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In Sha’allah, he thought, with a bitter smile. In Sha’allah.
* * *
Thousands of miles away, Angelica Gordon stared out her window at the blackness of the Texas night.
Were these the same stars that hung in the sky back home in New England? Angelica smiled. She knew that they were. The stars just looked brighter here.
Her father would have said it was because everything in Texas was bigger and better than it was anywhere else.
Even debts, she thought, her smile fading. The ones at Gordon Oil were mounting so fast they made her head spin. She’d taken over the company flushed with determination, certain she could pull it back from the brink of disaster—but she only seemed to have pushed it closer.
Sooner or later, somebody at Landon Enterprises would notice what was happening to one of its newest acquisitions, and then…
Angelica stepped away from the window. She sighed, sank into an old-fashioned rocker and leaned back. Her hair, loose for the night, fell over her shoulders in a fiery tumble of soft, coppery curls.
If only the men who worked for her, who worked with her in this super macho business, would give her a chance. If only they’d stop treating her as if she were an intruder in their private club—but that was about as likely as the moon suddenly dropping from the sky.
This was a world where men flexed their muscles instead of their brains, where they spoke an unintelligible jargon in an incomprehensible drawl and where dressing for dinner meant wearing white Stetson hats and black boots. It was a world where men thought women belonged in the kitchen and in the bedroom. But in the boardroom? Never.
Even her father had thought that way. Oh, Hank Gordon had let her work in his office each summer while she was in college, but whenever she’d suggested he take her on as a full-time employee after graduation, he’d chuckled and patted her on the head as if she’d made some marvelous joke. Eventually she’d had to accept the truth, that he’d never give her a real job at Gordon Oil no matter how many business courses she took or what amount of competency she showed, and she’d gone on to an academic career.
Yet now, thanks to a twist of fate, here she was, running Gordon Oil.
Running it straight into the ground.
Angelica rose from the chair, drew the emerald green robe that was the same color as her eyes more tightly around her slender body and looked out the window again. The stars still blazed in the night sky, as bright and unreachable as they’d ever been.
No, she told herself, no, she was not destroying Gordon Oil! The company’s problems had started long before she’d taken over. And she could turn things around. She had everything going for her—determination, and knowledge, and all the plans she’d drawn up over the years—plans her father had never wanted to look at.
All she needed now was for fate—that same fate that had put her into this situation in the first place—to be kind.
Angelica gave a deep sigh.
But who could ever know what fate would bring?
CHAPTER ONE
EARLY morning sunlight streamed through the arched windows of the Landon mansion, lighting the dark corners and spilling golden brilliance on the kilim carpets that covered the oiled parquet floors.
Cade smothered a yawn as he entered the dining room. It was empty, and he smiled to himself as he made straight for the silver coffee service set out on the sideboard.
Some things never changed. There was always fresh coffee on the sideboard—and Landon House was still the biggest, most impressive dwelling on the grassy slopes overlooking Emerald Lake.
“’Mornin’, Mr. Cade.”
He turned as Stella, who’d been in charge of the kitchen for more years than he could remember, came edging through the service door, pushing a well-laden trolley. Cade moved to help her, but she waved him off.
“You just relax and enjoy your coffee, Mr. Cade.” With deft, swift movements, she laid out platters of fruit, cheese, croissants, eggs, waffles, bacon and ham on the sideboard. “How’s that?” she said, surveying the mountains of food with obvious satisfaction.
Cade grinned. “What?” he said. “No steak?”
“Did you want steak?”
“God, no,” Cade said quickly. “This is fine, Stella. Terrific, in fact.”
Stella looked doubtful. “You sure?”
“Who’d want anything more than to start the day with your wonderful coffee?” Cade said, lifting his cup in salute.
Stella blushed prettily. “Your teasin’ ways are gonna get you in trouble one of these days, Mr. Cade,” she said as she sailed through the door to the kitchen.
Cade hooked a chair out from the table with one booted foot and sank into it, his coffee cup balanced in his strong, tanned hands. Stella always produced a gargantuan breakfast as decreed years before by Charles Landon, even though no one ever put more than a dent into the mountains of food.
Cade sighed. Landon House was still less a home than one man’s statement of control—control Charles Landon’s sons had all fought against, one way or another.
But others had bowed to his power, right to the end.
Three days ago, at the funeral, the house had been filled with those come to pay final homage. Bankers, judges, captains of finance and industry as well as half a dozen congressmen and senators—they’d all shown up.
“Damn,” Zach had mumbled as he’d sidled past Cade late in the afternoon, “it’s like a three-ring circus.”
Their father would have loved every minute of it, right down to the mile-long stream of Cadillacs, Lincolns and Mercedeses that had followed the hearse to the marble mausoleum where Ellen Landon, who’d died giving birth to Kyra, lay entombed.
But he would never have understood what had happened yesterday, after the formal reading of his will.
The mansion and all its vast acreage had been left to Kyra, along with the bulk of Charles’s personal fortune.
Landon Enterprises—the far-flung, multimillion-dollar empire on which Charles had lavished all his attention and energy—had gone to his three sons.
But none of them wanted it.
Cade had been the first to say it, as soon as he and his brothers were alone.
“You can have my share,” he’d said bluntly. “I don’t want anything to do with the old man’s business.”
Grant had risen to pour them all a drink. “Always have to be first, don’t you, little brother? You took the words right out of my mouth. I don’t want my piece, either.”
Zach had accepted the cut-glass tumbler of bourbon whiskey Grant held out to him.
“Well,” he’d said, “that means the vote’s unanimous.”
Within minutes, they’d agreed that Zach, whose specialty was finance, would figure out Landon Enterprises’s net worth. Grant, whose field was the law, would draw up the necessary legal papers for its sale.
Cade’s mouth had twitched when his brothers looked at him.
“I’ll find us an oil well to invest the profits in,” he’d said, and all three of them had laughed, which had helped ease away the last remaining tension that came of finally acknowledging the painful truth.
They had all, at different times, respected, feared, even hated their father. But none of them had loved him.
After the laughter had faded, Cade had assured his brothers he’d been in a dozen different hellholes where they could use the profits of the sale to build muchneeded schools and medical centers.
And so it was over, Cade thought now as he rose and walked to the sideboard, all but the details. Victor Bayliss, their father’s administrative assistant, had asked for a breakfast meeting to tie up loose ends.
Thanks to Cade, Grant had got stuck with the job.
“You’re the logical one to meet with Bayliss,” he’d said with an innocent smile. “Everybody knows it takes a lawyer to talk to a lawyer.”
“Thrown to the wolves by my own flesh and blood,” Grant had said, but he’d softened the words with a grin.
C
ade glanced at the grandfather clock, ticking in the corner. Grant would be back soon, and then they’d all be off, scattering to the four winds—Grant to New York, Zach to Boston, Cade to London.
There was a kind of comfort in knowing that Kyra would be here, where she’d always been, the keeper of the hearth they could all count on to maintain them as afamily.
“Why so misty-eyed, baby brother? I thought you liked Stella’s coffee.”
Cade looked up. Kyra was smiling as she came toward him. She was dressed as he was, in faded jeans and a wool shirt, her leather boots as softly worn and comfortable-looking as his.
“It’s chilly this morning,” he said, smiling back at her. “Be sure and put on something warmer before you go down to the stables.”
His sister sighed. “Words of wisdom from my baby brother,” she said. “As always.”
Cade smiled and lifted his cheek for her kiss as she made her way past his chair.
“Watch that baby-brother stuff, Squirt. I’ve got six years on you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
She stood back, put her hands on her hips and looked him over.
“You look like one of the ranch hands,” she said.
Cade laughed. “Look who’s talking.”
His sister grinned. “Yeah. But this is a ranch, and I live here. What’s your excuse?”
Cade shrugged. “I always dress this way. Hell, these are my working clothes. People get nervous if the guy in charge of bringing in a well sashays around in a suit and tie.”
“You’re flying to London, dressed like that?”
“Come on, Sis. What is this?”
“Sorry. It’s just that I’ve been looking at my three big brothers all week and thinking it’s time you guys settled down.”
