Do You Take This Enemy?

She tapped her toe on the ground and crossed her arms in front of herself, shaking her finger in the direction of his truck. “Get in your pickup and get off our land. Your ten minutes are up. I’m not marrying a Brant. No way in hell. And you’re not getting your hands on our ranch.”

They stared at each other, and he knew he was running out of time.

“I can end all of the Triple R’s debt and with no demands on you—” he began.

She tossed her head and a curtain of silky black hair swung across her shoulders. “Get off our land. You’re trespassing.”

“I’ll go, but you think about it. For both of us, it would be a means to an end.”

He moved toward the door of his pickup. “You could protect yourself with a prenuptial agreement. You have lawyers.” He opened the door of his pickup and paused, his gaze raking over her again.

“How far along are you? Five months?”

“Seven months.”

“Seven! Then, Ashley, you better think about my offer,” he said, liking the way it felt to call her by her first name. “You don’t have much time left to make choices. You’ll be so busy when your baby comes, you won’t have time for this ranch. A paper marriage would take a huge burden from your father. Life and family are more important than land or money,” he added harshly. “I can promise you that.”

While her eyes narrowed, he climbed into his pickup and started the motor, backing and turning, driving slowly so he wouldn’t stir a cloud of dust in her face. He looked into his rearview mirror. Ashley Ryder stood with her hands on her hips, still watching him. Even pregnant, she was one good-looking woman.

Mule-stubborn, she was trouble, yet she still had him attracted. She was gutsy, quick-witted and he suspected she was tough, willing to give up her plans and successful career in advertising to come home to help her father—all admirable enough qualities to offset stubbornness.

The Ryders were trouble, but they’d never been dumb. They were smart people, and he knew she had heard what he’d said, and she would think about it. For a first visit, it could have gone much worse.

If they joined their ranches, he could buy more cattle and expand. He knew for a fact that the Ryders’ horses weren’t taking up all the land they owned. Their ranch was as big as his, and it had been talk around the county for some time now about how Quinn Ryder had cut back and was in poor health, and the ranch was failing. The old man needed help desperately, yet couldn’t afford to hire it, and Ashley was going to be too busy to take charge completely. Quinn Ryder’s brothers had their own problems that kept them from stepping in. Ashley was seven months along. That didn’t leave a lot of time if they wanted to be married before the baby was born.

Gabe was lost in thought about Ashley and the future until he rounded a bend on his Circle B ranch and saw the two ranch houses ahead. The main road led to the old family home, a sprawling house that had been added to through generations. A branch of the road led to the house he had built for Ella.

Grief swamped him, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter, his throat closing up. He and his son Julian now lived in the family house. Memories tore him up in his home, so he had moved, but it made little difference because the memories still hurt. First he’d lost Ella, then two years ago, both his parents. Too many losses too close together.

He took a deep breath and tried to think about the Ryders and what he had just done in proposing to Ashley.

He had calculated how much land he would gain down to the last acre and he had flown his own plane over the Triple R, studying it carefully. It was the only way he could expand. Each of his neighbors was a descendant of settlers who had acquired the land at statehood or earlier, and no one around here was willing to sell. As far as he could see, Ashley was his best hope. She and her dad needed what he was offering. Gabe hoped she was mulling over his offer right now.

Ashley stood watching the dust hang in the road behind Gabriel Brant’s red pickup. She shook with anger. There would be a next time. The Brants didn’t give up on anything they set their mind to. The two families were still fighting over Cotton Creek, only now the battles were in lawyers’ offices instead of with fists.

Marry him! Paper marriage, sham marriage, it wouldn’t matter. Anything that tied a Ryder to a Brant was impossible. For four generations—five counting hers and Gabe’s—the Ryders and the Brants had fought over water rights. They had fought over damming up Cotton Creek, over the boundaries of their two ranches where Cotton Creek angled between the two and was the boundary line—a boundary line that kept shifting as the creek had shifted and changed. Now this miserable Brant wanted to break all traditions.

She thought of the generations of hate, years of silence. Even in her childhood, she could remember her father’s rage at finding dead horses and overhearing him talk to Gus, their foreman, about killing cattle. When old Thomas, Gabriel Brant’s father, had run for the Texas senate, her dad had done everything he could to defeat him, including making very generous donations to Thomas’s opponent. Yet, in spite of her father’s efforts, Thomas Brant had won, giving the Brants even more power.

Ashley had always heard that Thomas Brant was ruthlessly ambitious. The son obviously took after his father.

She was furious that Gabriel Brant had tricked her into meeting with him and angry with herself because the moment she had laid eyes on him her pulse had jumped wildly. When she was younger, she had always thought he was the most handsome boy in Piedras and Lago counties—a deep secret she had never admitted to anyone except Becky Conners, her best friend growing up. Ashley shook her head. She didn’t want to discover that Gabriel Brant had turned into a sexy, handsome hunk who could make her short of breath. She should have outgrown all that when she got braces off her teeth and went away to college.

But in all of Chicago, she had never met a man who made her breathing alter and her pulse jump like that. Not even Lars Moffet, and she had been ready to marry him. She was still seeing Gabriel Brant—tall, long-legged, dressed in a tight-fitting T-shirt that revealed abundant muscles. His dark-brown, thickly lashed bedroom eyes were sinful. His ruggedly handsome features were devilish. And his ambition was pure Brant.

Frustrated, Ashley picked up a pebble and threw it down the road as hard as she could, wishing it was a big rock and she could lob it through the back window of Gabriel Brant’s pickup.

She turned to walk to the house, but she knew she had to get control over her emotions before she returned indoors. Mrs. Farrin, their cook, had been with them since Ashley was three years old. She wasn’t ready to discuss Gabe’s proposition with Mrs. Farrin.

Gabriel Brant had called her stubborn. “You’re a greedy snake, Gabriel Brant!”

What angered and hurt the most, though, was the truth in what he said. Her dad had had a heart attack. He took medication for his blood pressure. They had had a run of sick horses and she knew that her dad wasn’t able to handle the ranch the way he used to. She had come home to help, but she couldn’t do all that needed to be done. She wasn’t a horse trainer, either. She was spending sleepless nights trying to figure out what to do because every month they were running deeper into debt and every month her father was working too hard.

Constantly she ran through possibilities, but never came up with a good solution. She had two uncles who ranched, but Uncle Dusty’s health was worse than her father’s and he had his hands full trying to keep his ranch going. Her other ranching uncle, Colin, had had a run of bad luck: his barn and house had burnt and he’d carried no insurance. Cal, the youngest brother, a dentist in San Antonio, had helped all of his older brothers, but there was just so much he could do and it wasn’t enough when there were three who needed help.

She inhaled and rubbed her hand across her brow. Gabe Brant’s words hurt because she knew they were true.

Life and family were more important than land. Her father’s life meant more than the ranch. She kicked a clod of dirt, hating that she had to give Gabe’s words some serious thought.

She shook her head. It was simply a ploy by a Brant to get the Ryder ranch. Forget it and forget Gabe Brant. But she had never been able to do that in her life. She thought she had, giving him little thought when she’d lived in Chicago. Yet the moment he had stepped out of his pickup, her pulse had jumped. And when he had touched her, every nerve had quivered. She could still hear exactly how his voice had sounded when he had spoken her name.

“What’s the matter with me?” she snapped, speaking aloud. She lifted her hair off her neck. Even though it was only May, it was hot outside. On the porch she turned to look at the rolling land that was the Triple R. Tall live oaks sent long, graceful limbs out over the yard, giving much-needed shade in the hot afternoon. Beyond the barn and outbuildings were green pastures dotted by more tall oaks. The land was good. It was home to her, and she would fight to her last breath for it, but her dad’s life was more important. Then the memory of sexy dark-brown eyes mocked her and she took a deep breath. Why did she still respond to him? How could he turn her insides to jelly with just a look?

She crossed the porch and went into the kitchen that smelled of baking bread. A ceiling fan turned slowly above glass-fronted cabinets. A pitcher of tea sat on the walnut pedestal table and preparations for supper were spread on the white counter.

A stout, gray-haired woman stood by the kitchen sink. She turned to look at Ashley. “Are you all right?” she asked, her blue eyes filled with concern.

“Yes, it’s just hot out,” Ashley replied, hurrying across the kitchen. “I’ll be in my room.”

“You didn’t let that lawyer fellow get very far. I fixed a pitcher of tea because I thought you’d at least let him come sit on the porch to talk. You didn’t let him come near the house.”

“Nope. I didn’t want him wasting my time.” Ashley hurried out of the room. She’d tell Mrs. Farrin soon enough, but she had to tell her father first. And if Gabe Brant had come closer to the house, Mrs. Farrin would have recognized him.

Ashley thought about the blood-pressure medication her father took. She didn’t want to get him all worked up, but she knew she had to tell him about Gabe’s proposal, and when she did, he was going to raise hell.

That night, after Ashley and her father had finished supper and retired to the family room, her father sat reading a magazine. Seated near him on a leather sofa, she glanced around the room with its throw rugs and polished plank floor, Western art and shelves of books lining the walls. The quiet they were enjoying was about to be shattered—it was time to tell her father the news.

“Dad, I got a call yesterday from Prentice Bolton, a lawyer in San Antonio.”

Quinn Ryder lowered his magazine and looked at her over his half glasses. Brown-eyed and tall, Quinn was raw-boned, with thick black hair streaked with gray. He removed his glasses.

“That outfit represents the Brants.” Her father frowned. “Why would he call you?”

“He said he wanted to come out and talk to me about a business proposition. If I tell you, will you keep calm?”

“Why don’t you think I’ll keep calm?” her father demanded.

“I have to tell you something you’re not going to like. I don’t want your blood pressure going up,” she said. His shirt hung on his frame because of the weight he had lost. It hurt to see her father ailing; he had always been robust, a strapping giant to her when she had been a child.

“I’m going to have high blood pressure if you don’t go ahead and tell me.”

“The lawyer wasn’t the one who came out here. He was just a decoy, calling for someone else.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed and he waited. “Dad, it was Gabriel Brant,” she said.

Her father’s ruddy face drained of color and he stood. “Gabriel Brant was on our land?”

“Yes, he was. Now sit down, or I won’t tell you another word. I don’t want your blood pressure jumping.”

“Dammit, Ashley, he knows better than to set foot on our place. That son of a bitch on our land!”