The Return Of David Mckay. Ann Evans

      

       “ Let’s call a truce .”

      David’s gaze held hers in a warm study. “I wasn’t aware we were at war.”

      Addy refused to back-pedal now. “You have to admit, it’s been a little…tense the past couple of days.”

      With a slight jerk of his head, David gave her an odd look. “Considering our past, how could it be anything else?”

      “Can’t we just be friends for a little while?” she asked in disgust. “We’ve only got a week to go. It wouldn’t hurt to pretend to get along for your grandmother’s sake.”

      “I suppose not. What would I have to do?”

      “Well, for one thing, you could stop taking issue with everything I say.” She opened her napkin with an audible snap. “Some men think I’m a fascinating conversationalist. A lot of them have found my company very enjoyable.”

      She watched his smile reappear as he gazed at her with lazy curiosity. “Really? How many?”

      “If you’re not going to take this seriously…”

      He held up one hand. “OK, trail boss. You win,” he conceded, and tipped his beer bottle in a salute. “Bosom buddies from now on.”

      She cleared her throat and added primly, “Figuratively speaking.”

      His smile turned into a wolfish grin that made her shiver. “Of course.”

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Ann Evans has been writing since she was a teenager, but it wasn’t until she joined Romance Writers of America that she actually sent anything to a publisher. Eventually, with the help of a very good critique group, she honed her skills and won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America for Best Short Contemporary Romance of 1989. Since then she’s happy to have found a home at Mills & Boon® Superromance.

      A native Floridian, Ann enjoys travelling, hot fudge sundaes and collecting antique postcards. She loves hearing from readers and invites them to visit her website at www.Aboutannevans.com.

      Dear Reader,

      Well, I guess you could say we have come to the final chapter. Nick, Matt and Rafe D’Angelo have all achieved their happy endings. Now it’s Addy’s turn.

      I’m going to miss the entire family and Lightning River Lodge. I’ve had such fun creating these stories, and I hope you’ve enjoyed them as well.

      After three books set in and around the family lodge and the town of Broken Yoke, I wanted something a little different for Addy. Since she loves adventure and the lodge’s stable, I thought it was time we explored a little of the area on horseback.

      Now, I have a confession to make. I hate camping. When I was a kid, I didn’t mind sand in my bed and mosquitoes in the tent. OK, I did – but you just put up with it in those days. But now…my idea of roughing it is to stay in a hotel that doesn’t have internet access. I love fresh towels and room service. The idea that someone will not only bring food to you, but allow you to eat that meal in your pyjamas if you want to is absolute bliss.

      Thank you so much for allowing me to share these stories about the D’Angelo family. They feel like old friends to me, and I hope you feel the same way.

      As Addy would say, Happy Trails!

       Ann Evans

      The Return of David McKay

      ANN EVANS

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      SURROUNDED BY CHINTZ and needlepoint, David McKay stood in the middle of his grandmother’s living room and spread his hands in desperation. Somehow, he just had to get through to her.

      “Please,” he said. “I’m begging you for the last time. Don’t do this.”

      Geneva McKay exhaled a little sigh. She folded another blouse into the tapestry carpetbag that sat open on the sofa. “I’m sorry, David. I’ve listened for almost an hour now, and this discussion is becoming quite tiresome. Really, dear, you shouldn’t have flown out here.”

      At just a tad over five feet two, Gran might be dwarfed in his presence, but David knew she was hardly intimidated. He was—as she liked to put it—a big-shot Hollywood producer in an expensive suit, but she’d always see him as her little boy, eating mud sandwiches in the backyard and kissing the dog on the lips.

      Since his arrival in Broken Yoke this morning he’d been relentless in his arguments, but nothing he said seemed to make any difference. Her mind was made up. Probably had been from the day her darling Herbert—David’s grandfather—had breathed his last. In her words, only that silly problem with her heart last year had kept her from carrying out his wishes. Stubborn old woman.

      “This is insane!”

      “Don’t be impolite,” she admonished without glancing his way. “It’s not insane at all. My friend Shirley says it’s carmel.”

      “That’s karma, and it’s no such thing.” David raked a distracted hand through his hair, hair he’d paid a fortune to have groomed on Rodeo Drive yesterday. He frowned and gave his grandmother a probing look. “Isn’t Shirley the one who thinks aliens are trying to contact her through her toaster?”

      “Not since she sold it in a garage sale.”

      He pressed his lips together and begged ethereal gods for patience. “Gran, if you’re absolutely set on doing this, let me charter a plane. We’ll fly to this Devil’s Smile area and you can scatter Grampa Herb’s ashes all across the state of Colorado if that’s what you want.”

      “Oh, that’s just like you, David. So practical. And unsentimental.” She shook her head regretfully. “But I’m afraid it just won’t do. I’ve waited far too long as it is.”

      She walked over to the fireplace, where, in an oddly ornate carved box, her husband’s ashes held a place of reverence on the mantelpiece. Lovingly her fingers drifted across the sealed lid.

      “Two years poor Herbert’s been sitting here, and every time I look at this box I remember his last request. Don’t you?” She sighed wistfully, and her pale blue eyes lost their focus as she revisited old memories. “‘Gennie,’ he said, ‘those two weeks of our honeymoon were the most precious days of my life. Don’t file my ashes away in some vault like a forgotten library book. Take me to the Devil’s Smile.’” She straightened her thin shoulders. “So I’m going back to that canyon. And don’t take this the wrong way, David, but you can’t stop me.”

      Thoroughly frustrated, David moved to capture his grandmother’s slim body between his hands. He didn’t have time for this. There were already meetings long overdue and more to be scheduled. How could one old woman be so hardheaded?

      He let his features settle into creases of concern. “Physically you’re in no condition to do this.”

      “Oh, pish. I’m not decrepit, you know. Miranda Calloway went white-water rafting with her family, and she’s seventy-six. Three years older than I am.”

      “Miranda Calloway didn’t have heart surgery, did she?”

      She gave him a perky smile, satisfied as a robin who’d just spied a fat worm in the grass. “No. So you see, I’m in better shape than she is. Do you think there’ll be room on the pack mule for my sketch pad?”

      “A week on horseback to get into the canyon. A week to get out. Sleeping in a tent on the ground. This won’t be easy.”

      “I’ll be fine. Before Herbert retired and we moved here, we traveled all the time. We were pioneers. Why, when we lived in Arizona, wild Indians were still a threat.”

      “Pioneers!” Incredulity escaped David in a short laugh. “Gran, you lived