A Man of His Word

“He’s got just the voice I want, all smooth rawhide and rough velvet,” Sydney said.

The camera operator snorted. “If I wasn’t married, I’d surely to goodness be trying to get Reece Henderson to do more than read to me.”

“He’s not interested in anything more,” Sydney replied, eyes downcast. “I offered to buy him dinner. He turned me down flat.”

“Turned you down? Uh-oh. That means he’s either A, engaged, B, married, C, gay or D, in love with his grandmother.”

Sydney was forced to fess up. “According to him, it’s not A or B, and from the kiss he laid on me the other night, I know it’s not C. I can’t speak to D, though—”

“For the record,” the rawhide-and-velvet voice drawled from the door, “it’s E…none of the above.”

Dear Reader,

I never know what’s going to catch my attention and spark a novel. In this instance, it was a National Geographic photo of a small village in Italy, abandoned and subsequently flooded when the government built a massive dam just a few kilometers away. Once every ten years engineers drained the reservoir to perform maintenance on the dam and the village rose like Brigadoon from the murky waters.

I was so enthralled by the photo, I immediately started spinning a story in my head. The village became an ancient Anasazi site in Arizona, the heroine a documentary filmmaker determined to capture its reemergence, and the hero the hardheaded engineer in charge of emergency repairs to the dam.

And the best part was I got to make the hero one of the five Henderson brothers—all men of the Bar-H. So I hope you enjoy Reece’s story and will look for the stories of his brothers.

All my best,

A Man of His Word

Merline Lovelace

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MERLINE LOVELACE

Merline Lovelace spent twenty-three years in the air force, pulling tours in Vietnam, at the Pentagon and at bases all over the world. When she hung up her uniform, she decided to try her hand at writing. She’s since had more than fifty novels published, with over seven million copies of her work in print.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Prologue

F our of the five Henderson brothers stood in a loose semicircle, nursing chilled champagne while they watched their grinning brother waltz his bride of thirty minutes around the dance floor. Tall, tanned, each seasoned as much by his chosen profession as by his youth on the northern Arizona ranch they all still called home, they made a striking collection of broad shoulders, hard muscle and keen blue eyes.

Jake, the oldest of the five and the only other married Henderson male present, shook his head. “Still hard to believe it happened so fast. Of all of you, I expected Sam to hold out the longest. Instead he fell the hardest and the fastest. Molly’s gonna lead that boy around more than the dance floor.”

Tough, cynical Marsh, the middle brother, grunted in disgust. “He reminds me of your polled Herefords right now, Jake. Big, moon-faced and completely dehorned.”

Even Evan had to agree. Smiling, the attorney tipped his glass in a salute to his newly married sibling. “Sam’s got it bad, all right. He told me he would have strangled the bastard who came after Molly with his bare hands if the police hadn’t arrived when they did.”

Only Reece kept silent. Closest to Sam in both age and temperament, he wavered between a fierce happiness for his younger brother and an equally fierce hope that Sam and Molly could hang on to the love they didn’t even try to disguise at this moment.

So few couples did.

Involuntarily his gaze shifted to the vibrant, laughing mother of the groom. Despite her dove-gray hair and the character lines that came with raising five boys and running a twenty-thousand-acre spread in the shadow of the rugged northern Arizona San Francisco Mountains, Jessica Henderson looked almost as young as Jake’s wife, Ellen…and so unlike the woman who’d fallen apart one cold, February night that Reece’s heart clenched.

None of his brothers knew about that night. About the terror of those dark, desperate hours, when Reece had come home unexpectedly between the engineering jobs that took him all over the world, and found his mother ravaged by loneliness and alcohol and a bitter, corrosive anger. She was almost incoherent when Reece arrived at the Bar-H, but she’d cried and clung to him, begged him not to call a doctor, not to shame her any more than she’d already been shamed.

A grim, shaken Reece had forced gallon after gallon of coffee down her throat. Walked her the length of the ranch house and back a thousand times. Listened to her wrenching sobs and searing anger at the husband she’d buried two years before.

That was when she told him about the letters she’d found hidden in a storage closet…and about the woman his father had carried on an affair with for years. At his mother’s fierce insistence, Reece had burned the letters. Many of his illusions about marriage went up in smoke with those blue-edged notes.

Jessica Henderson had bottomed out that night, emptied the well of her self-pity and anger. Soon afterward, she’d turned the ranch over to Jake, who now managed it along with his own spread for the absent Henderson brothers. She’d bought a condo in Sedona and taken up golf, of all things. Now she traveled with her new friends and drove out to the ranch occasionally to visit the old ones. She’d put the terror of that cold, desperate February night behind her…as well as her anger at the husband who’d betrayed her.

Reece was still working on it.

Seeing his mother laughing and his younger brother grinning like a dope at his new bride helped.

What didn’t help was knowing that Reece had to leave right after the reception to make the long drive back to the sleepy little town of Chalo Canyon in south-central Arizona because of an early-morning meeting with another determined home wrecker.

His champagne goblet hit the bar with a chink of crystal against wood. “I’m claiming a dance with my new sister-in-law,” he told his brothers, “then I’m out of here.”

Marsh lifted a brow. “You’re not going to stay and help us send Sam off on his honeymoon in the hallowed Henderson tradition?”

“Right,” Jake drawled, “the ‘hallowed’ tradition you clowns started with me. Ellen still shudders when she remembers our wedding night.”

“You boys will have to handle this one on your own,” Reece said. “I have to be back on-site by dawn tomorrow. I’ve got a reservoir draining at the rate of eighty cubic feet per second and a dam with some cracks in it waiting for me.”

Among other things.

His jaw tightened at the thought of the woman who’d pulled every string in the book to muscle her way into the restricted area behind the dam. She intended to shoot a documentary film of a sunken Anasazi village as it emerged from the waters of the reservoir, or so the letter from the Bureau of Reclamation directing Reece’s cooperation had stated.

He knew better. She was returning to Chalo Canyon for one reason and one reason only…to finish what she’d started ten years ago. Everyone in town had told Reece so, including the man she’d begun the affair with.

Well, he didn’t have to watch the woman in action. He’d meet with her bright and early tomorrow morning as promised. He’d advise her of his schedule, set some rules of engagement. Then she was on her own. He had more important matters to engage both his time and his attention than Sydney Scott.

Putting the woman firmly from his mind, Reece crossed the floor to claim a dance with his radiant new sister-in-law.

Chapter 1

A rms wrapped around her knees, Sydney sat bathed in warm summer moonlight on one of the limestone outcroppings that rimmed the Chalo River Reservoir. Although she couldn’t see the movement, she knew the water level in the vast reservoir was slowly dropping. She’d been gauging its progress for hours now, measuring its descent against the shadowy crevasses on the cliff face opposite.

Another thirty-six hours, she estimated with a shiver of anticipation, forty-eight at most. Then the magical, mystical village she’d first seen as a child would emerge from the dark waters of the reservoir and feel the touch of the sun for the first time in a decade.

Once every ten years, the sluice gates of the dam that harnessed the Chalo River yawned fully open. Once every ten years, the man-made lake behind the dam was drained to allow maintenance and repair to the towering concrete structure. Once every ten years, the waters dropped and the ancient ruins reappeared. This was the year, the month, the week.

Excitement pulsed through Sydney’s veins, excitement and a stinging regret that went soul deep.

“Oh, Dad,” she murmured softly, “if only you’d had a few more months…”

No! No, she couldn’t go down that road. She shook her head, fighting the aching sense of loss that had become so much a part of her she rarely acknowledged it anymore. She couldn’t wish another day, another hour of that awful pain on her father. His death had been a release, a relief from the agony that even morphine couldn’t dull. She wouldn’t grieve for him now. Instead, she would use these quiet, moonlit hours to celebrate the times they’d been together.

With the perfect clarity of a camera lens, Sydney recalled her wide-eyed wonder when her father had first shown her the wet, glistening ruins tucked under a ledge in this small corner of Chalo Canyon. Then, as now, goose bumps had raised on her arms when the wind whispered through the canyon, sounding much like the Weeping Woman of local legend. According to the tale, an ancient Anasazi warrior had stolen a woman from another tribe and confined her in a stone tower in his village. The woman had cried for her lost love, and leaped to her death rather than submit to the man who’d taken her.

A youthful Sydney had heard the legend within days of moving to Chalo Canyon, where her father had taken over as fish and game warden for the state park that rimmed the huge, man-made lake behind the dam. Her dad had pooh-poohed the tale, but it had tugged at his daughter’s imagination. So much so that she’d counted the years until she could capture the ruins on film as a special project for her cinematography class.

Sighing, Sydney rested her chin on her knees. How young she’d been then. How incredibly naive. A nineteen-year-old student at Southern Cal, she’d planned the film project all through her sophomore year. Couldn’t wait for summer and the scheduled draining of the reservoir. Pop had gone with her that day, too, maneuvering the boat, keeping it steady while she balanced their home camcorder on her shoulder and shot the emerging village from every angle. Sydney had been so elated, so sure this project would be the start of a glorious career in film.

Then she’d tumbled head over heels in love with handsome, charming Jamie Chavez.

Even after all these years, the memory could still make Sydney writhe with embarrassment. Her breathless ardor had by turns amused and delighted the older, more sophisticated Jamie…much to his father’s dismay. Sebastian Chavez’s plans for his only son didn’t include the daughter of the local fish and game warden.

Looking back, Sydney could only shake her head at her incredible stupidity. Jamie was more than willing to amuse himself with her while his fiancée was in Europe. Even now Sydney cringed when she remembered the night Sebastian found her in his son’s bed. The scene had not been pretty. Even worse, the swing her father took at the powerful landowner the next day had cost him his job. The Scotts had moved away the following week, and neither of them had ever returned to Chalo Canyon.

Until now.

Now Sydney was about to see the ancient ruins for the third time. With a string of critically acclaimed documentaries and an Oscar nomination under her belt, she intended to capture the haunting ruins and the legend she’d first shared with her father so long ago on video-and audiotape. She’d worked for almost a year to script the project and secure funding. The final product would stand in loving tribute to the man who taught her the beauties and mysteries of Chalo Canyon.

Hopefully, she thought with a wry grimace, the documentary would also take her fledgling production company out of the red. Her father’s long illness had cut both Sydney’s heart and her financial resources to the quick. Even with the big-money financing her recent brush with the Oscars had generated, starting up her own production company had eaten what little was left of her savings. This project would make her or break her.

She brushed at a gnat buzzing her left ear, thinking of all the obstacles she’d overcome to get even this far. The preproduction work had taken almost eight months. She’d started on it just after her dad’s leukemia robbed him of his breath and his mobility. She’d shared every step of the process with him during those long, agonizing hours at his bedside. Talked him through the concept. Described the treatment she envisioned, worked out an estimated budget. Then she’d hawked the idea to the History Channel, to PBS, to half a dozen independent producers.

Pop’s death had hardened Sydney’s resolve into absolute determination to see the project through…despite Sebastian Chavez’s vehement objections. When Sebastian heard of the proposed documentary, he’d used every weapon in his arsenal to kill it. He’d refused all access to the site through his land. He’d flexed his political muscle to delay filming permits. He’d even rallied Native American groups to protest the exploitation of sacred ruins. Evidently the hard feelings generated ten years ago hadn’t died.

As a last-ditch attempt to block the project, Chavez had dragged the engineer in charge of the dam repair into the controversy and got him to weigh in against any activity in the restricted area behind the dam.

Sydney had played shamelessly on every connection she had from L.A. to D.C. to overturn Reece Henderson’s nonconcurrence. Finally the powerful coalition of PBS, the National Historic Preservation Society, and her wealthy and well-known financial backer, who just happened to have contributed significantly to the president’s reelection campaign, had prevailed.

As a condition of the approval, however, Sydney had to coordinate her filming schedule with the chief engineer and shoot around the blasting and repair work at the dam. Henderson’s curt faxes in response to her initial queries had set her teeth on edge, but she refused to allow some bullheaded engineer to upset her or her tight schedule. She had only two weeks to capture a legend…and recapture the magic of her youth.

Her chin wobbled on her knees. Weariness tugged at the edges of her simmering anticipation. She should go back to the motel, grab a few hours of sleep before the rest of her crew arrived. She’d learned the hard way that rest and exercise were essential to countering the stress caused by tight schedules, the inevitable snafus, and the sheer physical and mental exhaustion of a shoot. Even more important, she’d need her wits and all her charm in full functioning order when she met with this Henderson guy in the morning.

She’d give herself just a few more moments, she decided. A last stretch of peace before the work began. A quiet time with her father and her dreams.

A rumble of thunder shattered the quiet less than a half hour later. All too soon the moon disappeared behind a pile of dark storm clouds

Sydney lifted her head, chewing on her lower lip as she eyed the lightning that lit the clouds from the inside out. Damned El Niño. Or maybe it was the depleted ozone layer that was causing the violent, unseasonable storms that had plagued the southwest this summer.

Whatever had spawned them, these storms could wreak havoc with her exterior shots, not to mention her shooting schedule. With luck, this one would break soon, dump its load, and move on so her crew could shoot their preparatory exterior tests tomorrow in bright sunshine. Sydney wanted light. She needed light. Light formed the essence of film and video imagery.

Scowling at another flash of white against the dark sky, she pushed to her feet and headed for her rented Chevy Blazer. She’d taken only a few steps when the wind picked up. The leaves on the cottonwoods lining the canyon rim rustled. The ends of the mink-brown hair tucked haphazardly under her L.A. Rams ball cap flicked against her cheek.

Suddenly, Sydney spun around, heart pounding. There it was! The sigh. The cry. The sob of the wind through the canyon.

Aiiiiii. Eee-aiiiii.

She stood frozen, letting the sound wrap around and through her. She could almost hear the despair behind the soughing sound, feel the unutterable sadness.

Another gust cut through the canyon, faster, deeper. The leaves whipped on the cottonwoods. The cry increased in pitch to a wail that lifted the fine hairs on the back of Sydney’s neck.

Slowly, so slowly, the wind eased and the eerie lament faded.

“Now that,” she muttered, rubbing the goose bumps that prickled every square inch of her bare arms, “was one heck of an audio bite. I wish to heck Albert had caught it.”

Her soundman wouldn’t arrive from L.A. until tomorrow noon, along with the camera operator and the grip she’d hired for this job. Only Sydney and her assistant, Zack, had come a day early—Sydney to snatch these few hours alone with her memories before the controlled chaos of the shoot began, Zack to finalize the motel and support arrangements he’d made by phone weeks ago.

Sydney could only hope the wind would perform for them again tomorrow afternoon when they shot the exterior setup sequences she’d planned—assuming, of course, this Reece Henderson approved her shooting schedule when she met with him in the morning.

Another frown creased her forehead as she dodged the first fat splats of rain on her way to her rented Blazer. She had enough documentaries under her belt to appreciate the intricacies of negotiating permits and approvals for an on-location shoot, but the requirement to coordinate her shooting schedule galled more than a little. Hopefully, this guy Henderson would prove more cooperative in person than he had by fax.

Sliding inside the Blazer, she shut out the now-pelting rain and groped for the keys in the pockets of the military fatigue pants she bought by the dozen at an Army-Navy surplus store in south L.A. The baggy camouflage pants didn’t exactly shout Rodeo Drive chic, but Sydney had found their tough construction and many pockets a godsend on isolated shoots like this one.

One foot on the clutch, the other on the brake, she keyed the ignition and wrapped a hand around the shift knob, wishing fervently she’d thought to specify automatic drive before Zack arranged for rental vehicles. From the way the gears ground when she tried to coax them into first, the Blazer obviously wished so, too.

“Sorry,” she muttered, working the clutch and the stick again.

After another protesting snnnrck, the gears engaged. With rain pinging steadily against the roof, Sydney eased the Blazer onto the road. She kept her foot light on the accelerator and her eyes on the treacherous curves ahead.

Little more than a dirt track, Canyon Rim Road snaked along the canyon’s edge for miles before joining the state road that accessed the dam. The stone outcroppings that edged the road on the left made every turn a real adventure. The sheer drop on the right added to the pucker factor. The deluge that poured out of the black sky didn’t exactly help either visibility or navigability. Chewing on her lower lip, Sydney downshifted and took a hairpin turn at a crawl.

A few, tortuous turns later she was forced to admit that it might have made more sense to wait until daylight to drive along the canyon rim. She’d needed this time alone with her memories, though. And there’d been no indication earlier that a storm might—

“What the—!”

She came out of a sharp turn and stomped on the brake. Or what she thought was the brake. Her boot hit the clutch instead, and the Blazer rolled straight at the slab of rock that had tumbled onto the road from the outcropping beside it.

Choking back an oath, Sydney swung both her foot and the wheel. With the rock wall on the left and the sheer drop-off on the right, there was no room to maneuver around the obstacle. The Blazer swung too far out before she jammed on the brake and stopped its roll.

To her horror, she felt the road’s narrow shoulder begin to crumble under the Blazer’s weight. The vehicle lurched back, dropped at an angle, stalled. Frantic, Sydney dragged the stick back to neutral, twisted the key.

“Come on! Come on!”

The engine turned over at the exact moment another piece of the rim gave. The four-wheel tilted at a crazy angle and started to slide backward.

“Oh, God!”

Shouldering open the door, Sydney threw herself out. She hit on one hip and twisted desperately, scrabbling for purchase on the rain-slick earth. Beside her the Blazer gave a fearsome imitation of the Titanic. Metal groaned against sandstone. Nose up, headlights stabbing the rain, it slid backward like the great ship slipping into its dark grave, then slowly toppled over the edge.

The echoes of its crashing descent were still ringing in Sydney’s ears when sandstone and muddy earth crumbled under her frantic fingers and she followed the Blazer over the edge.

Reece Henderson slapped a rolled-up schematic of the Chalo River Dam against his jeans-clad thigh. Jaw tight, he waited while the phone he held to his ear shrilled a half dozen times. He’d started to slam it down when the receiver was fumbled off the hook. Reece took the mumbled sound on the other end for a hello.

“Where is she?”

“Huh?”

“Where’s Scott?”

“Whoziz?”

Gripping the receiver in a tight fist, Reece glared at the mirrored calendar on the opposite wall of the office set aside for his use.

“This is Henderson, Reece Henderson. Chief engineer on the Chalo River Dam project. Where’s your boss?”

“Dunno.” There was a jaw-cracking yawn at the other end of the line. “What time izit?”

“Eight forty-seven,” he snapped. “She was supposed to be here at eight.”

The irritation that had started simmering at 8:05 was now at full boil. He’d hung around topside waiting for the blasted woman, wasting almost an hour he could have spent down inside the dam with his engineers.

“Did you, like, try her room?” The kid at the other end of the line sounded more alert now, if not more coherent.

“Yes. Twice. There wasn’t any answer. The motel operator said you were her assistant and would know where she was.”

Actually, Martha Jenkins, who pulled triple duty as owner, operator and day clerk at the Lone Eagle Motel, had provided Reece with more details than he’d either asked for or wanted. Martha hadn’t been on duty when Sydney Scott and her gum-popping, green-haired, multiple-body-pierced assistant Zachary Tyree checked in late yesterday afternoon, but things got around fast in a town the size of Chalo Canyon.