The Fall Of Shane MacCade by Nora Roberts, Book Collection of Nora Roberts (J.D. Robb)
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"You better say no loud and clear, and say it fast, Rebecca,”
Shane said huskily. "Tell me you don't want me, don't want this. And make damn
sure you mean it."
She was melting against him, soft fragrant wax. His blood pumped in response to
those soft, sexy sounds she made in her throat.
Under her palm, Rebecca felt the furious beat of his heart, and her hand trembled.
She'd thought it was fear, but it wasn't. Oh, no, it wasn't fear. It was longing.
"I can't." She let out a whoosh of breath. "I wouldn't mean it."
Triumph suited him. "I know."
Nora Roberts
THE FALL OF
SHANE MACKADE
Silhouette
S P E C I A L EDITION®
Published by Silhouette Books
America's Publisher of Contemporary Romance
Prologue
Ice covered the shoveled walk from the house to the milking
barn, and the path was slick with it. The predawn air was cupped
by a dark sky chiseled with frosted chips of white stars. Each
gulp was like sipping chilled razor blades that sliced, then
numbed, the throat before being expelled in a frigid steam.
Wrapped in a multitude of winter layers, from long johns to
knitted muffler, Shane MacKade headed toward the milking
parlor and the first chores of the day. Unlike his three older
brothers, he was whistling between his teeth.
He just plain loved the frosty and still hour before a winter
sunrise.
His oldest brother, Jared, was nearly seventeen, and went about
the business of running a farm like an accountant approaching a
spreadsheet. It was all figures to him, Shane knew, and he
supposed that was well enough. They had lost their father two
months before, and times were rough.
As for Rafe, his restless fifteen-year-old soul was already
looking beyond the hills and fields of the MacKade farm. The
milking and feeding and tending of stock was simply something to
get through. And Shane knew, though they never really talked
about it, that their father's death had hit Rafe the hardest.
They had all loved their father. It would have been impossible
not to love Buck MacKade, with his big voice and big hands and
big heart. And everything Shane knew about
farming—everything he loved about the land—had come straight
from his father.
Perhaps that was why Shane didn't grieve as deeply. The land
was there, so his father was there. Always.
He could have talked about that thought with Devin. At
fourteen, Devin was already the best of listeners, and the closest
to Shane's own age. Shane was going to make the big leap to
thirteen next Tuesday. But he kept the thought—and the
feeling—to himself.
Inside the milking parlor, the first of the stock shifted and
mooed, tails swishing as they were prepped. It was a simple
enough process, could even be considered a monotonous one.
The cleaning, the feeding, the attaching to machines that would
pump the milk from cow to pipe, from pipe to tank for storage.
But Shane enjoyed it, enjoyed the smells, the sounds, the routine.
While he and Devin dealt with the second line of stock, Rafe and
Jared led those already relieved of milk outside again.
They made a good team, quick and efficient despite the numbing
cold and early hour. In truth, it was a job any one of them could
have handled alone, or with very little help. But they tended to
stick together. Even closer together these days.
Still, there were chickens and pigs to see to yet, eggs to gather,
muck to shovel, fresh hay to spread. And all this before they
gobbled down breakfast and climbed into Jared's ancient car for
the drive to school.
If he could have, Shane would have skipped the school part
entirely. You couldn't learn how to plow and plant, how to
harvest or judge the weather by tasting the air, from books. You
couldn't learn from books how to look into a cow's eyes and see
that she was ailing.
But his mother was firm on book learning, and when she was
firm, she was immovable.
"What the hell are you so happy about?" Grumbling, Rafe
clanged stainless-steel buckets together. "That whistling's driving
me crazy."
Shane merely grinned and kept on whistling. He paused only
long enough to talk encouragingly to the cows. "That's the way,
ladies, you fill her up." Content as any of his bossies, Shane
moved down the line of milkers, checking each one.
"I'm going to pound him," Rafe announced to no one in
particular.
"Leave him be," Devin said mildly. "He's already brain-dead."
Rafe smiled at that. "It's so damn cold, if I hit him, my fingers
would probably break off."
"Going to warm up some today." Shane patted one of the cows
waiting in the stanchions to be hooked for milking. "Get up into
the thirties, anyway."
Rafe didn't bother to ask how Shane knew. Shane always knew.
"Big deal." He strode out of the milking parlor, toward barn and
hayloft.
"What's eating him?" Shane muttered. "Some girl dump him?"
"He just hates cows." Jared stepped back in, smelling of grain.
"That's stupid. You're a sweetheart, aren't you, baby?" Shane
gave the nearest cow an affection swat.
"Shane's in love with cows." Devin flashed the wicked MacKade
grin, which had a dimple flickering at the corner of his mouth.
"He has better luck kissing them than girls."
Immediately insulted, Shane narrowed his eyes. "I could kiss any
girl I wanted to—if I wanted to." Under the layers of clothing, his
lean, rangy body was on full alert.
Recognizing the signs, Jared shook his head. He just didn't feel
like a tussle now. There was too much work to do, and he had a
big test in English Lit to worry about. Devin and Shane were too
evenly matched, and a fight between them could go on
indefinitely.
"Yeah, you're a regular Don Juan." He said it only to focus
Shane's attention, and temper, on him. "All the little girls are
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