“You think I’m trash now, don’t you?”
Her directness rendered him speechless.
“I didn’t sleep with Tavio,” she whispered, frantic for him to believe her.
“I don’t care!”
“Okay. I don’t know why I bothered to defend myself—to you, of all people.”
She hated him for being able to compel her just by sitting across from her. “I hate you,” she whispered in a low, seething tone. Then she instantly regretted saying anything.
“Good.” He flashed her a ruthless white grin. “I wish to hell you’d figured that out before you seduced me and got yourself pregnant! Because now—for better or worse—we’re stuck with each other!”
“You can leave, for all I care! I don’t ever want anything from you again,” she said.
“You want out of here, don’t you?”
He took her silence to mean yes.
“You’re not calling the shots anymore, darlin’. I am. Listen, because I’m only going to say this once. You have to do exactly what I say. Exactly. Your life and mine depend on it.”
Also by ANN MAJOR
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN SPURS
THE HOT LADIES MURDER CLUB
MARRY A MAN WHO WILL DANCE
WILD ENOUGH FOR WILLA
INSEPARABLE
The Girl with the Golden Gun
Ann Major
Nobody has time to write!
So many people support me in big and little ways so that I can get a few words down on paper.
Professionally, I want to thank Tara Gavin, Karen Solem, Nancy Berland and all the talented people they work with. I want to thank everybody at MIRA. I want to thank fans, especially those who have taken the time to send me encouraging letters.
Personally, I thank Ted and my mother, who go without things they need too often, so that I can get the work done. My children and grandchildren are wonderful, too. I must also thank all my friends, who understand when I forget to return their phone calls.
I dedicate this book in loving memory to Sondra Stanford.
Smart Cowboy Saying:
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
—From “Cowboy Quotes, Sayings and Wisdom”
www.Cowboyway.com
Contents
Prologue
Black Oaks Ranch
South Texas
“When I’m through with you, you’ll have nothing and be nothin’, boy! Mia will finally see what a lowlife you are!”
Rain slashed the windshield so hard Shanghai Knight could barely see to drive. He speeded up anyway, slamming his foot down on the gas pedal with such a vengeance his truck weaved recklessly through the slippery mud.
He couldn’t get away from the Golden Spurs Ranch fast enough. Damn. He was such an idiot!
As if to knock some sense into himself, he hit his brow with the bottom edge of his fist. He’d give anything if Caesar Kemble’s taunts would stop repeating themselves inside his head like a broken record.
When he rubbed his right cheek and jaw, he only aggravated the painful bruise that Caesar had caused when he punched him, so Shanghai clamped both hands back on the steering wheel. It galled him to remember what quick work Caesar had made of him in front of Mia.
A few punches in the ribs and a few more below the belt, and all the fight had been knocked clean out of him long before Caesar’s men had picked him up and shoved him down the ranch house