wasn’t charm that had changed Hope’s mind about coming out for the weekend. Whatever it was, he figured he could find out before the weekend was over. He would make a point of it.
“What’s happening?” Trent, one of Larry Kincaid’s other illegitimate sons, wanted to know.
“Collin talked Baxter’s daughter into coming out to the ranch. She’ll be here for the weekend,” Garrett told him.
Trent glanced first at his wife Gina and then back at Collin with interest. “She’s the attorney on the case, isn’t she?”
Collin nodded and didn’t add anything more.
“It’s strange how the Kincaid family seems to be so totally enmeshed with the Baxters, isn’t it?” Trent continued. “Lexine, Emma’s birth mother, was married to Dugin Kincaid, Jeremiah’s younger son. Now Emma is married to Brandon, a Kincaid from the illegitimate branch of the family.”
“And has a twin, although Emma’s mother isn’t admitting to having another child,” Gina, the private investigator instrumental in locating Garrett’s grandsons, reminded them.
The DNA tests that had nearly convicted Emma in the death of the mayor’s daughter, Christina Montgomery, had proven she was one of a set of identical twins. Only the fact that Emma’d been inoculated against rubella and her mysterious twin hadn’t, had saved her.
Collin thought of Hope and her embarrassment at the mention of her relative, the notorious Lexine Baxter.
The unknown twin, who had apparently been with Christine Montgomery shortly before her death, wasn’t making herself accessible to the local authorities as requested through the news media. From what he’d seen of Brandon’s wife, Emma wasn’t anything like her mother. Was the twin?
Gina laughed ruefully. “So. Does this mean there’s going to be one more for dinner this weekend?”
“I’ll help with the cooking,” Trent volunteered.
Hattie, their previous housekeeper, had recently quit. The ranch had trouble keeping help because of the supposed curse on the Kincaid land. Gina had assumed most of the planning and served as executor of household chores. Everyone had been assigned a task that contributed to the running of the homestead.
There were moans all around and graphic reminders of charred hamburgers resembling charcoal briquettes at Trent’s last attempt at supper. He was unrepentant. “Practice makes perfect.”
“Only if you do it right,” Collin told him. “You have to keep an eye on the grill and squirt water on the flames before they incinerate the burgers.”
“Hey, I can do it,” Trent assured everyone.
“Uh-oh,” Gina said, “the impatient one awakes.” She hurried from the table to answer her son’s summons.
Collin’s grandfather chuckled. “I believe women could hear the cry of their own baby if they were at a ball game with fifty-thousand cheering fans and the child was in a nursery a mile away.” He turned his gaze on Collin. “It’s about time you were thinking of starting your family. You aren’t getting any younger.”
“I’m only thirty-one,” Collin protested good-naturedly. He’d been hearing about marriage and children from the old man since he could remember. “Besides, I’m too busy rushing back and forth between here and Elk Springs to think about finding a bride.”
Across the table, his half brother watched with the assured grin of one who had done his part and won their grandfather’s approbation by acquiring a wife and providing a son to carry on the Kincaid tradition in Whitehorn.
Assuming they ever got title to the ranch.
Collin frowned as he recalled his brief telephone conversation with Hope. He wanted to know what had happened to change her mind between their meeting yesterday, which hadn’t gone well in his opinion, and this morning.
She had been positively horrified at the idea when he had mentioned it yesterday at lunch at the Hip Hop Café. Today she’d admitted he was probably right—she needed to see the land to know exactly what parcels had been sold off the original Baxter holdings. She was a mystery, this woman who’d had the nerve to walk out on him in the busy diner one day, then call him the next, pretty as you please, to admit she’d possibly been wrong.
A thrum of anticipation vibrated through him. It had nothing to do with settling the case and everything to do with being alone with her as they explored the range.
Alarms went off in his head, but he knew he wasn’t going to heed them. Ruefully he wondered what had happened to his instinct for survival.
“So what’s the plan?” Trent wanted to know.
Collin shook his head. “No particular plan. I thought she should come out and explore the place while we try to hammer down the details of an offer that her father, we hope, can’t refuse.”
Trent’s face darkened. “Revenge. The man is obsessed with it. That’s the only reason for this whole lawsuit.”
“It’s hard to let go of a dream,” Garrett said sadly. “He was promised the place as a teenager. He poured his heart into it, then it was lost to him through no fault of his own. That’s a deep hurt.”
Collin studied his grandfather. The old man had a temper, which had exploded in the last meeting with Jordan Baxter and his sharp-minded daughter, but he also understood the underlying emotion of his enemy. Collin hoped when he was his grandfather’s age he had half the understanding of human nature that Garrett had. And the compassion.
Collin had at first been resentful of the brood of bastard brothers, but that was before he’d realized he’d had life a lot easier than any of them. He’d known his roots. And he’d had Garrett’s unwavering love to help him on the right path. That had been the greatest influence in his life.
Realizing his advantages and that the Elk Springs ranch would still be his—and his sister’s, of course—he’d pitched in to help the new brothers gain their own part of the Kincaid inheritance. He’d even learned to like them for the most part, especially Trent, who was becoming a close friend.
Both Trent and Gina liked staying at the ranch and did so often. Cade and Leanne had built a fine house in a wooded meadow nearby. Brandon and Emma were thinking of doing the same. Emma and Hope, newly discovered cousins, could get to know each other…
Shocked at the direction of his thoughts, Collin broke off the odd musing. Rising, he told his grandfather, “I have work to do. I need to talk to Cade on the Appaloosa breeding program. I saw a stallion on the res the other day that he might be interested in.”
Garrett nodded, his smile serene.
Although the lawsuit wasn’t over, Collin knew his grandfather thought things were progressing smoothly and according to plan—which was to have all his grandsons married and settled within the year.
That left him as the last Kincaid bachelor. Plus the unknown seventh bastard son of Larry Kincaid.
Gina had traced his philandering father’s whereabouts at the time and was sure the last son had been conceived and still existed in Whitehorn. It was only a matter of time before she found the woman who’d been involved, Gina’d
