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my next phone call will be to Harry Pellman."
    Tension hummed over the line. "What do you know about Pellman?"
    "I know he's one of your biggest clients."
    "What of it?"
    "He owes me a favor," Cyrus said softly.
    A year ago he had retrieved an exquisite and extremely valuable seventeenth-century Flemish tapestry that had been stolen from Pellman's private collection. There had been complications because the thief happened to have been Pellman's recently discarded lover. Pellman had wanted the matter handled with absolute discretion.
    Colfax Security prided itself on absolute discretion.
    "What the hell are you talking about?" Jake asked warily.
    "If I suggest to Pellman that he find himself a new broker, he'll pull his account from your firm and transfer it to one of your rivals in about ten seconds flat," Cyrus said.
    "Christ, I don't believe this. You'd tell Pellman to dump me just because it's not convenient for me to go to Rick's graduation ceremony?"
    "Yeah. That about sums it up. I'm glad we understand each other, Tasker."
    "You are a real bastard, you know that?"
    "I'll look for you in the audience."
    Cyrus pushed the memory of the conversation aside and gave Meredith a reassuring smile. "Like I said, Jake wanted to come."
    Meredith's mouth curved faintly, but her eyes remained grave. "All right, I won't push it. I'll just say thank you, the way I've thanked you over and over again for the past five years. I don't know what I would have done without you, Cyrus. I owe you more than I can ever repay."
    "You don't owe me anything."
    "That's not true, and you know it. Every time I think of how you stepped in after Jake walked out…"
    "I'm Rick's uncle, remember? I had a right to step in and lend a hand."
    Meredith looked across the parking lot. Cyrus followed her gaze and saw Jake Tasker and Rick moving toward them through the crowd.
    "You were only married to Katy for two years," Meredith said quietly. "Hardly enough time to saddle you with a sense of obligation toward her family."
    "Whatever I did, I did because I wanted to do it." Cyrus said. "Not because I felt obligated. Don't ever forget that."
    She glanced at him quickly with a troubled expression. "Rick was so excited when Jake showed up today. He hasn't seen him in months. You know how it is, the out-of-town act always gets the most applause."
    "It's okay, Meredith." Cyrus looked at Rick and wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to have a son of his own.
    "Rick is still very young," Meredith went on earnestly. "When he matures a little and looks back on his teenage years, he'll understand that it was you, not Jake, who got him to manhood without any major disasters. He'll be grateful."
    "I said it's okay, Meredith. I don't want Rick's gratitude. Hell, I'm grateful to him. We had some good times together."
    "I know that he hasn't paid much attention to you today, but it's only because Jake showed up with his usual flashy gifts. That kind of thing is distracting to a kid that age. You mustn't think that Rick doesn't appreciate all you've done."
    "Forget it."
    She grimaced. "When I think of how you spent what little vacation time you had with him these past few years and most of your weekends, too—"
    "Like I said, good times. Guy stuff." Cyrus smiled fleetingly at the memories of the camping and rafting trips, the karate classes, and the dive lessons.
    He and Rick had done the kind of things that fathers and sons were supposed to do together. His own father had not stuck around to do them with him, and his mother had died in a car crash a few months after he was born. But he'd been lucky, he thought. He'd had his grandparents.
    Back in Second Chance Springs there had been no money for karate classes and dive lessons, but that was beside the point. Beau had taken him fishing and hunting from the time he could walk. Cyrus had learned how to shoot, how to track game, how to survive in the desert, and how to find his way through the mountains without