exactly why they could. “I’ll go see Mr. MacKade on Monday and tell him to put the money through.”
“Cool.” Bryan leaped to his feet. “I’m going to call Con and tell him we’re rich.”
“No.”
He skidded to a halt. “But, Mom…”
“No. Bragging about money is very uncool. And I might as well break it to you now, Ace. It doesn’t make us rich, and I’m dumping it into a college fund.”
His mouth dropped open, nearly scraping his shoes. “College? That’s a hundred years away. Maybe I won’t even go.”
“That’ll be up to you, but the money’ll be there.”
“Oh, man.” At nine, Bryan was experiencing the pain of a fortune won and lost. “All of it?”
“All—” his shattered face changed her mind in midstep “—except some. You can have one thing. It’ll be like a present from your grandfather.”
Hope bloomed. “One anything?”
“One any reasonable thing. A gold-plated Corvette slides over to the unreasonable side.”
He let out a whoop, leaped over to hug her. “I’ve gotta go look up something in my baseball-card price guide.”
She watched him go, full steam, catapulting onto the porch, streaking into the house with the screen door slamming like a gunshot behind him.
Later, while she grilled burgers on the porch with Bryan curled up with his price guide and dreams of glory, Jared sat on the other side of the haunted woods and thought of her.
He was tempted, very tempted, to stride through those woods and finish the altercation she had started that afternoon out on the sidewalk in front of Ed’s.
Prickly women weren’t his style, Jared reminded himself and set the chair rocking. Prickly women with lightning tempers and murky pasts were even less so. Not that she wasn’t interesting, and not that he didn’t like fitting puzzle pieces together.
But his life was cruising along at a very comfortable pace at the moment. He would have enjoyed her companionship—on a purely superficial level, of course. A few dates, leading to physical contact. After all, a dead man would fantasize about rolling around with a woman who looked like that.
And Jared MacKade wasn’t dead.
He also wasn’t stupid. The woman who’d blasted him that afternoon was nothing but trouble. The last thing one hot temper needed was to crash up against another. That was why he preferred his women cool, composed and reasonable.
Like his ex-wife, he thought with a grimace. She’d been so cool there were times he wanted to hold a mirror in front of her mouth to see if she was still breathing.
But that was another story.
First thing Monday morning, he was going to draft a nice formal letter advising Savannah Morningstar of her inheritance and the steps she was required to take to accept or decline it.
He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty for a client, sweating for one, even losing sleep for one. But she wasn’t his damn client, and he’d taken professional courtesy to his colleague out west as far as he intended to.
He was out of it.
Hell, the woman had a kid. A very appealing kid, but that was beside the point. If he pursued a personal relationship with her, it would involve the kid, as well. There was no way around that one and, Jared admitted, there shouldn’t be one.
Then there was that fact that, beneath that scorching beauty, the woman was tough as shoe leather. There was no doubt that she’d been around, knew the ropes and had probably climbed plenty of them. A woman didn’t get eyes that aware by spending all her time baking biscuits.
He imagined she could chew a man up, spit him out, and have him come crawling back for more.
Well, not this man.
He could handle her, of course. If he wanted to.
That exotic, unbelievable face zipped straight to the center of his mind and taunted him.
God, he wanted to.
In disgust, Jared sprang up and headed into the woods. He needed to walk, he decided. And he preferred the company of ghosts to his own thoughts.
Chapter 4
“G ood
“Cool.” Bryan leaped to his feet. “I’m going to call Con and tell him we’re rich.”
“No.”
He skidded to a halt. “But, Mom…”
“No. Bragging about money is very uncool. And I might as well break it to you now, Ace. It doesn’t make us rich, and I’m dumping it into a college fund.”
His mouth dropped open, nearly scraping his shoes. “College? That’s a hundred years away. Maybe I won’t even go.”
“That’ll be up to you, but the money’ll be there.”
“Oh, man.” At nine, Bryan was experiencing the pain of a fortune won and lost. “All of it?”
“All—” his shattered face changed her mind in midstep “—except some. You can have one thing. It’ll be like a present from your grandfather.”
Hope bloomed. “One anything?”
“One any reasonable thing. A gold-plated Corvette slides over to the unreasonable side.”
He let out a whoop, leaped over to hug her. “I’ve gotta go look up something in my baseball-card price guide.”
She watched him go, full steam, catapulting onto the porch, streaking into the house with the screen door slamming like a gunshot behind him.
Later, while she grilled burgers on the porch with Bryan curled up with his price guide and dreams of glory, Jared sat on the other side of the haunted woods and thought of her.
He was tempted, very tempted, to stride through those woods and finish the altercation she had started that afternoon out on the sidewalk in front of Ed’s.
Prickly women weren’t his style, Jared reminded himself and set the chair rocking. Prickly women with lightning tempers and murky pasts were even less so. Not that she wasn’t interesting, and not that he didn’t like fitting puzzle pieces together.
But his life was cruising along at a very comfortable pace at the moment. He would have enjoyed her companionship—on a purely superficial level, of course. A few dates, leading to physical contact. After all, a dead man would fantasize about rolling around with a woman who looked like that.
And Jared MacKade wasn’t dead.
He also wasn’t stupid. The woman who’d blasted him that afternoon was nothing but trouble. The last thing one hot temper needed was to crash up against another. That was why he preferred his women cool, composed and reasonable.
Like his ex-wife, he thought with a grimace. She’d been so cool there were times he wanted to hold a mirror in front of her mouth to see if she was still breathing.
But that was another story.
First thing Monday morning, he was going to draft a nice formal letter advising Savannah Morningstar of her inheritance and the steps she was required to take to accept or decline it.
He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty for a client, sweating for one, even losing sleep for one. But she wasn’t his damn client, and he’d taken professional courtesy to his colleague out west as far as he intended to.
He was out of it.
Hell, the woman had a kid. A very appealing kid, but that was beside the point. If he pursued a personal relationship with her, it would involve the kid, as well. There was no way around that one and, Jared admitted, there shouldn’t be one.
Then there was that fact that, beneath that scorching beauty, the woman was tough as shoe leather. There was no doubt that she’d been around, knew the ropes and had probably climbed plenty of them. A woman didn’t get eyes that aware by spending all her time baking biscuits.
He imagined she could chew a man up, spit him out, and have him come crawling back for more.
Well, not this man.
He could handle her, of course. If he wanted to.
That exotic, unbelievable face zipped straight to the center of his mind and taunted him.
God, he wanted to.
In disgust, Jared sprang up and headed into the woods. He needed to walk, he decided. And he preferred the company of ghosts to his own thoughts.
Chapter 4
“G ood
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