“Lord of all he surveys,” Kate muttered, glaring.
“Isn’t he entitled?” Tom, her brother, laughed softly. “He’s got enough fluttering female hearts in his pocket. Including yours…”
“Hush!” she bit off, nibbling on her lower lip.
“He doesn’t know,” he mused, glancing down at her. They were both tall, dark-haired and green-eyed. Although Tom, at twenty-eight, was four years her senior, they might well have been twins for the resemblance of their facial features. The same even, etched features highlighted both high-cheekboned faces, the faint remnants of a Sioux great-grandfather.
“I hate him,” Kate said firmly, pushing a strand of hair back into the elegant French knot she’d twisted her long, straight hair into that morning.
“Sure you do.”
“I do,” she insisted. And at that moment, she really did. Jacob’s sudden, violent dislike for her, which stemmed from an incident when Kate was eighteen, had put a severe strain on her friendship with Margo. It was odd, too, because Jacob had been good to the family when Kate was younger.
Kate and Tom had been adopted by their paternal grandmother after the death of their father. God alone knew where their mother was. She’d deserted them years before, and Kate had never stopped blaming her. The children had been badly scarred by the way their father had brought them up. Not even Grandmother Walker had known what they’d been through, because she hadn’t been the kind of person who invited confidences. But she’d taken them into her home in Blairsville, South Dakota, just minutes from Pierre, the capital. Margo Cade had lived with her uncle Jacob Cade and his father, Hank, on Warlance since the unexpected death of her parents years before. When Kate and Tom Walker had come to Blairsville to live with their Grandmother Walker, the girls had become friends. They’d spent time at each other’s houses since early high school. Now Margo was marrying, and although Kate had declined the honor of being a participant in the wedding, she couldn’t get out of attending. Not even to spite Jacob Cade.
As if he sensed her presence, his lofty head turned, shaded by a very expensive cream-colored Stetson. He was immaculate in a deep gray vested suit, elegance personified in spite of the fact that Kate had seen him work cattle and knew the strength in that long, lean body.
His square jaw lifted and he smiled in her direction, but it wasn’t a kind expression of greeting. He was declaring war without saying a single word.
Kate felt her neck tingle and she clutched the small white and jade bag that matched her pale green suit. She lifted her own chin, daring him. She’d spent her adult life doing that. It was like a defense mechanism, a programmed response that kept her from throwing herself at him. If she fought him, he couldn’t get close enough to do her very vulnerable heart much damage.
She seemed to have loved him forever, all her life. Her dreams were full of him, her mind haunted with memories. Jacob, smiling at her from horseback as she learned to ride with Margo as tutor. Jacob, sitting quietly in the porch swing while she and Margo danced with their young suitors at summer parties on the ranch. Jacob. All her young dreams had been wrapped up in one strong, very virile man. And then, like summer lightning, Jacob had become her enemy.
Something had been growing between them from the time she turned eighteen. It had been in his eyes, a vague smoldering interest that frightened her even as it intrigued her. While she’d been growing up, he’d been an indulgent older-brother figure who’d included her in Margo’s parties and outings as naturally as if she’d been part of the family. She’d never confided in him about her upbringing, of course. Kate had told no one, not even Margo, the truth about those anguished days. But Jacob had been kind to her. When Grandmother Walker had a stroke, it was Jacob who sat up all night with Kate in case she needed him. When Tom got in trouble at school for fighting, Jacob went to the principal and talked him out of expelling Kate’s hotheaded brother. Jacob had always been there, like an anchor, holding everyone steady in the raging current of life. And Kate had grown to love him, attracted by his strength and kindness and the single-minded determination that seemed to cling to him like the spicy after-shave he wore. And then their relationship had all gone sour in the space of a single night, and her friend Jacob had suddenly become her worst enemy.
Kate and a boy she was dating had been invited to a pool party at Margo’s house in July six years ago. After an hour of swimming, during which Kate had hardly been able to take her eyes off Jacob’s incredibly sensuous body in white trunks, she’d gone to the bathhouse to change. Kate had just stripped off her bathing suit when she saw a rattlesnake coiled on the sunlit strip of concrete by the wall. With a phobia for snakes that dated from childhood, her mind had gone into turmoil. In her hysteria, she’d forgotten that she was undressed. She’d screamed and Gerald, her date, had come running. The snake had crawled away through a hole. She was shaking and sobbing and Gerald, helpless to do anything else, was just holding her. And Jacob had walked in and seen them like that—seen Kate’s nude body being held close against Gerald’s tall form that was clad only in brief trunks.
Maybe he’d have listened to her explanation another time, but Kate had grown angry at her reaction to Jacob’s hard, fit body, as well as his blatant attention to Barbara Dugan, a beautiful and blond neighbor. And she’d gone to Gerald in the pool and had kissed him in a totally adult way, an action that Jacob had seen. He could hardly be blamed, Kate realized, for thinking so badly of her. She was shocked at her own behavior, but she was confused at the force of her attraction to Jacob and her inability to do anything about it.
She thought she’d never forget the way Jacob had looked at her, his black eyes filled with contempt, his face devoid of any expression while Gerald, unnerved by Jacob’s unexpected fury, stumbled over an explanation that sounded too dispirited to be convincing.
Every word of it was true, but Jacob hadn’t listened to them. It was almost as if he’d wanted to believe only the evidence of his own eyes. That had been the last time she’d been welcome at Warlance. Despite Margo’s pleading and threats, Jacob had stood firm. He didn’t want his niece associating with a woman like Kate, he’d said. He’d thrown Gerald off the property on the spot, sending him away without a word.
Before Kate had joined Gerald in the car, she and Jacob had a grandfather of a brawl, one so hot that even old Hank Cade hadn’t mixed in it. He’d moved out of earshot, watching his son raise hell while Margo tried desperately to referee.
“You won’t listen, will you?” Margo had said, defending Kate. “It was innocent! There was a snake in the bathhouse!”
“Sure,” he replied, his voice colder than Kate had ever heard it, his hard glare silencing Margo immediately.
Kate had clenched her hands by her sides, blazing with bad temper and hurt pride. “Go ahead, then, believe I’m that kind of woman, even when you know I’m not!”
“I thought you were a little saint,” he replied curtly, his gaze chilling her, “until tonight when your halo slipped and I saw you grow up.”
She didn’t understand the way he’d phrased it. Not that, or the unreasonable contempt in his tone. “Jacob, I’m not like that! And I don’t lie—I’ve never lied to you!”
“I watched my mother go that route,” he said in a haunted tone. “One man after another and denying the whole time that she’d ever cheated on my father. One day, she ran off with her latest lover and never came back. I’ve never forgotten what a hell she made of my father’s life. I raised my niece to have a conscience and a sense of morality. I’m not having Margo exposed to women like you. Get off my place and keep off.”
Margo had gritted her teeth, but her eyes had been eloquent as they apologized to Kate silently. Jacob in this mood was dangerous. And Kate understood.
“You won’t listen,” Kate said quietly. “I’m