Buch lesen: «The Landry Brothers», Seite 2

On the short portion of the “L” sat a state-of-the-art laptop. It was one of the sleek, chrome models that supposedly traveled well. Next to the computer was a small tower of disks, color-separated and labeled in bold, block letters that were so perfectly matched in shape and size that she had to look twice to confirm they were handwritten.

Dropping her purse next to the chair, Molly rose and went to the first of three bookcases that lined the opposite wall. Black plastic videotape cases were lined like soldiers on the first three shelves. A closer inspection revealed that they were in alphabetical order. Seriously anal.

The second case was a collection of reference books, alphabetized and separated by size, color and topic. He had everything ranging from the Annotated Laws of the State of Montana to a Zoologists Guide to Bears. Pathologically anal.

Had it not been for the contents of the third bookcase, she would have started wondering about his mental health. On these shelves she found glimpses of him as a man. There were several framed photographs. Many, she guessed, were family pictures. They seemed to cover decades. One in particular caught her eye. Carefully, she lifted it off the shelf. Nine sets of smiling eyes looked back at her.

She shivered at the mere thought of such a huge family. The parents made a handsome couple. Chandler obviously came by his good looks honestly. His father was a very handsome man and his mother was stunning. She looked quite out of place among all that testosterone.

She also looked sad, Molly thought. There was something in her clear-blue eyes that seemed distant, unconnected. Molly felt herself smile, the poor woman was probably sleep deprived. She probably hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since the birth of her first of seven sons.

“I’m the cute one—second from the left,” a slightly familiar male voice said from the doorway.

Molly turned to find Seth Landry smiling a greeting. He looked quite official in his sheriff’s uniform. And her brain made the predictable comparisons. Seth, like Chandler, was tall, dark and incredibly fit. His smile was warm and charming. Charm seemed to be an inherited trait among the Landrys.

Molly replaced the picture in its spot and extended her hand as she stepped forward. “Nice to see you again, Sheriff.”

“That’s right,” he acknowledged with a slight nod. “You worked with my nephew a few years back.”

“How is Kevin?”

“Great. Spoiled. Adjusting to being a big brother.”

“I ran into Callie at the grocery store,” Molly recalled. “She had little Sheldon with her. He’s adorable.”

“I think so, but then, I’m the favorite uncle, so I’m prejudiced.”

“I’m the favorite uncle,” Chandler insisted. He moved past Seth to place two mugs of coffee onto the desk, then hugged Seth and gave him a loud slap on the back.

Molly looked on with a twinge of envy. It must be nice to have a sibling. She hadn’t had that kind of physical contact with anyone since her father’s death. While she adored Gavin, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t this.

“Sorry to drag you out here,” Chandler said. “I’m sure it’s a waste of your time.”

“I disagree,” Molly insisted. “I think that once you review the call, Sheriff, you’ll believe, like I do, that there is cause to investigate.”

“I’ll defer to you, Doctor,” Seth replied easily. “Chandler rarely takes anything seriously enough. It’s been a problem his entire life.”

Chandler tossed his brother a “kiss-off” look, then turned his attention back to Molly.

Her pretty eyes were little more than angry gray-green slits. Her pale skin was flushed but otherwise perfect. She was beautiful. And she was wrong.

“I’m sure it was just a crank call,” he reiterated.

“I disagree,” she countered. “I think if you listen to the tape—I assume one was recorded?”

“Yes,” Chandler supplied.

“It’s being cued in the control room as we speak,” Seth added. “I’d like the two of you to walk me through it.”

“My pleasure,” Molly said, spinning on her heel and walking ahead of them.

Chandler shook his head at the sight of her rigid back. His expression softened as his eyes dropped lower. Down to the gentle slope of her hips, lower still, to her shapely, toned legs. The woman had a great body.

Chandler’s brother grabbed his upper arm, holding him back and leaning closer before whispering, “Killer body.”

“You’re an old married guy, you shouldn’t be noticing bodies anymore. Killer or otherwise.”

“Just doing my job,” Seth retorted.

“How is admiring the good doctor’s tush part of your job description?”

“Investigation.” Seth shoved his Stetson back against his forehead and tilted his head slightly to the right as they slowly followed Molly down the hallway.

“Knock it off,” Chandler groused. “You have a beautiful wife. Go look at her.”

“I do,” Seth said on a contented sigh. “Every chance I get.”

“Then leave this one for me.” He saw Seth’s reproachful look out of the corner of his eye. “What?”

“She knows Callie. And Sam. And Kevin. And Taylor.”

Chandler’s brain flashed the images of his sister-in-law, his brother Sam, their son, and the Landrys’ housekeeper, Taylor Reese. None of the pictures in his mind deterred him from admiring the enticing view of Molly in her fitted navy suit. “So?”

Seth made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a groan. “Don’t be stupid, Chandler. You know better than to fool around with a friend of the family. When it ends—and we both know it always does—there’ll be divided loyalties and hell to pay.”

Chandler shrugged, knowing there was some merit to Seth’s argument. Very few things in life were as scary as the wrath of a woman. One surefire way to incur said wrath was to date and dump a friend. Women were amazing. Their friendships created a universal agreement that made the Musketeers look like pikers. Dump one and the others made you pay. Big-time.

“I’m just window-shopping,” Chandler said. “No harm in that, is there?”

“With you?” Seth asked. “Hell yes. You’re never satisfied by looking. Never were, never will be.”

Chandler jabbed his brother in the ribs with his elbow. “I’ll have you know I’m the picture of self-control.”

Rolling his eyes, Seth snickered. “You’re like a two-year-old, little brother. You need instant gratification. You see something you like, you want it five minutes ago. And you bore easily.”

Chandler watched as Molly shifted her purse from one dainty hand to the other. “How could anyone get bored with such a stunning creature?”

“You’d find a way,” Seth insisted. “Try some restraint. It builds character.”

“Screw character,” Chandler whispered as he donned his best poker face.

They reached the end of the corridor and Molly appeared to be at a loss. Placing his hand at the back of her waist, Chandler nudged her gently in the direction of the control booth. Inwardly he smiled as he felt her body shudder beneath his touch. To a lesser man, that might have been a deterrent. But he knew better. That small flinch was an acknowledgment, tangible proof that she was aware of his fingers splayed against her spine.

“In here,” he said, stepping to the side of the door and gallantly making a production out of allowing her to enter first.

Seth stepped forward and mumbled, “Suck up.”

“Jealous.”

“Hardly. I’ve got a wife, remember?”

“Who wants a wife when you can have her?”

“Who says you can have her?” Seth countered. “She seems pretty uninterested to me.”

“She won’t be for long.”

“Don’t go there, Chandler. She’s a nice lady. Been good to our family.”

“And those are two very good reasons for me to invite her to dinner.”

“Suit yourself,” Seth sighed. “But when you mess this up, I won’t save you from Callie or Taylor.”

“Who says I’m going to screw up?”

“Your entire life history.”

He shrugged and muttered, “I wish I’d been an only child.” Still, Seth’s words struck an unpleasant chord. Though he’d bite off his tongue before admitting it to his brother, Chandler knew his dating credentials fell far short of stellar. He did tend to rush into relationships, only to discover after the fact that he’d chosen poorly. But that didn’t make him incapable of having a real relationship. Did it? He sighed. Okay, so he’d done some borderline wrong things. But never once, not even for a split second, had he ever intended to hurt anyone.

Molly was fascinated by the vastly complicated electronic equipment crammed into a small, two-tiered room. One entire wall was monitors. Some were tuned to network programming, others were blank, still others were live feeds from the cameras located in the studios.

There were two long consoles in the room, with too many switches, dials and colored buttons to count. Several casually attired people with headsets manned the control boards. Yanking off his headset, a rotund man in a rumpled golf shirt stepped forward to welcome them.

She recognized the voice immediately. He was the producer who had called her with arrangements to do Good Morning Montana. He was also the disembodied voice she’d heard over the studio’s speakers.

“I’m Mike Murray,” he said, offering a beefy hand, and looking at Seth over her shoulder. “We’ve got the tape all set-up, sheriff.”

“Thank you,” Seth said. “Mind if we do this in private?”

The producer looked perplexed. “Yeah, I do. This is a newsroom. If it turns out there’s something to this call, then we have a responsibility to our viewers to stay on top of it.”

Seth did not appear pleased. “You also have a responsibility not to hinder my investigation.”

The burly producer seemed to be mulling it over.

Chandler stepped up and said, “Don’t sweat it, Mike, I’ll run the tape machine and if anything of interest comes of this, I’m on it.”

As soon as the other employees were dismissed, Molly and Seth were given seats at the console. Chandler opted to lean against the edge of the second row, his fingers within easy reach of the machine’s controls.

They watched the tape twice in silence, then Seth began asking for their impressions at various parts. After almost three hours, Molly had memorized every syllable of John’s call.

“He’s young,” she said when the tape ended. “Early twenties.”

“Why do you say that?” Seth asked.

“He mentions the government screwing him. Teenagers don’t really have much interaction with the government.”

“But he could be older than twenties, right?” Seth asked.

“Assuming he isn’t a crackpot,” Chandler spoke up, “his vocabulary is more in keeping with a young adult.”

Molly turned and gave him a smile. “Very good. And I agree. He used ‘lousy’ and ‘crappy’ which would be more appropriate for a twenty-year-old than a thirty-five year old. He also said his mother needed him. It indicates an inflated sense of self-importance.”

“Aren’t all men self-important?”

Molly again had to smile at Chandler’s question. “Pretty much,” she agreed, amused. “But in this case, he lumps his mother in with all his other problems. It shows minimal separation. I would guess this guy hasn’t had a great deal of life experience apart from his nuclear family.”

“This is good, I think—” Seth’s thought was interrupted by the sound of his cell phone. Grabbing it from the clip on his belt, Seth flipped it open and placed it against his ear. “Yes?” There was a lengthy pause, then “Say that again. Got it. I’ll be right there.”

“Problem?”

Seth’s brow wrinkled into a deep frown that reached the corners of his eyes. “Maybe. Just got a 911 call for a floater in Spawn Creek.”

“A woman?” Molly asked, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Could it be John’s mother?”

“Won’t know for a while.” Seth stood and put his notepad into the breast pocket of his uniform shirt. “I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll go with you,” Chandler offered.

Seth shook his head. “No way. I don’t want any press on this just yet.”

“It’s a crime scene, Seth,” Chandler argued. “I’ve got every right to be there with a camera crew.”

Molly saw a flash of anger pass between the two men. It was so intense that she actually flinched.

“No camera, Chandler. Not on this one.”

“Why? What’s so special about this one?”

“It’s bad,” Seth answered slowly. “Really bad.”

Chapter Three

“Is she still hurling?” Seth asked without turning. He was crouched close to the remains, overseeing the horrific but necessary task of pulling the torso from the brackish shallows of Spawn Creek.

Chandler glanced over his shoulder to where he’d hurriedly parked the car. Molly was doubled over behind a shrub, about fifty discreet yards away. He didn’t blame her one bit. It was everything he could do to keep his own revulsion in check. “Yep. We’ve all been there.” He felt genuine sympathy for the woman but was a little perplexed by her reaction. “She has an M.D., you’d think she’d be better equipped for something like this.”

Seth shot him a quick glance. “I don’t think anyone can be prepared for something like this. Hell, I’m not prepared. What kind of animal could do this?”

Chandler shrugged, knowing his brother’s question was rhetorical. There wasn’t an explanation for this kind of savagery. At least, none that any sane person could conjure. This was brutal, ugly and violent. As bad as anything he’d seen during his tour in the first Gulf War.

“It’s going to be tough to get an ID,” Seth remarked to the crime-scene tech preparing to transport the remains. “Whoever did this went to a lot of trouble to make it virtually impossible for us to identify her.”

“Unless you can find the rest of her,” Chandler suggested. That thought made his stomach clench with renewed repugnance.

Seth stood and expelled an audible breath. Chandler knew his brother well. Seth would do whatever it took to find justice for this poor woman.

As the tech was lifting the remains onto the body bag, Chandler spotted something. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing in the general direction of a dark impression on the torso’s left shoulder.

Both men peered closer, examining the bizarre marking. “Maybe that’ll help you with the identification.” Chandler suggested.

“Looks postmortem,” the crime tech offered as he stopped to photograph the marking from various angles. “A burn of some kind.”

“It’s something,” Seth remarked, though his tone didn’t indicate much hope that this bit of information would actually bear fruit. “I want the M.E. on this now,” he instructed. “Don’t want to wait for the full report. Have someone send over the photographs as soon as they’re printed. And get me the estimate on time of death.”

“That’s going to be hard,” the tech replied. “The water temperature is fifty-two degrees, hard to get exacts on floaters.”

“I’ll take approximates for now,” Seth fairly barked, frustration evident in his tone. He turned to Chandler. “Why don’t you take the doctor back to her car. I’ve got my guys coming out here for a full search of the banks and divers on their way to see if the rest of our Jane Doe might be somewhere upstream.”

“Three different rivers and two lakes feed into this creek, bro. That’s going to be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.”

Seth shrugged. “True, so after you drop off Dr. Jameson, give Savannah a call and let her know I probably won’t be home for a while.”

“Will do,” Chandler agreed, placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder to give a comforting squeeze. “God. Do you think—”

“This was the work of your morning caller?”

Seth met his gaze. “My gut tells me yes. Guy calls in, says he offed his mother? If it wasn’t, this would stretch coincidence.” Seth shot a sympathetic glance across the clearing. “I think that also means you owe the good doctor an apology.”

“One of the first things on my list,” Chandler agreed easily. Molly looked rather pathetic, and his protective instincts came rushing to the fore. It surprised him that he should feel such a strong desire to walk over and pull her into his arms. She was, after all, an acquaintance. For now, his brain suggested. So he lusted for her and he didn’t like seeing her so upset. That didn’t make him a creep. Actually, he thought, his posture straightening, it made him one hell of a nice guy. Hopefully she would notice. He gave Seth’s shoulder a final squeeze. “Keep me in the loop on this one, okay?”

“You were the first point of contact for him. You’re already in the loop.” He jerked his chin across the field to Molly. “So’s she.”

“My thought exactly,” Chandler said grimly. “Keep me posted?”

“Will do.” Seth was back in sheriff mode as he strode to talk to his people. Chandler went the other way. Walking through the long grass, he was mindful of each step, knowing the police would be combing every inch of the area for evidence over the next several hours. So what was the deal? he wondered. What kind of sicko could hack a woman up like that, and, most disturbing, was it John? Was this the mother he had claimed to have killed? If so, something told him this was the beginning rather than the end.

He found Molly sitting in the grass. Her slender shoulders lifted and fell as she sucked in deep, calming breaths. She seemed to have regained most of her composure, even though her skin was still a pasty shade of gray.

He reached his hand out to pull her up. She wobbled unsteadily. He shot out his other hand to support her elbow, and at the same time she put a shaky hand on his chest to brace herself. “Ready to go?” he asked.

“About half an hour ago would’ve been fine. Thanks, I’m okay now.” She took a small step back, and reluctantly he let go, allowing her to brush the grass and debris from the back of her skirt in what he recognized as a “hands off” sign. Interesting.

He pointed to his car. “How about I run you home?”

“Oh, I—”

He started walking toward the row of vehicles parked off to the side. “I’ve got a bottle of water in the car. You still look a little green.” And, God only knew, he felt a little green himself.

She gave him a small smile. “Sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize. I’ve seen battle-tested soldiers and seasoned detectives have the same reaction. It’s basic human nature to be nauseated seeing something like that.”

“I should have been able to handle it. I thought I’d graduated from being a total wuss.”

Chandler smiled sympathetically. He gave her points for maintaining her sense of humor. “I had no idea there was a graduation process for wussiness.”

She rolled her pretty, green eyes. “Silly, I know.” Her soft mouth curved. “But medical schools insist on future doctors having some sort of qualifications before they practice. I made it. But unfortunately not before earning the nickname ‘Meltdown Molly’ after my first anatomy class. Saw the body on the slab and dropped like the proverbial stone.”

He laughed. “Since you’ve got an M.D. after your name, I assume you overcame that tendency.”

“Yeah. So did I,” she said on a deep sigh. “Until a little while ago.” Her eyes flickered toward the activity on the shore, then back to him. “That poor, poor woman. Only someone consumed with hatred could’ve done something that vicious.”

“There are a lot of sick bastards out there,” he agreed grimly. “I believe you nailed it this morning. Caller John wasn’t a hoax.”

She stopped in midstride to clutch his arm, surprising him by the strength of her grip. And his own reaction to having her slender fingers clasped around his bicep. Heat shot up his arm. Talk about bad timing.

“Is that—I mean is she John’s mother?”

“Since Jasper isn’t the murder capital of the world, it only makes sense that whoever called in this morning was telling the truth.”

“Sick bastard is right,” she agreed under her breath, surprising him again.

Her hand fell away and they continued up to where his car waited. “Isn’t that a little harsh for a shrink? Aren’t you supposed to understand depraved behaviors?”

“Understand—sure. I also understand that anyone who can decapitate a woman’s head, as well as her hands and feet, deserves whatever severe remedy is available from the courts. Hopefully something that involves a lethal injection after he’s spent all those years of appeals locked in his cell watching an endless loop of videos of his victim.”

HE WISHED HE’D MADE A VIDEO so he could watch himself killing her over and over again. But he wasn’t that stupid. Hell, he didn’t even have a video camera. He’d have to make do with the sharp, full-color mental images of the Big Event.

“This is so cool!”

He looked at his friend and easily accepted the praise. Now if you could just see the movie in my head—that would really impress you. “All I have left to do is connect these two wires.”

He liked having an audience as he worked. Even if the audience was only two of his peers. Well, he didn’t think they were his peers. While they were the same age and had grown up together, the other men were followers, and he was a leader. Soon everyone would know that. Soon everyone would see that he really was destined for greatness.

“Will this, like, totally blow up the whole street, or what?”

He finished capping the twisted wires and fit them inside the remote-control device. “It’ll get the job done.”

“So then we call the TV station and the papers and—”

His pointed stare silenced his friend. “We don’t do anything. I make the decisions.”

“We’re in this, too,” the youngest member of the group whined.

Man, he hated whining. It reminded him of her. And thinking about her always made his heart race and his palms sweat with helpless rage. Ha! he thought triumphantly. Not so helpless now, am I Mama? He gave the other man a cold look. “Do you want to end up like my mother?”

The younger man gulped and shook his shaved head.

“This operation has one leader and that’s me.” Jesus. Power was euphoric. His heart raced, but this time from excitement. It was all coming together. Just like he’d said it would. Like a ball rolling downhill, his confidence gained momentum. He was empowered by his own smarts and skill. “I chose you all,” he looked from one to the other. The boss man. In charge. Master of his own fate. Hell, yeah!

“Handpicked each one of you,” he said as if it were God’s hand that had chosen them. And why not? He was the next best thing. “This mission is critical. If my orders aren’t followed to the letter, or if either of you gets out of line, you’ll be replaced.” He paused for effect. Nice, real nice. They were about wetting their pants. “Is that clear?”

He gloated inside as they nodded, eyes wide, showing fear and demonstrating the respect he so richly deserved. His mentor was right. He was a natural-born leader. This was his destiny. It was so close now, he could almost taste it.

“We’ll store the bomb in the shed out by the old Greeley Mine,” he told them.

“Why not just plant it now?”

Again his authority was being challenged and again he felt a sudden and intense rush of rage. Pain, sharp and intense stabbed behind his eyes, and blood rushed to his skin like fiery sheet lightning. He grabbed his questioner, balled up his fist and punched him. The other man staggered backward from the blow, crashing into a table and scattering components onto the floor.

“Don’t.” He got a grip on the fallen man’s shirt and hauled him to his feet.

“Ever.” He punched him again, this time blood spurted from his friend’s nose.

“Question.” He pulled back and gut punched him. His pal doubled over.

“Me.” He jerked up his knee and made contact with the other man’s chin.

Bleeding and unconscious, the guy crumpled to the floor, then lay motionless.

Power. He had it. He was invincible now. He gave the other man a hard look. “Any more questions?”

“Not me, dude.”

As it should be. “Good.” Though his knuckles hurt from the contact with the man’s jaw, that little bit of physical exertion had allowed him to release some of the fury surging through his system. Not as much as killing him would’ve done, but killing the weasel dog wasn’t in the cards. He smiled inwardly. At least not today. He still had a use for his good old buddy.

His heartbeat resumed its normal cadence as his blood pressure went down. “There’s still some covert work to be done.” He wiped the spatter of his victim’s blood from his hand to his jeans and stepped over the man’s extended legs. “I’ll be giving each of you a specific assignment. Are you ready for your instructions?”

MOLLY ARRIVED BACK at her modest apartment feeling utterly exhausted. On the plus side, her stomach had quieted. On the minus side, she was struggling to push the horrific image of the mutilated torso from her mind.

She parked and walked the short distance to her front door, inserted her key and breathed in the calming scent of familiarity. Since she lived alone, the scents from her abundance of potpourri and candles were the closest substitute she had to hearing “Welcome home, honey, how was your day?”

As was her habit, she dropped her purse and keys on the foyer table and automatically pressed the button on her telephone’s answering machine. The first four messages were to her home number. Three hang-ups and one from her mentor Gavin Templesman.

“Molly, honey, I heard about the show and I’m just calling to see how you’re dealing with it. Call me when you get in.”

She’d call Gavin back later. When she no longer had a burning desire to damn him to hell for having her fill in on the show. Intellectually she knew that Gavin wasn’t responsible for getting her dragged into the murder of that poor woman, emotionally she felt like sharing some of the bad karma.

Two beeps sounded, followed by a mechanical voice announcing, “Switching to remote message retrieval. Inbox for Dr. Jameson accessed.”

She stripped off her jacket as she listened to the lone message. Her ten-o’clock appointment for the next morning was canceling. Again.

“Lester,” she said as the message ended, “that’s three appointments in a row, pal. I’m sensing you’re not serious about working on your issues.”

She jotted a note to remind herself to send Lester Boyle a letter explaining that his therapy was court ordered, and she was going to have to inform the court of his violation of that order.

“Nothing like telling a guy with a serious anger-management problem that you’re ratting him out,” she mumbled as she walked back through her bedroom to her bath and turned on the faucet. Could this day suck any more? she wondered as she prepared for her favorite indulgence.

As the Roman tub filled with hot, steamy water, she added a handful of lavender salts to the bath. Next, she lit the lavender-scented candles around the back ledge and went into her bedroom to retrieve the latest L. S. Connor novel, Hide and Seek. She placed the book on the tiled first step up to the tub. Next, she went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine, returned to the bath to place it next to the book and then stripped off the rest of her clothes.

In no time she left her world behind, engrossed in the latest adventures of Connor’s fictional hero, Caleb “Lucky” Wyatt. Wyatt was equal parts James Bond and Indiana Jones and Molly’s personal guilty pleasure. The author’s style was wonderful and the larger-than-life tales of Wyatt—head of ACE, the Anti-Crime Enforcement Agency—were both entertaining and romantic.

Yes, she was fully aware of the fact that she was living vicariously through a fictional hero—the kind that didn’t exist in the real world. Yes, she knew that when Wyatt seduced a woman in the book it wasn’t her. And that was a shame, because Wyatt was her ultimate fantasy man. He was intelligent, sexy, handsome, resourceful, cool under pressure, quick on his feet. He was—

A lot like Chandler Landry.

Molly almost dropped her coveted novel into the tub when that disturbing and unwelcomed parallel popped into her head.

Thinking carnal thoughts about a fake guy in a book was okay. It was safe. Equating Chandler to Wyatt was just wrong. Actually, merely thinking about Chandler in those terms was the total opposite of safe.

Aside from being a virtual stranger, he was everything she avoided in a man. There was the whole thing about his looks. It had been her experience that if the Good Lord gave a man physical perfection, he countered the generosity by subtracting important elements from other areas. Gorgeous men were usually arrogant. Usually self-possessed. Usually as shallow as a mud puddle after a long drought.

Then there was the money thing. Chandler—all the Landrys—were loaded. Old-family-money rich. The town of Jasper was founded by and named for Jasper Landry, Chandler’s however-many-greats grandfather. Rich guys were different. Different rules, different standards. Not that she was impoverished, but Molly knew he was way out of her league.

Then there was the celebrity thing. Chandler was a version of local royalty. His life was public and Molly—perhaps above all else—valued her privacy. It was safer to guard her past than to have to answer painful and intrusive questions.

She read the papers. She knew that any woman associated with Chandler normally got a mention of some sort. “Not mention,” she muttered as she put her book down and took a sip of wine. “A label,” she continued, sarcastically recalling what she’d read. “Former model blah-blah, or disgraced debutante blah-blah. Pass, thanks.”

She heard the phone ring in the bedroom but opted to let the machine pick up. She returned to her book and hated the fact that as she read her mind’s eye pictured Chandler in the role of her beloved Wyatt.

IT WAS WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT when Chandler arrived at his family’s ranch house. While he would always consider the place home, the huge clapboard house was currently occupied by his brothers Shane and Sam. But that was about to change. Sam and Callie were in the process of building their own place on the east edge of the property. Chandler guessed the decision to move out was two-fold. First and foremost, Sam and Callie had two kids and smart money said more would follow. Second, sharing living space with Shane probably cut into their private time. Assuming married people with two kids actually had private time.