CHAPTER ONE

      Need wife to take kare of a little kid. Has to bake cookys, read storys and smile a lot. No hitting. Room 301, the St. Christopher Hotel, Aspen, Colorado.

      THE advertisement leaped out at Cheyenne Lassiter as she sat at the breakfast table, and her spoon clattered down. Grabbing the newspaper with both hands, she reread the ad. The cantaloupe in her mouth lost all flavor. Cheyenne pushed the newspaper across the table to her younger sister. “Read this.”

      Allie scanned the ad. “A unique way to meet women.”

      “You think that’s what it is?” Cheyenne hesitated. “It doesn’t read to you as if a child had written it?”

      Allie read the ad again. “Maybe. You’re worried about the ‘no hitting’ part, aren’t you?”

      “Yes.” Cheyenne took back the paper. “I know you all think I see a child-abusing parent on every corner, but...” Her voice died away.

      “Michael is safe now,” Allie reminded her. “Safe and happy living with his aunt and uncle.”

      “How could I have blindly ignored the way he’d never look me in the eye when he’d mumble he’d fallen down stairs or run into a door? But his mother volunteered in my classroom, and Mr. Karper showed such interest in his stepson’s progress.” Cheyenne stared at the ad with unseeing eyes. “I’ll always wonder if I would have guessed the truth earlier if Michael had been poor and dirty.”

      “No one suspected Michael’s stepdad knocked the poor kid around. Quit beating yourself over the head with it. The minute you suspected what was going on, you went to the authorities. If it weren’t for you, Michael might still be living with his mother and her husband. Or dead.”

      “Michael must have despaired of being helped.” Cheyenne rolled up the newspaper section. “I promised myself I’d never again shut my eyes to something right in front of me.” Her gaze slid past her sister. “I don’t meet the Brownings until ten.”

      “Which means you think you have time to check out what’s going on in Room 301 at St. Chris’s.” Allie tore a hunk from her bagel and handed it to the greyhound standing expectantly beside the table. “No one appointed you to save the world.”

      “You’re not supposed to feed the dogs at the table.” Cheyenne pushed back her chair, carefully avoiding Allie’s three-legged cat.

      Allie tore off another hunk of bagel. “One of these days you’re going to stick your nose into someone else’s business and get it bit off.”

      “All I’m doing is dropping by the hotel to say hi. If there’s a problem, I’ll notify the proper authorities. I have no intention of getting personally involved.”

      “If I’m disturbed by one more female pounding on my door, I’m going to fire the entire staff.” Thomas Steele slammed down the telephone receiver in the middle of the hotel manager’s stammered apology.

      The first woman had banged on the door of his hotel suite shortly after 6:00 a.m. Groggy with sleep, Thomas had snarled at her and the plastic bag of cookies he assumed she was selling. Before he could summon the manager for an explanation on exactly why solicitation was allowed to take place in a Steele-owned hotel, another woman had knocked on the door, followed by a procession of women, all shapes, sizes and ages, most bearing cookies, and all grinning like Cheshire cats.

      Thomas rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin and considered the possibility that getting into his suite was part of a twisted game of scavenger hunt. McCall, the hotel’s manager, claimed he knew nothing. One woman had garbled something about a newspaper. Thomas should have demanded an explanation before shutting the door in her face, but he wasn’t at his best before coffee in the morning.