The Black Sheep and the Princess Read Free Page A

need.” He pulled to a stop at the entrance to the car rental counters. “Check in with me later and I’ll bring you up to speed on this mess.”
    Mac looked at his partner, fully intending to tell him where he could take his Father Knows Best attitude and stick it, but was caught off guard by the real regret he saw in his partner’s eyes.
    â€œI really am sorry—” Rafe began, but was immediately shut down.
    Mac raised a hand. “Don’t. Being an asshole worked better.”
    Rafe grinned. “Suits me. Tell Katherine hello from the remaining two-thirds of the Unholy Trinity.” He popped the locks on the doors. “And get some new clothes, man. You smell bad.”
    Mac said nothing, just got out of the car and trudged into the rental agency without so much as a toothbrush to his name. The irony didn’t escape him.
    You ain’t never gonna escape your roots, boy, no matter how far you run from ’em. Can’t escape your genes, neither. You’ll see.
    His father’s wheezing cackle rang in Mac’s ears.
    â€œLooks like you were right about some things after all, Pops.”

Chapter 2
    G oing into the city had been a complete waste of two of Kate’s most precious commodities: money and time. She’d suspected Shelby wasn’t going to make probating the will easy for either of them, and he hadn’t. Why should he change spots now? He’d spent a lifetime making things as difficult as humanly possible for her. But even she hadn’t seen this latest stunt coming. Everything had been finally decided upon, and well in Shelby’s favor, to boot. All he had to do was sign the damn papers.
    She took the last couple of mountain curves a little more tightly than might have been perfectly safe. The wheels of her secondhand Toyota pickup squealed in protest, but she didn’t ease up on the pedal. She’d been here as a permanent resident for only a little over a month now, but she already knew the roads through this range of the Catskills so well she could drive them blindfolded.
    Which was a good thing considering she was blinded with fury at the moment. She’d left Manhattan behind two hours ago, and she still wished she could strangle Shelby with her bare hands.
    If such things were possible in the afterlife, she had no doubt her mother was off somewhere enjoying the havoc she’d wrought when she’d changed her will for what had turned out to be the final time. Louisa Slavine Hamilton Pepperdine Sutherland Graham had loved nothing more than wielding the collective assets of her deceased or departed husbands over the heads of her only daughter and stepson. Most especially her last husband, given how their divorce had provided Louisa the most to work with. And by then she’d had plenty of practice and knew exactly what to do with it, too.
    She’d tortured Shelby the most, probably because he cared the most. Hell, Kate wasn’t even a real Sutherland. She was a Pepperdine. But she’d only been four when her mother had remarried and had her daughter’s name legally changed in order to let the world assume George Sutherland had adopted her, which he most definitely had not. Though, to be fair, he’d been more of a father to her than her own, whom she didn’t even remember, seeing as how he’d died when she was two.
    George had lasted until just after her eleventh birthday when his heart had quite literally given out. After marrying and divorcing quite young her first go around, her mother had developed a penchant for older men. Much older. As with Kate’s natural father, Louisa hadn’t spent long in mourning for the dear departed George. The only real surprise had been that it had taken her seven years to land husband number four. Although Trenton Graham had been her biggest fish by far, so perhaps worth the wait. Even though the union had been short-lived, a tumultuous four years that she often