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Wild Enough For Willa
Willa Longworth
Willa was a woman with one chance at destiny and she wasn’t going to let a man—or her longing for him—get in her way…or was she?
“Life’s like the weather. You can never be sure of it. That’s the miracle, don’t you see?”
Luke McKade
He had done all the right things for the wrong reasons—until he met Willa. From that moment, his life would never be the same.
“You owe me a romp in the hay, Mrs. Longworth.”
Little Red Longworth
This ailing heir wanted someone to care for him during his final days. He found an angel in Willa…and a wife.
“I went to kill me a lawyer and a bastard brother. I got a wife.”
Hesper Longworth
The spiteful sister-in-law doesn’t want Willa to get a single red cent.
“Your unfortunate past is hardly my concern, Willa dear. I’m here to buy you out.”
Brandon Baines
A powerful lawyer with an ego the size of Texas and a dangerous need to keep things—and Willa—quiet!
“It’s just me and you, sweetheart. We’re all alone in the middle of nowhere. Now, where’s the money?”
Also available from ANN MAJOR and MIRA Books
INSEPARABLE
Wild Enough for Willa
Ann Major
DEDICATION
To my precious daughter, Kimberley Leta Cleaves, who is quirky, funny, warm, witty, young. And because she is all those things, she is a challenge to me as a mother.When somebody asks me, where do you get your ideas, I should tell them from my daughter, who is my very own adorable muse.Thank you for Willa, Kimberley.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I want to thank the following people:
To Tara Gavin and Dianne Moggy for more than I can say
To Karen Solem
To Patience Smith
To Ted, for realizing that dinners and a clean house don’t matter nearly as much as writing
To Karen Olsson and Meg Guerra, who told me about Laredo
To Dorothy Deaver, who decorated Willa’s house
To Steve Stainkamp and Geri Rice
To Chris Misner and Greg McKee for telling me about the computer business
To Patricia Patterson for streamlining my business affairs so I can write
POEM
If I were alone in a desert
And feeling afraid,
I would want a child to be with me.
For then my fear would disappear
And I would be made strong.
This is what life in itself can do
Because it is so noble, so full of pleasure
And so powerful.
But if I could not have a child with me
I would like to have at least a living animal
At my side to comfort me.
Therefore,
Let those who bring about wonderful things
In their big, dark books
Take an animal—perhaps a dog—
To help them.
The life within the animal
Will give them strength in turn.
For equality
Gives strength in all things
And at all times.
—Meister Eckhart (1260–1329)
(Author’s note: As a cat lover, I change dog to cat. When I go alone into my imagination to write, Kanka, my cat, goes with me to help by sitting on my manuscript.)
Contents
Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Book Two
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Book Three
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Book Four
Chapter 25
Book One
“What we call the ending is usually the beginning.”
1
Marcie, his gentle, beautiful wife…Dead?
And it was all his fault.
Luke McKade sat alone in his vast penthouse office in southwest Austin. He willed the silence and the dark of his new gorgeous, empty building—the building that Marcie had helped design and decorate—to devour him.
Driven, he always worked later than his employees. Not that tonight was about work.
“Sa-a-ve the baby,” Marcie had whispered in her pronounced Texas drawl with its elongated vowels. She’d gripped him fiercely when he’d knelt over her bed. Her final, hoarse cry was swallowed, strangled. Then she’d died in his arms.
His mind had raced. His heart had thundered. What baby? What baby?
“A son,” the white-coated doctor had confirmed after the autopsy.
Luke wearily massaged the back of his neck. Restless by nature, always on the move, he rarely sat behind his desk this long—and never to reflect on his own shortcomings.
Murder. He’d done murder.
She’d been so beautiful. So gentle. So classy. How he had loved looking at her. She had known how to dress. Other men had envied him, which is why he’d married her.
He pushed his fingers through his untidy wavy black hair. On top of today’s unread newspapers and his managers’ reports from yesterday lay several mangled scraps of paper—his phone messages. Kate, his freckle-faced, madcap secretary with corkscrew red curls, scrawled numbers and names on whatever she had handy.
Among other problems, the Feds were suing him for restriction of trade, and he was trying to float a new IPO. Luke thumbed through the fast-food napkins, Post-it notes, and a couple of pages she’d torn from her calendar, his tension heightening. His lawyers had called. So had his ranch foreman. The name of the president of a rival company was highlighted by a smear of mustard. But what charged Luke was the name, Brandon Baines.
Brandon Baines had called three times.
Baines, big criminal lawyer in Laredo.
Laredo was a border town. As such, it was too far from Mexico City and too far from Washington, D.C. for either nation’s laws to be taken too seriously. Men like Baines could prosper there.
Baines and he had gone to law school together. He’d been like most of their class—rich, handsome, lily-white, ultraconservative—a racist to the core, and worse things, too, underneath his politically correct exterior. Baines hadn’t much cottoned to McKade’s darker skin or rougher, cruder views about life—except where they concerned women.
Baines’s tenacity and killer instincts had brought him fame and fortune in the free and easy Laredo. He had a rare talent for getting down and dirty in the courtroom. No lawyer in Texas had gotten more criminals acquitted than he. With the rise in crime, especially in drug dealing, his talents were in demand. He never gave up on a case. Never. Even when all seemed lost for the guiltiest of his drug-dealer clients, his mantra was, “This is good.”
Luke had forgotten all about Little Red’s imminent release.
I’m gonna shoot myself a lawyer and a bastard.
Luke didn’t like Baines or Laredo even though the two men shared a common enemy.
Little Red Longworth. What was he now—twenty-three?
The Longworths would be happy to have their precious son and brother home in New Mexico again.
Luke swallowed, trying to rid himself of the sudden bad taste in his mouth.
He wadded Kate’s scribblings and pitched them in the trash.
Later. Tomorrow.
Tonight was for Marcie, for his guilt.
Maybe everybody else in the whole damned world thought Marcie had slammed head-on into that limestone cliff all by herself, but Luke McKade knew differently. He’d killed her, and their unborn baby boy, as surely as if his hand had been on her black leather steering wheel.
Somehow it was easier to sit in the solitary gloom of his office with his own regrets than to endure the well-meant comfort of friends, colleagues and employees. He even preferred the fury of his hot-tempered, impossible mother-in-law to their consolation.
Sheila blamed him for the separation…for the accident…for her only daughter’s death.
Luke felt the muscles of his jaw tighten. World-famous in computer circles, he was tall, well built, black-haired. He stayed in shape. During the week he jogged or went to a gym. On weekends he did manual labor on his immense south Texas ranch. Indeed, he was well disciplined in all areas.
Ruthless, his competitors called him. Competent and innovative were the labels his friends attached.
Luke had sea-gray eyes. “And when you smile,” Marcie used to say, “you have the most devastatingly gorgeous face. Your eyes sparkle like dancing waves on a stormy day. I married you for that smile that gives your face so much energy. Now the only time I ever see it is when you perform for the press.”
Marcie had been right. His virile good looks, especially the practiced smile, were a facade. The man behind the mask was cold…dead…and wanted to stay that way.
He hated how he felt tonight—alive, raw, in pain, about to explode. He had to find a way to recap the volcano.
Luke McKade believed in order, in control. He lived by rules—his own. He never drank alcohol in front of his employees, and he wouldn’t be drinking tonight if he hadn’t closed LMK for the funeral.
Luke sat behind a mammoth mahogany desk. Nursing his second whiskey, he clenched Marcie’s framed photograph and stared unseeingly at the brilliant Austin skyline glittering against the black hills.
The world thought he was a hero. He’d had more fun when he’d been poor and fighting to make it. The higher he climbed, the more alienated and lonely he felt…the more powerless.…
Marcie? His brown hand touched the pale cheek behind cold glass. He had more money than Midas. But he couldn’t bring her back. He couldn’t tell her he was sorry.
He began to shake. Such white skin, such warm, soft skin she’d had…compared to his. Her golden hair had felt like the richest silk while his had been black and coarse like his mother’s. She’d been so high-class compared to him. His claim to fame was wealth. And power in the hottest business on the planet. They said he was a modern-day pirate, that he’d gotten where he was by greed and underhanded tactics.
Whatever. He was rich, unimaginably rich, now. CEO of a dozen computer companies, he was a giant in a world he’d helped shape. Known for his razor-sharp intelligence, tough negotiation tactics, and ruthless business instincts, he owned several highly competitive software and Internet businesses.
He’d known that the only reason an impoverished socialite like the exquisite Marcie Wilde had married a driven computer nerd like himself was for his money. He’d thrown that up at her the day she’d asked for a divorce.
“Your money used to be attractive…once,” she’d admitted. “But I always wanted you. I used to think that maybe someday you’d feel that way about me.”
“What the hell did I tell you before we got married—”
“I was in love. I thought I could change you. I thought I could settle till you fell for me, too. I thought I had enough love for both of us. You’re good-looking. Good in bed…at least at first I thought so. Then I realized you weren’t there. It was always your money and always going to be your money. I was like some object you’d bought to show off…a trophy. Nothing more. And I want more, to be more. I deserve more. You’re a dead man, Luke, at least with me.”
“I gave you everything.”
“And it’s killing me. I—I can’t go on like this.…This house we built together is not a home. It’s a monument like the pyramids or the Taj Mahal, tombs built for the dead to impress the living. You’re not rich…not really. You don’t have money. Your money has you.”
You’re killing me.
He’d remembered how eagerly she’d run to the door every night when he’d come home in the beginning of their marriage. Until he’d made it clear he didn’t like such exuberant displays of affection—in bed or out of it. But divorce?
He’d said, “So, how much are you going to take me for?”
“I don’t want a dime of your precious money.”
“One day some slick lawyer will call me and show us both what a liar you are.”
She’d stuck to her noble sentiment, taken a low-paying job. She’d rented a one-bedroom apartment. He’d hired a guy to keep tabs.
Even before she’d called three days ago, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Still, he’d been surprised and pleased; but furious, too, that he was so happy to hear from her.
She’d said she’d changed her mind about the divorce; she’d had something important to tell him, something too important and too thrilling to discuss over the phone.
“You want more money, don’t you—”
She’d begun to sob. “I wish…I wish I’d never met you.”
He’d been about to apologize.
“You are a bastard.”
Bastard. Her tearful insult had pushed him over some wild edge. He’d been vicious, gotten her completely distraught. She’d slammed the phone down. He’d had a premonition that had taken him to a cold, dark place in his heart and terrified him. Desperately he’d tried to call her back. Six times he’d dialed that number he’d known by heart.
She’d raced out and jumped in her car.
He’d jumped in his.
He’d been the first at the scene.
Marcie couldn’t handle stress or fighting. She hadn’t been the best driver under normal circumstances.
Luke imagined her racing up that narrow road that wound through limestone cliffs out to the lake and to the house in the hills they’d built together as newly-weds.
His house now.
In her fury, she’d taken the turn too fast. There’d been an oncoming car in her lane. She’d swerved and lost control. He saw her slim body hurtling into unforgiving rock.
Too late, he’d realized she’d been coming to tell him about their baby.
“She was a damn fool about you to the end,” Sheila had said. “She truly believed the baby—my grand-baby—might work the miracle she couldn’t. That’s why she was so pathetically eager to attempt a reconciliation. She’d thought that if the two of you adored the same child…Why couldn’t she see what a coldblooded bastard you are? This divorce thing was your fault! You killed her! She loved you—poor fool. Not that you can understand that. You murdered my daughter! And my grandson!”
Marcie had loved him.
Which was the last thing he’d wanted her to do.
She’d been several months along. Why hadn’t she told him she was pregnant sooner?
Words from the mourners came back to him.
“—terrible accident! Not your fault—”
“—leaving him, you know—”
“—do you blame her—”
“—going to take him to the cleaners—”
“—nothing you could have done—”
Never as long as Luke lived would he forget holding her, watching Marcie’s eyes glaze, feeling her slim body go slack in his arms. When she’d told him about the baby he’d realized she’d loved him…not his money.
If only.
Luke McKade didn’t believe in second chances.
“Nothing he could have done—”
Luke opened a drawer and slammed Marcie’s picture inside facedown. He wanted to forget her.
He flexed the fingers of his right hand. “Nothing? Like hell!”
He closed his eyes and saw Marcie’s beautiful face, so still and untouched by death as she’d lain in her coffin. The image was etched like a brand in his brain. He’d taught her to lie still when they’d had sex.
Not your fault.
Wrong.
He’d married a vulnerable young woman for her class—to improve his image, to add glamour to the lie that was his life. Everything about Luke McKade was a lie, including his official bio. There was no Luke McKade. The press’s Man of the Year was a myth. Every word in every article, in every magazine and newspaper that had ever been written about him were fantastic fabrications that a poor, ambitious boy with a head full of dreams had invented so that nobody would ever know what he really was—a Pueblo Indian woman’s bastard born in shame and despair to a man…
“Cut!”
Even in his wild, dark mood, Luke wasn’t about to think of his rich, powerful father…or the rest of that blue-blooded bunch he wanted to have nothing to do with in New Mexico.
He yanked Marcie’s picture out of the drawer and set it on his desk. He would keep it there until the sight of her beautiful face no longer made his gut clench. Only then would he put it away.
But he couldn’t look at it. Not tonight.
When he sprang to his feet and headed toward the door, the phone rang.
Curious, he stopped to read his Caller ID.
Brandon Baines.
Baines wasn’t calling about Marcie. Lawyers, who defended Mexican drug lords like Spook Rodriguez and Texas big shots’ kids gone wrong, didn’t call old law school classmates just to be nice.
Five years ago, Luke had sent Baines a client, a very special client.
Baines had screwed up so royally, they hadn’t spoken since.
The client had gotten five years in the federal pen with no chance of an early parole. At the sentencing, the eighteen-year-old client had screamed at Luke, “You deliberately set me up.”
“This is good,” Baines had said without missing a beat. “We’ll appeal.”
“You think this is good—’cause you charge by the hour. I’ll tell you what’s good, you slick, lying jerk. When I get out, I’m gonna shoot myself a lawyer—” the boy had turned on Luke “—and a bastard.”
Luke had lunged at him.
“This is good,” Baines had said, grabbing Luke, holding him back as three deputies stepped protectively in front of the prisoner.
“I’ll show you who the bastard is, you no-good, spoiled, son of a bitch,” Luke had snarled.
“Easy. Little Red’s your half brother, McKade,” said Baines.
“The hell he is. Nobody can know that. Understand? Nobody!”
Luke McKade’s official bio didn’t mention a pampered little brother gone wrong, didn’t mention Big Red Longworth, the famous ex-governor of New Mexico who was their biological father. Luke had deleted those folders from his database. They didn’t exist. He’d deleted them from his heart—an organ that didn’t exist, either.
Killer instincts. Baines didn’t give up easy. When the phone wouldn’t stop ringing, Luke slammed out of his office.
Little Red was due for parole any day.
I’m gonna shoot myself a lawyer…and a bastard.
Maybe the kid was already out. Maybe he was in Austin.…Maybe Baines was calling to warn him.
Luke was on his way home.
If the kid was here or on his way, Luke decided he’d leave the doors unlocked tonight. That way he’d be easy to find.
It was time he and the kid had it out. Way past time.
This is good.
2
The temperature was still ninety degrees when Luke’s Porsche leapt the last cedar-clad hill. Wheels spinning, the Porsche took the drive on two wheels, skidding to a halt. As the garage door lifted, he saw the empty space on the right side of the garage.
Marcie.
She was never coming back.
He parked on her side and got out. She was everywhere, almost a living presence tonight. If their sprawling one-story showplace with its tall chimneys, numerous balconies, and the impressive copper roof had been built with his money, it reflected Marcie’s taste and exquisite beauty. Adjoining the house were guest cottages. Beneath the mansion were the maid, Lucinda’s quarters. Marcie, who had loved to entertain, had thought of every comfort, caring even about Lucinda’s.
Marcie had loved stunning views and had chosen this lot to build their modern dream palace a thousand feet above shimmering Lake Travis. Windows that lacked lake views looked out upon lush gardens with fountains, reflecting pools and bird feeders.
These barren limestone hills covered with cedar and live oak on the outskirts of Austin with their vistas of the jewel-blue lake were fast becoming Texas’s answer to the Mediterranean. Or at least they had been Luke McKade’s answer—until Marcie had walked, taking her furniture and that hideous cat of hers, Mr. Tom. Without her and that spoiled beast she’d been so devoted to, the place felt as cold as a tomb.
Not that there weren’t any number of computer jackals with money to burn who’d made offers on the house the minute Marcie split. Lake Travis was the place to live among his set. Every day more trees were cleared, more castle sites started, each castle having to be bigger and more impressive than the one before.
He wasn’t about to sell. The house was image. He’d live here, in desolate splendor even if it reminded him of her—if it killed him. He’d buy a second car or maybe a new boat first thing Monday, so he could quit staring at that empty spot in his garage.
When Luke pushed open the immense brass-studded, teak front doors, he heard his phone. He raced for it. Brandon Baines was on his Caller ID.
Baines was persistent as hell. He took what he wanted or kept pushing until he got it. He wouldn’t let go of anything or anyone he considered his. He was especially ruthless with women. When they’d been in school he’d gotten a law student, a friend of Luke’s, pregnant. Even after her powerful daddy had made a stink, Baines had considered the girl his property to do with as he pleased.
When Baines had offered her money for an abortion, she’d refused. Her father had thrown her out then. In the end, Luke had let her move in with him for a couple of months until she could get on her feet, a fact that had infuriated the possessive Baines, who’d wanted to run things. When the baby was born, Baines had come to the hospital and tried to force the woman to give up her little girl and come back to him.
When she’d taken her daughter and vanished, Baines had blamed Luke. “Because of you, I’ve got a little bastard out there. The bitch could turn up with her brat at an awkward time.…”
“Because of me, your kid’s alive.”
“You would be partial to bastards—”
Luke’s fist had slammed into that golden jawline before he could finish his sentence. They hadn’t spoken for a year. After that run-in they’d graduated, gotten jobs and been on opposite sides of a case.
The phone started up once more.
Again, Luke avoided it. He went to the window and watched a boat speeding across that brilliant expanse of blue. He picked up his binoculars. A man held a woman with golden hair in his arms as they raced across the lake.
Marcie and he had gone boating most evenings. He hadn’t used the boat once since. Luke watched the white speedboat until it vanished behind an island. When it didn’t reappear on the far side of the island, he knew they’d thrown an anchor out, probably gone below to enjoy each other.
High on his hill, Luke felt alone, cut off from every living being on earth. Suddenly, he felt restless in the big, empty house. He needed to talk to somebody. The phone rang again. Luke went to the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and then the receiver.
“Where the hell have you been?” Baines demanded.
“Funeral.” Luke took a long pull from the bottle.
Baines’s quick, inappropriate laugh was a little hollow. “This is good—yours or mine?”
“My wife’s.”
“Sorry. Hey—I heard she left you.”
“We’d decided to get back together.” Not that Baines cared.
