Secrets and Desire: Best-Kept Lies / Miss Pruitt's Private Life / Secrets, Lies...and Passion

Best-Kept Lies

LISA JACKSON

Miss Pruitt’s Private Life

BARBARA McCAULEY

Secrets, Lies and Passion

LINDA CONRAD

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Best-Kept Lies

LISA JACKSON

LISA JACKSON

lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. She has been writing for over twenty years. Her books have appeared on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA TODAY bestseller lists. Her free time is spent with friends and family.

This book is dedicated to Melissa, Joan, Karen, Tara and Isabel. Great editors. Wonderful women. You saw me through the bad times and the good. I can’t thank you enough.

Prologue

“I’m dyin’, Randi-girl, and there ain’t no two ways about it.”

Randi McCafferty stopped short. She’d been hurrying down the stairs, her new boots pinching and ringing on the old wooden steps of the house she’d grown up in—a rambling old ranch house set on a slight rise in the middle of No-Damn-Where, Montana. She’d been thinking of her own situation, hadn’t realized her father was half lying in his recliner, staring at the blackened grate of the rock fireplace in the living room. John Randall McCafferty was still a big man, but time had taken its toll on his once commanding stature and had ravaged features that had been too handsome for his own good. “What’re you talkin’ about?” she asked. “You’re going to live forever.”

“No one does.” He glanced up at her and his eyes held hers. “I just want you to know that I’m leavin’ you half the place. The boys, they can fight over the rest of it. The Flying M is gonna be yours. Soon.”

“Don’t even talk that way,” she said, walking into the dark room where the afternoon heat had collected. She glanced through a dusty window, past the porch to the vast acres of the ranch that stretched beneath a wide Montana sky. Cattle and horses grazed in the fields past the stable and barn, moving as restlessly as the wind that made the grass undulate.

“You may as well face it. Come over here. Come on, come on, y’know my bark is worse’n my bite.”

“Of course I know it.” She’d never seen the bad side of her father’s temper, though her half brothers had brought it up time and time again.

“I just want to look at ya. My eyes ain’t what they used to be.” He chuckled, then coughed so violently his lungs rattled.

“Dad, I think I should call Matt. You should be in a hospital.”

“Hell, no.” As she crossed the room, he waved a bony hand as if he was swatting a fly. “No damn doctor is gonna do me any good now.”

“But—”

“Hush, would ya? For once you listen to me.” Incredibly clear eyes glared up at her. He placed a yellowed envelope in her palm. “This here is the deed. Thorne, Matt and Slade, they own the other half together and that should be interestin’,” he said with a morbid chuckle. “They’ll probably fight over it like cougars at a kill…but don’t you worry none. You own the lion’s share.” He smiled at his own little joke. “You and your baby.”

“My what?” She didn’t move a muscle.

“My grandson. You’re carryin’ him, ain’t ya?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

A hot blush burned up the back of her neck. She hadn’t told a soul about the baby. No one knew. Except, it seemed, her father.

“You know, I would have rather had you get married before you got pregnant, but that’s over and done with and I won’t be around long enough to see the boy. But you and he are taken care of. The ranch will see to that.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

Her father’s smile disappeared. “Sure you do, Randi. Someone needs to look after you.”

“I can take care of myself and…and a baby. I’ve got a condo in Seattle, a good job and—”

“And no man. Leastwise none worth his salt. You gonna name the guy who knocked you up?”

“This conversation is archaic—”

“Every kid deserves to know his pa,” the old man said. “Even if the guy’s a miserable son of a bitch who left a woman carrying his child.”

“If you say so,” she replied, her fingers curling over the edge of the envelope. She felt more than paper inside.

As if he guessed her question, he said, “There’s a necklace in there, too. A locket. Belonged to your ma.”

Randi’s throat closed for a second. She remembered the locket, had played with it as a child, reaching for the shiny gold heart with its glittering diamonds as it had hung from her mother’s neck. “I remember. You gave it to her on your wedding day.”

“Yep.” He nodded curtly and his eyes grew soft. “The ring is in there, too. If ya want it.”

Her eyes were suddenly damp. “Thanks.”

“You can thank me by namin’ the son of a bitch who did this to you.”

She inched her chin up a notch and frowned.

“You’re not gonna tell me, are you?”

Randi looked her father steadily in the eye. McCafferty to McCafferty, she said, “Hell would have to freeze over first.”

“Damn it, girl, you’re a stubborn thing.”

“Guess I inherited it.”

“And it’ll be your undoin’, mark my words.”

Randi felt a shadow steal through her heart, a cold premonition that settled deep inside, but she didn’t budge. For her unborn child’s protection, she sealed her lips.

No one would ever know who fathered her child.

Not even her son.

One

“Hell’s bells,” Kurt Striker grumbled under his breath.

He didn’t like the job that was set before him. Not one little bit. But he couldn’t say no. And it wasn’t just because of the substantial fee attached to the assignment, no, the money was good enough. Tempting. He could use an extra twenty-five grand right now. Who couldn’t? A check for half the amount sat on the coffee table. Untouched.

Because of the night before. Because of his secret.

He stood in the living room, a fire crackling and warming the backs of his legs, the sprawling snow-covered acres of the Flying M Ranch visible through frosted windows.

“So, what do you say, Striker?” Thorne McCafferty demanded. The oldest of three brothers, he was a businessman by nature and always took charge. “Have we got a deal? Will you see that our sister is safe?”

The job was complicated. Striker was to become Randi McCafferty’s personal bodyguard whether she liked it or not. Which she wouldn’t. Kurt would lay odds on it. He’d spent enough time with the only daughter of the late John Randall McCafferty to know that when she made up her mind, it wasn’t likely to be changed, not by him, nor by her three half brothers who all seemed to have developed a latent sense of responsibility for their headstrong sibling.

She was trouble. No two ways about it. The way she’d hightailed it out of here only a few hours earlier had clearly indicated her mind was set. She was returning to Seattle. With her child. To her home. To her job. To her old life, and the consequences be damned.

And she was running away.

From her three overbearing half brothers.

And from him.

Striker didn’t like the situation one bit, but he couldn’t very well confide in these three men, now, could he? As he glanced from one anxious McCafferty brother to the next, he didn’t examine his own emotions too closely, didn’t want to admit that the reason he was balking at the job was because he didn’t want to get tangled up with a woman. Any woman. Especially not with the kid sister of these tough-as-nails, overprotective brothers.

It’s a little too late for that now, wouldn’t you say?

Randi was a sexy thing. All fire and attitude. A strong woman who would, he suspected, as any self-respecting child of John Randall McCafferty, bulldoze her way through life and do exactly what she wanted to do. She wouldn’t like Striker nosing around, prying into her affairs, even if he was trying to insulate her from danger. In fact, she’d probably resent it. Especially now.

“Randi’s gonna be ticked.” Slade, the youngest McCafferty brother, echoed Striker’s thoughts, even though he didn’t know the half of it. In jeans and a faded flannel shirt, Slade walked to the window and stared outside at the wintry Montana landscape. Snow covered the fields where a few head of cattle and horses huddled against the cold.

“Of course she’ll be ticked. Who wouldn’t be?” Matt, brother number two, was seated on the worn leather sofa, the heel of one of his cowboy boots propped onto the coffee table only inches from a check for twelve thousand five hundred dollars. “I’d hate it.”

“She doesn’t have a choice,” Thorne said. CEO of his own corporation, Thorne was used to giving orders and having his employees obey. He’d recently moved to Grand Hope, Montana, from Denver, but he was still in charge. “We agreed, didn’t we?” he was saying as he motioned to his younger brothers. “For her protection and the baby’s safety, she needs a bodyguard.”

Matt nodded curtly. “Yeah, we agreed. That won’t make it any easier for Randi to swallow. Even if Kelly’s involved.”

Kelly was Matt’s wife, an ex-cop who was now a private investigator. She’d agreed to work with Striker, especially on this, her sister-in-law’s case. Red-haired and quick-witted, Kelly would be an asset. But Striker wasn’t convinced Kelly McCafferty would be the oil on troubled waters as far as Randi was concerned. No—having a relative involved would only make a sticky situation stickier.

He glanced to the window, toward the youngest McCafferty brother. The friend who had dragged him into this mess. But Slade didn’t meet his eyes, just continued to stare out the frosty panes.

“Look, we’ve got to do something and we don’t have time to waste. Someone’s trying to kill her,” Thorne pointed out.

Striker’s jaw tightened. This was no joke. And deep down he knew that he’d take the job; wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it. For as bullheaded and stubborn as Randi McCafferty was, there was something about her, a spark in her brown eyes that seemed to touch him just under the skin, a bit of fire that scorched slightly. It had gotten his attention and hadn’t let go.

Last night had been proof enough.

Thorne was agitated, worry evident in the lines of his face, his fingers jangling the keys in his pocket. His stare held Striker’s. “Will you take the job, or are we going to have to find someone else?”

The thought of another man getting close to Randi soured Kurt’s gut, but before he could respond, Slade finally spoke.

“No one else. We need someone we can trust.”

“Amen,” Matt agreed, before Slade nodded toward the window where a Jeep was plowing down the lane.

Trust? Jesus!

His teeth clenched so hard they ached.

Slade nodded toward the window where an SUV was steadily approaching. “Looks like Nicole’s home.”

The tension in Thorne’s features softened a bit. Within minutes the front door burst open, and a blast of cold Montana air raced into the room. Dr. Nicole McCafferty, still shaking snow from her coat, crossed the entry as the rumble of tiny feet erupted upstairs and Thorne’s two stepdaughters, four-year-old-twins, thundered down the stairs. Laughter and shouts added to the din.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Molly cried, while her shier sister, Mindy, beamed and threw herself into Nicole’s waiting arms.

“Hey, how’re my girls?” Nicole asked in greeting, scooping both twins into her arms and kissing them on the cheeks.

“You’re coooooold!” Molly said.

Nicole laughed. “So I am.”

Thorne, limping slightly from a recent accident, made his way into the entry hall and kissed his wife soundly, the girls wriggling between them.

Striker turned away. Felt he was intruding on an intimate scene. It was the same uncomfortable sensation that had been with him from the get-go when Slade had contacted him about helping out the family, and Kurt had first set foot on the Flying M. It had been in October when Randi McCafferty’s car had been forced off the road at Glacier Park. She had gone into premature labor and both she and her new baby had nearly died. She’d been in a coma for a while and when she had awoken she’d struggled with amnesia.

Or so she claimed.

Striker thought the loss of memory, though supported by Randi’s doctor, was too convenient. He’d also found evidence that another vehicle had run Randi’s rig down a steep hillside, where she’d plowed into a tree. She’d survived, though as she’d recovered and regained her memory, she would say nothing about the accident, or guess who might have been trying to kill her. She’d incriminate no one. Either she didn’t know or wouldn’t tell. The same was true about the father of her kid. She’d told no one who had sired little Joshua. Kurt scowled at the thought. He didn’t want to think of anyone being intimate with Randi, though that was just plain stupid. He had no claim to her; wasn’t even certain he liked her.

Then you should have let it go last night…you saw her on the landing, watched her take care of her child, then waited until she’d put him to bed…

In his mind’s eye, Kurt remembered her sitting on the ledge, humming softly, her white nightgown clinging to her body as she cradled her baby and fed him. He’d been upstairs, looking down over the railing and moonlight had spilled over her shoulders, illuminating her like a madonna with child. The sight had been almost spiritual, but also sensual, and he’d slowly eased his way into the shadows and waited. Telling himself he just wanted to walk down the stairs unnoticed, one of the floorboards had creaked and Randi had looked up, seen him there on the upper landing, his hands over the railing.

“Come on, let’s see what Juanita's got in the kitchen,” Nicole was saying, bringing Kurt crashing back to the here and now. “Smells good.”

“Cinn-da-mon!” the shier twin said while her sister rolled her eyes.

“Cinn-a-mon,” Molly corrected.

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Nicole shuffled the girls down the hallway toward the kitchen while Thorne returned to the living room.

The smile he’d reserved for his wife and family had faded and he was all business again. “So what’s it gonna be, Striker? Are you in?”

“It’s a helluva lot of money,” Matt reminded him.

“Look, Striker, I’m counting on you.” Slade gave up his position near the window. Lines of worry pinched the corners of his eyes. “Someone wants Randi dead. I told Thorne and Matt that if anyone could find out who it was, you could. So are you gonna prove me right or what?”

With only a little bit of guilt he slid the check into the battered leather of his wallet. There wasn’t really any point in arguing. There hadn’t been from the get-go. Striker could no more let Randi McCafferty take off with her kid and face her would-be killer alone than he could quit breathing.

He planned on nailing the son of a bitch.

Big-time.

“Great!” Randi hadn’t gotten more than forty miles out of Grand Hope when her new Jeep started acting weird. The steering was off, and when she pulled to the side of the snow-covered road to survey the damage, she realized that her front left tire was low. And it hadn’t been when she’d left. She’d passed a gas station less than a mile back, so she turned her vehicle around, only to discover that the station was closed. Permanently. The door was locked and rusted, a window cracked, the pumps dry.

So far her journey back to civilization wasn’t going as planned—not that she’d had much of a plan to begin with. That was the problem. She’d intended to return to Seattle, of course, and soon, but last night…with Kurt…oh, hell. She’d gotten up this morning and decided she couldn’t wait another minute.

All of her brothers were now married. She was, once again, the odd woman out, and she was the reason that they were all in danger. She had to do something about it.

But you’re kidding yourself, aren’t you? The real reason you left so quickly has nothing to do with your brothers or the danger, and everything to do with Kurt Striker.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the pain in her eyes and let out her breath. She was no good at this, and had never wanted to play the martyr.

“Get on with it,” she muttered. She’d just have to change the damn tire herself. Which should be no problem. She’d learned a lot about machinery growing up on the Flying M. A flat tire was a piece of cake. The good news was that she was off the road and relatively dry and protected from the wind under the overhang of the old garage.

With her baby asleep in his car seat, she pulled out the jack and spare, then got to work. Changing the tire wasn’t hard, just tedious, and her gloves made working with the lug nuts a challenge. She found the problem with the tire: somewhere she’d picked up a long nail, which had created the slow leak.

It crossed her mind that maybe the flat wasn’t an accident, that perhaps the same creep who had forced her off the road at Glacier Park, then attempted to kill her again in the hospital, and later burned the stable might be back to his old tricks. She straightened, still holding the tire iron.

Bitterly cold, the wind swept down the roadway, blowing the snow and lifting her hair from her face. She felt a frisson of fear slide down her spine as she squinted, her gaze sweeping the harsh, barren landscape.

But she saw no one.

Heard nothing.

Decided she was just becoming paranoid.

Which was a really bad thought.

* * *

Huddled against the rain, the intruder slid a key into the lock of the dead bolt, then with surprising ease broke into Randi McCafferty’s Lake Washington home.

The area was upscale, and the condo worth a fortune. Of course. Because the princess would have no less.

Inside, the unit was a little cluttered. Not too bad, but certainly not neat as a pin. And it had suffered from neglect in the past few months. Dust had settled on the surface of a small desk pushed into the corner, cobwebs floated from a high ceiling, and dust bunnies had collected in the corners. Three-month-old magazines were strewn over a couple of end tables and the meager contents of the refrigerator had spoiled weeks ago. Framed prints and pictures splashed color onto warm-toned walls, and an eclectic blend of modern and antique furniture was scattered around the blackened stones of a fireplace where the ashes were cold.

Randi McCafferty hadn’t been home for a long, long time.

But she was on her way.

Noiselessly, the intruder stalked through the darkened rooms, down a short hallway to a large master suite with its sunken tub, walk-in closet and king-size bed. There was another bath, as well, and a nursery, not quite set up but ready for the next little McCafferty. The bastard.

Back in the living room there was a desk and upon it a picture, taken years ago, of the three McCafferty brothers—tall, strapping, cocky, young men with smiles that could melt a woman’s heart and tempers that had landed them in too many barroom brawls to count. In the snapshot they were astride horses. In front of the mounted men, in bare feet, cutoff jeans, a sleeveless shirt and ratty braids, was Randi. She was squinting hard, her head tilted, one hand over her eyes to shade them, that same arm obviously scraped. Twined in the fingers of her other hand she held the reins of all three horses, as if she’d known then that she would lead her brothers around for the rest of their lives.

The bitch.

Disturbed, the intruder looked away from the framed photograph, quickly pushed the play button on the telephone answering machine and felt an instant of satisfaction at having the upper hand on the princess. But the feeling was fleeting. As cold as the ashes in the grate.

As the single message played, resounding through the vaulted room, it became evident that there was only one thing that would make things right.

Randi McCafferty had to pay.

And she had to pay with her life.

Two

Less than two hours after his conversation with the McCafferty brothers, Striker was aboard a private plane headed due west. A friend who owned this prop job owed him a favor and Striker had called in his marker. He’d also taken the time to phone an associate who was already digging into Randi’s past. Eric Brown was ex-military, and had spent some time with the FBI before recently going out on his own. While Striker was watching Randi, Brown would track down the truth like a bloodhound on the trail of a wounded buck. It was just a matter of time.

Staring out the window at the thick clouds, listening to the steady rumble of the engines, Striker thought about Randi McCafferty.

Beautiful. Smart. Sexy as hell.

Who would want her dead?

And why?

Because of the kid? Nah…that didn’t wash. The book she’d been writing? Or something else, some other secret she’d kept from her brothers.

She was an intriguing, sharp-tongued woman with fire in her brown eyes and a lightning-quick sense of humor that kept even her three half brothers at bay. True, Thorne, Matt and Slade could have held a grudge. All three of them had ended up sharing half the ranch while she, John McCafferty’s only daughter, had inherited the other half. Though some of the townspeople of Grand Hope thought differently, Striker knew that the brothers were clean, their motives pure. Hadn’t they hired him for the express purpose of saving their half sister’s lovely hide? No, they were out as suspects. They weren’t trying to murder her.

Chewing on a toothpick, he frowned into the clouds that were visible through the window. Most murders were committed because of greed, jealousy or revenge. Sometimes a victim was killed because they posed a threat, had something over on the killer. Once in a while someone was murdered to cover up other crimes.

So why would someone want to kill Randi? Because of her inheritance? Because of her son? A love affair gone sour? Had she swindled someone out of something? Did she know too much? Unconnected motives rattled through his brain. He scratched the side of his face.

There were two mysteries surrounding Randi. The first was the paternity of her child, a closely guarded secret. The second was about a book she’d been writing around the time of the accident.

None of her brothers, nor anyone close to her, professed to know who had sired the baby, probably not even the father. Randi had been tight-lipped on the subject. Striker wondered if she was protecting the father or just didn’t want him to know. He thought it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out who was little Joshua’s daddy. Striker had already found out the kid’s blood type from the hospital and he’d managed to get a few hairs from Joshua’s head…just in case he needed a DNA match.

There were three men who had been close to Randi, close enough to be lovers, though he, as yet, had not substantiated which—if any—she had been intimate with. At that thought his gut clenched. He felt a jolt of jealousy. Ridiculous. He wouldn’t allow himself to get emotionally involved with Randi McCafferty, not even after last night. She was his client, even though she didn’t know it yet. And when she found out, he was certain the gates of hell would spring open and all sorts of demons would rise up. No, Randi McCafferty wouldn’t take kindly to her brothers’ safeguards for her.

He tapped his finger on the cold glass of the plane’s window and wondered who had warmed Randi’s bed and fathered her son.

Bile rose in his throat as he thought of the prime candidates.

Sam Donahue, the ex-rodeo rider, was at the top of the list. Kurt didn’t trust the rugged cowboy who had collected more women than pairs of boots. Sam had always been a rogue, a man none of Randi’s brothers could stomach, a jerk who had already left two ex-wives in his dusty wake.