"Let me get this straight," David said incredulously. "You're pissed at me because I invited you to live with us and gave you a good-paying job.

"Please. Like you did it from the goodness of your heart." Richard's laugh was bitter. "You're such a hypocrite. You invited us here and gave me a job because you get your kicks out of lording it over all of us and never letting anyone forget you're prince of the goddamn castle."

"That's bullshit!"

"The hell it is." As if sensing danger was approaching, he began to turn back toward Zach.

Lily, who stood on the far side of David, took a step forward. "You know what, Richard? You're a spoiled brat."

He turned to look at her. "Oh, that's good. So says the slut. Did I give you permission to speak, blondie? What are you doing out of the kitchen, meddling in the affairs of your betters, anyway?"

She met his eyes coolly. "I hate to burst your bubble, sonny, but I barely have an equal, let alone a better."

"Yeah?" His gaze did a slow slide over her from head to foot, lingering on her breasts. "Maybe I should take you hostage instead of the little princess here. Those lips look like they could suck the chrome off a trailer"

If Zach's anger had been cold before, now it was red hot. He took the final step separating them and wrenched the shotgun from Richard with one hand while shoving his sister toward David with the other. "You're beginning to seriously piss me off, junior," he snarled and, flipping the weapon around in his grip, pointed it at the younger man. "Move over next to the bannister."

Richard didn't follow orders fast enough to suit him, and Zach gestured sharply with the shotgun. "March! You don't wanna test me right now, Ace, because trust me on this, I don't need much incentive to pump both barrels into your kneecaps."

Richard marched.

Zach didn't blink until he had Richard where he wanted him. "Lily, give me your belt, will you?"

She unfastened the narrow silk-cord-and-leather accessory and slid it off, dangling it a second later within his line of vision.

Zach traded her the shotgun for it. "This is the safety," he said, stroking this thumb over it as he passed her the weapon. "It's on, but all you have to do is push this little latch up, and it'll be ready to shoot. Blow his balls straight to hell if he so much as breathes wrong."

"Oh, believe me." She looked Richard directly in the eye. "That won't be a problem."

Zach's mouth crooked up, and he raised his eyebrows at the erstwhile extortionist, who was staring in horror at the shotgun trained on his crotch. "You're looking a little green around the gills there, Richie. I bet you're kind of regretting those crude sexual innuendos right about now, huh?" Staying out of Lily's way, he shackled Richard's hands to the ornately turned dowels connecting the bannister to the risers. Then he straightened and looked over at his sister, who was being held in a fierce embrace in Beaumont's arms. "You okay?"

"I am now." She clung to David, but brandished one of her sweet smiles at him. "Thank you, Zachariah."

"Hey." He shrugged. "You were the trouper here. And it was a group effort anyway. Everybody helped."

"Then thank you all." Her smile widening to encompass the two women, she snuggled her cheek into David's shoulder.

Zach heard car tires crunching down the drive just as Mrs. Beaumont walked out of the parlor.

"The sheriff is here," she said. She looked at her nephew, manacled to the banister with Lily's dainty little belt. "Well." She walked right up to him, and for a moment Zach thought she might slap Richard's face. But she merely looked him up and down and said in the coolest, most levelheaded tone Zach had yet to hear out of her, "You ungrateful pup. I hope you rot in jail."

Richard's lip curled. "Thanks, auntie. I guess asking you to post bail is out of the question then, huh?"

She looked as if she would hit him then. Her hand came up, and she took an incensed step forward.

But David said, "Mom," and she swung around to look at him.

"He's not worth it; don't waste your energy. Come meet Glynnis. I've been wanting to introduce my two favorite girls to each other for quite some time now."

Mrs. Beaumont turned back and looked at Richard for a long, silent instant. Then she gently patted his cheek. "He's right, dear. You aren't worth it." Ignoring the impotent fury that filled her nephew's eyes, she about-faced and walked over to the young couple.

A moment later, Zach watched Mrs. B. stroke a hand down Glynnie's dark hair and heard her coo, "Aren't you just the prettiest little thing?"

Shaking his head over her effusiveness for a young woman whose existence she'd had a hard time even remembering a few short days ago, he went to let in the deputies.

Jessica jerked in surprise when the door to her sitting room suddenly banged open. Lifting the washcloth off her eyes, she pushed up on one elbow and peered at the bedroom door.

"Jess!"

Her heart began to bang against her ribs at the sound of Christopher's voice, and she had to steel herself against her usual melting sense of surrender when he strode into the room and crossed to the bed.

He sat on the edge of the mattress and reached out to touch her bangs. "You cut your hair." Then he shook his head, as if unable to believe he'd mentioned something so immaterial. "Lily told me you were sick."

God, he was handsome, and she wanted so much to pretend she hadn't seen what she had seen at the Olga Cafe. But she was through pretending; she simply could not do so any longer and still face herself in the mirror. She shifted away from his touch. "I am sick. Sick of this marriage."

"What?" He visibly paled.

"I saw you, Christopher."

"You saw me what?" He looked at her with baffled green eyes. "Where? What are you talking about?"

"Don't toy with me, okay? And don't play the innocent; it makes me want to scratch your eyes out." She shoved herself more fully upright and scooted back until her shoulders pressed against the headboard. Picking up a throw pillow, she clutched it to her roiling stomach. Then she met his gaze head on. "I saw you with that woman at the Olga Cafe today, after you specifically told me you'd be—"

He laughed.

Of all the reactions she might have expected, that wasn't one of them, and she felt as if something inside her had ripped away from its foundation. Tossing aside the pillow, she scrambled toward the far side of the bed. She felt as if she were bleeding to death inside, but damned if she needed to stick around and give him a front row view of the process.

Before she could slide off the other side of the mattress, however, he dove after her, catching her by the shoulder. "Jess—"

Years of being a good girl, of staying in the background and never making any waves, went up in smoke. She came completely undone and started kicking, scratching, and flailing. "Get away!"

"No." He wrestled her flat onto her back and rolled atop her to hold her down. Catching her wrists in his hands, he pinned her arms to the mattress above their heads. Then he pushed up slightly to stare down at her.

"Jesus," he whispered, settling more firmly on top of her. "Jesus, Jessie."

Her breasts heaved as she tried to drag in enough breath to inflate her lungs. All the fight went out of her, and she returned his stare dully, her emotions a tangled web of loving him, hating him, and wishing herself a million miles away. "Let me go."

"I can't," he said hoarsely. "That's the one thing I just can't do."

Tears filled her eyes and silently overflowed.

"Oh, man, don't do that." Turning loose her wrists, he swiped at her cheeks with his fingers. "Please, baby, don't cry. I wasn't laughing at you, I swear I wasn't. I was laughing at the situation." His mouth slanted bitterly. "And you gotta admit it's kinda funny, in a twisted, dicked-up sort of way."

She just stared at him, and he insisted, "No, really, it is. This all came about in the first place because I knew you'd been unhappy for a long time, and I wanted to do something about it."

"So you thought you'd make me feel better by having an affair with another woman?" she demanded incredulously.

"I'm not having an affair, Jessie. I'm getting a new job."

"You're—" She could feel her mouth working like a landed fish's, and snapped it shut. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. But still all she seemed capable of doing was gaping witlessly. "What?"

"The woman you saw me with is the personnel director for a company called StarTek. Her name is Lynn Duncan." He blew out a breath. "You think I don't understand what's been going on here? Ever since I took the job with David things have gone to hell between us. I know you believe that's the reason I married you, but I'm actually damn good at what I do. I'm in demand, for crissake—corporations send their top headhunters after me on a regular basis." With each word he spoke, his golden eyebrows inched closer together, until they met fiercely over his nose as he glared down at her.

Then he seemed to collect himself, and his brow smoothed. "But I thought you wanted to live here with your family, so I took the job with David. I thought it would please you." He stiff-armed himself away to loom over her on braced hands. And he shook his head and sighed. "But I don't think you've been truly happy since the day we moved into this place." Rolling off her, he climbed to his feet.

For a minute all Jessica could think was, It isn't another woman. It isn't another woman ! Then her own brow furrowed, and she turned onto her side, stuffing the throw pillow beneath her armpit as she propped her head in her hand. "Have you been any happier?"