Free Frontier Inferno by Kate Richards

they saw were the Nick and Kathryn, Billy and….
    “Oh, my God, it’s my father.” Heather clung to Chris’s arm and fought the urge to hide behind him. How the heck had he learned where to find her? Now everyone would know she didn’t have what it took to belong to such a noble family. All her mother’s coaching and insistence, the deportment lessons and prep school. None of which took. She preferred garage rock bands to the symphony and never remembered which fork to use. And she hated her mother’s social whirl. The few times she’d been corralled into sitting in on a meeting of some ladies’ club or other, she’d either spilled her tea or said absolutely the wrong thing. One mistake after another, leading to running away like a misbehaving child instead of holding her ground and making her own decisions like an adult.
    “Your father? That’s Nick’s cousin, George Castillo, the land baron. He’s been here several times since the Alaskan expansion of the Castillo chain began.” She ducked behind him, but Chris drew her out again. “You’re a Castillo? Why didn’t Kathryn say anything? What’s the big secret?”
    Only her disgrace.
    The fact that she knew nothing about either family business, the Castillo hotel chain or her father’s real estate empire, could only make her look worse. But when would she have had the opportunity?
    The big man headed straight toward them. “Heather Lynn, you come here right now.”
    She approached him, head low. All the planning, the tens of thousands of dollars her father had laid out for the wedding of her dreams. How could she explain her refusal to follow through?
    Her steps faltered. It had been the wedding of her mother’s dreams, though. Her choice of colors, appetizers, she’d even vetoed Heather’s single suggestion. Chocolate cake is not done. What would your father say?
    How could she possibly know what her father thought of chocolate cake, as little as she saw him. He never shared anything about his own life, only asked about hers. She knew he bought and sold large tracks of land for development or preservation, while his cousins ran the worldwide Castillo Hotel and Resort empire…but it had all seemed far from her life. “What are you doing here, Dad?” Wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, he barely resembled the businessman she did know.
    His jovial expression, present when he’d stopped by to take her to lunch a few times a year, wasn’t visible at that point. Instead, he said, “Visiting, relaxing. A little land speculation.” His eyes pierced her, right to the little girl whose daddy moved away. “And apparently, finding my lost daughter.”
    After all she’d been through, her parents had found her anyway. Heather gritted her teeth, prepared to insist she wouldn’t leave. She had a job and a place to live…. But would Kathryn keep her on knowing who she was—that she defied the family? She could get another job. With her full week’s experience as a nanny. Or her cooking skills, maybe go back to that plan. And leave Chris behind?
    But before she uttered a word of protest or defense, her father gathered her in a big hug. “Now, what’s this I hear about you running away from home? And right before your wedding. Your mother called me in a real snit.”
    She wouldn’t melt, do what they wanted her to. “I’m not going home.”
    “All right.” He patted her sooty hair.
    “And I am not marrying Reggie,” she muttered, the words muffled against his chest.
    “I’m very glad to hear that.” Her father set her away from him and rested his hands on her shoulders, looking her up and down. “When I met the young man at the engagement party, I found him entirely unworthy of you. I wanted to say something, but your mother said it would hurt you, that you were in love with him. I guess there’s no accounting for a woman’s affections.”
    “He was nice enough, I guess. ” Heather tried to track back, make sense of things. “Mother