A Woman's Touch

PROLOGUE
    From the journal of Alice Cork
    I sold the milk cow today. Won’t be needing her anymore. Let her go real cheap to the Mintons. They’ll take good care of her. They lost their cow last winter and Lord knows they could use the milk. There’s another little one on the way. Told Abby Minton to make arrangements with the doctor in town because this time I don’t think I’ll be here when the baby arrives. She didn’t want to believe me, but I know it’s true. Got feelings about it. I won’t be seeing another winter in this valley.
    The cow was the last of the stock. Everything else is taken care of. Talked to that Denver lawyer yesterday. He says he’ll handle things just the way I told him right down to publishing the contents of my will in the local paper.
    Harmony Valley is safe. Kyle Stockbridge and Glen Ballard will explode when they find out the land is going to distant kin of mine, but there isn’t a damned thing they can do about it. Reckon it’s all the vengeance I’m going to get.
    I wonder what this Rebecca Wade is like. Feels strange to be leaving the land to someone I’ve never even met.
    But I’ve got a feeling about her. I’ve had it for months – ever since I came across her name when I was putting together the family tree last year. It’s the same kind of feeling I get when I know there’s a storm coming or when one of the local women is expecting a baby. I just sort of know Rebecca’s the right one.
    If there was more time I’d try to find her and warn her about what she’s going to be up against. But I’m just plumb worn out. Don’t have the strength or the time left to look her up. I’ll leave that to the lawyer to do after I’m gone. Lord knows I’m paying him enough.
    But Rebecca Wade, whoever she is, is sure going to have her hands full dealing with Stockbridge and Ballard. A fire-breathing dragon and a slick-talking sorcerer. They won’t make it easy on her. Something tells me Rebecca is going to be the one to handle them, though.
    There was a time back when I was a lot younger when I would have sworn there was no hope for any male born a Stockbridge or a Ballard. I’d have said they were all doomed to be out-and-out bastards right from the start. But now I’m not so sure. Kyle and Glen, whether they know it or not, aren’t mirror images of their fathers or their grandfathers. The right woman might be able to change everything around here.

ONE
    The sweeping tide of desire that surged through him was strong enough to make him shudder. It clawed at his insides and made him dangerously restless. When he had begun the search for Rebecca, he’d never anticipated this. Two months ago when he had found her, he’d been sure everything was under control. He’d been pleased with the coup.
    His luck was holding, he’d told himself.
    But he had wanted her violently on sight and the past two months had been torture. At first he’d told himself he could handle it. But something had gone wrong somewhere along the line. He couldn’t even pinpoint the exact moment when the situation had started to turn impossible. All he knew was that tonight he was overwhelmed with a devastating passion he could no longer ignore.
    Kyle Stockbridge acknowledged at last that he’d been caught in his own trap.
    Until this moment he had been the hunter – surefooted, confident, clever. But as of this instant he finally admitted he was in serious jeopardy. If he was not extremely careful, he would become the victim. And the role of victim was one Kyle Stockbridge never played.
    He stared at the woman with the amber eyes, watching her as she chatted with friends and coworkers on the other side of the crowded room. Voices hummed around him. Ice clinked in glasses. The strains of background music provided by a small trio filled the air. Stockbridge tuned out everything except the sight of Rebecca Wade.
    He still felt like a predator, filled with an insatiable hunger. But that hunger made him vulnerable, he told himself. He would have to be more cautious than ever.
    For two months he’d been playing a reckless game with a woman who excited him as no other woman ever had.
    Rebecca was not a stunningly beautiful female. She was no exotic, bewitching siren who lured men with some strange, captivating magic.
    She was simply Rebecca, and she worked for him. She had only been at Flaming Luck Enterprises for two months but already she had left an indelible mark on the place.
    Awesomely organized,