uncertain.
Otherwise he wouldn’t be afraid of letting her see his face.
Somehow, she decided, as the first splinters of dawn cracked through the small window high overhead, she had to unmask him and make good her escape.
And she had to do it soon.
Before it was too late.
Finally! A damned break in the weather!
Brady Long eyed the clearing skies with satisfaction. After a week of this damn bleak, sub-zero forecast, he was finally able to climb into his JetRanger and make the trip between Denver and Grizzly Falls. The ride was a little rough, but Brady had always been up for a challenge, whether it was on the back of a particularly mean-tempered Brahma bull, or climbing the sheer face of a cliff thousands of miles above the valley floor, or helicopter and extreme skiing or skydiving or whatever it was that brought him the next big rush of adrenaline.
He lived for it. A daredevil by nature, he never had understood placidity or fear. Life was to be lived on the edge, and those who took the safe road in life, who kept to their boring, secure ruts, were just plain wusses or sissies or pussies. Take your pick.
Maybe he’d been born with too much testosterone running through his bloodstream, but he liked it that way. And so did most women; at least the ones who interested him had said so.
Or, he thought now, as he flew his chopper over an ice-encrusted river that ran through the ranch, the women who were attracted to him were really interested in the size of his wallet. The name Long had been associated with copper, then silver, and even gold mines for generations.
A woman could show interest because he was good-looking, or because he was a challenge, or because he was fearless or because he was “richer than God,” as one particularly buxom young blonde had whispered into his ear early one hot summer night. He didn’t care what turned them on, just as long as they got there.
Yeah, the Long wealth made some flock to him, like vultures on the trail of a dying lamb.
And he was the sole heir…well, not technically. There was Padgett, but she was in no condition to contest his claim to their father’s fortune, a wealth that was legendary in this part of Montana. And, he knew, his father had sown more than his share of wild oats, so there was always the chance one of Hubert’s bastards, or his and Padgett’s mother’s, might get wise and make a pitiful claim. But if that were the case, he, and a team of lawyers that he would hand-pick, would fight any and all would-be Longs either by exposing them for the frauds they were, or for whatever other demons they were hiding in their pasts, or by settling out of court. It was amazing what a few hundred thousand would do in an effort to make an uncomfortable situation disappear.
Flying low, the chopper’s rotors whomping in the crisp morning air, he examined the barns, stable, and old homestead house, covered in snow and clustered apart from the main living quarters.
Eyeing the terrain surrounding the house, he eased the big bird over the tops of the spruce and fir trees before spying the landing pad, a wide, flat circle not a hundred yards from the main house. Yeah, there was plenty of snow, but his chopper had been built to handle winter conditions and he had no trouble putting her down in the thick, icy powder, the JetRanger’s skids holding steady.
Perfect.
He loved flying.
Should have been in the military. A pilot.
But then he would have had to take orders, and being obedient, or a team player, just wasn’t in Brady’s nature.
He cut the engine and let the rotors slow before grabbing his computer and bag from the back.
He’d left Denver on the down-low, not letting anyone there, even Maya, know of his plans. Well, especially not Maya. Pushing open the helicopter door, he hopped to the ground and slogged his way toward the house. He didn’t want to think too much about his fiancée, a beautiful model who refused to sign a prenup and not just any prenup, but a fair one.
Not that he was in any hurry to get married, he reminded himself as he followed a snow-covered path through a thicket of spruce and the house appeared.
Brady couldn’t help but smile. He loved this old, creaky lodge, had spent some of the happiest times of his youth here in Montana. He’d bagged his first buck not five hundred yards from the barn, learned to ride horses on this ranch long before he made a name for himself on the rodeo circuit, and lost his virginity up in the old man’s bedroom, to the younger sister of his second stepmother.
Yeah, he had some great memories in Montana, and though he’d been all over the globe, whenever he needed to think, he came back. “Home” was what he thought of the stone and cedar house that stood so close to the creek, now frozen, not so much as a bit of water visible beneath the snow and ice.
He was free here, he thought, fishing in the pockets of his insulated ski pants and withdrawing a key ring as he made his way to a carport big enough for an RV or boat and separating the quadruple garage from the main house.
In Denver there were pressures. First there was Maya and her petulant insistence that they get married in a cathedral with hundreds of guests. She wanted to walk down the aisle in a white dress with a long train and have over a dozen attendants. It didn’t matter that this would be his third time saying “I do” and “’til death do us part.”
Secondly, there was the board of directors, old farts and pains in the butt each and every one.
Third, there was dear old Dad. Still clinging to life by a thread in the nursing home but looking as if he might kick the bucket at any minute. Brady was sick to his back teeth of answering questions about his father. Hubert Elmore Long was dying. Period. What more was there to say except what he didn’t dare voice, that he hoped the old man kicked off and fast. What good was lying, barely conscious, unaware of the world, suffering, for God’s sake, when there was no hope left?
Angry, Brady unlocked the back door and walked through a mud room where he started stripping off his outer layers. He knew a lot of people thought he wanted the old man to die so he could officially inherit his fortune. What was it now? Forty, maybe forty-five million? But he already had control of the money as it was. Yeah, it would be nice to actually be the head of Long International, but hell, unofficially, he was. He just didn’t want his father to linger any longer in that near-vegetative state that Hubert would have hated. He wanted the old man hearty and hale, a man who could stalk a bull elk for hours on end, or pull a calf from a cow having trouble birthing. He wanted the hard-as-nails executive who could negotiate stubbornly with the Chinese or Saudis or anyone on God’s green earth—language being no barrier to him getting his way. He wanted the six-foot-four man who would laugh at a ribald joke while having a few beers at the Spot Tavern, or sip cognac while sucking on an expensive cigar in a high-priced New York hotel.
That’s the guy Brady would like to see again.
But it wasn’t going to happen.
So the husk of a human lying in Regal Oaks Care Center with the iron constitution and will to cling to life at any cost, that guy should just give it up.
He unlaced his boots and left them in the expansive mud room, tucked on the tile floor under a bench above, which his jacket and pants were hung and dripping. He wondered if Clementine was in the house, and that pleasant thought teased one corner of his mouth upward.
Clementine
