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She winked slyly at him. “What do you think?”

“Iknowyou can.”

“I’ll remember that the next time I ask for a raise. Now, have you reconsidered my offer—how about some coffee?”

Brig’s face broke into an affable grin. “If you insist.”

“Well, while I’m still batting a thousand, I really do think you should take a couple of days off. Believe me, this place won’t fall apart without you.”

“I suppose not,” Brig conceded as the pert secretary slipped out of his office and headed for the cafeteria.

Mona had a point. Brig knew he was tense and that his temper was shorter than usual. Maybe it was because he found it nearly impossible to concentrate on his position. The glass-topped desk was littered with work that didn’t interest him. Even the wildcat strike in Wyoming seemed grossly unimportant. Chambers Oil was one of the largest oil companies in the United States, with drilling rights throughout the continental U.S. and Alaska. That didn’t begin to include the offshore drilling. Who the hell cared about oil in Wyoming? As far as he was concerned, Chambers Oil could write off the entire venture as a tax loss.

Brig rotated his shoulders and tried to smooth away the tension in his neck and back. Who was he kidding? It wasn’t his father’s estate that kept him awake at nights. Nor was it the strike in Wyoming, or any of the other nagging problems that came with the responsibility of running Chambers Oil. The problem was Rebecca Peters. It always had been, and he didn’t doubt for a moment that it always would be.

Though he went through the day-to-day routine of managing his father’s company, he couldn’t forget the pained look in Rebecca’s misty green eyes when he had accused her once again of knowing who drugged Sentimental Lady. Her violent reaction to his charge and her vicious attack against him, claiming that it was he rather than she who had been involved in the crime, was ludicrous. But it still planted a seed of doubt in his mind.

Brig tucked his hands into his back pockets and looked down the twenty-eight floors to the streets of Denver. Was it possible that Becca didn’t know her horse had been drugged? Had he been wrong, blinded by evidence that was inaccurate? Even the racing board could level no blame for the crime. Ian O’Riley’s reputation as a trainer might have been blemished for carelessness, but the man wasn’t found guilty of the act of stimulating the horse artificially.

As he stared, unseeing, out the window he thought about Becca and her initial reaction to the race. She had been afraid and in a turmoil of anguished emotions. He could still hear her pained cries.

“It’s all my fault,” Becca had screamed, “all mine.” Brig had dragged her away from the terror-stricken filly, holding the woman he loved in a binding grip that kept her arms immobilized. Becca had lost a shoe on the track. He hadn’t bothered to pick it up.

Could he have misread her self-proclaimed guilt? Could her cries have erupted from the hysteria taking hold of her? Or was it an honest acceptance of blame, only to be denounced when she had finally calmed down and perceived the extent of the crime? He had always known that she would never intentionally hurt her horse; cruelty wasn’t a part of Rebecca’s nature. But he hadn’t doubted that she was covering up for the culprit. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Rubbing his temples as if he could erase the painful memory, he sat down at the desk. There was a soft knock on the door and Mona entered with a steaming cup of coffee.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” she chirped as she handed it to her boss.

“What did I do to deserve you?” Brig asked gratefully.

She winked slyly. “Inherited an oil fortune.”

Brig took a sip from the steaming mug and smiled fondly at his father’s secretary. He had inherited Mona along with the rest of the wealthy trappings of Chambers Oil. “You were right, Mona, I needed this.” He held up his cup.

“Was there any doubt?” she quipped before her eyes became somber with genuine concern. She liked Brig Chambers, always had, and she could see that something was eating at him. “I’m right about the fact that you need a vacation, too,” she observed.

“I’m not denying it.”

“Then promise me that you’ll take one.”

Brig cracked a smile. “All right, you win. I promise, just as soon as I can get the estate attorneys and tax auditors off my backandwe somehow settle the strike in Wyoming.”

“Good.” Mona returned Brig’s grin. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” she stated as she walked out of the office.

Chapter 9

The first break came three weeks later. The season had changed from late summer into early autumn and Brig wondered if the promise of winter had cooled the angry tempers in Wyoming. Whatever the reason, the wildcat strike had been resolved, if only temporarily, and although anger still flared on both sides of the picket line, it seemed that most of the arguments and threats of violence had been settled.

As for his father’s estate, it was finally in the lengthy legal process known as probate. Brig and the rest of the staff of Chambers Oil had given the tax attorneys every scrap of information they could find concerning Jason Chambers’ vast financial holdings. Brig had reluctantly included the stack of personal notes and receipts he had found in his father’s locked desk drawer. Brig had to suppress a wicked grin of satisfaction as he handed the private papers to the young tax attorney and the nervous man’s face frowned in disbelief at the unrecorded transactions.

The only intentional omission was the note signed by Rebecca Peters. Brig had substituted it with one of his own in the amount of fifty thousand dollars. He considered the original note to Jason as his personal business. It had nothing to do with the old man’s estate. This was one matter that only involved Rebecca and himself.

It had been difficult to concentrate on running the oil company the past few weeks. The mundane tasks had been impossible as his wayward thoughts continued to revolve around Rebecca Peters. He couldn’t get her out of his mind, and cursed himself as a fool for his infatuation. In the last six years he had thought himself rid of her, that he had finally expunged her from his mind and soul. One weekend in the Rockies had changed all of that, and he couldn’t forget a moment of the quiet solitude at the cabin near Devil’s Creek. To add insult to injury, he began picking up horse-racing magazines, hoping to see her name in print and catch a glimpse of her. He was disappointed. He found no mention of a two-year-old filly named Gypsy Wind, nor of the entrancing woman who owned her.

When the call came through that the strike was settled, Brig didn’t hesitate. He was certain that his man in Wyoming could handle the tense situation in the oil fields and he knew that Mona was able to run the company with or without him for a few days. He took the secretary’s advice and made hurried arrangements to fly to San Francisco. After two vain attempts to reach Becca by phone, he gave up and found some satisfaction in the fact that he would arrive on her doorstep as unexpectedly as she had on his only a few short weeks ago.

Without taking the time to consider his motives, he drove home, showered, changed, and threw a few clothes into a lightweight suitcase. After a quick glance around his apartment, he tossed his tweed sports jacket over his shoulder and called a cab to take him to the airport. He didn’t want to waste any time. He was afraid his common sense might take over and he would cancel his plans. He kept in motion so as not to think about the consequences of his unannounced journey.