The Parks Empire: Secrets, Lies and Loves. Marie Ferrarella

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      Sara moved to the end of the bed while he rubbed his daughter’s back, then turned out the lamp and kissed her forehead. “Sleep tight.”

      “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” Stacy replied. She yawned and pulled the cover to her neck. “Good night, Sara, I mean, Miss Carlton.” She giggled, then closed her eyes.

      Sara and Cade left the room, leaving the door ajar. He turned out the hall light when they reached the stairs.

      At the bottom of the steps, he took her into his arms. “Alone at last.”

      His husky murmur was sexy and intimate. Sara wrapped her arms around his neck and met the kiss halfway. She, too, had been impatient for this moment.

      His hands roamed her back, her sides, then moved between them to caress her breasts. She tilted her head back so he could reach all the sensitive places along her throat with his magic lips. When he slipped his hands beneath her and lifted, she swung her legs up and around his waist, clinging as he carried her to the privacy of the guest room and locked the door behind them before flicking on the lamp.

      He sat in the cane-backed chair with her straddling his lap. With hands on her hips, he urged her to move against him. He was as ready for her as she was for him, she found.

      When he smiled, she did, too, and felt a wrench deep inside, as if part of her already knew that the closeness of the day and the passion of the night were fleeting things, the elusive dreams of what might have been.

      “You’re thinking again,” he scolded, touching the slight frown line between her eyebrows.

      “I’ve never found it easy to live in the moment,” she admitted. Or to deal with a guilty conscience, she added silently, wondering if he’d noticed her prying.

      “Let’s see what we can do about that,” he suggested.

      They kissed again and made love, then slept together until shortly before dawn. He woke her with his gentle touch and made love to her again. Later, she heard him in the shower, but she didn’t get up until he called her and Stacy to join him for breakfast.

      Then it was time to go back to the city.

      “All good things come to an end,” she murmured as they drove over the cow-guard and away from the ranch.

      “I hope not,” he said, smiling at her before facing the winding road back to the highway.

      “We can come back next weekend,” Stacy assured her.

      Sara looked back before they turned onto the main road and she could no longer see the lovely rolling pastures of the ranch. Someone, she recalled, had written that a person couldn’t go home again.

      Once San Francisco had been her home, then her family had moved to Denver. With a child’s acceptance of adult decisions, Colorado had become home. At the moment, she felt she didn’t belong to either place.

      What of the little paradise she’d shared with Cade and his daughter that weekend? Did she belong there?

      She wanted to, she acknowledged, then sighed quietly as awareness stole over her. She’d foolishly done what she shouldn’t. She’d fallen in love with the son of her enemy.

       Chapter Seven

      Cade went to the front door of his father’s two-story Pacific Heights mansion while Stacy stopped to splash her hands in the Poseidon fountain in the front courtyard. He’d grown up in this house, but he felt no sense of nostalgia nor attachment to it.

      His father had redone the interior some twelve or so years ago, removing the ornate furniture Cade remembered from his childhood and replacing it, with the help of an expensive decorator, with a minimalist style. The house now seemed like a store display—too sterile to house a family.

      The door opened before he could ring the doorbell, and Brenda Wheeler, the housekeeper who’d raised Cade and his siblings, beamed at him.

      “Wheelie,” Cade said as he swept the matronly widow into an embrace and bussed her on each cheek.

      “You rapscallion,” she scolded, hugging him back. “Stop this foolishness and come in the house. Is that other rascal with you? I have a special treat for her in the kitchen.”

      “I’m here,” Stacy called, running across the flagstones and up the steps. “What is the surprise?”

      “Now that would spoil it, wouldn’t it?” Mrs. Wheeler declared. “Mr. Cade, your father is waiting in the library. You come with me, missy.”

      Stacy went with the housekeeper while Cade directed his steps to the library, his favorite place in the fifteen-room mansion during his growing years. His father was there, a glass of wine in his hand, as he stood at the window and gazed at the night view of the city.

      So was his sister, Emily. She stood at the bar, pouring a glass of wine for herself. “Cade, join us?” she asked, holding the decanter up.

      He nodded. “Thanks, Em,” he said, taking the glass, then leaning down to exchange a hug.

      His twin had golden-brown hair, green eyes—which reminded him of another woman with brilliant green eyes—and their mother’s dimples, which now deepened as she smiled warmly at him. Emily was a romantic. She denied it, but the facts belied her protests—she was a wedding planner. A very good one, according to their friends.

      “I wondered if you would make it,” Walter said, crossing the room and stopping in front of Cade. “Your secretary said you’d left work early Friday and gone to the ranch.”

      Cade shook his father’s hand and smiled in spite of the other man’s sour expression and the fact Walter hadn’t asked about Stacy, his only grandchild. “Of course I came. It’s a command appearance, isn’t it?”

      He caught his sister’s warning grimace, telling him their father was in no mood for jocularity. So? When had he ever been?

      “Huh,” Walter said and sat in his favorite chair. “I suppose we’ll have to drag Jessica from her lair. Rowan hasn’t yet informed me of his plans for the evening.”

      Jessica, the artist of the family, lived in a cottage on the estate. Her studio was there, and that’s where she stayed unless otherwise summoned to the main house.

      Rowan, the wild one, as Cade and Emily dubbed their brother, might or might not stop by. At that moment, Cade heard the roar of a motorcycle. “I believe he’s here.”

      Emily smiled in relief. She, more than anyone, tried to keep peace between Walter and the children. Cade was glad she had her own place and a successful business. A hundred years ago, she would probably have lived at home, a spinster who had to bow to their father’s orders.

      Hearing voices in the back hall, Cade surmised Rowan and Jessica had arrived at the same time. He heard them both speak to the housekeeper, then her low voice urging them into the library.

      Jessica came in first. She smelled of a floral perfume and the mineral spirits she used to clean her brushes. She was dressed in black from head to foot. The slacks and form-fitting knit СКАЧАТЬ