first time that her breath was sawing in and out, loud enough to be audible over the noise of the train. The woman in the seat across the aisle was staring at her, eyes wide with shock.
Nicki bent her head, gathering control. She realized that she still held the strap of her purse in her hand. She lifted the soft, leather bag, fumbling inside it with her left hand until her fingers closed over the familiar shape of her bill-fold.
She didn’t have to go back to her apartment. Never again would she go back there. Or anywhere else he might expect her to be. She had everything she needed right here, she thought, her hand resting protectively over the wallet that contained her ticket to safety.
Her upbringing had taught her the value of money. She had saved as much as she could, carefully putting part of what she made into her savings account every month. All of it was accessible through any of the thousands of ATM machines in this city.
There was enough there. Enough to get her somewhere far away from here. Far enough to be safe.
Please, God, let somewhere be far enough for that.
Chapter One
I hope to hell Frost was right and home is the place where they have to take you in, Michael Wellesley thought as he pulled the SUV he’d bought in Denver into the circular drive. It wasn’t really that he had nowhere else to go, but the Royal Flush was home. It always would be.
He had realized that anew as he’d driven across the river, his stomach tightening in anticipation of his first glimpse of the house and the barn. Home.
Like a beaten dog, he was returning to his birthplace to lick his wounds. At least that’s what Colleen would think.
And what if she did? He had a right to be here, despite what his father had done.
He could now think about the provision in his dad’s will, the one that had given the family ranch to Colleen, without the bitterness and anger that had driven him away at eighteen. He still wondered, however, why his father had done something that seemed so grossly unfair.
Maybe to force him to make it on his own. To become a man. His own man. Or maybe, Michael had finally decided, because he had never told anyone, much less his father, how much he had loved this place. That had obviously been a mistake.
He shut off the ignition and opened the car door, easing down carefully from the high seat. As he’d expected, his knee had stiffened, both from the long flight and the hours he’d spent behind the wheel.
Right hand on the top of the door, left on the roof for support, he took an experimental step, testing it. Prepared for the pain, he managed to control his response to it except for a slight tightening of his lips and a nearly soundless inhalation.
It would have been smart to bring the cane, if only for the duration of the trip. Instead, he’d tossed it into one of the trash bins outside Reagan. Just as he’d metaphorically trashed everything else associated with the past eight years of his life.
Still holding on to the top of the door as he flexed the damaged knee, Michael allowed his gaze to scan the compound. The place looked prosperous and well kept. Both the barn and the house had been freshly painted. He had already noted that the grazing stock he passed on the way in from the highway were sleek and healthy. Maybe his father had known what he was doing after all.
Rejecting that thought, he stepped away from the door, slamming it behind him. Limping heavily, he walked around to the rear, opening the door there to drag out his duffel bag.
He’d stuffed every item of clothing from his wardrobe that might be appropriate for the ranch into it. And he’d been surprised by how little of that there was. The rest, with exception of a couple of suits hanging from a hook in the back seat, he’d given away.
He closed the hatch, the noise unnaturally loud in the drowsy afternoon heat. He’d half expected someone to come out by now to investigate the arrival of a strange car.
Of course, it was possible there was no one in the main house. There were always a hundred things that needed seeing to on a ranch this size, especially in the middle of summer.
He walked around the car and up the low steps, boot heels echoing across the wooden planks of the porch. Switching the duffel bag to his left hand, he raised his right to punch the bell.
Somewhere in the back of his mind the word “home” echoed. He changed the motion he’d begun, his fingers fastening around the knob instead. He opened the door, letting it swing inward to a cool dimness.
At the far end of the huge central room it revealed, the brass fittings on the old bar, a survivor from the days when the Royal Flush had been the fanciest bordello in Colorado, caught the late afternoon light. Michael’s eyes lifted automatically, searching for the portrait of his great-great-grandmother, which had always hung behind it.
Old Dora was still there. It seemed nothing about the Flush had changed. Of course, it never had.
He set the duffel bag down on the rich, heart pine floor and stood in the somnolent stillness, letting the memories close around him. As he did, he became aware of voices coming from behind the house. One was obviously male. And the other…
Colleen? If so, it might be easier for both of them if their first meeting took place outside. At least then she wouldn’t have to throw him out of the house.
His lips tilted at the image. At maybe five foot five to his six-three, she’d play hell trying. Of course, a challenge, even one of that proportion, had never discouraged his sister.
He realized he was anticipating seeing her again, just as he’d been looking forward to his first sight of the house from the moment he’d turned off Highway 9. Whatever bitterness he’d felt toward his father had never extended to Colleen. Or, if it had then, it certainly didn’t now.
In the nearly sixteen years since he’d been here, he’d been to hell and back. The only family he’d known in all that time had been the men who had fought and died beside him. Without that bond—
Deliberately he broke the thought. Today wasn’t about guilt or regret. Today was about homecoming. And the sooner he got this one over with, the better for everyone concerned.
“ALL I’M TELLING YOU—”
“And all I’m telling you is to handle it,” Colleen interrupted. “That’s what I pay you for, Dex.”
“Why don’t you just sell the damn place to someone who’ll appreciate it?”
“I appreciate it. That doesn’t mean I want to be in on every minor decision of its day-to-day operation.”
“What I’m asking you about isn’t minor, Colleen. And you damn well know it.”
“I also know you’ll make the right decision, with or without my advice. I’m not real sure why you’re so all-fired set on having it.”
Michael had already heard enough to identify the man his sister was arguing with as her foreman. And anger was apparent in each muscular inch of the man’s body. It was also apparent that those muscles were not the kind built in a gym, but through the hard, backbreaking work a ranch demanded.
Besides, he had the look of a cowboy, both in his tall, rangy build and sun-darkened skin. It was obvious that, boss-lady or not, Colleen did not intimidate him.
“You don’t deserve what you’ve got,” the foreman said, his voice no longer raised. It was quiet and somehow far more effective at expressing his disgust. He ran a hand through black hair that had a liberal sprinkling of gray. “Maybe because you had this place handed to you on a silver platter, you think it don’t require any work on your part to keep it.”
Colleen took a breath, her lips tight, visibly controlling her own temper. Although it had been a decade or more since he’d seen her, Michael had had no trouble recognizing his sister. She had the Wellesley coloring, of course. Dark brown hair and those strange blue-green eyes that a few women in his past had unfortunately