LITMIR.BIZ

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a lifetime ago, though his blood still raced a little at the sight of her. That would have to change.

      “So you’re here…why? To live?” she asked, wrinkling her brow as if she couldn’t believe it.

      “For the time being. There’s a catch to my inheritance.”

      “A catch?”

      “Kate left the ranch and everything on it—well, almost everything—with the condition that I can’t sell the place or even one item of equipment until I’ve lived here for six months.”

      Six months! Kyle was going to be her neighbor for the next half year? Sam’s knees hitched a little. “But you don’t intend to really stay here,” she said, panic chasing through her innards.

      “Haven’t got much of a choice.”

      There had been a time when she’d hoped to see him again, had planned the day, been ready to tell him off, nail him and call him the bastard he was. But she didn’t want it to happen like this, not so unexpectedly, blindsiding her when she wasn’t ready. “You’ll be here through Christmas?” she asked, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

      “That’s the plan.”

      He looked so cocky, so damned citified in his starched jeans, new hat, polo shirt and polished boots. He had no place being here. Oh, God, now what? Trying to regain her equilibrium and think clearly, she blurted, “But, but what about Grant?” He was the only one of Kate Fortune’s grandchildren faintly interested in ranching. Sam reminded herself that Grant McClure wasn’t a blood relative, but a stepbrother to Kyle and stepgrandson to Kate. Not that it had mattered during Kate’s lifetime. She’d treated Grant as if he were blood kin, though he’d spent little time with the Fortune family.

      “Grant inherited a horse.” Kyle’s gaze traveled to the muscular stallion who was eyeing the intruder with interest. The beast had the audacity to snort at him. “Fortune’s Flame.”

      “Joker.”

      “What?”

      She nodded toward the stallion. “That’s him. They’ve called him Joker from the time he was a foal. Always in trouble, and with his odd markings—” she motioned to the splashes of white on the animal’s coal black face “—it just seemed to fit.”

      “And what do you call him?”

      “Today?” she said with a twisted smile. “Demon, for starters. I have other names, but they’re not fit for mixed company.” Again she blew a stubborn strand of hair off her face as Kyle laughed, the sound rich and deep, like the first crack of thunder in a spring storm.

      Why hadn’t Kyle aged poorly? Why was he trim and fit, his face more chiseled now that all trace of boyishness had disappeared? Where was the hint of a belly? The graying of his hair? The softness of a rich man who didn’t have to raise a finger? Instead he was all hard angles and tight skin, slim in the waist and hips, wide across the shoulders. If anything, time had been inordinately kind to Kyle Fortune.

      “I haven’t met a horse yet that you couldn’t handle.”

      “Joker, here, just might be the one,” she said, though her mind wasn’t on the conversation, not when there were so many raw emotions racing through her, scraping against her heart. “He’ll be the death of me, I swear.”

      “I doubt it, Sam. The way I remember it, you liked nothing better than a challenge.”

      “Funny. That’s not what I remember.”

      All the laughter disappeared from his eyes. “No? Then what?”

      Oh, Lord. Her heart squeezed painfully. “You don’t want to know.”

      “Try me.”

      “Already have. It didn’t work out.”

      His lips flattened over his teeth and his jaw turned to granite. “You know, Sam, we don’t have to start out this way.”

      “Sure we do.” Oh, Kyle, if you only knew. Naked, gut-wrenching emotions tore at her and she could barely breathe. Life just wasn’t fair. Why was Kyle Fortune, the one man on this earth she’d sworn to despise, so damned sexy, even in his pressed Levi’s and the Ralph Lauren shirt that stretched a bit over his shoulders? He probably worked out in some gym, lifted weights until the sweat ran down his body as he eyed the women in their leotards, thongs and bodysuits. Kyle had always attracted females—like horse dung attracted flies. Including you, she reminded herself grimly.

      Dusting off her hands, she climbed to the top rail of the fence. “Since you’re here and all, I guess I can go home. I was just watching the place, playing overseer until Kate could hire a new foreman. Then she…” Sam couldn’t say the word, couldn’t believe that Kate Fortune—feisty, fun-loving, full-of-life Kate—could actually be dead. Though the woman had to be in her seventies, she’d been nowhere near the grave when a hellish plane crash over the rain forests of Brazil changed everything and snatched away Kate Fortune’s life.

      “How’s your dad?” Kyle asked, and Sam’s heart felt as if it were suddenly filled with lead.

      “Gone. He died about five years ago.”

      “Oh. Sorry. I…” He lifted his hands. “I didn’t know.”

      She shook her head. “Doesn’t surprise me. You don’t know much about anything here in Clear Springs, do you?” His eyes, blue as the summer sky, clouded a bit, and though she knew she was being cruel, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why in the world would Kate leave you this ranch when you’ve made a point of avoiding it for so long?”

      A muscle came to life in his jaw. His fingers clenched, then straightened, and his gaze drilled into hers as if he was offended that she would be so direct. Finally he shrugged and looked away. “Beats me,” he admitted, and she believed him. He squinted as he took off his new hat, showing off thick brown hair that was streaked by the sun. It ruffled in a breeze that swirled through the paddock and bent a few long weeds clustered near the fence posts.

      “You know, I really liked your grandmother,” Sam said, thinking of the strong-willed woman who ran a cosmetics company in Minneapolis with an iron-fisted grip and yet was known around these parts for her rhubarb pie. An independent woman of many talents, Kate loved her family fiercely and had been determined throughout her life to make her mark, not only in business, but with her children and grandchildren as well. She’d loved her ranch nearly as much as she loved Fortune Cosmetics. “I can’t believe that I’ll never see her again.”

      His head jerked up, as if she’d hit a painful nerve.

      “Look, what I’m trying to say,” she added, tongue-tied for one of the first times in her life, “is that I’m sorry she…she’s gone.”

      “Me, too,” he said with a heartfelt sigh, then scowled, as if talking about Kate’s death was too painful a topic. Clearing his throat, he hitched his chin in the stallion’s direction. “So what were you doing with the horse?”

      “Trying and failing, thank you very much, to teach him to walk on a lead. He’s the most valuable stallion on the spread, and several ranchers in the area have been asking about hiring him as a stud. The problem is he’s got a mind of his own and, like a lot of men I know, doesn’t much like being told what to do. He hates the lead, refuses to be loaded into a trailer and is a general pain in the backside,” she added, but smiled. Truth to tell, she admired Joker and his fierce independence. Though his bloodlines were pure, it was his attitude that often teased a grin from Samantha’s lips.

      As if on cue, the stallion lifted his head, flared his nostrils and let out a neigh as a mare, her spindly-legged foal prancing behind, grazed closer to the paddock where Joker was penned.

      “He does like the ladies,” she observed.

      “A mistake.”

      Shooting Kyle a sharp glance, Sam felt her smile disappear. “Experience

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