on the hanger that held one of the three almost identical dark blue suits he’d had Howell express here from Boston. It was the truth. He was bored out of his mind. It was terrible to admit, but if there’d been one benefit to this last week, it was that it had, at least, ripped him away from the unvarying routine of his days.
He shook his head. What was the matter with him? He’d come here straight from the Himalayas, where he’d been anything but bored, skiing a mountain that pierced the clouds and making it—well, almost making it— with…with whatever her name had been.
What he needed was to get back to work. He had to get back to work. There were fat-cat clients to wine and dine, a dozen dull meetings to chair…
“Hell,” he said, under his breath, and he reached quickly past the three suits, hanging shoulder to shoulder like the three Marx Brothers, pulled out the Harris tweed jacket he’d taken with him to the Himalayas and strode from the bedroom.
The house was quiet, just as it had always been. Even when he and Cade and Grant were kids, they’d tried not to make any noise here, automatically saving their rough-and-tumble for the stables or the endless lawns and pastures. There was something about the Landon mansion, Zach thought as he made his way down the wide staircase, that didn’t inspire the sound of childish voices lifted in glee.
It didn’t inspire the sound of voices at all, he thought, his mouth tightening. The dozens of guests who’d come back here after the funeral had stood around whispering to each other, and there’d been no doubt in Zach’s mind that it was the house they were deferring to and not the occasion.
What an incredible circus the funeral had been! Judges, politicos, bankers, CEOs and board presidents from damned near all the Fortune 500 companies in the West had shown up, all of them looking solemn—and all of them trying to figure out which Landon son was the one who was going to take Charles’s place.
A smile tugged at Zach’s lips as he followed the wonderful aroma of Stella’s coffee toward the dining room. What would all those bigwigs say when they learned that they wouldn’t have the chance to genuflect to any of the Landons? Yesterday, after the reading of their father’s will, the brothers had taken all of two minutes to agree that not a one of them wanted any part of Landon Enterprises.
Zach would check out Landon’s corporate worth and put a price on its head. Grant would handle the legal end. Cade would decide which lost and forgotten, poverty-stricken dots on the map were most in need of hospitals and schools, courtesy of the sale.
And that would be the end of it. Charles Landon’s gift to his sons would go the way of the dodo bird, a fate it surely deserved. Zach and his brothers would be free; only Kyra would keep any ties to the old man, but that was as it should be.
His face softened as he thought of his sister. She was a sweetheart, the light of all their lives. He could hear her voice now, soft and musical, drifting from the dining room.
“…still can’t believe Father left the place to me,” she was saying.
Zach smiled as he stepped into the room.
“Why wouldn’t he have?” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and made his way toward the coffee urn. “You adore this place, baby. It would have been wrong if he’d left it to anyone else.”
Kyra looked up and smiled. “Well,” she said, “don’t you look handsome this morning.”
Zach smiled back at her, even if it wasn’t easy to do. Of all the gloomy rooms in the house, he’d always disliked this one the most. He’d suffered through endless inquisitions and endless criticisms at that big mahogany table.
It suddenly seemed like old timesthe dark furniture, the sideboard overladen with food no one would eat. Lord, he couldn’t wait to get out of this place.
He looked at Cade, who was seated at the table with a cup of coffee in his hands.
“Where’s Grant?” Zach shot back his cuff and looked at his watch. “I thought he’d be back from that meeting with the old man’s administrative assistant by now.”
Cade cocked an eyebrow and got to his feet. “And a charming good morning to you, too.”
“It’s late, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve got an eleven o’clock flight to Boston.”
“And you’re going to make it out of uniform?” Cade shook his head. “I thought all you banker types signed a pledge that said you had to go around in pinstripes.”
“I’m not a banker, I’m a stockbroker. And go ahead, pal. Laugh all you want. Just remember that in a couple of days you’ll be smiling prettily at an English version of me, trying to convince him to invest in your latest search for maybe-it-exists-and-maybe-it-doesn’t oil in— where’d you say you were going this time?”
“The North Sea,” Cade said. “And there’s no maybe about it, my friend. It’s at least as sure a bet as those investments you push.”
Zach smiled at the familiar banter.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I suspect that if your fat-cat clients knew I could still beat you arm wrestling without breaking a sweat——”
“Still? What do you mean, still? You never beat me, not once.”
“Prove it.”
“My pleasure. Just let me take off my jacket
and——”
“Dammit, what is this? Are we kids or adults?”
The Landons all swung toward the door. Grant was standing just inside the room, glaring balefully.
“Grant?” Kyra said. “What’s wrong?”
Grant tossed a manila folder on the table, strode to the sideboard and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
A lie if ever I heard one, Zach thought. Grant looked like a man who’d just had the ground cut out from under him.
“Well?” Cade asked. “What did Bayliss want to talk about?”
Grant’s lips compressed. “Trouble.”
“Trouble?” Zach frowned. “What sort of trouble?”
“This sort,” Grant said.
He took the folder from the table, drew two stacks of papers from it and handed one to each of his brothers. Kyra looked at him as if she was waiting for him to hand her something, too. When he didn’t, she turned away and walked slowly to the window.
The minutes passed while Zach and Cade leafed through the papers Grant had given them. Finally, Cade looked up.
“What is this crap?”
“Exactly what it seems to be. Father bought an oil company in Dallas——”
“You mean, he bought a disaster.” Cade tossed the papers he’d been reading on the table. “And he let it go from bad to worse. Now
