the back of the snap was written, in her father’s strong familiar hand, just one word. Angela.
Caprice felt her heart twist as she looked at it. Her mother’s name had been Kristin.
Who was she, this dark stranger who had been part of her father’s past? And why had he never talked about her?
It was a mystery.
And one she was determined to solve.
‘Will! Will! Dammit, where is that girl?”
Willow Ryland woke with a start. Her father’s voice, faint though it was, had penetrated her dreams. Oh, cripes, she thought frantically as she scrambled off the rocking chair where she’d dozed off, I’m in big trouble if he finds me up here!
She whipped off all the jewelry she’d bedecked herself with earlier—the silver charm bracelet, the ropes of pink pearls, the blue earrings, the gold brooch that spelled out Angela—and tucked them away swiftly in the bottom of the old trunk, under the silk dresses and scarves and straw hats and wonderfully shiny high-heeled sandals, before lowering the lid carefully so as not to make any noise.
“Will! Where are you and that damned dog?”
At the word dog, Fang stirred and gave a protesting growl. He’d been dozing, too, his squat little body stretched out on the planked floor in a beam of April sunshine that slanted through the attic skylight.
“Hush!” Willow hissed as she clambered onto the rickety table that sat below the skylight. Raising herself on her toes, she peered out. And—oh, cripes!—there he was, striding around the car park, looking every which way. For her. Then all at once he turned on his heel and strode toward the lodge. His face, she noticed, was set in a dark scowl.
“Oh, hell!” The bad word popped out before she could stop it. She’d have to say an extra prayer that night. “Fang, let’s get out of here!”
The black and white mongrel’s claws clicked as he scurried across the floor and then lolloped down the narrow winding stairs that led to the third floor. Willow climbed down after him backward, rolling her eyes as the dog lost his footing and his roly-poly body landed with a fat thud against the door at the bottom of the steps.
Cautiously, she opened the door a crack. She heard nothing. She crept out, with Fang rudely pushing ahead, and closed the door again. She turned the key in the lock, and biting her lip, planted the key where she’d first found it a year ago, in the shadowy cranny of a glass-doored bookcase, across from one of the guest bedrooms.
Then—heart thumping like mad—she sped to the passage and the landing.
Fang was already halfway down to the second floor. And when she caught up with him, she gulped at the sight of her father in the foyer. He was scratching a hand through his wavy black hair and muttering to himself.
“Dad!” she called. “Hi!”
He raised his head sharply, and she saw relief flood his eyes before sparks of irritation sent it flying.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked. “I’ve been looking everywhere for—”
“Dad.” She used the same tone Miss Atkinson had used last week when the teacher had sent her to the principal’s office for wrestling with her best friend Mark at recess. “You’re not allowed to say hell. Remember?”
She saw his lips twitch. “Right. Sorry, Will. I’ll try to do better.”
Willow grabbed the banister, swung her leg over and swooped down with her back to him. He caught her—as she’d known he would—just as she shot off the end.
“So…where were you?” he said gruffly as he set her down. “You and that stupid mutt of yours?”
“Oh, just busy,” she said, cocking her head at him. And just loving him, like she always did. “Were you calling me? I didn’t hear you. What did you want?”
“Dinner’s ready,” he said. “Bacon burgers.”
Her very favorite dinner!
Happily, she skipped alongside him as they made their way along the passage leading to their private quarters, to the cozy little kitchen—which was her favorite room in the lodge, second only to the attic.
And this was her favorite time of year. The ski season was over, the summer season hadn’t started, the staff were on holiday, so she had her dad all to herself. Things would be different in two weeks when the lodge would be jam-packed with guests…and then he’d be off into the wilderness with a bunch of rich folks who wanted to do all that neat stuff like rock climbing and white-water rafting.
For now, she wanted to enjoy being alone with her dad. Who was the best dad in the world.
She’d eaten two bacon burgers, washed down with milk, before she noticed something that turned her blood cold.
She’d forgotten to take off the wedding ring.
It glowed like a firefly on her middle finger—the only finger it fit. And it was a miracle, truly a miracle, that he hadn’t noticed it yet.
Palms sweating, she snuck her hands under the table, slid off the gold band and poked it down deep into the side pocket of her overalls. Only when it was safely tucked away did she dare glance at him again.
But he was lost in thought. She could tell by the lonesome look in his eyes, the look that told her he was aching for something. She had never figured out what. It reminded her, though, of the way she looked when she chanced to see herself in a mirror when she was thinking that it was the saddest thing in the whole world not to have a mom and how she longed with all her heart to have one.
At any rate, her dad hadn’t noticed the ring. And for that, she was truly grateful. He had no idea that she spent time in the attic—she knew for a fact that he never went up there himself. First time she went up, the floor and every other thing had been inches deep in dust, and it had taken her two full weeks to get everything cleaned off.
And of course he had no idea she had found the trunk of pretty things. He had no idea that she loved jewelry and silk dresses and shiny shoes and straw hats with pink flowers. He didn’t. He didn’t like pretty things.
And he didn’t like pretty ladies.
She knew that for a fact!
And it was why, from the very moment she’d overheard him say it—when she was four years old, which was three years ago now—she’d known that if he was gonna love her she had to make herself look as ugly as a mud road.
And actually, she reflected as she considered her raggedy straw-yellow hair, her turned-up nose and her too-big eyes that weren’t even the same color as each other—that wasn’t a very hard thing to do!
Heck, no, she thought with a grin, it wasn’t hard at all.
In fact, it was a downright cinch!
‘Hidden Valley?” Peering into the murky night, the gas jockey indicated a road across the highway from the rural Shell station. “Go straight down there for a couple of miles and you’ll come to a village, go through it and on up the valley for another ten miles. The Lockhart place ain’t signposted but look for the Ryland’s Resort sign—you can’t miss it, it’s well lit up. Your turnoff’s right after.”
Caprice had no problem following the directions, but the drive from Seattle had taken longer than she’d expected, so it was almost midnight before she finally saw the illuminated Ryland’s Resort sign.
Slowing down, she passed the entrance to the private road, and sixty yards farther on came to her turnoff.
As she swung onto the track, the headlights of her rented Honda danced among the pine trees lining the trail. She drove cautiously and in a minute rounded a bend and entered a clearing. The log house lay straight ahead.
She drew the Honda to a halt by the gate of a picket fence that enclosed a good-size garden and sat