The Black Sheep's Inheritance
Maureen Child
One
The lawyer's office at the firm of Drake, Alcott and Whittaker was too crowded for Sage Lassiter's tastes. He much preferred being out on his ranch, in the cold, crisp air of a Wyoming spring. Still, he had no choice but to attend the reading of his adoptive father's will.
J.D. Lassiter had been dead only a couple of weeks and Sage was having a hard time coming to grips with it. Hell, he would have bet money that J.D. was far too stubborn to actually die. And now that he had, Sage was forced to live with the knowledge that now he would never have the chance to straighten things out between himself and the man who had raised him. Just like J.D. to go ahead and do something whether anyone else was ready for it or not. The old man had, once again, gotten the last word.
Sage couldn't have said when the tension between him and J.D. had taken root, but he remembered it as an always-there kind of feeling. Nothing tangible. Nothing that he could point to and say: There. That was it. The beginning of the end. Instead, it was a slow disintegration of whatever might have been between them and it was beyond too late to think about it now. Old hurts, old resentments had no place in this room and nowhere to go even if he had let them take the forefront in his mind.
"You look like you want to hit something." His younger brother Dylan's voice came in a whisper.
Shooting him a hard look, Sage shook his head. "No, just can't really take in that we're here."
"I know." Dylan pushed his brown hair off his forehead and gave a quick look around the room before turning back to Sage. "Still can't quite believe J.D.'s gone."
"I was just thinking the same thing." He shifted, folded his arms across his chest and said, "I'm worried about Marlene."
Dylan followed his gaze.
Marlene Lassiter had stepped in as surrogate mother to Sage, Dylan and Angelica after Ellie Lassiter died during childbirth with Angie. She'd been married to J.D.'s brother Charles, and when she was widowed, she'd come home to Wyoming to live on Big Blue, the Lassiter ranch. She'd been nurturer, friend and trusted confidante for too many years to count.
"She'll be okay, eventually," Dylan said, then winced as they watched Marlene hold a sodden tissue to her mouth as if trying to stifle a wail of agony.
"Hope you're right," Sage muttered, uncomfortable seeing Marlene in pain and knowing there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
Marlene's son, Chance Lassiter, sat to one side of her, his arm thrown protectively around her shoulders. He wore a leather jacket tossed on over a long-sleeved white shirt. Dark blue jeans and boots completed the outfit, and the gray Stetson he was never without was balanced on one knee. He was a cowboy down to his bones and the manager of J.D.'s thirty-thousand-acre ranch, Big Blue.
"You have any idea what the bequests are?" Dylan asked. "Couldn't get a thing out of Walter."
"Not surprising," Sage remarked with a sardonic twist of his lips. Walter Drake was not only J.D.'s lawyer, but practically his clone. Two more stubborn, secretive men he'd never met. Walter had made calls to all of them, simply telling them when and where to show up and not once hinting at what was in J.D.'s will. Logan Whittaker, another partner in the firm, was also working on J.D.'s will but he hadn't been any more forthcoming than Walter.
Sage wasn't expecting a damn thing for himself. And it wasn't as if he needed money. He'd built his own fortune, starting off in college by investing in one of his friends' brilliant ideas. When that paid off, he invested in other dreamers, and along the way he'd amassed millions. More than enough to make him completely independent of the Lassiter legacy. In fact, he was surprised he had been asked to be here at all. Long ago, he'd distanced himself from the Lassiters to make his own way, and he and J.D. hadn't exactly been close.
"Have you talked to Angelica since this all happened?" Dylan frowned and glanced to where their sister sat beside her fiancé, Evan McCain, her head on his shoulder.
"Not for long." Sage frowned, too, and thought about the sister he and Dylan loved so much. Her much-anticipated wedding had been postponed because of their father's death and who knew when it would happen now. Angelica's big brown eyes were red rimmed from crying and there were lavender shadows beneath those eyes that told Sage she wasn't sleeping much. "I went to see her a couple of days ago, hoping I could talk to her, but all she did was bawl." His scowl deepened. "Hate seeing her like that, but I don't know what the hell we can do for her."
"Not much really," Dylan agreed. "I saw her yesterday, but she didn't want to talk about what happened. Evan told me she's not sleeping, hardly eating. She's taking this really hard, Sage."
Nodding, he told his brother, "She and the old man were so close, of course she's taking it hard. Not to mention, J.D. collapsing at her rehearsal dinner adds a whole new level of misery. We've just got to make sure she gets past this. We'll tag team her. One of us going to see her at least every other day..."
"Oh," Dylan said, chuckling, "Evan will love having us around all the time."
"He's the one so hell-bent on marrying into the Lassiter family," Sage pointed out wryly. "If he takes one of us, he gets all of us. Best he figures that out now anyway."
"True." Dylan nodded then sat back in his chair. "Okay, then. We'll keep an eye on Angelica."
Dylan kept talking, now about his plans for the restaurant he was opening, but Sage had stopped listening. Instead, he watched Colleen Falkner, J.D.'s private nurse, slip quietly into the room, then make her way to the front, where she took a seat beside Marlene. The older woman gave her a watery smile of welcome and took her hand in a firm grip.
Sage narrowed his gaze on Colleen and felt a hard jolt of awareness leap to life inside him-just as it had the night of the rehearsal dinner. The same night J.D. died.
That night, he'd really noticed her for the first time. They'd met in passing of course, but on that particular night, there had been something different about her. Something that tugged at him. Maybe it had been seeing her long, amazing hair loose, cascading down her back in beautiful shimmering waves. Maybe it had been the short red dress and the black heels and the way they'd made her legs look a mile long. All he knew for sure was when he'd caught her eye from across the room, he'd felt a connection snap into place between them. He had started toward her, determined to talk to her-then J.D.'s heart attack had changed everything.
She wasn't wearing party clothes today, though. Instead, she wore baggy slacks, a sapphire-blue pullover sweater and her long, dark blond hair was pulled back into a braid that hung down between her shoulder blades. She had wide blue eyes that were bright with unshed tears and a full, rich mouth that tempted a man to taste it.
If he hadn't seen her in a figure-skimming red dress at the party-a dress that remained etched into his memory-Sage never would have guessed at the curves she kept so well hidden beneath her armor of wool and cotton.
He hadn't had much interaction with Colleen, since he and J.D. hadn't exactly been on the best of terms, so Sage didn't spend much time on Big Blue. But that night at the party, she'd intrigued him. Not only was she beautiful, but when J.D. collapsed, she had sprung into action, shouting orders like a general and taking charge until the paramedics showed up.
She had been devoted to J.D., had earned the family's affections-as evidenced by the way Marlene reached out to take the woman's hand-yet through it all had remained a bit of a mystery. Where was she from? Why had she taken a job working for a grumpy old man on a remote, if luxurious, ranch? And why the hell did he care?
"Colleen do something to you?"
He glanced at Dylan. "What?"
"Well, you're staring at her hard enough to set her hair on fire. What's up?"
Irritated to have been caught out, Sage muttered, "Shut up."
"Ah. Good answer." Dylan just smiled, shook his head and leaned forward to ask Chance something.
Sage let his gaze slide carefully back to Colleen. She bent her head to whisper something to Marlene, and he watched that long, silky braid slide across her shoulder, baring the nape of her neck. Soft blond curls brushed against her skin and he suddenly had the urge to touch her. To stroke that skin, to slide his fingers through her hair, to- He cut that thought off as fast as he could and scowled to himself.
The only possible reason she had for being here was if she was mentioned in J.D.'s will. Sure, J.D. had needed a nurse over his last few months, with his health failing, but such a beautiful one? Was that why she'd taken the job of caring for the old man? Had she been hoping for a nice payoff someday? Maybe he should spend a little time looking into Colleen Falkner, he thought. Do some checking. Make sure-