The Mackades Collection (Books 1-4). Nora Roberts

he’d come back, a-riding into town in some fancy sports car and parking, bold as you please, right in front of the sheriff’s office.

      Of course, his brother Devin was sheriff now, had been for five years last November. But there’d been a time—and most remembered—when Rafe MacKade spent more than a night or two in one of the two cells in the back.

      Oh, he was as handsome as ever—so the women said. With those devil’s good looks the MacKades were gifted—or cursed—with. If a female had breath in her body, she’d look twice, maybe even sigh over that long, wiry build, that loose-legged stride that seemed to dare anyone to get in the way.

      Then there was that thick black hair, those eyes, as green and hard as the ones in that little Chinese statue in the window of the Past Times antique store. They did nothing to soften that tough, sharp-jawed face, with that little scar along the left eye. God knew where he’d gotten that.

      But when he smiled, when he curved that beautiful mouth up and that little dimple winked at the corner, a woman’s heart was bound to flutter. That sentiment came directly from Sharilyn Fenniman who’d taken that smile, and his twenty dollars for gas, at the Gas and Go, just outside of town.

      Before Rafe had his car in gear again, Sharilyn had been burning up the phone wires to announce the return.

      “So Sharilyn called her mama, and Mrs. Metz got right on her horse and told Mrs. Hawbaker down at the general store that Rafe maybe plans to stay.”

      As she spoke, Cassandra Dolin topped off Regan’s coffee. The way snow was spitting out of the January sky and clogging streets and sidewalks, there was little business at Ed’s Café that afternoon. Slowly Cassie straightened her back and tried to ignore the ache in her hip where it had struck the floor after Joe knocked her down.

      “Why shouldn’t he?” Smiling, Regan Bishop loitered over her mulligan stew and coffee. “He was born here, wasn’t he?”

      Even after three years as a resident and shopkeeper of Antietam, Regan still didn’t understand the town’s fascination with comings and goings. It appealed to and amused her, but she didn’t understand it.

      “Well, yeah, but he’s been gone so long. Only came back for a day or so at a time, once or twice in ten whole years.” Cassie looked out the window, where the snow fell thin and constant. And wondered where he had gone, what he had seen, what he had done. Oh, she wondered what there was out there.

      “You look tired, Cassie,” Regan murmured.

      “Hmm? No, just daydreaming. This keeps up, they’re going to call school early. I told the kids to come straight here if they did, but…”

      “Then that’s what they’ll do. They’re great kids.”

      “They are.” When she smiled, some of the weariness lifted from her eyes.

      “Why don’t you get a cup? Have some coffee with me?” A scan of the café showed Regan there was a customer in a back booth, dozing over his coffee, a couple at the counter chatting over the stew special. “You’re not exactly overrun with business.” Seeing Cassie hesitate, Regan pulled out her trump. “You could fill me in on this Rafe character.”

      “Well.” Cassie nibbled on her lip. “Ed, I’m going to take a break, okay?”

      At the call, a bony woman with a frizzed ball of red hair stuck her head out of the kitchen. Sparkling-framed glasses rested on her scrawny chest, above her bib apron. “You go ahead, honey.” Her low voice rasped from two packs of cigarettes a day. Her face was carefully painted from red lips to red eyebrows, and glowed from the heat of the stove. “Hey there, Regan. You’re fifteen minutes over your lunch hour.”

      “I closed at noon,” Regan told her, well aware that her clocklike schedule amused Edwina Crump. “People aren’t looking for antiques in this kind of weather.”

      “It’s been a hard winter.” Cassie brought a cup to the table and poured coffee for herself. “We’re not even through January, and the kids are already getting tired of sledding and making snowmen.” She sighed, careful not to wince when the bruise on her hip ached when she sat. She was twenty-seven, a year younger than Regan. She felt ancient.

      After three years of friendship, Regan recognized the signs. “Are things bad, Cassie?” Keeping her voice low, she laid a hand over Cassie’s. “Did he hurt you again?”

      “I’m fine.” But Cassie kept her eyes on her cup. Guilt, humiliation, fear, stung as much as a backhand slap. “I don’t want to talk about Joe.”

      “Did you read the pamphlets I got you, about spousal abuse, the women’s shelter in Hagerstown?”

      “I looked at them. Regan, I have two children. I have to think of them first.”

      “But—”

      “Please.” Cassie lifted her gaze. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

      “All right.” Struggling to hold back the impatience, Regan squeezed her hand. “Tell me about bad boy MacKade.”

      “Rafe.” Cassie’s face cleared. “I always had a soft spot for him. All of them. There wasn’t a girl in town who didn’t moon a few nights over the MacKade brothers.”

      “I like Devin.” Regan sipped at her coffee. “He seems solid, a little mysterious at times, but dependable.”

      “You can count on Devin,” Cassie agreed. “Nobody thought any of them would turn out, but Devin makes a fine sheriff. He’s fair. Jared has that fancy law practice in the city. And Shane, well, he’s rough around the edges, but he works that farm like two mules. When they were younger and they came barreling into town, mothers locked up their daughters, and men kept their backs to the wall.”

      “Real upstanding citizens, huh?”

      “They were young, and always seemed angry at something. Rafe most of all. The night he left town, Rafe and Joe got into it over something. Rafe broke Joe’s nose and knocked out a couple of his teeth.”

      “Really?” Regan decided she might like this Rafe after all.

      “He was always looking for a fight, Rafe was. Their father died when they were kids. I’d have been about ten,” she mused. “Then their mama passed on, right before Rafe left town. She’d been sick nearly a year. That’s how things at the farm got so bad around then. Most people thought the MacKades would have to sell out, but they held on.”

      “Well, three of them did.”

      “Mmm…” Cassie savored the coffee. It was so rare to have a moment just to sit. “They were barely more than boys. Jared would have been right about twenty-three, and Rafe’s just ten months behind him. Devin’s about four years older than me, and Shane’s a year behind him.”

      “Sounds like Mrs. MacKade was a busy woman.”

      “She was wonderful. Strong. She held everything together, no matter how bad it got. I always admired her.”

      “Sometimes you need to be strong to let things go,” Regan murmured. She shook her head. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t push. “So, what do you think he’s come back for?”

      “I don’t know. They say he’s rich now. Made a pile buying land and houses and selling them again. He’s supposed to have a company and everything. MacKade. That’s what he calls it. Just MacKade. My mother always said he’d end up dead or in jail, but…”

      Her voice trailed off as she looked through the window. “Oh, my,” she murmured. “Sharilyn was right.”

      “Hmm?”

      “He looks better than ever.”

      Curious, Regan turned her head just as the door jingled open. As black sheep went, she was forced to admit, this one was a prime specimen.

      He shook snow from thick hair