The Rancher's Spittin' Image. Peggy Moreland

with her love for him. With a quivering smile, she threaded her fingers through his and braced herself as he used her weight to pull himself to his feet. Stepping nearer, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest.

      “I—I’ll miss you,” she whispered brokenly, the lump in her throat making voicing the words difficult.

      “No more than I’ll miss you,” he returned, squeezing her tightly against him. “When can we meet again?”

      She lifted her face to his, wanting to take with her the memory of his handsome face, the love that glowed so vibrantly in his dark eyes. “Saturday. Daddy is going to San Antonio to a sale and won’t be back until Sunday, late.”

      His brow furrowed. “But how will you slip away unnoticed?”

      In the moonlight, her smile radiated confidence. “Don’t worry. I’ll think of a way.”

      The sound of a dry twig snapping came from the protective arc of trees that surrounded their secluded spot. Jesse stiffened, his fingertips digging into Mandy’s neck as he pressed her face to his shoulder to stifle her cry of alarm. He cocked his head, listening, searching the perimeter for the source of the sound, praying that it was only an animal moving through the thick stand of trees on its nightly hunt for food. But as his gaze struck a bright sheen of polished metal gleaming in a beam of moonlight, he knew it wasn’t an animal he’d heard. It was something much worse, someone much more menacing.

      He quickly shifted, placing himself between Mandy and the barrel of the rifle aimed at them. Even as he did, a man stepped from the shadows of the trees and into the moonlight The rifle was braced against his wide shoulder, its barrel aimed at Jesse’s chest.

      “Jesse Barrister!”

      Jesse heard Mandy’s sharp intake of breath, felt her fingers claw at his back as the roar of her father’s voice filled the night. Defiantly Jesse lifted his chin, meeting the angry gaze of Lucas McCloud.

      “What do you want, McCloud?” he demanded.

      “What’s mine.” With a snarl, Lucas took a step closer and waved the barrel of the gun. “Mandy! Get out from behind him, or I swear I’ll blow a hole clean through the both of you.”

      The cold-blooded threat pushed ice through Jesse’s veins. “You’d kill your own daughter?”

      “I’d rather see her dead than teamed with the likes of you. Now get out from behind him, Mandy.”

      When Mandy shifted as if to obey the order, Jesse thrust his arms behind him to hold her in place. In doing so, he offered Lucas an even broader target for his aim. “You’re not on McCloud land,” he warned Lucas, “you’re on Barrister land. You don’t give the orders here. I do.”

      Lucas barked a laugh, but kept the gun aimed dead on Jesse’s chest. “You bastard,” he spat out. “You don’t give orders here or anywhere. You’re nothing but the whelp of Wade’s Mexican whore.”

      Jesse felt his blood heat at the insult. Not for himself. He’d long ago grown accustomed to the word bastard. But no one had the right to sully his mother’s name. “Bastard or not, I’m a Barrister, and no McCloud is welcome on Barrister land.”

      Though Lucas’s gaze remained locked on Jesse’s, his words were for his daughter. “Did you hear that, Mandy?” he mocked. “No McCloud is welcome on Barrister land. And you are a McCloud.”

      “She’s mine!” Jesse shot back before Mandy could answer. “And as soon as she’s of age, her name will be Barrister, not McCloud.”

      The metallic grate of the rifle’s lever being rammed into firing position split the night in two. “Over my dead body,” Lucas roared. “No daughter of mine will ever carry the name Barrister. I’ll kill you first.”

      Mandy jerked free of Jesse and threw herself in front of him, placing herself between her father and the man she loved.

      “No, Daddy, please.” she sobbed. “I love Jesse.”

      Lucas’s eyes narrowed, but he never lowered the rifle. Its barrel now pointed at the hollow at Mandy’s throat. “Get away from him, or I swear I’ll kill him for the thieving bastard that he is—and you right along with him.”

      Before Jesse could stop her, Mandy raced across the space that separated them from her father and grabbed for the barrel, shoving it high in the air. The gun went off, the sound of its explosive report bouncing off the trees and echoing in the dark glen.

      Knocked off-balance by Mandy’s attack, Lucas fell back a step, but quickly regained his footing, wrapping a thick muscled arm around Mandy’s waist and pulling her hard against his side.

      Jesse lunged forward, but Lucas quickly one-armed the rifle back into position, stopping him.

      “Jesse, please,” Mandy sobbed. “Go before he kills you.”

      Jesse glared at Lucas McCloud, the hate that burned in him mirrored in the older man’s eyes. Slowly he shifted his gaze to Mandy’s. Even more slowly he lifted a hand to her, his palm up in silent entreaty. “Come with me, Mandy. Come with me now. We can leave here, we can go somewhere where your father will never find us.”

      “I’ll find you,” Lucas warned, his voice low and threatening. “There’s not a hole deep enough for you to crawl into where I can’t find you. And when I do, I’ll kill you.”

      Mandy looked at Jesse through eyes blurred with tears, torn between her love for her father and the man who owned her heart. She knew her father would make good his promise. He hated all the Barristers; the feud between the two neighboring ranches had raged for four generations. But he hated Jesse most of all, not only because he was Wade Barrister’s illegitimate son, but because Lucas could never see beyond the color of Jesse’s skin or the Mexican accent that no amount of Americanization had been able to erase.

      She knew she could find a way for them to be together. She just needed time to think, to formulate a plan. Even if it meant waiting the few months that stretched between this night and her eighteenth birthday before she saw him again, she knew her love for Jesse would survive the separation. Especially when the reward at the end was that they could be together forever.

      Unable to stand the rawness of his expression, the love and expectancy that gleamed in his eyes, she dropped her gaze, praying that he would understand. “No, Jesse. I can’t.”

      For a moment he seemed stunned by her response, then his body slowly stiffened and his hands closed into fists at his sides. With a savage cry, he lunged, his arms raised, his fingers curled as if already closing around the neck of the man who threatened his happiness, the man who stood between him and the woman he loved.

      A shot rang out, deafening Mandy. She clapped her hands over her ears, her body throbbing with the rifle’s report. The scene in front of her slipped into slow motion and she watched Jesse’s eyes widen, his face twist in pain. The impact of the blast spun him to the left and she watched in silent horror as he staggered two steps, then crumpled to the ground.

      Mandy’s scream ruptured the night. “Jesse! No-o-ooo!”

      One

      The three women stood, shoulders almost touching, staring up at the portrait of their father that had hung over the fireplace in the den of their family home for over twenty years. Pictured astride his horse, the aptly named Satan, Lucas McCloud seemed a man born to a saddle. The artist had captured him leaning forward slightly with his forearm braced casually atop the saddle horn and the bridle’s leather reins gathered loosely in his opposite hand.

      Set against a panorama of blue Texas sky and the rocky hills and green meadows that made up the Double-Cross Heart Ranch, both rider and horse appeared indomitable. One could almost feel the stallion’s wildness captured by the artist’s brush. Standing on a slab of limestone that jutted from a high ridge, with his ears cocked forward, his head held high, the horse met the viewer’s gaze with an arrogance,