CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      MAJOR NATE HAWKINS GOT READY to climb out of the military transport at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, aware that the moment his foot touched the tarmac, he’d be a civilian again.

      Though he’d planned to stay in the Air Force until retirement, his mother’s unexpected death during an avalanche six months ago had brought huge changes to the Hawkins family. It seemed life had other plans for him.

      He reminded himself that he could’ve been like Spade, who’d bought it during that damn air demonstration in Italy at the same time Nate had been burying his mother.

      Nate knew he should be grateful to be alive….

      The transport door opened. He filed out behind a couple of crewmen. After leaving the milder temperatures back in Holland, the frigid March air came as a shock. You’d never know spring was officially here.

      He grimaced to think that his mother wouldn’t be home when he got there, and a sense of grief, of bleakness, settled over him. If this was how his father felt now that she was gone, then Nate understood why his parents’ ski business was in danger of going under.

      “Hey, Nate! This way!”

      His brother’s voice broke through the heavy shroud of oppression that had enveloped him during the long flight.

      ““Rick!” Thank God for that constant in his life.

      A warm feeling displaced the sadness, and he rushed past people to reach his brother. Only a year apart in age, both men were six feet two, an inch taller than their father. They’d inherited his powerful athletic build, but it was Rick with the gray eyes who looked most like their dad.

      Nate, on the other hand, had dark-blond hair and resembled their deceased mother, a statuesque, blue-eyed blonde from Are, Sweden. According to her, when the boys were toddlers people had often mistaken them for twins because Rick’s hair hadn’t turned brown yet.

      They gave each other a fierce hug. “It’s good to see you, man.”

      “You don’t know the half of it,” Rick muttered.

      Nate took a second look at his younger brother. Since tragedy had struck their family, the happy-go-lucky attitude—which had earned him the name “lucky” on the ski slopes and the racetrack—was still missing.

      That didn’t surprise Nate, but the set of Rick’s features did.

      “I take it you’ve already seen Dad.” Their plan had been to walk into the house together and surprise him.

      “You could say that,” came Rick’s cryptic comment.

      “Have you told him what we’ve done?”

      “Not yet.”

      Something else was wrong, something besides the fact that being home again was a painful reminder of their mother’s death.

      “Is Dad waiting in the car?”

      “No.”

      “You’re not going to tell me anything else?”

      Rick’s lips formed an unpleasant twist. “You don’t want to know yet. Come on. Let’s get out of here, so we can be private.”

      On that mysterious note, Nate followed his brother through freshly fallen snow to the four-wheel-drive Blazer bearing the Eagles’ Nest Ski and Bike Shop logo on the side. He tossed his duffel in the back seat and walked around to the front passenger door.

      Nate had to admit he was relieved that Rick had come alone. Nate wasn’t ready to be united with his father yet. The deep lines of grief carved in the older man’s sunbronzed face before they’d closed the casket still kept him awake nights.

      For the two hours it would take to reach Copper Mountain, he and Rick could discuss how they were going to proceed from here.

      Their mother had been their father’s soul mate, his joie de vivre. Since the funeral, the fear that he might never recover had haunted both brothers.

      It hadn’t helped that after her burial, the demands of Nate’s career had forced him to leave his desolate father. Having just returned from another long deployment with NATO forces, he’d been told to report to Edwards Air Force Base in California to get checked out in the MATV jet.

      A couple of the guys had flown there in their Vipers to act as bandits. For several weeks, they did tactical fighting before he was sent to Holland. When he was on the ground there, he’d concentrated on his studies of Dutch for the exchange pilot program. Throughout that period there’d been little time to devote to his father’s mental state.

      Rick had left the day after Nate for Phoenix, Arizona, the U.S. headquarters for Mayada auto manufacturing, based in Kyoto, Japan. On the professional Formula I racing circuit for the Japanese, he’d accumulated an impressive number of wins around the world.

      The heavy demands on his time meant