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  A soft, muffled chuckle wafted through the silent night air. The lone figure spit on Kent Graham’s grave, then turned and walked toward the wrought-iron entrance gates.

  Chapter 2

  Monica Robinson took a deep breath, ran a quick, caressing hand over her short brown hair and entered the fray. The place was crowded, filled with Houston’s elite. She stopped a passing waiter, lifted a flute of champagne from the silver serving tray and took a sip. Nice. She liked the taste of champagne. Especially expensive champagne. After taking another sip, she allowed the liquid to linger in her mouth a few minutes before swallowing it.

  She scanned the huge room, searching for her date. It was a damn shame they were both so busy that they seldom arrived at functions together. But she wouldn’t change one single thing about her life, except maybe…. No, don’t go there. You can’t change the fact that after the divorce, Eric chose to live with Herb instead of you.

  Other than the fact that her thirteen-year-old son lived in Dallas with his father, Monica’s life was perfect. Perfect by her standards. She was Fairfield Realtors’ top seller for the second year in a row. Her apartment was luxurious, her car a new Lexus, her friends smart, witty and well-connected, and her lover was one of the wealthiest men in Texas.

  Where the hell was Johnny Mack? She didn’t think he would be late for a charity function that could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars for his pet project, the Judge Harwood Brown Ranch. She supposed a man as rich as Johnny Mack could afford to be a philanthropist. But sometimes she wondered if his good deeds were prompted as much to appease a guilty conscience as they were acts of a kind heart. Of course, she didn’t know exactly what Johnny Mack might be guilty of since their time together was seldom spent discussing the past—his or hers. But her instincts told her that a man such as he hadn’t lived thirty-six years without committing some unforgivable sins.

  She caught a glimpse of him in the crowd. As always, a group of ladies surrounded him. The damn man oozed sex appeal. All he had to do was walk into a room and every woman within a hundred-foot radius creamed her pants. And she should know. She was one of those ladies. God forbid he ever use that killer smile on a woman. There was something lethal about his cocky grin.

  His six-foot, four-inch height made him highly visible in a congested area. As she approached him, Monica finished off her drink, set aside the glass and spoke hastily to a couple of acquaintances. The closer she got to him, the stronger her mating instincts. They hadn’t had a night alone together in over a week, and she was so horny she felt like dragging him off to the nearest closet.

  When she eased up beside him, he casually slipped his arm around her and introduced her to the women, whose strained smiles barely masked their jealousy of her.

  “Monica, you remember Charlene McNair, don’t you?” Johnny Mack lavished his smile on the horse-faced oil heiress, who was one of the ranch’s biggest supporters.

  “Nice to see you again, Mrs. McNair. Is your husband here tonight?”

  Charlene’s smile wavered slightly. “Denny’s about somewhere.”

  Johnny Mack eased Monica around to face the other two women. “And these lovely ladies are Florence Barr and her daughter Ashley. They’re planning a visit out to the Judge Harwood Brown Ranch this weekend.”

  Monica dutifully shook hands with both women, noting the striking resemblance between parent and child—two pink-faced, barrel-shaped females in designer dresses. “Y’all will be very impressed with the ranch and with the work being done there. All the boys at the ranch have been deserted by their families and by society.” She knew the spiel by heart. She should. She had heard Johnny Mack spouting it off on numerous occasions.

  “We can hardly wait,” Ashley replied, but her gaze never left Johnny Mack’s face.

  “We’ll be expecting you around ten next Saturday morning.” Florence patted Johnny Mack’s shoulder. “Your giving us a personal tour will be so much more meaningful.”

  Monica breathed a sigh of relief when, ten minutes later, she and Johnny Mack were able to escape the charity-minded threesome and make their way to the buffet table.

  “God, I’m starved,” Monica said. “I had to skip lunch today. I was showing the Wright house to a couple, which ran me over two hours, and I had to make a mad dash across town to show the Daily Towers penthouse.” She piled her plate with an assortment of delicacies.

  “What say we ditch this joint early and go to my place,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Can you do that? Leave this shindig early?”

  “By my estimation, I’ve already schmoozed close to two hundred thousand out of folks tonight.”

  “Yeah, well, the way Mrs. Barr and her daughter were looking at you, I’d say they may be expecting more from you than a tour of the ranch.”

  “Tsk-tsk, what a cynic you are.” Johnny Mack lifted a shrimp to his mouth.

  “I thought that was one of the things you liked about me. My cynicism.”

  “I like a lot of things about you, Monica.”

  “And I like a lot of things about you, too,” she told him.

  “I guess that’s the reason we’re still together, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, that and our mutual dislike of long-term commitments.”

  “Eat up and let’s get out of here.” He downed several more shrimp, then leaned over and said in a low voice, “Meet me at the front door in ten minutes. I see Malcolm Winters has just arrived. While you pacify your stomach, I’ll go talk a little business.”

  Business. Business. Business. Johnny Mack seemed to live to do business. By all reports, the man was a multimillionaire, who had the Midas touch. Any deal in which he was involved was considered a sure thing. Except for his charity work, especially his devotion to the Judge Harwood Brown Ranch, the only time the man spent away from business was when he took an occasional weekend off and went to his ranch in the Hill Country. He had never asked her to accompany him. And as far as she knew, no other woman had ever been invited into that private domain.

  They had become lovers nearly a year ago, sometimes staying the night in her apartment, sometimes in his, and once or twice they had gotten away for a few days together. To New Orleans six months ago and to Jamaica last month. She knew how Johnny Mack liked his coffee, knew who his friends and enemies were in Houston, knew which side of the bed he preferred, and she trusted him implicitly. But she knew nothing about his past—nothing more than what the world at large knew. He had been a poor kid who had gotten in trouble when he first arrived in Houston fifteen years ago. A saintly old judge named Harwood Brown had taken Johnny Mack under his wing and saved him from a life of crime. He had sent the young man to college and had personally taught him what it meant to be an honorable man.

  She often wondered where Johnny Mack had come from and why he never spoke about the years before he had come to Texas. Just what was there in his past that he didn’t want anyone to know? It didn’t really matter, of course. She was simply curious. It wasn’t as if she planned a long-term future with him. Even if that was what she wanted, and it wasn’t, she knew marriage was an alien concept to her lover.

  He rode her like a wild man, pumping into her with a force that pinned her to the bed. She clawed at his shoulders as the pressure inside her built to the exploding point. There was an uncontrollable power to his lovemaking, a ravaging possession that set him apart from all her previous lovers. Johnny Mack Cahill knew how to pleasure a woman and at the same time conquer her completely.

  She cried out with the force of her climax. He thrust to the hilt one final time and groaned deep in his throat.

  She snuggled her head against the pillow and sighed with satisfaction as the aftershocks of her orgasm trembled through her body. She lay there and watched him rise from the bed, his naked body lean and sleek, his muscles superbly toned. Damn, but he was good. The best she’d ever had. When their affair ended, as she knew it would, she’d miss him.

  He returned from the bathroom wearing a b
lack silk robe loosely tied at the waist. “Want a drink?” he asked.

  “Some of that ancient brandy of yours would be nice right about now,” she told him.

  “Stay put. I’ll be right back.” He winked and grinned.

  Something was up. Johnny Mack never offered her a drink and conversation after lovemaking. Usually, he held her for a while, and then they drifted off to sleep. On a few occasions, when they stayed at her apartment, she had awakened the next morning to find him gone.

  So, why had he changed the routine tonight? Why after-sex drinks and conversation?

  He returned and handed her a snifter of golden brown liquor, then sat on the edge of the bed beside her. “You miss having Eric around, don’t you?” Johnny Mack lifted his own crystal glass to his lips and sipped the brandy.

  She was momentarily taken aback by his question. Except in the most casual way, they never discussed her son. The subject was painful for her and one she usually tried to avoid.

  “Yes, I miss Eric. But you know that. Whose shoulder did I cry on when my son told me that he preferred to live with his father permanently?” Swirling the brandy around in the antique snifter, Monica stared into the glass, as if she could foresee the future in its depths. Glancing up, she narrowed her gaze and asked, “What’s this really about? Why the sudden interest in my relationship with my son?”

  Johnny Mack downed the contents of his glass, set the snifter on the bedside table and stood. With his back to Monica, he said, “I just found out that I may have one.”

  “One what?” she asked, but her accelerated heartbeat and the sinking feeling in her stomach told her that she already knew the answer to her question. Was it possible that he had accidentally gotten some other woman pregnant? Surely not. Johnny Mack Cahill never—ever—had unprotected sex.

  “A kid,” he replied. “A son. A fourteen-year-old son.”

  Monica let out the breath she had been holding, and instant relief spread through her body. Fourteen. That meant a child from his distant past. A child from the life he’d had before he came to Texas.

  She slipped out of bed, picked up her black-and-red-striped robe lying on the floor and eased into it. “Come on. I’ll make us some strong coffee and then we can talk.”

  Johnny Mack rubbed his neck as he paced back and forth along the foot of the king-size bed. “What I’m going to tell you isn’t something I want known. I expect you to keep it in strict confidence.”

  She laid her hand on his back. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, come on. Coffee first, then conversation.”

  Ten minutes later, they sat in the living room—a large, professionally decorated area that epitomized a modern contemporary style. Two china cups rested, untouched, on the silver tray Monica had placed on the coffee table.

  “So tell me,” she said. “Why do you think you may have a fourteen-year-old son?”

  Johnny Mack got up, walked over to the glass and metal desk in the corner, pulled out an envelope from beneath the desk blotter and brought it back with him. He handed the envelope to Monica, then sat down beside her.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Take a look.”

  Monica shook out the contents. A note written on lined paper. A newspaper clipping. And a wallet-size photograph. She scanned the letter and the article quickly, then looked at the picture. A handsome, dark-haired boy, with a sharply chiseled face, almond-shaped black eyes and a breathtaking smile. Johnny Mack’s smile.

  “Whoa!” The one word escaped her lips on a released breath.

  “So, you think he could be mine?”

  She glanced from the school picture to the black-and-white photograph in the newspaper clipping. “Do you know her? The boy’s mother?”

  Johnny Mack avoided Monica’s direct gaze. He stared past her, toward the glass doors leading to the balcony, which overlooked Houston. “Yeah, I know her. Or I did know her. Fifteen years ago.”

  “How well did you know her?”

  “Lane and I were never lovers, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Monica noticed a pained expression in his eyes. Barely discernible. But it had been there. She knew him too well not to be aware of something so powerful, no matter how fleeting. This woman—Monica read the name from the paper—this Lane Noble Graham had meant something to Johnny Mack. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, she apparently still did.

  “The boy looks like you,” Monica said. “Any chance he’s a relative’s kid?”

  “Anything’s possible.” Johnny Mack spread his long legs, dropped his hands between his knees and interlocked his fingers. “What I want to know is why someone sent me this message. Hell, who sent it? And if this boy, Will Graham, is my son, why wait all these years to tell me?” He maneuvered his fingers back and forth, locking and unlocking them as he stared down at the carpeted floor. “If the kid is Lane’s child, then he can’t be mine.”

  “Are you sure?” Monica asked. “Couldn’t there have been a night when you’d had too much to drink or one time you just forgot or—”

  “I’d never have forgotten making love to Lane.”

  His voice froze Monica, inside and out, as though an Arctic blast had instantly reduced the temperature to subzero. It wasn’t just what he had said that affected her so profoundly, but the way he had said it. Johnny Mack had been in love with this woman. And that fact surprised Monica. She had thought Johnny Mack incapable of falling in love.

  “If she is his mother, and this newspaper article”—Monica shook the clipping she held in her hand—“states that she is, then he can’t be yours.”

  Johnny Mack rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, then slapped his knees and shot straight up onto his feet. “I phoned Benton Pike first thing this morning, and he called in a private detective to find out everything he can about the boy.”

  “Then, you’ve done all you can do. You’ve contacted your lawyer, and he’s having the matter investigated. It could be that whoever sent you the message wants something from you. Perhaps some sort of reward money.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Benton said, but my gut instincts tell me that this note is on the level, that Will Graham is my son.”

  “If you feel that strongly about it, why don’t you go to…to”—she checked the name of the newspaper—“to Noble’s Crossing yourself and—”

  “I once swore hell would freeze over before I’d ever return to Noble’s Crossing.”

  “That was before you found out that you might have left behind some unfinished business.”

  “I left behind a lot of unfinished business.” Johnny Mack opened the balcony doors, stepped outside and gripped the railing with white-knuckled fierceness.

  Monica eased up behind him, slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his back. “Why can’t you go home to Noble’s Crossing? What are you so afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid to face the ghost,” he admitted.

  “Whose ghost?”

  “My own.”

  Chapter 3

  Johnny Mack parked his rental car in front of the brick pillars. The rusted iron pins that held the dilapidated open gates in place hung precariously in their holes. A soft August breeze flitted across the weed-infested landscape, fluttering the tall grass without disturbing the hardy bushes and trees. Fifteen years ago these five acres of land on the outskirts of Noble’s Crossing had been the site of a mobile home park. Now only the remnants of the gravel drives remained.

  He had shared a one-bedroom, ten-year-old trailer with Wiley Peters, an alcoholic Vietnam veteran who had lost his left eye and half his left arm in the war. Wiley, one of Faith Cahill’s many lovers, had been the only soul in town willing to take in a rebellious thirteen-year-old, after his mother’s death had left him without any kin. Wiley hadn’t been much of a guardian, but nobody in Noble’s Crossing had given a damn. Johnny Mack Cahill had been a bad seed from the day he was born. Wild and surly, filled with anger and bitterness, he’d been
nothing but white trash. Wiley had put a roof over Johnny Mack’s head, and when he occasionally won big at cards, he had provided a few groceries and a new pair of jeans. Most of the time, Johnny Mack had been on his own, picking up odd jobs in order to survive.

  It had been in that trailer park on a blistering summer evening that Johnny Mack had discovered sex. He had been fourteen, big, rowdy and eager to get laid. His first lover had been thirty, a trailer trash whore with a husband doing ten-to-fifteen in the state pen for armed robbery. They had fucked themselves silly that summer. Then when fall came, she’d moved her trailer and left town with a former boyfriend who had a good-paying job in Mobile.

  Laura. No, Lorrie. Or was it Lorna? Hell, he couldn’t remember. And why should he? That had been twenty-two years ago. Back then sometimes he didn’t even ask a girl’s name before or after. The young Johnny Mack Cahill had been a real hard-ass and had deserved his bad boy reputation.

  Opening the door of the blue Escort, he got out and stood beside the leased vehicle. He could have driven his Jaguar up from Houston instead of flying in and renting a car, but when he made his first appearance in town, he didn’t want anyone speculating about his success. He wanted that bit of news to come as a surprise to everyone. Their not knowing right away that he was a multimillionaire would make this damned trip a lot more interesting. That and the fact a few people still thought he was dead.

  He walked down the dirt and gravel trail, wondering if he could find the spot where Wiley’s trailer had been parked. So long ago. A million years. He stopped beside a towering cottonwood tree, its branches reaching into the clouds like a New York skyscraper. The Hickmans’ trailer had sat beside the cottonwood. The first time he had screwed Sharon, he’d braced her against that tree. They had been a couple of horny kids, both experienced beyond their years, friends through common backgrounds. Love had never entered into their relationship, but they had shared a lot of hot sex on and off from the age of sixteen until he’d left town.