she would never do.
'Anyway, I left, and we sort of lost touch.'
'How did Mr. MacKade know he was dead? Did he know him?'
'No, it's a lawyer thing. Your grandfather got hurt, and it started him thinking, I guess. He hired this lawyer out in Oklahoma to find us, and the lawyer called Mr. MacKade. It all took awhile, then Mr. MacKade came out to tell me. And to let me know that your grandfather left some money.'
'Wow, really?'
'It's about seven thousand—'
'Dollars?' Bryan finished for her, eyes popping. It was all the money in the world. Enough for a new bike, a new mitt, the Cal Ripkin rookie baseball card he lusted for. 'We get to keep it? Just like that?'
'I have to sign some papers.'
The dollar signs faded from his eyes long enough for Bryan to read his mother's face. 'How come you don't want it?'
'I... Oh, Bryan.' Defeated, she curled up her legs and rested her brow on them. 'I don't know how to explain it to you. I've been so mad at him all these years. Now I'm mad at him for waiting until he was dead.'
Bryan patted her head and thought it over. 'Is it like him saying he's sorry? And if you take it you'd be saying you were sorry, too?'
She let out a half laugh at the simplicity of it. 'Why couldn't I have thought of that?' Wearily she lifted her head, studied his face. 'You think we should take it.'
'I guess we don't need to.' He watched Cal Ripkin fly gracefully away. 'I mean, you've got your job, and we've got a house now.'
'No,' she murmured. 'We don't need to.' She felt the weight slip from her shoulders. They didn't need to, and that was 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 Four
'Good afternoon, MacKade law offices.' Sissy Bleaker, Jared's secretary, answered the phone on the fly. It was quarter to five, she had a hot date in exactly one hour, and the boss had been like a bear with a sore tooth all day. 'Oh, yes, hello, Mr. Brill. No, Mr. MacKade is in conference.'
Sissy could have spit nails when the front door opened. How the devil was she supposed to look irresistibly sexy in an hour if she couldn't get out of here?
'I'll be happy to take a message.' As she picked up a pad, she glanced up. And decided she could have a week at her disposal and not pull off the kind of in-your-face sexy that had just walked into Jared MacKade's outer office.
Savannah hated being here. She hated that she'd felt obliged to change out of jeans into pleated trousers and a jacket. Something about visiting official places compelled her to put on a front.
And this place certainly looked official. The pretty plants and bland pastel paintings on matte-white walls didn't hide the fact that law was the order here. The carpet was a muted gray, the deeper-toned chairs in the waiting area were likely just the wrong side of comfortable.
We wouldn't want people to be at their ease now, would we? she thought bitterly.
She'd never known a den of authority—social services, a principal's office, an unemployment line—to offer comfort. Still, she'd thought the man had more style than to choose such a cold, formal setting for his work.
The secretary behind the polished reception-area desk was young, bright-eyed and, Savannah was sure, fiercely efficient. The quick greeting smile she sent in Savannah's direction was carefully empty of curiosity and perfectly balanced between warm and cool.
Savannah had no idea Sissy was curdling with envy inside.
'Yes, Mr. Brill, I'll see that he gets your message. You're welcome. Goodbye.' Wondering just where the
