LITMIR.BIZ

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protection, which is more than I can say for you. You think you’re somethin’! Well, you’re nothin’! When I tell him what you tried to do tonight in my house, in front of my little girl…you’ll be lucky if he ever lets you set foot in his place again. He owes me. And so do you. So does this whole damn community. You Knights don’t have any friends around here unless I allow it. Don’t you ever forget it. Without me—you’re nothin’, boy. Nothin’!”

      Suddenly Caesar’s red face had changed. “You’ve given me an idea, boy. A helluvan idea. A real winner. I know how I’ll get rid of all you Knights, once and for all.” He’d gone to a small cabinet, opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of fresh decks of cards. “I’ll hunt up that daddy of yours, and we’ll have us a friendly, little game of poker. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll have a few drinks. Then I’ll tell him what you did here tonight.”

      “No….”

      Caesar had laughed at him.

      Shanghai despised himself because in the next breath he’d begged and apologized.

      “Please—I’m sorry. Please—leave him alone!”

      Caesar had guffawed again. “Everybody in three counties knows that cards and liquor are a fatal combination for your old man, boy. Kinky! Eli! Get him out of here!” Caesar turned back to Shanghai. “When I’m through with you, you’ll have nothing and be nothin’, boy! Mia will finally see you for the lowlife you are!”

      “Don’t you go near my daddy!”

      When Shanghai had fought Eli and Kinky, Caesar had called for more cowboys. It had taken five of the bastards to fling Shanghai down the stairs into the rain.

      When Shanghai had pulled himself to his feet, the last thing he’d seen was pretty Mia Kemble leaning out of her upstairs window. When he’d looked up, she’d thrown something down to him and then banged her window shut.

      Pretending not to give a damn about her, he’d rammed his dripping Stetson with his lucky turkey feather on his head even harder than she’d slammed her window. Curious, he’d picked up the object she’d thrown. When he’d realized it was a red rose, he’d pitched it back into the mud.

      Now that he was at his hunting cabin, Shanghai dreaded his daddy finding out that he’d gotten in a fight with Caesar. He might never let Shanghai go home again. His father didn’t care if the Kembles had robbed the Knights of practically all their land. He just wanted to drink and gamble. Caesar kept offering to buy their last fifty thousand acres and his father kept refusing to sell, mainly because he and Cole begged him not to. The land was Shanghai’s heritage, Cole’s, too; part of their souls.

      No use thinking about it. Shanghai knew he’d started something tonight that couldn’t be stopped.

      As he got out of his truck, he stood in the rain for a moment to inspect the mangled bottom step he’d just smashed. Damn.

      He sprang to the second step, which was still sound, just as the sky flashed livid white fire and then went black again. Every timber of the tiny hunting cabin shook when thunder exploded again.

      He threw open the front door, ripped off his wet, Western shirt and hung it on the back of a tattered leather chair where it dripped water onto the scarred oak floor. Then he went to the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers. He downed the first beer and paced restlessly.

      He was twenty-four. What the hell was he going to do with the rest of his life? Cowboying and rodeoing were all he really liked to do. Not that he could stay here when there was no future at Black Oaks. At least not in the business of cows and calves and horses. Livestock prices had collapsed too many times, and Daddy had borrowed way too much money. There was only his kid brother, Cole, to consider.

      Hell, Cole was twenty-one, which meant he was all grownup…even if he was still in college. It was time for Cole to be on his own.

      Shanghai didn’t want to leave his home, but he hadn’t liked feeling like nothing on Caesar’s floor with Mia watching. If he stayed here, he’d be nothin’ all his life.

      He sank wearily into the leather chair near the open window. The only thing he’d ever done to make money besides working Black Oaks was rodeoing. He was good at bronc ridin’ and bull riding. When he donned buckskin chaps with silver conchos, pointed cowboy boots with spurs and his Stetson, people cheered and screamed and then patted him on the back when he rode well. They went wild when he won. Pretty women threw themselves at him.

      He was too tall and powerfully built for the sport, and he’d have to be damn good—the best ever—to make it really pay. Good or bad, you could get yourself stomped or gored to death in front of thousands. Champions died of injuries as small as a broken rib nicking an artery.

      What choice did he have?

      Hell, he’d been beaten up all his life, hadn’t he? A man could become famous riding bulls, as famous as any Kemble, at least for a spell.

      Nobody wrote country songs about lawyers or doctors, did they? He reckoned he could take about as much pain as any man.

      His black brows slashed together as he watched the rain hammer the earth. Caesar had destroyed the sheaves of old journals and ancient bank documents he’d slung on the table—all the evidence he’d been gathering for nearly two years to prove that his family, the Knights, had as much right to the Golden Spurs Ranch and its staggering mineral riches as the Kembles did.

      What should he do next?

      A bolt of lightning crashed again. Shanghai’s heart beat faster. He rubbed his sore jaw. After his quarrel with Caesar Kemble, the storm more than matched his mood. Since Caesar had refused to even talk about making a fair settlement, maybe he should think about finding a real lawyer. But he couldn’t go to a lawyer until he reassembled at least some of the evidence Caesar had destroyed. Besides lawyers cost money.

      Even though it was so obvious the Knights had been swindled, his father had told him not to fight the Kembles.

      His father could go to hell. Most people probably saw his daddy as an easygoing, shiftless soul, who had a weakness for the bottle. But they didn’t know. His old man could get really drunk, and when he did, he always went after Shanghai.

      There was no talking to him then, no arguing with a drunk.

      The lights in his kitchen flickered twice. Shanghai wouldn’t have minded the thunderstorm if he’d been in a better frame of mind. Water was scarce in south Texas.

      He was stretching his long legs out when he heard a car door slam and quick, light footsteps followed by a timid knock at his door.

      Not wanting company, Shanghai hunkered lower and ignored the light taps.

      Thunder crashed outside and was quickly followed by brilliant lightning. Then the world went dark again as the rain continued to pour down.

      The door rattled as a girl’s hand pulled it open. “Can I come in?”

      Mia’s soft whisper cut through the noise of the storm and sliced bits out of his bruised heart. Shanghai sprang to his feet as if she’d pelted him with buckshot. Then pain licked through him from the beating he’d taken from her daddy.

      “Go away!” he growled. “You’re the last person I want to see.”

      “Not till we talk.”

      “Damn your hide, girl. Git.” His mouth hurt so badly he could barely speak. He rubbed it before he thought and orange stars flashed in front of his eyes. Damn.

      When she didn’t leave or say anything, he bit his lips in frustration. Then quick as a panther he flung his empty long-neck so savagely into the trash can, it burst. Broken glass tinkled to the bottom of the can. His boots made hollow sounds that rang on the oak flooring as he stalked heavily to the front door, which he slammed open wider with enough force to show her she wasn’t welcome.

      Shanghai flipped on the outside light and saw her through the screen. She sure as hell looked different with her long

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