The beginnings of a smile lit up his eyes. “I can hardly wait to see the look on Grady’s face when I give him the money. Won’t he be shocked?” He laughed as if viewing the scene that very moment.

Savannah relaxed. Richard was her brother. He’d made mistakes, painful ones, but he was older now, mature. He couldn’t help his impulsive sociable nature—couldn’t resist throwing that party. However, he wouldn’t take advantage of her and Grady a second time, she was sure of it.

“Do you believe me?” The color of his eyes intensified as his gaze implored her to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Savannah couldn’t refuse him. “I believe you,” she whispered, and silently prayed he wouldn’t let her down.

Richard squeezed her hand. “You won’t be sorry, Savannah, I promise you. I’m going to prove Grady all wrong, just you wait and see. Then you can say ‘I told you so’ to our high-and-mighty brother. You trusted me when no one else would, and someday you’ll be able to laugh in Grady’s face.”

“I’d never do that.” Her older brother might be strong-willed and opinionated, but his intentions were good.

“Are you going to scramble me up some of my favorite cheese eggs?” he asked in a cajoling voice.

She’d finished washing the breakfast dishes fifteen minutes earlier. “All right,” she conceded. Richard gave her a hug, then climbed back onto the counter while she took the eggs, cheese and milk from the refrigerator.

“I was looking around your garden and noticed some of those roses you were telling me about. Where’d you find those pretty white ones?”

“Oh, this place and that,” she said, and while she was pleased by his interest, the less he knew about her venture into Bitter End the better.

“You went there, didn’t you?” he asked, lowering his voice.

“There?”

“Don’t play games with me, Savannah. You’re no good at it.”

Her cheeks flushed hot pink. Richard was right, she’d never been any good at games. He was curious about the ghost town and this wasn’t the first time he’d bombarded her with questions. Some about roses, others about the town itself.

“Did you go inside any of the buildings?” Richard asked. “They’re still standing, right? Imagine that after all these years. What stories those walls could tell! It amazes me, you know, that Bitter End could be sleeping in those hills with only a handful of people even knowing about its existence.”

“It is rather remarkable,” Savannah agreed.

“I bet the buildings were in sad shape?”

“I didn’t investigate the town itself,” she said. The cemetery was as far as she got. Whatever was there had driven her back before she’d set foot in the actual town. But she’d know the answer to her brother’s questions soon enough. Today was it, she’d decided. She was going back for a second visit, despite all Grady’s efforts to keep her away.

“So where exactly is it?” Richard asked.

“Oh, sort of east of here,” she said vaguely. “I had a hard time finding it.” That was all she planned to say on the matter.

“Weren’t you afraid?” he teased.

She wasn’t sure how to describe her wariness. “Not really,” she said, downplaying the eerie sensation she’d experienced on her first visit. She added the beaten eggs to the small skillet as the butter sizzled.

“I really don’t think visiting the place again is a good idea,” Richard surprised her by saying. Not that she wanted him there, but a few days ago, he’d certainly been dropping hints to that effect. He buttered the toast when it popped up and sat down at the table, awaiting his breakfast.

“I have to go back,” she said, surprised she had to fight Richard on this, too. Grady and Laredo had formed an uneasy partnership in their efforts to keep her from returning. “There’re bound to be other roses,” she explained, although it wasn’t necessary. All three men knew her reasons. “I might find an even rarer form. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was with my original discovery.”

“Think carefully before you go back,” Richard said, smiling gratefully when she set the plate of steaming eggs in front of him. “You’d be wise to heed Grady’s advice, Savannah. A ghost town isn’t any place for you to go exploring alone.”

“Earlier you said you wanted to come along. You—”

“I said that?” He flattened his hand against his chest. “Not me. I’m as chicken as they come. You won’t catch me anywhere close to Bitter End. I have a healthy respect for the supernatural.”

Savannah refused to be dissuaded, but she didn’t intend to discuss it further. She’d do what she did the last time—steal away before anyone knew she was gone.

***

Grady sat in his office and pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping that would help him focus on the long row of ledger numbers. He hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours the entire night. Instead, he’d been leaning over the toilet, examining parts of it that were never meant to be viewed from this perspective.

Hard liquor had never agreed with him. Especially in quantity. After he’d embarrassed himself and Savannah, he’d holed up in his office with a bottle of cheap whiskey. The good stuff had disappeared, as he’d told his sister—but he hadn’t been in any mood to appreciate the difference.

This morning his head throbbed with a vengeance. He couldn’t think, couldn’t work. Richard had been back less than a week, and already Grady was reduced to a useless piece of... He didn’t finish the thought.

The phone pealed and he slammed his eyes closed as the sound pierced his brain, shattering what little serenity he’d managed to recover. He waited for Savannah to answer.

No one knew he was in his office, and that was the way he wanted it.

The phone rang a second time and then a third. Where the hell was Savannah? If not her, Richard? Rather than suffer the agony of a fourth ring, Grady grabbed the receiver.

“Who the hell is it?” he snarled.

A shocked silence greeted him, followed by a sob, then tears and “Mommy, Mommy.”

Damn. It’d been Maggie for Savannah, and he’d frightened the poor kid half out of her wits.

“Maggie,” he shouted, wanting to apologize for his outburst. Apologize was all he seemed to do these days. He felt faint stirrings of hope when he heard someone pick up the receiver.

“Maggie, listen—”

“It’s Caroline,” she interrupted coolly. “And this must be Grady.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond before she added, “What exactly did you say to Maggie to upset her like this?”

“I didn’t know. I thought...” Even his tongue refused to work properly.

“Obviously you didn’t think.”

He could hear Maggie softly weeping in the background.

“I’m sorry, Caroline,” he said. “Hell, I didn’t know it was Maggie. I certainly didn’t mean to frighten her.”

“What’s gotten into you, Grady?”

He braced his forehead against his hand. If the answer was that simple, he would’ve saved himself a great deal of embarrassment. The truth was he didn’t know any longer.

“You made an ass of yourself last night.”

“Nice of you to remind me.” Leave it to a woman to kick a man when he was down.

“You had too much to drink.”

“You brought me one of those beers,” he felt obliged to remind her.

“So this is all my fault?”

Grady closed his eyes at her outrage. “No,” he admitted, feeling about as low as a man could get. “I accept full responsibility.”

The silence stretched between them until Caroline slowly released a deep breath and asked, “Where’s Savannah?”

“I don’t know. I expected her to pick up the phone.” Clearly so had Maggie, who continued to weep noisily in the background.

“Is she all right?” Caroline asked.

“She was this morning.” And not afraid to set him down a peg or two, although he knew he’d asked for it.

Maggie’s cries subsided into soft muffled sounds.

“What are you doing home?” he asked Caroline. She should be at the post office, but then, he wasn’t one to talk, seeing as he should be out on the range with Wiley. Or working in the barn with Laredo Smith.