Holiday Homecoming

Holly would have stood, but he was right there, and any move she made would have propelled her straight into him. She didn’t want to touch him, not now. “Please, this is ridiculous” was all she told him, sure she sounded as panicked as she felt. “I just need to go. Forget that I said anything. It doesn’t matter, not at all. Not anymore.”

“You bet it does,” he said, the harshness in his words almost making her flinch. “You know, all my life people have accused me of things that they thought I did. From the start. Back at the orphanage. Right on through the rest of my life.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “I hate the idea of you doing that, too. I really hate it.”

She did flinch at that. She heard her own voice, but it sounded distant and odd.

“Then we’re even, aren’t we?”

Dear Reader,

Cain Stone has always been a gambler and a risk taker. But when he goes home to Silver Creek and meets single mother Holly Winston, he realizes from the start that the gamble he takes getting close to her and her tiny daughter has higher odds than anything he’s ever known.

Holly isn’t into taking chances. She’s tried it and paid for it. At this stage in her life, opening her heart to anyone is a risk she won’t take—until Cain Stone walks into her neatly arranged world.

I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of opposites attracting, and when the stakes are high, this is even more compelling. In Holiday Homecoming, the third installment in my RETURN TO SILVER CREEK four-book series, opposites not only attract, they find themselves in a world neither has entered before. It’s all about love and all about trust, the very elements that neither has experienced.

I hope you enjoy the journey of Holly and Cain as they find each other and each takes the biggest gamble of their life.

Holiday Homecoming

Mary Anne Wilson

For Joe Geisler

For being part of our family,

For being a terrific father.

Love, Mary Anne

Books by Mary Anne Wilson

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

1003—PREDICTING RAIN? *

1005—WINNING SARA’S HEART *

1009—WHEN MEGAN SMILES… *

1062—DISCOVERING DUNCAN †

1078—JUDGING JOSHUA †

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Las Vegas, Nevada

One month earlier

“I’m not going back to Silver Creek,” Cain Stone said. “I don’t have the time—or the inclination to make the time. Besides, it’s not my home.”

The man he was talking to, Jack Prescott, shook his head, then motioned with both hands at Caine’s sterile penthouse. It was done in black and white—black marble floors, white stone fireplace, white leather furniture. The only splash of color came from the sofa pillows, which were various shades of red. “And this is?”

The Dream Catcher Hotel and Casino on the Strip in Las Vegas was a place to be. The place Cain worked. The part of the world that he owned. His place. But his home? No. He’d never had one. “It’s my place,” he said honestly.

Jack, an angular man, with almost shoulder-length dark hair peppered with gray, who was dressed as usual in faded jeans, an open-necked navy shirt and his well-worn leather boots, leaned back in the semicircular couch to face the bank of windows that looked down on the city sprawling twenty stories below. “Cain, come on. You haven’t been back in years, and it’s the holidays.”

“Bah, humbug,” Cain said with a slight smile, wishing that the feeble joke would ease the growing tension in him. A tension that had started when Jack had first asked him to return to Silver Creek. “You know that for people like us there are no holidays. They’re the heavy times in the year. I look forward to Christmas the way Ebenezer did. You get through it and make as much money as you can.”

Jack didn’t respond with any semblance of a smile. Instead, he muttered, “God, you’re cynical.”

“Realistic,” Cain amended with a shrug. “But is it so important to you that I go to Silver Creek now?”

“Like I said, it’s the holidays, and that means friends. Josh is there, and Gordie, who’s at his clinic twenty-four hours a day. We can get drunk, ski down Main Street or take on Killer Run again. Whatever you want.”

Jack, Josh and Gordie were as close to a family as Cain had had as a child. The orphanage hadn’t been anything out of Dickens, but it hadn’t been family. His three friends were. The four of them had done everything together, including getting into trouble and wiping out on Killer Run. “Tempting,” Cain said, a pure lie at that moment. “But no deal.”

“I won’t stop asking,” Jack said.

Cain stood and crossed to the built-in bar by the bank of windows. He ignored the alcohol and glasses and picked up a pack of unopened cards, one of several. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrors behind the bar before he turned to Jack. He was tall, about Jack’s height at six foot one or so, with dark hair worn a bit long like Jack’s, and brushed by gray like Jack’s. His eyes, though, were deep blue, in contrast to Jack’s, which were almost black.

Cain was sure he could match Jack dollar for dollar if he had to, and just as Jack didn’t look like the richest man in Silver Creek, Cain didn’t fit the image of a wealthy hotel-casino owner in Las Vegas. Few owners dressed in Levi’s and T-shirts; even fewer went without any jewelry, including a watch. He had a closet full of expensive suits and silk shirts, but he hardly ever wore them. Still, he fit in at the Dream Catcher Hotel and Casino. It was about the only place he’d ever fit in. He didn’t fit in Silver Creek. He never had.

He went back to Jack with the cards, broke the seal on the deck, and as he slipped the cards out of the package, he said, “Let’s settle this once and for all.”

“I’m not going to play poker with you,” Jack told him. “I don’t stand a chance.”

Cain eyed his friend as he sat by him on the couch. “We’ll keep it simple,” he murmured. He took the cards out of the box, tossed the empty box on the onyx coffee table in front of them and shuffled the deck. “We’ll cut for it. I’ll even let you pick high or low to win.”

“What’s at stake?” Jack asked.

“If you win, I’ll head north to Silver Creek for a few days around the holidays.”

Jack took the deck when Cain offered it to him. He shuffled the cards again, then put them facedown on the coffee table. But he didn’t cut them. He cast Cain a sideways glance. “How much time does this cover—your not returning to Silver Creek?”

“Forever, or until I decide that I want to go back.”

Jack hesitated. He wasn’t a gambler like Cain. He’d been born to money. Cain had been born to nothing, and finally had something. Cain was used to gambling in every sense of the word. And he was used to winning. “High card wins?” Jack finally said.

Cain nodded.

“Okay.” Jack picked up a third of the deck and turned the bottom card up so they could both see it. An ace of hearts. Usually the best card in the deck. But not for Cain this time. “Two out of three?” he suggested.

Jack laughed. “Hell, no, I’m standing pat.”

Cain sat back, raking his fingers through his dark hair with a rough sigh. “I thought you would.”

Jack stood and reached for his suede jacket. “When will you be home?” he asked.

Cain glanced up at him. He wouldn’t argue with Jack about where home was. Instead, he spoke truthfully. “I’ve got a lot to do here. I’ll call you and tell you.”

Jack didn’t move. “When?” he repeated.

Cain held up both hands, palms out to Jack in surrender. “Okay, okay, let me check my calendar.”

“Oh, sure, what calendar? You sleep, you work, you eat. Take out the work part, and you can eat and sleep in Silver Creek.” He grinned. “And we’ve got the best snow this year. The skiing is fantastic.”

Cain never skied anymore. Once the sport had been his lifeline. He’d sneak out of the orphanage and head for the mountain to Killer Run—the Killer, as they’d called it. At dawn it had been all his, and he’d savored the freedom of it. “Did you ever get the land with the Killer on it from Old Man Jennings?” he asked, remembering that some time ago Jack had said he wanted to include the run in the runs at the resort, for advanced skiers.

Jack shook his head. “No, the old man’s as stubborn in death as he was when he was alive. His heir doesn’t want to part with it.” He smiled slightly as he shrugged into his jacket. “But I can change that.”

Cain stood to face Jack. “I’m sure you will,” he said. “Okay, I’ll be up sometime between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.”

Jack clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m holding you to it, Cain. I’ll tell Joshua and Gordie and the four of us will be together for a few days.”

“You do that,” he murmured as he walked with Jack to the elevator.

Jack turned back to Cain as the elevator door opened. “I can’t wait,” he said, and got into the car.

Cain didn’t move until the door had slid shut behind Jack, then he headed for his office off the living area. He’d figure how to get out of going back to Silver Creek later, but right now, he had work that wouldn’t keep.

He didn’t make it to the office before the phone sitting on the black enamel table behind the couch rang. He reached for it, glanced at the caller ID and recognized the cell phone number on the readout. “Jack?” he said as he answered it.

Jack didn’t hesitate. “Stop thinking about ways to get out of this bet. You can come up before Christmas. I’ll reserve a cabin for you from the twelfth with an open departure date.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jack said, and hung up.

Cain put the phone back and kept going to his office. He dropped into the black leather chair behind his glass-topped desk in the book-lined room and stared down at the Strip.

Going back. He exhaled, and speculated he should have stacked the cards. Anything not to be in the position he was now in. He’d have to go back to Silver Creek, stay a few days, then leave. But he knew with a certainty that after he left, he’d never go back to Silver Creek again.

Chapter One

Cain returned to Silver Creek exactly one week before Christmas. He drove through the massive stone-pillar gates of the Inn at Silver Creek and wended his way up the brick drive, banked on either side with plowed snow. He went toward the main lodge, a meandering building that ran north-south and changed in height from three stories to one, then to two and back to three. Against the backdrop of snow, the wood-and-stone structure looked determinedly rustic. No, it looked like a rich man’s version of rustic, from the stained glass windows that rivaled those of Italian cathedrals, to the massive stone chimneys puffing smoke into the late-afternoon air.

He drove past the main entrance and valet parking and headed to the far end of the lodge, which rose three stories into the darkening skies. He pulled his new SUV into a slot marked Private and stopped, then pushed the door. A blast of frigid air hit him as he stepped onto the cleared cobbled pavement. He’d made good on the payment for his bet. He was in Silver Creek. He’d stay for a few days, maybe leave after two, if he could work it out. He’d play things by ear.

He hunched into the chilling wind that whipped off the towering Sierra Nevada, which framed the town on the east and west, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black leather bomber jacket. He looked around at the grounds of the Inn at Silver Creek—Jack’s project that had been going on forever. A posh, expensive, very private ski resort for the rich and sometimes famous or infamous, built on land that Jack’s family had owned since the founding of the town.

The resort now sprawled over acres and acres of mountain terrain, offering secluded cabins for those who could afford them and promising the most precious commodity money could buy: privacy. The main building contained suites, gathering rooms and two separate restaurants, with enough luxury to satisfy the most discriminating guest.

Cain turned to the lodge and took the cleared steps to the door marked Private. Without warning, the door opened and a young guy in slouchy snow gear rushed out. “Sorry, dude,” the guy muttered as he barely avoided a collision with Cain. Then, with a “Merry Christmas!” tossed over his shoulder, he jumped down the steps and loped toward the main trail that led to the scattered private lodges.

“Bah, humbug,” Cain breathed roughly.

He stepped inside, into a wide hallway with stone floors, aged wooden walls in a deep cherrywood polished to a mellow glow and the sense of luxury—from the Persian rug runners to the paintings on the wall, which had their own security system to protect them. Christmas music was piped in, and someone had discreetly nestled small twinkling lights in the crown molding between the wood of the wall and the beamed ceiling.

He never had been comfortable with wealthy trappings, even at the casino, and at this time of year, the extras for the holidays made his discomfort even worse. He suspected that was why he kept his penthouse sparsely furnished, without any great works of art or any antiques. There wasn’t a trace of gold in the place or a trace of Christmas. You could take the orphan out of the orphanage, but you couldn’t take the orphanage out of the orphan, he mused as he undid his jacket and headed toward a barely visible door in the paneling to his left.

He hit a button that exposed a security number panel, put in the code, then stood back, waiting for the elevator. He didn’t want to be here, but he’d see his friends, then he’d leave. For good. He couldn’t think of one reason to come back here again.

The elevator went directly to Jack’s living quarters on the third floor, and when the door finally slid open for Cain to get into the elevator, he wasn’t expecting to encounter anyone. If he had, he would have expected it to be with Jack, or possibly Jack’s second-in-command, a huge man named Malone.

Instead, Cain came face-to-face with a woman. She was tiny, barely five feet in height, he’d guess, almost drowning in a heavy navy jacket, jeans and huge snow boots. Fiery auburn hair was caught back in a high ponytail, and he could make out a suggestion of freckles dusting an upturned nose on a finely boned face. His eyes roamed her face. She didn’t appear to be wearing any makeup, not even lipstick on provocatively full lips. Then he met her gaze. Amber eyes, and they were staring at him.

For a second, she looked as though she knew him, and for some reason, that didn’t please her. Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth tightened, losing all the softness in her lips. She held his gaze almost defiantly and for what seemed forever, and he knew for a fact he’d never met her before. He had a gift for remembering people. It was in his best interests as a casino and hotel owner, to remember guests and clients. She’d never been either, and he’d never looked into those amber eyes before. He would have remembered. Any man would have remembered her.

The door started to slide shut and she reached out one slender hand to stop it. She exhaled harshly, then moved toward him, never taking her eyes off his. Before he could step out of the way, she veered to her right, ducked her head and was leaving. She headed for the door he’d just come through, and he was shocked that she could cover so much area so quickly without running.

This time, he reached for the elevator door before it could close and grabbed at the edge, but he didn’t glance away. She was at the side door as she pulled a bright yellow knit hat out of her pocket and tugged it on over her brilliant hair. That was when she glanced back at him, giving away no surprise that he was watching her. Then she opened the door and was gone.

He stared at the closed door, feeling oddly off balance from the encounter. He didn’t know why.

He got into the elevator. The door slid shut behind him, and he hit the Up button. He glanced at his reflection in the elevator door, halfway expecting to see that he had transformed into Mr. Hyde, or maybe grown a second head. No horns, no fangs, no warts. He’d had people not like him before, and he hadn’t cared. Maybe she was one of Jack’s friends, and they’d fought. Maybe she hated all men right now. He’d have to ask Jack what was going on.

The elevator stopped, the door slid back and Cain stepped into Jack’s office area. It fronted Jack’s private suite at the back of the turret he occupied. The plush leather, mahogany and leaded-glass windows were as mellow as Cain remembered. But the space was absolutely empty. There were no papers on the desk near the bank of windows that overlooked the slopes far below. There were no open books on the table by the chairs turned to face the massive stone fireplace. There was no fire in the hearth, and no sounds at all.

“Jack!” he called as he strode toward the partly closed door across the room. “Hey, Jack!”

He touched the door and it swung back. Jack was nowhere in sight. The expansive room, with a fireplace that matched the one in the office, was as empty as the rest of the place. Cain went to the right, into the kitchen, which was all stainless steel and ceramic tile, but there wasn’t even the ever-present coffee brewing in the coffeemaker. Back out in the main area, he crossed to the double doors that led into Jack’s bedroom. If Jack was in the bedroom, that meant that the woman had come from—

A noise in Jack’s office cut short his thoughts. Quick footsteps sounded, then Jack came through the door. He stopped and stared at Cain as if he didn’t recognize him for a moment, then his face broke into a huge smile. “Well, I’ll be,” he said as he walked to where Cain stood, his hands outstretched. “I didn’t believe you’d come.”

He grabbed Cain’s shoulders, and although there was no hug or anything that bordered on mush, Cain was touched by Jack’s greeting. “Good to see you, too,” he muttered. As Jack drew back, Cain awkwardly slapped Jack on his shoulder. “I pay off my bets.”

Jack eyed him up and down, then shrugged. “When you didn’t show up earlier, I had my doubts.” It was then that Cain realized Jack was in outer clothes—a denim, fur-lined jacket, with jeans and heavy boots darkened by clinging snow. “Sit, and let me get you a drink, then you can go over to number twenty.” Jack talked as he headed back across the room. He took off the denim jacket and tossed it on the nearest chair, then walked his way out of his boots as he crossed to a bar built into the wall by the bedroom door. “What do you want to drink?” he asked.

“Anything,” Cain murmured.

As a liquor bottle clinked against glasses, he spoke without looking back at Cain, “Did you get my message about Joshua?”

Cain had picked up the message moments before he’d left Las Vegas. Joshua Pierce, former cop in Atlanta and a widower for eighteen months, had suddenly found someone who had won him over so completely and quickly that he was getting married again two days before Christmas, right here at the Inn. “Yeah, I got it.”

“And?” Jack queried as he turned with two glasses in his hands.

“And what?” Cain asked while he shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it on the couch nearest him before sinking into the supple leather cushions.

Jack came to him, held out one of the drinks, and Cain took it, cradling it in his hands as Jack sat on the couch opposite him. “So, what do you think?” Jack spoke as he settled. “One of the Great Four bites the dust.”

Cain smiled at the title they’d given themselves so many years ago. Joshua, Jack, Cain and Gordie. “Yeah, the Great Four,” he murmured, and sipped the amber liquid. Brandy—good, smooth brandy—and it hit the spot. “But Joshua did it before with Sarah.” Cain shrugged. He’d only met his friend’s wife once, yet he’d known right away why Joshua had fallen in love with her. But that didn’t mean he understood why Joshua’d had chosen marriage then, or why he was choosing it again.

Jack lifted his glass, drank a bit, then sat back, crossing one leg over the other, his stockinged foot resting on his knee. “I didn’t think he’d ever get married again, but you never know.” He settled his glass on his thigh. “I’m aware of your aversion to weddings. You’ll be here for it, won’t you?”

He’d return for it. He’d decided that he would. “Sure, I’ll be here.”

Jack appeared pleased. “Good, so you’ll be here through Christmas. Great, great,” he murmured.

“No.” Cain shook his head, cutting off that assumption as quickly as he could. “I’ll come back for it. I can’t stay.”

Jack sat forward abruptly. “The deal was—”

“I’d come here around the holidays, and I have. I’m here and I’ll spend a couple of days around town, then I have to get back. This is the busiest time of the year for the Dream Catcher and—”

“Oh, stop,” Jack said with a frown. “Spare me. I remember the drill. You’re busy. You’re irreplaceable. You’re indispensable. You made the damn place, and it can’t stay standing without you there to support it.”

“That about sums it up,” Cain said with a smile, trying to lighten the tension starting in his neck and shoulders.

Jack wasn’t smiling. “I’m not joking.”

Cain shrugged and finished off the last of his drink. “Then my question is, why aren’t you joking? What’s so important that you need me here?”

He expected Jack to get angry again, or to pass the question off. He never expected him to say, “I’m not sure.”

He twirled his empty glass. “Why not?”

Jack shrugged and exhaled on a heavy sigh. “At first I just thought we’d have a good time, relive our glory days.” He did smile then, but fleetingly. “But lately I’ve been thinking that I need to change my life.”

That was when Cain remembered the woman he’d faced in the elevator. The woman with fiery hair and amber eyes. “Who is she?”

Jack seemed genuinely perplexed by the question. “What?”

“The woman?”

“What woman?”

Cain sat forward and put his glass on the huge leather ottoman between the couches. He met Jack’s gaze. “Does red hair, gold eyes and a look that could stop you in your tracks mean anything to you?” Jack was either a good actor or honestly confused. “Tiny? Madder than a wet hen? What did you do—break up with her, tell her to get out and she took off?”

Jack sat forward, suddenly intent. “When did you see her?”

“When I was coming up, she was leaving.”

Jack glanced at his watch, then muttered, “Oh, damn, I thought I told her four.”

“A missed date?”

“A missed appointment,” Jack said, tossing back the last of his brandy. “She was here on business and I wasn’t.”

Cain didn’t ask what “business.” “Does she have anything to do with you wanting to change your life?”

“Not directly,” Jack said as he got up and carried both empty glasses to the bar. He came back, handed Cain a new drink, then sat to face him again. “To the future…to whatever it holds,” he said as he raised his own glass.