6...

Julia finally let out her breath when the lawyer—or whoever he was—started his car and

drove away. It was creepy the way he'd just sat there in the driver's seat, watching the

house. What did he want? Because she was sure it had nothing to do with some big,

mysterious inheritance.

What kind of trouble had Drew gotten himself into now?

She stepped back from the window, where she'd been peeking out the curtains to

make sure he left. She thought about whether to call Drew again to ask what he knew

about all this, but of course, that would be futile. He wasn't going to tell her—if he even

knew.

Julia had a strong feeling that her mother knew what was going on and why, though

she couldn't have said how, since Drew hadn't talked to their mother in three years. But

that call in which she'd said she was worried about him—that wasn't about a mother's

usual concern for her children. That was about something specific, something Julia knew

nothing about.

But confronting her mother would be just as pointless as confronting Drew.

The whole thing made Julia want to bang her head against a wall. How was she

supposed to protect her family when no one would even tell her what she was protecting

them against?

She took off her coat, hung it on the rack, and headed back down the hall toward her

treadmill to finish her workout. On the way, she passed a mirror mounted on the wall

over a hall table. She caught a glimpse of herself, and froze.

Only then did it occur to her that she'd been talking to one of the sexiest men she'd

come across in years with her hair askew, her armpits soaked with sweat, and her face

blotched from the effort of exercise. And she was wearing tattered sweatpants that should

have been thrown out months ago.

Well, shit.

What was the world coming to when you had to worry about how you looked while

working out in your own home, because a hot, wavy-haired, blue-eyed guy with an

expensive coat and designer shoes might turn up on your doorstep?

Honestly, life was too hard already without that kind of pressure.

The drive between Bozeman and the Delaney ranch land up near Billings was more

than two hours, and Colin knew he wasn't done here. So, instead of staying at the

family's house—which was empty right now, since Liam hadn't yet returned from

California—he'd checked in at the Lindley House in downtown Bozeman.

The B&B, built in 1892, had a homey feel with its wood floors and exposed brick,

its quiet, tree-lined neighborhood now covered in snow. The whole place only had four

rooms, and Colin's included a queen-sized bed, a small and sleek bathroom, and views of

the white-dusted Bridger Mountains.

He'd only taken the time to check in and drop off his bags before going to the

McCray house, so now, with his coat off and his feet beginning to feel warm again, he

began the job of unpacking—though he hoped he wouldn't be here long.

With any luck, he'd be able to locate Drew McCray, tell him about the inheritance,

and persuade him to come to California to meet the family he might not know he had, all

in the next day or two.

If not, he supposed he would have to get comfortable, because he wasn't going home

until he'd done what he came for.

He unpacked his things, thinking how inadequate his clothing was for the Montana

weather. And why wouldn't it be? He'd lived in San Diego for a few years now, and the

daytime temperatures there rarely got below the midsixties. And before that, he'd grown

up in Cambria, which wasn't exactly known for its severe climate.

He wished he'd at least thought to bring some boots. He looked ruefully at his

leather loafers, which would likely never be the same after his trudge through Mrs.

Newmeyer's front yard.

Once he'd gotten his things reasonably in order, he settled onto the bed with his back

against the headboard and opened his laptop.

He Googled the name McCray, along with the city of Bozeman, and hunted around a

little to see what came up. Of course, he'd done that before he'd left California. But then,

he'd been Googling Drew McCray specifically. Now, he was searching to see what he

could find out about the woman who'd answered the door earlier this afternoon.

At the thought of her, he couldn't help picturing her face and the way she'd looked

at him, both before she'd concluded that he was the enemy, and after. He'd seen a stark

vulnerability there that intrigued him.

He found himself hoping that she wasn't Drew McCray's wife or girlfriend—and

then he chided himself for it. He was being stupid. And his mother would be the first one

to tell him so, if she were here.

Online, he found the usual items one would expect: obituaries, White Pages listings,

LinkedIn profiles, a few Facebook entries. None of it jumped out at him. Then he thought

to click on IMAGES. He scrolled through a few pages of randomness: maps, places,

people, businesses.

And then, there she was.

On page three, he found a photo of the woman from the house. She was standing in a

group of people at some sort of ribbon cutting ceremony. She was smiling. Thick auburn

hair, pale skin, a smattering of freckles across her nose. She was dressed in some sort of

skirt suit, makeup done, that glossy hair gathered at the nape of her neck.

He clicked on the photo and followed the link to the source page.

The page was an article from the local newspaper about the opening of a shopping

center just outside of Bozeman. The caption for the photo Colin had found listed

representatives from the developer, the construction crew, and some of the anchor stores.

It also listed the landscape designer for the property—Julia McCray.

Okay, so she was family. Was she Drew's wife? The idea of that rankled him.

Now that he had her name, he Googled that—JULIA MCCRAY, BOZEMAN MT—and

got several pages of hits. He found her business page, detailing her services as a

landscape designer to homes and businesses throughout the state. He found her Facebook

business page, and then her personal page, which was set to private. There were

numerous articles about jobs she'd done, including hotels and resorts with names he

recognized.

When he pulled up a magazine article—one of those deals profiling local women in

business—he started to make some headway. In the article, which had been published

only a couple of months before, Julia talked about her education, her family, and her

efforts to build her career.

And the challenges of doing it all as a single woman.

Okay, so she wasn't Drew's wife. Then who was she?

He went back to his Google search results and kept scanning for anything useful. At

the bottom of the third page, he found an obituary, dated three years earlier. Andrew

McCray, dead at fifty-seven as a result of injuries suffered in a car crash. And down at

the bottom, there it was:

He is survived by his wife, Isabelle, and his two children, Julia and Drew.

Julia was Drew McCray's sister.

A few questions ran through his mind. Was it possible she was Redmond's child,

too? If so, Redmond apparently hadn't known about her, because she hadn't been

mentioned in the will.

He needed to talk to Drew's mother—Redmond's former mistress—but the only

address he had for her was the house where Julia lived. Did Isabelle live there with her

daughter? If not, where had she gone?

Colin hunted around online and found a site where he could check someone's public

records for a small fee. He entered ISABELLE MCCRAY, BOZEMAN MT, used his credit

card to pay, and then waited for the results.

It turned out to be worth the $29.99.

Isabelle McCray had remarried in 2016 and was now Isabelle Bryant. And the site

had an address for her, right here in Bozeman.

Julia probably would have Googled Colin, if she'd cared enough to do it.

But she didn't. Not at all.

It was so much easier to assume that he was some lowlife out to make Drew's life

more miserable than it already was. Then, she could just ignore him, shut him out, slam

the door and pretend he'd never showed up at her house with his brooding good looks

and Mrs. Newmeyer's dog in his arms.

That was the theory, anyway.

But in fact, it wasn't so easy to forget about that afternoon's incident.

She let the whole thing nag at her as she finished her workout, showered, dressed,

and then tried to get something done on her sketches for the hotel project. With Colin

Delaney's face and voice in her brain, she couldn't focus on what she was doing. Sitting

at her desk with a pencil in her hand and her sketchbook in front of her, she found herself

losing her train of thought and staring at the blank page.

What if Drew was really in some kind of trouble? What if he wasn't, and he really

did have an inheritance coming to him? A substantial inheritance, the guy on her porch

had said. It had to be a lie, but what if it wasn't?

Around four p.m., she gave up and poured herself a glass of Chardonnay and took it

into her front room, where she flopped onto the couch. It had been snowing steadily for

the past couple of hours, but now it had stopped, and some blue sky was peeking out

through the gloom.

When she heard a car's engine outside on the street, she peered out through the

curtains, worried that this Colin Delaney had come back to try again. Instead, she saw

Mike's truck, and then Mike himself as he got out of the driver's seat and went to the bed

of the pickup to retrieve his snow shovel.

When she got outside, Mike was already shoveling the front walk.

She grabbed her coat from the rack, put it on, and went out onto the front porch.

"Mike. What are you doing?" she called to him.

"What does it look like? I'm baking some goddamned cookies." He scooped up a

shovelful of snow and hurled it into the yard.

"You don't have to shovel my snow," she said.

"Who else is gonna do it? You'd just leave it until you had to tunnel out of there."

He kept working, and didn't look up.

Julia looked around and sighed in exasperation. "What did we get today, two

inches?"

"Doesn't mean you can just ignore it," he grumbled.

The idea of ignoring the snow reminded her of everything else she was ignoring.

"I've got wine," she said.

He looked up at her, askance, from under the hood of his coat. Then, shovel in hand,

he trudged up the walk and onto the porch. He propped the shovel up against the side of

the house and unzipped his coat.

"Red or white? You know I hate that red crap."

"You're telling me Drew's gonna get some kind of big inheritance?" Mike peered at

her skeptically, a glass of the Chardonnay in his hand. He was doing the man spread on

her sofa, one arm draped across the back cushions, knees wide.

"No! You're not listening! It was kind of a … a scam to get me to tell the collections

people where he is! God. I told you that already." Julia was sitting on the edge of a chair

facing the sofa. She was leaning toward Mike, her elbows on her knees, her face earnest.

"From what I'm gathering, you don't know that," Mike pointed out. "You're

guessing."

"Well …" She waved her hands around in an effort to defend herself from his logic.

"I'm guessing based on experience!"

"Sure." Mike nodded.

"But this Colin Delaney—supposedly he's this lawyer from San Diego—just

wouldn't back off! I wouldn't be surprised if he stole Mrs. Newmeyer's cocker spaniel

just as a way to get me to let down my guard."

She didn't really think that, but she sensed she didn't have Mike's full sympathy,

and the dog scenario was a desperate bid to get it back.

Mike was looking at her, doing this sucking thing he did with his front teeth when he

wanted to show skepticism. He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket.

"Colin Delaney? From San Diego?" He looked to her for confirmation.

"That's what I said. But that probably wasn't even his real name."

"Uh huh," Mike said absently as he tapped on his phone.

"Am I boring you?" Julia wanted to know. "Is this conversation failing to keep your

attention? Because I have to tell you—"

"What's this guy look like?" Mike said, interrupting her.

"What?"

"This Delaney guy. This fake lawyer. What does he look like?" He continued to tap

on the phone.

"Well …" Julia was flustered by the question, mainly because the way he'd looked

was still so prominent in her mind. "Uh … He was tall. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Medium

build." With a face like Henry Cavill, she thought but didn't say. And a body, under that

coat, that probably looks like it's sculpted out of marble. She had no way of knowing that

last part, but a girl could take advantage of a vivid imagination. "He was just … a guy,"

she lied, for Mike's benefit.

"Uh huh," Mike said again. He turned the screen of his phone toward Julia. "Did he

look like this?"

And there, on Mike's screen, was Colin Delaney, looking startlingly dapper in a dark

gray suit, his cobalt eyes brooding at the camera.

Julia's eyebrows drew together. "That's him. Where did you find that photo?"

Mike cocked his head to the side and looked at Julia with a mixture of pity and

weary patience. "I got it from the Fortune magazine website. Let's see … 'The Twenty

Most Eligible Bachelors in Business.' They put him at number ten, if you're curious."

Julia gaped at the picture on the screen.

"He's not a debt collector," she said.

"No, he is not. Don't you know how to Google?"

"Give me that." Julia grabbed the phone from him and began to scroll through the

article. Colin Delaney's family, it turned out, owned a cattle ranch on the Central Coast

of California, as well as extensive real estate holdings throughout that state and several

others. The family's collective wealth, the article said, totaled somewhere in excess of

one billion dollars.

With a B.

"Holy shit," Julia said.

"You still wanna stonewall this guy, or you think maybe you should find out what he

wants?" Mike asked dryly.

"But … but why would this California billionaire be out here looking for Drew?"

Julia couldn't get the concept straight in her mind.

"I'm sure you'll wanna ask him that," Mike said, reaching out to take back his

phone.

"An inheritance," Julia said, shaking her head in wonder. "From whom? And why?

And … and why wouldn't a California billionaire lawyer send someone out here to find

Drew, instead of showing up on my doorstep himself?"

"Life's a real kick in the ass," Mike observed, looking at her as though he still

thought she might be acting like a fool.

Julia picked up her wineglass, looked at the contents, and then drained the glass in

one large gulp. "I have to call this guy. This Colin Delaney. I have to call him and find

out what's going on. I have to … shit."

Mike raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"I slammed the door in his face before he could give me his contact information."

"Oh, I imagine he'll be back," Mike said.

She didn't want to wait to find out whether Mike was right. If the man who'd shown

up at her door holding Mrs. Newmeyer's dog had answers about what was going on with

Drew, then she needed to get those answers from him.

And, considering how she'd looked when he'd seen her the first time, it wouldn't

hurt if she was wearing something cute when that happened......