The West Texas sun had peaked in a bright blue sky and Judith Ann Strayhorn had already wasted more than half the day. Behind the wheel of her Dodge pickup, she raced along the highway on her way to Abilene, a hundred miles away. Her mind was on the state cop who had stopped her earlier for speeding. He hadn’t been sympathetic when she told him she was on a mission. He had looked at her with cold eyes, his mouth a grim line. He must have been having a bad day because this time, he hadn’t given her the usual warning. This time, he had given her a ticket. Damn. Now Daddy would try to badger her into going all the way to Abilene to attend driving school.

Since the very first time she had been allowed to drive the twenty-eight miles from the Circle C ranch to the town of Lockett all alone, she had found adhering to the speed limit a burden. Today, after getting a speeding ticket, she forced herself to drive slower while she considered whether she should go to court and plead not guilty to driving eighty in a sixty. The judge would probably be accommodating given that her grandfather and father allowed him hunting privileges on the family’s rangeland, but Jude was cautious about putting Grandpa or Daddy in an awkward position.

Still debating the pros and cons of going to court, she drew closer to the thing that had her rushing toward Abilene--the old 6-0 ranch. Its long caliche driveway led from the highway to the ranch’s vacant house a quarter-mile away. She saw a tan pickup truck parked in the driveway. What was that about?

She slowed, gravel crunching under her tires as she pulled partially off the highway for a closer look. Not recognizing the pickup, she eased all the way off the highway, shoved the gearshift into park and sat there a few seconds Chewing on her thumbnail, she stared at the trespassing pickup and pondered the best way to find out who owned it.

Her gaze moved from the pickup to the two-story house. Of Victorian style, perched in the middle of a sun-drenched Texas Panhandle pasture, it couldn’t have looked more out-of-place. It sat at the end of the driveway, its fancy carved wood trim and much of its clapboard siding bare of paint and weathered to gray. The slatted shutters that had once framed two of the front windows in white had been missing for a while now.

Her eyes traveled to a two-story barn five hundred feet behind the house and canting to the east in sad shabbiness. In a coil the size of a car, coppery-colored rusted barbed wire leaned against the barn’s east wall. Other outbuildings of both metal and wood in various stages of dilapidation baked in the brittle noonday sun.

As far as Jude was concerned, the buildings were an inconsequential part of Marjorie Wallace’s estate. The valuable part was the fifteen sections of land the buildings sat on—nine thousand, six hundred acres of prime, rolling bluestem grassland that had been un-grazed for months. Enough land to run at least two hundred head of cows and calves. The very thought was enough to send her blood singing through her veins.

Jude wanted to own that 6-0 rangeland more than she had ever wanted to own anything. And she had the wherewithal to buy it. She hadn’t yet made an offer on it, but without her daddy and grandpa knowing it, she had already started the wheels rolling to take the money from her trust fund. No doubt when they learned what she was up to, another family explosion would occur.

She could hear Daddy now: Jude, why don’t you spend your energy on finding a husband?

And Grandpa: Why, Judith Ann, that trust fund is for your future and the future of the children you should be concentrating on having.

And the discussion wouldn’t end there. Hadn’t they already tried to marry her off twice?

But at the moment, she couldn’t think about a hypothetical. The unfamiliar pickup was more interesting. She made a right turn and jostled and bumped up the neglected driveway until she came to a stop behind the newer model Chevy Silverado. Its bed was filled with household furnishings: a mattress set, a cabinet-like thing that looked to be a dresser, some chairs and a table. Having been here several times, she knew that the house and all of the outbuildings had hasps and padlocks on the doors. Had the Silverado’s owner broken in and taken that furniture from inside the house?

From where she sat, she couldn’t see if the lock on the front door had been removed. A sudden anxiety squiggled through her stomach. She thought of cell phone and her cousin, Jake Strayhorn, who was the Willard County sheriff. She thought of her pistol, which she knew how to use and had a permit to carry. It was locked in Daddy’s gun cabinet at home. Damn.

She pulled her pickup closer to the Chevy’s back bumper, angling across the driveway’s two tracks. The alien pickup could get out, but only with some skillful maneuvering. Without killing her engine, she continued to study the unfamiliar vehicle. It was clean and neatly kept. No dents, good tires. Not a vehicle she would associate with a burglar. The license plate holder said, COWTOWN CHEVROLET. The only city in Texas known as “Cowtown” was Fort Worth. The ever-present curiosity Jude had about everything began to outweigh anxiety.

Jake would be able to find the truck owner’s name easily enough. His office could log into computer networks that knew everything about everyone. She pulled a small spiral notebook from over the sun visor and jotted the plate number. As she returned the notebook to its place, she glanced around, but saw no person. She switched off the motor and slid out, her boot heels cushioned by clumps of nameless weeds that had taken over the driveway.

Silence engulfed her, so loud it roared in her ears. The vast blue sky and the rays of the brilliant summer sun pressed down hotly on her shoulders, making her feel small. A noteworthy accomplishment on the sun’s part, since very little made her, the only daughter of the powerful J.D. Strayhorn, feel small.

A breeze rustled past and swirled her long hair around her face, pasting fine strands against her lips. She combed it back with three fingers, gathering it at her nape while she walked toward the house, still looking for the individual who belonged to the pickup.

Then she saw a man. A big man she didn’t recognize. He came around the corner of the house. That little squiggle of anxiety zoomed through her stomach again. He was at least as tall as her daddy, who was over six feet. He was wide shouldered, but lean. He was clean and wearing a bright blue torso-hugging T-shirt that showed off muscles in his arms and shoulders. The shirt was neatly tucked into starched and creased Wranglers that showed off the muscle in his pants. She quickly averted her eyes to his feet. He had on cowboy boots, not worn out, but well-used. He looked like a cowboy all right, but not a cowhand. Having spent her entire life around both, she knew the difference. Now she was sure he was no burglar.

But what was he? A shot of panic surged for a reason different from concern for her personal safety. Good Lord, could he be a buyer for this place? She summoned the boldness for which she was notorious. “Hey,” she called to him.

His step didn’t falter as he continued walking toward her, his long legs eating up the space. “Something I can do for you?” His voice was deep, but soft.

As he neared, she strained to see his eyes, but they were hidden in the shadow of a purple bill cap. It had TCU logo, embroidered rather than stamped, so it was one of the better-quality caps. TCU. Humph. She no longer held so much as a shred of fear. TCU, Texas Christian University, was a sissy school in Fort Worth. Jude Strayhorn was a proud graduate of the only college in Texas--or the whole country, really--that mattered, Texas A&M. “This is private property,” she said.

“I know,” he replied, almost absently as he continued to look around.

“Then what are you doing here?” She had to raise her chin to look him in the eye. And those eyes were as blue as the Texas sky. They sat above wide cheekbones, so prominent they cast shadows on his lean cheeks. The eyes narrowed for a nanosecond. He didn’t answer her question, but she felt the intensity of his laser blue gaze as he gave her a head-to-toe assessment. She had been observed by men before. She was used to not reacting. What she wasn’t used to was the shimmer in the air between them or the strange flutter that continued to agitate in her midsection. She stood there hanging onto her hair, sweating in the noon heat and waiting for him to explain himself.

His gaze swerved to her pickup, parked across the driveway and blatantly displaying her intent. He looked back at her, his face and body taut. “What are you doing here?” His tone would have frozen water on a July day.

“I’m a neighbor up the road.”

“That doesn’t tell me why you parked crossways and blocked my exit. Who the hell do you think you are?”

She flinched at the hostility in the words, but she didn’t back down. “I stopped by, being neighborly. But I’ll damn sure get out of your way. If you don’t feel like telling me who you are, I guess you can tell the sheriff.” She gave him her back and willed herself to saunter toward her pickup as if she hadn’t a concern in the world, but her heartbeat thrummed in her ears. “He’s my cousin,” she added over her shoulder.

“Hold on,” he called and she stopped and turned to face him.

He walked to where she stood, the corners of his mouth tipping into a hint of a smile that fell somewhere between friendly and smirky on the smile meter. Whatever its meaning, it sent another odd reaction through her stomach. He stuck out his right hand. “Brady Fallon.”

He said the name as if it should mean something to her, but she couldn’t place it. She had a feeling she had seen him before, but she couldn’t think where. Still, she gave him her hand. His big rough hand engulfed hers in a strong, palm-touching grip. Startled by another odd little disturbance darting through her, she took back her hand and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans. “So, uh . . . I don’t think I’ve seen you around here.”

“Haven’t been around here. . . . Lately.”

Lately? Who was he? . . . Was he kin to someone local? She thought she knew every living human being in Willard County. All 1,653 of them.

She could stand it no longer. She had to get to the point. Striving for nonchalance, she said, “The, um, owner of this place passed away recently. Are you looking to buy it?”

He threw a glance back over his shoulder toward the house, a faraway look in his eyes and she wished she could read his mind.

“Nope,” he answered and pushed his cap back with this thumb.

“You’re leasing?” The question was no sooner out of her mouth than she knew the answer. “You’re a bird hunter.” By the hundreds, game bird hunters leased West Texas land and filtered out of the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex to harass and shoot the abundant quail and dove. Fewer came to Willard County than to the surrounding counties because Strayhorn Corp owned more than half of the rangeland in the county and Daddy and Grandpa gave only a chosen few permission to hunt.

The stranger chuckled, a deep, friendly sound, and a boyish grin loaded with charm tilted up the corners of his mouth. This time the meaning of his smile was clearer. “I never met a bird that deserved killing,” he said.

She couldn’t keep from staring at his mouth and his even white teeth. “Actually, me neither. Personally, I don’t like the taste of game birds. These dudes that come out here and hunt them, it’s mostly an excuse to get drunk and show off the shotgun they got for Christmas. It’s a wonder they all don’t shoot each other.”

His big body shifted to a cocked-knee stance and his hands went to his rest on his hips. “You didn’t say your name.”

“Jude Strayhorn. I live on the place that butts up to this one.”

His chin lifted, his brows arched. “Ahh.” His annoyance seemed to dissipate.

It was a knowing response. But then, who in West Texas hadn’t heard, good or bad, of the Strayhorns? “So what are you doing here?”

Those blue eyes fixed on her in another steady look and though the temperature had to be over ninety, she thought of icicles. Okay, so he didn’t want to discuss it. Maybe she was being nosy. And maybe a little pushy.

After a long pause, he said, “This place belonged to my Aunt Margie and Uncle Harry.” He looked down and appeared to be studying his boot toes. “Now, I guess it belongs to me.”

Jude barely halted a catch in her breath and willed her eyes not to bug. Nooooo, she wanted to scream. “What do you mean?”

He lifted his cap and re-placed it, revealing golden-brown hair darkened by sweat. “They never had any kids to leave it to. They sort of favored me.”

How could she not have heard about this? Jude wondered. She hadn’t known Marjorie Wallace personally, but everyone in Willard County knew that a few weeks before her death, she had suddenly sold her cattle herd and on her own accord taken up residence in the town of Lockett’s only nursing home, only then revealing that she had terminal cancer.

Jude rarely found herself at a loss for words, but this unexpected news left her scrabbling for what to say next. She gave the deceased woman’s nephew a nervous titter. “Want to sell it?”

“I don’t think so. I’m making this my home.”

Now her heartbeat sounded like a bass drum in her ear. She swung a glance at his pickup bed loaded with furniture, then the house, then at him. “Margie Wallace didn’t have any money to leave anybody, unless she kept some buried in the backyard. You rich?”

He tucked back his chin, his brow drawn into a frown. “That’s no business of yours.”

“Mister, I’m just saying, it’s gonna take a bunch of money to make this place even a little bit livable. I don’t know if the water well’s even any good.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and opened her palms in a show of feigned indifference. “But, hey. Like you say, it’s none of my business.”

She turned and started to her pickup again, disappointment burning her eyes, but she swallowed her tears. She needed this land, had been planning to buy it for weeks. The Wallace ranch would give her a chance to try some of her ideas in cattle breeding without her daddy and Grandpa standing over her criticizing her every move and whining over why she didn’t get married. And now the best chance she had run across lately to prove herself had been snatched from her fingers by some damn. . . heir.

The only thing that kept her from breaking down and bawling was that Jude Strayhorn didn’t cry.

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