“You went to Dolorosa?”

“I’ve just come from there. That’s where Cruz and I hooked up. What I wanted to tell you is that I’m sorry about the way things turned out. I never wanted to be a cotton farmer. I never wanted Three Oaks. I just wanted… Aw, hell.”

He stuck his thumbs in the front of his pants and said, “The bulk of the harvest is finished, so I’m going to take care of some Ranger business in San Antonio that needs tending.”

“Is it something to do with Alejandro and the Hawk?” Sloan watched as Cruz and Luke exchanged guilty glances. “It is, isn’t it?”

Sloan felt a frisson of excitement when Luke’s frown seemed to confirm her speculation. “Alejandro’s alive, isn’t he? And working with a spy called the Hawk?”

“Stay out of this, Sloan,” Luke said.

“Do not worry, amigo,” Cruz said. “I will keep her out of trouble.”

“The hell you will!” Sloan said.

“Listen, Sloan,” Luke cajoled. “Those bandido spies mean business. They-”

“Spies?”

All eyes turned to find Rip silhouetted in the doorway to his office. Luke groaned in disgust.

“What’s all this talk about bandido spies?” Rip demanded.

“It’s nothing,” Luke said.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, son. It’s something, all right, and I want to hear what!”

Luke had stiffened when Rip called him son, and Sloan was certain he wasn’t about to explain anything to Rip.

Luke proved her wrong when he said, “You know how it is. There’s plenty of intrigue where politics and money are concerned. The English aren’t too happy about Texas becoming the next state. Seems there’s a bunch of British investors who’ll lose money if Texas joins the Union, so there’s some manipulation going on to try and stall annexation. That’s all there is to it. Nothing the Rangers can’t handle.”

“So that’s why you had to leave Three Oaks?”

Luke pursed his lips. “Part of it.”

“And the rest of it?”

“I explained that once. I don’t see any need to go over it again.”

“I do.”

“I’ve done all the talking I plan to do.”

Sloan felt the animosity flash between the two men like heat lightning. She should have been glad to have them at odds, but it distressed her to see father and son bristling at one another like two wildcats. And she didn’t see any easy solutions to the problems that plagued them.

But Luke’s declaration had offered her the first hope she’d had since he had shown up at her father’s doorstep that she would regain possession of Three Oaks.

That possibility created its own set of problems. Suppose she did become heir to Three Oaks again. How was she going to manage the plantation until the six months she had promised Cruz were up?

She decided she could figure that out later. Right now, she needed to make sure that Rip understood she wanted Three Oaks no matter what.

“Why waste your time trying to convince Luke to take Three Oaks?” she said, breaking the silence that had descended. “If he doesn’t want the responsibility, I’ll take it.”

This time, all three men turned to stare at her. She found them in various states of discomfort. Luke was flushed with embarrassment; Rip’s face was a picture of frustration; and Cruz’s features were taut with fury.

“That is an offer you are not free to make,” Cruz said, his voice menacingly soft.

Rip’s brow furrowed as he looked from his stiff-backed daughter to the towering Spaniard. “Something else going on here I don’t know about?”

“Sloan is my wife.”

“That true, Sloan?” Rip asked, his bushy brows lowering even more.

Sloan swallowed the pool of saliva that had gathered in her mouth. “I might have promised-”

“You are mine!” Cruz said in a hard voice.

Sloan took two steps to put them toe to toe. “Like hell I am! I don’t-I won’t-belong to anyone. Least of all some arrogant-”

Cruz grabbed her shoulders and jerked her forward against his broad chest. He gathered a handful of her hair in his fist and tilted her face up to his. His lips claimed ownership as surely as if she had been branded. His mouth slanted across hers, his tongue thrusting beyond her lips and ravishing her mouth, seeking the honey she had guarded so closely, and compelling her to share it with him.

Sloan was lost. She wasn’t conscious of her hands tunneling into his silky hair to pull his head down and keep his mouth where it was. She wasn’t aware of her lithe body arching into his male hardness, of her hips seeking a haven between his outspread legs, or of her tongue dueling with his and demanding equal sway.

The sound of Rip clearing his throat brought Sloan abruptly back to her senses. She opened her eyes to find Cruz’s hooded gaze intent on her face. She was shocked to see her hands threaded through his hair, her body aligned with his. She stepped back with a kind of half sob, the back of her hand covering her mouth.

Sloan couldn’t speak. She simply stared at Cruz, unable to believe how easily he had made her forget who and where she was.

“That tells me all I need to know,” Rip said.

Sloan whirled on her father. “That tells you nothing!”

Rip chuckled. “Loving your husband is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“But I don’t love him.” Sloan stiffened as she felt Cruz step up behind her.

“Enough words have been spoken, Cebellina. They change nothing. You will come back to Dolorosa with me.”

“But-”

“You are my wife.”

He didn’t say any more, but then he didn’t need to. Sloan had never been so frustrated in her life. To protest further would be useless. How could she deny the way she had melted in his arms? But it wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love!

Sloan stalked away from Cruz to the desk from which she had run Three Oaks for the past nine months and ran her hands along its grainy surface. Nothing in her life was going the way she had thought it would.

After she had given her child to the Guerrero family, she had thought that would be the end of it, that she would be able to forget what had happened with Tonio and get on with her life. She had never expected a brother to show up on her doorstep. She had never expected Cruz to hold her to her promise. She had never expected to feel the things that Cruz made her feel.

Cruz might want her. He might desire her. But what kind of life would she have married to him? He had already forbidden her to leave Dolorosa once and come after her when she had disobeyed him. What would happen if she stayed with him? She had to make him understand before it was too late how important it was to her to make her own decisions.

“We must leave if we are to reach Dolorosa before nightfall,” Cruz said, interrupting her thoughts.

“I don’t want to go.”

“You can go on your own two feet or over my shoulder,” Cruz said. “But you are going.”

Sloan had always been a rational being. Faced with those two choices, she chose her own two feet. She was still in a daze as Rip escorted her, Luke, and Cruz to the front porch. She turned to her father, wondering what he would do now that he was left without either his eldest daughter or his bastard son to manage Three Oaks.

“Good-bye, Sloan,” Rip said.

Her father didn’t reach out to her. Sloan told herself it didn’t matter. She had never received the outward signs of affection from her father that Cruz now showered upon her.

She felt her throat constrict when Rip laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder-which Luke stepped away from-and said, “There’s work to be done, son.”

“I’m leaving, too,” Luke said.

“What’s that?”

“I said I’m leaving.”

“What’s this? Three Oaks needs you, son. With Sloan married and gone-”

“Three Oaks will manage fine without me,” Luke interrupted. “I’ve done what I came here to do. There’s no reason for me to come back here again.”

Rip leaned heavily on his cane, his face impassive as Luke stepped into the saddle.

Luke turned to Sloan and Cruz. “So long. I’ll visit when I can.”

“Adiós, amigo,” Cruz replied.

Cruz had kept his hand at Sloan’s back as he stepped off the porch, moving her toward their horses. They had mounted up before Rip spoke again.

“You’ll see this will all work out fine,” he said. “Luke will be back. He won’t give up everything I’ve offered him.”