The wealthy Kembles despised the lowly Knights, and the Knights held an ancient grudge against the Kembles for stealing their ranch. Shanghai and Mia never should have become involved with each other.
They wouldn’t have if Caesar hadn’t damn near backed over her at Old Man Pimbley’s gas station when she’d been two. Shanghai had been twelve at the time and sneaking a smoke out back. At the risk of his own neck, not that he’d ever been one to mind that much, he’d thrown his smoke down and run screaming toward the truck. Not that Caesar had noticed. When he’d kept on backing, Shanghai had dived behind the truck and thrown her to safety. One of the big back tires had broken his leg.
When his cigarette butt had started a grass fire out back, Caesar and Old Man Pimbley had cussed him out for his trouble although Caesar had relented and paid to get his leg set. But the local gossips had made Shanghai into something of a hero, which had truly galled Caesar.
As Mia grew up she’d heard the story, and like the gossips, seen him as a hero, too. Thus, she’d developed a bad habit of following him around, her whiskey-colored eyes sparkling with adoration. He’d liked somebody admiring him, especially since it had rankled Caesar so much, until he’d started chasing girls his own age. Then her habit had gotten annoying since she was always watching him at the damnedest times.
Once when he’d been dating two girls at the same time, she’d called them both and told each one about the other. Mia knew how to make trouble, all right.
What did she think of him now?
Hell, why should he care?
Not many people admired the Knights much anymore. The Kembles were everything in Spur County—mainly ’cause they’d stolen from the Knights. Shanghai had grown up poor while Mia had been a princess from birth. If he worked for the rest of his life he’d never be able to earn a fraction of her wealth.
Everything about tonight was pure, raw hell. The weather was wild and wet, the road bad and Shanghai was breathing hard and driving way too fast. He’d made a fool out of himself, and tomorrow after Mia and Caesar got through bragging to all their friends, everybody in three counties would know.
If he had a fault, it was pride. He didn’t like feeling like he was nothing. He realized now that it was too late, that maybe he shouldn’t have gone alone to Caesar Kemble for a showdown on Kemble’s vast Golden Spurs spread.
Suddenly up ahead Shanghai saw the dark, familiar outline of the small, hunting cabin where he’d spent many a night when his daddy was drunk or just plain too mean to live with. Shanghai stomped on the brakes, causing the big old truck to skid on its bald tires. It hurtled through the mud and rain at a frightening speed and slammed into the bottom step that led up to the porch.
Wood splintered. Cursing silently, he cut the engine. He didn’t know what to do.
If he went home, his daddy might be drunk. If his old man saw his face, he’d figure out what had happened. Whether Shanghai confessed or not, his daddy would most likely start a fight. Caesar was going to do what he was going do.
He grabbed the steering wheel and laid his dark brow on it, remembering how filled with pride he’d been when he’d boldly slapped those documents that proved his ancestors had as much right as Caesar’s to the Golden Spurs Ranch onto Caesar Kemble’s massive dining-room table in front of Caesar and his foreman, Kinky. He’d eyed the men cockily, feeling full of himself. Rubbing his brow, Kinky had frowned.
Caesar hadn’t even bothered to read a single page. He’d said simply, “This don’t mean nothin’! Hell, you’re nothin’, kid.” Then he’d punched him in the jaw and knocked him out cold.
A girl’s screams had startled him back to consciousness. He’d been sprawled flat on his back under the table when he’d felt little bits of shredded papers raining down on him and the tenderness of soft cool fingers brushing his face.
He’d said, “Ouch!”
Then she’d been yanked away by her father.
“Mia! I’ll tan you, too, if you don’t get back upstairs with Lizzy where you belong!” Caesar had yelled at her.
“You’d better not kill him!” she’d whispered fiercely, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I don’t need your help, little girl. I’ll be just fine!” Shanghai had muttered, feeling shamed by her tenderness but most of all by the fact that she’d seen his sorry ass sprawled on her floor.
“Fine? That’s why you’re lying there flat on your backside all busted up?”
Her words had hit a nerve. He prided himself on being tough.
He’d stared at her through slitted lashes, pretending to ignore her ’cause Mia hated being ignored more than she hated anything. Even so, he saw the redheaded teenager place her hands on her hips as she hovered over him like a guardian angel. Tonight she’d worn skintight jeans, a T-shirt and red boots. When she’d sprinted back up the stairs, he’d noticed that she filled out her jeans and T-shirt with a woman’s shape now.
She was too young to look so grown-up. Mia had exasperated and charmed him for years by chasing him anytime she got the chance. He would have felt easier with the bean-pole shape, freckle-faced kid that she used to be.
Mia had made a habit of disappearing from the Golden Spurs Ranch for long stretches and wandering about the county on horseback. Anytime she’d gotten hurt, she’d come crying to Shanghai. Anytime she’d made a good grade or had won a prize at school, she’d had to tell him first even if it meant riding over to Black Oaks.
Once when her daddy had told her he was going to shoot a torn-up mongrel sheepdog she’d found bleeding to death on the highway, she’d carted the pup to Shanghai in her red wagon.
He’d told her her daddy was right for once, and it would be a kindness to shoot him. But when she’d left the mutt and her wagon, the beast had given him a baleful stare. Shanghai had taken the dog to the vet and nursed it back to health. He still remembered how her eyes had shone, when she’d come back for her wagon a month later and had seen the black-and-white mutt napping on his front porch.
“Don’t you dare tell anybody I saved him,” he’d warned her. “They’d think I was plum crazy.”
“Cross my heart.” She’d hesitated. “What do you call him?”
“Dog.”
She’d knelt and petted the animal. “Can I name him?”
“What’s wrong with Dog?”
“I—I’d call him Spot.”
“That’s as bad as Dog.”
“Not quite, is it, Spot?”
Spot had wagged his tail fit to be tied, and it was Spot from then on.
Shanghai put the memories of her childhood aside. She was a Kemble and all grown-up now.
No sooner had her door slammed upstairs tonight than Caesar had resumed tearing up the documents. Then he’d started pounding the table. Shanghai had found himself staring up at the underside of the table where the name, Mia, was scrawled dozens of times in bright red crayon alongside Lizzy’s name, and he’d imagined Mia a cute kid with red pigtails under the table up to mischief with her sister.
Then Caesar had distracted him by raking the last of the ruined documents he’d brought onto the floor beside Shanghai and shouting they were garbage just like he was.
“Get out, you lowdown, lying thief. You aren’t a damn bit better than your daddy. And we all know what he is—a lousy, no-good drunk. But at least he knows that he lives under my 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