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doubt would be crushing when he was far too cynical and wise to be crushed.
    â€œI see,” Edward said. He folded his arms and watched Slade drain the glass. “You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you? You’re not going to stay. You’re Rick’s heir now, but you’re not going to stay. You’re going to go back up north.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    Edward was mad. He lunged to his feet and placed his palms down hard on the table, causing the bottle to roll off and spill all over the floor. Neither brother noticed. “Why the hell don’t you stay?” Edward demanded. “You’re going back there to work like a frigging majordomo for Charles Mann, when you should be here!”
    Slade kicked back his chair. For a moment he was an inch from taking his fist and blacking out one of his brother’s eyes. But he controlled himself. “Because I like working for Charles,” he said. “Because I don’t like working for Rick. And because I don’t like being blackmailed.”
    â€œYou’re a goddamn fool!” Edward shouted. “Be honest. You’re doing this to get back at him, right? You think you’re getting back at Rick. You know what? You’re doing this for all the years he loved James more than you!”
    Slade was white. “Wrong,” he said. “ Wrong . I’m doing what I want to do for me!”
    â€œYou’re choosing them over us! ” Edward shouted. “They’re not your family—we are!”
    â€œThat has nothing to do with it!”
    â€œYou belong here! Now more than ever. James is dead. Rick needs you! We need you!”
    â€œNo.” Slade shook his head, enraged. His face was flushed with fury. “Rick needs an heiress, not me. And I am not going to marry her in order to inherit Miramar. I am not going to marry the woman James loved—not for you, not for Rick, not even for Miramar.”

Chapter 3
    E dward left abruptly after their shouting match. Slade made no move to follow. He drank the awful gut-wrenching whiskey, trying not to think about what Edward had said and trying not to think about the woman he’d left at the hotel. He watched as shadows finally appeared on the hard-packed dirt outside, watched as they gradually lengthened. Dusk settled over Templeton with finality.
    It wasn’t true. It was ridiculous. He wasn’t trying to get back at Rick for favoring James. He had loved James, too. Everyone who had known James had loved him; James had possessed a rare kind of magic, the magic of charisma and kindness, a magic very few men had. Edward had some of that magic, too. He, Slade, was the only brother who had not been touched by that special magic wand.
    James had been Slade’s hero even though he was only a year older. They had both grown up with the housekeeper and cook, Josephine, acting as their mother, even after Rick had married Victoria; her only interest was her own son, Edward. James’s mother Catherine had died in childbirth, and Slade’s mother had run away when he was only a few months old and too young to know what had happened. He had thought the NegressJosephine his real mother until James had explained to him the facts of life when he was three years old.
    James and Slade had been as inseparable as twins, with Edward, three years younger, tagging along behind them. The brothers were perceived as being as different from each other as night and day, James always sunny-tempered and quick to laugh, Slade hot-tempered and grim. Yet contrary to popular belief, James had had a mischievous streak in him too, although he wasn’t the determined rebel that Slade was. But it was James who had the common sense to deter Slade from some of his wilder ideas, just as it was James who was always standing up for Slade when he was caught for a misdeed, hoping to distract the adults or take the blame himself. No one ever believed James, because