The Marriage Maker. Christie Ridgway

sweetie—”

      “Good morning!” The back door had opened again to admit Frannie’s parents, Celeste’s sister Yvette and her husband, Edward Hannon. The smell of a cool spring morning accompanied them as they headed for the countertop and Jasmine’s coffee.

      The girls exchanged plea san tries with the new arrivals, and soon they were all savoring their morning ritual. Jasmine continued preparing break fast for the guests, but the rest of them took their places around the large kitchen table. Edward unfolded the newspaper and smiled at the faces circling him. “And a good morning it is. No better way for a man to start the day than with a glimpse of the harem that has kept him happy all these years.”

      Celeste joined the others in the groan that in variably accompanied Edward’s usual comment. Someone wished that David, Frannie’s brother, was around to keep his father in check.

      Thinking of her nephew, Celeste could only wish David was nearby, too. An FBI agent in Atlanta, Georgia, he hadn’t made it to Montana for a visit in too long. And she needed her loved ones around her. The nightmares were trying to tell her something about the past, and she felt certain she’d need all those she held dear when the day of reckoning came.

      Yvette touched Celeste’s arm. “Are you all right?”

      “She had another rough night,” Cleo said.

      Celeste felt like a specimen in a bottle with five sets of serious eyes regarding her. That desperate, unnamed emotion swirled up inside her like a tornado, and she had to take a deep breath to find the strength to push it back down. “But I’m looking forward to an interesting day,” she said firmly. “Edward, tell us some good news.”

      With one more searching look at her face, Edward smoothed the front page absently, then bent his head. “Well,” he said, smoothing the paper again. “Lyle Brooks finally broke ground for that resort/casino complex he’s been talking up all over town.”

      Celeste frowned. That young man was some sort of kin on the Kincaid side and she’d never felt comfortable around him. “But isn’t the casino part of the Laughing Horse Reservation? How is Lyle involved?”

      It was banker Frannie who answered. “Because Indian laws allow gambling, the casino will be on the Laughing Horse reservation, Aunt Celeste. But the accompanying resort will be on Kincaid land. Lyle’s put together the financing for both projects.” She didn’t look any more at ease about the young man than Celeste felt. “In ten years the whole thing will move out of Kincaid/Laughing Horse hands and into those of a joint corporation, headed by Lyle.”

      Celeste should have been happy that they were off the subject of her nightmares, but suddenly the whole notion of Lyle and the disturbance of Kincaid land chilled her. A shiver racked her body. Yvette’s hand moved across the table to cover Celeste’s left one, the ache in it more pronounced than usual.

      “Celeste, what’s the matter?” Yvette asked.

      Another shiver rattled over Celeste’s spine. “There’s just something about Lyle I don’t like,” she said to her sister. “Maybe it’s because he reminds me of Jeremiah.”

      At the mention of their elder brother’s name, silence fell around the table. When he’d been murdered, the violence had been shocking, but they hadn’t mourned him. He’d been cold and controlling all his life.

      Celeste took a long breath, sorry to have brought her brother’s name into their warm circle. She looked from face to face, trying to gauge their moods. Edward and Yvette were concerned about her, she could see, while Frannie looked almost embarrassed. Standing behind Cleo, two worry lines bisected Jasmine’s smooth forehead. And Cleo—her beautiful, motherly Cleo—looked ready to fight tigers on Celeste’s behalf. But even underneath all her bristling protectiveness Celeste sensed in her older daughter another kind of sadness…

      Yvette squeezed Celeste’s hand. “We love you,” she said.

      Oh. And she loved them all and wanted them so much to be happy. With her right hand she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, intent on moistening her throat to tell them so.

      But the coffee sloshed over her hand instead, and she didn’t even notice the slight scald, because suddenly that frightening maelstrom of emotion, that nightmare hangover, rose up within her once again. There was no controlling it.

      She looked around at the faces of her family, but the feeling stayed, pulsing inside her.

      It was powerful and dark and she finally, finally, knew its terrifying name.

      The emotion that always remained with her after the horrible dream was…shame.

      Celeste dropped her gaze, unable to meet the eyes of her caring, beloved family. Because just as certain as she was that it was shame trying to claw its way out of her heart, she was quite sure her family would condemn her if they knew that long ago she had…she had…

      What?

      Oh, God. Despite the acknowledgment of that feeling of shame, despite thirty years of terror-filled nights, Celeste just didn’t know.

      She didn’t know what terrifying, shameful thing she had done.

      Two

      Ethan Redford sat in his newly purchased Range Rover outside White horn, Montana’s Bean sprouts day care center. Out his tinted windows he had a perfect view of the center’s fenced playground. Under the watchful gaze of several women he didn’t recognize, little kids built sandcastles, slid down a wavy slide, made imaginary meals in a gaily painted playhouse. Pleasing though the sight was, Ethan’s fingertips drummed the saddle-colored leather armrest.

      He was stalling.

      As humbling as the confession might be, he had to admit to himself that the idea of confronting Cleo Monroe after his abrupt, three-month absence was making his palms sweat. Hell! And this from a man who’d faced down his drunken, raging father at nine years old and brokered his first multimillion-dollar merger at thirty.

      He rubbed his hands against his deliberately casual khaki slacks. Though the deal he wanted to propose today was the most important of his life, he knew it wasn’t the moment for an Armani suit and his best silk tie. For Cleo, he needed to appear approachable instead of powerful. Friendly, not frightening.

      Cleo.

      As if thinking her name had summoned her, the woman he’d been fantasizing about for three months stepped from the back door of the stucco building onto the fenced play yard. Instantly she was surrounded, little kids clamoring for her attention, little hands patting her legs, little fingers grabbing her hands.

      Kind of like what he wanted to do. Grabbing her sounded good to him, too.

      Ethan closed his eyes and groaned, remembering the sweet, silky feel of Cleo’s skin. He saw the voluptuous rise of her breasts over her lacy bra and felt again the tremors shaking her body as he brushed his thumbs over her nipples. He groaned again.

      When he’d left Cleo that night, he’d considered himself pretty damn heroic for backing away from the wildfire of their mutual physical attraction. He hadn’t wanted to lead her on. She was the marrying kind, and he wasn’t. She deserved a man prepared for the type of family life she undoubtedly desired, and that hadn’t been him, by any means.

      Fate must be laughing its head off about right now.

      To the faint echoes of its capricious guffaws, Ethan forced himself out of his car and then reached into the rear seat for what had brought him from Houston back to White horn, back to Cleo. He wrestled a bit with the latch that released the baby carrier from its car seat base, letting loose a soft curse.

      Guilt gave him a little jab and he quickly apologized to the blond, wide-eyed baby staring up at him. “Sorry, Jonah.” And sorry to you too, Della. The boy’s mother wouldn’t appreciate the child’s first word being something better suited to a locker room than a nursery. He took a breath, pushing away the pain that came when he thought of Della. The only thing he could do for her