“Who the fuck is this?”

“I told you, dear. Your mother.”

“Look, I don’t know who the hell you are, but my mother’s been dead for decades.” I ended the call and promptly blocked the number from my phone.

My heart pounded for a moment. I had been nine years old when my mother died. She killed herself in her bathroom in the main ranch house.

My father had gutted that room afterward and then nearly rebuilt the house from the ground up. Talon and Jade lived there today. I lived in the guest house.

I hadn’t seen my mother’s body. My father hadn’t let us. He’d thought it would be too traumatizing. After what we’d been through two years before with Talon’s abduction, I doubted we could have been more traumatized, but I was the youngest, and I never questioned my father.

None of us did.

I’d resented him for years because he wouldn’t let us see her, but I eventually got over it. Still, it had affected us—so much so that none of us had looked at our father’s dead body when he passed.

My sister, Marjorie, didn’t even remember our mother. That was a shame, because she was the only one of us who actually looked anything like her. The three of us boys all favored our father. Jonah the most. There didn’t seem to be a speck of our mother in any one of us. Especially not in me.

My memories were sparse, but at least I had some memories. She had been a good mother. A loving mother. I hadn’t been as close to her as Jonah was. I always thought he was her favorite. Then, once Talon returned, she had a hard time with all of us, Marjorie especially. Marjorie was a brand-new baby and needed her mother, but I never felt that my mother connected with her. She had a hard time connecting with all four of us once Talon returned.

Talon’s abduction changed my mother.

We had found two of his abductors. Larry Wade, our mother’s half brother, was in prison awaiting trial. Tom Simpson, the mayor of Snow Creek and Joe’s best friend’s father, had killed himself rather than face the music. Only one was left. Theodore Mathias, the father of a Grand Junction detective who was a friend of Melanie’s.

He was the one who had been the most elusive throughout our entire investigation.

According to Talon, Mathias was the worst of all three.

I shook my head to clear it. Why was I thinking about all this shit because of some stupid prank phone call? My brothers were getting married next week. In sunny Jamaica. We were going to have a fucking blast. We hadn’t had a vacation in so long.

Marjorie was making all the arrangements. She had booked us into an all-inclusive resort in Negril called Destination Desire. It was an all-adult resort, complete with a nude beach and clothing-optional pools. Thankfully, it also had another beach and other pools where clothing was required. I wasn’t sure how I felt about walking around naked in front of my brothers’ two fiancées and my sister. Or my brothers, for that matter. It was the only resort where Marj could get reservations on such short notice, so we’d agreed to turn a blind eye to the nude side of the resort.

However, I planned to sneak over…by myself.

Knowing Marj, it would be first class all the way. Jonah had asked me to be his best man, which was nice of him, since Talon had wanted Joe to be his. I was a little disappointed that Talon hadn’t chosen me. I loved both of my brothers equally, but Talon… Talon was my hero.

Because of Talon, I had been spared the torture that he endured for two months. He and I had been walking together that day, trying to dig up clues about the disappearance of his friend Luke Walker.

When the two men attacked us, Talon had gotten me free and yelled at me to run.

And damn, I had run.

I’d run like my life depended on it, which it most likely had.

That was the day. The terrible day. The day that had brought us to where we were now.

Talon was finally getting the help he needed and was healing. He was better each day. Now he was strong enough to take the plunge with Jade and get married.

I was ecstatic for him. And I was honored to be Jonah’s best man. Still, Talon meant so much to me.

No matter.

This was going to be a great vacation for all of us. And I was just as happy for Jonah and his new bride, Melanie. Melanie had worked miracles as Talon’s therapist and was now working more miracles with Joe. She was pregnant, too. I would be an uncle.

Watching my brothers fall in love and prepare to get married made me happy. But it was all just a little bittersweet. I wasn’t sure anything like that was in the cards for me. Oddly, I was the only one of the three of us who had ever had a serious relationship. I had been in a relationship with Anna Shane, a woman from a neighboring ranch, for several years. We were comfortable together, we’d thought we were in love with each other, but now, seeing what Jonah and Talon had with their women, I knew Anna and I had made the right choice not to continue. We’d had a lot in common. But that fire? That fire that I witnessed between Talon and Jade, and Jonah and Melanie? That had been missing.

I kept busy at the ranch. We all did. But winemaking was especially tedious in the summer and fall. I had been working twenty hours a day the last three months, and I was looking forward to a break.

So I wasn’t getting married. So I wasn’t Talon’s best man. So what? I was Ryan Steel, and Ryan Steel had fun no matter what he did.

I was known around town as being the most jovial and having the best personality of all three Steel brothers. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I did like to have a good time.

And next week in Jamaica? I was going to party it up, Ryan Steel style.

Rum punch, beach bunnies, a little boating, a little surfing.

And, I hoped, a whole lot of fucking.

Quite a while had passed since I’d had a woman. I planned on taking a case of condoms with me to Jamaica. And even that might not be enough.

---

We were situated on the plane, all of us in first class except for Melanie’s friend, a mousy detective named Ruby Lee, who just happened to be the daughter of Theodore Mathias. I’d given her a once-over at the gate. Her nearly black hair was pulled back in a schoolteacher style, and she wore no makeup that I could see—although her face didn’t seem to need it. Her cheeks had a natural rosy glow. She wore a white button-down shirt and green Dockers. What might that body look like under those boyish clothes?

One thing I didn’t lack was imagination. My imagination was what made me a good winemaker. It was also what allowed me to envision the curves hidden underneath Ruby Lee’s garments.

Very nice.

Jonah and Melanie had tried to persuade Ruby to join us in first class, but she’d been determined to pay her own way and simply didn’t want to spend extra to upgrade.

The seat next to me was empty, as were several other first class seats. I flagged down a flight attendant as soon as the captain had turned off the seat belt signs.

“Yes?” she said.

“There’s a woman in coach I’d like to have join us.”

“You can certainly do so. She’ll need to pay the upgrade fee.”

I whipped my wallet out of my back pocket, took out a credit card, and handed it to her. “That’s on me.”

“How generous of you. Which passenger do you want to upgrade?”

“Ruby Lee. She’s near the middle of the plane.”

“Of course. Give me a moment.”

She returned with my card a few minutes later. “All taken care of. I’ll tell Ms. Lee that she’s been upgraded.”

I put my card away. “No, that’s okay. I’ll tell her.”

She nodded and walked toward the front of the plane.

One thing I wasn’t was shy. I got up, walked through first class and back into coach, found Ruby sitting in an aisle seat, and touched her shoulder.

She looked up at me, her cheeks reddening. “Yes?”

“Come with me,” I said.

Her cheeks reddened even further. “You mean me?”

“You’ve been upgraded. To first class. With the rest of us.”

“I already told Melanie. I’m paying my way.”

“Melanie has nothing to do with this.”

“Then what’s going on?”

I smiled. Women always said they couldn’t resist my smile. And while I had no physical interest in Ruby Lee—though she did look amazing naked in my imagination—I did want to do something nice for her. After all, she was in a similar boat as the rest of us. Her father was the last of Talon’s abductors and was still at large. Her life couldn’t have been easy.

“I upgraded you.”

She arched her eyebrows. “You? Why?”

“Because you’re one of our party. Because it was a nice thing to do. Because I have the money. Because there are vacancies in first class. You want me to continue listing more reasons?”

“Look, it’s decent of you, but I couldn’t possibly—”

“Say no. That’s what you were about to say, right?” I smiled again.

“Well…no, actually.”

“Come on. I’ve already spent the money to upgrade you. The flight attendant took my credit card and everything. So if you stay back here, you’re just wasting my money.”

That seemed to get to her. She twisted her lips. “I never asked you to do this.”

“I know you didn’t. I did it because I wanted to.”

“Why would you want to?”

“Look, why don’t we continue this conversation up in first class, where it’s more comfortable? Once you settle in there, I’ll be happy to regale you with tales of why I made the offer.”

That got a smile out of her. Well, only a half smile, but I could tell she was holding back.

“I’ve never sat in first class before.”

“Then you’re in for a treat.” I opened the overhead bin. “Which one is your bag?”

“The plain black one.”

There were several plain black ones, but I quickly found the one with her name on it and grabbed it. “Get your other stuff and follow me.” I moved toward first class.

When I got back to my seat, I stowed her bag in the overhead bin and then looked behind me. She was holding her laptop case. I took it from her and put it in the overhead bin as well.

“I’ll keep that,” she said. “I thought I might do some work.”

“Nope. No work. Part of my treat. You’re going to sit in first class, let the airline staff pamper you, have a mimosa or martini or whatever your drink of choice is.”

“Red wine,” she said.

I arched my eyebrows. “Really? I love red wine too. In fact, it’s what I do for a living.”

She smiled shyly. “Yes, I know. Melanie says you’re a genius.”

“Melanie is overstating my prowess, I’m afraid.” Though my winemaking skills were well documented by the array of awards my wines had won. But I didn’t need to blab about that right now.

“That’s not what I hear. She said I definitely need to try your wine.”

“Unfortunately, I doubt my wines are stocked at the resort in Jamaica. When we get back, I’ll make sure you get a case of my finest.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Of course I do. If you like red wine, I have to see if you like mine.”

“That’s very generous of you. In fact, all of this is generous of you. I’m afraid I don’t understand why—”

I placed two fingers over her lips, which were surprisingly soft. “I’ve already explained that. Then again, we did agree to continue the conversation about why.”

Her rosy cheeks pinked up a bit more. “I’m just…not used to people being so nice to me.”

“Get used to it. We Steels try to be nice to everyone. Everyone who’s nice to us, that is.”

“I hear that,” she said. “I’ve been crossed myself.”

Something in me wanted to ask more. To find out exactly what she’d been through. But damn it, we were on our way to Jamaica. For a relaxing vacation. A happy vacation. To watch my brothers get married.

Still, something about her… I couldn’t help myself.

“What do you mean?” I asked.