The Marriage Maker Read online

  One

  The thirty-year-old nightmare was older than Celeste Kincaid Monroe’s daughter Cleo, but it gripped Celeste ruthlessly all the same, dragging her instantly from sleep to terror.

  The bayou again. Moss hanging like sticky, gray spiderwebs in the trees. The scent of wet decay.

  Thunder. Once. Twice.

  Then, as always, he appeared, a dark figure carrying something even darker. Fear surged like adrenaline through Celeste’s veins. It sang in her blood, an eerie, high-pitched dirge. She dug her bare toes into the mud.

  Turn! Run!

  But escape was impossible. The tall silhouette of her brother, Jeremiah Kincaid, kept coming toward her, the water swishing around his knees. The burden in his arms didn’t seem to trouble him. He carried it to Celeste as if it were a gift.

  “No, Jeremiah,” she whispered. No, he shouldn’t be here in Louisiana. He’d never come to see her once she’d done his bidding and married Ty Monroe.

  “Look,” he said, his voice commanding her, always telling her how it was, what she must do. “Look what is yours.”

  “No.” She kept her gaze away from the limp body in his arms. It would be her sister Blanche, who had died after childbirth. It could only be Blanche, and Celeste refused to look at her. She couldn’t bear to see her sister’s vibrant fall of hair trailing through the stagnant, murky water. Just the thought made her heart stop, then disappear altogether.

  In the cavern of her chest, only pain remained, echoing over and over.

  “Look,” Jeremiah insisted.

  Fear again, with its high-pitched song. No. But then she obeyed, her gaze angling down, down, toward the dead body of—

  No! Celeste jerked up her head…

  …and jerked right out of the nightmare’s grasp.

  Lying against the soft sheets in her bedroom at Whitehorn’s Big Sky Bed & Break fast, Celeste tried to catch her breath as tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped at them with her hands, then turned her face against the pillow. Still, the dream clutched at her.

  “Montana,” she whispered to herself, sitting up and lighting the white candle beside her bed. She’d left Louisiana with her husband after only a year, coming back to White horn and buying this house on the lake that with her sister Yvette she’d turned into the Big Sky Bed & Break fast. This was where her daughters were born and lived. Montana.

  Forget the dream. But despite the steady, bright flame of her candle, the emotions the dream always roiled up still lurked in the dark corners of the room. She shivered.

  And the past. The past lurked, too, hovering above her bed like a dark cloying canopy.

  Celeste threw off the covers. Though her clock said it was only 5:00 a.m., she wasn’t going to find any more sleep. Dressing in jeans, sweater and lambskin boots, Celeste told herself a cup of coffee would burn away any last traces of the bad dream.

  She quickly made up the bed, blew out her candle, then stepped into the hall, shutting her bedroom door firmly. Just as decisively, she shoved the memory of the dream to the back of her mind.

  She couldn’t help being a victim to her nights, but she refused to let her waking hours be tainted, too. Today she wouldn’t let the one emotion that always stayed with her after the nightmare—that one unnameable emotion—over shadow her every daytime hour.

  Celeste took the long route to the kitchen, walking through the public rooms of the B and B as if inspecting the intricate, natural-hued woodwork of the arts-and-crafts-style house could bring her quickly and fully into the present. Through the large living room windows she could see the last of the stars reflected in the glassy surface of Blue Mirror Lake. She stared out at the water, her hands absently stroking the Native-print blanket thrown over the back of one of the room’s rattan couches.

  After the years she’d spent along side the bayou in Louisiana, this house, overlooking the water of the small natural lake, had drawn her, and not just because it was a respectable distance from the controlling influence of her brother, Jeremiah Kincaid. She’d always been grateful to her late husband Tyler’s agreeing to return to Montana and to buy this property. He’d recognized that she’d needed something to call her own, especially when he travelled so often. And the house was a true gem. There were a few others scattered among the pines surrounding the lake—vacation places, all of them—and most newer than her three-story house. It had been an ideal location to raise a family, an ideal home for her and Yvette to turn into a ten-bedroom bed-and-break fast, and an ideal way to support them selves while they also raised Summer, the orphaned daughter of their sister Blanche.

  Blanche.

  Celeste shivered as that dream-born emotion she was trying to bury struggled to surface. She hurried away from it by hurrying out of the room, past two more rattan couches and over stuffed club chairs, through the massive dining room with its long mission-style table and heavily beamed ceiling.

  Letting herself think only of coffee, she swore she could almost smell it as she pushed the swinging door that led into the kitchen.

  Celeste blinked in the dazzling overhead light. The room was bright, there was coffee already brewed, and she wasn’t going to keep her insomnia a secret because it seemed another Monroe woman shared it.

  “Mama!” Celeste’s twenty-seven-year-old daughter Cleo looked up from the mug she’d been frowning at.

  “Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Celeste crossed the hardwood floor in the direction of the scarred oval table where Cleo was sitting. “You’re looking at that coffee as if it’s your worst enemy.”

  Cleo’s full lips raised in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “It is my coffee, after all, Mama, not Jasmine’s.”

  Well, her younger daughter was undoubtedly a master in the kitchen, but Celeste knew Cleo was just avoiding the real question. “C’mon, sweetie, this is your mother you’re talking to. You don’t usually have trouble sleeping.”

  Cleo’s eyebrows came together in concern. “No, it’s you that usually can’t get any rest. Another nightmare?”

  Celeste gestured with her hand as if to brush the subject away. She didn’t want to discuss it. “I’m asking what’s keeping you awake.”

  There was a long pause, then Cleo looked balefully back down at her coffee mug. “Bean sprouts. I’m worried about the day care center.”

  Celeste let the admission go for a moment and moved to the counter to pour herself some of Cleo’s less-than-stellar coffee. She was proud of her daughter’s success as the director of the day care center and knew that Cleo also took a lot of pride in what she did. The man she leased the building from had told Cleo last week he was going to sell the property as soon as possible. With her lease agreement up for renewal, Cleo had a legitimate worry that her business might not survive.

  “You haven’t found another possible site, honey?” Celeste added a dash of milk to her mug then held the hot ceramic against the knuckles of her left hand. Their deep arthritic ache was as unpleasantly familiar as the dream that brought it about.

  “Nothing,” Cleo said, shrugging. “And Gene came by again yesterday. He’s putting up a For Sale sign next week.”

  Celeste came forward to lay a hand on top of her daughter’s head. “Maybe he won’t find anyone interested in buying.”

  “Mmm.”

  Celeste’s eyes narrowed. If she had to guess, she would say that Cleo wasn’t thinking about Beansprouts or For Sale signs or anything to do with business. There was a sad, faraway but dreamy look in her daughter’s beautiful violet eyes. “This is about something else. Something besides Bean sprouts.”

  Cleo didn’t look up.

  Celeste’s heart squeezed, and she used her aching left hand to tilt up her daughter’s chin. “Oh, Cleo,” she said. “This isn’t about him, is it? He’s been gone three months, sweetie. You wouldn’t still be mooning over a man like Ethan Redford?”

  A new voice broke in. “Of course Cleo’s not mooning over Ethan, Mama. Cleo is much too sensible, much too practical to be letting a bi
g shot, here-today-gone-tomorrow man like Ethan Redford even give her heart a tickle.”

  Celeste chuckled as her younger daughter Jasmine glided into the room. At twenty-three, with her short-cropped black hair and a slender face, she looked too fresh and wide-awake for five-thirty in the morning. “You’re up early.”

  “Mmm.” She took one sniff at the coffee carafe, grimaced in mock disgust, then dumped its contents into the sink. “Cleo would be in a better mood if she could learn to make better coffee.”

  Since Jasmine’s coffee was universally acclaimed as fabulous—as well as anything else she created in the kitchen—neither Cleo nor Celeste bothered disagreeing with her. As a matter of fact, Cleo only said, “Sit down, Mama,” and then took both their mugs to the sink. She poured out the contents, then set the cups on the counter to wait for her sister’s heaven-blessed brew.

  She gave Jasmine a significant look. “Mama had another nightmare.”

  Both young women turned toward her. Celeste froze under her daughters’ worried gazes. “No—” But she stopped, because they were pointedly looking at her hands, and she realized she’d been massaging the painful left one with her right. She sighed.

  “Please, girls, let’s talk about something else,” she pleaded. Talking about her nightmare might allow that disturbing, unnameable emotion she was keeping under strict control to rise again. “Please.”

  Jasmine surrendered first, sliding her gaze toward her more voluptuous sister. “Okay, Mama.” She grinned, that devilish grin of a younger sibling who knows just how to push the older one’s buttons—and revels in it. “Let’s talk about what’s bugging Cleo.”

  “Watch it,” Cleo threatened. “I can still hide your Barbie dolls, brat.” She propped her hands on her hips.

  Jasmine’s grin widened. “I’ve hidden them from you. At your insistence, I recycle, Cleo. I compost our kitchen scraps. I’d never wear fur. But you’re not going to make me give up my precious fashion dolls. Uh-uh.”

  Before Cleo could retort, the kitchen’s back door opened and Frannie, Celeste’s niece, stepped over the thresh old. In a brown, knee-length business suit that matched the brown of her hair and the brown of her eyes, she looked completely prepared for another day in her job as a loan officer at the White horn Savings and Loan.

  At five-nine, Frannie towered over her cousins. In a familiar morning ritual, she automatically took the cup of coffee Cleo poured for her. “What are we talking about?” She lived at her parents’ house, located just behind the B and B.

  Jasmine started bustling around the kitchen, getting ready for the break fast she’d serve the guests. “Fashion, I’d guess you’d say.”

  Frannie touched the brown tortoiseshell clip that held her hair at the back of her neck. She sighed. “I guess that lets me out, then.”

  Jasmine shook her head. “Only because you won’t let me make you over, Frannie. If you’d just give yourself a chance, you’d be stunning.”

  Frannie flushed. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  That mischievous smile twitched at Jasmine’s lips again. Uh-oh, Celeste thought. Prepare yourself, Cleo.

  “We could go back to discussing Cleo’s love life,” Jasmine said, taking eggs out of the refrigerator.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Cleo’s face blushed just as pink as Frannie’s.

  Jasmine acted as if she hadn’t heard her. “Mama wondered if maybe Cleo was still smitten with that Ethan Redford who was here three months ago.”

  Frannie blinked owlishly. “Who?”

  “You remember.” Jasmine took the juicer out of a lower cupboard. “He took Cleo out a couple of times, and I admit the looks he gave her could have melted that old wallpaper off the downstairs hallway, but then he just—poof!—left White horn. What do you think? Is Cleo in need of romantic repair?”

  “Of course not.” Frannie blinked again and her voice was absolutely certain. “Cleo is much, much too practical to make any kind of romantic mistake.”

  “Sensible, too. You missed sensible, Frannie,” Cleo added. Her face had regained its normal color and her voice was without animation.

  Something in the nonemotion of Cleo’s voice niggled at Celeste and her mother radar went on the alert. “Cleo, sweetie—”

  “Good morning!” The back door had opened again to admit Frannie’s parents, Celeste’s sister Yvette and her husband, Edward Hannon. The smell of a cool spring morning accompanied them as they headed for the countertop and Jasmine’s coffee.

  The girls exchanged plea san tries with the new arrivals, and soon they were all savoring their morning ritual. Jasmine continued preparing break fast for the guests, but the rest of them took their places around the large kitchen table. Edward unfolded the newspaper and smiled at the faces circling him. “And a good morning it is. No better way for a man to start the day than with a glimpse of the harem that has kept him happy all these years.”

  Celeste joined the others in the groan that in variably accompanied Edward’s usual comment. Someone wished that David, Frannie’s brother, was around to keep his father in check.

  Thinking of her nephew, Celeste could only wish David was nearby, too. An FBI agent in Atlanta, Georgia, he hadn’t made it to Montana for a visit in too long. And she needed her loved ones around her. The nightmares were trying to tell her something about the past, and she felt certain she’d need all those she held dear when the day of reckoning came.

  Yvette touched Celeste’s arm. “Are you all right?”

  “She had another rough night,” Cleo said.

  Celeste felt like a specimen in a bottle with five sets of serious eyes regarding her. That desperate, unnamed emotion swirled up inside her like a tornado, and she had to take a deep breath to find the strength to push it back down. “But I’m looking forward to an interesting day,” she said firmly. “Edward, tell us some good news.”

  With one more searching look at her face, Edward smoothed the front page absently, then bent his head. “Well,” he said, smoothing the paper again. “Lyle Brooks finally broke ground for that resort/casino complex he’s been talking up all over town.”

  Celeste frowned. That young man was some sort of kin on the Kincaid side and she’d never felt comfortable around him. “But isn’t the casino part of the Laughing Horse Reservation? How is Lyle involved?”

  It was banker Frannie who answered. “Because Indian laws allow gambling, the casino will be on the Laughing Horse reservation, Aunt Celeste. But the accompanying resort will be on Kincaid land. Lyle’s put together the financing for both projects.” She didn’t look any more at ease about the young man than Celeste felt. “In ten years the whole thing will move out of Kincaid/Laughing Horse hands and into those of a joint corporation, headed by Lyle.”

  Celeste should have been happy that they were off the subject of her nightmares, but suddenly the whole notion of Lyle and the disturbance of Kincaid land chilled her. A shiver racked her body. Yvette’s hand moved across the table to cover Celeste’s left one, the ache in it more pronounced than usual.

  “Celeste, what’s the matter?” Yvette asked.

  Another shiver rattled over Celeste’s spine. “There’s just something about Lyle I don’t like,” she said to her sister. “Maybe it’s because he reminds me of Jeremiah.”

  At the mention of their elder brother’s name, silence fell around the table. When he’d been murdered, the violence had been shocking, but they hadn’t mourned him. He’d been cold and controlling all his life.

  Celeste took a long breath, sorry to have brought her brother’s name into their warm circle. She looked from face to face, trying to gauge their moods. Edward and Yvette were concerned about her, she could see, while Frannie looked almost embarrassed. Standing behind Cleo, two worry lines bisected Jasmine’s smooth forehead. And Cleo—her beautiful, motherly Cleo—looked ready to fight tigers on Celeste’s behalf. But even underneath all her bristling protectiveness Celeste sensed in her older daughter another kind of sadness…
>
  Yvette squeezed Celeste’s hand. “We love you,” she said.

  Oh. And she loved them all and wanted them so much to be happy. With her right hand she lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, intent on moistening her throat to tell them so.

  But the coffee sloshed over her hand instead, and she didn’t even notice the slight scald, because suddenly that frightening maelstrom of emotion, that nightmare hangover, rose up within her once again. There was no controlling it.

  She looked around at the faces of her family, but the feeling stayed, pulsing inside her.

  It was powerful and dark and she finally, finally, knew its terrifying name.

  The emotion that always remained with her after the horrible dream was…shame.

  Celeste dropped her gaze, unable to meet the eyes of her caring, beloved family. Because just as certain as she was that it was shame trying to claw its way out of her heart, she was quite sure her family would condemn her if they knew that long ago she had…she had…

  What?

  Oh, God. Despite the acknowledgment of that feeling of shame, despite thirty years of terror-filled nights, Celeste just didn’t know.

  She didn’t know what terrifying, shameful thing she had done.

  Two

  Ethan Redford sat in his newly purchased Range Rover outside White horn, Montana’s Bean sprouts day care center. Out his tinted windows he had a perfect view of the center’s fenced playground. Under the watchful gaze of several women he didn’t recognize, little kids built sandcastles, slid down a wavy slide, made imaginary meals in a gaily painted playhouse. Pleasing though the sight was, Ethan’s fingertips drummed the saddle-colored leather armrest.

  He was stalling.

  As humbling as the confession might be, he had to admit to himself that the idea of confronting Cleo Monroe after his abrupt, three-month absence was making his palms sweat. Hell! And this from a man who’d faced down his drunken, raging father at nine years old and brokered his first multimillion-dollar merger at thirty.