LITMIR.BIZ

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squad. They’d won the whole shebang, too. What a team they’d made, Hunter and Luke…and Matt.

      In those days, like never before and never since, Luke and Matt had played on the same side.

      But it was Hunter who Luke had been thinking of when he’d agreed to take his brother’s place for the next month. Their dead friend’s last request had been for the six other men to spend time at the lodge he’d built. If they fulfilled his request, then twenty million dollars and the lodge itself would be turned over to the town of Hunter’s Landing, here on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

      Luke wasn’t going to be the reason that didn’t happen, no matter how he felt about his brother.

      So he followed the caretaker through the rest of the rooms, keeping his mind off the fantasy blond by thinking of the twin switcheroo and how he was replacing Matt Barton, #1 bastard. He spent little time looking on the framed Samurai photos mounted in the second-floor hallway. If he were really playing the part of Matt, Luke thought, it would mean keeping his tie knotted tight, his smiles as cold as Sierra snow, and his mind open to how he could take advantage of any situation without regard to kith, kin or even common decency.

      That was how his brother operated.

      Finally the caretaker gave him the ornate keychain that contained the house key and departed, leaving Luke alone inside the big house with only his grim thoughts for company. The place was quiet and absent of any signs of Nathan Barrister—who had been staying here the month before—unless you counted the hastily written note Luke had found from him. But Nathan hadn’t gone far. He’d fallen for the mayor of Hunter’s Landing, Keira Sanders, and now they were flitting between the Tahoe town and sun-filled Barbados, where his old friend was presumably mixing business with pleasure.

      Jacket and tie discarded, Luke found a beer in the overstocked fridge and settled himself by the window of the great room. Through the trees was another spectacular view of the lake. It wasn’t its famous clear-blue at the moment, not only because it was settling into evening, but also because gray clouds were gathering overhead.

      Dark clouds that reflected Luke’s mood.

      What the hell was he going to do with himself for a month?

      Nathan had done okay here, apparently. His note said it wasn’t “exactly the black hole I thought” and he’d occupied himself by jumping into a full-on love affair. Luke didn’t wish that potential quagmire on himself, though a visit from that blond sweetheart of his imagination might make the month pass just a little bit faster. It was too damn bad she couldn’t stroll out of his fantasies and straight into this room.

      Yes, that would make the thirty days more interesting.

      Except it wasn’t going to happen unless Matt had invited someone to join him here. And even if that were the case, blond sweethearts just weren’t Matt’s type. Being identical twins didn’t mean they had identical taste when it came to women.

      Luke hooked his heels around a nearby ottoman and dragged it closer as the first drops of what appeared to be a heavy spring rain started to hit the windows and roll down like tears. Yeah, he’d be crying, too, if the vision from his daydream showed up on his doorstep looking for Matt.

      Though he shouldn’t rule that out, come to think of it. His brother might set up just such a thing to shake Luke’s cage. Matt ruined Luke’s life any chance he got.

      To be fair—unlike his brother—Luke had to admit that it was their father, Samuel Sullivan Barton, who had sowed the seeds of their ugly rivalry. He’d run their childhood like an endless season of The Apprentice, with himself playing Donald Trump, constantly orchestrating cutthroat competitions between his two sons.

      Their enmity had abated in college. But after Hunter had died, so had their father, and he’d left behind one last contest that rekindled his sons’ competitive fire. Whichever twin made a million dollars first would win the family holdings. Both of them had separately gone to work on developing wireless technology—Luke doing it hands-on, using his engineering degree, while Matt tapped into his undeniable business acumen to hire someone to work with him.

      When it came to any kind of gadgetry, his brother was all thumbs. But when it came to building a successful team, Matt was a master.

      Of course, that time he’d ensured his mastery by bribing a supplier and knocking Luke right out of the running. Matt had made the first mil and won all the family assets, to boot.

      Luke hadn’t spoken to his brother since, though he’d gone on to do a damn fine job with his own company—a meaner and leaner version of what Matt continued to build upon with the Barton family wealth behind him. That was Luke in a nutshell these days: a leaner—okay, maybe by only a pound or two—but definitely meaner version of his brother Matt.

      Working his ass off had a way of doing that to a man, Luke thought. And maybe bitterness, too. He couldn’t deny it.

      The rain was really coming down now, and the house took on a chill. He got up and lit the fire laid in the great room’s massive fireplace—it took up one huge stone wall—and the flames set him thinking about his blond again.

      When he got back to his own condo in the San Francisco Bay Area he was going to have to make a few phone calls, apparently. This fantasy woman was a new fixation for him. Work usually was his only obsession—work and finding some way to pay back his brother at some future date—so his sex life was more sporadic than people believed. It looked as if he needed to be paying more attention to his bodily needs, though.

      Or maybe the blame rested on this house, he thought. Or the fireplaces. That bed.

      The blond continued insinuating herself into his thoughts. He could practically smell her now. Her scent was like rain—clean, cool rain—and he’d sip the drops off her mouth, her neck, her collarbone.

      Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the back of the chair. As his fantasy played on, his heart started to hammer.

      Except that it wasn’t his heart.

      His eyes popped open. He stared out the windows, trying to determine if the pouring rain or the waving trees were causing the loud drumming.

      He decided it was neither one.

      Luke set his beer down and rose, following the noise to the front door. Who the hell would be here now and in this spring deluge?

      He jerked open the door. As he took in the dark shadow of a figure on the porch, a chilly blast of wind and a spray of rain wafted over him. Suppressing a shiver, he fumbled for the light switches. Brightness blazed over the porch and in the foyer.

      The shadowy figure became a woman.

      Her white blouse was plastered to her body. Wet denim clung to her thighs.

      She raised a hand to her hair and tried fluffing the drenched stuff. A few locks gamely sprung from straight strands into bedraggled curls that hinted at gold.

      Luke looked back at her clothes again.

      More accurately, he looked at the curves cupped by all that wet cloth.

      Her nipples were hard buds topping spectacular breasts.

      Even from the front he could surmise she had a round backside, too, just the way he liked it.

      She was exactly how he liked it.

      Bemused, he continued to stare at her as he tried figuring out what combination of beer, rain and rampant fantasy had brought such a sight to his front door.

      Could she possibly be real? And if so, whom did he have to thank for such a surprising gift?

      She frowned at him. Her lips were generously pillowed, too. “Matthias, aren’t you going to invite your fiancée in?”

      Fiancée? Matthias?

      

      Luke spent a few more long moments staring at the wet blonde on his doorstep. When another cold blast of air and rain slapped him, he blinked and finally stepped

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