"So what do you think?" Dallas asked, driving now, awake and alert after his long hours of slumber.

"It's pretty. So lush and green. I can see why you like it so much."

He smiled. "It shows, does it?"

"In every line of your face."

Charlie slept scrunched up in the backseat and Patience heard him stir. He had driven for hours last night, letting her and Dallas sleep. He was a sweet man, and she was beginning to think that under all the alpha-male toughness and buckets of testosterone, so was the man he had adopted as his son.

"Texas is my home," Dallas said. "I like everything about it. The rivers that wound through the fields, the cottonwoods shading the banks of the creeks." Flocks of birds flashed out of the trees, winging their way upward, and a deer tripped daintily toward the stream.

"We're almost there." Dallas pointed up the narrow paved road they traveled. "The Circle C gate is just past those two big sycamore trees."

Behind him, Charlie stirred again, sat up and blinked himself awake, as if the nearness of home drew him as well. He stretched in the backseat, and picked up the plastic bottle of water that rolled around under his feet. He took a long drink, swished it around in his mouth, and swallowed.

She could see the anticipation on Charlie's face as they pulled through the tall wooden gates of the Circle C and drove down the tree-shaded lane to the house. They passed a pasture full of horses, who kicked up their heels and raced along beside the truck. Then Dallas stepped on the brakes in front of a white, two-story wood-framed house with bright red shutters and a white picket fence around the front yard. It looked like a storybook home, and Patience thought that it perfectly fit the image she carried of Charlie and his wife.

Annie came through the front door just as the dust began to settle. They all got out of the truck and Charlie made straight for his wife, hauling her into his arms and kissing her until she looked embarrassed. She wasn't very tall, maybe five-one or two, trim and gray-haired, a woman who carried her sixty-odd years without apology, which added to the attractiveness of her face.

"Honey, this is Dallas's friend, Patience Sinclair."

Annie smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Charlie's told me all about you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, too," Patience said, meaning it. "Charlie talks about you all the time, so I feel like I already know you."

"Well, good, then we won't have to be formal. Come on in and I'll show you upstairs to your room. It's nothing fancy, but I think you'll be comfortable."

"I assure you it'll seem like a palace compared to my bunk in the trailer." She followed Annie inside, Dallas and Charlie trailing in behind them. Annie led her up a wooden staircase, into a bedroom with white-ruffled curtains and a handmade red and white quilt over a bed with an old-fashioned white-painted iron headboard. A hooked rug in matching colors warmed the wide-planked oak floors.

"It's charming, Mrs. Carson. I especially love the quilt."

"It's Annie, dear, and thank you. I made it myself."

"Along with the curtains and the rug?"

She smiled. "Helps to pass the time. Gets a little lonely out here sometimes with Charlie gone."

"Yes, I imagine it does." She glanced out the window, to the horses and cattle in the rolling green fields. "Still, I imagine you have plenty to do, keeping a ranch this size running smoothly."

Annie sighed and shook her head. "Ain't been runnin' all that smooth lately. I'm real glad Charlie and Dallas come home."

Dallas walked in just then, carrying Patience's suitcase. "Any place special you want this?"

"Just put it on the bed."

"It's near to lunchtime," Annie said to her. "Be ready in about half an hour. Give you time to unpack and settle in."

"Thank you. If there's anything I can do to help-"

Annie smiled. "I appreciate the offer. You can help with supper. I'll see you downstairs in a while." She turned to Dallas. "You coming?"

Dallas just smiled. "Yes, ma'am." He cast a regretful glance at Patience and followed his aunt from the room, closing the door behind him.

Watching them leave, Patience felt the tension ebb from between her shoulders. She wasn't quite sure what to make of Annie Carson. She liked what she knew of the woman, admired her for the way she handled the problems of running the ranch, but Patience was fairly sure Annie wasn't thrilled to have her there. Patience figured it had something to do with her relationship with Dallas.

She couldn't help a smile. Her dad would probably react the same way if she ever brought a cowboy home with her to Boston.

The Circle C Ranch stretched across the vast Texas landscape, eight thousand acres of lush Hill Country land. But someone was rustling Circle C cows and stopping them was Dallas's first priority.

As soon as they finished lunch, a delicious spread of smoked ham, fried potatoes, vegetables from Annie's garden, and homemade cornbread with her delicious honey butter, Dallas phoned Max Mills, the sheriff of Bandera County.

Max wasn't in his office. Instead of returning the call, he drove up in front of the house that afternoon.

"Good to see you, Charlie, Dallas."

"You, too, Max," Dallas said. All three men shook hands. Max was ten years older than Dallas, but like a lot of Texas men, he had rodeoed during his youth, team roping with his dad mostly, riding bulls till he got enough sense to quit. He was tall and athletically built, an attractive man even though his blond hair was slowly turning silver and thinning so much he was nearly bald.

He glanced down at the bandage wrapped around Dallas's leg. "How bad you hurt?"

"Not too bad. Just a twisted knee. I'll be able to ride again by the end of the week."

"Glad to hear it," Max said, knowing from experience that not too bad meant the knee hurt like blazes.

"So tell us what's going on," Dallas said, cutting straight to the point. "You come up with anything useful this time?"

Max filled them in on the latest raid and any new information his deputies had picked up-which wasn't much-then he suggested they climb into his car and drive out to the area where the cattle had been stolen.

"Whoever's behind this has a pretty fair notion of what's going on around here," Max said. "Sully lost a couple dozen head that same night. He was away in Austin on business at the time. Seems like maybe they knew Charlie would be gone as well."

"Sounds like," Dallas said.

The men combed the upper pasture where the cattle had been taken. They found tire tracks, but they were a fairly standard Goodyear model, a Uni-Steel ll R 22.5, the sheriff said. The tracks showed the truck was fitted with a pair of dual wheels on the back, the sort of vehicle commonly used to transport horses and cattle. There were boot prints, indicating several different men were involved, evidence that might come in handy later on, but nothing that would help the sheriff discover exactly who was behind the theft.

"They've got to be selling those beeves somewhere," Dallas said. "Anything turn up along that line?"

"Not so far. We figure maybe they're hauling them out of state but we haven't got anything concrete."

"If they did go out of state," Charlie said, "maybe they'll stay there. They've got to know the risk increases every time they hit the same place."

"That's what we figured before. As it turned out, that wasn't the case."

"Maybe we could lay a trap for them," Dallas suggested. "Move some cattle into one of the more accessible pastures, then let it be known around town that Charlie and I are going back on the road. We could stake out the pasture, see if our cattle thieves turn up."

"That might work, except it was weeks between the first strike and this one. We can't have deputies out there every night. We can try to patrol the area more often whenever you two are gone."

"We'd appreciate that," Charlie said. "And I can hire another hand or two, set up some kind of rotating night patrol."

But of course that would cost money, an additional expense that right now Charlie couldn't afford.

As soon as they got back to the ranch house and the sheriff went on his way, Dallas pulled Charlie aside. "Let me help you with some of these expenses. I've got money put away-you know that. If you won't accept the money straightaway, I'll make it a loan."

But Charlie was already shaking his head. "Not gonna happen, son. These are my problems, not yours. I'm the one who's gonna solve them." Charlie turned away, but Dallas caught something in the grim set of his features.

"You're not thinking of selling that southern acreage to Sully?"

Charlie refused to look at him. "He's offered to buy the piece a couple of times before. It butts right up to that dogleg section he owns along the creek. Annie says he asked about it again the other day, offered her a good price for it, too."

Dallas felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. The Circle C had been in the Carson family for over a hundred years. Until now, Charlie had adamantly refused to sell off even a few acres.

"Don't do it, Charlie. There's got to be some other way."

Charlie finally looked at him. "I ain't sold anything yet. Even if I do, it's not for you to worry about. You just get well, then git yerself back to ridin'. You win at the Finals, that's the best thing you can do for me and Annie."

Dallas said nothing more. He loved his aunt and uncle, but sometimes they frustrated the hell out of him. He sighed as Charlie headed back to the house, caught up, and started limping along beside him. For a while, at least, he would do as Charlie asked. He needed to rest and mentally prepare himself for the difficult months of competition ahead.

He glanced toward the kitchen, saw Annie and Patience through the window over the sink, at work on the evening meal. Patience laughed at something Annie said and the sound went straight through him. His loins tightened and his pulse spiked up. She had drawn her blond hair back into a single, no-nonsense braid, but he knew how silky it would feel if he untied the ribbon at the end and ran his fingers through it. He knew how luscious those long legs would look if he stripped away her jeans, remembered exactly how sweet it felt to be inside her.

His groin thickened and filled. He needed to heal, all right, but he needed something else even more. He had waited long enough for Patience Sinclair.

CHAPTER 16.

Annie handed the last of the supper dishes to Patience, who dried the plate carefully and put it on top of the stack in the cupboard.

"Well, now that we're through with the chores, let's go see what the men are up to."

Dallas and Charlie were sitting in the living room, Dallas reading the Daily Times, the local area newspaper, Charlie in his recliner, his feet up, watching the evening news. This was a ranch and the chores were clearly divided. The men might not wash dishes, but looking around the ranch, it was obvious they did their share.

Annie stopped in the doorway leading into the room. "All right, you two-now that you're stuffed full as ticks, what do you say we all sit down and play a little cards?"

Dallas laughed as he folded the paper and set it aside. "I don't know if that's such a good idea, Aunt Annie. The last time I played with Patience, she wound up with all my money and everyone else's."

One of Annie's gray eyebrows went up. She cast Patience a look that clearly said she was impressed. "Well, then, we'll only count points, how's that?"

"I don't think I'm up for it tonight," Dallas said. "It's still plenty light outside. I thought I'd saddle a couple of horses, show Patience a little of the ranch." He cast a look at Patience, whose eyes locked with his, then he turned and smiled at Annie. "Tomorrow night, I promise you can kick my butt at Hearts, the way you usually manage to do. That okay with you?"

Annie didn't looked thrilled, but she nodded. "Just make sure you don't stay out too late. You need to get your rest."

Dallas grinned. "Yes, ma'am."

Patience watched the smile slide away as his attention returned to her. "That all right with you?" His eyes were a brilliant shade of blue and she knew he was planning a lot more than a sight-seeing tour.

"Are you sure you're well enough to ride?"

A spark of mischief crept into his eyes. "I'll be able to ride just fine-I promise."

Patience felt the heat climbing into her cheeks. Her stomach tightened with anticipation that she prayed didn't show on her face. "I'd love to see the ranch," she said softly, and watched those hot blue eyes turn downright scorching.

"Come on, then." He reached out and caught hold of her hand. "We're burnin' daylight here."

She was certainly burning something. Her heart jumped, and her skin tingled wherever those blue eyes touched her.

Dallas kept hold of her hand as they left the house. As soon as they reached the barn and stepped inside out of sight, he pulled her into his arms.

"I've been dying to do this all day." Bending his head, he kissed her, his lips brushing lightly over hers, then sinking deeper.

"Hey, Dallas!"

She thought he whispered a curse as he jerked away and dragged in a calming breath of air.

"Hey, Ben-it's good to see you." Dallas reached out and shook the man's outstretched hand, then turned to where she stood in the shadows. "Patience Sinclair, meet Ben Landers, foreman of the Circle C Ranch."

Patience stepped into the light and Ben touched the brim of his hat, looking faintly embarrassed to discover that Dallas wasn't alone.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am." A slight flush shaded his cheekbones, which were lean, the skin across them dark and leathery. He looked like a cowboy should, tall and spare, his legs slightly bowed.

"It's nice to meet you, too," Patience said.

"We were just about to go for a ride," Dallas told him. "I thought I'd show Patience a little of the ranch."

Ben nodded. "Good idea. I'll saddle you a couple of horses."

"Thanks." Dallas ran a finger along her cheek, turned, and walked over to help Ben with the horses. A few minutes later, he led a pretty little bay mare and a big-chested sorrel gelding over to where she stood next to one of the stalls.

"Take your pick. Gigi walks out a little faster than Outlaw, but he's got a really smooth gait."

She opted for Gigi. The mare was just too pretty to pass up. Dallas adjusted the stirrups and they left the barn, heading off down a narrow trail along a small running stream. The breeze picked up, lifting some of the humidity and cooling the damp summer air. Puffy white clouds drifted by overhead, lending occasional shade as the evening continued to cool.

They didn't ride all that far. She smiled when he pulled the horses to a stop in a shaded, secluded meadow next to the creek. Dallas tied the horses, reached up and pulled her down from the saddle and straight into his arms.

His kiss wasn't gentle. Maybe he had meant it to be but the minute their lips touched, something happened. Both of them just seemed to lose control. His tongue was in her mouth and she was sucking on it, hard. One big hand cupped the nape of her neck, dragging her closer, at the same time moving her backward, up against the trunk of a tree. He shoved up her T-shirt, slid his hands inside her bra to cup her breasts, molded them, rubbed her nipples.

He was big and hard against the front of his jeans, and she arched against him, heard him groan. Her body was on fire, her breasts aching, throbbing against his palms. She was wet, her thong panties rubbing places she had never noticed before, her nipples hard and erect.

"Dallas..."

He kissed the side of her neck, kissed her deeply again, yanked her tank top up over her head, unfastened her bra and filled his hands with her breasts. She was shaking all over and on fire, wanting him so much it was frightening.

"What...what about your knee?"

"It's fine."

That meant he had taken a pain pill and wrapped it really well, but she knew better than to argue. Dallas kissed her again and slid his tongue into her mouth. He kissed her one way and then another, kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. The snap popped open on her jeans. He slid his hands inside to cup her bottom, felt the naked curves, the thin silk thong between the globes, and groaned.