The ravens. Once they’d frightened her, too. The birds had cawed the night before her mother’s death, or so it was rumored. She didn’t remember.

What would it take, she wondered, to gather all the pieces of the past and put them in order?

Fear shuddered through her, but she ignored it. She wouldn’t give in to terror like a child locked in a dark closet. The light of truth was what she needed to dispel the horror of her nightmares.

She would start in her grandfather’s quarters. Soon. Next week. She would start next week.

It was a promise to the child who lived in the dreams that troubled her.

K yle Herriot held the door for his mother, closed and locked it, then set the alarm to go off if the door was opened again during the night. His mother’d had the security system installed fifteen years ago…shortly after his father’s death.

“I’m glad that’s over,” she said, setting her purse on the marble-topped foyer table. “There’s only the Windom girl left. When she marries, the name will be gone.”

“Unless she chooses to stick with her maiden name.” He followed his mother into the study. After pouring her a cordial of Riesling late harvest, he splashed an inch of brandy into a snifter and gazed out the windows that lined the western wall of the house.

The French doors opened onto a covered patio that looked out upon the mirror-smooth lake. One by one, the lights clicked off in the Windom mansion. He watched as headlights came on and the last vehicle in the circular drive sped away into the night.

Through the reflection in the glass, he saw his mother sit in her favorite chair, her eyes also drawn to the night scene beyond the windows.

“I’ve hated looking at that house,” she said in musing tones. “For fifteen years. Since your father died.”

He remembered the day as if it were yesterday. He’d been eleven, determined to go sailing with his dad, although he was on restriction due to some infraction of the rules. However, someone else had been with his father when he’d arrived at the boathouse on the lake.

Hearing an odd sound, he’d sneaked around the corner of the building and heard a woman crying. Sensing it would be unwise to butt in, he’d returned home, resentful that his plans had been interrupted due to adult problems.

“I wish I knew what happened that day,” Joan Herriot continued, a thread of bitterness in her tone as always when discussing her husband’s death.

“It was a long time ago.”

She sighed. “I know.”

They sat in silence for a while. Kyle saw the last light in the Windom house go off. Megan’s bedroom, he assumed, from which she’d watched her father weep over the loss of the wife who had died with another man.

He resisted a stirring of pity for her, shaking his head slightly, denying the emotion. Like his mother, he had no sympathy for the Windoms.

His grandfather had hated them. He’d called Megan’s grandfather an autocratic tyrant with an uncontrollable temper, a man who’d ruled the 5000-acre Windraven Ranch with an iron hand and little patience.

All that had changed after the old man’s stroke, of course. It turned out the ranch had been in trouble. The three cousins had pooled their resources and saved the family homestead. He had to admire them for that.

Megan actually owned the house due to some convoluted inheritance from her grandmother—the woman Patrick Windom had married three months after Mary Sloan ran away from him and married Sonny Herriot, thus becoming his grandmother.

Now there was a tangled web, indeed. As far as he knew, no one had ever really known what had caused her flight.

“Are you all packed?” he asked his mother, trying to change the direction of his own thoughts.

“Yes,” she said in a happier tone. “I’m not sure whether I’m growing more excited as the trip draws closer or more apprehensive. I keep thinking of a million things I should do here before I leave in the morning.”

He laughed. “You’ve left a list of to-do’s that will keep me busy for the next two years. Enjoy your vacation. You’ve earned it.”

She finished her nightcap and stood. “I can’t wait to see all the plays I’ve read about. I need to get to bed if I’m going to be fresh in the morning for the trip.”

After she kissed him on the cheek and left, Kyle turned back to the house across the lake, his mood dark and thoughtful. Perhaps while his mother was on the month-long New York trip with a friend he would unravel some of the mystery surrounding his father’s death.

With old man Windom’s death back in March, there’d be no one to object if he nosed around on their side of the lake. Since he would have some time to himself, without having to worry about his mother’s feelings, this would be the perfect opportunity to check out the sailing yacht that had never been brought to the surface.

Hmm, how hard would it be to bring it up?

That was something he could look into. Going to his office, he flipped on the computer, then went on the Net with instructions for the search engine to find information on boat salvaging.

Three hours later, he had most of the salient facts. Now all he needed was a bit of luck. And no interference from the ranch across the way.

Why should Megan object? The sailboat was abandoned. The insurance company had paid off and left the yacht on the bottom of the lake. According to what he’d read, it belonged to anyone who could bring it up. That’s exactly what he wanted to do.

Climbing into bed in the wee hours of the morning, he heard the wind pick up, blowing down the mountain into the long valley of ranches and summer homes to the tiny town tucked into the far end. From across the lake came the sound of the ravens, crying out harshly from the cottonwoods by the creek.

There was a legend about the cawing of the ravens, something about true love going awry. But then, legends were always about lost loves or lost treasures or both.

He idly wondered if his grandmother had regretted her rash marriage to his grandfather and had wished she’d made up with Megan’s grandfather. He knew his mother had never gotten over the hurt and humiliation of his father’s being with another woman when he died, the two of them alone when the sailboat went down.

Or was scuttled.

He considered the possibility. Would an examination reveal what had really happened that day in June fifteen years ago? Or would it increase the mystery?

Tongues would wag if word got out about what he was doing, or attempting to do. While the site was at the other end of the lake, his neighbor across the way might get suspicious if she saw him going that way regularly, especially since he’d need to bring a compressor and a hundred feet of hose with him if he decided there was a chance of raising the yacht.

One comforting thought—it wouldn’t be as difficult as raising the Titanic. He gave a cynical snort of laughter.

In his room, stripped and ready to climb between the sheets, he paused at the window, drawn again to the lake and the house on the hill beyond. Bathed in moonlight, the scene looked eerie and surreal, the house a gothic mansion of mystery and danger.

His body stirred as it had while he held Megan in his arms during the one dance they had shared. A horse trainer and breeder, she was slender, strong and lithe as a willow twig. The small calluses on her palms at the base of each finger said she was no stranger to work. He liked that in a person, man or woman.

Her hair was light auburn with lots of sun streaks, all acquired naturally. She had a few freckles on her nose. Her eyes were a mossy green outlined with charcoal gray, as inviting to a man as a patch of shade in a hidden glen.

Hunger pinged through him, reminding him of the feel of her in his arms—all bright warmth and feminine delight, enough to tempt a man into foolishness. He’d been surprised at the strength of the hunger she’d aroused. With an effort, he brought his thoughts and libido under control.