His By Any Means. Maureen Child

his mind. He still wasn’t sure how she’d managed it, but whenever they were together, she actually got him to talk. He’d opened up to her about his ranch, his plans, his life—something he hadn’t done with anyone else. Not even Dylan or Angelica.

      Colleen had slipped up on him. He hadn’t expected to actually like her. Hadn’t thought that he’d want her so badly that every night was a torture and every day was a lesson in self-control. Plus, he was no closer to finding out what he needed to know than he had been before this started.

      Was this a deliberate maneuver on her part? Suck him in, distract him with her big blue eyes and then set the sexual tension bar so damn high that he couldn’t think straight?

      If that was her plan, it was a damn good one.

      Hell, he hadn’t even kissed her. How could he be this torn up and feel so out of control over a woman he hadn’t even kissed?

      “And why haven’t you kissed her?” he asked himself in disgust. Because he knew that the moment he tasted her, took that luscious, amazing mouth with his, that there would be no stopping. He’d have to have all of her. And that had not been the plan. But then, he’d expected that he would have answers by now. Since this was going to take longer than he’d thought, the plan had to change.

      As that thought settled into his mind, Sage took his first easy breath in a week. Talking to her wasn’t working, so he would seduce any secrets she held out of her. He’d use sex—crazed, hot, sweaty, incredible sex—to find out if she was withholding any information he might need to contest the will.

      Then when he had what he needed, he would walk away.

      She wasn’t the kind of woman to go for a one-night stand, and once she discovered that was all he was willing to offer her, she’d let him walk.

      But first, he would have her. Under him. Over him. And then he’d finally be able to get her out of his mind.

      He scrubbed both hands over his face, then adjusted the fit of his jeans, hoping to ease the ache that had locked around his groin for the past week. It didn’t help. Nothing would. The only way to ease that pain was to bury himself inside Colleen and thankfully, that was about to happen. He’d felt the chemistry between them. Knew that she was strung as tightly as he was. Seducing her wouldn’t be difficult.

      She was going to be here. Every day. Every night. He could hear her voice in his mind again: Will you show me what I need to know? Oh, there was plenty that he wanted to show her and very little of it had to do with survival.

      What the hell had he been thinking, asking her to stay here? “Must be a closet masochist,” he muttered darkly.

      Or he had been, before he’d altered his plan. But things were different now. When Colleen finally showed up here at the house today, he was going to do what he should have done days ago: kiss the hell out of her. And then he’d get her into his bed as quickly as possible and scramble her mind so completely, she’d tell him whatever he needed to know.

      Gritting his teeth against yet another wave of desire thrumming inside him, he turned into the stable and headed down the long center aisle. The familiar scents of horses, straw and leather combined to welcome him and he sighed in gratitude. One thing he could count on was that being with the horses he bred and raised eased his mind. Here, he could push thoughts of Colleen aside—however briefly.

      He paused long enough to greet one of the mares who poked her head through the half door to her stall.

      “Belle, you’re a beauty,” he whispered. The chestnut mare butted his shoulder with her head as he stroked her jaw and neck, murmuring soft words that had the animal whickering in delight. It was this he lived for. Being around these animals that he loved. Caring for them, training them. Horses didn’t lie. Didn’t betray you. They were who they were and you accepted them at face value. You always knew where you stood with an animal.

      It was people who let you down.

      “Hey, boss!”

      Frowning at the interruption, Sage gave the horse one last pat and turned to look back at one of the cowboys who lived on his ranch. “What is it, Pete?”

      “Thought you’d like to know your sister just drove up.”

      Of course she did. Grimacing tightly, Sage muttered, “Okay, thanks.”

      So much for looking in on the newest foal born on the ranch. Instead, he gave the mare another long stroke over her neck, then headed back out of the stable. Pushing one hand through his hair, he told himself that it seemed women were destined to plague him lately. Wouldn’t you know his sister would show up on the very day he was at last going to taste Colleen Falkner?

      Sage couldn’t even remember the last time Angie had come up the mountain to see him. Hell, usually she was living in L.A., but when she did come home, she stayed at Big Blue and visited her friends in Cheyenne.

      But this visit was different, wasn’t it? She’d lost her father, and then lost faith in him. She was upset about the will and having lost control of Lassiter Media, he knew. What he didn’t know was what he could do about it. He and Dylan had talked this through several times and neither of them had come up with a way to challenge J.D.’s will.

      So far, it had been made plain to them all that J.D. had definitely been in his right mind when he had the will drafted, and fighting his last wishes might very well invalidate the whole document. Until they could be sure of their next moves, he and Dylan at least had agreed to take this slowly.

      Since J.D. was gone now, that made Sage the head of the family—and he had to consider everyone’s inheritances, not just Angie’s. He didn’t want to risk Chance losing the ranch, or their aunt Marlene losing her bequest.

      As much as it pained him, Sage couldn’t make this any easier on the sister he loved. All he could really do was listen. A damned helpless feeling for a man more accustomed to having the answers than scrambling unsuccessfully for them. Scrubbing his hands over his face, he pushed those unsettling thoughts from his mind and headed for the main house.

      The ranch yard was laid out a lot like Big Blue, he thought as he walked across it. But that wasn’t a homage to J.D., he assured himself. It just made sense. The main house was set back at the end of a curving drive. A landscaped sweep of greenery and flowers spread out in front of it in barely tamed splendor. The barn, stables and cabins for the cowhands who worked and lived on the ranch were set farther back and there was a pool that curved around a rock waterfall, with a stone patio surrounding it.

      And from every spot on his property, the views were tremendous. He’d had his architect build the house to accommodate the beauty and become a part of the mountains itself. Acres of wood and glass and stone made the house look as though it had always been there, as if it had grown from the rocks and the forest. Trees were everywhere, and the scent of pine flavored every breath.

      In Wyoming, winter held on, sometimes even into summer, especially this high up the mountain. An icy wind tore at Sage’s hair as he walked toward his sister. Angelica was just climbing out of her car when he approached, and one look at her told Sage that she wasn’t in much better shape than she had been when he’d seen her a couple nights ago.

      True to their plan, he and Dylan had dropped in on their sister at Big Blue. It still wasn’t easy walking into that house, cluttered with memories, but for his sister, he was willing to bite the bullet.

      Evan had been there too, of course, but the tension between the formerly happy couple was unmistakable. Evan was doing his best to make this work, but Angie was so hurt and angry at her father that there wasn’t a lot of give in her at the moment. How they were managing to work together through this was a mystery to Sage. Judging by the tight expression on Angie’s face now, that tension hadn’t eased up any either.

      “Sorry to just drop in,” she blurted, shrugging into a navy blue sweater that dropped to midthigh. “I had to get out of the house.”

      “You’re welcome here anytime,” Sage told her, mentally letting go of his plans for Colleen—at