Then she saw him a real live Border bandit lurking in the brush, staring holes through her, stripping her naked.
Just why she didnt weep or scream in terror, shed never know. Maybe its true what they say about curiosity killing cats.
Hunkered low over his saddle, the lone cowboy drilled her with such angry, laser-bright blue eyes, she knew he was bad. He had to be Cole Knight, one of the neighbours her daddy regularly cussed out. Even after he realised shed spotted him, he didnt avert his predatory gaze or smile or even bother to apologise.
He was as bad as any bandit.
Ive heard all about you, she said. Youre known to have a nasty, vengeful disposition. Youre a gambler, too, and youve got a bad reputation with girls.
Did your daddy tell you all that?
When he edged his mount closer to hers, she instinctively backed hers up. He smiled and let his hot, sinful eyes devour the length of her body. Youre not scared of me, now, are you?
Also available fromAnn Major
THE HOT LADIES MURDER CLUB
ANN MAJOR
THE GIRL with the GOLDEN SPURS
www.mirabooks.co.uk
To all my soul mates out there, especially in Texas,
who wanted to grow up and become cowboys,
only to have their mothers warn them, Make up
your mind, girl, because you cant do both.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I must thank Tara Gavin for her friendship, support, trust, talent and faith.
And Karen Solem, who is a genius.
And Nancy Berland, who is also a genius.
And Dianne Moggy and everybody at MIRA Books for the wonderful job they are doing!
And Kelly Nemic.
And all my ranching friends who tell me stories the Joneses, the Bateses, the Telleses, Becky Rooke and my aunt Mabel.
And Amber Maley, who works in the sheriffs office at Rockport, Texas.
And Lady Liddington, who was my best friend from junior high through university.
PROLOGUE
Smart Cowboy Saying:
Just cause trouble comes visiting doesnt mean you have to offer it a place to sit down.
Anonymous
Prologue
The devil had dealt from the bottom of the deck one time too many.
An eye for an eye, the Bible said. Or at least Cole Knight had heard somewhere the good book said something like that. To tell the truth, he wasnt much of a Biblical scholar. But he loved God, he loved the hot, thorny land under his boots that by all rights should have been his, and he loved his familyin that order. He was willing to die for them, too.
Maybe that was overstating the case. In fact, Cole Knight wasnt much of anything. Wasnt likely to be, either. Not if Caesar Kemble and his bunch had their way.
But where was it written you couldnt kill a man on the same day you buried your good for nothin father and set things right? Especially if that man was the cause of your old mans ruin? And yours, too?
Hell, it was about time somebody stood up and demanded justice. The Knights had as much rightmore rightas the Kembles to be here.
Cole Knight belonged here. Trouble was, he didnt own a single acre. The Kembles had stripped him to the bone.
The feud between the Kembles and the Knights went back for more than a hundred and forty years. It had all begun when the first Caesar Kemble, the original founder of the Golden Spurs Ranch, had died without a will, and his son Johnny Kemble had cheated his adopted sister, Carolina Knight, out of most of her share. The Knights were direct descendants of Carolina Knight, whose biological father, Horatio Knight, had been a partner of the original Caesar Kemble. When Horatio and his wife had been killed in an Indian raid, Caesar had adopted their orphaned daughter.
As if being cheated hadnt been bad enough, four more generations of Kembles had continued to cheat and collude and steal even more land from the Knights. Not that the Knights were saints. Still, the Knights vast holdings, which had once been even bigger than the Kembles, had shrunk to a miserable fifty thousand acres. Then worst of all, not long ago, Coles father had lost those last fifty thousand acres in a card game.
Thus, Black Oaks had faded into oblivion while the Golden Spurs had become an international agribusiness corporation with interests in the Thoroughbred horse industry, the oil and gas industry, cattle ranching, recreational game hunting and farming. The Golden Spurs developed cattle breeds, improved horse breeds and participated in vital environmental research. The Kembles owned hundreds of thousands of acres and mineral rights to vast oil and gas reserves and were Texas royalty, while the Knights were dirt.
Cole had already been to the barn to saddle Dr. Pepper. No sooner had Sally McCallie, the last hypocritical mourner, waddled out of the dilapidated ranch house than Cole was out of his sticky, black wool suit and into his jeans and boots. A few seconds later his long, lean body was stomping down the back stairs into the sweltering, late July heat and the rickety screen door was banging shut behind him.
There was finality in that summertime sound. Thrusting his rifle into his worn scabbard, he seized the reins and threw himself onto Dr. Pepper. His daddy was dead, his bloated face as gray and nasty under the waxy makeup as wet ash, and Coles own unhappy boyhood was over.
It was just as well. Not that he had much to show for it. Hed had to quit college after his older brother, Shanghai, whod been putting him through school, had unearthed some incriminating original bank documents and journals, which proved Carolina had been swindled. When Shanghai had threatened to sue the Kembles, Caesar had run him off or so people had thought. His disappearance was something of a mystery. Shanghai had left in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye. Without Shanghais help and with an ailing father to support, Cole hadnt had money to pay tuition much less the time to spend on school.
Twenty-four and broke, Cole was the last of the line and going nowhere. At least thats what the locals thought. Like a lot of young men, he seethed with ambition and the desire to set things right. He wanted the ranch back, not just the fifty thousand acres, but the rest of it, and there was nothing he wouldnt do to get it.
Too bad he took after his old man, local folk said. Too bad his brother Shanghai, whod shown such promise as a rancher, had turned out to be as sorry as the rest of the Knights when hed abandoned his dying father.
Cole felt almost good riding toward the immense Golden Spurs Ranch. Finally he was doing something about the crimes of the past and present that had made his soul fester. Partly he felt better because he couldnt get on a horse without relaxing a little. Cowboying had been born in him. It was as natural to him as breathing, eating and chasing pretty girls.
For the past three years, Cole had wanted one thingto get even with Caesar Kemble for cheating his daddy out of what was left of their ranch and for running his brother off. Those acres werent just land to Cole. Theyd been part of him. Hed dreamed of ranching them with his brother someday.
Not that his daddy had given much of a damn that the last of the land that had once been part of their legendary ranch had been lost.
Leave it be, boy, his daddy had said after Cole had found out the ranch was gone. It was my ranch, not yours. Maybe Caesar and me was both drunk as a pair of coons in a horse trough filled with whiskey, but Kemble won Black Oaks fair and square with that royal flush.
The hell he did, Daddy. The hell he did. You were drunk because he got you drunk. Caesar Kemble knew exactly what he was doing. What kind of fool plays poker drunk?
Im not like you, boy. I play poker for fun. But his old mans explanation didnt mollify Cole.
Black Oaks wasnt just yours. You didnt have the right to gamble it away. It was mine and Shanghais.
Well, its gone just the same, boy. You cant rewrite history. Youre a loser, born to a loser, brother of a loser. History is always written by the winners.
I swearif its the last thing I ever do, Ill get Black Oaks backall of it.
Youll get yourself killed if you mess with Caesar Kemble. Thats what youll do. My father was a hothead like you and he went over to have it out with the Kembles and vanished into thin air. Dont get yourself murdered, boy, or run off, like Shanghai did.
As if you care
His easygoing daddy hadnt cared much about anything other than partying and getting drunk.
With his Stetson low over his dark brow and longish black hair, Cole followed a well-worn dirt pathway through sandy pastures choked by huisache, ebony and mesquite. Dr. Pepper trotted for at least a mile before Coles heart quickened when he saw the billowing dust from the herd rising above a stand of low trees like yellow smoke to dirty the sky.
The vaqueros and Kembles sons, who worked for the Golden Spurs, had been gathering the herd for several days in the dense thickets that had once belonged to the Knights. Rich as he was, Caesar, who like Cole, loved cowboying more than he loved anythingincluding cheating at cardswould be out there with his men and sons. Cole hoped to catch him alone in some deep and thorny thicket and have it out with him once and for all.
Yes, sirree, thats just what he hoped until he saw Lizzy Kemble through the dense brush. Somehow the sight of the slim, uncertain girl on the tall black gelding struggling to keep up with the vaqueros and her younger, more able brothers, cousins and sister stopped him cold.
Lizzy was fair-skinned and didnt look like the rest of her family, who were a big-boned, tanned, muscular buncha bullying bunch, who thought they were kings, who lorded it over everybody else in the four counties their ranch covered.
The spirited horse was too much for her, and she knew it. Her spine was stiff with fear. Anybody could see that. Her hands even shook. She was covered with dirt from head to toe, and her hat was flat as a pancake on one side, which meant shed already taken a tumble or two.
She might have seemed laughable to him if her eyes werent so big and her pretty, heart-shaped face so white. She looked scared to death and vulnerable, too. Sensing her fear, the gelding was stamping the ground edgily, just itching for trouble.
Cole shook his head, ashamed for the girl and yet worried about her, too. What the hell was wrong with him? He should be glad Caesar Kembles teenage daughter was such a miserable failure as a cowgirl.
He had a mission. He should forget her, but Cole couldnt stop watching her, his gaze fixing on her cute butt in those skintight jeans and then on the long, platinum, mud-caked braid that swung down her back.
Not bad for jailbait.
His former glimpses of her in town hadnt done her justice. Shed grown up some since then, gotten herself a womans soft, curvaceous body and a womans vulnerability that appealed to him much as he would have preferred to despise everything about her. It didnt matter that she was a Kemble, nor that the Kembles had been swindling the Knights for more than a hundred years. Something about her big eyes made him feel powerful and want to protect her.
He forgot Caesar and concentrated on the girl, who didnt seem like she fit with her clan at all. She was Caesars favorite, and despite the fact she seemed the least suited to ranch life, the bastard wanted to make her his heir. All of a sudden Coles quest for revenge looked like it might take a much sweeter path than the one hed originally intended.
But then thats how life is. You think youre fixed on where youre going and how youll get therethen you come to a tempting fork in the road that shows you a much sweeter path.
Lizzy Kemble, who was seventeen, had more important things to do than ride a horse all day long in this godforsaken, hot, thorny countryeven if it was her familys immense ranch. And not on just any horsePájaro!
Why had Daddy insisted she could ride Pájaro? The horse had a bad reputation. Why did Daddy always have to challenge her?
Challenges build character, girl.
Daddy had the sensitivity of a bulldozer. Youd better do what he said or get out of his way.
Lizzy Kemble was tired, bored, saddle sore, sunburned and scared to death shed fall off again. Not to mention her imagination was running wild. Every time she got lost in a thicket, she conjured some wild bandit up from Mexico or a drug runner lurking behind every bush just waiting to snatch her.
She wished she was home talking on the phone or reading a book. Why couldnt she have been born to a normal city family who thought it was natural to hang out in malls?
Indeed she wished she was anywhere except on this monster called Pájaro, getting her fair skin burned to a crisp and scratched up on thorns while she choked on dust and horse flies. Not to mention the bruises on her bottom. Pájaro had thrown her twice already.
She was thinking that Pájaro was a bad name for a horse because it meant bird in Spanish, and the last thing Lizzy, whod been run away with before, needed was another horse that could fly.
The herd was deep in these horrible thickets made of thorns and cactus. Shed never been on this particular division of the ranch, and she hoped shed never set foot on it again. Because the land here was too wild and rugged for pens or helicopters, the cattle simply melted into the thickets. Yes, Black Oaks was the only division where a real, old-fashioned roundup was still necessary.
If she had to do this, oh, how she wished she was on her gentle mare, Betsy! But Betsy had gone lame, so here she was trying to stay on this black monster with a wide chest and shiny-muscled back, whose hooves tapped so lightly over the earth, she was gut sure that at any moment he would bolt or fly.
The thicket grew denser and Lizzy strained to find her daddys sweat-stained, battered Stetson bobbing above the bawling herd. She saw Uncle B.B. riding tall, as handsome as a prince. Much as Lizzy wished she could give up and go home, she couldnt. Not with her black-haired brothers, Hawk and Walker, and her sister, Mia, who was a natural born cowgirl if ever there was one, making bets about the exact hour Lizzy would chicken out.
She was used to people regarding her with secretive, speculative glances when they thought she wasnt watching. She supposed they did so because everybodyher siblings, her aunts and uncles, even her motherwas jealous of her since she was Daddys favorite. She hated the way her fathers favoritism caused her problems on every level.