A frisson swept along Honey’s scalp. Zack, his two brothers, the three cousins and Uncle Nick. That made seven. She inhaled sharply as her imagination leaped from the seven Daltons to the Seven Devils Mountains.
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “No, the mountains weren’t named in honor of my family.”
Looking at his devilish grin, she wondered about that.
Honey realized she would never find her way back to town as they wound around hills and through canyons. At last they crossed a wooden bridge over a dry creek, and the land opened into a flat valley ringed by tree-covered ridges.
Nestled on a rise, protected in a curving sweep of pine trees, was a stone and split-log ranch house. “Rambling” described it perfectly. Wings spread out to each side of the central structure, which had a porch across its face.
“Home,” Zack said. “There’s Uncle Nick.”
An older man came out onto the porch. His hair was white and lay in an attractive wave sweeping back from his forehead just like his nephew’s. His face was tanned and lined. A tall man, as tall as Zack, his rangy frame retained the lanky appearance of youth. She estimated his age to be late sixties, early seventies.
“What happened to your parents?” she asked.
“They died when we were young.”
“How?”
“My father and mother, plus my dad’s twin brother and his girlfriend, came home one year to visit, bringing us kids with them. They went out on the town one night. There was an avalanche and they never made it back. Since Uncle Nick was the only kin, he and Aunt Milly were saddled with six additional kids to raise.”
“Aunt Milly was the one who died in the accident? It was her little girl who was kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
Honey considered the events that had occurred in his family. Like her, Zack was an orphan who had been taken in by a relative. She felt a bond with him, one of tragedy.
“I’m sorry about your parents and the others,” she said a bit stiffly, but sincerely.
“It was a long time ago.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven. I don’t remember much about it.”
The bleakness of his tone belied that. She started to ask him where he’d lived prior to coming to the ranch, but was forestalled when he parked and leaped out of the truck.
“Wait here,” he said, and slammed the door.
Her heart set up a cacophony as she watched him greet his uncle, then gesture toward the truck as he talked. The uncle stared at her. They talked some more. Finally Zack waved for her to join them.
Reluctantly she did so, then waited for the older man to denounce her as a liar and opportunist. He studied her, his eyes as blue as Zack’s, but shrewd with age. When he reached out and lifted her chin, she met his eyes.
He smiled. “So you think you might be Tink?”
She shook her head. “Your nephew thinks so. I’m Hannah Carrington. Everyone calls me Honey.”
“Zack told me about your circumstances,” the uncle said thoughtfully.
Her heart did a flip until she realized Zack couldn’t possibly know her real circumstances.
“Your parents are gone and you’ve lived with an aunt since you were three or thereabouts?” the old man added.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“There was a question about your birth certificate?”
“I’m sure that’s just one of those odd coincidences that occurs at times.” She tried to sound honest and yet unsure enough to maintain a question about her birth.
He patted her cheek, something she wouldn’t have normally appreciated, but that seemed comforting coming from this kindly old gentleman. Like the nephew, he was a caring person.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said in simple welcome. “Show her to the rose room, Zack. I’ll put lunch on the table.”
“Are you supposed to be up and cooking?” Zack asked.
“Don’t fuss,” the old man said amiably. “The doc said I have to walk an hour every day. I figure if I can walk, I can cook and clean up the house a little.”
Honey saw Zack’s chest rise and fall in an exasperated breath, but he said nothing as his uncle went inside.
“It’s hard to keep help out here,” Zack said to her, heading for the SUV. “It’s too far from town. We’ve had about a dozen housekeepers over the years. They stay six months, maybe a year, then the isolation gets to them.”
He handed her the duffel, tucked his nylon bag under one arm, then lifted out her two heavy suitcases.
Clenching a hand into a fist in a sudden spasm of panic, she followed him inside. Her feet seemed to be coated in lead as they entered the rustic dwelling.
They passed through a comfortably furnished living room and turned right into a hallway. He guided her past two open bedroom doors and went into a third one, the last in this wing of the house.
“This is lovely,” she said, feeling very much the deceptive interloper.
The room was twice as big as the other bedrooms they’d passed. It ran the depth of the wing and had a large sitting area that faced the front yard. A door opened onto a path from that side.
The windows flanking the bed looked out on a small backyard edged by towering trees that grew up a steep ridge, where a forest of firs and pines spread outward and upward over the land.
Zack paused. He looked at the bed, then back to her. His eyes seemed to darken. She felt some secret inner part of her expand painfully, pushing on her lungs so she couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. She couldn’t look away as tension arced between them.
Turning abruptly, he placed her bags on the floor in front of a double set of matching doors. He opened those to disclose a spacious closet. “The bathroom is next door. The dining room is on the other side of the kitchen. Can you be ready to eat in five minutes?”
She nodded.
After he left, her nerves calmed slightly. She slowly pivoted, taking in the wallpaper with the big pink roses and soft green leaves, the sparkling white beadboard that formed the wainscoting and the sturdy oak furniture. A lacy white bedspread interspersed with pink roses covered pale-green sheets on the queen-size bed.
The soft-rose decor wasn’t the sort a household of bachelors would choose. She wondered what woman had picked it out and felt a strange emotion stir in her breast. It took a moment, but she finally recognized it as envy.
Some girl had been lucky to have this room, she thought, fighting the harsh sting of longing as she went to the bathroom and freshened up before facing Zack and his uncle again. That girl had been cherished.
Inhaling carefully, she dried her face, combed her hair and returned to the middle of the house. Four men were busy putting food on the table.
She stopped, her mouth dry, feeling like a rabbit who’d stumbled into a den of wolves. Her feet stuck to the floor.
One of the men spotted her. “Hi. Come on in. We only look dangerous, but no one bites. Uncle Nick lost his teeth years ago, and we’re not allowed to devour pretty women.”
“I have all my own teeth,” Uncle Nick corrected his nephew balefully, then smiled at her, showing off what appeared to be a perfectly good set of natural teeth.
She managed a return smile of sorts.
Zack placed a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. “Sit,”