Disclosure: The McCaffertys Read online

  THE TRUTH CAN’T STAY BURIED FOREVER…

  The McCaffertys: SLADE

  Slade McCafferty was a bachelor through and through—too busy raising hell to settle down. Case in point: fifteen years ago daredevil Slade had taken wild child Jamie Parsons’s innocence, and then had broken her heart. But Jamie is back in town, a lawyer, all confidence and polished professionalism. And seeing her again is setting off a tidal wave of emotions Slade thought he’d dammed up ages ago. Back then, as now, there’d been something about Jamie that made Slade ache for more. A hell of a lot more…

  The McCaffertys: RANDI

  Is hiding the identity of her child’s father worth risking her life? Randi McCafferty seems to think so, but investigator Kurt Striker is hell-bent on changing her mind. Hired by her well-meaning but overbearing brothers to keep Randi and her son safe, Kurt knows the only way to eliminate the danger is to reveal Randi’s darkest secret…any way he can. Yet when protection leads to desire, will Randi and Kurt’s explosive affair leave them vulnerable to the threats whispering in the shadows?

  Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Bestselling Jackson cranks up the suspense to almost unbearable heights in her latest tautly written thriller.”

  —Booklist on Malice

  “When it comes to providing gritty and sexy stories, Ms. Jackson certainly knows how to deliver.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Unspoken

  “Provocative prose, an irresistible plot and finely crafted characters make up Jackson’s latest contemporary sizzler.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Wishes

  “Lisa Jackson takes my breath away.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller

  Also available from Lisa Jackson

  and Harlequin HQN

  Confessions

  Rumors: The McCaffertys

  Secrets and Lies

  Abandoned

  Strangers

  Sweet Revenge

  Stormy Nights

  Montana Fire

  Risky Business

  Missing

  High Stakes

  Secrets

  And coming soon…

  Suspicions

  Contents

  The McCaffertys: Slade

  The McCaffertys: Randi

  Book One:

  SLADE

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  There he was, sitting in his damned rocking chair as if it were a throne.

  Slade McCafferty gnashed his back teeth and felt the taste of crow on his tongue as he glared through the bug-spattered windshield of his truck to the broad front porch of the ranch house he’d called home for the first twenty years of his life.

  The old man, John Randall McCafferty, sat ramrod straight. In a way Slade respected him for his tenacious hold on life, his stubbornness, his determination to bend all of his children’s wills to meet his own goals. The trouble was, it hadn’t worked. The eldest McCafferty son, Thorne, was a hot-shot attorney, a millionaire who ran his own corporation from Denver, and the second-born, Matt, had struck out on his own and bought himself a spread near the Idaho border. Randi, the youngest, Slade’s half sister, lived in Seattle, and wrote her own syndicated column for a newspaper there.

  That left Slade.

  Ever the black sheep.

  Ever the rogue.

  Ever in trouble.

  Not that he gave a damn.

  As Slade eased out of the truck, a sharp pain shot through his hip and he winced, feeling the skin tighten around the barely visible scar that ran down one side of his face, a reminder of deeper marks that cut into his heart, the pain that never really left him. Well, no doubt he’d hear about that, too.

  He paused to light a cigarette, then hobbled up the path through the sparse, dry grass that served as a lawn. Though it was barely May, it had been a dry spring, hotter than usual for this time of year, and the sun-bleached grass was testament to the unseasonable and arid weather.

  John Randall didn’t say a word, didn’t so much as sway in the rocker as he watched his youngest son through narrowed eyes. A breeze, fiery as Satan’s breath, scorched across the slight rise that supported the old ranch house. Two stories of weathered siding with dark-green trim around each window, the house had been a refuge once, then a battlefield, and later a prison. At least to Slade’s way of thinking.

  He sucked hard on his filter tip, felt the warmth of smoke curl through his lungs and faced the man who had sired him. “Dad.” His boots rang as he hitched up the steps and John Randall’s old hunting dog, Harold, lifted his graying head, then thumped his tail on the dusty planks. “Hi, boy.”

  More thumps.

  “I thought you might not come.”

  “You said it was important.” Jeez, the old man looked bad. Thin tufts of white hair barely covered his speckled pate, and his eyes, once a laser-blue, had faded. His hands were gnarled and his body frail, the wheelchair parked near the door evidence of his failing health, but there was still a bit of steel in John Randall’s backbone, a measure of McCafferty grit in the set of his jaw.

  “It is. Sit.” He pointed toward a bench pushed under a window, but Slade leaned against the rail and faced him. The sun beat against his back.

  “What’s so all-fired important?”

  “I want a grandson.”

  “What?” Slade’s chest tightened and he felt the same old pain pound through his brain.

  “You heard me. I don’t have much time, Slade, and I’d like to go to my grave knowin’ that you’ve settled down, started a family, kept the family name alive.”

  “Maybe I’m not the one you should be talking to about this.” Not now, not when the memories were so fresh.

  “I’ve already had my say with Thorne and Matt. It’s your turn.”

  “I’m not interested in—”

  “I know about Rebecca.” Slade braced himself. “And the baby.”

  Slade’s head pounded as if a thousand horses were running through his brain. His scar seemed to pulse. “Yeah, well, it’s something I’ve got to live with,” he said, his eyes drilling into the old man’s. “And it’s hell.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “You can’t go beating yourself up one side and down the other the rest of your life,” his father said with more compassion than Slade thought him capable of. “They’re gone. It was a horrid accident. A painful loss. But life goes on.”

  “Does it?” Slade mocked, then wished he could call back the cruel words. He’d said them without thinking that his father was surely dying.

  “Yes, it does. You can’t stop living because of a tragedy.” He reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out his watch, a silver-and-gold pocket watch engraved with the crest of the Flying M, this very ranch, his pride and joy. “I want you to have this.”

  “No, Dad. You keep it.”

  The old man’s lips twisted into an ironic grin. “Don’t have any use for it. Not where I’m goin’. But you do. I want you to keep it as a reminder of me.” He pressed the timepiece into Slade’s palm. “Don’t waste your life, son. It’s shorter than you think. Now, it’s time for you to put the past behind you. Settle down. Start a family.”

  “I don’t think so.”