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Gus shifted his gaze to me and nodded. “Welcome back, Ms. Cameron.” His eyes were nearly as penetrating as Sloan’s, but I saw a twinkle in them. “Lace Ribbons will be happy to see you. I’ve seen that she’s been exercised regularly while you’ve been gone.” Then with another nod, he turned and led Saturn away.
“He likes me,” I said.
The look Sloan gave me was enigmatic. “He’s known you since you were able to get down to the stables on your own.” Taking my arm, Sloan urged me onto the patio where I’d had tea earlier with Cole and Beatrice and then into the house.
“Now that Gus is spreading the word of your return, I want to be the first to let James know. I’ll help him get settled in his rooms, and then I’ll send for you. It might be too much of a shock if you just walk in.”
“Fine.” I watched him head toward the main foyer. That would give me a reprieve—and a little time out of Sloan Campbell’s disturbing presence.
As I made my way to the kitchen, I heard Elena welcoming James—my father. I was going to have to start thinking of him that way, I reminded myself.
In the meantime, I really needed to figure Sloan out. The fact that I was attracted to him—and there was no use denying that anymore—meant that I wasn’t thinking clearly about him. But I knew enough from creating characters that most people were defined by their motivations—the whys. What were Sloan’s? My instinct told me that he was not buying my story entirely. But why wasn’t he?
Did he have some reason to know for certain that I was not Cameron suffering from amnesia? I stopped short in the middle of the kitchen as I realized one reason he might have for seeing right through my little masquerade. Was Sloan Campbell responsible for my sister’s disappearance?
5
JAMES MCKENZIE’S ROOMS were at the back of the house, Elena informed me as she led the way along a corridor. After helping put an Ace bandage on my ankle, she’d taken me to Cameron’s room and waited while I changed my clothes and freshened up a bit.
It was my first opportunity to dress in my sister’s clothes. Pressed for time, I’d settled on a pair of navy cotton trousers with a white silk blouse and pulled on the closest pair of boots. Luckily, everything had fit. I had stories all ready in case they hadn’t. “I lost weight after the accident.” Or, “I gained some weight after the accident.”
On impulse, I’d grabbed some of Cameron’s scent out of a crystal bottle and dabbed it on. It was more exotic than the kind I usually favored, but I’d thought it might help with the cat. And much to my relief and surprise, it had. When I’d stepped out of the closet room, Hannibal hadn’t hissed or attacked. He’d simply sent me a bland look from his little “throne.”
“See. He’s beginning to remember you,” Elena had said.
Privately, I figured that Hannibal’s more friendly attitude had more to do with his newfound access to cat treats than with memory.
“This is it,” Elena announced as she halted in front of the door at the end of the corridor. At her knock, I heard a voice boom, “C’mon in.”
When Elena stepped aside, I drew in a deep breath, then, opening the door, I walked in.
And froze. The room was impressive to say the least. It was large, nearly thirty feet long and a good twenty feet wide. Light poured in through three windows that stretched from floor to ceiling and nearly filled the far wall. Each one had a balcony with a lacy wrought iron balustrade, and each was topped with stained glass.
Sloan stood leaning against one of the window frames, his face in the shadows. But I could feel that he was looking at me. James was seated in a thronelike chair to his right. There was a large ornately carved desk in front of him. Through a door to my left, I glimpsed the foot of a bed. The wall to my right was filled with bookshelves. Leather sofas and chairs were clustered on honey-colored wood floors. There was even a game table with a chess set at the ready.
The whole effect was homey and inviting.
“Come closer, gal. I can’t see you while you’re standing in the shadows.”
The deep voice carried the same authority that I’d noticed earlier in Sloan’s, and I moved forward, suddenly and overwhelmingly curious to see the man who’d raised my sister. Pepper had shown me a photo, but as I drew closer, I saw that it hadn’t done him justice.
James McKenzie was as impressive as the room. He was a large bear of a man, and in spite of the fact that arthritis had largely confined him to his wheelchair, his complexion was still ruddy, and he was strikingly handsome. Though his hair was streaked with white, I could tell that it had been red at one time. But it was his eyes that held my attention. In the short time that I’d been standing there, I knew that I had been quickly and thoroughly summed up. That ability to cut through everything and see right to the core was another thing that he shared with Sloan, I thought.
Did that mean he was going to be just as suspicious of me as Sloan was?
“Surprised that I’m still alive, are ya?”
“No. I mean…I don’t…”
“Remember anything,” he finished for me. “Sloan filled me in on your mugging. It’s the only reason that I’m not giving you a dressing-down for putting us through all this worry.”
I glanced at Sloan, but with the light shining through the windows behind him, I still couldn’t see his expression.
When I looked back, James was still studying me with an almost hungry look in his eyes. And I thought I saw a trace of sadness, too. Or regret? Wasn’t he happy that I was back?
James rose from his chair and extended his arms. “Come give me a hug, gal. I’ve missed them. And you.”
I moved around the desk and walked into James’s outstretched arms. “Welcome home. It’s good to have you here.”
The words and the fierceness of his hug warmed me. My parents had never been much for showing affection in a physical way, and I found myself envying my sister. On impulse, I wrapped my arms around James and held tight for a moment. “I’m really glad to be here.” And I was.
When he finally drew back, James studied me for a minute. “You don’t remember anything?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t even remember how I ended up in San Francisco.”
He released me and eased back down in his chair. “You seen anything yet that triggers a memory?”
“No. I went through my room and my clothes, and I rode up into the hills to get a view of the whole ranch, but it was like I’d never seen any of it before.”
“Good. Keep at it,” James said. “The sooner we get you back to normal the better. I’ve discussed it with Sloan, and I’m going to contact the rest of the family and summon them here for a dinner party tonight to welcome you home. Your cousin Austin’s in Saratoga Springs, but he’s got the jet. You up to it?”
“Sure.” My stomach lurched a bit, but what else could I say?
Sloan circled the desk so that he stood with me in front of it. “James’s theory is that seeing one or more of them may help you remember. I’m more of the opinion that meeting them all en masse might cause you to run away again.” The two men exchanged a look that held both understanding and humor.
He loves the old man, I thought. It was then that I realized that Sloan had come here to pave the way for me, not out of kindness to me, but because he truly loved James. My admiration for him moved up a notch.
“Don’t let Sloan sour you against your kinfolk,” James said with a grin. “We’ll let them do that all on their own.”
Sloan laughed then, and the rich sound filled the air. I found myself smiling at him, and he smiled back. There was no mockery in his eyes this time. But I could see something else, something more intimate and it had something hot spreading through me. The heat kicked up several degrees when he lifted a hand and with one finger traced a little half circle under my eye. “You’re tired, Red. You’d better rest so that you’re up to handling them and dealing with their questions.”
I couldn’t move. I was sure my legs had turned to water. He’d barely touched me, but I felt it clear down to my toes.
He dropped his hand abruptly and turned to James. “I have to get back to work.” Without another word, he strode to the door and opened it.
I stared after him, finally accepting what I had tried to deny before. I was attracted to Sloan Campbell. Big-time. I’d been attracted from the moment I’d first seen his picture, and it had only increased when we’d met face-to-face on the bluff and he’d kissed me. I could no longer blame it on adrenaline. It was lust.
My stomach knotted. I’d come here to learn all I could about my sister, to find a clue to her whereabouts—not to fall in lust with her fiancé. And I couldn’t yet dismiss the possibility that he might have had something to do with her disappearance. These were the kind of plot complications that would be great for Secrets. But they should not be happening to nothing-ever-happens-to-me Brooke Ashby.
At the door, Sloan turned back and looked at me. I realized something else. He knew exactly what effect he was having on me.
What in the world had I gotten myself into?
“Take a nap,” he said in that authoritative way he had.
“You’ll be here for dinner,” James said to him.
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
When Sloan closed the door, I turned to face James and there was a moment of awkward silence between us.
“He’s a good man,” James finally said.
“Yes.” So far, I could agree with that assessment.
“He’ll make you a good husband.”
I didn’t have an answer ready for that. But I sensed that Cameron and he had had this conversation before. “Do you have any idea why I ran away?”
James watched for a moment. “Everyone figured it was bridal jitters.”
I studied him right back. He was a man who was used to getting what he wanted. “And I’m the type of coward who would have run away?”
“No.” I saw a flash of something in his eyes. Pride? “But you’re headstrong and you have a temper. You and Sloan had a little argument the day before you disappeared.”
“About what?”
James shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”
“So I ran away to punish him?” I could understand that my sister, the woman that I was coming to know, might have done that.
“You ran away to think,” James corrected. “From the time you were a little girl, you liked to get away from everything and think.”
Something moved through me. I’d always done the same thing. Wasn’t that one of the reasons I’d borrowed the SUV and driven up into the hills? “So you weren’t surprised when I just disappeared?”
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