The Black Sheep Heir

She waited with what had to be a silly, hopeful please-oh-please-accept-me grin on her face.

“I’m miffed,” he said.

“Well, I was puttering around the house, fixing to eat dinner myself, and I thought—”

He looked away and shook his head.

Getting the message loud and clear, Lacey set the basket on the ground, right by his boots, then turned to leave.

“Wait, Ms. Vedae.”

When she peeked over her shoulder, he’d picked up the wicker carrier and opened the door a crack wider. He glanced at her, something like guilt etching the lines around his mouth. “My privacy is important to me. Understand?”

With the way he’d growled the words, Lacey wondered if he was inviting her to share the meal or trying to scare her off.

Maybe she was being terribly invasive. “Bon appetit, Mr. Langley. I’ll leave you to your own company.”

And back she’d go to her massive house, wondering how it had ever become so empty.

The hinges screamed as he opened the door wider. “Get in here.”

Ooo, a command. If her stepbrothers, Matt and Rick, or one of her employees had talked to her in such a tone, she’d have given them a good dose of put-them-in-their-place. But with this man…

She didn’t say a word. She merely tilted her head as if she’d been expecting his invitation all along and strolled into the cabin.

Into the warmth of a stranger’s presence.

Chapter Two

T he woman sure could cook.

As Conn bit into the last of the pear cake whatever-it-was-called, he stifled a groan of contentment. He was more used to the beef and potatoes his ex-fiancée, Emily, had whipped up for him on a regular basis. Every Sunday night after church, she’d invite him over for dinner, then they’d sit in front of the television in her parents’ clapboard house, pretending that someday in the future, they might have something to talk about during the commercial breaks.

But now he was dining on food he couldn’t even pronounce.

Maybe it was for the best, though he hadn’t exactly been singing for joy when Lacey had shown up at his doorstep uninvited. For the second time today.

After she’d left this afternoon, he’d returned to the woods to keep his eye on the Spencer estate, cursing at the absence of activity there. Maybe the family had gone out of town. Who knew? But Conn was determined to wait, to watch and collect all the information he could before taking the next step.

Introducing himself.

And the sooner, the better. His mom was slowly dying, and he’d promised her that he’d come up with a way to make her better.

The sound of splashing wine drew him back to the moment as Lacey refreshed his glass with more Riesling. The woman had come prepared with everything.

“So, now that I’ve got you all liquored up, are you going to tell me why you’re here?” She smiled, her eyes the same color as the sky surrounding an evening star, especially vivid against the lavender of her turtleneck.

“I thought we’d already gone over this. About ten times.”

“Never hurts to ask.”

“That’s what you think.”

She pushed the wine bottle aside, tilting her head in apparent interest, telling Conn that he’d provided a little too much information.

The lady was sharp. He needed to keep all hints of why he was camped in this cabin out of his voice.

She asked, “Is it really so awful to reveal anything about yourself? I mean, talk about hiding in your cave.”

He must have seemed offended, because she added, “Mars, Venus? No? You’ve never been exposed to the world of Dr. Phil self-help?”

Touchy-feely garbage. Right. “I’m not into all that new age philosophy, I suppose.”

The smile on her mouth froze, stiffened, then melted after a beat. “Sure. All that build-yourself-up stuff. It’s not everybody’s thing.”

Had he said something wrong? It wasn’t that he looked down on group-hug betterment; he was merely a simple man who hadn’t thought much about it. “I guess I just depend more on family to tell me what’s what. Having strangers feed me advice about who I am and how I can make myself different doesn’t appeal to a guy like me.”

Lacey folded her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on her clasped fingers, the fire casting a warm glow over her features. “You know you’ve provided a perfect opening for more personal queries. If I didn’t know that you’d scowl at me, I’d ask you what kind of guy you are.”

“Are you posing an off-limits question? Because I feel that scowl coming on.”

She grinned, making Conn wish she hadn’t already become such a vital part of his plan to be here in the woods. If she were an anonymous woman in a roadside bar, he might be able to caress the heart-shaped angles of her face without considering the consequences. But, even now, at a point when they still barely knew each other, he couldn’t afford to get close, to alienate her with the eventuality of his leaving town once he’d gotten what he needed from the Spencers.

“I can guess at what sort of guy you are,” Lacey said. “You’re a hiker, a nature boy who wanted to get out of the cold and ducked into my cabin. Right?”

He didn’t correct her, thinking she’d concocted a pretty good cover for the real reason he was here. “And what about you? Are you the type of woman who cooks dinner for a family in that big house of yours?”

Not that he thought she would’ve been dining with him if she had kids and a significant other; he was just surprised he cared enough to ask.

Lacey seemed taken aback by his inquiry. “I’ve got plenty of kin and friends. And there’s almost always someone in my home with me.”

“I take the hint, Ms. Vedae. You’re protected from creatures who wander in the woods and take up residence in your cabin. Don’t worry. I’m not a burglar or a bad man.”

She sat back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, suddenly serious. “If I thought so, you wouldn’t be here eating my fancy food. And people who can sit through one of my meals generally call me Lacey. Okay?”

“Got it.” He felt as if he’d climbed over the tip of a mountain, surpassing an obstacle, enjoying the view on the other side. Even if only a small barrier had been crossed with this woman, it was a victory. Hopefully he’d put an end to her curiosity of the unknown. Hopefully she’d stay away.

He patted his stomach, as if signaling an end to the supper, but his companion merely sat in her chair, assessing him.

“There’s not much to me,” he said. “Just a nature lover. Remember?”

“It’s not that. It’s… Well, my stepbrothers will go nuts when they find out I’m letting you stay here. They’re going to want to investigate.”

“So don’t tell them.”

Lacey lifted a finger in the air, her eyes lighting up with a new realization. “You’re more than a hiker. You’re a hider.”

“I don’t like to be bothered, is all.”

The words froze in the air, stiffening her posture in the process.

Lacey started to rise from her chair. “I’ll just leave you alone then.”

He could imagine her trooping through the snow, back to her mammoth house. Intuitively, he knew no one waited for her back there. Otherwise, why would she be eating dinner with him? The thought of her staring out a window at the empty, blank spaces of silent-night snow made his chest thud with his own sense of isolation.

“Stay,” he said softly.

Her eyes widened, and she settled back into the seat with a certain amount of rebellion in her tight movements. Conn chided himself for listening to the angel on his shoulder. Now he’d be stuck dodging more questions from his inquisitive visitor.

After a pause, she said, “Things have gotten a tad boring since Daisy and Coral Cox moved out a few months ago. Of course, now Coral has her own little place and Daisy married my brother Rick, so…”

She caught herself, laughing. “My family. I can’t stop concerning myself with their lives.”

She’d said it with such patent longing that Conn couldn’t help filling the silence with conversation, just to keep her talking and smiling. He’d always been such a sucker for a pretty girl.

“What do you do with yourself, besides cooking like a dervish, I mean?”

She brightened. “I run my family’s horse feed business up in Louisville. But, as my brother Matt is fond of saying, I’m a master of delegation. My other brother Rick flies me in his Cessna to the city a couple times a week to take care of business, but things run so smoothly I can do most of the work from my home office.”

“A corporate type. I should’ve known from the way you handled matters this afternoon that you’re used to being in charge.”

“Was I terribly overbearing?”

Conn shrugged, underplaying his first impression of her. A soft bunny with fangs.

“Not overbearing, I guess. Surely in control.”

She tilted her head proudly, as if thrilled to project such an image. “Thank you.”

“Much obliged.”

Lacey sat up straighter, and Conn couldn’t help feeling good about making her wariness disappear. He didn’t know what exactly he’d said to work that magic, but the glow in her eyes was worth it.

Even though he wasn’t supposed to give a tinker’s damn.

The fire flickered and frost shrouded the window, emphasizing the cabin’s cozy intimacy.

“Can I tell you something crazy?” she asked.

“I suppose.” Was the romantic atmosphere getting to Lacey, too? Was it convincing her that they knew each other better than they actually did?

She leaned toward him again, her skin flushed. “This is so…” A hesitation, a stretched second of thought in which she bit her lip, then grinned. “I’m building a glass castle,” she said proudly.

Conn tried his best not to seem jarred by her statement. He was sure he’d done a decent job of keeping a straight face, but he couldn’t restrain his curiosity. “A full-scale castle? With glass?”

“It won’t be Locksley Castle, really.”

“Locksley Castle?”

She gestured with her hands, conveying her enthusiasm. “You have to see it someday. On the outskirts of the town, we’ve got an actual castle. An incredibly rich East Coast family with ties to European royalty lives there, supposedly, but we never see them. It’s one of those Kane’s Crossing myths.”

Conn nodded, still not understanding the reasons behind the glass castle, not really even understanding why she was confiding in him, a near stranger.

Lacey continued, unfazed. “My castle will be large enough to fit in a warehouse. I know—it sounds wild. And when my brothers first found out that I’d purchased land with the old toy warehouse on it, they thought it might be a sound investment. But then they realized I was going to hire an architect and contractors to actually build a glass castle, and they about flipped.”

“What’s the purpose?”

“Purpose?” Lacey’s gaze drifted to the fire, as if the flames held pictures of the finished product, the crystalline structure glimmering with every cinder-sparked burst. “I wanted to do something for Kane’s Crossing. Something that might bring the town together. And the Reno Center, a place for orphans, always needs money to help run it. I thought I could build this—I don’t know—spectacle, and people might come all the way to our town and pay to see it.”

Now the idea made a little more sense. “But…?”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, waving a hand toward him to brush off his doubts. “Why a glass castle? Everyone asks me before shaking their heads and rolling their eyes. But that’s why I think folks will come to see it. Because it’s so…unexpected.”

And majestic. Conn wasn’t much into fairy tales and happy endings, but he could imagine a person staring at Lacey’s creation with as much fascination as he stared at the North Star. He could even see someone making a wish on Lacey’s dream.

Oddly touched and intrigued, Conn bent forward, reaching out to run an index finger over the soft curve of Lacey’s cheek.

She already had a way of doing this to him—making him not think. It was scary how dumb he got when she was around.

Her eyes went wide as his finger traveled down her skin to the line of her jaw, to the tip of her chin. Conn, himself, even felt a little startled, his pulse kicking and screaming through his veins.

Suddenly, he pulled back, standing with such force his chair scraped the floor with a yelp. “Let’s get you home.”

One of Lacey’s shoulders—the one below the cheek he’d caressed—drifted upward, as if she wanted to wipe away his touch with a brush of her turtleneck but didn’t have the bad manners to do so. Was she angry because he’d been so forward?

After what seemed like an uncomfortable infinity, Lacey stood to clean the table, and he wasn’t any closer to an answer.

“I’ll take care of that,” he said, needing to get her out of here and back to the boundary of her own house.

With a glance that seemed to chastise him for ordering her around, she left the table and retrieved her coat. She moved toward the door, and he followed.

“Forget it,” she said, opening the door and letting in the night. “I can walk myself home.”

She left so quickly he couldn’t even thank her for dinner.

The next day, after Conn had beat himself up all night about offending Lacey, he still hadn’t forgiven himself.

As he perched by a pine, he held the binoculars to his sight, training the lenses toward the Spencer estate. He needed to be disciplined in his efforts, needed to clear his mind of the cute-as-snowflakes Lacey Vedae. The stakes of his stay in the woods were too high to fool with.

He couldn’t let his mother down, and the point had been driven home yet again after talking to her on the phone this morning. He’d traveled over county lines to the next town, just to stay away from the Kane’s Crossing scene, using a random pay phone to check in on her. During their short conversation, she hadn’t been able to hide a cough, had merrily scolded him for worrying about this minor cold.

But every sniff, every sigh worried Connor. A relapse. Death. He wouldn’t let either one of them happen to his mom.

He glanced at a mild sky still cloudy enough to preserve some snow then shrugged into his coat a little more, coveting its warmth.

This damned spying was tedious, barely better than his research trips to libraries in the neighboring counties, trips that allowed him access to old newspaper files. He was determined to find out all he could about the Spencers.

The name caused the bile to rise in his throat. All these years, living a lie. All this time, thinking that he was…

Wait. A black Lexus had pulled onto the circular driveway in front of the Spencers’ colonial mansion. The structure resided on a hill, as regal as a ruler on a throne, its front facade guarded by pine trees. Siggy Woods, where Conn now sat, offered a side view of the estate, allowing him to see the front and back of the house. Luckily, the trees were sparse from this point, giving Conn his first glimpse of the man he thought might be Johann Spencer, the family’s new leader.

From gossip columns, Connor knew that Johann was a distant European cousin of Horatio, Edwina, Chad and Ashlyn. He’d purchased all their remaining properties after Horatio had run into legal troubles and fled to Europe.

Through the binoculars, the new token of power seemed like a giant, towering over his wife and two children. His pale blond hair clashed with the black of his expensive overcoat, offering Conn the chance to scoff at the juxtaposition of lightness and darkness contained in the same space.

But as far as Conn was concerned, the Spencers were all about darkness.

A chauffeur drove the car away as Johann led his family toward the mansion. The front door seemed to open on its own, but Conn knew it was probably a butler who had done the menial work, ushering the Spencers into the house.

A slight shudder scampered up and down his spine, an unpleasant reminder of time running out. It was all well and good to sit here spying on Johann, but Conn needed to take the next step.

To figure out what he was going to do now that Johann was home.

As he stood, he let the binoculars drop to his chest, the item hanging there by its strap. He wasn’t the kind of guy who played intrigue games. Hell, only a few weeks ago, he’d been Raintree, Montana’s resident fix-it man, the one you called when you needed a roof patched or fence mended.

Conn was out of his element here.

He started to walk back to the cabin, not knowing what to do next. That’s when he heard it. The sound of laughter, of children, floating through the woods with pixielike gaiety.

Kids. He and Emily had planned on them. After all, that’s what you did in Raintree. You got married, had children, then called it a life. But after Conn had found out the truth about himself, had come to doubt who he even was, Emily had decided that he’d changed in some indefinable way. She’d called him a stranger and broken off the engagement.

Oddly enough, it hadn’t hurt very much. By the time she’d given back the modest gold band she’d chosen from a jeweler to symbolize their union, Conn had already been numb. He hadn’t had time for more bad news.

He’d actually wondered whether or not he could ever feel again.

As Conn kept walking, he realized that he was gravitating toward the young laughter.

He saw the house first, in the near distance. Lacey’s place. A two-leveled stone-and-log home with green trim highlighting the arched roofs. A porch circled what had to be five-thousand square feet of space, and Conn could feel the workman in him catch fire.

He’d dreamed of homes like this, but had never come close to living in one. The fact that a lone woman wandered all those rooms by herself almost cut his heart to shreds.

As he came nearer, he saw two kids—a boy and a girl—running around Lacey, who was covering her eyes with gloved hands. The children squealed with delight and, when Lacey uncovered her gaze, their laughter intensified, squeezing Conn’s throat with an unidentifiable longing.

She chased them in circles until they all ended up in a heap on the flake-blanketed ground. Then, as if in silent agreement, the three of them started waving their arms and legs, creating snow angels.

The boy finished first, hopping to his feet to inspect his creation. But that’s not all he peered at.

He pointed at Conn and began to run toward him.

“Taggert!” yelled Lacey.

But it was too late. The kid had already discovered him.

“Taggert, you get back here!” Lacey yelled.

But it was fruitless. The adopted son of her childhood friend, Ashlyn Spencer Reno, and Ashlyn’s husband, Sheriff Sam Reno, sprinted toward the woods with a firm mission in mind, no doubt. Tag was always letting his energy get him into more trouble than naught.

She heard the nine-year-old wailing, “The Man in the Woods!” as he faded into the trees.

Her heart froze as she squinted her eyes, barely catching sight of—indeed—a man standing on the fringe of the pines, watching them.

The Siggy Woods Monster, also known as the Man in the Woods, was one of those Kane’s Crossing myths, like the Locksley Castle, that colored their town with flavor. She’d lived on the edge of these pines for a couple of years now and had never seen, nor been afraid, of any legend.

But, just the same…

“Taggert Reno!” she yelled again, walking toward the woods. “Your mom’s going to hear about this!”

“It’s no use,” said seven-year-old Tamela Shane.

Lacey stopped and peeked down at her niece, the daughter of her stepbrother Matt and his wife, Rachel. The little curly-headed moppet had withstood a lot this past year—the return of her amnesia-afflicted father, his memory recovery and the reunion of their family—but Tamela was a trouper. Lacey took inspiration from the girl every day, admiring the child’s strength.

Strength. Lacey needed every ounce of it when it came to dealing with the citizens of Kane’s Crossing. They’d been poking fun at her glass castle scheme since day one, ribbing her about going back to the clinic because she was still “crazy,” still had “mental afflictions.”

Tamela grabbed her hand. “Tag’s stubborn, Aunt Lacey. He won’t come back unless the Monster eats him up and spits him right back out at us.”

A thought slapped her. Man in the woods. Connor was in the woods.

Elation filled her up for a moment, then deflated. He’d touched her last night, trailing a finger down her skin as if appreciating the fine grain of a wooden beam. He’d pulled away just as unfeelingly, too, as if deciding that the material wasn’t suitable.

But why did his opinion matter to her? Men like Connor, ones who seemed so strong and together, didn’t want women with her flawed baggage anyway. Better to have him pull away from her now rather than having him reject her when he found out she’d enjoyed a restful mental vacation at HazyLawn.

By this time, Tag had managed to drag the man out of the woods and, as expected, it was Connor.

If the guy didn’t want to be bothered, what was he doing here?

“Aunt Lacey,” said Tamela. “The Man doesn’t seem so scary.”

Exactly, and that was the frightening thing. With his bulky coat broadening his shoulders, his wide-brimmed hat hiding all but that blond ponytail, his slow-molasses gait as he allowed Taggert to drag him out of the woods, Connor Langley was the scariest creature Lacey had encountered in a long time.

Maybe even more horrifying than the dark-robed ghosts who knocked at the entry to her dreams most nights. Ghosts she’d left behind as a teenager: severe depression, unworthiness, emptiness.

As Connor came nearer, a distant part of Lacey wanted to return to a protective shell, the shell she’d destroyed after returning to Kane’s Crossing, to a family who embraced her and everything she’d gone through.

Yet instead of cowering, Lacey gathered her strength while Tag introduced her to the man hiding in her cabin.

Chapter Three

A n hour later, Lacey watched through the kitchen’s glass window while Connor helped Tag and Tamela put the finishing touches on something they called a “snow wookie.” It resembled a cross between a fuzzy dog and a long-limbed giant but, hey, the kids loved it.

Connor laughed—actually laughed—as he held up Tamela so she could meticulously sculpt the wookie’s plush lips. Lacey couldn’t believe this was the same man who grimaced at her every time she asked him a personal question.

But she ended up smiling, too, his happiness tickling her.

They finished their work of art, standing back, the children checking to see if Lacey was paying attention by waving at her. She gave a thumbs-up sign and continued with her hot cocoa preparation.

Moments later, they’d disappeared, and Lacey could hear them in the mudroom, stomping the snow off their boots. Then, they entered the kitchen, Tamela and Tag trailing Connor, their eyes fixed on him with a fascination you could only get away with as a child.

“Your creation is really something,” Lacey said, handing the steaming beverages to the kids. Tag grabbed his mug with one hand, since the other was merely a nub—a disfigurement he’d been born with, not that it mattered in the least to him.

When Lacey gave Connor his cocoa, she tried to avoid his gaze, but failed. Instead, they locked glances, both of their hands on the mug.

Adrenaline surged around her heart, poking at it, reminding her that it had been a long time since she’d been this attracted to a man. In fact, Lacey couldn’t ever remember a feeling this intense, not even with the one serious postclinic boyfriend she’d dated, made love with, been rejected by.

“Much obliged,” he said, still looking at her while bringing the drink to his lips.

Tamela started walking into the living room, where Lacey had stoked a roaring fire. “Tell your friend to help us with the origami.”

“I’m sure my friend would like to relax.” Lacey followed the kids into the next room. A floor-to-ceiling window lent light to the area, emphasizing hickory floors and lodgepole-pine-logged walls. The stone fireplace, with its built-in mosaic of faded oriental-themed tiles, dominated the room. She wondered if Conn would think her taste off-kilter. She wondered why she cared.