just a successful man. But a man who knew how to love. How to give his heart. How to accept love in return. That was the essential element that had been missing from Blake Fallon.

For the first time since the water on the Hopechest Ranch had been poisoned, Blake fell into a deep and untroubled sleep.

That sleep was shattered, after what seemed like only seconds, by a bloodcurdling scream.




Thirteen

The monster was enormous. He had red leathery skin that bubbled briskly like oil boiling. He snorted smoke and his eyes were orange and evil, black-slatted like a snake's. Under each of his warty arms he held a rusty barrel, clearly marked.

DMBE. And in smaller letters DiMethyl Butyl Ether.

Now he was at the wellhead, and the monster peeled the soldered cap off the well with no more effort than it took to peel back the lid off a tin of anchovies. And then he squeezed the barrels in his monster-huge hands, and the bottom and the tops blew off, and liquid began to ooze out, huge dollops of it falling down the well pipe, splashing into the water.

The liquid was luminous, and green. Holly could tell by looking at it that it held death and destruction, hell and heartbreak.

The monster was laughing now, and she felt startled. Did she know that laughter? Did she recognize it? The laughter was a human sound, not as evil as she might have expected, but hard and cynical, an edge of meanness in it.

A feeling of terror encompassed her. A feeling that she knew the monster.

As if sensing the presence of the dreamer, he turned, looked at her, and his face began to shift, to melt before her eyes.

Always before when the dream had reached this point, Holly had awakened, screaming and terrified, knowing the face below the monster's would be the most horrifying thing she had ever seen.

But tonight, even though she was afraid, she felt oddly safe and warm, protected, as if something much stronger than the monster was holding her in its embrace.

Not breathing, not blinking, Holly waited for the monster to show her his face.

She watched, horrified, fascinated, as the red scales fell away, the lumpy warts disintegrated, bone structure appeared, pink skin, human skin. The monster was a man.

She knew suddenly where she recognized the laughter from.

You're going to work where? For how much? The laughter. You're crazy. You have the brains to do anything, my girl, anything. Come work for me. Together we could conquer the world, you and I.

My girl. My girl. My girl.

Something in her began to scream, her denial desperate. No. No. No. Stop. She had decided she didn't want to see. She begged the monster to stop. She didn't want to know. But the face kept emerging, taking shape, forming before her eyes.

She tried to turn away before her world collapsed, but there were arms around her. She fought them, but they held, so strong, not allowing her to escape.

She tried to cover her eyes, she tried not to look. She shut her eyes tight.

But even the closed eyes did not help. She knew. And she was not allowed to escape what she knew any longer. She saw the face, and her screams intensified. The monster's face was the most horrifying face she had ever seen.

Not because the man was ugly. No, not that. He wasn't ugly at all. Plain, her mother would have said. You inherited your looks from your father.

That was why it was so horrifying. Because she had expected to see the face of a stranger. And instead she found herself looking into a face nearly as familiar to her as her own.

Her father.

Her father was the monster.

* * *

"Holly, wake up. Geez, that's quite the right punch. Hey, you're going to give me a black eye. Come out of it. Come on, baby."

Holly jerked awake, stared uncomprehending. Her screams still seemed to hang, chilling, in the bedroom air.

"Blake?" For a moment she was so disoriented she thought she must still be dreaming. Blake in her bed?

"Yeah, Blake. Were you expecting someone else?" He raised a wicked, teasing eyebrow at her.

But the other dream held her in its grip. She tried to shake free of it, but could not. Holly began to tremble, trying to hold back the revulsion and fear she felt. The dream had been trying to tell her for months, and she had been too afraid to face its truth.

Only tonight, in the arms of the man who had shown her a piece of heaven, shared that piece of heaven with her, had she finally felt safe and strong. Safe and strong enough to look into the face of that monster.

"Shhh," he said, "Holly, it was only a dream."

He wrapped his arms tight around her, stroked her hair, murmured against her neck. How wonderful that would have felt, if it was only a dream, to come awake to him.

The tears came, the sobs wracked her body. It wasn't only a dream. She knew that with a terrible certainty.

She knew who had sabotaged the ranch. She had known all along, in some dark corner of her mind. Her father had done it, as coldly, as analytically as he had done everything else in his life.

What was she going to say to Blake?

Oh, God, what if he believed she had seduced him to cover up for her father? What if he thought she had known all along? Here she had been accepting credit for getting the water turned off so quickly.

Hadn't her father called, in the middle of the chaos, to see if she was all right?

He'd called way before the press got hold of the story. Had it been he who suggested the ranch check the water as the source of the illness? But why would he do that, if he had really poisoned the water in the first place?

At the last minute, had he decided to save her?

He'd made it evident ever since she took this job that he felt it was beneath her, a waste of her talent and brains.

How he had scorned her wanting to help the children. Pollyanna. Bleeding Heart. Goody-Two-Shoes. Those were his comments about her.

His comments about the kids had been even more cutting, more cruel. Junior thugs, he'd called the boys from The Shack, eating at the government trough, in between sessions of preying on society. He'd said even worse things about the girls at Emily's House.

She had tried to tell him how she felt, but he had brushed her comments aside. And she really hadn't given what he said another thought. Spouting off was just her dad. He was cynical. And hard. And cold. He had a mean streak.

But was he dangerous?

Surely, for all his faults he could not poison children. His own daughter.

"Holly, come back, sweetheart. Where are you?"

She tried to focus on Blake, as if he would be something solid to hold on to. "The dream," she murmured reluctantly. "I've had the most awful dream."

"The one about the monster poisoning the water? Tell me about it again," he said, his voice so tender, so concerned about her, the voice she had waited her whole life to hear.

"I can't," she whispered.

"Okay, think about something else, then. Look at the sun coming in the windows. It's past nine. Do you want me to cook you breakfast? I make a mean Spanish omelet, and I bet you have all the ingredients."

How she appreciated him trying to bring her back, trying to comfort her. If she was not mistaken, that was a brand-new light shining in his eyes.

Love.

Looking at him, Holly felt as though her heart were breaking into jagged little pieces. The hard, cold truth was she was completely unworthy of him. Because she did not know if she had the courage to do the right thing.

Could she turn in her own father? Could she mention her suspicions to anyone?

Could she not mention her suspicions?

Could she hold them inside and hope Todd had finished whatever he had set out to do? What if he wasn't finished? Would she really wait until he managed to kill somebody before she would do what was right?

What if her silence killed a child?

"Oh, God," she said out loud.

"Holly! It was a dream." His voice so calm, so certain. It was a voice that a woman wanted to wake up to forever.

That had been the dream. The dream had been the night she just had spent with Blake. A night so full of laughter and passion and wondrous discovery. A night she would never forget, that she would hold to and find strength in the days to come. The weeks. The months. Maybe the years. She could not ask Blake to care about her now, she could not accept his caring.

"Blake," she said, "you have to leave now. I have something I have to do today. It's important."

She was amazed by the coolness in her tone.

Blake looked stunned. Then the hurt chased, like clouds, through the clear gray of his eyes. Somehow that was much easier to handle than the tender concern.

"I think we should talk about that nightmare."

"Maybe later," she said, resisting the note of authority in his voice. "Blake, please just go."

He was not the kind of man who would ever beg, she knew that. He got up and found his clothes. He sat on the edge of the bed and slipped his jeans over his legs, stood up, and tugged them over the steel curve of his buttock. They settled snugly around his waist as he did up the snap.

She watched him with the kind of hunger of a woman who was saving memories. How she wanted this to be part of her life. To be able to watch him throw clothes over his magnificent body every day, feel the wanting start in her anew.

Did women grow tired of these little things, like watching their man get dressed in the morning? Did those small things lose their ability to compel, after time?

She could not imagine such a thing. She could not imagine a day would ever come when she would tire of him. His back was still to her, as he pulled the crumpled shirt over the broad surface of his shoulders.

Shoulders she had touched and kissed and known.

For some reason, she pictured him growing old. She knew who he would be like. Joe Colton. Handsome and proud and full of vitality.

She knew if she followed these thoughts any further she would begin to cry, and that Blake would turn back to her and return to the bed. He would put his arms around her and tuck her head into his shoulder, and he would not rest until she told him.

Her strength was ebbing as she saw him getting ready to leave. If he gave her one last chance, she would probably tell everything.

She saw him turning back toward her, and she flipped over on her side, as if she did not care if he went.

"Holly?"

"Hmm?" she didn't turn back over.

"You want me to call you later?"

"I think it might be better if I called you."

Silence, and then the door whispered open, and she heard his feet pad across her floor, imagined him stopping to put on his boots, glancing back at her bedroom door one last time. And then she heard the outside door open and close quietly.

It sounded terribly final.

And then she began to weep.

But there was no time for weeping. There was a madman out there, and children in danger, and she needed to know what she was going to do about it.

She realized she had no choice. That was why she had not dared to look at the face in her dream until she had found a safe place, a place that had made her more than she ever was before. A woman of courage, who took chances.

She had no choice, but whichever way she turned now her life would be changed forever, tinged with the faint ugliness of a woman who had betrayed her own father.

Or the worse ugliness of a woman who had betrayed the trust of the children in her care. Not to mention the man who had given his heart to her last night.

Sick with grief and trepidation, she went to the phone book and fumbled through it until she found the number she was looking for.

A woman answered the phone.

For some reason she sounded like the woman that Holly might have been this morning if she had not had that dream.

She sounded like a woman who was happy, in love, satiated.

Holly was shocked at herself for drawing that kind of conclusion about a woman she barely knew.

"Libby, it's Holly Lamb. I need to talk to Rafe, if he's there."

He came to the phone. His voice was deep and strong. Reassuring. It was the voice of a man a woman could believe in.

And, Holly hoped, trust her fate to.

"Rafe, it's Holly Lamb. I need to see you," she said. "It's very urgent. No, don't come here." Blake would have too many questions to ask if Rafe showed up at her cabin. "I'll come to you. In an hour? Fine." She wrote down the instructions he gave her to find his home on the reservation, took a deep breath, and wiped the tears from her eyes. She looked like hell, and it just didn't seem to matter at all anymore what she looked like.

The roads, thankfully, were uncrowded, because Holly drove terribly, her mind so racked with confusion.

Rafe answered the door and invited her in. She followed him back to the kitchen, wrapped her hand around the coffee cup he set in front of her.

She could tell, he was taking her measure, and accurately.

She knew why he and Blake were good friends. He was physically big and strong, like Blake, but it was more. Holly could feel the quiet strength running through him.

He didn't push her, just sipped his own coffee and watched her.

"Blake told me you have a primary suspect in the water poisoning," she finally said. "And that you wouldn't tell him who it was."

She could tell she shocked him. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this. And her knowledge that the suspect was her father was confirmed by the hood that dropped warily over his eyes.

"Did he send you here to ask me who it was?" he asked, after a moment, "because if I didn't tell him, I won't tell you."

"You don't have to tell me," she said quietly. "I know."

He stared at her, and she could tell again she had taken him by surprise, and that he was not a man used to being surprised.

"You know?" he repeated, quietly.

"I know." She fought to keep the quiver from her voice and succeeded. "I know that my father poisoned the water."

Rafe took a sip of his coffee, eyed her warily.

"So, are you here on his behalf?" He gave away nothing, neither confirming or denying her father was a suspect.

"On behalf of my father?" she asked incredulously. "What age are you from? I am not here because a man sent me here. I am here because I can't live with myself if I don't do something about what I know."

"How long have you thought it was your father?"

"Since this morning," she said, and then gave in to the feeling she could trust him. She told him about the dreams, about finally this morning the monster having a face. She did not mention the reason the monster's face had become clear to her this morning—because Blake was with her.

"Holly, a dream? That's not exactly cold, hard fact. It's hardly admissible in a court of law."

"You know it's him, don't you?" she pressed.

Rafe ran an uneasy hand through his hair.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked softly. "He's still free."

She saw in his eyes that he had crossed some line and had decided to trust her as much as she was already trusting him.

"We don't have enough evidence to make an arrest. No traces of the substance in his car, no witnesses, no motive."

"You don't have anything."

He sighed. "Except that hunch. The one that's never wrong."

"I think I could get him to confess to me. I could tape it."

Rafe stared at her, and hope leapt in his dark eyes, before he savagely doused it. "No."

"Why not?"

"Look, you've seen too many cop shows. Things go very wrong on operations like that, and that's with trained people doing the dance."

"You're thinking something else," she deduced.

He shot her a look. "Smart girl."

"And?"

"Okay. Blake would kill me. How's that?"

She allowed herself to feel a small thrill of joy that Blake must have confided in his friend that he had feelings for her. Last night hadn't been an impulse on his part, it had been a culmination.

She forced herself not to think that now. She had to stay strong and clear.

She sensed she still did not have the whole story. "There's something else."

Rafe sighed. "A man was sent here from the Environmental Protection Agency. His name was Charlie O'Connell. He died in a single-vehicle car accident. The circumstances are suspicious."

She felt the blood drain from her face. "You think my father killed him?"

He shrugged. "It's a possibility that makes me not very inclined to ask you to get a confession out of him."

Why did she feel so newly shocked? Why was this any worse than what he had already done? The fact that people had not died from the contaminated water seemed to be more by accident than design.

If anything, the suspicion of murder should be hardening her resolve. Her father was a dangerous man. And she might be the only person he would ever admit that to.

She leaned across the table, drilled Rafe with her eyes. "Mr. James, I am getting that confession from my father. On tape. I'm doing it with or without your help. So you decide which it's going to be."

"Look, you're not getting involved in this."

"I'm already involved in this." She stood up. "Fine. I can go buy one of those pocket-size tape recorders and hide it and go see my father. I don't need your help."

He sat there, and she could tell he was debating whether to call her bluff. Only she wasn't bluffing. She took a step toward the door.

"Wait."

She turned back toward him. "Yes?"

Rafe looked at her grimly, and then a reluctant smile played across his firm lips. "No wonder he's crazy about you," he said. "Has he told you that yet?"

"Yes," she said, but she would not let the confusion of that yes weaken her, change her mind, make her thinking less clear. She had to get this out of the way before she could give Blake one more thought.

If she did not look after this, their relationship was doomed.

And maybe it was anyway.

"I'm going to give Rory Sinclair a call and ask him over. I'd like his take on this, his input. Is that all right with you?"

She nodded.

It seemed like only a few minutes before Rory was at the door. Rory had been to the Hopechest office before, and it was just as evident why he and Blake were friends as it was evident why Rafe and Blake were friends.

The three men had something the same about them—that easy self-assurance of men who knew who they were and what they were about. The easy confidence of strong men who had relied on their strength and won because of it.

When Rory joined them at the kitchen table, Rafe encouraged her to tell it again.

She repeated how the dream had revealed the truth to her.

Rory shot Rafe a look that said So what? We can't use it in court.

"Tell him the rest," Rafe said grimly.

"I'm going to tape a confession from my father."

"What?" Rory exploded. "You sure the hell are not."

"Yes, I am."

"She said she's doing it with or without our help," Rafe said.

Rory gave her a stern look. "It's too dangerous. Miss Lamb—Holly—I don't think you know what you're playing with here. You're thinking of him as Daddy, but he has willfully harmed a lot of people." Rory cast Rafe a glance.

"I told her our suspicions about O'Connell."

"So, you know your father may have even killed a man. You don't just go marching into something like that and say fess up, and think he will."

"Give me credit for having a few brains," she said coldly, "and for knowing my father. I believe I know exactly how to play to him."

"I think she can pull it off," Rafe said reluctantly.

Rory rocked his chair up on its back legs and looked from Rafe to her and back again. "I'll call Kane Lummus," he said, and got up and did so. "He's on his way. Blake is going to kill us."

"My thoughts exactly," Rafe said glumly.

"Blake doesn't even have to know about it," she said evenly.

"Right."

"Sure."

"He doesn't!"

"He'll know," Rafe told her sharply.

"How?"

"You don't know Blake like I do. The man runs on instinct. He follows his gut. He'll know something's up and he won't rest until he knows what it is. Especially if it involves you."

It was the second time Rafe had implied Blake had been harboring feelings for her longer than she might have guessed.

Possibly as long as she had been harboring them for him?

All of them froze as they heard the deep rumble of a motorcycle engine outside the house. Rory and Rafe exchanged glances as the engine shut down.

A moment later, Blake was leaning against the kitchen door, his helmet swinging in his hand, his black leather jacket undone. He regarded the three of them solemnly.

"Do you mind telling me what's going on here?"




Fourteen

Nobody looked very happy to see him, Blake noted. And that went double for Holly. She was exchanging looks with his friends that begged them not to tell.

Tell what?

Angry and confused after leaving Holly this morning, he had gone home and done the mature thing. The masculine thing. He had sulked and licked his wounds. And sulked some more. Somehow, being asked to leave was not what he had pictured for his first morning as a man in love.

Then he had heard her car start up and gotten to his bedroom window just in time to see her pulling away.

Apparently she wasn't sulking. She was getting on with her important plans, just as she had said she was going to.

He'd decided to get on his motorbike and head for the coast. The truth was it was a variation on sulking where he entertained various notions, including that of never coming back. But he hadn't gone very far before memories of the night before came back to torment him.

Last night had been a night of breathtaking magnificence. It wouldn't be stretching it to say being with Holly was hands down the best experience of his entire life. And he had known it was the same for her, with that wonderful feeling of knowing that came from being with Holly. He knew her. She knew him.

How had it all blown up?

The nightmare. Whatever she had dreamed had gripped her so strong he could not break it. He remembered they had discussed her dream before. A silly dream, the subconscious dealing with all her fears surrounding the ranch's water.

In her dream a monster poisoned the ranch water. But when she had awoken this morning, she seemed to feel the dream had told her something real. Did she think she knew who had poisoned the water?

Maybe she thought it was him.

The thought was so stunning he had to pull off the road to consider it. The very thought was an affront to his ego, and everything he had come to hope he stood for: decency, integrity, honesty. It seemed impossible the woman he loved could harbor such a notion about him and yet what else could explain that quick turnaround? Holly had gone, it seemed, from loving him madly and completely to not being able to get rid of him fast enough.

Did Holly think he'd poisoned the water? Could he give his love to a woman who could believe such a despicable thing of him?

Well, why not him? He came from a bad gene pool. Good old Dad had managed to wreck Joe Colton's birthday party with a gun. And maybe Blake wasn't so far removed from his own bad-boy days to have truly outrun the stigma.

Or maybe she had the thought he had been nursing: What if the poisoned water was an act of revenge? One of Joe Colton's many admirers doing payback for Blake's father's attempt on Joe's life?

None of his conjecture rang true.

But if it was true, at the very least he could find out who had really done it. If he knew that, maybe he could help her put a stop to those nightmares that had such a hold on her she thought they were real.

Even if it didn't bring her back to him. Maybe love didn't do that. Maybe love didn't ask for anything in return.

Rafe knew.

And if he had to, Blake was prepared to choke it out of him.

His astonishment at seeing that Holly had beat him to Rafe's was nearly enough to make him turn around, go home and sulk some more.

But then he recognized Rory's vehicle was there, too.

It seemed so out of kilter that three of the people he cared about most in the world were sharing something without him, that not even his pride could make him turn around and mind his own business.

What if she had brought her suspicions to them?

If she had, it would be better to face it now, turn it around now, before it was too late, than to go home and stew about all the different possibilities that might be unfolding in that house.

Hell, maybe she was even planning a surprise party for him.

The momentary warmth and relief that thought brought to him disappeared as soon as he saw their faces. These were not three people planning a surprise party.

"Do you mind telling me what's going on here?" he repeated, not missing the guilty looks that were passing between Rafe and Rory.

Nobody said anything.

"Do you think I did it?" he asked quietly. He was looking at all of them, or pretending to. Really, he was only looking at her.

And her stunned look told him he was way off the mark.

"Did what?" Rory asked him, genuinely incredulous.

Rafe shook his head, looked from Blake to Holly, and got it. Of course. "Never mind," he told Rory, "the man's not thinking straight."

"Well, maybe you could help me out then," Blake suggested, the silkiness of his tone not masking the threat in the least.

Rafe sighed, sent Holly an apologetic look. "It's Todd Lamb."

Holly lowered her head, looked at the hands folded in her lap. Her face was white with pain—and shame.

"Todd Lamb what?" he asked. Dead? Maimed? Ill? And then, sickeningly, he knew. They didn't think Blake had poisoned the ranch's water. They thought it was Holly's father.

Blake went to Holly, slid back the empty chair beside her. He sat down and pried one hand out of her lap and held it tight. He wanted to rake her over the coals for not telling him, for not trusting him, but he felt like a fool.

Rafe had practically told him who it was. Had told him Holly was going to need him to get through it. Why hadn't he figured it out? Her father was behind the contaminated water.

Rafe was right. Blake hadn't figured it out because he wasn't thinking straight. He hadn't been thinking straight for a long time. For as long as he had loved Holly. When had he started loving her? The first time he'd seen her on the sofa with a little kid on her lap instead of at her desk? Or when she'd started framing those pictures? Or the first time he'd heard her laugh? Or was it after that first real conversation they'd had, and it had gone deep and true?

When had he first known it?

That was easy. When Tomas had told him he'd held a knife to her throat, even though Blake had been able to go on denying it for a while longer.

"So," he said, squeezing her hand, trying to tell her it was all right, "what's next?"

The discomfort grew in the room.

Rory spoke. "We're waiting for Kade to get here. Holly's going to wear a wire," he finally said. "She's going to tape a confession."

Blake stared at his two oldest friends. Well, apparently they weren't thinking straight, either.

"Not in my lifetime," he told them quietly.

Rafe shot Holly a look. "Yeah, well, that's kind of what we said, too."

"Good, we're all in agreement."

Holly pulled her hand free from his with amazing strength, and looked at him, the shame gone from her eyes. They were snapping green fire.

"We're all in agreement? I don't think so."

"Huh?"

"I'll tell you the same thing I told them. I'm going to tape a confession from him—with or without their help. Or yours."

"Like hell you are."

"I'm not asking your permission."

Blake had the very naughty thought that he couldn't wait to see this side of her personality in bed. The tigress had surprised him. She had really been keeping it a secret that she was part hellcat.

Then, he reminded himself grimly, his sharing a bed with her again was somewhat contingent on her not getting herself killed.

"What are you thinking?" he asked her. "It sounds like a script from a bad movie."

She glared at him and folded her arms over her chest in a way that did not bode well for his veto power.

He tried a different tone of voice. Patient. Wise. "What you're proposing sounds foolishly dangerous."

It didn't seem to convince her.

"It's foolishly dangerous to leave my father running loose. That's what I'm thinking. What's to stop him from repeating his crime? Which of the kids are you willing to sacrifice so I'll be safe forever? One of them? All of them?"

"Look, these two are both law enforcement professionals. I'm sure they have a plan to nab your father that doesn't put you in such grave personal danger. Don't you? Rory? Rafe?"

His friends looked at him silently.

Rafe finally spoke. "He hasn't left a trail, Blake. All we've got right now is a fistful of suspicions and a hunch. The truth is he'd probably have to act again before we got him."

Act again. Blake felt sick.

"You should probably know we suspect him in the death of Charles O'Connell, as well," Rory said bleakly.

Blake let go of a trail of expletives, intended to convey his displeasure to Holly in no uncertain terms. After which she was supposed to back down.

"I have to do it," she told him. "Do you understand?"

He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. He saw the strength there, the absolute courage to back up her convictions. Unfortunately he did understand. And unfortunately, he thought a lot of her having to do this was about her loving him.

Having to prove herself to him, the same way Blake had felt driven to prove himself to Joe Colton after he'd been rescued from a life of crime, and then again after his own father had tried to kill Joe.

He understood those demons. And he knew he could not make them go away for her.

Even so, he said, "Don't do this for me, Holly. You don't have to prove anything to me."

"I'm doing it for myself."

He nodded, defeated, and then taking a deep breath, he committed to the path the other three of them were already on. If he couldn't stop her, he had to protect her.

"I'm in," he said. "Tell me what you want me to do."

And so they spent agonizing hours coming up with a plan, rehearsing Holly over and over again so that she wouldn't slip up.

Kade Lummus arrived, a man who inspired confidence. He had several other members of the Prosperino Police Department with him.

Two things became apparent to Blake. The first was that she probably could get her father to confess. She knew him. She knew the exact combination of ego-stroking and admiration to use. But the second thing was the frightening one: There were too many things that could go wrong, too many variables they could not even begin to speculate about sitting here in the safety of Rafe's kitchen, slugging back pot after pot of black coffee.

Libby slipped in unobtrusively and kept refurbishing the coffee. Just as unobtrusively, she provided sandwiches and snacks.

Despite his anxiety, Blake couldn't help but notice how well Libby and Rafe read each other's signs. He thought it was one woman in a million who would prepare coffee and disappear like that, not allowing her curiosity about what was happening in that tension-rife kitchen to get the better of her.

By the end of that long afternoon, pieces were falling into place. Bumper beepers had been delivered. One had been installed on Holly's car. The other would be attached to the bumper of Todd's car as soon as darkness fell. The tape recorder arrived. And then a surveillance van.

Blake wouldn't let anybody else touch her. Kade told him what to do. He taped the small recorder to her tiny midriff, trying not to let the touch of her skin drive him wild with remembered passion that only fueled his fear for her.

Libby, a few sizes larger than Holly, lent her an oversize sweater. The recorder had to be turned on only once, after that it was voice activated. Rafe had her practice over and over again, until she could clear her throat and touch the on button seamlessly, every single time.

Darkness fell.

Without a word, Rory took the bumper beeper and left.

Blake prayed that Lamb's car would be gone, that he would have other business tonight, or that he parked his car where it would be too risky for Rory to crawl underneath it and attach the beeper to the bumper.

But Rory was back within half an hour. Again, he didn't say a word. Only nodded.

Taking a deep breath, Holly picked up the phone.

Rafe grabbed it from her and pressed the code to block the number, just in case her father had caller ID. He handed it back to her, and she dialed her father's number, then put it on the speaker.

Again, Blake found himself praying. Don't let him be home. If he's home, let him not answer.

But on the third ring, Lamb picked up.

"Hi, Dad, it's Holly."

"I don't think I know anybody by that name."

It was a joke, of sorts, but Blake saw Holly flinch from the casual cruelty of it.

"Your daughter?" she said.

A short laugh. "I know. It's just I haven't heard from you for so long, I didn't remember I had a daughter."

Tell him the phone works two ways, Blake thought savagely, and then realized Holly was much better at this than he. Because she remembered the point wasn't to get Todd's back up.

"The crisis at the ranch just kept me really busy for a while," Holly said. "But I'd love to make it up to you. Do you want to go for dinner tonight?"

Hesitation. Just enough, Blake thought angrily, to make her know he had to debate between a night of watching baseball on television or spending time with her.

"I guess we could do that," Todd said.

There was a collective but silent sigh in the kitchen.

"The Red Herring?" Holly said. "I've heard it's good."

"By Prosperino's standards or the rest of the world's?"

A man who found fault with everything.

"I just heard it was good."

"All right. You want me to pick you up?"

Three men shook their heads violently. If they could keep Holly and her father out of vehicles and in public, that would be safer. The bumper beepers were a backup they were all praying they wouldn't have to use.

Rory had already arranged for them to have a quiet corner in the restaurant, completely private, in case Todd accepted the invitation.

Their waiter was going to be an FBI agent.

"Oh, no," Holly said, "there's no sense coming all the way out here. I'll meet you." She glanced at the clock. "Say around six-thirty."

"All right, doll. I just thought I'd save you some gas money. The way you get paid at that miserable job, I'm surprised you can afford to drive."

"That's one of the things I want to talk to you about."

"I hope this means you've come to your senses."

"I'll see you at dinner, Daddy."

"Right-o."

She hung up the phone.

Rory said it all. He shook his head. "Charming, isn't he? Sorry, Holly."

Rafe looked at his watch. "Thirty minutes. Let's go over it one more time."

And they settled in to work.

"I need a few minutes alone with Holly before she goes," Blake said, as the minutes ticked down.

Rafe and Rory left the room.

"You still have time to back out," he told her quietly. He could see she was afraid and at war with herself. Well, he of all people in the world knew what it was to put away any final illusions you had about a parent.

"I'm not backing out," she said stubbornly.

"I wish you would have told me about the dream this morning."

She looked at her hands. "Blake, please believe this. It wasn't because I didn't care for you. It was because—" Her voice faltered. "It was just because."

He crossed the distance between them and swept her into his arms, covered her lips with his own. Not to convince her not to go, but so that she could carry it within her, like a shield to protect her.

His love.

Had he ever said the words before? Maybe many years ago, to his mother. Until he had admitted she was deaf to the words.

He felt afraid of saying them now.

And yet he knew he had to overcome that fear. That she needed to hear the words, and that he needed to say them.

"Holly, I love you."

Her eyes went very wide, and her mouth dropped open.

"Are you just saying that?" she asked.

He smiled. "Those aren't words a man just says."

She smiled then, radiant, before a different look passed over her face, a look of intense doubt.

He wanted to erase it by asking her to marry him now, but would that make her unable to focus on the job that needed to be done? Better to wait than to take that chance.

There was a soft rap on the door, and Rory put his head in. "Show time."

Blake felt her tremble against him, and then she took a deep breath and stepped back. He looked at her and added courage to the list of attributes he most loved about her.

He didn't want to let her go. But he knew if he tried to hold her now it would change something between them that could never be repaired.

Love could never be allowed to diminish what your beloved was. It had to be the force that made them more than they had been before. Greater. Fully themselves.

Holly was a woman of integrity and honor and courage. If he loved her, he could not be the one to ask her not to be those things.

So, though he wanted to hold her to him forever, instead he kissed her on the tip of her nose.

"I'll be right outside in the surveillance van," he told her. "I'll be there for you."

She smiled bravely. "Knowing that makes it so much easier."

He wished she would say the words he most needed to hear. What if she never came back and she had not told him she loved him? He could not allow himself to think that.

He let her go.

She whirled from him, shoulders back and chin up, and walked out of the room. She accepted some last-minute instructions from Rory, and then went and got in her car.

The three men got in the van that had been delivered. Blake was impressed with it. On the outside it was unobtrusive. An old gray panel van that said Walt's Plumbing on the side of it. It looked like it hadn't been through a car wash in a long time.

All the men were silent and tense. Rafe took the driver's seat, Blake and Rory went into the back.

It was incredibly high tech. Rory slipped on a pair of headphones and turned on a computer.

"Her beeper working?" Blake asked.

Rory gave him a look. "You think I'd wait until now to find out?"

"Sorry," Blake muttered.

Rory handed him a set of headphones. "Last-minute instructions. This is Rafe's and my gig. You are here for the ride. No heroics. This is not Hollywood."

Blake scowled at him. "You don't need to tell me this isn't Hollywood. My gut told me a few hours ago. A bucket of popcorn never made it feel like this."

"You love her?" Rory asked, not looking at him, but fiddling with something on the computer monitor.

"Yeah," Blake growled.

"That just complicates everything. Because I know if it was Peggy going in there I'd be a wreck. And I'd make mistakes. So you leave the thinking to Rafe and me, you got it?"

"Yeah," Blake muttered insincerely. As if, if he felt her life was in danger, he was just going to sit there and let them call the shots.

Rory must have seen the look on his face, because he sighed and shook his head.

"She's at the restaurant," he said, showing Blake the map that had come up on his computer screen.

Rafe parked about half a block from the restaurant, away from the street lamps. "I'll do visual," he said quietly.

Rory nodded.

The time ticked by with excruciating slowness.

"There's Todd," Rafe said.

Blake felt his skin prickling. He had to fight down the urge to leap out of the van and go take care of this himself.

Rory touched his sleeve and gave him a warning look.

They waited for the tape to turn on. There were several tense minutes of disconnection, and then with a click a tape recorder in the van turned on, the reels began to slowly turn, and Blake heard her voice, strong and clear. He marveled at her light tone. One thing he wouldn't have thought she could do was act.

She was so damned genuine.

They chatted for a few minutes about her mother and another mutual friend, and then she brought the conversation around.

"So, Daddy, how do you like being vice president of Springer?"

"It's a start," he said.

"A start?" she said with just the right touch of admiration.

Todd was happy to fill her in on where he was going next. Right to the top. Had his eye on the president's chair.

He was a man who loved talking about himself. He hadn't asked Holly one question about her life, had not shown the least bit of interest in her. He ordered for her, without consulting her.

He had nearly put Blake to sleep, when Holly stepped up the heat.

"So, Daddy, now that David Corbett has been cleared, have you any thoughts on how the water at the ranch got poisoned?"

"I think it was just an accident," he said, and the men listening could hear the caution in his voice.

"An accident?" she asked. "Really? How could a restricted chemical get in the water by accident?"

"Aquifers change, maps become outdated. A little earth tremor can do it."

"I don't understand," she said.

"I don't think whoever poisoned the water ever meant to hurt anyone at the ranch, Holly."

"Really?"

To the men listening in she was playing the interested schoolgirl to the hilt.

Todd lowered his voice. "Springer has been looking to expand operations. Contaminated water drives down land prices."

"Careful, Holly," Rory said in an undertone.

"Springer has lots of money," she said. "Why would they care about land prices?"

"They don't. If somebody else cheaply picked up the land, or a lease on the land, they could sell it to Springer at a major profit."

"Wow," Holly breathed, "that's brilliant, isn't it?"

"Just guessing, of course," Todd said.

"Well, it makes sense. It has to be an insider at Springer. Someone who knows they want to expand and has access to that chemical."

"We're conducting an internal investigation."

"But whoever did this is way too smart to get caught, aren't they?"

"That would be my guess."

Both men listening caught the sickening note of pride in the voice.

"How much money would you think would be involved in something like that?"

"Millions," Todd said.

"She's walking him right into it," Rory said with satisfaction. "He trusts her."

"Did I tell you my do-gooder days are over, Dad?"

"Really? It's about time. I've got a job waiting for you at Springer."

"Millions sounds more appealing to me."

Todd was silent, and the men in the van waited to see if she had overplayed her hand.

"What are you saying?" Todd finally asked, sounding a little nervous.

She lowered her voice. "I know you did it, Dad. I know it's not over. And I want in."




Fifteen

Her father cast his eyes around the room nervously. "Be careful what you say."

"Nobody's listening to us." Holly didn't quite know how she pulled that off when the only reason she was staying so calm—almost detached from her own body—was that she knew Blake was listening and she could feel his presence close to her.

It was that, more than the fact that she knew their waiter was an FBI agent, that made her feel safe.

"You never know that for sure," Todd said, fishing in his wallet for some bills, which he threw onto the table.

For a split second she thought she'd overdone it, and he was leaving without her.

"Come on. We'll go for a drive."

"Sure. I didn't feel like dessert anyway." He wanted to tell her everything. She could tell. Carrying secrets of the magnitude he was carrying weighed a man down, made him feel lonely. Holly sensed his eagerness to unburden himself.

They left the restaurant and she waited while he unlocked the car door and opened it for her. Save for one brief glance at the van when she had come out the door, she forced herself not to look there.

As far as she could tell, Todd hadn't even noticed it. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"Just for a drive."

She decided to wait him out, to play on her hunch that he wanted to talk. She was right.

"So, doll, what makes you think your old man has been up to no good?"

She realized she needed to get him to do the talking. She needed his confession, not to fill up the tape with her conjecture.

"Who said anything about no good?" she said with a laugh.

"Lots of those little ankle nippers you've been working around got sick."

"Nobody died."

"That's what I thought. Plus, I gave the ranch the Pathfinder. About as close to an apology as could be expected under the circumstances. What more can a man do? So, you think I need a partner?"

"It's going to look mighty suspicious if you obtain that land in your name."

He shot her a look. "I always knew you were a bright girl."

"And not much better if we acquire it in my name."

"So?"

"I've got a friend. We can use her name without getting her involved. She's dumb as a brick. She won't catch on."

"That's my girl."

She realized he didn't know her at all. She would never call one of her friends stupid. He'd never known her, and now he never would. But Holly did not have the luxury of feeling sad about that right now.

"So, tell me everything." They were pulling out of Prosperino and heading toward the coast. Todd turned off on an unmarked road, but he seemed confident of his whereabouts.

She slid a look to the passenger side mirror and felt her heart fall at the absolute blackness behind them. And then she caught the quick flicker of lights and relaxed slightly.

Todd confessed. But she had been wrong about one thing. It was not the burden of his secrets that made him so eager to talk, it was that so far what he considered his brilliance had gone unapplauded, unapproved.

He told all. She was stunned to learn her father had kidnapped Libby Corbett, and she tried not to think of Rafe listening.

"Of course," he said finally, "every plot has a mistake."

She noticed he avoided using the word crime.

"You made a mistake?"

"Two of them. I wanted the land on the Crooked Arrow Reservation. When they drilled the new well there, I saw my opportunity. Reserves aren't usually that open to letting go of land, not even lease agreements. Especially since what Springer needs is a test ground for some fairly serious chemicals. Nobody wants that in their backyard. The option is going to a third-world country, but they're always so damned unstable.

"The new well meant they were soon going to be putting houses in the area I wanted. So, they drill a well, I put in a chemical, they test it, and voila, decide it's not safe for people to live there.

"My thinking was if the land had been rendered useless for habitation, I could pick it up or lease it for a song, then sell it or lease it back to Springer for a fortune."

"I did my homework, checked the lay of the land, which was harder than you might think. The aquifer—the water table—had been mapped twelve years ago, but the map was no longer available. I had to track it down, which was the mistake that nearly got me caught, but I'll get to that in a minute.

"Anyway, I went to the state archives and looked at the damned maps, then based on them did the dirty deed. Was it my fault that the map missed a shift under the ground and didn't show that the water would eventually trickle down into the aquifer used by the Hopechest Ranch?"

"Tell me how you nearly got caught," she said, pretending breathless interest in his tale. She was trying to watch the road, which was twisting dangerously now as it hugged the cliffs. It was deeply rutted and didn't seem to ever be used. If anybody was following them, they had long since turned off their headlights.

"The EPA sent a guy out. Charlie O'Connell." He pulled the car over, stopped it, turned off the lights. "Get out. I want to show you something."

She got out her car door and went and stood beside him. He was staring over the edge of the cliff, a look on his face that made her shiver with suppressed terror. She tossed her hair over her shoulder as an excuse to glance back at the road. Nothing.

"I killed a man here," he said softly. "The only one who knew. He got too greedy."

Was it a warning to her?

"You killed somebody?" she stammered, as if this came as a complete surprise to her.

He turned and faced her. "That's what you've got to be prepared to do to get what you want. Anything."

He seemed to be waiting for a reply. She had none.

"He was a useless moron anyway. Government employee, parasite on society. He signed into the state archives to look at those maps, same as me. And guess what? There was my mistake. My name on the sign-in sheet.

"From that, he figured it out. He made a mistake when he thought he was going to be a parasite on me, though. He was feeling sorry for himself because he'd been passed over for promotion once too often. He figured I'd make a pretty good retirement plan, so he tried to blackmail me.

"I played along, even paid him once to lull him into a sense of security. Boy, I'm an actor."

Holly tried not to show her revulsion at this almost gleeful retelling of the tale.

"Told him I was scared to death to get caught paying him. Talked him into meeting me way up here. I waited right over there for him, in one of the company trucks. When he parked, I just drove up behind him and pushed him off."

Holly followed Todd's gaze down the unforgiving cliff.

"I was worried. I'd heard that the exact model and make of a vehicle can be traced from paint, and I knew there was going to be a bit of paint on that bumper. So you know what I did, sweetheart?"

"No," she said in a small voice. He was tickled by all this. It wasn't a man's life to him, people's lives, it was just a big, entertaining game that pitted his craft and cunning against the world.

"I took that vehicle in and parked it in the company garage. And then I suggested we donate it to the Hopechest Ranch. But I thought maybe we should repaint it first, since Springer has all their vehicles custom-painted white. We decided on silver.

"That will teach him to take advantage of me," Todd said, still staring over the cliff. The moon came out from behind a cloud and glanced off his face.

She saw the madness in his eyes.

Had she made the same mistake as that poor EPA man? Had she taken exactly the wrong tact to win her father's confidence? Had he brought her here to kill her? Where was her backup? She had to trust that they were good. She had to trust they were close by, and so good at what they were doing that even though she knew they were there, she could not detect them. Her father, lost in his reverie, didn't have a clue.

She forced confidence into her voice, "So is that why you brought me here? To kill me, too?"

"Holly! How could you think such a thing? Kill my own daughter?"

She saw this was a variation of the honor-among-thieves philosophy. He had his lines he would not cross. Unless of course he discovered the tape recorder strapped to her waist.

"So what's our next step?" she asked, putting careful emphasis on the our, trying to get him to think of her as part of his team.

"I don't know yet," he said thoughtfully. "A man like me doesn't ever see failure, only new opportunity. I have two options now. I bet if someone made an offer on the Hopechest Ranch right now, it would go pretty cheap. Or if traces of DMBE started showing up in the water again, that would probably clinch the deal.

"Or I can try again for the reservation with a different wellhead. I skimmed a bit of DMBE from some of the barrels. Put it away for a rainy day." He chuckled softly, as if that was a joke.

"Where is it?"

He tore his gaze away from the cliff, and looked at her. Really looked at her for the first time that night.

His expression became puzzled, wary.

His confession made, Todd seemed to suddenly realize how vulnerable he had made himself.

"So what's with the big turnaround?" he asked, slowly. "Last time I saw you, you were giving Mother Teresa a run for her money. Come to think of it, you even look different. I thought you loved that dead-end job and those good-for-nothing kids."

She didn't like the way he was looking at her, the intensity of his gaze, the sudden hardness in his eyes. She somehow knew if she lied now, she would be in big trouble.

And so, she opted for the truth. The absolute truth.

"I fell in love with my boss."

Her father snickered. "Well, Holly, you aren't really the type to inspire grand passions. Not like your mother."

"I just wanted him to love me the way I loved him."

"Consider yourself lucky he didn't. He probably would have taken advantage of your romantic nature, bedded you a few times and then dumped you in the discard pile. That's the nature of the beast. Even a goody-goody beast like the young Fallon."

With effort, she held her temper, kept her expression bland.

Todd couldn't seem to stop talking now that he had started. "I don't care what people say about his old man. I get tired of the 'Joe Colton, America's Greatest Hero' song that everybody in this valley sings so loud. I was happy when old Emmett took a shot at him. Too bad he missed."

Holly tried to stifle her gasp.

"We could probably get rid of your SOB of a boss if we played our cards right. DMBE is pretty versatile stuff. It's colorless, tasteless, odorless. You could put some in his coffee."

It was more than she could pretend. The gasp escaped her.

"You're in now, Holly girl. You know all my secrets. It's too late to decide you don't have the stomach for it."

She tried to smile, but she could see the strange gleam in his eye, and knew that her father had crossed that fine line between sane and insane at some point that they had all missed. They had missed it because he was clever, and because he never let anyone get too close to him.

Only he was watching her narrowly now, suspiciously. "You're having me on, aren't you?" he asked softly, understanding dawning in his eyes.

"What do you mean?" she asked, backing away from him as he moved closer.

"You couldn't kill anybody. You couldn't poison the water system. I can see that in your eyes. You used to blubber if I swatted a fly when you were a kid."

She said nothing.

"Now you've gone and put me in a really bad position. You know everything, but you don't really want to be my partner. I'm getting a little nervous here, Holly."

"You're reading it wrong," she said nervously.

"I don't think so," he said, taking another step toward her. "You damned little goody-two-shoes, what do you really want from me? Are you going to turn me in?"

She tried to deny it, but her voice was frozen in her throat.

"You're going to betray your own father?"

This said as if it were the worst of crimes. Much worse than poisoning water, killing an EPA man, plotting to poison her boss.

He was moving rapidly toward her. She backed away, wary of the edge of the cliff. They circled gingerly.

"You're not my daughter," he said in a harsh voice.

Which she knew meant he had no code at all that he had to honor anymore.

"You're being crazy," she told him.

He lunged at her, and she sidestepped, and then turned and ran. She was in far better shape than he, but she was not driven by his desperation. She could hear his footsteps falling heavily on the ground behind her. She could hear the harsh, labored rasp of his breathing.

She thought she had succeeded in putting some distance between them when he tackled her around her knees and brought them both crashing to the ground.

She tried to break free of his hold, but couldn't. He settled heavily on her stomach, right on top of the recorder, pinning her hands on either side of her head.

"What the hell am I sitting on? You're wired?" He looked stunned, momentarily hurt and afraid, and then furious.

She closed her eyes against the fury in his face. He had become the monster in her dreams.

Suddenly they were illuminated in a strong beam of light. In the distance she could hear sirens.

Her father flipped behind her, pulled her to sitting, wrapped his beefy arm around her neck and dragged her back toward the cliff. Something sleek and hard and cold touched her temple.

She knew, without being able to see, that it was a gun.

"You come a step closer, and I'll kill her," he said. "Turn off the light. Now."

The light winked off.

"Who are they?" he asked her, tightening his grip around her neck. He reached under her sweater, ripped free the tape recorder and smashed it on the ground. "Who are they?" he asked again.

"Some friends of mine."

He gave the recorder a little kick. "Yeah. Got access to some pretty good technology. Who are they? Cops or FBI?"

She said nothing.

"Okay, doll, listen up. I might have just found a way to get me a couple of million anyway. You just became my hostage."

"Why do you want money so badly? Why?"

"Do you live in the real world? Money is everything. It's power and it's privilege. Without it a man is nothing.

"I've given my whole life to Springer. Do you think I ever got invited on the executive holidays, to the executive dinners? Nope, I was just the guy who could be counted on to do the dirty work. They thought I'd work for a pat on the head forever."

"They made you vice president," she said, trying to calm him, trying to make him rational.

"At two-thirds of the salary Corbett made. That actually made me laugh. I was glad I was going to screw them out of a couple of mil. Glad."

"Daddy, doesn't love count for anything?"

"Don't make me puke." He raised his voice. "Listen to me. I want five million and a helicopter. I want it within the hour. And if I don't get it, your little snitch is going to die."

"You won't kill me," she said loudly.

"I'm backed up against a wall here, Holly. I'll do whatever I have to do."

She heard the sound of voices over by the road. Male voices. She recognized Blake's. And knew, suddenly, he was coming for her.

Rory and Rafe would try to stop him, might even try to physically restrain him. But they would not succeed.

Then absolute silence reigned. She could feel her father's fear in the slick sweat on his arm where it wrapped around her neck. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw a shadow move. Lamb saw it, too. The metal left her temple, and the sound of a shot exploded the night.

"No," she shrieked, and with the superhuman strength born of absolute desperation, she shoved her whole weight back against him. She felt him rock.

She thought she had lost the gamble, when Blake came tearing out of the darkness. Todd took aim, but Blake was on top of him before the gun went off. It catapulted out of his hand and into the darkness. She heard it clatter down the cliff.

Blake and Todd struggled, so close to the edge of the cliff.

Other men were running toward them now, out of the darkness.

Blake lifted his arm, formed a fist and swung. He hit Todd, and then he hit him again, his face a mask of fury.

They had to pull Blake off of Todd.

They finally succeeded, and he stood there, his chest heaving in and out, his hands loose at his sides.

She got unsteadily to her feet, swayed.

Blake was at her side in a split second, scooped her up in his arms, elbowed through the men who were everywhere.

"Look, renegade," Rory said materializing beside them, "you could have got her killed."

"The way I see it, so could you have," Blake said calmly.

"You jeopardized this whole operation."

"You're lucky my hands are full or I'd give you a fat lip. Negotiate with the bastard! Wear him down. What kind of plan was that?"

"The tried and true kind."

"I'll tell you a kind that's even truer. My heart told me my woman wasn't spending one more second being terrorized by that man. You got it?"

Rory blinked first.

Rafe appeared, shaking his head, and clapped Rory on the shoulder. "Don't think you're going to change him. Better men have tried. Blake, take your woman home."

"Just a second. We need to debrief. We need—"

"He's right," Rafe told Rory softly. "There are times to throw the rule book away. Let them go. What she needs right now you can't give her."

"But—"

"I just have one question for you, Sinclair. What if it had been Peggy?" Blake asked.

Rory was silent, then he looked at his shoe. Then he said, "Aw, get out of here. I'll drop by and see you in the morning."

"Late in the morning," Blake said in a way that made shivers run up and down Holly's spine despite how weak she felt, exhausted and emotional.

Rafe handed him the keys to the van.

In what felt like seconds they were at her house. He picked her up and somehow managing to open the door, went through the house and laid her on the bed, kissing her tenderly.

In a moment she heard the bath water running. He came back to the bed and began to take her clothes off.

It was different this time, far different. There was nothing sexual about what he was doing. He wrapped her in a big towel and carried her to the tub. It was full of bubbles, and rimmed by candles. He switched off the lights and helped her into the tub.

She closed her eyes. She tried to feel something, but she didn't. She felt wooden and dead.

He undressed and slipped into the tub behind her. "You can cry now," he said. "It's okay to cry."

She leaned back against his chest, felt his hands encircle her. She closed her eyes, and she began to weep.

For the longest time he said nothing.

And then he said, "You told your father you loved me."

"Ummm."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"How could I?" she asked. "I felt unworthy. I felt ashamed…of my father. That I didn't figure things out sooner. All these weeks, taking credit for getting the water turned off. He practically told me, and I was too stupid—"

"Stop it."

She had never heard him use that tone of voice with her before. On one of the kids who had done something particularly bad, yes, but never on her. Not even over the incident with Tomas and the knife.

"I won't listen to you talk about yourself like that."

"Blake, this can't work. How can it work? My father—"

"You never seemed to hold it against me that my father took a loaded gun, aimed it at Joe Colton and pulled the trigger."

"It's not like you did it."

"Exactly."

"This is different."

"Okay, tell me how."

But she couldn't. She was too tired.

"You know what I think?" he said softly, "I think it's an amazing piece of kismet that you and I both have less than perfect fathers. I'm going to take it, not as a sign that we're meant to be apart, but a sign that we're meant to be together.

"Forever," he added softly.

"Forever?" she whispered.

"I want you to marry me, Holly Lamb. As soon as that's humanly possible."

She swung around so that she could see his face. He traced the line of her cheek tenderly. She drew his wet finger to her mouth and kissed it.

"You want me to marry you?" she repeated, not sure she could have possibly heard right.

"Yup, you."

"You could have any woman you wanted."

"That's good to know, because I've picked the one I want."

"I mean someone more beautiful than me."

"Doesn't exist."

"Someone more sophisticated."

"Uck."

"Me?" she whispered. "You want me to marry you?"

"Yeah. And soon. As soon as I can get a license and a preacher."

"I have to get through the trial. And my mother will go crazy over this."

"Why? How many husbands has she had since then?"

"Every one of them seemed to be about her failure with him. Trying to prove something to him. Plus, she's very big on what people think. She'll be devastated by this."

"Those sound like good reasons to get married. You need me to support you and to protect you."

"You realize you're saying you're going to have a mother-in-law that people need to be protected from." She actually felt a certain lightness beginning to grow in her, despite everything. It felt like a miracle.

"You're worth it."

"Let's go to bed," she whispered.

"All right. But no hanky-panky tonight."

She could have wept when he said that. Because she knew he was being sensitive to her deepest need.

Just to be held. Loved.

With no ulterior motive, no secret agenda.

"Blake," she whispered, as he slid in the bed beside her and tucked the blankets securely around her. "You know I've loved you forever, don't you?"

"Yes, I know that."

"And," she said sleepily, "that I plan to love you for at least that long?"

"Lucky me."

"And you know why I didn't tell you about what I dreamed, don't you?"

"No, I haven't figured that one out."

"It wasn't because I didn't love you. It was because I loved you too much."

"Okay. I'll accept that as an excuse this once. Don't try and use it again."

"All right, boss."

"Better make that partner, I think."

And then, in the warmth of his arms she slept. The dream came that night—the same red-skinned monster coming toward her, his rage murderous.

Only, in the dream this time a knight galloped in on a white horse and slayed the monster and all he stood for: conditional love, trying to win approval that never came, trying to be something she could never be.

And when the knight who had slain the dragon rode up to her, stopped, lifted his visor and bowed to her, she smiled.

Blake.

Her knight in shining armor. She snuggled deeper into the arms that held her.

Forever.




Epilogue

The ivory satin rustled around Holly. She smoothed the dress with her fingertips, smiled. The last few weeks seemed to have passed in a dream, but suddenly it all seemed real.

"Are you nervous?" Jenn squeaked in her ear.

"No," Holly said and it was true. How could she be nervous about something that was so right?

"I am," Jenn said. "Look at all the people! What if I trip and fall flat on my face in front of that crowd? in front of Stephen?"

Holly smiled at her friend. Jenn looked more beautiful than ever. She was madly in love with Stephen Darce, and he with her. Holly suspected there would be another wedding before long.

"I think all of Prosperino is here," Jenn wailed. "There goes the mayor."

Holly peeked out the door. It was true. There was quite a crowd gathered at Hacienda de Alegria this beautiful day.

The sun was shining and flowers bloomed in radiant abundance. The lawns had been manicured, the shrubs trimmed, the fences painted. At least three hundred white chairs formed a half moon around the beautiful pagoda Joe Colton had ordered built just for today.

The thought of Joe deepened the feeling of well-being inside of Holly. He had come to her as soon as Blake had told him of their engagement and their plans to wed quickly.

"Holly," Joe had said, "it would be the greatest honor of my life if you'd allow me to escort you down the aisle, give you away."

She had been too astounded to speak, and Joe had continued.

"Blake is my son, the son of my soul, if not my flesh. And now you will be Meredith's and my daughter, and we couldn't be more tickled."

What Joe Colton had said to her was that he would take the place of the father who could not be there. Todd Lamb was in jail. What Joe Colton had really said was that he, the most respected man in this community, would stand beside her, proudly, completely divorcing her from the crimes of her father.

The father who had never been there.

Holly looked again at the crowd, moving now in colorful groups that dotted the sloping lawns to take their places in the chairs.

Finally, she saw her mother. She had expected that Rose must be wearing an outlandish outfit that would surely attract more attention than the bride's.

But her mother was in a very mature gray silk suit, and a lovely matching hat.

"You're right," Blake had said thoughtfully. "Let's tell her to go ahead."

And so Rose had gone ahead, her lessons culminating with the wedding.

Holly's mother caught her eye and waved. She mouthed some words.

Beautiful. Her mother thought she was beautiful.

Holly's gaze moved on and found Rafe and Libby.

And then Rory and Peggy.

And then Michael and Suzanne.

Nature knew about balances, too. Nature or fate or God. Whatever you preferred to call that power that was greater than all things.

Some heavenly force had looked down on the horror of that water being poisoned, children becoming ill, the ranch being closed, and had decided some balance was required.

And so love sprang up all around that tragedy.

Love and evil arm-wrestled. And love won.

The children were all back in residence at the Hopechest now, the contamination completely cleared from the water, all the DMBE accounted for and disposed of, the ranch was like a ghost town that had been given a second chance at life. It bustled with activity and energy and laughter.

Holly's feeling of belonging to that ranch and the children on it, filled her to overflowing. It seemed to her it was the most wondrous of miracles that she was going to spend her life on the Hopechest, side by side with the man that she loved.

The music started, and Joe appeared at her side. Jenn gathered her basket of flowers and the train of Holly's dress.

Somehow Rory and Rafe had found Blake and he was standing at the pagoda now, flanked by them, his eyes fastened on the house, waiting for her.

Dimly, she registered the music wasn't "The Wedding March."

Jamie Lynn Barker came forward. And then, in white shirts and blue jeans, the children of the Hopechest Ranch came in solemn lines down the aisles of chairs, and formed neat lines behind Jamie, smallest to tallest. Holly saw Tomas and Lucille and so many of the other children who had passed through her office, sat on her couch, cuddled her teddy bears.

"Meredith's been rehearsing them all week," Joe said proudly. "It's a surprise for you. She heard it was your favorite song."

Jamie's voice soared out alone.

When

all else has failed me,

When

I'm weary and torn,

Love

whispers to me,

And

my spirit is reborn.

The children began to hum behind her, and her voice soared even higher, strong and vital.

Oh,

I've walked alone

All

the days of my life,

But

love promises me

An

end to heartache and strife.

The voices of the children joined her now, voices full of innocence and wonder. Their voices were full of hope and dreams and promises. They were strong voices, for all that they were childish. Voices that had survived the storm and came out the other side still believing in goodness.

Joe stepped forward, and they walked down the aisle to the joyous song of the children. Holly struggled not to cry as she followed his lead, allowed herself to feel his strength and his steadiness. Strength and steadiness that would always be available to her now.

Because today she was not just marrying Blake. She was becoming a part of something larger than herself.

A family. Today all her dreams were coming true.

Like

the sailor who comes home from the sea,

The

warrior home from the dying;

Bring

your broken wings to me.

Love

mends those hearts that are crying.

Blake saw that she was coming now, floating down the aisle, a vision in that ivory gown that spilled over the hands of her bridesmaid and swept the grass.

He could not take her eyes off her.

She was radiant.

More radiant than the sun.

The music seemed to lift her up on its wings, and he could feel the pure emotion of those childrens' voices clawing at his own throat.

She looked absolutely beautiful. But he alone, of all the people here, knew the best thing of all. She would still be the most beautiful woman in the world even if she put her glasses back on, and her hair back up, and those suits back on.

Well, maybe he had to draw the line at the suits.

But this was the secret he knew: She was more beautiful on the inside than she could ever be on the outside.

And she had said yes to him. She was going to join him in this wonderful new adventure.

"Who gives this woman?"

Joe said firmly, "I do."

And she walked the final few steps alone. She took his hand, and the trembling within him quieted as they walked up the stairs of the pagoda together.

"Dearly beloved," the minister said, "we are gathered here in celebration of the love between a man and a woman."

Who would have thought the events of the last few months would end like this? In celebration of love?

He thought of that moment, weeks ago now, when he had pondered the nature of miracles. He had only asked for one more: That the children be returned to the ranch.

But he had heard it said that God knew so much better than an ordinary mortal what that man needed.

And God had given him the miracle he had never dared ask for. Not even when he was a little boy.

God had given him someone to love him.

Blake took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, kissed it gently, met her eyes. Her eyes shone with tears, and love and laughter.

And held his future in their depths.

He knew the dream that had been planned for him was better than anything he could have ever dreamed for himself.

There were no words big enough to express that, but the two that came from his lips seemed like they would suffice, an affirmation of love and of life, an acceptance of the gift of love, a promise to do his best to be worthy of the immense and amazing gift the universe had given him.

"I do," Blake Fallon said firmly. "I do."




Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Cara Colter for her contribution to THE COLTONS series.