“I hear you’ve suddenly become a property owner in our little paradise,” he said, hooking a thumb in the pocket of his jeans. A chuckle tumbled out of him at her surprise. “The curse of the small town, I’m afraid. News travels at an alarming rate. Of course, I’ve kept an ear to the ground, so to speak. Lucy’s property borders mine.”

“Yes, I know.” That’s why she’s dead. She bit the words back, too well schooled in social niceties to be so blunt. Besides, in all fairness, he hadn’t been the idiot with the rifle.

“Does this mean you’ll be joining our community?” he asked, looking too hopeful to be believed. “Or will you sell?”

“It’s too soon to say.”

“Of course,” he murmured, tipping his head in concession. “Well, if you would like a tour of the property or the area, don’t hesitate to ask. I’d be more than happy to squire you.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s a lovely property. Lucy was very comfortably ensconced there. Did she ever happen to tell you how she came to own it?”

There was an odd sharpness in his gaze. Mari wasn’t sure whether he was asking an idle question or waiting to see if she passed some secret test. She answered the only way she could.

“She told me she saw it while she was vacationing here. Then she came into some money and decided to buy it.”

If there were more to the story-and Mari was certain there was-she didn’t know it. She wondered if Bryce did.

He gave nothing away with his expression. The light from the fire glowed against his high forehead. He dropped his lashes to half mast. “Lucy was very lucky… and very clever.”

A strange tension held the moment in its grip. Then Bryce smiled. “I hope we’ll get a chance to hear you sing again, Mari. You’re very talented.”

“Thanks.”

He said his good-byes and went back to the entourage at his own table. Kevin glared down into his coffee cup, his jaw set. Drew rubbed a finger along his lower lip, his eyes hooded. He glanced up at her, looking almost sinister in the flickering shadows of the firelight.

“He’d dearly love to have that land,” he said softly. “So would J. D. Rafferty, for that matter. Not that a hundred-odd acres will make much of an impression on Bryce’s holdings. Rumor has it he’s up to eighty thousand acres.”

“God.”

“Yes.” He cut a glance across the room. Bryce was laughing as one of his guests raised a glass in a toast. Samantha Rafferty sat to his right in the chair usually occupied by Bryce’s cousin, Sharon Russell. Samantha laughed as well, though her head was ducked down, as if she didn’t want anyone to see that she hadn’t gotten the joke. Drew frowned. “He collects land like some people collect stamps.” He had his own suspicion that land wasn’t all Evan Bryce collected, but he kept that to himself and made a mental note to have a private chat with Samantha the next time she came in to work.

“Interesting man,” Mari murmured.

Kevin shoved his chair back from the table, his head down. “Excuse me,” he mumbled. “I have work to do.” With clumsy hands he gathered the papers he had brought in with him and left.

Drew sighed and rubbed his left temple.

Mari felt suddenly as if she were intruding on something very private. She slid the guitar from her lap and rose. “Thanks for the coffee. I think I’ll turn in. I want to get up early. Wouldn’t want to miss that sunrise.”

Drew forced a smile, but it vanished when he caught hold of her wrist. “Watch yourself with Bryce, luv,” he murmured. “Lucy enjoyed playing with snakes, but then, she had fangs of her own. I wouldn’t want to see you hurt.”

“Hurt how? Literally?”

“Just be careful.”

He rose then too, and left by the same back door Kevin had taken, leaving Mari standing by the fire, her eyes on Evan Bryce as he effortlessly charmed the young woman beside him, her thoughts on the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

“You had a good time tonight, Samantha?”

Samantha smiled shyly at the man strolling beside her up the cracked sidewalk to her empty house. Bryce had insisted on following her home to make certain she was all right. His beautiful cousin waited for him in the Mercedes convertible parked at the curb behind Samantha’s old junker of a Camero.

“Yeah,” she said, shrugging as if to discount the pleasure. “It was a lot of fun.”

“Everyone enjoyed having you there. You’re a breath of fresh air, so… untainted by the world.”

“Naive, you mean.”

“Not in a way meant to insult you. You’re young and beautiful and full of promise, with so much ahead of you.”

Like another night spent in an empty bed. Like a future full of days waiting tables at the Moose. The thoughts weighed her down like stones as she climbed the sagging steps to her front porch.

Bryce took her hands and turned her to face him when she would have reached for the door handle. His expression was earnest and fatherly-or what she had always imagined fatherly should be. Certainly her father had never shown this kind of interest in her. He’d never shown an interest in any of his children, had treated them as if they were nothing more than half a dozen stray dogs that seemed constantly underfoot.

“Don’t let this broken heart close you off, honey,” Bryce advised. “Your husband is a fool. If he fell off the earth tomorrow, the world would go on turning, you would still have a life, and, I dare say, it would be a better one. You have so much within yourself you have yet to discover and explore, so much potential. Don’t snuff it out.”

Tears sprang to Samantha’s eyes. Why couldn’t Will be the one telling her how wonderful she was? Because he obviously didn’t see in her what Bryce saw. If he had, he wouldn’t have gone looking for that elusive something in other women.

“Hey, no tears, now,” Bryce murmured, reaching up to brush one from her cheek. “You’ve cried enough. When is your next day off?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” he said, smiling. “You’ll come out to the ranch and spend the day. Go swimming, go riding, be with people who appreciate you.”

She started to protest, but he didn’t listen. He squeezed her hands and leaned forward to brush a paternal kiss against her cheek.

“I’ll pick you up myself. Be ready by nine. We’ll go riding. Have a picnic. It’ll be great.”

Then he was gone, gliding down off her shabby porch and striding gracefully toward the sleek Mercedes.

Samantha let herself into the darkened house, not bothering to turn on a light. The light from the streetlamp on the corner shone in through the windows well enough for her to see. As always, she had harbored the secret hope that Will would be waiting for her. It was a hope she never acknowledged until the disappointment struck her.

He wasn’t there. He was probably down at the Hell and Gone, laughing and drinking, his arm around some girl with tight jeans and big boobs. He probably wasn’t thinking about her, didn’t wonder if she was lonely, didn’t know she had spent the evening with people who drove sports cars and drank champagne. Would he care?

The question slipped into her heart like a knife. Now that there was no one to see them, no one to talk her out of them, the tears fell. She sank down onto the scarred wooden floor of the living room, bending over, curling into a ball. Her long braid fell over her shoulder and lay like a length of rope on the floor.

Rascal scampered in from the kitchen, all feet and ears and wagging tail. He was part golden retriever and part who-knew-what, big and clumsy and brimming with love. He barked at her for a moment, growls and whines mixing in his throat as he tried to decide what to do about her. Finally, Samantha sat up and reached for him, and he clambered into her lap, all too happy to give her something to hug and to lick the tears from her cheeks.

And she wrapped her arms around the puppy and sobbed as hard as her heart could stand, crushed by the thought that the dog he had given her cared more about her than Will.