A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (27 page)

James took another sip of brandy, then set the glass down. “From the beginning of the pregnancy, she was plagued with depression. I took her to the best doctors, and finally we ended up in a clinic in Switzerland where they supposedly had some expertise. But they could do nothing for her. When
the doctor told me we were having twins, I didn't dare tell her. I know it sounds unbelievable now, but when the person you love is sick, you become desperate. Your mother's psychological condition was too delicate, too precarious. I was afraid that another baby might push her over the edge.”

He drew in a breath and let it out. “That's when I made the hardest decision I've ever made. I brought you back here on a separate plane and arranged for your adoption through a private agency. I selected your parents because I recognized in your mother the same kind of dedication to work that I'd seen in Elizabeth. And I suppose that giving you to them helped me to live with the guilt I felt for pressuring Elizabeth into having you and Cameron.”

Odd—there was a part of me that wanted to cry, but my eyes were as dry as dust. “Did Doc Carter know about my adoption?”

James met my eyes. “No one knew about it. I handled it myself. The first person I told about it was your sister.”

“And did it work? Did bringing just one baby home help Elizabeth to get better?”

“Yes. For a while she was fine, back to her old self. She loved Cameron, and told me more than once that she was glad I'd pressured her into having a child of our own. With all the drugs in her system during delivery, she didn't remember having two babies. I thought everything was going to be fine.
Then without warning, her bouts of depression returned. This time none of the medications worked. There were times when she couldn't get out of bed. She couldn't paint. That was what destroyed her. She felt that she'd lost her art. Then she committed suicide. Carter said it was postpartum depression. They were just beginning to recognize it as a disease. But that doesn't change the fact that by pressuring Elizabeth to have a child, I killed her and lost you.”

There was silence in the room. So many emotions were pouring through me, and I couldn't help feeling sorry for the man who was sitting across from me.

Finally James spoke. “Can you ever forgive me?”

I studied him for a moment. “I think you've been punished enough. You made the best decision that you could, the one that you thought was right. And I have really wonderful parents.” But my hand shook as I set down my brandy glass.

Sloan rose and drew me to my feet. “She's tired. I think she's had enough for one night.”

James met his eyes. “She shouldn't be alone.”

“She won't be.”

I followed Sloan to the door before I remembered the other question I needed to ask. I turned back to find James watching me. “My P.I. friend
found papers showing that both Cameron and I were adopted. Why?”

“When I sent you the letter, I also took care to plant the other papers. Over the years, I've contributed quite a bit of money to the agency. Partly because they do good work trying to place children in the right families, but also because I thought I might need them to do me a favor someday. So they obliged me. I was afraid that if you knew I was your father and gave you away, you wouldn't come here. And I wouldn't have blamed you.”

I went to him then and leaned down to kiss his cheek. “I would have come. I'm a McKenzie. I can't help being curious.”

James hugged me then, tight. When he released me he said to Sloan, “You take care of her.”

“I will. And we'll talk more in the morning.”

Once outside James's suite, Sloan picked me up and began to carry me down the hall. “Your place or mine?”

“Mine's closer,” I said.

And it was.

S
loan pocketed his cell phone. The state police so far had zip. None of the tire prints they'd taken from the two SUVs on the ranch or from Austin's matched the ones they'd found on the cliff. But they'd identified the caliber of the bullet, and they were checking licenses to see who on the ranch might own a gun that would use it. First thing in the morning, they hoped to have answers.

He strode into the bathroom where Brooke lay with her eyes closed in the hot tub. Only her head was visible beneath the sea of bubbles she'd created. Once he'd undressed her and inspected the bruises himself, he'd insisted that she take a long
soak to ease the stiffness she was sure to feel in the morning. She was the one who'd insisted on adding bath salts, but he'd lit the candles.

Hannibal was patrolling the edges of the tub, taking an occasional swing at a bubble or two. Whatever his original differences with Brooke, right now it looked to Sloan as if the cat were on guard duty. He knew the feeling. Three times today he'd nearly lost her.

He shifted his gaze back to Brooke. She was here. She was safe. And he was going to keep her that way. The little line on her forehead told him that she wasn't sleeping. She was thinking, worrying. Odd. He'd only known her for what? Less than forty-eight hours, and he already knew that about her.

But then from the moment he'd nearly run her down on the bluff, he'd felt on some deep, instinctive level that he'd known her forever. James had mentioned the same feeling when he'd described how he'd fallen in love with Elizabeth—meeting that one woman you're destined to be with.

It had struck Sloan then that he'd fallen in love with Brooke Ashby. Like Elizabeth, he hadn't been looking for it, hadn't wanted it really. Wasn't that why he'd agreed to go along with the proposition that Cameron and James had presented to him in Kentucky? Marriage with Cameron would have been safe. No emotional risk, no fears of aban
donment where she was concerned. She'd never leave him the way his parents had because he and Cameron had both loved the ranch.

Loving Brooke was a different matter. It made him vulnerable. He didn't know how she felt about him. Oh, she wanted him, but she had her life and career in L.A. And while the chemistry between them was strong, it didn't equal love. He'd decided that he didn't want to lose her, but what did she feel? The urge to go to her now, to drag her out of that nest of bubbles and ask her was almost overpowering.

But he couldn't. If nothing else those worry lines stopped him cold. James had given her a lot to think about tonight. She'd been kind to her father, kinder than he might have been. No, he couldn't add to her burden right now. He watched the little line on her forehead deepen. He could imagine what she was feeling. Abandonment. He'd experienced that at an early age. They came from different worlds, yet they had that in common.

And he knew what he could do to make her forget about that, at least for tonight. Moving to the edge of the tub, he sat down. “Stop thinking.”

Brooke opened her eyes and met his. “That's difficult advice to follow. I keep going over everything in my mind. That's what I do sometimes when I'm working on a particularly tough plot twist. I'm trying to shift things around, juxtapose
them so that I can dream up story lines from all angles.”

He dipped a hand beneath the bubbles to test the temperature of the water. “What particular things are you looking at?”

“The timing, for one. I think I understand why the would-be killer chose that particular day to follow Cameron out to the cliff and push her off. The two of you had had a quarrel. If her body had been found, the police would have had two theories to pursue. Suicide or murder. She either followed in her mother's footsteps or you would have been the prime suspect.”

His brows shot up.

“It's always the fiancé or the husband the police suspect first. And you did have opportunity. You were at the ranch the entire day. You would have made a great scapegoat.”

Leaning over, he ran a finger along her jawline. “What other angles are you looking at?”

“Motives. In all good mysteries the why always leads to the who.”

“In this case, we've narrowed the field to the people who were in the barn today and could have sliced your girth.”

“True. Beatrice, Marcie and Austin have alibis for the day that Cameron disappeared. That leaves Hal and Doc Carter. Unless they had accomplices. Take Hal. If the why was to make Austin the heir,
it wouldn't have worked if he didn't have an airtight alibi. So Austin and Marcie go to Vegas and Hal slips away to push Cameron off the cliff.”

Sloan turned the tap on.

“What are you doing that for?”

“The water is cooling. Go ahead and tell me what your plot line is for Beatrice and Doc Carter.”

She sighed. “That one is a little less feasible, but I'm thinking it might work on
Secrets
—a torrid affair between Santa Claus and the Snow Queen.”

“Come again?”

After explaining her initial impressions of Doc Carter and Beatrice, Brooke went on. “In this one, the why is the same—to get rid of Cameron and make Austin the heir. I imagine that Beatrice might share Cameron's frustration and resentment that the McKenzie men are such patriarchs. If Austin inherits, she has the satisfaction of knowing that the land passes on to her progeny rather than James's.”

“The only problem is that Doc Carter was a very happily married man until a year ago, and I have trouble picturing him having a torrid affair with anyone.”

“Well, there is that. Not all story lines are equally good. And there's always the possibility that the would-be killer's motives had nothing to do with who inherits the ranch. Maybe it was
personal. Maybe someone just wanted Cameron dead.”

“Take a break. Time enough to think about it in the morning.” After turning off the water, he lifted the cat off the edge of the tub, carried him through the bedroom, and put him out the door. “The state police hope to have some answers by morning,” he continued as he reentered the bathroom. Sloan filled her in on what he'd learned while he sat on the edge of the tub and pulled off his boots.

“There's another plot line that I'm fooling around with, but I haven't been able to come up with anything.”

“What's that?”

“Don't laugh. I can't help feeling that there's some connection between the untimely deaths of the previous mistresses of the hacienda and the attacks on Cameron and me.”

“Why would you think that?” Sloan asked as he stripped off his shirt.

“Because if I were plotting this as a story line there would have to be a connection. Plus, I don't think it's a coincidence that the mistresses of this house have all…I…”

It gave Sloan a great deal of satisfaction to note the way her sentence trailed off when he stepped out of his jeans.

“You're stripping.”

“James is right. You
are
a bright gal.” He kept
his eyes on hers as he hooked his thumbs in the elastic waistband of his briefs and eased them slowly down over his hips. When they dropped to the floor, he stepped out of them. Her eyes had lowered to his erection, and though he hadn't thought it possible, he grew even harder.

“I want you, Brooke.”

Not raising her eyes, she lifted a hand out of the water and beckoned him to join her. “Come in. The water's fine.”

He lowered himself into the frothy bubbles so that he was sitting opposite her, his legs tangled with hers. “Close quarters.”

“Very observant.”

Sloan scooped up bubbles and tossed them at her. She grinned as she brushed them off her cheek, and he had the satisfaction of seeing that worry line fade from her forehead.

“Would you like some soap?” Without waiting for his answer, she blew a wad of bubbles into his face.

In retaliation, he lifted one of her feet and began to massage the instep.

He heard her breath shudder out. “I'm thinking of a plot line myself.” He continued to massage her foot. “But I'm not sure of the technical terms. This is what you might call an opening encounter.” He slipped one finger in and out between each of her toes. “Right?”

“Right.” Her voice had become breathy, the way it always did when she was aroused. And her eyes—those fascinating green eyes—had darkened.

Slowly, he ran his hand up her calf and traced a pattern on the back of her knee.

She trembled.

“A complication,” he said and watched her tremble again. Leaning forward, his gaze never leaving her face, he danced his fingers up her inner thigh. “The tension builds.” He could feel it building within himself.

“Sloan, I—” Her voice was a whisper.

“What comes next, Brooke? Tell me.” But he didn't wait for her answer before he traced one finger down the slick softness of her fold. “This?”

“Mmmmm.” She arched toward where his finger lingered at the entrance to her heat.

“And then?”

“Crisis,” she murmured.

He pushed his finger into her, just a little.

“More,” she whispered.

“Tell me what comes next?”

“Climax.”

He pushed two fingers into her. She arched upward. “Yes.”

Water sloshed over the edges of the tub and two candles sputtered as Sloan moved to cover
her body with his. He urged her legs apart and entered her.

“We're going to drown,” she said as she wrapped her arms around him.

“Practice holding your breath,” he said and took her.

 

In the darkness of the gardens, a shadow paced—forward and back, forward and back. She should be dead. She should be dead. She should be dead.

The chant grew louder and louder as the pacing picked up speed. Three times she'd escaped. Three times. It couldn't be tolerated. It wouldn't be tolerated.

Fury boiled up with such force that it seemed to become a separate entity in the surrounding air. The shadow stopped pacing abruptly and turned to face the hacienda.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Control. It had to be regained. It was all-important. Nothing could be accomplished without it.

She should be dead. And she would be dead. Tomorrow. Moonlight fell in a silvery blanket over the sleeping ranch and the shadow's gaze swept the gardens, the land and the hills beyond, gathering in the strength that came from knowing this would never belong to Cameron McKenzie.

When the pacing began again it was slower, more purposeful. Gradually, a plan took root and began to grow.