Perfect Family by Patricia; Potter Page A

the dog lay down, putting his head between his front paws. Timber always knew what he was thinking. He might have looked like a hound from hell, but the part-wolf, part-dog mixture was the smartest animal he’d ever trained.
    Timber didn’t care if his master was charming.
    But Sarah sure as hell did. She’d pleaded with him to be charming.
    He grimaced at the thought. Hell, he didn’t know a damn thing about being charming. He didn’t care to know.
    He would leave that up to Alex.
    The ride up to Sedona was fascinating. Spectacular. If only all the if s didn’t eat at her. If only her stomach hadn’t turned into a South American forest full of butterflies. She drank in the vistas, the saguaro and other varieties of cactus. It was a world apart from the lush forests she knew. An alien world but beautiful in its own stark way.
    She sped by places called Deadman’s Creek and Sunset Point and Black Canyon, longing to stop and explore the small winding roads that led to those intriguing-sounding locations. But she was committed to a party tonight, a welcoming get-together.
    An inspection, she feared. An inspection she was sure to fail. She was only too aware of her limited wardrobe. She’d bought several silk blouses and one elegant pantsuit for the trip. She’d added a skirt and several pairs of slacks from her own wardrobe. Inadequate, she thought, for one of the premier ranching families in Arizona, but she wasn’t willing to pretend she was something she was not. Nor spend a fortune doing it.
    She didn’t have an awe of politicians or of wealth, having seen too much of both on the horse farms. She was, instead, wary of anyone with inherited wealth. She had believed herself in love with one young scion of a wealthy family, and he’d turned out to be both vicious and duplicitous. Since then, she’d been reluctant to trust many people. But she wanted to trust Alex Kelley. She really wanted it.
    As her car climbed higher into the Colorado rim, she became enraptured by the strangely beautiful land. Was this her heritage? Was this land in her blood? Was that why she felt such a rising excitement? Yet, she had not agreed to a DNA test. It represented a commitment to her. She wasn’t ready to make that commitment. She wasn’t ready to believe that fairy tales really did come true. Neither could she quite concede that her father had lied to her all these years.
    Maybe she wouldn’t want to be related to this family.
    She wished, more than anything, that her emotions didn’t run amok, that she could be practical and measured and objective, as she’d tried so hard to be about her life. She’d sworn never to be ruled again by impulses, to allow them to overcome her good sense.
    But now she was a squirming mess of conflicting cautions, hopes, and dreams, and nothing she did seemed to tamp them down.
    A family. A huge family. And horses .
    Could she bear being around horses again? Live ones. She’d been collecting china ones for years, her safe substitute for live ones. She had given up what she once loved best after the nightmare of her father’s death. Given up? No, she’d run from everything that reminded her of that night.
    She knew now she hadn’t entirely succeeded. Her carousel horses were her substitute, steeds to take her off on adventures and away from her father’s too-often drunken spells and later from memories.
    Could she dare dream once more?
    Alex lounged in the foyer of the Quest, waiting for Jessica to check in.
    He debated how much warning to give her. He had learned far more about her than she’d ever guessed. Some he’d shared with the family, some he had not.
    He had admitted to some investigation, but not to the extent of it. In fact, Sarah knew more than the others, and that was not all. It had been Sarah’s money that financed the search, and he’d felt honor-bound to give all that information to her,