10
Chapter 1
Shouldering an arm against the heavy wooden door to open it, the only thing on Keanu “Key” Kealoha’s mind after a grueling day wrestling, branding and working cattle was getting intimate with a warm, willing woman.
He ran a hand through his hair, spiking the longish inky-black strands over his head as he tiredly walked his horse into the massive stable. It was time for a damn haircut, he thought.
He dropped his hand from his head and allowed it to rest on the thick, corded-muscled back of the stallion as he strode farther inside with the animal.
Frustration with just about everything, hair included, was riding him as hard as he’d just ridden the horse. He gave the animal a consoling, swift pat.
But not nearly as hard as he wanted...scratch that, needed...to ride a woman. And not just any woman would do. The image of who he wanted beneath him rolled into his mind.
As if the thought had the right to take up residence in his mind. As though he’d given her the right.
As soon as the accompanying image entered his thoughts, Key growled low in his throat.
The mental images and thoughts pissed him off more than the past twenty-four hours had. And after the past twenty-four hours he’d had, he could do without them.
His mind still reeled, spinning the information over and over, thinking of what he’d learned...and how he would tell his brother.
He shook his head, blowing out a disgusted breath. He shelved that problem to another part of his brain for later contemplation.
He had enough on his plate as it was. There was no time to wonder how he was going to figure out how to deal with the skeleton in his family closet he’d recently discovered and what it meant for him and Nick.
Finding out what his mother had done was hard enough for him to swallow. The fact that he and Nick weren’t their father’s biological sons was something that hurt like hell. Not that he and Nick hadn’t always suspected they weren’t the biological sons of Alek Kealoha, the man who raised them.
But to see in black-and-white, in the form of his mother’s personal letters he’d found, which chronicled her life from the time she was a young woman to her death, and what he’d learned, was something else entirely.
He sighed. In actuality, it was something he and his brother had talked about for years, the suspicion that Alek wasn’t their natural father, but because they loved him unconditionally, they’d mutually agreed to shelve the discussion. Permanently.
Although they resembled their mother, their blue eyes had always been a source of question. But neither his mother nor father ever spoke about it, even though others never seemed to have a hard time gossiping about it. Not that he or Nick had ever suffered because of it. Despite their lack of resemblance to their father, their family had been tight-knit.
Yet he felt a rising anger at his mother’s duplicity and felt guilty as hell. And the fact that he had been the one to go through her personal things had been a given.
Throughout her illness, it had been made obvious to Key that his father wouldn’t be able to handle that task after her death. He was too close to her, loved her too much to deal with the pain. As for Nick...no way was his twin going to do it. Key had been told that in no uncertain terms.
There was no one else, and Key had shouldered the responsibility.
As Key had begun the cheerless task of sorting through his mother’s belongings, he’d stumbled upon her diary.
Really, calling it a diary was a stretch. It was a collection of...letters.
At first glance, Key had seen the letters, bundled together and tied with a satin bow, and thought them love letters between his parents, and had set them aside for his father to peruse, not wanting to read something he thought to be intimate exchanges between his parents.
When he’d seen another man’s name on one letter, his hand paused in the act of placing them aside. Despite his inner voice telling him he didn’t need to tread there...he did. He’d read the letters.
And been stunned to learn of his mother’s transgression. How she’d fled Hawaii as a young woman, away from their father, and fallen in love with another man.
And had given birth, upon her return, nine months later to twin boys—he and his brother, Nick.
A’Kela had passed on last year and, despite the lies, he, Nick and their father had loved her desperately. And missed her just as desperately.
It was obvious to Key that his father had known of their true parentage. Yet he’d never said a word. And he’d accepted Key and Nick as his own, never treating them as anything but his sons.
Key drew in a deep breath. Too many skeletons.
For all of that going on, she still remained the primary thought running roughshod inside his head.
“And that’s saying a whole helluva lot, considering the type of day I’ve had,” he muttered. “Damn.” The curse was torn from his throat, grunted low.
Even as he blamed her, he knew she wasn’t the one to blame. It seemed lately she’d been running ’round in his head so much, it was becoming the norm to fault her for everything from the constant stream of women tramping in and out to tour the Kealoha Ranch in an effort to see the Dynamic Duo, the cheesy nickname he and his brother seemed to be stuck with due to the reality
