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CHAPTER THREE

GAGE pushed open the double glass doors that led to the main offices of Baron Resorts. Carol, seated behind the reception desk, gave him her usual sunny smile over the mug of steaming coffee she held in her hands.

“Morning, Mr. Baron.”

Gage glared at her.

“It’s after nine,” he snapped. “You’re supposed to be working.”

Carol’s smile faded. “I am working. I mean, I’m just—”

“You want coffee, wait until your break.” Gage marched past her. “Let’s have a little efficiency around here, if you don’t mind.”

“No, Mr. Baron. I mean, yes, Mr. Baron. I mean—”

He pushed his way through the next set of doors and strode towards his office. His secretary rose to her feet as he swept past her desk.

“Good morning, Mr. Baron. Mr. Folger called. Mr. Okada, too. And there are several faxes from—”

“No calls,” he snapped. “No faxes. No interruptions. Understood?”

Rosa’s dark brows lifted. “Certainly, sir. No interruptions. But—”

Gage swung towards her. “What part of the word ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

Color flooded Rosa’s face. “No part of it, sir.”

“Good. Then don’t disturb me for anything less than a five-alarm fire or an armed insurrection.”

He slammed his office door shut, tossed his briefcase on a low beechwood table…

“Hell,” he muttered, and opened the door again. “Rosa?”

Rosa looked up from her computer keyboard. “Yes, sir?”

Her tone was polite but stiff, and her cheeks were still red. Gage sighed and walked towards her.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to take your head off. It’s just…” Just what, Baron? Just that your wife is leaving you? “It’s just that, ah, that I had a late night.”

Rosa smiled. “I can imagine.”

“Sorry?”

“The Holcombs’s party. According to today’s paper, it was a smashing success.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was—terrific.”

“I’ll hold all your calls, Mr. Baron.”

“Thanks. And do me a favor, please. Tell Carol to call Starbuck’s, order herself a couple of pounds of whatever coffee she likes and charge it to me. And tell her I said she can keep a pot of the stuff at her elbow all day long, if that’s what she wants.”

“Sir?”

“Just tell her what I said, okay? She’ll understand.”

“I’ll tell her. And I’ll see to it you’re not disturbed—but there is this one envelope that arrived by messenger this morning…”

Gage sighed and held out his hand. “Okay, okay. Hand it over, though why you’d think something that comes via Express Mail would be…” He frowned as Rosa put the heavy vellum envelope in his hand. “This didn’t come Express Mail.”

“No, sir. It was hand-delivered, as I said.”

He looked at the cream-colored envelope. His name and address had been written in flowing, elegant script.

“It’s quite impressive, sir.”

“It is, indeed.” He grinned. “Probably an advertising gimmick. ‘Come in and test drive our newest super-duper, ultra-luxurious boatmobile.’ Something like that.”

Rosa laughed. “I’m sure you’re right, Mr. Baron. But I thought it might be important.”

“Sure. No need to explain.” Gage smiled. “Just do me a favor and hold everything else, okay? I have some, ah, some thinking I want to do about, ah, about that property in Puerto Rico.”

“Certainly, sir.”

His smile held until he’d shut the door to his office. Then it slid from his face like the mask it was.

“Great job, Baron,” he muttered as he dropped the vellum envelope on his desk. “First you chop off the heads of two of the best people in your office, then you stand there and sputter excuses as if you were a ten-year-old explaining how the ball broke the window.” He yanked off his jacket, loosened his tie, kicked back his swivel chair and collapsed into it. “Next thing you know, you’ll be phoning one of those talk show shrinks and whining out your tale of woe to a million people.”

What tale of woe? His marriage was breaking up. Well, so what? Divorce had been a part of his childhood. Back then, only his brothers, and then Caitlin, had understood. Now—now, it was an everyday thing.

Enough of feeling sorry for himself. He needed to think about something else. Clear his head, so he could approach things logically. Today was a business day, same as any other. He had appointments, meetings, probably a lunch scheduled with somebody or other.

The ever-efficient Rosa had centered his appointment book, open, on his desk. A neat stack of faxes lay to its left. To the right were half a dozen “while you were out” memos.

The vellum envelope had landed on top of them.

Gage pushed it aside, picked up the memos and leafed through them. Words ran together in a senseless pattern. He frowned, dumped the memos in the wastebasket and reached for the faxes, but he couldn’t get past the first sentence on any of them.

“Damn,” he said, and dropped them, too.

How was he supposed to keep his mind on work? How was he supposed to concentrate on anything but what was happening in his personal life?

He shoved back his chair, got to his feet and drew open the vertical blinds that covered the wall of glass behind him. Below, sun-worshiping guests lazed around the Windsong’s pool, which had been designed in the spirit of a lazy river, complete with waterfalls that flowed over hidden grottoes. Beyond, a stretch of white sand led to the emerald sea.

Everything he’d busted his tail to create was out there. Well, there and beyond, in a dozen places around the globe. Under his command, the sorry excuse for a hotel he’d almost hocked his soul to buy had become a world-famous, five-star resort, the center of what the financial wizards had taken to calling Baron’s Kingdom.

He was a successful, happy man.

At least, he had been, until last night.

Gage sank down into his chair again, propped his elbows on the desk and held his head.

What to do? What to do?

There had to be a way around this. Two people didn’t just walk away from a marriage after they’d invested ten years of their lives in it.

It wasn’t logical. Wasn’t practical. It was pointless and wasteful and foolish. Okay. He’d tell Natalie that, give her the chance to change her mind…

Was he crazy? Give her the chance to cut him to shreds again, was more like it. Besides, he wanted out. How come he kept forgetting that?

He muttered an oath, a creative one dredged up from those long-ago days when he’d worked with his hands, not with his head.

“Got to keep busy,” he muttered, “got to stop thinking.”

His gaze fell on the vellum envelope. Okay, even reading a hokey ad for an overpriced car or maybe a boat, considering that this was Florida, might be good for a distraction.

He ripped open the envelope flap, extracted a heavy formal notecard. His brows rose as he read it.

Your presence is requested at

The eighty-fifth birthday celebration

Of Mr. Jonas Baron

Saturday and Sunday, June the 14th and 15th

At the Baron Ranch

‘Espada’

Brazos Springs, Texas

R.S.V.P.

A note was scrawled beneath the perfectly executed calligraphy.

“Gage,” it read, “you’d damn well better come if you know what’s good for you. No excuses, you hear?”

The brusque words were followed by a bold capital C—and softened with the drawing of a tiny heart.

A grin spread across Gage’s face. Catie never changed. Tough as nails on the outside, soft and sweet inside, though she’d probably have slugged him if he’d ever dared say something like that to her face.

His grin faded.

Now his morning was perfect. First the confrontation with Natalie and now this demand that he attend a command performance at Espada. Oh, yeah. Today was shaping up to be a gem.

Jonas, pushing eighty-five. Was it really possible? He hadn’t seen his father in a year. Two, maybe. But in his mind’s eye, Jonas was ageless, with a body as tough and straight as an ironwood tree and silver eyes that could stare down a hawk.

He put down the vellum card. Eighty-five. That was quite a number. Well, he’d have to phone on the—what day was it, anyway? The fourteenth of June? The fifteenth? Either way, he’d call the ranch, wish the old man a happy birthday. And send him a gift, of course, though what you could send a man who had everything he wanted and disdained everything else was beyond him.

Gage’s expression softened. He’d make a separate call, to Caitlin. Explain that, much as he wanted to, he couldn’t possibly break away and—

His private phone rang. The sound startled him. No one had that number except—

“Baby,” he said, grabbing the phone. “Natalie, I love you so—”

“And I love you, too, precious,” a falsetto voice warbled, “but my husband’s starting to get suspicious.”

Gage jerked upright in his chair. “Travis? Trav, is that you?”

A deep, masculine chuckle sounded over the line. “I know it’s probably disappointing as all get-out but yeah, it’s me. Good morning.”

A slow smile spread across Gage’s lips.

“Good morning?” He glanced at his watch and gave a soft whistle. “My, oh, my, I am impressed, Travis. Why, it’s hardly seven o’clock, your time. I didn’t think you West Coast big shots turned over in bed until us hardworkin’ Easterners were darned near havin’ lunch.”

“I already told him that,” another deep, lazy voice said.

Gage’s smile became a grin. “Slade?”

“The one and only,” Slade Baron replied.

“Hell, I don’t believe this! What are you two guys doin’? Havin’ a reunion out there in Malibu? Or are you both in Boston, livin’ it up in that big old house on Beacon Hill my little brother calls home?”

“I’m in Boston,” Slade said.

“And I’m in Malibu,” Travis said. “This three-way brotherly phone call is comin’ to you courtesy of the marvels of modern-day science.”

“I’ll bet it’s the only three-way ever been done by telephone,” Slade said with a wicked grin at the pretty young secretary who’d just brought him his coffee. “Thank you, darlin’.”

“Don’t you ‘darlin” me, pal,” Travis said with a mock growl, “or I’ll fly straight to that fancy-pants mansion of yours and beat you up the way I used to when you were a scrawny twelve-year-old and I was a strappin’ lad of thirteen.”

“Uh-huh. You an’ who else?”

“Me an’ my man Gage. Isn’t that right, Gage?” Travis chuckled. “’Course, it’ll have to wait until the sun gets up in the sky a piece, so my brain starts workin’ right.”

All three brothers laughed. Gage could have sworn he felt that laughter reach out over the miles and enfold him in its warmth.

It never failed to amaze him, how easily they all fell into the teasing repartee of childhood. Months went by now without their seeing each other but it didn’t matter. The small battles they’d fought as kids didn’t matter, either. Put two of them together in a room—or on a telephone line—and the memories flooded back. Put three of them together and it was as if the years had fallen away. Even their accents changed and took on the soft, drawling cadence of their growing-up years in Texas, until Travis finally cleared his throat and got down to the reason for the call.

“Okay, guys,” he said, and sighed. “I wish to hell we could avoid the topic and I’m sure you do, too, but it’s time for a reality check.”

“The invitation,” Slade said.

Gage heard the rustle of paper over the line. “You got yours, too?”

“This morning, bright and early. Trav?”

“Bright and early is right. Mine arrived at six.”

Slade laughed. “And interrupted you and a guest.”

“Go on,” Travis hestitated. “Let’s just say I was otherwise involved when I got this invitation.”

“What a tough life he leads,” Slade drawled.

“I’d expect some compassion from you, kid,” Travis said. “Not from Gage, of course, since he gave up his freedom years ago.” His voice softened. “How’s my girl, by the way? You still treating her right, or is she about ready to use that pretty head of hers and ditch you for me?”

Gage’s smile faded. “She’s fine,” he said tightly, and knew he’d made a mistake the minute he heard the overwhelming silence humming across the lines.

“Gage?” Slade said. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Travis said. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes.”

“You sure? Because you don’t sound—”

“Listen, maybe you two guys can horse around all day,” Gage said, even more tightly, “but I’ve got things to do. So let’s get down to it, okay?”

There was the sound of throat-clearing on both coasts. “Right,” Slade said. “Uh, business. Well, Travis already put the agenda on the table. What are we going to do about this command performance the old man’s got planned for the middle of the month?”

“Ignore it,” Gage said firmly. “I’ve got—”

“Things to do,” Travis said. “Yeah, I heard that. And believe me, I don’t have any greater desire to go back to Espada for a dress rehearsal of King Lear than either of you guys, but—”

“Lear?” Slade said, sounding puzzled. “Hey, this is Texas we’re talking about, not Stratford-on-Avon.”

“Come on, Slade, give me a break. You know what this is all about. Jonas is starting to feel mortal.”

“Jonas?” Slade snorted. “Our father’s got every intention of making it to one hundred and you know what? My money’s on him.”

“Mine, too. But I suspect the old boy’s looking around, taking stock of that little spread of seven zillion acres he calls home, sweet home, and figuring it’s time he made plans on how to divvy up the kingdom.”

“Well, I don’t need to spend a miserable weekend listening to him snap out orders to know that I don’t give a damn how he does it.” Gage rose from his chair, paced to the door, opened it and mimed that he was drinking a cup of coffee to Rosa, who nodded and slipped out from behind her desk. “I’ll send a gift, phone the ranch, wish Jonas the best…” He smiled his thanks as Rosa handed him a cup. “You two guys can enjoy the party without me,” he finished as he sat down at his desk again.

“Hold it right there, pal.” Slade’s voice rang with indignation. “I never said I was going. In fact, I’m going to be in Baltimore that weekend.”

“Or in the Antarctic,” Travis said lazily. “Anywhere it takes to avoid this shindig, right?”

“Wrong. I’ve put in the past eight weeks on plans for a new bank in Baltimore, and I’ll be damned if—”

“Easy does it, Slade. I was just kidding.”

Slade sighed. “And I was lying through my teeth. Not about the commission, but about why I can’t make it to Espada.”

“Amazing,” Gage said softly. “Here we are, three grown men, all of us falling over our own feet in a rush to keep clear of the place where we grew up.”

“Some people call the place where they grew up ‘home,’” Slade said, trying for a light touch but coming up short.

“Yeah,” Travis said, trying for the same light touch, “but they aren’t the sons of Jonas Baron.”

“The Sons of Jonas Baron,” Gage said, trying even harder. “Sounds like a movie.”

“Not a bad idea,” Slade said. “I can play myself but they’d need to hire stand-ins for you two. Splash those ugly mugs of yours across the big screen and they’d scare away paying customers.”

This time, at last, they all laughed.

“The thing is,” said Travis, “tough as the old man is, eighty-five is a pretty impressive number.”

“So?” Bitterness tinged Gage’s voice. “I don’t much remember him being impressed enough by other numbers. Your eighteenth birthday, for instance. Or when Slade finished his two years of grad school.”

“Or your big fifth anniversary party,” Travis said, and Gage felt the pain of Natalie’s announcement rip through him again. “But, what the hell, gentlemen, we’re bigger than that, right?”

Groans greeted the announcement, but Travis was undeterred.

“Well, we are. We’re young, he’s old. That’s a simple fact.” His voice softened. “And then there’s Caitlin.”

“Yeah.” Slade sighed. “I do hate to disappoint her.”

“Disappoint her?” Gage muttered. “Hell, Catie’ll come after us and cut out our hearts when she hears we’re not coming.”

“Or other, even more important parts of our anatomies,” Slade said.

The three Barons laughed, and then Gage gave a deep sigh.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t like letting her down, but I don’t see a choice here, guys. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

“The choice,” Travis said in the tone of reason that had made him such a successful attorney, “the choice, my man, is that there is no choice. We have to show up at this thing.”

“No way,” two voices said in unison.

“Look, we’re not kids anymore. Jonas can’t get under our skin. He can’t make us miserable and, what the hell, we do owe him a show of respect. And think how happy we can make Caitlin by showing our faces, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ or whatever it is she’s got planned, before we head out to the real world again. What’ll it take? A couple of days? That’s not much, when you come down to it, is it?”

Silence skimmed along the phone line. “Maybe not,” Slade said after a while.

Maybe not, Gage thought—but the birthday weekend was only ten days away. Every instinct he possessed told him it was going to take longer than that to fix this mess with Natalie, to convince her that he still loved her, that he wanted her because, dammit, he did.

“Okay,” Slade said, and heaved a sigh. “I’m in.”

“Great,” Travis said. “Gage?”

Gage cleared his throat. “I can’t.”

“Dammit, Gage, if Slade can, and I can—”

“I can’t, I’m telling you! I’ve got—I have things to take care of. Important things.”

“It’s just a weekend,” Slade said.

“Well, I don’t have a weekend to spare.”

“Listen here, brother,” Travis snapped. “If I can manage the time and Slade can manage the time—”

“Good,” Gage snarled. “Great. I’m proud of the two of you. But I’m busy. Too busy for this kind of nonsense. I have some sensitive things going on here. You guys understand that, or do I have to put it on a billboard?”

He heard the harshness, the anger, of his own words echoing around him. His brothers were silent and he shut his eyes and put his fist to his forehead. He could almost see the looks they’d be sending each other if they were in the same room.

He took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice near a whisper. “But I can’t be there. I just can’t.”

“Sure,” Travis said after a minute.

“Understood,” Slade said a beat later. “Well…”

There was silence, then the sound of a throat being cleared. “Well,” three voices said at one time, and then there were hurried goodbyes, good wishes…

The phone went dead. Gage sat staring at it, waiting—and smiled a little when it rang.

“Listen,” Travis said without bothering to say hello. “If there’s a problem on your end…”

“I’m okay.”

“Yeah, sure you are, but if there should be a problem, whatever—”

“I’ll call you,” Gage said quietly.

“Yeah,” Travis said, cleared his throat, and hung up. The phone rang again, almost immediately.

“Gage?”

Gage sighed. “Yes, Slade.”

“Look, if you, ah, if you need anything—”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, sure, but if you should need anything, somebody to talk to, whatever—”

“I’ll call you,” Gage said softly.

“Right.” Slade cleared his throat and hung up.

Slowly, Gage put down the telephone. He forgot, sometimes, what it was like, having a family that loved you. Maybe Natalie had forgotten, too. He was her family, after all, just as she was his. Maybe all she needed was for him to sit her down, tell her how he loved her…

The phone rang again. Gage rolled his eyes and picked it up.

“Listen, you guys, I swear to you, I’m perfectly fine. There’s not a thing troubling me. You got that? My life is perfect. I’m just too busy to take time out for a weekend of sentimental claptrap.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Natalie said. “I know all about how busy you are, Gage.”

“Natalie?” He shot to his feet. “I didn’t realize—”

“No,” she said, her voice trembling. “No, you never did. I just hope you’re not too busy to take down this phone number.”

“What phone number? Nat, listen—”

“My phone number. I’ve left you, Gage. I took an apartment off Lincoln Drive.”

“Huh?” Gage ran his hand through his hair. “But the last thing you said this morning was—”

“I changed my mind.”

“Natalie, baby—”

“And I’ve spoken with Jim Rutherford. I think you should speak with your attorney, too.”

Gage’s eyes narrowed. “All this,” he said slowly, “in one morning?”

“All this, in one morning.”

“How long have you been planning this, Natalie?”

“I haven’t. I’ve thought about it, but—”

“Thought about leaving me? Thought about it?”

He shut his eyes, remembering the nights she’d feigned sleep, the times he’d taken her in his arms anyway and felt as if she were made of wood. Was that when she’d thought about leaving him? When she lay beside him, when she lay beneath him, in the darkness?

“Well,” he said, his voice a growl, his heart trying to break and harden at the same time, “I’ve got news for you, baby. I thought about it, too. For months. I just didn’t know how to tell you but I can see, I needn’t have worried.”

Natalie put the back of her hand to her mouth, biting hard on her knuckles so she wouldn’t give this man she’d once loved the satisfaction of hearing her weep. “If you don’t know how to swim, don’t jump into the deep end,” Liz Holcomb had pleaded after Natalie had poured out her heart over endless cups of black coffee. “Oh, Natalie, don’t do anything too quickly. Wait. Think. Give it time.”

But she had waited, for what seemed years and years. She’d waited for her husband to look up and notice that he’d forgotten who she was, that she was at least as important as his hotels, his meetings, his money.

And then she’d looked at him in the Holcombs’s garden last night and she’d realized that the only thing Gage wanted from her anymore was what she could give him in bed.

The knowledge had broken her heart, but it had given her the resolve she’d needed to turn her life around.

So she’d called Jim Rutherford, phoned a rental agent because, despite the threat she’d made, there wasn’t a way in the world she wanted to stay in that house. She’d done everything she had to do…and all the while she’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, a miracle might happen. Gage might suddenly see how serious this was, how much they each were going to lose when they lost each other.

“Natalie,” he’d say, “don’t leave me. I love you, I’ve never stopped loving you…”

“Actually,” he said coldly, “I’m glad the charade’s finally over.”

Yes,” Natalie whispered. She swiped the back of her hand at the tears that were streaming down her face. “So am I. It’s—it’s good that we’ve both decided to be honest about what we want.”

“Out,” Gage snarled. “That’s what I want.” He slammed down the phone, snatched it up again and dialed Slade’s number. “Slade? I’ve changed my mind. I’ll be at Espada for Jonas’s birthday party. Yeah, well, 1 just—I shifted things around, that’s all. Do me a favor, call Travis and let him know. Oh, absolutely. We’ll have a blast. Uh-huh. Just like old times.”

Just like old times, Gage thought bitterly as he hung up the phone.

And wasn’t that one hell of a thing to be looking forward to?