“I know you can do it, Daddy.”

With a heavy sigh, Rafe lifted his head and locked eyes with Dani. He clearly wanted rescuing.

Dani lifted her brows as if to say, Sorry, you’re on your own. Really, what harm would it do to look a little foolish if it made Frannie happy?

But she suspected Rafe wasn’t the kind of man to let himself be caught at a disadvantage. Not for anyone. Not even a five-year-old child who just happened to be his daughter.

And then the frown lines across his forehead disappeared. He nodded slowly, even as he muttered a curse under his breath. “All right,” he told them, “I’ll enter the contest. Bring on the pies.”

“Go, Daddy!” Frannie squealed. She bounced in place as if she had springs on the bottom of her sneakers.

Over his shoulder he gave them a look of such seriousness that he might have been a soldier going off to war. “If I end up being sick, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Dani stared after him in disbelief. Maybe Rafe wasn’t completely hopeless as a father. Maybe he was learning after all.

For His Daughter

ANN EVANS

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For the wonderful women of Toronto –

Kathleen, Zilla, Laura and Paula.

If I could bottle your understanding,

patience and expertise, I’d be a millionaire.

PROLOGUE

RAFE D’ANGELO KNEW THE GUY at table four was cheating. He just didn’t know how.

Yet.

Over the past two hours, play at that table in the blackjack pit had heated up significantly. The dealer, a long-time Native Sun employee, was someone Rafe trusted. The table shoe had gone through half a dozen fresh decks. Even the security guys in the Eye-in-the- Sky booth upstairs had reported nothing unusual.

And still this jerk was up two hundred grand.

As pit boss, one of Rafe’s jobs was to spot the cheats. He was good at it. But this guy didn’t fit any profile.

And he was winning, damn him.

Rafe didn’t like losing. Sure, it wasn’t his money, but when he was working he felt as if it were. For all the casino’s fake Native American heritage, Native Sun had been good to him. Sometimes, when he allowed himself to invent a future for himself, he thought he could work here forever.

He’d always moved around a lot but he’d held this job longer than most—almost a year—and people respected him. He had a decent place to live, a good income and enough women to keep his ego happy. At twenty-four, he was probably the youngest pit boss on the Vegas strip, but he knew most people thought he was older. Hell, inside he was older.

Not bad for a runaway from the backwater Colorado town of Broken Yoke.

The sound of feminine laughter made him turn to the left.

She was still there. DeeDee Whitefeather—now there was a stage name if ever there was one—was fawning over a loudmouthed suit at the number twelve craps table.

She was one of the best-looking mannequins who worked for the casino. She wasn’t dressed in her showgirl outfit, of course, since the theater was dark on Mondays, but she still stood out in a crowd. All that long dark hair and those pretty gray eyes.

She wore a miniskirt and a blouse that did amazing things to her breasts. When she bent close to her companion, you could see plenty of skin. Rafe watched her trail long fingernails through the man’s hair and whisper in his ear.

She’d shown up two months ago, passing herself off as part Apache to get the job. If there was one drop of genuine Apache blood in her veins, Rafe would have bet it was there by accident. Still, she held up her end of the G-rated Native American show the casino put on for the stroller-and-convention crowd five nights a week. Kept to herself. Never complained. Never seemed overly eager to find a sugar daddy like some of the other girls. So what was she doing, attaching herself to this guy with a pizza gut and bad hair plugs?

Of course, he was a high roller. Big incentive for a working girl to find something in him to like.

But still, Rafe was disappointed. Of all the women shopping it around the strip, DeeDee Whitefeather was the last one he would have expected that from.

He swore under his breath. Rafe wasn’t supposed to be following her progress, he was supposed to bring the hammer down on the card mechanic at table four.

Mickey Norris, one of his protégés who was only a couple of years younger but about a thousand years behind Rafe in life experience, sidled up to him.

“No face book,” Mickey reported, referring to the file of pictures security kept on hand to help them spot cheaters. “Maybe he’s a hit-and-run artist.”

“Maybe,” Rafe said, unconvinced. “I think he’s got someone spotting for him. I just can’t figure out who.”

Mickey huffed out a sigh of disappointment. “You’re off your game tonight.” The young man scratched his chin. “Maybe you’re distracted, huh?” Mickey jerked his head toward the craps table where DeeDee was allowing Hair Plugs’s hand to roam freely over her tight rear end. “I notice you watching the action on table twelve. Pretty lady. I don’t blame you for—Hey! Don’t I know her? Isn’t that one of our own little Indian princesses?”

Rafe shrugged, struggling for a blank, disinterested look. “She’s about as much a real Indian as the wooden one outside the lobby gift shop.”

Mickey practically smacked his lips. Tonight he seemed dedicated to the business of pissing Rafe off. “Who cares? I’d like to spend time in her wigwam.”

“Go check for a back-spotter, Romeo,” Rafe told him.

Before long Rafe found his eyes turning back to DeeDee. Just his eyes, not his head. Hair Plugs was trying to catch the attention of one of the cash-cart girls.

Rafe couldn’t resist the opportunity. Quickly he slid up next to DeeDee on the other side. She blinked at him, looking surprised. She knew as well as he did that management discouraged the girls from going after players at the tables.

He leaned near, so that only she could hear him. “You think this is a smart idea, Pocahontas?” He jerked his chin to indicate her companion on the other side of her.

Her eyes went flinty hard. “Butt out, Oz. No one’s asking your opinion.”

Everyone in the casino knew him as Oz. It was a nickname one of the girls had given him, and it had stuck. Something to do with a talent he had in bed, he thought, but he’d never cared enough to find out exactly. God knew, he’d been called worse.

For a guy lucky enough to have snagged someone like DeeDee, her companion was busy flirting outrageously with both the cocktail waitress and the cash- cart girl. Rafe ran his hand down the length of DeeDee’s bare arm and pulled her aside.

“I didn’t realize you were partial to sweaty, big- mouthed asses with bad hair.”

She scowled at him. “I’m sure you can’t imagine why any woman would be interested in any man that isn’t you.”

“He looks like trouble, DeeDee. Be careful.”

“Jealous?”

“Hell, no. Just wondering how a bright girl like you can end up being just another dumb hairdo on heels.”

He saw something flash in her eyes that might have been discomfort, but it was gone in an instant.

She shrugged. “Maybe I just got tired of missing out on what some of the other girls have.”

He couldn’t resist a tight laugh. “If it’s a little fun in bed you’re after, I can try to squeeze you in.”

“Tell me something, Oz,” she said softly. “Is there anyone you admire as much as yourself?”

“No,” he admitted. He let her see his gaze travel over her. “Want to find out why?”

“No, thanks. Your reputation precedes you, and I’d rather eat ground glass.”

She was a tough one, all right. He tried a different angle. “You realize that working the guests is strictly against casino policy?”

“Suddenly you’re a rule follower?”

“I guess I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” That wasn’t what he’d intended to say, but he realized he meant it.

“Aww…what a sweetie,” she said in a voice that sounded like syrup sliding out of a pitcher. Then her brows lowered. “Now get lost. Go chase the card manipulators and leave me alone.” Hair Plugs’s hand settled on her shoulder, and she turned with a big smile. “Gil, honey! What took you so long? Should I be jealous?”

Rafe stepped away and left her to her conquest. There was something about the guy he didn’t like— some small meanness around the eyes—but what else could he do? He had bigger worries.

He spent another ten minutes watching the shark on table four continue to rake in chips. The guy seemed completely at ease. No nervous hand movements. No darting glances. Just steady, methodical betting that might eventually leave Native Sun bleeding green big time.

Annoyed, Rafe cut a glance in DeeDee’s direction to see how she was making out. Her date offered her a highball glass full of amber liquid that Rafe assumed was whiskey. Neat, he noticed. No ice.

DeeDee swallowed it down. He suspected she wasn’t really much of a drinker. In Vegas, you got to where you could spot the problem drinkers on sight, and she wasn’t the type.

But in another few minutes, Rafe’s suspicious nature went into overdrive.

Up until now, DeeDee had been friendly to her date—little touches here, a whispered laugh in the guy’s ear there—but suddenly she seemed completely out of control.

She was loose limbed enough to slide under the craps table, and her date had to keep her upright, fastened against him with a hammy hand against her rib cage. She rubbed against him. There was nothing coordinated about her actions. They weren’t natural. They weren’t normal.

Had Hair Plugs added something to her drink?

Just when Rafe thought the guy would lose his hold on DeeDee, another man approached to add his support. The men seemed to know one another. DeeDee’s head flopped back, and the two guys laughed over her, as though sharing the same stupid joke.

Mickey was suddenly at his side again. “No spotters, boss. What now?” He frowned, realizing that Rafe’s attention had wandered. “What’s the matter?”

Rafe turned his attention back to Mickey. Concentrate on what you get paid to do.

And then suddenly everything clicked. “Ah, hell,” he swore under his breath. “He’s counting cards.”

Mickey scowled. “Nah. He’s not even watching the shoe half the time.”

“He doesn’t have to watch the cards coming out of the shoe. He can see them in the whiskey glass by his left elbow. His buddy has been nursing that drink for over an hour. Our friend is reading the cards in the reflection of the glass.”

Mickey nodded. “Nice catch,” he said. Rafe was clearly his hero once more. “We gonna escort him out?”

With that mystery solved, Rafe looked back to see the two men moving DeeDee away from the craps table. She looked more and more like a puppet who’d had her strings cut, hanging limply between them and smiling vacantly.

They were headed toward the bank of elevators. Once they got upstairs, DeeDee was going to find herself flat on her back in one of their hotel rooms.

Go after her.

Shut up, he told his brain. I’m not getting paid to save the world.

“You ready?” Mickey said beside him.

He nodded, heading toward their cheater. “Let’s do it.”

“I love this part.”

Rafe couldn’t resist one final look back. Hair Plugs had DeeDee propped up against the wall by the elevator. Giggling, she reached out with a finger and played it down the guy’s cheek. Beside him, his friend laughed and kissed her. She frowned, as though suddenly realizing that she had herself two asses to deal with instead of one. The card mechanic on four wasn’t the only one in for a surprise tonight.

Rafe pulled up short, yanking Mickey back as well. “Mickey, go do the honors with our cheat, would you? Make sure he gets the spiel about us filing trespassing charges if he ever shows his face in here again.”

“Me?” Mickey’s eyes went huge. “All by myself?”

“You know the drill. Consider it on-the-job training.”

The elevator had arrived. DeeDee was getting manhandled onto it. Just another drunk who needed to be put to bed, people would think.

Mickey looked stunned. “Oldman ain’t gonna like that. Wait a minute! Where are you going?” he said in a low voice as Rafe took off in the direction of the elevators.

“Business,” Rafe called over one shoulder. I’m going to lose my job because one idiot female doesn’t know when she’s playing with fire.

But he didn’t stop.

CHAPTER ONE

THERE WERE TIMES IN LIFE that called for begging.

This was one of those times.

Danielle Bridgeton looked across her desk at the state editor of the Denver Daily Telegraph, the newspaper she worked for. She lowered her head, sighed dramatically and pasted on her best wounded-puppy look. “Please, Gary,” she said, softly pleading with him to understand. “Get me out of here. I’ll do anything you want. Anything.”

Gary Newsome shook his head sadly. “You know, when I was young I used to dream about a beautiful woman saying that to me.”

Gary was fifty-something, bald and complained frequently of acid reflux. He was the most honest newspaperman Dani knew. He was also torturing her.

Dani steepled her fingers. A nun couldn’t have seemed more penitent. “Look at me, Gary. This is me, begging.”

Gary pushed air between his lips in a disgruntled rush. “I came up here to see how you were getting along, not to make you beg. I can’t do it, Dani. You piss off the pope, you get excommunicated. It’s as simple as that.”

But it wasn’t simple, it was unfair. Cruel. Even the pope believed in forgiving people, didn’t he?

“It was one lousy article,” Dani pointed out. “One. And I’ve learned my lesson.”

“No, you haven’t. You’re the most unrepentant journalist I know. Honest. Sincere. But definitely not repentant. Didn’t I try to tell you what would happen if we ran your story? You’re not the only one who’s got the publisher on his back, so take your lumps like a good girl. Work the I-70 corridor for a while and enjoy being a bureau chief. I’ll let you know when it’s safe for you to come back to Denver.”

Bureau chief. Gary made the job sound like a promotion. And it might have been if the bureau she’d been assigned to had been one of the state’s hottest news spots. But what kind of reporting could you expect when all you covered were the small towns that ran along the highway between Denver and Grand Junction? Those mountain towns were cute, scenic… and dull as dishwater.

“It’s been two years,” Dani pleaded. “I’m dying out here.”

Gary laughed. “It’s been two months.”

“Well, it feels like years.”

A lot more than two, in fact. Living in Broken Yoke could leave her brain-dead. There weren’t any interesting stories here, or in any of the other one-horse towns she was supposed to cover for the Telegraph. It was humiliating that she’d been reduced to this.

How was she supposed to continue building a respectable career in journalism? The most exciting thing she’d written in two months had been about some tourist who’d slipped off a ledge in the Arapaho National Forest and broken his arm.

Yes, officially she was the region’s bureau chief. But what a place to be in charge! And what a miserable end to a story that should have won her a bucket load of awards and national recognition.

Last year Dani had been resourceful and lucky enough to make a very important contact at Humanity Haven—one of the most prominent, respected and lucrative charity organizations in Colorado. By the time she’d finished months of digging, she’d uncovered all the inside dirt. Questionable expenditures made by key executives. Murky business deals. Fraudulent balance sheets.

Her five-part article hadn’t brought Humanity Haven down—its own culture of ambition, greed and arrogance had done that—but she’d certainly started the ball rolling.

Unfortunately, Dani had also unearthed that her publisher’s mother-in-law had been secretly dating Humanity Haven’s good-looking, much younger chairman of the board.

To say that Lorraine Jennings Mandeville had turned into a bitter, vindictive woman over the death of her now embarrassingly public love affair would have been stating things too mildly. Lorraine had had Dani exiled to the boonies. Dani couldn’t prove it, of course, but only an idiot would fail to see the connection.

“Pretend you’re on vacation,” Gary suggested. He looked out the tiny window that was the only source of light in the enlarged closet Dani was forced to call an office. “This is definitely a prettier part of the state than brown-cloud Denver.”

That might be true, but who needed pretty when you had a career to build? “They don’t even have a decent bagel shop. Do you know how many times I’ve had to listen to ‘Welcome to Broken Yoke, ma’am. Yoke—like the harness, not the egg. Ha, ha, ha.’”

Gary looked out the open office door toward the reception area. “Your office help seems nice.”

Dani scowled. Cissy Pendergrass, the receptionist/ secretary/ad salesperson sat just a few feet away at her desk, polishing off a salad from the little restaurant down the street.

“She hates me,” Dani said in a near whisper.

All right, that wasn’t true. But if it made Gary reconsider this punishment, she’d be willing to look as though she feared for her life.

“Then she’ll have to get in line behind Lorraine Mandeville,” Gary replied.

He rose, hitched up his pants and walked over to the map that adorned one pine-board wall. It showed the entire western half of the state, every county a different color. This was Dani’s turf now, and Broken Yoke her home base. If anything of interest happened in any of those mountain towns, Dani would make sure it found a spot in the regional weekend supplement of the Telegraph. So far, there had been darn little.

Slapping his hand against the map, Gary said, “Come on, Dani. There have to be dozens of stories out here just waiting to be unearthed. The people who settled in these mountains are sons of pioneers. These canyons are filled with tales of stolen treasure, unsavory characters, heroes who weren’t afraid to take chances.”

“This town is so small that their McDonald’s only has one arch.”

“So you think Broken Yoke is too insignificant, filled with boring people leading boring lives?”

Afraid that Cissy might have heard, Dani got up, gave her receptionist a smile and shut the door for privacy.

“It’s not just the size of this place,” she said. “It’s the whole area. Most of the people I’ve met have been very friendly, very eager to make me feel at home. Some of them are…eccentric. A couple are downright weird, but you’d get that in any town. It’s just that… there’s nothing here for me to sink my teeth into. The biggest thing coming up is the summer festival, which I hear bombed last year. It’s so boring around these parts that I might as well be writing obits.”

Gary gave her an impatient look. She could tell he was either in need of his antacid tablets or heading into lecture mode.

“What will destroy a journalist’s career, Dani?” He shot the sudden question at her. “What can destroy you fastest?”

“Lorraine Jennings Mandeville?” she ventured.

“No! It’s the unwillingness to open your mind to possibilities. Keep your ear to the ground and your eyes open. You’ll find something you can use.” Her boss took her arms between his hands, looking her straight in the eyes. “Just keep a positive attitude.” He reached out and placed his fingers on either side of her lips, forcing them into the semblance of a gruesome smile. “That’s my girl.”

Dani’s lips might have been fixed in a grin, but her eyes were sending him the kind of warmth that blows in off a glacier. She was whipped and she knew it.

Numbly she followed Gary outside while he said goodbye to Cissy and then walked out into the afternoon sun. His car sat at the curb. This late in the day, the street was thick with shadows, a pleasant, nondescript spring afternoon to fit a pleasant, nondescript town.

A young woman climbing up the outside steps of the bureau office smiled at Dani as she and Gary made their way out.

“Who’s that?” Gary asked. “She could be bringing you the next big story.”

“Becky from Becky’s House of Hair,” Dani said in a lackluster tone. “Stop the presses. She’s probably just discovered that the Farrah Fawcett shag is on its way out.”

Gary looked disappointed. “I always liked that hairstyle on Pauline,” he said, referring to his wife of thirty years. When even that didn’t get a smile from Dani, he gave her a regretful but determined glance. “Come on, Dani. I hate leaving you like this.”

“Then don’t. Take me with you.”

He took an exaggerated interest in his surroundings to keep from starting this one-way argument again.

She watched his eyes roll past Landquist Computers next door, the drugstore, the café where Cissy had bought her lunch, the hardware store that only yesterday had begun advertising Easter baskets. She stood in a warm pool of sunshine and waited. She’d made that mental trip down Main Street so many times, she knew the exact sequence of stores and just how many sections of sidewalk lay between here and the post office at the opposite end of the block.

“Somewhere on this street could be a story just waiting to be written,” Gary said in his best sleuthing voice. “Somewhere. You just have to look.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Or maybe it’s someone.”

The question in his voice made her follow the direction of his gaze.

The best-looking man in three counties was coming out of a shop halfway down the block. Your typical tall, dark and handsome guy, with an extra edge of male virility that a girl couldn’t help but notice. When he saw Dani watching, he lifted his hand in a wave and smiled.

Gary was quick to pounce. “Well! I see you’re not completely oblivious to the people around here. You’ve scoped out one of the more…interesting Yokers.”

“They like to call themselves Yokels. Get it?” Dani inclined her head back toward the sidewalk. “That’s Matt D’Angelo. He’s one of the local doctors.”

“A doctor!” Gary’s enthusiasm was only slightly less than that of a Jewish mother in search of her daughter’s future husband.

“He’s getting married to his nurse at the end of this month. I’m covering the wedding. Childhood sweethearts reunited. Friendship turns to love…blah, blah, blah.”

Dani could see she had left Gary speechless at last. In all fairness, she knew he sympathized with her exile.

Giving him a genuine smile this time, she went to the driver’s side of his car, reached up on tiptoe and planted a kiss on the side of his cheek. He went beet-red.

“I know you’re trying,” she told him. “Just don’t forget about me up here.”

“I won’t,” Gary promised. “I have a voodoo doll with Lorraine’s picture on it, and the moment it works, I’ll be on the phone to you.”

“Great. My fate lies in the hands of a man who believes in the power of black magic but can’t balance his checkbook.”

He gave her a hopeful smile. “Lorraine’s fate lies with the voodoo doll, Dani. Your fate lies with you. Make this time work for you.”

She nodded and stepped back from the car. She watched him pull away, turn at the corner and go over the bridge that crossed Lightning River, the creek that bisected the town. He’d be in Denver in less than an hour, but it might as well be the end of the universe. It was all she could do to finally turn away and go back to the bureau office.

Becky was still there, sitting on the corner of Cissy’s desk, playing with a pen between two brightly polished nails. She didn’t even look up when Dani entered.

She lifted one hand as though preparing to swear on a stack of bibles. “If I’m lying, I’m dying,” she said to Cissy. “Althea Bendix saw him through the window of the real-estate office yesterday making eyes at that slutty Nina Jordan, who just about fell at his feet. Of course.”

Cissy didn’t look all that impressed. “Could have been business.”

“Monkey business, if you want my guess,” Becky said with a sharp nod of her head. “He’s up to no good, I’ll just bet you, and you know Nina. The woman can speak six languages but doesn’t know how to say no in any of them.”

Dani had been making her way back to her office, but suddenly swung around to join the women’s conversation. People who were “up to no good” were of considerable interest to her. Rule followers seldom did anything worthy of the front pages of the newspaper.

“Who’s up to no good?” she asked the two women.

“Rafe D’Angelo,” Becky supplied. “He’s back in town.”

The name meant nothing to her, although she knew that the D’Angelo family ran the Lightning River Lodge resort up Windy Mountain Road. The upcoming marriage of their son, Matt, was the talk around town. “And that’s a bad thing?”

Becky pursed her lips. “That remains to be seen. Lots of folks around here were glad to see the last of Rafe when he left.”

“When was that?”

“Straight out of high school. At least twelve years ago. Hasn’t been back since.”

“And people are still holding a grudge?” Some of Dani’s enthusiasm dissipated. This was starting to sound like stale news to her. Besides, she’d heard the D’Angelos were some of Broken Yoke’s town leaders. She didn’t need to make any more enemies.

“Not holding a grudge, exactly. Just hoping that his stay here is temporary.”

Cissy laughed. “Considering the way Rafe and his dad got along, I’m sure it will be.” She whistled through her teeth. “Just being around the two of them during one of their disagreements was like spending an hour in a blender.”

“Never dull, that’s for sure,” Becky agreed. For Dani’s benefit she added, “But what could you expect, really? His parents had their hands full trying to keep up with him. Rafe was such a daredevil. And the women—he was like the Pied Piper.”

Dani waited for more, but Cissy had discovered a final black olive in her salad and was busy chasing it down with her fork, a feat that Becky seemed to find fascinating.

“I can’t wait to see him,” Becky said at last. “He was so great looking as a teenager. Imagine what the man must look like.”

Dani could think of several boys from high school who had not aged well at all. “A lot can happen to change a person in that amount of time,” she said. “Are you sure he’s still worthy of all this anticipation?”

Becky rolled her eyes. “Honey, I went to school with him. You didn’t. Trust me, he’s worth it no matter what age he is. Besides, he’s one of the D’Angelos. They’ve all got that mysterious Italian blood. They age like fine wine.”

Cissy had found her olive and now sat happily munching it. She nodded agreement to Becky’s claim.

Dani frowned down at her. “You couldn’t have been more than ten when he left.”

“I was nine. But I remember my older sister being nuts for him. She snuck out of the house once to meet him. Ended up getting grounded for two weeks. Even after our parents had yelled at her, she just looked at me all dreamy-eyed and said with a goofy smile, ‘Cissy, it was all worth it.’”

Becky’s head bobbed. “You can find stories like that all over this town.”

Dani sniffed. “I wonder if that’s not all you can find all over this town because of Rafe D’Angelo.”

Becky looked confused, but Cissy arched one blond brow. “You mean little kiddies? Naw. Any woman who hung around with Rafe will tell you he was always a gentleman, even when you were getting dumped by him. Sexy, powerful…”

“How can an eighteen-year-old have any power?” Dani asked, truly skeptical now.

“You’d have to have been here to understand. Demanding, daring—but according to my sister, he always took good care of you.”

That made Dani laugh. “Ah. A thoughtful cad.”

Becky tilted her head at Dani. “I’m sensing you have some hostility toward men.”

“Really?” Dani replied. “Because if they rounded up every man on earth right now and sent them all to the moon, they would still be too close to suit me.”

She sounded so bitter that she wished she hadn’t said anything. But the truth was she knew all about devilishly attractive men who didn’t have it in them to be faithful or trustworthy. She’d just broken off with a first-class rat. Two years ago, she’d come close to moving in with one. Even as far back as when she’d been working in Vegas she could remember one particular playboy whose favorite hobby seemed to be breaking hearts. Oz had been his name—the Wizard of Women.

Her mother had been right. Men never failed to let you down.

Becky gave her a sad-eyed glance. “Divorced, sweetie?”

Oh, well. Might as well admit the truth. Besides, she was well over Kirk. “No. But I just dumped a rich, powerful jerk who sounds just like your Rafe D’Angelo.”

Becky perked up considerably. Even Dani had heard that Becky was looking for husband number three. “Does he live around here by any chance?”

“No. Denver. And you’re welcome to his address if you think you can make him concentrate on anyone but himself for more than ten minutes at a time. The louse has a Ph.D. in arrogance and a master’s degree in snake-oil salesmanship.”

“You’ll get over him.”

“Already am. But you were saying…”

“Oh, yes.” Becky settled in, heading back to gossipy basics. “Just that I heard from Althea Bendix who heard it from Polly Swinburne that Rafe has bought up half a block of old buildings on the town’s main street. Including the old Three Bs Social Club.”

Very few of the buildings in Broken Yoke were noteworthy, but Dani had already learned that one of the genuine historic sites in town was the Three Bs, a rambling, deserted old hotel and watering hole of questionable origin. Given the right designer and a huge infusion of cash, it might make an interesting salute to the town’s silver-mining days.

“What’s wrong with fixing up the Three Bs?” Cissy asked Becky. “It’s been an eyesore long enough.”

“Well, where would he get that kind of money, for one thing? When he and his daddy had their big falling out, he ran off without a nickel to his name. Of course, he could have won the lottery. He always was a lucky devil.”

Dani tapped her chin, thinking of the business possibilities for the old place. “He could cut it up, I suppose. Turn it into shops and restaurants and maybe even condominiums.”

Becky shivered visibly. “You’d never catch me going anywhere near there. People say it’s haunted.”

Cissy made a derogatory sound and dumped her empty salad bowl into the trash can beside her desk. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. People say Elvis is still alive and you don’t hear any new songs on the radio, do you? I think it would make a wonderful focal point for the town. A way to revitalize downtown.”

Becky wasn’t about to be sidetracked by logic. “Why would Rafe care about revitalizing downtown? He wasn’t all that fond of Broken Yoke when he lived here before.”

“Maybe things have changed,” Cissy said. “Everyone changes. You long to put down roots eventually.”

“Rafe D’Angelo, putting down roots?” Becky said in a horrified tone. “My Lord, what’s the world coming to?”

CHAPTER TWO

THE SILVER SADDLE BAR and Grill, which was more bar than grill, boasted a sizable back room where private parties could be held. This morning, more than forty people had crammed into the space, and there wasn’t the slimmest hope that a party was in the making.

The planning session for Broken Yoke’s summer festival was in full swing, and so far, there was only one thing that everyone at the town meeting could agree on. That no one could agree on anything.

Rafe D’Angelo sat toward the back of the room, next to his older brother Nick. Over the tops of people’s heads—mostly gray, he noticed—he could make out his father seated near the front.

Just like Pop, he thought. Because of his stroke, Sam D’Angelo still relied on his wheelchair occasionally instead of crutches to get around, but that didn’t keep him from seeking out the center of the action. And right now, the center of the action was up front, between those two old geezers Mort Calloway and Howard Hackett.

Over the years, Rafe had developed a pretty keen nose for trouble. He could usually tell just when fists were going to replace words. Right now, he was fairly certain that Mort was thirty seconds away from decking Howard.

The fact that Mort was in his eighties and needed a shot of oxygen with almost every breath, or the realization that Howard’s eyesight was so poor he couldn’t have seen Mort’s fist coming, much less prevented it, didn’t have a thing to do with it. The two men were furious with one another, and no one could get them to calm down. Not even Sheriff Bendix, who stood between them like a referee at a prizefight.

“It was just an idea,” Mort said for the third time. The lifelong naturalist had proposed a botanical theme for this year’s festival—complete with a wildflower exhibition, guest lectures and an orchid contest.

“Well, it was a stupid one,” Howard replied tersely. “Are you out of your wood-pecked, termite-infested mind? How many people in this state do you think will give a rat’s rear end about seeing a slide show on how to identify a bunch of poseys?”

Mayor Wickham spoke up from the sidelines. “It doesn’t seem in keeping with the history of the festival, Mort.”

Mort swung on the mayor, an action that left him more than a little breathless. “Since this is only our second festival, and the first was such a god-awful failure, I don’t see how it can mess much with the history of the danged thing.” He took a sip of oxygen, then whipped his mask away so he could turn back to Howard. “And my idea has as much merit as a harmonica contest or watching a bunch of morons being used as human bowling balls.”

“At least people won’t fall asleep in the street!”

Evidently, some of the other Broken Yoke citizens thought Howard had a point. There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd.

Rafe slid down in his chair, wondering why he’d let Nick talk him into coming here. He’d been back in Broken Yoke for two weeks, but it already felt like a lot longer.

A reed-thin older woman at the front of the room stood up. Beside Rafe, his brother inhaled sharply. “Uh-oh,” Nick said under his breath. “Here comes trouble.”

The woman said in a crisp voice, “I have an idea.”

The years since Rafe had lived here suddenly swept away. He remembered this woman—those small, sharp eyes, the posture that made her look as though she’d snap in two if someone tried to bend her. Polly Swinburne. Paranoid Polly, the kids had called her. Rich. Widowed. A bit “off.”

“Why don’t we have a naked festival?” she suggested.

Okay. Make that a lot “off.” Rafe groaned, wishing he had stayed back at the lodge.

The room went deathly silent for a long moment. Finally, Sheriff Bendix cleared his throat and asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Polly, what exactly is a naked festival?”

Polly practically went pink with enthusiasm. “Well, you all remember that I went to Japan for vacation last year?” Several gray heads bobbed. “They celebrate something there called Hadaka Matsuri. All the participants wear loincloths, and one man is chosen to run naked through the streets. Everyone tries to touch him.”

“Touch him where?” someone asked.

“And what for?” Mort Calloway added, looking like all the oxygen in the world wasn’t going to be enough to keep him from passing out.

“Just to touch him,” Polly said. “He’s supposed to bring good luck and absorb evil. The custom’s over twelve hundred years old in Japan.”

“Well, it isn’t gonna last twelve seconds here in the good old U. S. of A.,” someone else said, and everyone laughed.

Polly looked annoyed. “This year there were ten thousand participants and over three hundred thousand spectators. Excuse me, but I thought the idea of having a festival was to make money.”

“Where would people in loincloths keep their wallets?” Howard asked.

A few people giggled, and after that, the discussion deteriorated even more as several ribald comments were made. Polly subsided with a scowl.

A few more ideas were trotted out. Not surprisingly, the owner of the Silver Saddle voted for a beer festival. Someone suggested they repaint all the storefronts to look like bare wood, throw down two feet of dirt on the streets and pretend to have returned to the 1850s. Wesley Macgruder, the owner of the local Feed and Seed, recommended they convert one of the abandoned mine shafts into a thrill ride. The ideas went steadily downhill from there.

Nick leaned close to Rafe. “Wesley may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot,” he whispered, “but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”

Rafe shook his head. “Tell me again. Why exactly did you think I should come to this thing?”

Nick grinned. “Because Matt refused, and I needed a buffer between me and everyone else.”

Rafe knew better than to believe that excuse, but he nodded anyway and settled back in his seat, tuning out the sound of angry voices.

When he’d first come back to town, he’d known that it would be difficult to reestablish a relationship with his father. After all the harsh things that had been said between them during that final argument, after all the years of noncommunication, there was no way he could waltz back into Sam D’Angelo’s world and expect a warm welcome.

In that, he hadn’t been disappointed. He knew that if his father tried at all to meet him halfway, it was strictly for the sake of Rafe’s mother. Pop would do anything to please Rose. Even make nice occasionally with a son he probably considered a first-class bastard.

But Rafe had also anticipated a cool reception from his brother Nick. He’d never had a problem with his brother Matt and younger sister Addy, but Nick—the two of them had seldom gotten along as kids. Nick was a stickler for order and obeying the rules, and Rafe, well…Rafe had always figured rules were for other people.

So he was surprised that Nick didn’t seem to hold much of a grudge against him. Time seemed to have mellowed his big brother. It could be because he was a married man with kids of his own now. A brand-new baby son, in fact, in addition to a teenage daughter who had discovered boys big time.

Did Nick finally understand what it was like to find yourself on the opposite side of a chasm from someone you loved, with no clear way to make the leap that would bring you back together?

Rafe felt a nudge against his arm. Nick was drawing his attention back to the front of the room, where his father seemed to have won the floor.

“…can argue this from now until Christmas,” Sam D’Angelo was telling them all.

In spite of the wheelchair, his father still had a commanding way about him. He’d turned sixty just a few months ago, but he was as powerful a presence in the room as he’d been years ago, when he’d stood by Rafe’s hospital bed and told him that he was no longer welcome in his house.

“So what do you suggest, Sam?” Sheriff Bendix asked.

“I suggest we form a committee to investigate the best theme ideas we’ve been able to come up with here. Explore all possibilities. Eliminate the most problematic of them, then bring the two most viable ones back to the group for a vote.”

“There have been an awful lot of ideas pitched tonight,” someone behind Rafe pointed out.

“Very few that have actually been thought out,” Sam said, waving away the comment. With his chin he indicated the man seated across the aisle from him. “We could start with the Founder’s Day Celebration Bill suggested. He’s done his homework about the beginnings of Broken Yoke. Let’s find out if any of it would be interesting to anyone outside of the people in this room.”

Phil Pasternak, a fifty-something guy with a great tan who owned Alpine All Weather, the only sports store in town, stood up. “I think my idea of a Christmas in July celebration bears serious consideration. It’s quirky enough to draw outsiders, and over the past few months I’ve spent quite a bit of time and money planning out sample venues of the games and entertainment we could offer.”

Everyone knew Phil wanted to unload a surplus of winter sports equipment he’d been saddled with after several winters of modest snowfall, but no one had hooted down his idea for the festival. Most were intrigued by the idea of how he intended to pull off snowball fights and sleigh rides in the middle of summer.

Sam nodded. “Fine. Let the committee decide if it’s workable.”

“And profitable,” Phil couldn’t resist adding.

“I’ll volunteer to be on the committee,” Mort Calloway said from around his oxygen mask.

“Me, too,” Howard Hackett piped up.

Polly Swinburne sniffed loudly. “I certainly think I should be part of any committee that makes those decisions.”

Sam wasn’t a good enough actor to keep his disappointment from showing. These three were obviously not who he’d had in mind when he’d made the suggestion.

He tossed a glance around the room, finally settling on a mild-looking fellow whose face would live in no one’s memory. “What about you, Burt? You’re calm and logical. You’d make a good candidate for the committee.”

The old guy blinked a couple of times, then creaked upward from his seat as though he’d just been asked to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. “I’ll do it if everyone insists,” he said politely. “But I’d prefer to stay out of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not even sure Broken Yoke should have a summer festival. What’s wrong with just keeping things the way they are?” The elderly man frowned. “No. I’m not your man.”

Nick expelled a sigh. “Good call, Burt,” he said under his breath. To Rafe he added, “Working with Howard and Polly and Mort would send him to the loony bin. Poor Aunt Sof would go nuts worrying.”

Rafe gave his brother a puzzled look. “Aunt Sof” was one of their mother’s Italian sisters. Sofia and Renata were both widowed. After his father’s stroke a few years ago, the two women had arrived to help out. They’d never returned to Italy and now seemed firmly entrenched in helping to run the family lodge. Rafe had never met either one of them until he’d come home. They seemed nice enough, but he still didn’t really know them.

“Why poor Aunt Sof?” he asked his brother.

“She’s sweet on Burt,” Nick said. “But don’t ask either one of them, because they’ll just deny it.”

Rafe looked back at Burt with renewed interest. Still some life left in the old boy, it seemed. Nice to think of two older people finding love, even at this late date. He wished them well, because as near as Rafe could figure, love was a pretty slippery slope to try to climb. One reason why he’d stayed firmly away from it.

Another half hour was spent determining just how the newly formed committee should proceed and when the deciding vote for a festival theme would be taken. Just when Rafe thought they had a hope of getting out of the Silver Saddle before his backside went completely numb, his father spoke up again.

“Independent of the festival committee, I think we should elect a Publicity chair. Once a decision is made, we can’t afford to waste time trying to decide how to get the word out. We need someone to start exploring what kind of publicity we can get for this thing. How much it’s going to cost, and just what we need to say. Anyone want to volunteer?”

No one spoke up.

“Then I’d like to suggest my son,” Sam said, looking toward the back of the room. “Nicholas.”

Beside Rafe, Nick went upright in his seat. Poor bastard. Rafe was barely able to hide an amused smile. Roped into service and stuck with trying to please all these people.

Nick stood up. “Pop, I don’t think I’m the right person for the job. This really calls for someone with PR skills, and everyone knows that isn’t something I’m good at.”

Sam looked annoyed when there was mumbled agreement from a few others.

“Besides,” Nick went on, “it shouldn’t be someone who has a particular personal agenda. You know I’d like to pick up some business for the lodge and our helicopter tours. We need a person who can be fairly unbiased.”

“Like who?” Polly Swinburne asked skeptically.

Nick tossed a desperate look around the room, and in the same moment when Rafe could hear his own inner voice saying No, no, no, his brother’s gaze landed on him like a load of concrete. “Like Rafe, for instance,” Nick said.

There were several moments of silence. Rafe knew that most of the people here, while perhaps not having an actual ax to grind with him, might find him an interloper in their midst. No, maybe more than that. He let his eyes do a quick circuit around the room. How many of these people had he had run-ins with as a teenager?

Short of killing his brother very slowly, Rafe couldn’t think of a suitable revenge. He shook his head. “Nick,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “I don’t think—”

“Not Rafe,” Sam said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

For just one moment, Rafe’s eyes met with his father’s. They had lightning in them.

Rafe’s heart gave a kick of annoyance so faint he hardly felt it. He knew what the old man was thinking. Mustering all of his self control, Rafe said, “I’ll do it.”

“No,” Sam said.

Rafe felt his jaw setting in anger. If there had been a collective gasp in the room at that moment, it couldn’t have been more obvious that everyone knew more was going on here than just a simple difference of opinion.

“Why not him? “Sheriff Bendix had the guts to ask.

In spite of his surface poise and bland ease, Sam’s eyes hinted a warning toward the man. “My son hasn’t lived in this town for years. He cannot know what would work best for Broken Yoke. He has no interest in it.”

Polly Swinburne swung a glance in Rafe’s direction. “I heard you bought up part of First Street downtown. Is that true? Because that doesn’t sound like someone who has no interest to me.”

“It’s true. I’ve come back to BrokenYoke with the intention of making it my home.” Rafe’s eyes locked again with his father’s in a light challenge. “Permanently.”

He waited, refusing to look away.

Sam settled back in his wheelchair. “You have landed here for now. But a home is more than just an address.”

Before Rafe could say anything, Nick jumped in. “That’s beside the point. As an outsider, Rafe has no preconceived notions about what would serve us best. What he does have is plenty of PR experience. All those years in Vegas and L.A. He’ll know what will catch people’s interest. How to massage the media to get the best coverage.”

Someone laughed. “Way I hear it, you were always good at massages, Rafe.”

“This is a serious discussion,” Howard Hackett complained, and Rafe tried to remember if the man had a daughter. Truthfully, he couldn’t recall many of the local girls he’d romanced and left behind.

“I know how to handle the press,” Rafe acknowledged. “If you want me to do this, I will. Otherwise, I’m perfectly happy going about my own business.”

“I nominate Rafe D’Angelo for publicity chairman,” Nick said quickly. “All those in favor say aye.”

There was a surprisingly supportive vote of confidence in favor of the motion. There were no opposing votes, though Rafe suspected his father’s silence cost him dearly. He could tell from the older man’s posture in his chair that he wasn’t liking this turn of events. Not liking it at all.

A short time later, the meeting broke up. Rafe was trapped in a round of congratulatory handshakes and slaps on the back, so that he couldn’t immediately join his father and brother on the sidewalk in front of the Silver Saddle. Calloway, Hackett and Swinburne, who he’d already begun to think of as the Unholy Trio, cornered him with promises to be in touch soon.

When he finally emerged from the bar, he found his father and Nick waiting near the lodge’s van in the weak sunshine. From the matching set of their hardened jaws, Rafe could tell there had been harsh words exchanged. He could make a safe bet on the topic.

He decided to ignore the ice forming between them. Before Rafe and his father were through with one another, he suspected there were going to be plenty more worthwhile arguments between them. He didn’t need to run interference for Nick, who had always been able to take care of himself.

He tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, wishing he’d remembered to bring gloves. Easter might be right around the corner, but there was still snow on the mountaintops and the air was chilly.

Yanking his collar up, he said, “I’d forgotten how cold it can be up here, even in spring.”

His father’s expression was a mixture of annoyance and something more petulant. “Easy to forget,” he snapped, “when you don’t come back to a place for twelve years.” He banged on the side of the van near the sliding door and looked at Nick. “We gonna stand around talking all day so I can freeze to death, or can we go home now?”

Nick just grinned and shook his head, and in no time he had helped Sam to the backseat and stowed the wheelchair in the cargo hold. As Rafe closed the back doors, he nudged Nick’s arm to grab his attention.

“Why did you do it?” he asked in a low voice so that Sam couldn’t hear. “You know you just made the old man mad.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“I’m serious. One son on his hit list is more than enough.”

Nick shrugged. “The way I figure it, you’ll never get off his list if you don’t throw yourself into what matters to this family. Pop’s right about one thing, Rafe. Your home has to be more than just an address. Whatever you have planned for a future here, it will work better if you make your family a part of it.”

“I’m not used to involving other people in my business. My private life stays private.”

“Then you made a mistake coming back. Trust me, there’s very little in this family that isn’t a group effort. Whether you like it or not.”

There was a muffled rap on one of the side windows. Pop, trying to hurry them along.

They wove up the winding mountain road in silence. The sky was cloudless, a bright, clear, uncomplicated blue that the postcard companies must love. Every so often, Sam sighed heavily from the backseat, but neither Rafe nor Nick remarked on it.

When the quiet reached an uncomfortable level, Rafe looked over at his brother. “So how’s the local rag of a paper? Is it still only fit for lining the bottom of a birdcage? I suppose if I’m going to drum up interest in this festival thing, I should start there.”

“We have a new person in from Denver working the area,” Nick replied. He shrugged. “We do all right. Nothing much earth-shattering to write about around here.”

Rafe couldn’t help a derisive laugh. “Oh, how well I remember that. A night on the town around here takes about ten minutes.”

“You would know,” his father commented from the back-seat.

There was another long, ugly moment of silence. Rafe stopped the impulse to turn in his seat to look at Sam. Don’t say anything. Don’t feed the temptation to strike back. You open that dialogue, and there’s no telling where it will go.

He took a couple of calming breaths. “So this reporter… what’s he like?”

Nick tossed him a grin. “She. Danielle Bridgeton. And from what I’ve heard around town, she’s not all that excited about being stuck up here. But I’m sure you can win her over. It’s part of the reason I suggested you. The old Rafe D’Angelo charm might come in handy.”

Sam muttered something under his breath.

Since he’d been gone, Rafe had become quite an expert in a lot of things. He knew how to break a horse, how to spot a cheat at the blackjack table, how to survive thirty days on a week’s worth of rations. He had learned patience and the art of compromise. So how could his father get to him?

He can’t. Not if you don’t let him.

Ignoring the annoyed, grumbling sound from the back of the van, Rafe said to Nick, “You realize that these people will never agree on anything, don’t you? This festival is going to be a mess no matter how many committees get formed.”

Nick frowned. “I hope you’re wrong about that. It needs to be a success.”

“Why do you care? If I remember correctly, you were never much of a townie, either.”

“What’s good for Broken Yoke is good for the lodge. Every year we lose a few businesses. A few more young people move down to Denver where they can find work doing what they want instead of what their fathers want. It’s a trend I’d like to see stopped, and if a festival can help that, then I’m in favor of it.”

Rafe rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Nick. That’s a tall order. There’s no focus for this thing, no focal point.”

Nick gave him a quick look. “That’s why I threw your name up for publicity chair. If anyone can find a way to make something mediocre sound exciting, it’s you.”

Rafe knew Nick was referring to all the times he’d talked his brother into some harebrained scheme as kids, the girls Rafe had convinced to sneak out of their bedrooms for a clandestine meeting at Lightning Lake. Or the goose bump– producing trips he’d got them to make to the boarded-up Three Bs Social Club, which everyone said was haunted but was still one of the most perfect make-out places in the world.

“It will take more than that,” Rafe said, pursing his lips. “Journalists don’t like to be manipulated. The town wants this thing to make money, but this Bridgeton woman won’t be interested in a festival that’s motivated by greed. She’ll want some charitable or civic angle. They don’t like to feel like puppets for some commercial venture.”

Nick nodded thoughtfully. “I see your point. But the festival isn’t just to line the pockets of every businessman in town. This all started last year because we want to add on to the library, create a kid’s playground at the city park and clean up Lightning River Overlook.”

Worthwhile causes, every one of them. But what kind of spin could Rafe put on it for this newspaper woman to catch her interest? The whole thing was so disorganized at this point. How much money was the city willing to spend? And even if they could get people to come, how could they handle the influx?

He shook his head and laughed. “This is ridiculous. I’m not a PR person. I never have been.”

“What about when you worked for that Crews guy? I got the impression you did some of that for him.”

“I did a lot of things for Wendall Crews for several of his development projects. But I wouldn’t say it was PR work.”

He wasn’t sure what he would have called the years he had worked for Wendall. They’d had an interesting relationship. More mentor and student than anything else.

Shortly after leaving Las Vegas, Rafe had latched on to a job as a river raft guide on the Colorado. Wendall, an overweight and out-of-shape real-estate developer from Los Angeles, had signed up for one of the trips. It was clear none of the other tourists wanted the businessman for their raft partner. He was friendly enough, but clearly, they thought he couldn’t hold up his end of the overnight trip down the river.

They were right; he couldn’t. On the second day, on the next-to-the-last rapid, his raft had gone careening down one of the chutes, and Wendall had gone over the side and into the churning river. Caught in a whirlpool, the guy had sunk like a boat anchor. Rafe had gone in after him, hauling the panicked guy onto some flat rocks, even pumping water out of him before it could do him any serious harm.

Later, everyone had said Rafe had gone beyond the call of duty to save Wendall. At the time, he would have said all he was trying to do was keep from losing a customer on his watch.

But Wendall had been convinced that he would have died without Rafe coming to the rescue. He was so grateful that the next day he’d made Rafe a business offer to come work for him. One no one in their right mind would have refused, especially not an opportunist like Rafe. He’d quit his job and moved to L.A., where he’d worked by Wendall’s side for four years, until last fall when the big guy’s heart had finally done him in.

“You’ll think of something,” Nick reassured him. “You always had the power of persuasion.”

“What am I going to say?” Rafe spread his hands out as though framing a sign. “Come to Broken Yoke’s second annual festival…unless the high-school gym floor is being varnished.”

His father slid forward on his seat so he could catch Rafe’s eye. He looked thunderous. “This is exactly why I didn’t want you for the job. Take it seriously, or resign. We need someone who can appreciate Broken Yoke for what it is, not for how many jokes can be made about it.”

“I’m not going to resign,” Rafe said quietly. His father was getting on that buried nerve that was not quite dead yet. “In fact, I’m going to see this reporter at the paper as soon as possible.”

He could almost see Sam’s back stiffen for battle. “I’m sure you’ll have the woman dancing to your tune in no time. Just make sure it’s legal.”

The insinuation burrowed and found a home under Rafe’s patience. His father’s capacity for being strong- willed and unreasonable really rose to sublime heights at times. Rafe turned a little in his seat, and their anger met head-on. “Do we need to talk, Pop?”

If this was a quarrel at last, then let’s have it.

Nick took his hand off the steering wheel and chopped the air, cutting through the unpleasantness. “I think the two of you have talked enough for now.”

Sam settled back in his seat. “There’s nothing more that needs to be said anyway.”

His mild, colorless voice diluted some of Rafe’s irritation, and the knowledge that they had just made the turn-off to Lightning River Lodge did the rest. Sooner or later he supposed they’d have it out, just like the old days, but not today. Not with the rest of the family waiting for them, and the sky so blue that anything seemed possible. Even peace.

The lodge was busy and noisy. There were several noon checkouts keeping Brandon O’Dell, the front desk manager, busy. He barely managed a wave in their direction before he was pulled back to attend to another guest.

The small dining room was still doing a brisk business, too. As the three D’Angelo men wove their way around the tables toward the kitchen, Aunt Renata looked up from where she was trying to make sense of an Easter decoration she had strung out along one of the banquet tables. Fake green grass lay everywhere. Rafe knew that they would have a full house on Easter for Sunday brunch.

The kitchen had always been the heart of the lodge. Even twelve years ago, Rafe had spent more time here than in any other room in the family’s private quarters, which lay just beyond the double doors. Around the big wooden island table rested so many memories. This was where his father had chaired family council meetings, and his mother had taught all four of her children—Nick, Matt, Rafe and Addy—with gentle persuasion and stern looks.

Every surface in the room was covered with gaily wrapped pieces of candy and more eggs than Rafe had seen in years—all of them in various stages of coloration and preparation. He knew that each one of the lodge’s guests would find a small basket waiting outside their room door on Easter morning. As Nick and Rafe swung through the double doors, with Sam bringing up the rear in his wheelchair, Rose D’Angelo looked up.

“About time you were back,” she told them. “Come eat lunch.”

His mother presided over a quaint collection of copper pots, garlands of herbs and spices, and all the latest gadgets with the command of a general. In Rose D’Angelo’s life, the preparation of food had the same importance as the eating of it, and if you entered her kitchen, you often got drafted into helping out.

She dished up bowls of steaming minestrone from the stove and began setting them on the wooden table while all around her waiters and waitresses bustled about to make sure every wish of the diners in the dining room was heeded.

“I’m not hungry,” Sam said shortly. “I’ll get something later.”

He wheeled through the kitchen, then settled near the back door where earlier that morning he’d been working on replacing a broken handle.

Rose D’Angelo gave him a narrowed glance, then turned a questioning look toward Rafe. “I take it things didn’t go well?”

“You could say that,” Nick answered for them both.

Rafe went over to the prep sink to wash his hands. He thought of all the years he’d lost with this family. Sometimes he sat in this very room and thought about the love he had given up twelve years before. Sometimes he wanted to rush back through those years and change everything.

Was he being foolish to think he could ever recapture any of it? Sam was stubborn. Unforgiving. Why the hell did Rafe think he could ever make things right with his father?

Why, in God’s name, am I bothering?

The double doors from the family quarters burst wide, and five-year-old Frannie marched through them, picked up something from the top of the big wooden table, then made her way straight for him. Her solemn little features were fixed on him like a laser.

She didn’t plow into his legs like some kids might. She approached him calmly, quietly, and when she reached him, she held out her hand. On one multicolored, dyed palm lay the brightest blue Easter egg Rafe had ever seen.

She looked up at him, her hair falling down her back like strands of black pearls. The light from the windows near the back door caught her full face. It was beautiful on her, clean and sweet, strong and loving.

“Aunt Addy said I should make Easter eggs for everyone,” she said simply. “I made this one for you.”

He lifted the egg, prepared to offer compliments. Hell, what else could you do when a kid gifted you with something like that?

He rolled it in his hand, and etched clumsily across the egg, one word had been stenciled with a wax crayon. His heart turned over and a fluttering sensation spread out from his abdomen.

DADDY.

He raised his head, making the instant connection— eye to eye with the little girl. And the moment crystallized, as some moments do. In that half blink of time, he remembered.

This is why I came back here. She’s the reason.

This child who barely knew him.

Frannie, his daughter.

CHAPTER THREE

HIS MOTHER WOULD HAVE SWORN the odd feeling in Rafe’s gut when he held the egg Frannie had decorated was love. Rose would have claimed the feeling was one any father would have toward their child.

But the problem was he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t plain old, ordinary fear.

Truthfully, he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of conversations he’d had with children in his lifetime. He still couldn’t believe he was a father. The father of a five-year-old. A little girl, at that.

But Frannie was his now, and had been since December, the most unexpected, unsettling Christmas present he had ever received.

He looked down at her upturned face. She had the feminine version of D’Angelo features that had been part of the family’s legacy for generations—the firmly cut mouth, dark hair and bold eyes, those very long lashes that drew your attention and held it. She was his daughter, all right. The infinitesimal splinters of chance that went into making up a person’s DNA had left no question of that fact.

He knelt down to her level, examining the blue egg as though it were a Russian Fabergé. He was aware of everyone’s eyes on him. Only his father seemed disinterested in watching the interaction between Rafe and his daughter.

“This is very pretty,” he told her.

Frannie seemed unimpressed by the compliment. “Can I eat it?”

“No.”

“Why not?” she asked, her dark brows drawing together. Rafe had already discovered her stubborn streak.

“Because these aren’t for eating. Not yet.”

“They’re just eggs. I like eggs. I got to eat lots of them with Mommy.”

They were in dangerous territory all of a sudden. This was a situation they’d yet to discuss much. Mommy. He dreaded when that name came up. Someday they’d have to have a deeper discussion of why Mommy was no longer in the picture—something more than the awkward explanation Frannie had been given so far. But not today.

He rose, walked over to the table and placed the blue egg alongside the others on the drying racks. “Not this time,” he said.

Frannie had never seemed to be afraid of him, but neither had she come to terms with the idea that he was calling the shots in her life now. She came right over, gazing up with stormy eyes and a hard jaw that reminded Rafe eerily of his father.

“Why not?” she demanded to know again.

“Because I…” He broke off, uncertain where to go from there. Because I told you so? Hell if he’d fall back on that tired parental cliché.

As though sensing he needed help, his mother came to the rescue. She approached the little girl and turned her around to face her. “Francesca, remember the job I gave you and Aunt Addy this morning? I want you two to make as many pretty eggs for Easter baskets as you can. These are not for eating.”

“But I like hard eggs.”

“Then I’ll give you some to eat for lunch. Not that one. That one goes in the family basket, like a present. That’s your job today—to help me get ready for Easter.” She smiled down at the child, chucking her under the chin. “All right?”

Frannie considered this explanation for a long moment. Then her brow cleared and she nodded. “I guess so.”

“Good. Our guests will be very happy on Easter morning.”

Frannie turned back to Rafe. She waggled her hand over the eggs on the table. “I made all these.”

He pretended to give them serious consideration. Pretended, at least, until he noticed that all the eggs Frannie had colored were two-toned with spots. Red on yellow. Purple on pink. A sickly looking green on orange. Not a solid-colored egg among them. Except his.

Deliberate or subconscious, he wondered? A not- so-subtle attempt to show him that he didn’t fit into the world she liked? Or maybe just an accident?

Deciding to ignore the implications, he cocked his head at the eggs, then gave her an enthusiastic look. “I see you like spots.”

Did her jaw harden again? Just a little? “Spots are my favorite,” she said clearly. “Don’t you like spots?”

His sister Addy jumped in to save him this time. She touched Frannie’s sleeve and drew her attention toward Sam seated near the back door, still working on the handle. “You aren’t the only one. Your grandfather thinks polka dots should be a color in the crayon box.”

All their lives, the D’Angelo kids had known that their father loved polka dots. Every tie at Christmas had been dotted, every pair of socks. One year there had been a weeklong silence in the house when Rose had vetoed Sam’s intent to have all the curtains in the lodge redone in a dotted Swiss pattern.

Rafe didn’t know whether his father had been paying attention to the conversation or not, but Sam suddenly looked over at them and pointed with his screwdriver. “There’s nothing wrong with spots,” he said in a no-nonsense tone. “They’re bold and make life interesting. And why stick with one color when you can have two?”

Frannie nodded as though this logic made perfect sense, though she didn’t make eye contact with her grandfather. From the moment they’d met, she’d seemed shy of him, and unexpectedly, considering how much Sam loved children, he hadn’t been overly friendly to the girl, either. But it was somehow annoying to Rafe that even his father seemed able to make a small connection with Frannie, when he had not.

“Francesca,” his mother spoke up. “Will you go tell Mr. O’Dell at the front desk that we need more baskets from the storage shed?”

The child ran out the double doors to do as she’d been asked.

Rafe gave his mother a grateful look. “Thanks. I was starting to flounder there, wasn’t I?”

His mother smiled up at him, touching the back of her hand to his cheek. “You’ll get the hang of it. You just haven’t had enough practice.”

“I haven’t had any practice.”

“You were always quick to learn. I have faith that you can handle whatever Francesca throws your way.”

He shook his head, unable to share his mother’s confidence.

Of all the things he had envisioned for his life, a future built around kids had never been one of them. They were inconvenient. Noisy. Sticky. They liked to yank a person out of sleep and leave your nerves twitching until noon. Most of all, they needed you, and he didn’t like that. He’d liked the image of himself as unencumbered, and nothing messed up a man’s plans more than the responsibility of kids and family.

Last Christmas in Los Angeles when Ellen Stanton had called, letting him know she was in town and asking him to come by her hotel, he’d never suspected that the promise of a few hours of reliving old times would turn into a declaration of fatherhood.

He hadn’t seen Ellen for years, not since they’d been river raft guides together on the Colorado. He remembered her as a woman who had liked sex fast, hard and slightly earthy. Their one evening together had not been a summer night filled with soft breezes and the glow of a full moon overhead. That night had ignited some chemistry that was all sex and excitement, but very little else. They’d coupled wildly, then said goodbye to one another at the end of the week without a single regret.

Going to Ellen’s hotel suite, they’d barely passed the routine civilities of renewed acquaintance before she had trotted Frannie out of one of the bedrooms, pushed her in Rafe’s direction and stated flatly, “Frannie, this is your daddy.”

She’d waited for the words to sink in. They’d sunk.

He could still remember the ripple of shock that had run through his body. For a moment or two, he’d fought it, ready with denials. But he’d canceled that impulse when he’d looked down at the child. She had features alive with intelligence and the potential for sweetness. Her precise little mouth had been sullen and tight, but with little tremors in the muscles around it. He’d known instantly that she was scared to death.

He’d also known this was no outrageous lie of Ellen’s. Frannie was his. Even as badly as he’d wanted to refute the claim, he could see it in her face and feel the truth of it in his bones.

The meeting between him and Frannie had been awkward, and when Ellen had sent the girl back to her room, Rafe couldn’t feel anything but relieved.

That relief had soon turned to anger when Ellen had announced that she wanted Rafe to raise Frannie from now on. She had struggled financially for years, she’d said, but had finally found a great man to marry. An older man, who’d brought up his own kids and didn’t want to have any more in the house. This was her only chance for real happiness, and it was time Rafe shouldered his responsibility.

He had wanted to run. He had wanted to tell her it was too late to expect scruples from him. A long time too late. The way he’d lived his life, he figured he had sacrificed them years ago.

He might have been able to pull it off if he’d never seen the kid. But from that moment on, Rafe knew that within him there lay a very fragile thread of scruples after all, a basic sense of fairness that told him that no matter what, he could not simply walk away from this little girl the way Ellen could. Whatever his daughter needed from him, he’d make happen.

Which was why he was home now, trying to make peace with a father who had no use for him and a family that didn’t know what to expect from him. He needed to settle down, make a stable home for Frannie. Give her as much time as possible with this extended family so that she could feel as though she belonged someplace at last. Most of all, figure out how a father-daughter relationship ought to work.

It wouldn’t be easy. It wouldn’t be quick. But there were bigger things at stake now, like his daughter’s well-being.

A daughter who didn’t really know him at all.

SAM D’ANGELO RARELY SLEPT through the night anymore and often slipped from bed unnoticed. After forty years of sleeping beside the same woman, he knew Rosa’s sleep patterns, and that night, when he struggled into the metal cuffs of his crutches, he had no fear of waking her.

He made his way slowly out of the bedroom, through the family’s private quarters and past the lodge kitchen toward the lobby. It was after 3:00 a.m. and no one was about. The lodge’s sixteen rooms and two suites were full, but quiet.

Before his illness, Sam would have slipped on a jacket and gone outdoors to the side patio, a place where during the day visitors could pull up one of the hand-carved rocking chairs to enjoy a view of the mountains and Lightning Lake. It would have taken their breath away. The Rockies were giant monoliths watching over them, and even on the darkest night, the lake—now melting in the spring thaw—sparkled through the trees like diamond dust, a hidden treasure that never ceased to enchant.

But the flagstone surface of the patio played havoc with Sam’s balance on the crutches, and even the view was not worth yet another trip to the hospital down at Idaho Springs.

He settled instead on the library, though without a fire in the grate and people to enjoy it, it seemed cold and unwelcoming. Disappointed, he slid into the deep leather chair in front of the chess set his father had brought all the way from Italy so long ago.

Odd to think that he would have found comfort in coming across a fellow insomniac at this hour, even a stranger. Usually, when he was this restless, he preferred his own company, but it might have been nice to share the peace and tranquility of this place, this black velvet night, with someone else who appreciated it the way he did.

Someone whose presence might help quiet his disordered frame of mind.

Maybe that was too tall an order from anyone. After all, he’d been on edge for a few weeks now. Ever since Rafe had come home.

What real hope was there that fences between them could be mended?

Perhaps it was impossible. Sam knew that Rosa was irritated with him often these days, feeling that he wasn’t trying hard enough to find a way to bridge the gap between himself and Rafe, if only for the sake of the child.

But how could he when the past was so clearly etched in his brain?

He vividly remembered those last days before he and Rafe had had their final argument at the hospital. It had been springtime—just like now—but there’d been nothing hopeful and green about it back then. A tardy, disappointing season, muddy underfoot. The lodge’s winter receipts had been weak, too many empty rooms on the weekends due to a lack of fresh snowfall.

Most of all, the edgy discord between every member of the family had been palpable. Little irritations. Petty warfare between the children. And always, always, too many moments of cold, silent disapproval and heated words that could not be taken back between Sam and his youngest son.

Rafe had always been their most difficult child. Never as focused and steady as Nicholas, as easygoing as Matthew, or as sweet-natured as Adriana. But Sam had not expected the boy to up and run off the way he had. In his heart, he had expected a minor show of rebellion, then an uneasy peace.

All hope had died on a night when Sam had picked up the telephone and found the police on the other end, asking him to come down to the hospital in Idaho Springs. He’d made that trip down the mountain in record time, refusing to allow Rosa to accompany him, fearful of what he’d find there, a cramping terror in his gut.

What he’d found had been his angry and unrepentant son in the process of being stitched up, his body scraped and bruised from the fight he’d been in with a drug dealer. The jagged knife-cut along his thigh was not life-threatening, but Sam could barely breathe for thinking how a few centimeters one way or the other could have changed that fact.

He was as furious as he was frightened, of course, and even after all these years he knew he had handled the incident badly. Condemnation. Mistrust. The unwillingness to see his son’s side of things at all. As a result, Rafe had not come home. Instead, he had disappeared out into the world for twelve long years, and nothing would ever change the loss that defection had brought to their lives.

Sam became aware of movement beside him and discovered his wife slipping onto the arm of the chair, pulling him close so that she could plant a kiss on the top of his head.

“Come back to bed,” she said softly. “You can’t solve anything tonight.”

It was uncanny, how well Rosa knew him after so many years. Still, he had to try to keep her from thinking he had no surprises left to give her. “What makes you think I’m trying to solve anything?” he asked. “I’m just restless.”

“Samuel…”

“We need a new mattress. Let’s go shopping for one in the morning.”

“We don’t need a new mattress. Do you want to talk about what we do need?”

“No.”

“Samuel…”

He knew that tone. He cocked his head at her, settling for a portion of the truth. “He’s not going to stay, Rosie.”

She didn’t need to ask who he meant. She simply shrugged. “He’s a grown man. He shouldn’t have to stay if he decides he doesn’t want to. But if he does, then we’ll make a place for him here.”

“It won’t be easy. The two of us…we don’t communicate.”

“That’s because you are both hardheaded and proud. Too much alike.” He heard the smile in her voice. She brought her hand to his chest, rubbing across his heart gently. “But you know something inside you is hungry for reconciliation.”

“Perhaps. But on my terms.”

“What terms?”

“I don’t know the real reason he’s come home, but I will not have this family put in harm’s way. Not twelve years ago. Not now.”

Rosa made a disgusted sound in her throat. “I should have tried harder to make you see reason back then. Rafe would never do that.”

“Have you completely forgotten what a rebellious child he was?”

“Children grow up.”

“And men grow hard.”

She angled her head so that she could catch his eyes. “Sam, I know my children. And in your heart, you do as well. Rafe never did drugs. He would never have brought them into this house. Even that night, the doctors told you there were no drugs in his system.”

“Maybe not at that particular moment. But you weren’t there, Rosa,” Sam said stubbornly, remembering the terrifying spectacle he had witnessed. “You didn’t see what I saw. It was a miracle that he wasn’t killed.”

“You should have brought him home.”

He had no reply for that. Since there had been no charges against Rafe, bringing his son home was precisely what Sam had wanted that night, to bring his boy back to the safety and security of the lodge. Instead, he knew he had driven Rafe even farther away.

He couldn’t bear to think of all the mistakes he’d made that night, so he said, “Rafe made the decision to walk away from this family. No one else.”

“But he’s back now. We have been given a second chance.” Rosa squeezed his arm. “This is not a bridge to burn, Samuel. It is a bridge to cross.”

“You’re wasting your time. We might as well be strangers to him.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you want. I’m afraid—” He broke off, unsure how to express himself.

His wife slipped off the arm of the chair and knelt beside him. She cupped his hands in hers. “What are you afraid of? That he will stay with us? Or that he won’t?”

“We should go back to bed,” he said roughly. “Today will be busy with the holiday coming.”

She ignored him, instead placing soft kisses along the knobby ridges of his knuckles. When she looked up at him, the sweetest smile was on her lips. “She looks like you, you know?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, though he knew perfectly well who she referred to.

“Of course you do.”

“I find it irritating that you continue to be a woman who enjoys little mysteries.”

“There’s no mystery, really. Francesca looks like you. I’ve seen you looking at her. You have noticed the resemblance.”

“I’m naturally curious about any child Rafe claims is his.”

“And yet you take pains to stay away from her. Why is that?”

“The wheelchair frightens her.”

She sighed. “Samuel…”

Annoyed, he lifted his hands out of hers, spreading them in disgust. “Am I not allowed to take my own time? She may be my blood, but that doesn’t mean we’re automatically simpatico, you know?”

“She has your fondness for polka dots.” Her hands plucked at the smooth pattern of his pajama sleeve. One of his favorites—white spots on a royal blue background. “I find that shared quirk rather strange.”

“Liking polka dots is not a quirk. And it means nothing.”

“She’s just a little girl, Sam. No doubt she’s frightened by all the sudden changes in her life. I’ve told Rafe I want her to spend as much time as possible with us. She needs family. More than Rafe, she needs our love and understanding.”

“Give me time.”

“Your heart understands what your head cannot yet conceive. Trust those feelings.”

Sam shook his head. Rosa was too generous, too willing to forget. “He won’t stay,” he said again, more forcefully this time. “We’ll open up our home and our hearts and they’ll both be gone by Christmastime. Mark my words.”

Her poise could not be shaken by the pessimism of his tone. She simply nodded, as if accepting that possibility. “I have decided that this is a chance worth taking. Meeting your son halfway is no more frightening in the long run than living a life without him.”

CHAPTER FOUR

RAFE WAS GLAD TO HAVE EASTER behind him. He wasn’t comfortable with family holidays, with their lollipop colors and enforced gaiety. There were too many opportunities for mis-takes.

But Mom’s cooking was excellent as usual and the family seemed relaxed and pleased by the lodge guests’ eager participation in the planned festivities. Watching the kids collect Easter eggs on the lawn hadn’t been too bad, though he’d bet half of them would be sick by dinnertime from eating too many sweets.

His daughter had been on her best behavior. Nick and his wife, Kari, had brought their new son, Ethan, to the festivities, and Frannie always seemed enchanted by the sight of the baby. When she was allowed to hold him, she lit up momentarily and then settled into the responsibility with the most serious look on her face that Rafe had ever seen.

Whatever her reason for good conduct, that, and the fact that Rafe and his father had managed to pass a fairly civil holiday, made him breathe a huge sigh of relief.

The control he exercised around his father could easily fail him. He’d say the wrong thing. Do the wrong thing. And then where would they be? Rafe was trying desperately not to fight in front of Frannie. Hell, when it came to getting along with Pop, he was desperate, period.

On Monday, he drove down the mountain, dropped Frannie back into her kindergarten class, made final arrangements for his daughter to be babysat on occasion by one of the teachers there and then headed downtown. Before going to the newspaper office, he wanted to make a stop at the makeshift construction office he’d put together at the Three Bs. Now that the holiday was over, renovations on the buildings would kick into high gear once again.

He parked on the street and was pleased to see that there were already several trucks and vans there, the workers getting an early start. Standing on the sidewalk, he couldn’t help once more admiring the workmanship that had gone into the place.

The inspectors he’d hired to give it the once-over had told him the Three Bs was structurally sound. It would take a good bit of money to make it comfortable and functional, but right now, thanks to years of saving and the money Wendall Crews had left him, money wasn’t tight.

Rafe knew he could have found a newer, more affordable, more practical place to call home, but he had a silly attachment to this building. He had an unexpected fondness for Victorian architecture—a sense of history tucked into crazy corners and fancy turrets. Maybe because he’d spent too many years living in nondescript apartments in too many nondescript neighborhoods.

But it was more than that, somehow. Perhaps it was the odd belief that if he could bring the Three Bs back to its former grandeur, he could resurrect his old life here as well.

His father would probably laugh at that idea.

A door slammed behind him, and Rafe turned to find an older man getting out of a battered truck. In the front seat, the biggest German shepherd Rafe had ever seen hung out the window, whining like a puppy when the man joined Rafe on the sidewalk and left him behind.

The guy gave him a short nod, then tossed his chin toward the building. “Gonna be a mess of work to get this place back to what it once was.”

“Probably,” Rafe agreed. “But it will be worth it.”

“Heard you were back in town. You don’t remember me, do you?”

Rafe looked at the man more closely, but couldn’t place the face. “Afraid not.”

“Leo Waxman. Waxman Electric. Good friend of your father’s.”

Rafe held out his hand. “Of course, I do remember. You used to have a lot of shepherd pups in a shed behind your house.”

“Still do on occasion,” the man said, obviously warming to the subject. Behind him the dog began an earsplitting whine, and Leo turned toward the truck. “Hush up, Brutus.” He swung back to Rafe. “I missed the town council meeting the other day. Heard you got elected publicity chairman for the festival.”

“Yep. If you’re here to tell me you want the job, I won’t fight you for it.”

“Nah. I’ve got no interest in the festival, and definitely no interest in trying to get those three committee knuckleheads to agree on a plan.” He indicated the building again. “But I also heard you bought this place, among others, and that does interest me. You plan on living here, or selling for a profit?”

“I figure four spec condos, plus my own place. Then I want to see about redesigning a few other buildings I’ve picked up downtown on First Street.”

“You gonna need help with the electric? If so, I’m your man.”

Leo handed Rafe a business card, and for the next few minutes they talked about what it would take to bring the building up to code, the improvements and modifications Rafe wanted to make to the existing structure. The electrician seemed eager for the work, knowledgeable and forthright. In spite of the differences Rafe had with his father, he knew Sam would never have kept the friendship of someone who couldn’t be trusted to do an honest day’s work.

Agreeing to get together later in the week, Rafe and Leo shook hands.

Leo grinned. “You know the Three Bs history?”

“That’s part of what drew me to it in the first place.”

The Three Bs, built in the 1880s, had originally meant beds, baths and breakfast, and had catered to the area’s silver miners looking to strike it rich. But widow Ida Mae Culpepper had discovered a more profitable way to make a living, and the social club had become very “social” after a few months in operation. The Bs soon translated to betting, booze and bad women.

Then during the Korean War, Myrtle Culpepper had taken over, following in her great-grandmother’s foot- steps to transform the establishment into the perfect place for enlisted men to listen to lively music, drink good liquor and spend a few hours of pleasure in the company of what the newspapers of that time had called “agreeable companions.”

Evidently drawing on some memory, Leo laughed. “You know, your father and I spent many a night in this place.”

That Rafe didn’t know, and he was surprised. “Really?”

“Oh, not when it was that kind of place. That was before our time. After Vietnam it got turned into just a social club, a place where a bunch of old leathernecks could compare war stories and drink a few beers. I used to play piano back then. Your dad used to pick up extra bucks by playing fiddle with the band.” He slid an amused glance at Rafe from under bushy brows. “Bet you didn’t know that, did you?”

His father a musician? How could that be? No one, not even their mother, had ever hinted at such a thing. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I sure didn’t.”

“That’s because he was god-awful. Two cats fighting in an alley sounded better, but nobody threw us off the stage. You get a few drinks in a bunch of guys, tell a few war stories, and everyone gets mellow.”

“I’ve never seen him pick up a musical instrument.”

“He quit fooling around with it once you kids came along, and things got cranking up there at the lodge. Way too busy to devote the time. Kinda went by the wayside, the way lots of things do once you start a family and you realize what’s important.”

What’s important. For a moment Rafe could envision his father making that conscious decision, putting aside the idle playthings of his younger years and taking on the responsibility of home and family.

Sam had always been able to focus on what needed to get done. He was a practical, goal-oriented man who had never understood the desire to see over to the other side of the mountain when you had what you needed right in your own backyard. It must have been particularly galling to him that his youngest son had refused to toe the line.

“I’ll give you a discount, you being Sam’s son and all.” Leo Waxman cut into Rafe’s thoughts.

“Thanks. I’ll look forward to working with you.”

“You’re not afraid of this place?”

“You mean the rumors that it’s haunted? No.”

In his youth, Rafe had explored the building by popping a broken board off a back window. The place had been deserted for years. He had been fascinated, and the teenage girls he’d brought here had found his arms just the right protection against the whispery night shadows of abandoned rooms. Depending on who you talked to in town, the Three Bs was either haunted or hiding a secret treasure, or both.

“Probably kept the price down,” Leo speculated.

That was true. When Rafe had decided to bring Frannie home to the family, he couldn’t resist seeing if the old place was still up for sale. He had big plans for it, and he couldn’t wait to move himself and Frannie into the place he’d already decided would make a suitable home for them both.

He knew Frannie was benefiting by spending so much time with his family, but he was eager to get out of the lodge, where Frannie must feel confused by all the hustle and bustle that came with running a thriving business. Where the air around his father was thick with tension.

The foreman of the construction site waved at Rafe, and seeing the opportunity to break away from Leo, he shook hands one last time with the man, clapped him on the shoulder and left him at the curb. They were tearing down walls in the club’s front room today, and he was eager to see what kind of workmanship lay behind the flocked, garish wallpaper that the Culpeppers had thought so attractive.

Once Rafe was satisfied the work was progressing well, he could move on to his next mission—getting one newspaperwoman to buy into the idea that the second Broken Yoke summer festival wasn’t geared strictly to make money for its citizens. Downtown revitalization, worthwhile causes, civic pride rebuilt. Could he persuade her that there was good to be done?

Maybe he was worrying too much. After four years of working for Wendall Crews and his far- flung empire, Rafe had honed the art of gentle, and not-so-gentle, persuasion. He had the talent to spin the festival any way the town wanted it. And just how bright a journalist could this Danielle Bridgeton be if the paper had stuck her out here in no- man’s-land?

Besides, big brother Nick had been right. Rafe still had the D’Angelo charm, and though he liked to think he’d changed, that he wasn’t prone to the old ways anymore, he hadn’t forgotten any of the old tricks.

If all else failed, he’d lay it on thick and deep. He’d make Ms. Bridgeton feel as though she were the center of his universe. He’d have her eating out of his hand.

By the time he was finished with her, she’d give them more newspaper coverage than the winter Olympics.

MAYNE SHE WASN’T the world’s best journalist, but Dani thought she could recognize a losing proposition when she saw one. She regarded the three stories spread out on the desk in front of her.

It would be hard to say which would be more exciting. Or which one was more likely to put Gary to sleep when he read it.

She began to feel helplessly angry again at the fates that had dropped her into the dullest news corridor of Colorado. This certainly wasn’t the future her mother had scrimped and saved for her daughter to have.

If Wanda Bridgeton could have seen her now, how disappointed would she be?

Not wanting to give in to another fit of useless emotion, Dani decided that maybe a second opinion was called for. After all, she was biased about what interested people in this neck of the woods.

“Cissy,” she called out the open office door. “Could you come in here a moment?”

Although she was several years younger, Cissy had become Dani’s closest friend here in Broken Yoke. She was a savvy saleswoman when it came to selling advertising for the paper, and she and Dani had discovered a mutual interest in making a name for themselves.

Cissy sauntered in and perched on the side of one of the office chairs expectantly.

Dani picked up the first story. “Tell me which of these pieces would interest you the most if you picked up the Sunday paper.” She expelled a resigned breath. “The new forklift that Silver Ridge paid a fortune for this past winter is out of commission because the idiot driving it ran into a ravine.”

“Was the idiot killed?”

“No.”

“Then who cares?”

Dani picked up the second story. “A guy down at Berthold Pass has grown a squash that has markings like Abraham Lincoln.”

“Oh, please,” Cissy said, rolling her eyes.

“I’ve seen the picture the stringer took,” Dani said, referring to the photographer she sometimes used. “It really does look like Honest Abe, stovepipe hat and all.”

“And that would matter to whom?”

“True.” Dani slipped it to the bottom of the stack. She lifted her last and best. “A wolf got into a chicken coop and created havoc for some farmer in Manitou. Killed three of his prize Rhode Island Reds before he chased it off.”

“A dozen would be better. More dramatic.”

“Just three, I’m afraid. But Farmer Jenkins said his coop is so secure that the wolf had to be the canine equivalent of James Bond to break into it.”

Cissy lifted an elegantly shaped brow. “Are you making that up?”

“I swear, that’s what he said.”

The younger woman pursed her lips, tapping her bottom lip with her finger. “I’d go with that one.”

“Why?”

“Death. Destruction. Secret-agent wildlife. Definitely better than an Abe Lincoln rutabaga.”

“Squash.” Dani placed the story on the top of her pile. “All right. The Double-O-Seven wolf it is. Although Gary is still going to laugh when he reads it.”

“I’ve read your stuff. It’ll be great.”

“Thanks,” Dani told her, but then almost to herself she added, “I’ve just got to do better than this. There has to be something I can sink my teeth into.”

Cissy trotted off while Dani sighed again and reflected on how she’d once set aside a space on the top of her fireplace mantle for a Pulitzer. No secret-agent wolf was going to fill that hole on her shelf or in her life.

Damn you, Lorraine Jennings Mandeville. How could one woman mess up her world so completely? Dani wondered.

After she’d been exiled here, she’d briefly considered telling Gary she’d resign before being run out of town, but she wasn’t a quitter. Besides, it wasn’t forever. She could handle living in Broken Yoke a while longer. She could. It wasn’t a horrible place. Kind of postcard-pretty in a lot of ways.

Of course, by the time she finally made it back to Denver and her regular assignments, her career was going to be deader than Farmer Jenkins’s poor chickens.

She cupped her head in her hands, massaging a fresh headache with her fingertips. Surely there was some magic she could work with these stories.

She lifted her gaze to discover Cissy had come back in the doorway of her office. The woman had brightened considerably. Maybe she had come up with something. “Boss, Rafe D’Angelo—”

Dani held up a forestalling hand, too peeved at the moment to bother showing polite interest in a topic of conversation she was thoroughly sick of. “Please. Not one more word about the great Rafe D’Angelo. I don’t want to hear about how every woman in town wants him. He’s old news, and even if he wasn’t, I’m not interested in hearing about a guy who probably has an ego as big as this room. From now on, any discussion about him is off-limits. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cissy said from the doorway, looking uncomfortable. “But I think I should tell you one last thing. Rafe D’Angelo—”

“Is what?” Dani asked, pinning her with a disgusted look. “Is sexy? Is worth his weight in gold? Is the devil incarnate?”

“Is here,” Cissy finished for her.

Giving Dani a regretful smile, she stepped aside. In the next moment, the office doorway was filled with the tall, dark, unexpected presence of a complete stranger.

No. Not a stranger. Dani knew him instantly.

“Devil incarnate, huh?” the man remarked with a grin in his voice. “Interested in selling your soul?”

She popped up, feeling flustered at being taken unawares. Her stomach churned. Embarrassing. Really embarrassing. He had to know perfectly well that she hadn’t intended for him to hear a word she’d said, but it was too late to save face now. Better to brazen it out.

Dani came around the desk, a weak smile on her lips. “I’m so sorry, Mr. D’Angelo,” she began.

She got her first good look at his face. Her smile froze on her lips as she took in the sight of dark eyes, dark hair and a slightly crooked nose that kept this man from being classically handsome.

She remembered that nose. Those eyes. She remembered this man. How could this be the infamous local hotshot, Rafe D’Angelo? This was Oz, the casino pit boss she’d worked with briefly six years ago.

A man whom she may or may not have slept with.

The snake in the grass who had disappeared out of her life before she’d ever had the chance to find out.

Oh God. Did he recognize her?

It didn’t appear so. His features remained bland and unremarkable as he relaxed into the chair in front of her desk. She didn’t know whether she should be glad or unhappy about the fact that she hadn’t stirred his memory.

Of course, she’d looked different back then. Dolled up like the rest of the plastic princesses who had worked in Native Sun’s casino. The night she’d gone after the story of her life—city government employees who spent a hefty portion of taxpayer money on gambling and hookers—she’d worn enough makeup for the entire chorus.

In spite of years spent trying to put that incident out of her memory, she couldn’t help remembering how the tables had gotten turned. How the lowlife she’d gone after had slipped something in her drink. How he and his friend would have raped her if they’d had the chance.

This man—Oz—had evidently stopped that from happening. Her memory was fuzzy, but she definitely recalled waking up naked next to him. He’d seemed somewhat amused by her reaction when she’d rolled over and spotted him, propped up on one elbow beside her. He’d told her that she was safe, that he’d take care of her, and she’d believed him. It hadn’t helped that she’d fallen asleep shortly after that. At least, she thought she had.

Had they had sex?

She still wasn’t one hundred percent positive. When she’d finally come to again, she was still naked, but her head was clearer and Oz was gone. Vanished. From the room. From the casino. From her life.

Oh, it was too humiliating to think about, even now.

Given the way things had turned out, she realized she was perfectly happy not to take a trip down memory lane. No, better to stay away from that subject and hope that in addition to being the local ladies’ man, Rafe D’Angelo had a memory like a sieve.

She sat down limply behind her desk, suddenly conscious that her hair was a mess and she hadn’t bothered with makeup today. “Who—What brings you to my little part of town?” she asked, trying for her most professional tone.

He seemed perfectly willing, thank goodness, to put aside any conversation of a personal nature. “I’m sure you’ve heard the town has an interest in hosting a summer festival?”

“I’ve heard there’s been some discussion.”

She could tell he found that assessment funny. His mouth curved upward—in the kind of quiet, private delight that could make a woman’s toes curl. Dani suddenly remembered that several of her fellow show girls had particularly loved that smile of his.

“Discussion,” he said, as though hearing the word for the first time. “That’s a polite term for it. A festival committee has been established, but they’ve yet to agree on a theme. I was elected the publicity chairman.”

“Ah.”

She understood now. Flacks—which was what the newspaper called PR people who constantly ran around doing their smoke-and-mirrors thing—drove her crazy. They were experts at spinning the truth to fit their own needs, and she had very little use for them. Whatever else Oz—Rafe—might be, it didn’t surprise her one bit that he’d been elected to handle the PR slot. Hadn’t he always been an expert at subtle persuasion back at Native Sun?

She realized he was frowning at her. “Ah? What does that mean exactly?” he asked.

“Nothing really. Just that I think I see where this is going.”

“You do?” He cocked his head. “And where exactly are we going, Mrs. Bridgeton?”

“Miss.”

“Ah.”

It was her turn to frown. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Just nice to get all the players straight, I suppose. Especially since I’d like us to spend some time together.”

The words came out in such a hot, silky tone that she almost forgot what they were talking about. “I beg your pardon?” she said, trying to dissolve the sudden lump of something strange in her stomach.

“Spend time together. For the sake of publicizing the festival.”

Relief stretched through her. “Oh, of course. What did you have in mind, Mr. D’Angelo?”

“Please call me Rafe.”

She inclined her head politely in agreement although she had no intention of calling him Rafe. Or Oz. Or anything. In fact, the sooner she could shoo him out of the office, the better she’d like it. Life was getting too darned complicated.

She ran a hand over her hair, glad suddenly that she’d chopped off several inches a year ago so that it fell to just below her shoulders. The shorter, less-dramatic style she currently wore probably set off no memory bells for him. Giving him another professional glance, she said, “I assume you’re here looking for coverage.”

“I am. In the best interest of the town.”

“I plan to cover it, of course. If it’s still going to take place on a Saturday, I’ll have a piece running the next day in the Telegraph’s Sunday supplement.”

“I was thinking of something a little more extensive than that.”

Dani’s eyes narrowed. “Such as?”

“Reasonably priced ad space. Perhaps an article or two in the weeks leading up to the festival. We want to attract as many people as possible. It’s critical that it be a financial success.”

“Mr. D’Angelo, perhaps you don’t understand. The paper isn’t interested in covering any festival just so that this town can make money.”

“I understand that we can’t use the paper simply to fill the town’s coffers,” he said, not at all put off by her attitude. He withdrew a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. “I’ve asked the mayor to furnish you with a commitment list of all the projects the town intends to use the proceeds for. As you can see, it’s quite extensive.”

Dani quickly scanned the list. He was right—it was impressive. The Telegraph wouldn’t object to being used to further these kinds of causes. She set the paper aside.

“What angle is the festival going to take?” she asked.

“I’m afraid that’s still undecided. The committee is leaning toward one of two themes proposed at the last town meeting.”

Oh, she’d heard all about that town meeting. Free-for-all was more like it. “Was that the town meeting where one member threatened to deck another with his oxygen tank?”

He laughed lightly, a warm, mellow sound that made a good companion to his smile. “I’m not sure that specific threat was ever made. But I see you’re familiar with the people I’m dealing with, Miss Bridgeton.” He inclined his head toward the nameplate that sat on her desk. “May I call you Danielle?”

She nodded quickly. Clearly he didn’t remember her as DeeDee Whitefeather. “I heard that tempers flared,” she said. “If you got strong-armed into this job, then you have my sympathy.”

“Thanks. As I was saying, no definite decisions have been made, but if we could, I’d like to schedule some time with you tomorrow.”

Her nerve endings began to fire like pistons in a car. “Why?”

Was he surprised by her obvious lack of interest? She didn’t imagine that Rafe D’Angelo was used to women being at all reluctant to keep him company. Even when she’d known him as Oz at the casino, he’d been way too sure of himself. He hadn’t been nicknamed the Wizard of Women for nothing. The pig.

He was silent for a moment, his dark eyes holding her like a hypnotist’s though there was nothing in his look that told her what he was thinking.

Then he said, “Two very different events have been proposed. Both parties have prepared presentations. I thought we could check them out. I’d welcome your input.”

“What are the two suggested themes?”

“One would celebrate Broken Yoke’s pioneer days. Reenactments of the founding of the town. Concessions, games and craft booths built around the town’s silver heyday.”

“Are you originally from this area, Mr. D’Angelo?”

Did he stiffen in his chair a little before he answered? Hard to say. “I’ve been away a while, but I was born here.”

“Then surely you know that Colorado needs another summer festival like a drowning man needs a brick. And while the state prides itself on celebrating the unusual, more than half the towns choose the same type of event. Founder’s Day. Pioneer Days. Rough and Ready Days. You can hardly tell them apart.”

“Then it’ll be my job to find a way to entice visitors here. I’m certain I can do that.”

Oh, this was bad, very bad. She could actually feel herself responding to that overwhelming presence of his. She felt too hot. DeeDee Whitefeather wouldn’t have been so affected.

Straightening in her chair with a deliberate sigh of boredom, she asked, “What’s the second suggestion?”

“A Christmas in July celebration.”

Dani wasn’t expecting that and found her interest piqued before she could remember that she wanted nothing to do with this man. “That’s a little different.” “It has possibilities. The fellow pitching it feels we can capitalize on the winter activities we have around here. Find ways for people to enjoy the same things, only in the summer. His wife is one of the teachers at our elementary school, and he’s enlisted students to help.”

“Skiing in July? Sounds problematic.”

“True,” D’Angelo agreed. “But he’s chosen some sample venues. Do you have a photographer available? It might make for fun pictures.”

She pursed her lips, intrigued in spite of herself. “I have a freelance stringer I can call on.”

“Then do we have a date? I could pick you up at nine in the morning.”

“What?”

“We could make a day of it. Perhaps have an early dinner afterward and discuss which idea might do the most good. Whether the paper would have any interest in covering one of them.”

She hoped she didn’t look as cornered as she felt. “I—I’ll need to work out the details with Chester, my photographer.”

“Of course.”

She really ought to see what the town had in mind for the festival. But there was no way she wanted to spend almost an entire day in this man’s company. Even if he didn’t remember her. Inspiration came at the last minute. “It would probably be simpler if I met you at these places. Why don’t you give my secretary the addresses and we can arrange to link up?”

She stood, determined to take the upper hand and show him that she wasn’t going to be maneuvered. This meeting was over.

Dani came around the desk, stretching her hand out once more. Rafe D’Angelo rose quickly, placing his long-fingered hand in hers.

“Thank you for the offer of dinner,” she said. “But I’m afraid I have plans tomorrow night.”

A curtain lifted in his eyes. They were suddenly alive with interest and amusement. “I’m disappointed,” he said. “Are you sure we can’t have dinner? Don’t you want to catch up on old times, DeeDee?”

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