loving family relationship that Molly wanted to commemorate in a big way. “We should plan a surprise anniversary party for them.”
“Okay—that sounds normal enough. What’s the catch?”
“No catch. They’re planning that trip to Europe in early October, right? So while they’re gone, we can get everything in place and we’ll welcome them back with a big silver anniversary barbecue.”
Shane looked almost relieved. “Yeah, we can do something like that. Kelly and I will help you plan it. I’m sure Aunt Layla and Aunt Michelle would be thrilled to help with the arrangements. Not to mention the assorted other aunts, uncles and cousins who jump at any chance to get together for a party.”
Since Jared had five siblings, all married with offspring, any party the Walker clan put together was a big one. But Molly didn’t intend to limit this bash merely to family. “We’ll invite the D’Alessandros, of course.”
Jared’s sister, Michelle, had married private investigator Tony D’Alessandro not long before Jared and Cassie had married. Tony’s large and boisterous family had been a part of Molly’s life from the beginning. Her cousin Brynn, the daughter of Jared’s deceased younger brother, Miles, had married another D’Alessandro, drawing the bond between the two families even tighter.
“And I want to invite the foster sons Mom and Dad took in during the earlier years—back before the ranch became a youth facility. Won’t they love seeing them all together again for this special occasion?”
“We can definitely invite the ones we’ve kept in touch with. There’s no way we can assume they’ll all be here, of course.”
“No, I want as many as possible here,” she insisted. “Even the ones we haven’t heard from in a while. I’m hoping to have at least a dozen of them.”
“There are several we haven’t heard from in years—Mark and Daniel and Kyle, for example. They were special to Dad and Cassie, but we don’t even know where they are now.”
“We’ll find them.” She flashed another confident smile. “We have uncles who own a private investigation agency, remember? With Uncle Tony, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Ryan helping us, I bet we’ll have all the guys located within a few weeks.”
“Maybe,” Shane agreed, as confident as she was in their uncle’s abilities, “but finding them doesn’t guarantee they’ll want to return here. Not everyone has fond memories of the past, you know, especially when that past includes a stint in foster care—as you could ask Dad or most of his siblings.”
Molly tossed her head, making her mane of red-and-gold streaked hair swirl around her determined face. “Once the uncles find them, I’ll talk them into being here.”
“If anyone can, I suppose it would be you.”
“Absolutely. Trust me, Shane, this is going to be the best anniversary party ever. Mom and Dad are going to be so surprised.”
“I hope you aren’t too disappointed if everything isn’t perfect, Molly. You just might be in for a few surprises yourself, trying to plan something this big.”
Waving a dismissive hand, Molly turned to head toward the main house on the sprawling Walker ranch not far from Dallas, Texas. She had lists to make, and a million things to do to pull off the perfect twenty-fifth anniversary party by October.
Chapter One
There was something about a man with a calculator that Miranda Martin found oddly sexy. A man whose fingers flew over a number pad, adding up columns of dollar amounts as he talked about bonds and investments and tax-deferred annuities—just the mental image could make her shiver with exhilaration.
Other women were attracted to cowboys or cops or bikers or baseball players; Miranda was a sucker for accountants. One accountant, in particular. Her own.
Her chin cupped in both hands, she rested her elbows on his desk and gazed across the glossy surface at him. It didn’t hurt that he was so very nice to look at. Mark Wallace had clear gray eyes, disheveled brown hair with a tendency to curl into loose waves, and the most perfect teeth she’d ever seen. Had he not chosen to work with numbers, he could probably have made a living as a model.
“What’s this deduction you’re claiming for comfortable shoes?” he asked, frowning at the paperwork in front of him.
“I had to buy them on a business trip last month. The shoes I took with me were killing me, and you know you can’t really concentrate on business when your feet hurt. I was much more effective after I bought those nice, comfy shoes—which, I might add, were obscenely expensive.”
He had been her accountant for just over a year, and he always gave her exactly the same look when she said something he considered outrageous. He was giving her that look now, and she enjoyed it immensely. She had anticipated that expression when she had listed the deduction she had known very well his sharp eyes would not overlook.
He stared at her with his head cocked slightly to one side, as if he weren’t quite sure if she was joking, and then he shook his head and marked through the item with a decisive stroke of his mechanical pencil.
She just loved it when he did that.
“Other than the shoes, everything looks to be in order,” he remarked, closing the file folder. “I’ll have the tax forms ready for your signature by the end of the week. Next time, though, you might not want to wait until the last minute to bring your information to me. You didn’t allow either of us much room for error.”
“As if you ever make any errors,” she teased.
He shrugged, a smile playing at one corner of his firm mouth. “It’s been known to happen—on very rare occasions.”
Sometimes she couldn’t resist touching him. She reached out to stroke a fingertip across the top of his right hand—the one that had just been calculating her money. “I find it hard to believe you aren’t completely perfect.”
Maybe after a year of working with her, he was finally getting accustomed to her flirting. He had been amusingly disconcerted the first couple of times, but during their meetings since, he’d seemed to accept it as part of the package. Especially since she had teasingly informed him that talking about money always gave her goose bumps.
In response to her stroking his hand, he shot her a look that was so direct, so male—and so uncharacteristically predatory—that her mouth suddenly went dry. “Someday I might just take you up on one of those come-hither looks,” he murmured. “And then what are you going to do?”
For just a moment, Miranda Martin—who always had a witty put-down in response to even the most insistent advance—couldn’t think of anything to say. She found herself lost in Mark Wallace’s gleaming gray eyes, her mind filled with unsummoned and decidedly erotic images rather than cleverly cutting retorts.
Fine, take me up on it, she would have liked to say. Heck, just take me.
But she didn’t say it, and the primary reason for her reticence burst into Mark’s home-based office only a moment later.
“Daddy, I’m home from preschool and guess what? We’re going on a field trip to the Museum of Discovery and I—”
“Payton,”
