He was sharp, tenacious and very good at what he did. He was also tall, dark and handsome enough that Maddie's cheeks were red.

So was Delia's whole face, which made Zoe want to laugh, because for some reason Zoe didn't quite understand, Cade seemed to get under Delia's skin.

Oblivious, Cade shook hands with Ty, then smiled at Zoe. "I see you met your neighbor."

Zoe bit back her grimace. Met him and was just kissing him senseless, thank you. "Ah… yes."

Ty lifted a brow, daring her to speak her mind.

Zoe looked away. "We were just… um… fixing fences," she said lamely. "Working really hard, too." Sweat trickled between her breasts. "Hot today, don't you think?"

No one but Ty seemed to notice her discomfort. His smile spread, and with no one watching him, he winked at her conspiratorially.

If they'd been alone, she thought she might have slugged him again.

"Cade wanted to see how we were doing," Maddie said. "Yeah, well, he could have called for that." Delia ran a finger over her latest self-applied manicure. Her nails were electric blue with bolts of lightning on the thumbs. "What he really wanted, Maddie, was another home-cooked meal."

Cade grinned.

"Well, he's in luck, then." Maddie smiled. "We're having a pot roast tonight. With homemade bread."

Cade's eyes lit with hope. "You're too good to be true, Maddie."

Maddie flushed under the praise, looking pretty and cool in her fresh white jeans and a blue denim top, despite the fact she'd been working hard inside all day. Delia looked smooth and very sophisticated as well, with her black silk shell and jeans, leaving Zoe to swipe the grime on her hands down the front of her own already-dirty jeans, wishing for a hot shower.

Cade looked around the empty land with a sad frown. "I guess I also wanted to see if you'd made any plans. I know this place wasn't quite what you'd expected. I didn't know if you'd definitely stay…?"

Zoe looked at her sisters and was relieved to see the same determination on their faces as she knew was on hers. "We're staying," she told him firmly. "No question. But you could have told us, Cade."

He looked ashamed but not apologetic. "Would you have come?"

Zoe fell silent, unsure. Would they have? She didn't know and that made her sad. She would have missed out on the pull of the land, the freedom… the tall, handsome face of Ty as he watched her quietly with an intense expression.

"This land meant everything to Constance," Cade told them. "And to think of it being unoccupied and neglected, as it was before you got here, destroyed her. You three weren't the only ones who got something out of the inheritance, she did, too-the knowing that Triple M would live on." Cade paused. "So what will you do?"

"We'd like to ranch," Zoe answered. They'd stayed up late every night talking about it. "But we can't be sure until we make plans and pin down the financial side of it."

"There aren't many options on land such as this."

"No." Zoe had been worried about this as well. If they didn't raise horses or cattle or crops, which she knew nothing about, what would they do? They had expected the ranch to be running, with a full, knowledgeable crew, and that she hadn't checked it out thoroughly was a guilt she would have to live with. They couldn't live here like this for long, they had to make money. A ranch seemed the logical choice, but they knew so little. She hated to be dependent on anyone, but how else could she do this other than to get help from someone who knew what to do? She glanced at Ty and her nerves tightened. "We're not leaving, though, whatever we decide."

"Good." Cade looked at everyone. "I guess Ty has filled you in on the gaps in the story."

Zoe's stomach took a little dive. "Gaps?" She stole another glance at Ty, but suddenly his eyes, open and friendly only a second before, had completely shuttered, giving none of his thoughts away.

"This can wait" was all he said.

"No need, we're all here." Cade leaned into the truck, grabbed a container of water and took a long drink. "The sky's as blue as a crayon today, but it's sure dry out here, isn't it? Not nearly so warm in the city, let me tell you."

"Well, city boy, feel free to pack it on home, then," Delia said blandly. "You could just call when you don't have any news, you know. You certainly don't have to come out here to say nothing and complain about the weather." Daintily, she picked her way through the dirt to the truck, ignoring Cade's unperturbed grin.

"I bet the change of scenery is nice for you," Maddie said quickly, always the peacemaker. "You know you're always welcome, Cade."

"Thanks, Maddie." Cade swiped at his forehead, but in truth, he looked just as at home as they did, wearing faded jeans and a snug T-shirt revealing the city boy was well nourished and perfectly fit. "But it's kind of you, Delia," he called out. "To worry about me traveling so far to help you."

Delia rolled her eyes, and Zoe, wondering why no one else was going mad, lost her patience. "What gaps!"

Cade sighed, and his smile faded. "None of your parents have yet been successfully found, much less traced back to Constance. It doesn't matter for the inheritance."

Zoe swore softly, bitterly disappointed. Cade touched her shoulder. "Constance didn't need more proof than what she had-three women born approximately when she thought her granddaughter might have been born, and who were in the right place. She felt certain it was one of you. She knew how close you were, how much you loved one another, and that was enough for her."

Zoe nodded and fought her crushed hopes. Whether she liked to admit it or not, she would have given her right hand to know what had happened to her mother that day she'd been dropped off so many years ago.

And she would have died before admitting to a soul that she was twenty-six years old and still haunted by what her mother had done, that she needed to know why she'd been deserted, and that need grew daily.

"Other than the fact that none of you have a father on your birth certificate, and that you'd all been left by a mother who disappeared out of your lives, we have little to go on," Cade admitted.

Zoe spoke kindly because he was doing everything he could, but it was hard to be patient when she was dying for more. "So what 'gaps'?"

"We're busy now," Ty interrupted. "We've got fencing-"

"Ty, I've got to know."

"Fine." Abruptly he turned away, back to the fence. Hunkering down, he set to work, ignoring her.

"Cade?" More urgently now, Zoe turned to him. "Tell us."

"Should we go back to the house first?" he wondered.

Behind them, Ty's hammer hit a post hard. Zoe glanced at him, at the tense set to his body, but she didn't have time to worry about the moody, brooding cowboy when her own life was on hold. "No, please tell us now."

Delia came closer again and lost most of her defiance as she stood united with her sisters. Cade flashed a look that begged them for understanding, but Zoe wasn't prepared to blindly give anything.

"Constance was only a prayer away from bankruptcy," he said quietly, easily, but it was clear how badly he felt in every line of his tall, rangy body. "And if she'd gone bankrupt before her death, there'd have been no land to inherit."

"That's no secret, is it?" Delia asked. "It was pretty clear to us from the beginning how much money trouble she'd had."

"That poor woman, all alone, facing that," Maddie said with pain in her voice. "I wish we could have found her sooner."

"Losing this land would have killed her," Cade admitted. "Triple M Ranch was everything to her. The only thing that meant more was finding her granddaughter."

"If she was so poor, then how did you get paid?" Delia asked. "I'm sure you're not cheap. And now that I think about it, why do you keep on this case even now, when there's clearly no money in the estate for you?"

"I'm getting to that." Obviously a man used to hostility, Cade calmly took another long drink of his water. "Aah, that's good." He looked at Delia evenly. "Constance had a benefactor."

"You mean like maybe an older man who loved her and couldn't stand to see her hurt?" Maddie's face softened. "Oh, how romantic."

"Not an older man, no," Cade said. "But it was someone who cared about her a great deal, and yes, someone who didn't want to see her hurt."

"Dammit!" roared Ty.

Everyone looked at him. He ripped off his gloves and sucked on an injured finger. He'd shucked his hat a while back so that the sun shone off the dark hair that fell nearly to his shoulders. He was taut as a bow, an explosion just waiting to happen.

Zoe's bad feeling got worse, and she turned back to Cade. "You're telling me that this someone paid off both her debts and your fee? Just because they cared? That's a whole lot of caring." In her opinion, no one did something like that without a really good reason.

A motive.

And motives were usually selfish.

"It is a lot of caring," Cade agreed. "And because of it, you're here."

With a quiet oath, Ty dropped the hammer and turned to face them, hands low on his hips in a stance of great irritation. "If you're all done having a nice little break, then scatter, would ya? I've got work to do and you're distracting me." He stalked to the truck, but before he could hop into the driver's seat, Cade spoke to him.

"I think they should know who that benefactor was, Ty."

"Well, I don't. There's no reason to tell them."

"You're wrong." Zoe stepped closer, quivering with the need for answers. "We have every right to know, and I want someone to tell us right now what's going on."

Cade shot Ty a sympathetic glance, but he spoke regardless. "It was Ty."

Stunned silence met this remark. Zoe felt the shock bounce through her, which only deepened when Ty looked at her, his eyes bleak and miserable.

"You," she whispered softly.

"Me," he agreed, just as softly.

"Delia said you were considering making him a partner in the ranch," Cade said. "So I thought you should know how responsible and trustworthy he is."

"We're not considering a partnership," Zoe said, turning away, her shoes crunching in the dirt. She stared blindly at the gentle green slope that led down to the raging river.

"Well, I think you should consider one," Cade told her back. "Because, frankly, I don't see how you'll do it without him. Ty is the best at this, you couldn't get anyone better."

"Oh, Ty," Maddie murmured. "How incredibly wonderful of you to take care of Constance that way."

"And expensive," said the pragmatic Delia, but even as cynical as she was, she looked very touched. "I'm not sure I know how to thank you."

"I don't want thanks." His jaw was set, and hostility rolled off him in waves.

"What you did meant the world to Constance," Cade said to Ty quietly. "And you deserve the proper recognition for that."

Ty clamped his mouth shut as if too much of a gentleman to say what he thought about that. "I didn't do it for any of you," he said finally.

Okay, Zoe thought, maybe he wasn't too much of a gentlemen to express his thoughts after all. "Why did you do it, then?"

Ty slid into the driver's seat and snapped on his seat belt. "Your ride is leaving. You walking back?"

Being ignored made her testy, and just a tad bit pushy, though even a small child would have had the sense to leave this man alone right now. "Maybe it was more simple than that," she suggested. "You wanted to buy this place."

"I already told you that," Ty said through clenched teeth.

Cade looked confused at Zoe's hostility. "I don't think you understand. If Ty hadn't paid for me to continue the search for Constance's granddaughter, and if Constance hadn't been satisfied with what I'd found, Ty wouldn't have had to buy this place."

Ty started the truck and rudely revved the engine.

"But of course he would have bought this place," Zoe said loudly, glaring at Ty. "He already told us he wanted it."

Cade shook his head. "Over the years Constance got very close to Ty." He had to yell over the noise of the truck. "She felt as though he were her family, and indeed for a long time, he was all she had. She thought the world of him."

The engine revved again. Music filled the air now, loud pumping, ridiculously upbeat music that was at a direct conflict with the tense atmosphere.

It was hard to reconcile the brooding, terse male sitting in the driver's seat with the kind, caring warm man Cade was describing.

Harder still to let go of her years of innate suspicion and wariness to admit that maybe, just maybe, she was looking at a man who was not as she wanted to make him out to be.