anger. “How could Ron do this to us? And where was this woman when Ron took us to visit the ranch?”
“I don’t know. I can’t even begin to guess at his motives. Most of all, I can’t wrap my mind around the sheer stupidity of it. This isn’t the Victorian era. Why in the world didn’t he get a divorce before he married you?”
“I have no idea.” Avery was still alarmingly white, but her voice was stronger. “However, it’s fortunate for all of us that he appears to be dead, because otherwise I’d kill him.”
Three
May 4, 2006, Thatch, Stark County, Wyoming
Megan heard the sound of a car braking to a halt alongside the porch and the pounding inside her head instantly grew worse. She peeked through a crack in the living-room blinds, her stomach knotting at the prospect of seeing yet another reporter parked on the driveway.
The car was a red Ford Freestyle, not one of the roaming TV-satellite vans that had been tormenting her for the past day and a half. Unfortunately, the absence of a broadcast antenna wasn’t necessarily good news. She’d discovered that print journalists could be every bit as aggressive as their on-air counterparts.
Tucking her gingham shirt into her jeans, Megan prepared herself to walk outside and repeat for the umpteenth time that she had no comment. The trick, she’d found, was to head off the journalists before they could bang on the door and disturb her mother. The next trick—even more difficult—was to get rid of them without losing her temper and providing them with juicy copy.
A tall man got out of the car, dressed in a gray business suit, his thick, light brown hair blowing in the late-afternoon breeze and his tie hanging loose around his unbuttoned shirt collar. The sun was shining through the window into Megan’s eyes and it took her a second to recognize her brother.
“Liam!” She ran out of the house, flying down the porch steps, the dogs bounding at her heels. “Liam!” She hurled herself into his arms, hugging him as hard as she could, caught off guard by the rush of her own emotions.
Liam wasn’t usually what you’d call a warm-and-fuzzy kind of a guy and she felt his split-second hesitation before he hugged her back. But for all his reserve, his voice was deeply affectionate when he spoke. “Hey, squirt. You look great, especially considering everything that’s going on.”
He patted Bruno and Belle, who thrust their muzzles against his legs and whimpered ecstatically, tails thumping. “How are you holding up, Meggie?”
“Better now that you’re here.” Megan not only loved Liam, she’d worshipped him as her hero, ever since she was three and he was the twelve-year-old big brother patiently leading her around on the pony their father had just bought as her birthday present. Still, she didn’t know him as well as she would have liked. With their nine-year age difference, Liam had been off to college by the time she was starting fourth grade and he’d almost never visited the ranch over the past few years. He lived in Denver and she’d spent time with him there as often as she could, but she always sensed a barrier that allowed her to get just so close and no further. Despite that, the bond between the two of them was important to her. She suspected it was equally important to Liam, for all that he was so emotionally guarded.
“It’s really good to see you.” Her voice, embarrassingly, was thick with emotion. “I didn’t realize how much I needed you until I saw you getting out of the car.”
Liam ruffled her hair, then uncharacteristically dropped a kiss on the top of her head, an easy spot for him to reach since he was a good ten inches taller than her five foot three. “I never expected to live long enough to hear my kid sister admit that she needed me.”
“It’s been a rough couple of days,” Megan acknowledged.
“I can imagine.” Liam’s words sounded more ironic than sympathetic, but he crooked his finger under her chin and tilted her face up, using his thumb to brush away the tears that kept welling up in her eyes despite her best efforts to contain them. Unlike her brother, she was cursed with emotions that bubbled over at the slightest provocation.
He knew how much she despised her own easy tears and, with welcome tact, he bent down and gave the dogs his full attention, allowing her a moment to regain control. “Hey, Bruno. Hey, Belle. Hate to tell you guys this, but you’re getting fat.”
The dogs ignored the insult and licked his hands in slobbery friendship, clearly remembering him fondly, although it was at least two years since they’d last seen him.
“Okay, you’re great dogs, both of you, and now I’d like my hands back.” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the ground. The dogs, who considered Megan’s commands no more than playful suggestions, instantly quieted. They seated themselves with their front paws on top of Liam’s shoes, tongues lolling out of the side of their mouths as they panted their enthusiasm for his return.
Liam turned his attention back to Megan. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, squirt.”
“That’s okay—”
“No, it’s not. As usual, I was unavailable when you needed me.” He took off his tie and shoved it in the pocket of his suit jacket. “I wasn’t ignoring you, Meg.”
“It never occurred to me that you were. When I didn’t hear from you last night, I assumed you weren’t home.”
“You were right. I didn’t get your message until this morning. Then I had to reschedule my court appearances for the next few days before I could leave Denver. I tried to call on my way to the airport, but the ranch phone was constantly busy and your cell number kept switching me to voice mail.”
“I took the ranch phones off the hook because I got tired of telling reporters that I had nothing to say, and cell phones still don’t work out here so I can’t pick up my messages.”
Megan asked no questions about Liam’s absence the previous night, although she could make a pretty good guess as to why he’d been away from home. If her brother had been running true to recent form, he’d spent the night with some gorgeous woman he would almost certainly never see again.
In high school, Liam had been a jock more interested in football and skiing than girls. During the entire seven years he spent in college and law school, he’d dated no more than half a dozen different women. Then he’d moved to Denver, taken the bar exam and joined a partnership of criminal-defense attorneys. He’d gone out with a fellow lawyer for over a year and Megan had expected to hear at any minute that the two of them were engaged. Instead, their relationship abruptly ended. Overnight, Liam seemed to acquire the ambition to have sex with every attractive single woman in the state of Colorado. Megan wished he could find a woman he liked enough to settle down, but since her own relationships seemed to have all the depth and staying power of wet tissues, she wasn’t exactly in a position to criticize.
“I hoped the ranch might be too far off the beaten track for TV crews to waste time driving out here.” Liam leaned into the rental car and took out a soft leather duffel bag. With a skill acquired in childhood, he stuck out his foot and blocked the dogs from jumping into the backseat. “Obviously I underestimated the news appeal of Dad’s disappearance.”
“It’s not just the fact that he’s disappeared. It’s the fact that he was a bigamist. You don’t get too many of those nowadays.” Megan stopped Bruno from chasing a rabbit by scratching the precise spot behind his ears that guaranteed to make him squirm in ecstasy.
Liam pulled a face. “Just how bad have the reporters been?”
She gave a short, hard laugh. “Somewhere north of rabid. A crew from Channel Six drove down from Jackson Hole within a couple of hours of our hearing the news. The producer demanded an exclusive interview. He informed me that we owed him an interview because Channel Six is our local station and the people of Wyoming have a right to know how Mom feels about Dad’s other wife and daughter!”
Liam muttered an expletive beneath his breath. “I trust you told