“The Boy.”

Ice clinked against an heirloom crystal glass as he took it from a wrought-iron table. Draining it, he poured another drink from a decanter he’d brought into the garden with him.

The boy. It was always that, never more. The child’s name was Cade. Yet for reasons he wouldn’t define, Lincoln Cade couldn’t bring himself to call Linsey’s son by his own name.

“Who is he, Linsey? Why is his hair dark like mine? Who gave him my name?”

Laughter from the street intruded. Adult amusement, but in it Lincoln heard the haunting laugh of a child.

But whose child?

Turning to the house, forsaking the garden and his search for peace he knew would elude him for a long time to come, Lincoln knew what he must do. He knew what he would do.

For Linsey, for himself.

For the boy.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the world of Silhouette Desire, where you can indulge yourself every month with romances that can only be described as passionate, powerful and provocative!

Fabulous BJ James brings you June’s MAN OF THE MONTH with A Lady for Lincoln Cade. In promising to take care of an ex-flame—and the widow of his estranged friend— Lincoln Cade discovers she has a child. Bestselling author Leanne Banks offers another title in her MILLION DOLLAR MEN miniseries with The Millionaire’s Secret Wish. When a former childhood sweetheart gets amnesia, a wealthy executive sees his chance to woo her back.

Desire is thrilled to present another exciting miniseries about the scandalous Fortune family with FORTUNES OF TEXAS: THE LOST HEIRS. Anne Marie Winston launches the series with A Most Desirable M.D., in which a doctor and nurse share a night of passion that leads to marriage! Dixie Browning offers a compelling story about a sophisticated businessman who falls in love with a plain, plump woman while stranded on a small island in More to Love. Cathleen Galitz’s Wyoming Cinderella features a young woman whose life is transformed when she becomes nanny to the children of her brooding, rich neighbor. And Kathie DeNosky offers her hero a surprise when he discovers a one-night stand leads to pregnancy and true love in His Baby Surprise.

Indulge yourself with all six Desire titles—and see details inside about our exciting new contest, “Silhouette Makes You a Star.”

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

A Lady for Lincoln Cade

BJ James

For Gay, a friend, a lady.

BJ JAMES’

first book for Silhouette Desire was published in February 1987. Her second Desire title garnered for BJ a second Maggie, the coveted award of Georgia Romance Writers. Through the years there have been other awards and nominations for awards, including, from Romantic Times Magazine, Reviewer’s Choice, Career Achievement, Best Desire and Best Series Romance of the Year. In that time, her books have appeared regularly on a number of bestseller lists, among them Waldenbooks and USA Today.

On a personal note, BJ and her physician husband have three sons and two grandsons. While her address reads Mooreboro, this is only the origin of a mail route passing through the countryside. A small village set in the foothills of western North Carolina is her home.

Contents

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

FOREWORD

In the coastal Lowcountry of South Carolina where the fresh waters of winding rivers flow into the sea, there is an Eden of unmatched wonders. In this mix of waters and along the shores by which they carve their paths, life is rich and varied. The land is one of uncommon contrasts with sandy, seaswept beaches, mysterious swamps, teeming marshes bounded by ancient maritime forests. And the multitude of creatures that abide in each.

In this realm of palms, and palmettos, estuaries and rivers, shaded by towering live oaks draped in ghostly Spanish moss, lies Belle Terre. Like an exquisite pearl set among emeralds and sapphires, with its name the small antebellum city describes its province. As it describes itself.

Belle Terre, beautiful land. A beautiful city.

A very proper, very elegant, beautiful city. A gift for the soul. An exquisite mélange for the senses. With ancient and grand structures in varying states of repair and disrepair set along tree-lined, cobbled streets. With narrow, gated gardens lush with such greenery as resurrection and cinnamon ferns. And all of it wrapped in the lingering scent of camellias, azaleas, jasmin, and magnolias.

Steeped in an aura of history, its culture and customs influenced by plantations that once abounded in the Lowcountry, as it clings to its past Belle Terre is a province of contradictions. Within its society one will find arrogance abiding with humility, cruelty with kindness, insolence with gentility, honor with depravity, and hatred with love.

As ever when the senses are whetted and emotions untamed, in Belle Terre there will be passion, romance, and scandal.

One

“Linc! Ho, Lincoln.”

Long after the call faded, the pounding of a horse’s hooves sheared through the stillness settling over the west pasture of Belle Reve. Sighing for the calm of a lost moment, weary after another of too many days routinely beginning with his veterinary practice and ending with duties at his family’s historic plantation, Lincoln Cade wearily abandoned his inspection of a sagging fence. From the shade of his battered Stetson he stared into the canted light of the sun falling over lush, sprawling fields common in South Carolina’s lowcountry.

Horse and rider were only a dark shape galloping over rich grass. Concerned that this was more than Jesse Lee’s usual attack on life, Lincoln stepped forward, catching the horse’s bridle as it halted. Instinctively calming the spirited animal, he demanded, “What’s wrong, Jesse? Is it Gus?”

“No, boy. Ain’t nothing wrong with your dad,” the cowboy explained. “Nothing a mood-sweetening elixir wouldn’t fix.”

Lincoln laughed. “How many times has he fired you today?”

“A dozen.” The laconic answer accompanied a wry grin.

“How many times have you threatened to vamoose, leaving South Carolina in the dust on your way back to Arizona?”

Jesse Lee’s mouth widened, rippling the mass of wrinkles scoring his weathered face. “’Bout the same, I reckon.”

“If it isn’t Gus, then why the hurry?”

Slapping a pocket, Jesse drew out a packet he handed to Lincoln. “The postmaster in Belle Terre sent this special ’cause it was marked urgent by a postmaster in Oregon. I figgered it could wait till you came to the house for supper. But Miz Corey said not. And when Miz Corey says git, any man in his right mind gits.

“When he hired the lady to keep house at Belle Reve, I doubt Gus counted on getting a ramrod for the plantation and him, too. Anyway, she said pronto, and I hightailed it down here.”

The wrangler’s look strayed to the packet. Lincoln didn’t notice. He was hardly aware of anything but the postmark.

“Seems odd, don’t it?”

As the horse nuzzled at his shoulder, Jesse’s comment penetrated Lincoln’s distraction. “Odd?” he asked. “Why?”

“I dunno.” Jesse grumbled. “Just strikes me as peculiar coming from an Oregon postmaster. Hope it ain’t bad news. Bad news is terrible enough. Gittin’ it by mail is worse.”

Lincoln gripped the packet. “You think it’s bad?”

Jesse’s bleak look met Lincoln’s. “I don’t know who you know in Oregon, but I got a feelin’. The minute Miz Corey handed it to me, I felt the chill of it skittering down my spine.”

Oregon. Lincoln hadn’t thought of Oregon in a long time. He hadn’t let himself think of it. Until now.

He tried for a smile, remembering the old cowboy was obsessively superstitious. An obsession that went beyond black cats and ladders, and had nothing to do with the grief settling in his own chest. “I don’t feel anything, Jesse,” he lied. “So maybe everything’s all right.”

“There’s one way to find out.” The older man waited in a mix of worry and curiosity. “Ain’t you gonna open it?”

“When I’m done here.” Sliding the packet into his back pocket, wondering if Jesse’s dire prediction prompted a reluctance to open it in his presence, Lincoln took up the hammer he’d yet to use. “I’ll read it then.”

“In other words, good news or bad, you’ll read it alone.”

“Yes,” Lincoln admitted. “Good news or bad. And whoever.”

“Tarnation, why didn’t you say so?” Wheeling the horse around, Jesse set his hat more securely. “Ain’t none of this my business. Anyway, who do I know in Oregon?”

“I don’t know, Jesse,” Lincoln said mildly. “Who do you know in Oregon?”

Tapping the horse’s flank, Jesse set it into a run. Nearly lost in hoofbeats, one word drifted back, “Nobody.”

Horse and rider were beyond sight when Lincoln laid the hammer aside again and took the mail from his pocket. Head down, face shaded by the brim of his hat, he stared at the official cachet. Then, catching a breath, he broke the seal.

A form letter with an added hand-printed message, then two small envelopes banded with red string tumbled into his hand. Reining in clamoring concern, laying the banded letters on a fence post, Lincoln attended the official letter first.

“Dear Mr. Cade,” he read aloud, his gaze racing over the paper. “As acting postmaster, I offer my apologies for the delayed delivery of these letters. Due to the ill health of the former postmaster, unfortunately some pieces of mail were put aside and never processed. Among them, these bearing your address. I sincerely hope the delay causes no difficulties. Please be confident steps have been taken to assure…”

Lincoln stared at the envelopes with the absurd bit of string catching the light, gleaming against the creamy squares like a rivulet of scarlet. Bearing the postmark of the same tiny Oregon village, but two weeks apart, one was addressed in the scrawl of a man he’d known all his life, the second in the less familiar hand of a woman. A woman, despite the lies he told himself, he hadn’t forgotten in six long years.

Folding the apologetic form, he tucked it away before retrieving the mysterious lost letters. Untying the band of scarlet, letting it drift to the ground, he weighed his choices.

His hands were shaking as he traced the feminine script of one, but steadied again as he shuffled it aside. His decision was made—he would read them in the order of their postmarks.

With an ache in his heart, he lifted the flap of the first envelope and took out a single sheet of paper. When it was finished, he read the second as he had the first—slowly, his lips a sad, grim line. When he was done, his gaze lifted to the horizon, not seeing the sky in its shifting moods.

Time crept by with little variation in the long summer day. Yet for Lincoln it seemed to fly, too fast, too irrevocably. As life had with its changes, leaving things unsettled and things undone. Until it was too late.

Rousing, he gathered his tools, wrapped them, and tied them behind his saddle. The fence could wait. Tugging his horse’s reins from a nearby shrub, he stepped into the saddle. Out of habit the horse turned toward home. Toward Belle Reve. “Not yet, Diablo,” Lincoln muttered. “We have a stop to make first.”

Setting the stallion into a canter, he guided the massive animal over the pasture fence and onto a little-used path. Then, giving Diablo his head, trusting the old horse to recognize the land and remember the way to their destination, Lincoln let his mind wander to times past…and friends lost.

The passage from the west pasture of Belle Reve to the end of his journey was not long. But when horse and rider emerged from the wooded trail into a clearing, the sun had dipped below the trees, spangling leaves and limbs with dusty gold. This was Stuart land. The bane of land-hungry Cades, a haven for others.

With an eye for beauty and convenience, the first Stuart had set the farmhouse at the edge of a clearing by a narrow creek. A creek that marked Stuart-Cade boundaries as it meandered to the river and finally the sea.

Once there was hardly a day that Lincoln hadn’t spent a stolen hour or two in this forbidden place. Now, drawing Diablo to a halt as he surveyed the grounds bathed in the splendor of sunset, he realized years had passed since he’d sought its refuge.

Beyond a crop of weeds threading through volunteer flowers, herbs and vegetables still thriving in rich soil, the farm hadn’t changed. If one didn’t count the absence of life and laughter a change, he thought somberly, while dismounting by the steps. As he climbed the stairs, a rotting board broke beneath his weight, shattering the myth, reminding Lincoln that more than six years had passed since Frannie Stuart lived and died here. More than six years since she’d filled the house with love and laughter.

How many times had he raced across the west field as a boy, hurrying from a cold, forbidding plantation to the warmth and love that abounded in this small farm? How often had he envied his best friend the wonderful lady who was his mother?

But just as Frannie Stuart always had a hug for any of the Cade boys, and especially Lincoln, Lucky never resented it. With a heart as big and warm as his mother’s, Leland Stuart, christened Lucky by his friends, gladly and unselfishly shared.

Boot heels clattering in the silence, Lincoln climbed the rest of the stairs and crossed the porch. When he tried the door, it opened. Not surprising, for he couldn’t recall a time it had ever been locked. Ducking beneath the door frame, he stepped inside, into memories of the boy who had stood where a man stood now. Memories so vivid he could hear Lucky’s cry of welcome and smell Frannie’s cookies baking. Cookies meant to be snitched by hungry boys who had slipped away from chores to fish or hunt and play Tarzan in the swamp.

Drawing himself to his full height, Lincoln looked around him. There were cobwebs and dust everywhere. The musty scent of neglect mingled with a lingering hint of flowers. But nothing had been touched. Frannie and Lucky could have just stepped out intending to return, yet never had.

Wandering through the house, Lincoln paused at the door of the smallest bedroom. The trophies Lucky won in baseball still lined a single shelf. One of his own was there. So was a lure he’d made, and a photo taken when both he and Diablo were young. As if blinders fell from his eyes, Lincoln realized how much a part he’d been allowed to play, welcomed to play, in the Stuart home.

Lucky had no father, nor any recollection of ever having one. Lincoln had no mother. Perhaps that had first drawn them to each other. But the bond of affection and shared interests that made them friends and blood brothers, was much stronger.

From grade school, through Belle Terre Academy and the university, he and Lucky had been inseparable. Evidence of their friendship still lived in a simple farmhouse on a rich piece of land lying between a creek and the plantation called Belle Reve.

Like the Cades, the Stuarts were an old family, prominent in South Carolina’s lowcountry. And like the Cades, their early wealth had long been lost. By the time Frannie made her debut, little more than respect filled the Stuart coffers. They were an aging but cordial and modern-thinking people. She was their adventurous darling with places to go and things to do. Frannie was a few months past forty, with her daring adventures behind her, when she returned to Belle Terre with Lucky, a babe in arms.

Undaunted by the scandal of bearing an illegitimate child, she settled on the farm, living quietly, meagerly, as was apparent in her bedroom, which Lincoln realized now was pitifully lacking in the feminine pleasures that would have become her. Frannie might have been reduced to creating her own unforgettable fragrance of wild roses and dried flowers, but her capacity for love, her courageous sense of adventure, never faltered.

It was, instead, bequeathed to Lucky. And, as he stared at a photo, encased in a tarnished silver frame, Lincoln realized both had been Frannie’s ultimate gift to him, as well.

Caught up in recollections of two wide-eyed boys sitting before a fire, listening to stories of where she’d been and what she’d done, Lincoln continued his sentimental passage. As he came full circle, his lips tilted in a poignant smile for old memories and old friendships that could never be again.

When he returned to the porch, the last rays of the sun had painted the sky a deep vermilion, seeming to set the world ablaze. Lincoln hadn’t meant to stay, but, wrapped in light so familiar, he found himself drawn to the steps.

To sit where he’d sat with Lucky. To remember the dreams they’d dreamed on days like this. The days when they were so sure they would live forever and be friends forever and share every great adventure the world had to offer.

“Every great adventure, planned right here.” Lincoln looked at the photograph still clutched in his hand. “Even the last, the one that would destroy our friendship as we knew it.”

Wearily Lincoln stood. Making note of the step in need of repair, he crossed the overgrown yard to Diablo. Speaking quietly to the grazing horse, he mounted. Hesitating, he watched as light warming the walls of the house faded and darkened, leaving it in shadows. A lonely derelict, waiting.

“For what?” Lincoln wondered aloud. But he didn’t need to wonder. He knew.

“For want of love and laughter, a home becomes a house,” he whispered, quoting his beloved Frannie. “For want of life, a house becomes a hovel.”

Frannie Stuart had been dead nearly seven years. Lucky, for three months. He couldn’t change the past, but as he turned Diablo from the Stuart farm, Lincoln vowed that no matter how long it took, he would repay a debt incurred six years before.

A debt called in today, by a letter from the grave.

“Let’s go home, Diablo,” Lincoln murmured hoarsely. “I have work to do, a lady to find, and promises to keep.”

Two

“Special delivery.” Basket in hand, Haley Garrett stood in the open doorway, waiting for Lincoln to abandon his intense study of the evening sky. As she’d spoken, his shoulders tensed. When he turned, a pallor lay over his sun-darkened face.

“Lincoln?” Alarm threaded through Haley’s voice. “Is something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Blinking, clearing his vision, Lincoln denied her concern. “Nothing’s wrong. My mind was wandering, I thought…”

“That I was her?” Troubled by his mood, Haley stepped into his office uninvited. “Yes, Lincoln, her. Linsey Stuart, the woman for whom you’ve searched for weeks.”

“How do you know about Linsey?”

Setting the basket laden with food on his desk, she smiled ruefully. “It would be hard not to know, since your search has been conducted by telephone and our office isn’t exactly soundproof.”

Lincoln moved to his desk. “I never meant to disturb you.”

“You didn’t. I haven’t said anything before because it was none of my business.” Haley tilted her head, negating the great difference in their size as she held his gaze. “As your veterinary partner and friend, I’m making it my business now.”

Lincoln grasped a pen, tapping it on his desk. “I haven’t held up my end of our agreement?”

Catching his hand, she stopped his drumming. “Just the opposite. You’re driving yourself. Take today, for instance. You were called to Petersens’ to deliver a breech colt at 3:00 a.m. To Hank’s dairy at 6:00 a.m. to deal with a sick cow.”

Releasing him, she ticked off more stops. “You admitted skipping breakfast, then lunch. If Miss Corey hadn’t worried and sent this basket, I suspect you would skip dinner.”

“How does skipping meals affect our partnership, Haley?”

“Partnership.” Haley emphasized her point. “That’s the key word. I could have made some of those calls. Given how hard you’ve been working, I should have made all of them.”

“Today was too much for me,” he drawled. “But not you?”

“Yes. Because I’m not consumed by a problem.” Taking a tarnished frame from his desk, she asked, “Is this Linsey Stuart?”

Lincoln’s gaze turned to the photo plundered from the Stuart farm. Where a step awaited repair. “Linsey, Lucky and me. In Montana, our last year at smoke jumpers annual training.”

“Linsey Stuart parachuted into forest fires?” The woman in the photograph was small, with an aura of elegance. Haley could believe an adventurous sportswoman, but not smoke jumping.

“No one believed she could do it then, either.” Lincoln’s mouth quirked in a melancholy smile at Haley’s disbelief. “But she did. We all did. That’s where our paths crossed— the first summer of jumper training. Lucky and I had been friends all our lives—the moment we met her, she fit.

“Linsey grew up in an orphanage, we became her family.” He glanced at the photo of three figures dressed for a jump, exhilarated by the challenge. “We were a team— Lucky Stuart, Linsey Blair, Lincoln Cade. We were called the Three L’s.”

“This was taken the last year—was it your last jump?”

Lincoln struggled to ease the constriction in his chest. “After the photograph was taken, Lucky was called home. His mother was ill. Two months later he came back. We jumped one more time.”

Haley wondered why only one. Lincoln loved jumping. It was in his voice. Even now. “What happened?”

Lincoln’s gaze lifted to Haley. But his mind, and perhaps his heart, had stepped back in time. Memories couldn’t be hurried. Keeping the gaze that saw another face, she waited.

“We were in Oregon.” His voice was distant, as if it came from the faraway place of his thoughts. “The fire had burned for weeks, with jumpers fighting winds as much as the blaze. We were backing each other, as always, when the current shifted and the fire turned, cutting us off from the rest of the crew.”

He fell silent; she waited. Again her wait was rewarded.

“Lucky had a knack for maps—he recalled a river. We ran for it and into a slide. Our radios were broken. A head injury left me confused, unsteady on my feet. I couldn’t walk out.”

“But Linsey and Lucky did?” Haley dared comment into the staccato retelling of a life-and-death drama.

“Only Lucky.” Lincoln turned to the window, seeing wind-fanned flames and falling earth beyond its panes. “The fire turned again, and we stumbled on a shack on secure ground. By then it was clear I’d suffered a concussion at the least. Lucky calculated that with burned ground, the slide, and the river as fire breaks, we had a little time before the blaze circled around. Leaving Linsey to look after me, he walked out alone.”

“Through the fire, Lincoln?”

“Through burned paths that could reignite at any time. If they had—” Halting, he turned a bleak face to Haley, then away again. “Lucky risked his life for mine.”

“And for Linsey,” Haley murmured, studying his profile. Seeing heartache he’d hidden from the world.

As her classmate in veterinary studies, he’d revealed nothing personal. He wouldn’t now, if he weren’t exhausted and hurting. Yet, because she knew Lincoln, she knew there was more. Something left unsaid. Haley went where intuition led. “You loved her.”

“We both did.”

“So you stepped aside.” When he didn’t respond, she asked, “Where is Lucky now?”

“Lucky died.” He looked away. “Four months ago.”

Haley blinked back tears for a grieving friend, for a stranger called Lucky. For a rare friendship. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” A hand briefly shielded his eyes. “So am I.”

“And now you’re looking for his wife. To help.”

“For Lucky’s sake. I wasn’t there when he needed me, but I thought…” He seemed to lose himself in a mood. In a moment he spoke again. “Shortly after he died, Linsey left Oregon and dropped out of sight. With no family and no roots, she could be anywhere. Nobody I’ve hired has found a trace of her.”

Lincoln said nothing more, and Haley wouldn’t question his search for Lucky Stuart’s widow. Whatever his reason, it wouldn’t be to trade on the past, nor because he loved her still. Lincoln Cade wasn’t a man who would barter on grief.

No matter what prompted his search, Haley hoped he would find Linsey Stuart. If it was right, she hoped they would find love and peace together. But that was for another time, another place. And, she suspected, for reconciled lovers to discover.

“It’s late, Lincoln. You’re exhausted, and I’m famished. Shall we share this thoughtful repast and call it a day?”

He smiled at her ploy to entice him to eat. But as he accepted the sandwich she offered, Haley saw the laughter left the silver of his eyes untouched.

Lincoln considered the wire and the tuft of brown fur caught on a barb. For the third time in a week he’d checked the deteriorating west pasture fence and the second time he’d found evidence of an animal passing near or through the wire. His first thought was deer. Closer inspection suggested dogs.

Among the mongrels of Belle Reve, some were white, some blond, some black. None were brown.

The west pasture was isolated, bordered by two rivers, the sprawl of Belle Reve, and Stuart land. No inhabited houses or farms were close enough for straying pets or working dogs. That left the threat of a pack of lost or abandoned pets. Dogs that would run a horse to death for the joy of the chase.

The Black Arabian stock his brother Jackson kept in pastures at the plantation were far too valuable to dismiss suspicions of a pack gone wild. He decided he would warn Jackson and enlist his aid in trapping the animals. Catching the pommel of his saddle and stepping into the stirrup, Lincoln mounted Diablo.

His inspection complete, he sat for an indecisive moment, trying to resist the lure of the path beyond the fence. The path that would lead to the Stuart farm. In the end he succumbed to a need he’d battled for weeks.

“Won’t hurt to check the property.” As Diablo’s black ears flicked at the sound of his voice, with his palm Lincoln stroked the stallion’s mane. “Could be the pack settled in the barn. And there’s a step to measure for repair.”

Glancing at the sky, gauging the position of the sun, he tapped the horse with the reins. “A couple of hours of daylight left, Diablo. Time enough.”

Diablo was eager to run. Lincoln himself enjoyed the rush as the Arabian topped the fence and raced over the corridor that a century before had been the Stuarts’ wagon route to town.

Beyond sight of the farm, Lincoln slowed to a walk. If the dogs had made their den on the property, they would be gone before he could find it, if he came riding in like the Lone Ranger.

“Easy, boy. No sudden moves.” He walked the horse slowly, barely rustling the grass that grew knee high. “Don’t want to spook them if they’re here.”

With a grunt hardly stifled, he jerked to a startled halt. “What the devil?”

Bending in the saddle, peering through a copse of massive trees, he saw light. Light where there should be no light, gleaming through windows of the Stuart farmhouse.

Illusion? A trick of the sun glinting off glass? Intruders or looters after all these years of the farmhouse standing unlocked?

Maybe. He could persuade himself to accept that. But the creak of rusty hinges was neither a trick nor an illusion. Nor was the woman who pushed open the door and stepped onto the porch. With her hair gleaming like spilling gold, as she shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun, she was familiar and very real.

“Linsey?” Her name was a raw undertone lost in the prattle of breeze-stirred oaks. Yet, spoken in his own voice, it resounded in his mind. Like a man too long in the dark catching a glimpse of the sun, his gaze moved over her. With incredulous care, he committed to mind a memory, seeking first the differences imposed by time and living. Then the unchanging qualities six long years couldn’t sweep from his mind.

Her hair was still long. Still a mass of curls gathered brutally into a topknot by a clasp that never had a chance of holding it. The hand that pushed tumbling strands from her cheeks was still absently impatient.

Her chin still tilted in eternal determination. While her mouth curved in a smile that seemed joyfully childlike and sensual at once. Lincoln wondered if she still caught her lower lip between her teeth when she concentrated or when she worried.

Drawing himself from the aching study of her mouth and face, he matched this Linsey of flesh and blood to the woman he’d turned away from…for Lucky.

She stood tall, shoulders back, making the most of those few inches by which she topped five feet. And as the breeze that sent tiny oak leaves spiraling around him swept across the clearing, molding her supple shirt against her, Lincoln realized her breasts were rounder, fuller. A girlish innocence had given way to an earthy maturity, a beguiling voluptuousness. A metamorphosis making her jean-clad waist and hips seem slimmer.

He’d lost a girl six years ago. Today, he found a woman in full bloom.

To the rest of the world she’d always been a pretty girl full of life and courage. To Lincoln, she was breathtaking from the first. But not so beautiful as now. Never so beautiful he could hardly believe she was real, not illusion.

Just as he could hardly believe that, after hiring investigators to search all of Oregon, Montana, and as many locales in between as possible, he had found her here. Exactly where she should be, in Lucky Stuart’s South Carolina home.

The last place he’d thought to look in a month. The last place he would ever think to look, if the search hadn’t ended.

How long had she been here? One week? Two? How soon after his last stop by the farm had she arrived? “How long before you were going to let me know, Linsey?”

As relieved as he was that she was here, like a battering ram striking out of nowhere, Lincoln was filled with anger bordering on rage. Anger laced with bitter self-disgust that any of it should matter. That she should matter.

For years he’d struggled to put the past in perspective. From a passionate and desperate interlude in a shack in an Oregon forest surrounded by fire, to the day he walked her down the aisle—giving her, in an unknown father’s stead, to Lucky—he thought he’d finally succeeded in putting it behind him.

Until the letters. Then he knew his struggles and all he believed he’d accomplished had been a farce.

Farce or not, his life was on an even keel, he didn’t want it disrupted by old wounds torn open. He hadn’t stopped to think of this moment when he’d begun the search. He hadn’t thought of anything but the wishes of a dying friend. But now, after the month and a small fortune spent searching for her, after the anguish of every minute of each of those days, he was tempted to ride away as if he’d never seen her and never loved her.

Dear God, he was tempted, but he’d never broken a promise to Lucky. He wouldn’t now. Raking an arm over his face, wishing he could wipe the anger from his heart as easily as he could from his features, he lifted a hand to hail the house.

“Cade.”

Lincoln froze at the sound, hand uplifted, lips parted in a greeting he wouldn’t utter.

“Cade? Where are you, tiger? Better come inside before it gets dark.”

Shocked that she could know he was there in the shadows that deepened with every increment the sun sank, Lincoln didn’t respond. He couldn’t respond as her voice flowed over him filled with love, driving out the anger.

In that moment of stunned silence, he heard the bark of a dog, a peal of laughter, then the voice of a child. “I’m here, Mom. In the barn with Brownie.”

Before he could make sense of it, a small boy appeared at the barn door. A boy called Cade and his dog.

“Brownie.” Lincoln didn’t know why it was that name he muttered. He didn’t understand why barbwire streaming with brown dog hair twice in three days should flood his mind. But he was glad for a small boy’s simple name for a brown dog and for the mystery of the barbs’ trophies solved.

Mind candy, a mental dodge. A name and a mystery more easily understood and resolved than the one Lincoln confronted in gathering darkness beyond the clearing of the Stuart farm.

His mouth was dry, his head hurt, his heart pounded so hard he thought it might explode. He didn’t want to stay, but he couldn’t drag his gaze from the boy as he raced across the yard and skipped over the broken step into his mother’s arms.

He was a small boy, but too big for Linsey to pick up. Yet she did, crushing him to her as she spun him round and round, planting nibbling kisses on his neck. The boy’s laughter escalated to squeals and giggles, while the dog jumped in circles, trying to join in.

Breathless and panting, Linsey stopped spinning. When she was still again, Lincoln watched as the boy plucked the clasp from her hair, letting it fall beyond her shoulders.

Catching a strand in his grubby fist, he laughed in delight. “Pretty.”

Linsey laughed, too. “Ah, shucks, kind sir. I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Nope.” The boy giggled and squirmed, and giggled that much harder when she tickled him. “Just you.”

“That will change in a few years.” Linsey’s laugh faded as she hugged him again. “You like it here, don’t you, Cade?”

“Yep.” The boy’s head bobbed. “But I was wondering.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have a horse?”

“Hmm.” Linsey tilted her head, considering. “I suppose one day. What kind of horse would you want?”

“A humongous black one, like the tall man.”

In the shadows Lincoln tensed, waiting for Linsey to look into the falling night. The air had grown unnaturally still; every sound carried as if it were magnified. He found himself holding his breath and keeping Diablo under a tight rein as he awaited discovery.

“A tall man with a humongous horse? I don’t know who you mean, tiger.” The porch lay in shadow now, obscuring Linsey’s features. “Is this a character from TV?”

The boy shook his head with the emphatic impatience of the young. “Nope. A real man.” A finger pointed. “He was over there.”

“He was?” Linsey’s chin lifted sharply. Frowning, she concentrated on the area her son indicated. “Do you see him now?”

“Nope. I could see him from the loft, though.” The boy, whose hair was as dark as his mother’s was fair, gestured again toward the bit of deserted trail visible from the porch.

“You climbed to the loft?” Linsey’s smile faltered. Even to a watcher, hovering and hidden, her demeanor changed, though she spoke kindly to the boy. “We discussed that we had to go carefully here. The house and barn are old, they’ve been empty and neglected for a long time. Do you remember what else I said?”

“There could be rotten boards to fall through, and spiders, and snakes,” the boy finished for her. “I remembered, Mom, and I was careful. Real careful.”

“Why did you go there?” Linsey wasn’t yet pacified.

The boy lifted both shoulders in a vague response. “I dunno, ’cept I just wanted to look. It’s pretty, Mom. I could see the river and the trees, and almost to Oregon. But I won’t go again, if you don’t want me to.”

“Promise? Just until I can get around to repairing it?”

Solemnly the boy drew a sweeping cross over his chest and stomach. “Cross my heart.”

“Promise accepted.” A loving finger tapped his nose, signaling his trespass was forgiven but not forgotten. “What do you say we finish the chocolate pudding left from supper?”

“Can I have my horse, too?”

“The humongous one?”

“Yep.”

Linsey hugged him again. “We’ll see. Good enough?”

“Yep.”

“Can you say anything but yep, tiger?”

“Yep,” the boy answered gravely, then dissolved into giggles at the repartee that was obviously a long-standing game.

In a dancing step Linsey took her son to the door. Pausing there, she turned back. For a sinking moment, though he knew she couldn’t see into the dark cave of trees, Lincoln could feel her gaze strafing over him.

For too long she stood in the doorway, looking from the treeline to the stream, then toward the end of the trail. But Linsey was new to the area—she wouldn’t know this was the passage she’d heard Lincoln call the escape route. She wouldn’t know the long-abandoned trail had led a traveler back to the farm again.

Lincoln’s tension telegraphed to Diablo, the stallion whickered and tossed his head. With a soft click of his tongue and a soothing touch, Lincoln quieted him. As quickly as the small rebellion was settled, there was still the dread of being discovered skulking among the trees like a voyeur.

But Linsey didn’t hear. She didn’t see. Satisfied there was no one about, she passed through the door into the light of a house that had been too empty and too dark for too long.

When the house was quiet and only a light in the bedroom that had been Frannie Stuart’s still burned, Lincoln steered the stallion toward Belle Reve. After bedding Diablo down for the night, enduring a short command-visit with his father, and refusing the dinner Miss Corey had prepared, he drove to his small pied-à-terre on the outskirts of Belle Terre.

The small city, deeply steeped in old Southern traditions, was the hub of this part of the South Carolina lowcountry. Lincoln’s home, situated in a sleepy cul-de-sac on a little-traveled street, was uniquely antebellum, with many of its historic treasures still intact. A single, as the narrow houses with walled and private courtyard gardens were called. In these days when he divided his time between Belle Terre and Belle Reve—with considerably more at the plantation since his father’s strokes—the tiny house was all he needed.

An hour later, as he wandered the moonlit courtyard, he realized how much he’d missed the quiet, the solitude. A place that was his alone. Yet the familiar pleasure of it escaped him. His mind was too full, too chaotic. Too filled with memories of Linsey and the boy.

“The boy.” Ice clinked against an heirloom crystal glass as he took it from a wrought-iron table. Draining it, he poured another drink from a decanter he’d brought into the garden with him.

“Linsey, the boy, and Brownie.” His voice was strained even to himself, and he wondered if one drink had made him drunk. “If it hasn’t,” he muttered as he lifted the glass before the blaze of an ancient gaslight, “hopefully the next one will.”

The boy. The words slashed endlessly through his mind like a broken record he couldn’t shut off. The boy. It was always that, never more. The child’s name was Cade. Yet, for reasons he wouldn’t define, Lincoln couldn’t bring himself to call Linsey’s son by his own name.

Dropping into a chair by the table, he lifted his drink again, watching the play of flames reflected in amber liquid and delicately etched crystal. Fire, the force that changed all their lives. Fire and Oregon. Abruptly Lincoln crashed the glass down with such ferocity it should have shattered, as most of the scotch splashed over the rim.

“Who is he, Linsey? Why is his hair dark when Lucky’s was fairer than yours? Who gave him my name?” Drawing a shuddering breath, he whispered, “Why? In God’s name, why?”

Burying his head in his hands, he didn’t speak again. As darkness gathered, beyond the babble of the fountain, the tap of footsteps along the street, and the clink of glass against glass as he poured another drink, the garden was silent.

When he roused, putting away memories he kept locked in the nether regions of his mind, Lincoln didn’t know how long he’d sat in the gloom. As he nursed a rare third drink, he didn’t care.

Time didn’t matter tonight. He was too restless for it to matter. Too confused. Pain lay in his chest like an iron weight. Whatever he did, or didn’t do, emotions he didn’t understand and didn’t know how to deal with tore at him. And with the better part of those three scotches in him— the most he’d had to drink since he and his brothers had given up their carousing, brawling ways—he shouldn’t, by damn, be feeling anything.

“Hell,” he grumbled, and took another sip, more melted ice than alcohol. “I’m the serious, pragmatic Cade. The logical Cade with all the cool-headed answers. Or so they tell me.

“Yeah,” he mocked in harsh sarcasm, “sure I am. Sure I do.” Fingers curled into an impotent fist. “So, why not now?”

He was the second of Caesar Augustus Cade’s four sons by four wives. The son born of a Scot. Surely she passed along some fine Gaelic practicality in her genes, even if she had died too young to instill it with her teaching. A handsome mouth quirked in a grim smile. “Yep, Gaelic practicality, that’s Lincoln Cade.”

Yep. The boy said that, he remembered.

“The boy.” The glass banged down a second time and still survived. Skidding back his chair, Lincoln rose, and from his great height stared down at the perfect haven he’d created. As the Stuart farm had been, this was his place to come when life with a father like Gus became too much. Or when the world weighed too heavily.

“Where do I go now?” he wondered aloud as memories he couldn’t exorcise and questions he couldn’t answer filled every corner of his heart and mind. When bitterness, black and ugly, joined grief and guilt, how did he deal with them?

“What about the boy?”

His whisper seemed to echo in the small space. Surrounding him, engulfing him in his own voice, asking over and over, what about the boy?…the boy?

Laughter from the street broke the illusion. Adult amusement, but in it Lincoln heard the haunting laugh of a child.

But whose child?

Turning to the house, forsaking the garden and his search for peace he knew would elude him for a long time to come, Lincoln knew what he must do. He knew what he would do.

For Lucky, for Linsey, for himself.

For the boy.

Three

“Look, Mom. Look.”

Chuckling, as she made another entry on her growing list of things to do, Linsey wondered what new marvel Cade had discovered. She’d spent the morning taking inventory of needed repairs in the house and barn. Prioritizing each, she balanced their importance against her limited budget while her son resumed an exploration cut short the night before by dinner and bedtime.

Clipping her pen to the small tablet, she smiled again. Recalling that, as he’d drifted off to sleep each of the three nights they’d spent in the old house, Cade had declared the Stuart farm “the bestest place ever,” Linsey went to see what new bounty had been added to the exuberant child’s list of “bestest” things.

“What is it, Cade?” Blinded by a flood of light, she stepped from the barn. “What have you discovered now?”

Grubby fingers pointed toward the stream. “Company.”

Shading her eyes with a hand at her forehead, Linsey stared at a truck fording the shallow part of the stream as if it weren’t there. Who would come calling so soon? she wondered. Only the utility companies knew Lucky Stuart’s widow and her son had taken up residence in the old Stuart farm. Even if the linemen were gossips, it was unlikely word could spread so fast. She hadn’t even stopped in Belle Terre for groceries.

Cade moved a step toward the house and the truck, eager for the adventure of meeting someone new. “No, Cade.” Linsey’s fingertips settled on his shoulder. “Wait.”

“Who is it?” A friendly, fearless child…only her touch kept him from running to greet the visitor. “Do you know?”

“No, and I can’t think of any reason we might have a caller so soon,” she said. “Unless…” Speculation died on her lips as she remembered the horse and rider she’d dismissed as a creation of Cade’s vivid imagination. As the truck drew nearer, with a fleeting glimpse and a sense of the inevitable, she recognized the one man she’d hoped to avoid.

At least for a little time. Until she had mind, body, and heart settled and steeped in Lucky’s past and in his home.

“Unless what, Mom?” Cade glanced curiously at her.

Linsey had no ready response. But she was saved the effort as the truck halted before the front steps, its door swung open, and a tall, dark man emerged. With a sinking heart, she waited, held motionless by the man, by his magnetism. By memories.

He was tall. Taller than most men, and slender. But when he reached into the truck for a pair of gloves, the startling width of his shoulders strained against the seams of his shirt. His legs were long and provocatively molded by sensible jeans riding low at his waist. Equally sensible low-heeled boots added an unneeded inch or so to his already considerable height. His hair, barely visible beneath the broad brim of his Western hat, was dark and cut short. Yet it grew in an all-too-familiar defiant swirl over the back of his neck.

When he turned from the truck, his solemn gaze found her as he drew on the supple gloves. Refusing to flinch beneath his wintry stare, even as countless questions raced through her mind, Linsey realized he was as handsome as ever. And, a glance at Cade proved, as singularly charismatic. As fascinating.

Don’t, she wanted to cry out. Don’t like him too much. Don’t admire him too much. Don’t love him, or he’ll break your young heart, too, she wanted to warn her son. But with all that had gone before in her son’s young life, she knew it was too late. It had been too late from the moment this stalwart, cold-eyed modern-day knight errant emerged from his gleaming metal steed.

Cade had been taught to love and adore the mystique of this man all his short life. Now, with his simple act of walking toward them—gloved, booted, bigger than life with a tilted Stetson that seemed to touch the sky—Linsey knew her son would love and adore the flesh-and-blood Lincoln Cade even more than the image Lucky Stuart had deliberately created.

“Linsey.” Her name spoken in his quiet voice and a touch at the brim of his hat was Lincoln’s only greeting as he halted before her. Eyes dispassionate and as gray as a rain-washed sky settled on her face, seeking out every nuance of change. With no altering of his expression, his study moved on, lingering on hastily banded hair the color of sunshine, a shirt worn precariously thin, and jeans faded and more white than blue. Then finally her boots, whose best days had passed miles before.

His silent perusal complete, his attention flicked down to Cade. The same dispassion catalogued the sturdy body, the bright, intelligent face. And hair as dark as Lincoln’s own, grown too long over arching brows. When gray gaze met gray gaze, one remained steady, unreadable. One stared unabashedly, filled with the first of youthful wonder.

A nod and another touch at the brim of the Stetson accompanied a softly drawled recognition, “Boy.”

“Sir.” Cade smiled courteously, Linsey’s rigorous training not deserting him even in awe.

“Do you know who I am?” Lincoln addressed the spark of recognition in the boy’s face. To Linsey, who had never forgotten the cadence of his voice, it held the whet of strain.

“Yes, sir.” Cade’s head bobbed, confirming Lincoln’s speculation as dark hair fell over his eyes. With curled fingers, he brushed it back. “You’re Mr. Cade. Once upon a time, when trees burned, you and Lucky jumped out of planes with my mom.”

Lincoln visibly relaxed, but didn’t turn his attention from the child. “Yes, we did. Once upon a time—a long time.”

“I got your name,” Cade piped up with a proud lift of his head. “When we lived in Oregon, some of the other kids thought it was funny. But Lucky said two last names is better than one old first name any day of the week.”

“Lucky said that?” Lincoln was so still, his gaze so intent on the child, even his breathing seemed to cease. His gaze drifted over the dark head, blazoning in his mind the curl a droplet of sweat encouraged at the boy’s nape. He considered the tilted chin that would be chiseled, once the gentling softness of youth gave way to maturity. “You call your dad Lucky, do you?”

Throughout the exchange, Linsey had stood like a pillar of stone. Nothing hinted at her tension. Nothing until her half-smothered cry in response to his question.

Lincoln didn’t notice, nor did Cade. Both man and boy were locked in a moment in which nothing beyond those steadily held gazes could exist or intrude.

Cade nodded his answer.

“Do you know why, boy?” For reasons he wouldn’t try to explain even to himself, he couldn’t call the child by the name he’d been given—his own name. At least not yet.

“Yes, sir.” For the first time, a worried expression marred Cade’s smooth and even features. Long dark lashes fluttered down to brush his cheeks. In the silence a cricket chirped, and from the depths of the barn a wild cat, likely the descendant of one of Frannie Stuart’s pets, growled its displeasure at this disturbance in its domain.

No one paid heed to the complaint. But as if the sound prodded him to answer, Cade drew a long, quiet breath, his frown fading. When the dark cloak of his lashes lifted and he looked at Lincoln, his gaze was calm and sure. In the brave angle of his head a promise of the strong, resolute chin was repeated.

“Yes, sir, I know. But it’s a secret. Something Lucky told me. Just me and no one else, man to man.”

“Telling would be breaking a promise?” Lincoln suggested, admiration for the boy moving to another level.

“No, sir.” The little chin jutted again, but only an increment. “Telling the wrong person at the wrong time would.”

Linsey caught back the sound of stifled grief, but Lincoln’s focus was riveted on the boy. “Knowing the right person, the right time, and making that decision? That’s a big burden for a young boy. Even one as brave as you.”

“That’s what Lucky said, at first. Then he told me the secret of how I would know.”

“This secret, that’s part of the promise, too?” Lincoln moved a step closer to the boy, drawn by the unique maturity born of courage. “Lucky taught you that?”

“Yes, sir.” Cade’s lips began to tremble. Grief crept over his face. “He taught me lots.”

Lincoln had struggled to hold himself aloof from this engaging boy who bore his name. Now, seeing stark grief in the trusting eyes, he bent to Cade, the brim of his hat shading them both. “Lucky was a special person. He taught me about courage, too. In fact, he and his mother taught me a lot of things.”

“They did?” Cade’s face brightened. “Lucky taught you?”

“Sure.” Lincoln’s hand closed over Cade’s shoulder. “What he taught me helped me be as brave as he thought I was. It will be the same for you, too.”

“It will?”

“Just wait, you’ll see.” Lincoln straightened but kept contact with Cade. “Think you could lend me a hand? I brought wood to repair the front steps. I could use your help with it.”

A smile chased grief from Cade’s face. “You could?”

“I can manage,” Lincoln replied. “But an extra pair of hands would be a great help.”

“Lincoln, no.” Linsey had stood aside, silently watching the first meeting of Lincoln Cade and his namesake. Now she felt compelled to speak out, to buffer the burgeoning camaraderie. “I’m perfectly capable of repairing the step.”

Lincoln didn’t turn to Linsey. His grip eased but didn’t move from Cade’s shoulder. “I know you can, Linsey. But the boy and I are here now.” A smile flickered over his face as he left the final choice to Cade. “Right, boy?”

Cade’s laugh trilled, his grief not forgotten but put aside in a time of healing, youthful glee. “Right, Mr. Cade.”

“Don’t, please.” Linsey moved closer to Lincoln yet dared not touch him. “This isn’t a good idea.”

He turned to her then, his gray gaze even colder now than she ever believed it could be. “It’s just steps, Linsey. From the look of this place there’s plenty more to occupy your time. The boy and I can make quick work of it.” With a finger he riffled the pages of the tablet she clutched at her breasts. A gesture that could have been intimate, even teasing, but was perfunctory instead. “Then you can get back to your inventory.”

Dismissing her objection, he turned to Cade. “Ready?”

“Yes, sir.” The dark head bobbed, the thatch of hair dipped. It was Lincoln who brushed it aside a second before he dropped his own Stetson on the boy’s head.

Leaving Linsey with no recourse but to keep silent, the two of them walked away. Lincoln altering his stride to Cade’s and Cade’s a conscious imitation of Lincoln’s. Twice the Stetson toppled. Twice Cade reset it with careful precision.

While a band of fear closed around her heart, Linsey knew Lincoln had done more than soothe Cade’s grief, more than bolster a small boy’s confidence by enlisting his aid. Whether he knew it or not, whether it was intentional or not, Lincoln Cade had made the first move toward becoming the hero Lucky Stuart had created for Cade. The first move toward making his son irrevocably his own.

“You knew, Linsey,” she berated herself bitterly as she watched from the barn door while the tall man from her past and the child of her heart worked together unloading lumber, tools, and even a small garden tractor from the bed of the truck. From the moment she’d promised an ailing, dying Lucky that she would bring her son to the Stuart farm, she knew that one day her path would cross Lincoln’s. Just as she’d known that in time the inevitable would happen. “And Lincoln will recognize Cade for who he is.”

But first she’d hoped she could… “Could what?” she wondered aloud. “Explain?”

An agitated hand raked through her hair, stripping away the band that held it. Distracted, Linsey let the tie lie unheeded at her feet. For once no impatient hand flung back the cloud of dark gold falling about her shoulders. “How can I explain?” she wondered as she forced herself back to the barn. Surrounded by cool shadows, the inventory forgotten and her mind filled with the vision of the man and boy, she turned away. Moving deeper into muted darkness, she cried softly, “God help me, how?”

It was Cade’s laughter that drew her out of her seclusion and back to the yard. On its heels, barely audible, she heard Lincoln’s chuckle. Both ending with the cacophony of a hammer wielded inexpertly. In different circumstances it should have been a pleasant scene. But this was Cade and Lincoln. Because of this day and this meeting, life as Linsey knew it would never be the same. And she was afraid. Very afraid.

Blinking back a rush of tears she dared not let fall, Linsey watched them openly. With the Stetson laid aside, one dark head bent to the other as they conferred, building a bond stronger than any step, leading where no physical structure could go.

Did Lincoln realize? Could he hear what was in Cade’s voice? See what was in his eyes and that young, fragile heart?

Did Lincoln care?

“Of course he does.” The sound of her own voice startled her. Only then did she realize how long she’d stood idle, her thoughts on the man and the boy and their labor. Lincoln called him “boy,” never Cade, but he cared. It was evident in his patience and underlay the impersonal way he spoke. His kindness was innate, unforced. Neither six years, a single, youthful indiscretion at an emotional time, nor the truth would change the man who had been her friend, her family, and, once, her lover.

“Watch, Mom.” Cade danced up the steps and down, jumping on each, testing their strength. Once on the ground he ran up again to the porch and launched himself into Lincoln’s arms.

Laughing, Lincoln set Cade on his feet. In the sound Linsey heard a sudden restraint. A shiver of caution reminded her Lincoln was ever the pragmatic one, who never rushed into anything. If he felt in his heart it was right, he could walk away from anything, anyone. He had from her. He would from his own son.

“Did you see, Mom? Did you see?”

“I’m sure she saw.” Lincoln scooped up the fallen Stetson and pulled it down over Cade’s forehead. “Half the county must have heard you. Gus Cade’s likely to come bumping down the trail in his wheelchair, yelling that you’re scaring his horses out of a year’s growth.”

Crossing the yard, Linsey saw Cade grow sober. Interpreting a common expression, she knew something Lincoln said sparked his curiosity. The unsuspecting man would be bombarded by the questions of a literal-minded child who took nothing for granted, never assumed. More traits he shared with his father.

“Mr. Gus has horses, but he rides a chair?”

Question number one. Linsey stopped by the porch, crossed her arms and leaned against a support.

Lincoln had moved to inspect the steps, all of which he and Cade had replaced. Sandpaper in hand, he looked up. “What?”

“You said…”

“I know what I said, tiger.” Lincoln guessed what had spurred the boy’s curiosity. “Actually, the horses pastured at Belle Reve now belong to my brother Jackson. But once Gus kept his own horses and rode them. Then a sickness left his arms and legs too weak to ride or walk. So he uses a wheelchair.”

“Where’s the trail?”

Lincoln crooked a finger toward the path that wound through scraggly live oaks and palmettos. “Right over there. Lucky and I used it to travel between our houses.”

“Between the Stuart farm and Belle Reve,” Cade supplied, drawing on the knowledge gleaned during the hours he’d listened to Lucky tell of the countryside, the houses, and his friends. Especially Lincoln. “Lucky never said Mr. Gus rode in a chair.”

“He didn’t know, Cade,” Linsey interjected, her tone as questioning as her son’s when her gaze met Lincoln’s. “I suppose it happened after Frannie died and we’d settled in Oregon.”

Lincoln looked up from sanding the rough edge of a step, his expression unreadable. “Lucky and I had lost touch by then. I knew he and your mom were in Oregon. Or I thought they were. But I didn’t know where, exactly.”

“You could have looked, couldn’t you?” Cade picked up the block of wood Lincoln had covered in sandpaper for him and scrubbed at an imaginary rough spot.

With the boy and the steps between them, Linsey waited for his answer. “Yes.” His expression was brooding, but Cade couldn’t see. “I could have looked, but I didn’t think he wanted me to.”

“I guess not,” the boy agreed. “He didn’t want anybody to know he was sick, too.”

“Lucky was sick?” Catching the busy hand, stopping it, Lincoln waited until Cade looked up at him. “For very long?”

Cade started his habitual nod, caught himself and the Stetson perched precariously over his forehead, then chose words instead. “A long, long, long time.”

“The letter said he fell.” Lincoln directed the oblique question toward Linsey.

Searching for the simplest way to describe a horrible and inexorably debilitating disease, she hesitated long enough that Cade answered in her stead.

“Being sick’s what made him fall. His arms and legs didn’t work too good no more, just like Mr. Gus.”

Cade picked up the sander, scrubbing too diligently over a step that was already smooth. Linsey stretched an arm across the staircase, and with her fingertips stroked the swirling hair on the back of his neck. A tender gesture that spoke more than words.

“How long is a long, long, long time, Linsey?” If Lincoln’s expression had been grim before, with this discovery his look took it ten times farther.

With her arms drawn tightly against her again, Linsey stifled a painful memory. “Two years for the worst of it. Longer for the less insidious progression. Before you ask why you weren’t told, remember how Lucky was. You were so strong, and he wanted to be like you, but he couldn’t. So he made up for what he lacked with pure courage. He didn’t want your help, Lincoln. Nor mine, until he had no choice. Even then, there were days…”

When she paused to gather her control, with new knowledge Lincoln saw beyond the surface fatigue of months to the deep, soul-searing weariness of years. Yet she could laugh and dance with her son on a ramshackle porch at sunset in a strange land.

With a toss of her head, Linsey gathered in her emotions, a gesture that sent her hair flying. As the morning sun struck a rainbow of shades of gold within its depths, Lincoln was reminded of a lioness. A proud lioness who fought for her mate and her cub.

An ache settled deep in his chest as he wondered if once she would have fought as courageously for him.

“There were days,” she began again, tentatively, unaware of the subtle shift in his regard. “Days when he was stronger, when he lived on determination alone, accomplishing amazing feats.” Throughout the revelation, Linsey’s stare was vague, unfocused. Now her head lifted, her gaze narrowed sharply on Lincoln. “If you remember any one thing about Lucky, remember his courage, and that he died as bravely as he lived.”

Lincoln found the blunt answer unsettling, too brief. He had a hundred questions, a thousand. But none for the boy’s ears. “All right.” Meaningless words. Nothing was all right. Nothing about this was clear. Nothing was resolved.

Casting a look at Linsey that promised there would be more, Lincoln turned to Cade. “Looks to me like you’ve finished that step. In fact, they all look good. Smooth and sturdy. No one’s going to fall through them or catch a splinter. Now we need to do something about the yard. What do you think?”

Cade squinted up at him, one sawdust-covered hand flattened over the crown of the hat. “We could mow it down.”

“Mow it down, huh?” Lincoln studied the yard as if considering the suggestion. “You mean with the tractor.”

“Yep.”

Lincoln almost smiled then, remembering the conversation between mother and son the night before. “Looks like a pretty big job. Think you could ride shotgun? A man never knows when he might need some help.”

“Could I?” Gray eyes that had grown brighter, gleamed like new silver. “Like on a stagecoach?”

“Will you promise to be very still and hold on?” Lincoln watched the little head bob. The hat toppled, and he scooped it from the ground. “Okay, partner. Now, if your mom will lend us a couple of sheets of paper from her tablet, I’ll fix your hat so it will stay on. Then we’ll get on with our work and she can see about her own chores. Deal?”

“Deal,” Cade said, and watched wide-eyed as Lincoln folded and refolded the papers Linsey supplied, tucked them inside the band of his hat, then set it firmly on Cade’s head.

“There.” With an expert touch he adjusted the hat at just the right angle. “How’s that?”

“My hat?” Cade whispered in wonder. “Is it really mine?”

“Sure. You don’t think I’m tricking you, do you?” With a hand curled around the boy’s neck, Lincoln led him to his mother. “Say goodbye and tell your mom not to worry, for we’re going to cut the trail as well and it will take some time. While we’re at the far end, we might as well stop over at Belle Reve. Maybe look at some horses, have some lunch. Would you like that?”

“Horses! Can I, Mom?” Cade practically danced in excitement. The hat didn’t budge. “Please, can I?”

Cade asked. Lincoln hadn’t. Linsey knew that if she was adamant, her refusal would be respected…and Cade would be heartbroken. “Okay, okay. But before you go, Cade should run inside and wash his hands.”

“His hands are fine, Linsey. If he washes them, they’ll just get dirty again. We do have water and soap at Belle Reve.”

“I want him to wash up now, Lincoln.” She’d kept virtually silent and had held her temper all day. Now her voice was harsh, her challenging stare unwavering.

“Do as your mother says, champ.” Lincoln didn’t look away from Linsey as they faced each other like prizefighters. “Make it quick—we’ve a lot of grass to cut.”

With an exuberant cry and a hug for his mother, Cade rushed up the stairs and over the porch. The door banged shut before Linsey spoke. “What do you think you’re doing, Lincoln Cade? Waltzing in here like you own the place. Enticing Cade with horses. Courting him like—”

“Like a friend who promised his father he would take care of you? Which, in my estimation, means the boy, as well.” Cade moved closer, watching the kaleidoscopic shades of gold shimmering in her hair, filling his lungs with the fragrance of Frannie Stuart’s wild rose concoction. The scent that still lingered in the house. Linsey’s life paralleled Frannie’s, and she was as strong. Wild roses seemed right for her.

“I won’t hurt him, Linsey,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Whatever happens here, I won’t hurt him.”

“Whatever happens?” He was so close, if she caught a deep breath the tips of her breasts would touch his chest. If he leaned down only a little, she could run her fingers through the wealth of his hair and perhaps draw his lips down to hers.

But she didn’t catch a long breath, and his rigid posture didn’t bend. Her fingers were curled in tight fists by her side. Instead of softening in a kiss, her lips were clenched. Lincoln might be a friend, he might be her benevolent enemy. In either case, she must hold herself aloof, turning blind eyes to the mystique that had already enchanted her son.

“Why are you really here? What do you want, Lincoln?”

His gaze was as silver as Cade’s, and it was riveted on her. “I don’t know, Linsey. But I’ll be back tomorrow and the next day and the next. And every other day, until I do.”

“No.”

“Yes.” His gloved fingers circled the wrist of the hand she’d raised, not to strike him, but to ward him off. Linsey didn’t struggle, nor did he relent. “I love this place, it was more home to me than Belle Reve. Lucky was like a brother, and Frannie was the mother I never had. For them, for the boy, I’m going to put it back in shape. Make it a home he can be proud of.”

“Your practice…”

Keeping hold of her wrist, his fingertips measuring her racing pulse, he quirked his lips in a caricature of a smile. “That won’t work, sugar. My partner’s been trying to persuade me to take time off for months. Now I have. I’ll be here every day, all day, for as long as it takes. Just like I said.”

“I don’t need you,” Linsey cried in desperation, not really sure what frightened her most about Lincoln’s plan. “What’s needed here, I can do.”

“Can you?” Releasing her, Lincoln stepped back, his look harsh as it traveled the same path with the same thoroughness as it had when he first arrived. A look that tarried long on her lips and the straining of her breasts against a shirt worn as thin as gauze. “With what? You’re broke, Linsey. Every sign is there.”

“So what if I am? Until I find work, what I can’t afford we’ll do without. I will not take your charity, Lincoln Cade.”

“It won’t be charity.”

“What name would you give it?” she flung at him.

“Call it my gift to Lucky for—” Lincoln faltered.

“For what?” Linsey taunted. “What should I call it?”

“Try my thanks to the Stuarts for my life.”

The door banged, breaking the tension but not ending it. “I’m ready,” Cade called out. “I washed my face, too, Mom.”

Linsey turned toward Cade. “That’s good, tiger.”

It was Lincoln who ended the standoff by moving to the steps and catching Cade in the midst of another flying leap. Without an added word, he offered the boy’s cheek for his mother’s kiss, and as quickly as that, Linsey had a day alone.

As she watched their retreat, Cade’s arms locked firmly around Lincoln’s neck, she knew it would be a day of worry.

Four

Cade’s giggle drew Linsey to the kitchen window. A familiar sound since Lincoln had walked into his life weeks before.

Smiling in spite of nagging worries, she stood on tiptoe, leaning over the sink to get a better view beyond the sparkling window. For her effort, she was bemused as always by the powerful presence of the quintessential male. But not just any man or just one. Though she was reminded constantly that Lincoln’s unfailing presence was disturbing enough, life on the Stuart farm was not meant to be even that simple.

Instead, the power was fourfold and daunting, for her backyard was filled with Cades—with Lincoln and his brothers. Men who had been only familiar names in the years she and Lucky and Lincoln had been close. Now all four Cades were here, as they had been for days, each filling his own space with his own particular charisma. Each contributing some area of skill and expertise.

Adams, the oldest of the four, in response to Lincoln’s call for help, had drawn his crews from an antebellum town house he was restoring on the outskirts of Belle Terre. Under his direction a number of skilled artisans—carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and painters—had made quick work of what they did best. Restoring yet another pair of historic derelicts fallen victim to time and circumstance.

Of the house and barn, the house had been the first order of business. Anything broken, loose, rotted or just plain cranky had been repaired, replaced or soothed. The ancient exterior gleamed with a fresh layer of paint and the tin roof with its first. Stylish, historically correct shutters replaced the sagging boards that had served originally. Cobblestone walks and borders, and fences to keep deer from flower and vegetable gardens had been resurrected.

But it was the interior that astonished Linsey. With a small knowledge of furnishings gleaned from her travels in her lonely, footloose days, she had recognized that there had been good pieces left to time and chance in the old house. Abandoned yet protected, she believed strongly, by its proximity to Belle Reve and by fear of the wrath of the Cades. All of whom seemed to revere the farm for the woman who had lived there.

Once Frannie Stuart’s unsuspected treasures were refurbished by Adams’s skilled crews, she realized they were more than a reflection of Frannie’s taste, more than merely valuable. Many were antiques of the first quality. A part of Lucky’s heritage. His legacy to the child he’d loved and made his own.

Inspired by the discovery of marvelous family treasures, the artisans’ work had become equally more meticulous. As a fitting backdrop for this bounty, fresh coats of paint had been applied to every wall, countertops were replaced, and floors repaired and refurbished with such speed, it made her breathless remembering. There was more to do. But, wisely, Adams had suggested Linsey should make the more personal choices, then had left them to her.

Jackson, the fiery one, third in birth order and noted horse breeder, had seen to the land. Drafting Lincoln, along with his own people, he worked with fences enclosing more than a hundred acres of pasture and timber. Though appreciative, Linsey wondered what use she would make of those acres. Jackson offered the solution. By mutual agreement she would have an unexpected source of income from fees he would pay for grazing rights.

Jefferson, the youngest, whose quiet ways and gentle smile had set her more at ease than any of the Cades, had taken an old orchard and the landscaping as his project. Peach, apple, and pear trees were pruned. Pecan trees were squirrelproofed. A small vineyard became less like a jungle. Jefferson had even offered suggestions and help for plants for the house and gardens.

Miss Corey had been an absentee contributor to the cause. The housekeeper of Belle Reve, a woman Linsey knew only by reputation, dispatched her kitchen staff regularly with three hot meals each day. Morning, noon, and evening in a splendid, rainless period, Miss Corey’s fare was served on tables made of boards and sawhorses set beneath centuries-old live oak.

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