The man swore he would be back to even the score, but Carlo only laughed, welcoming a rematch. The threat made Anna shiver, not from fear of the stranger, but from how far her brother might go if the man set foot on Montano land again.

On the few occasions she had been the target for Carlo's anger, her husband, Davis, had done nothing to interfere. He allowed Carlo to yell and swear at her in two languages with little more interest than a bystander watching a parent discipline a child. She had been so young when they married, she knew he and Carlo saw her as little more than a child and probably always would.

She wanted Davis to stand up to Carlo, to protect her, to take her side in the argument. But Carlo was Davis's friend and foreman. She was only his wife.

She stared out into the night. Her brother would laugh at her if she called and told him the storm frightened her. He probably would not venture the hundred yards from his place near the barn to check on her. Anna thought of Helena, but it was too late to call. She must face the storm alone.

Then, in the blackness between flashes, she saw it. One lone light to the north. It had been two weeks since the rancher had offered a hug any time she needed it.

It is ridiculous. Do not think about it, she fretted. Men do not offer hugs to women they do not know, not even in this strange country.

But the light shone steadily in the ever changing sky.

It is half a mile across the prairie littered with mesquite bees, she reasoned. Halfway between was one of those barbed wire fences she hated so much. They might be fine for hemming in cattle, but she had seen how it had cut a horse who had accidentally raced into it. Her father never allowed wire to border his fields. But Davis did. He told Carlo to keep the broodmares in the north pasture. They were not so rambunctious and, if the barbs cut one a little, it would not matter. Only the colts were important as far as looks were concerned.

Anna paced the shadowy room. Long ago she had begun to call it her cage and not her home. The heavy leather furnishings. The architectural blending of iron and beams criss-crossed over her head like bars to a cage. Even the paintings reflected Davis's taste, not hers. Only the classical music drifting around the leather and iron mirrored her taste.

In the days since the funeral, she had found it more and more difficult to remember any happy memories with Davis. She tried to think of the first time she had seen him at her father's ranch. He had stood almost a head taller than her brothers as he examined one of her father's finest horses. He was strong and silent, just like a hero in an old Western. She had mistaken coldness for shyness. Indifference for strength.

Thunder rattled the windows as a Texas wind blew across the land, bringing Anna back to the present. Walking to the glass, she pressed her hand against the window where the single light shone from the north. The glass was cold, but she imagined the warmth from the tiny light. Slowly she pulled away, hating her foolishness. She was not a desperate woman hungry for attention. Her life was adequate. She did not need another man to complicate it. Her husband had been dead less than a month. What kind of woman even thought about another man holding her after such a short time?

What had Zack Larson said in the elevator that day? No questions, no strings. Just a hug.

Thunder shook the walls again.

Grabbing her coat, Anna was out the back door before she had time to think anymore.

She took long strides across the muddy ground until she reached the barbed wire. Carefully she climbed over it at the post, but even her long legs could not quite make the swing. A wire caught on her pants just above her boot, ripping the material.

Angry now, and frightened, she stormed ahead, almost daring her neighbour to be a liar.

Reaching the edge of the porch light's circle, she saw him. He sat in a wooden swing on his wide porch watching the storm as if the show had been staged for him.

Anna quickly took a step backward. He would probable rebuff her for slapping him, or he might laugh at her. Or hr would think he could take liberties.

She retreated another step. She had been an idiot. Shy knew little about this Zack Larson. Davis said once that he had been a troublemaker in school, but Davis liked few people. And Larson was more than ten years past school.

Just as she turned to go, he stood. "Anna?"

Like an animal hearing the first crack of gunfire, she ran. Her long legs carried her across the blackness between the houses. Icy rain pelted her and the wind whipped around her like a huge belt.

Within minutes, she was home. Her entire body trembled with cold as tears chilled against her cheeks.

Unable to stop crying, Anna pulled off her clothes and crawled into bed. She shook with sobs and loneliness. For a moment, she had been a fool. She had forgotten she was Anna Montano, widow and owner of a huge ranch. She was no longer a dreamer. There were no arms for her to run to. There never had been.

In 1905 Frank Phillips drilled for oil on tribal land leased to him, with her grandparents' permission, by an eight-year-old Delaware girl.

On September 6, they hit a gusher and AAI roared, making Phillips and one little girl rich overnight.

Yet, Texas and Oklahoma ranchers still considered themselves ranchers and not oilmen, many times refusing to lease oil rights to their land at any price.

October 29

North of the Montano Ranch

On Larson land


Zack Larson wasted his time trying to sleep. By dawn he felt as though he had personally wrestled the storm and lost. About the time his coffee was ready, Bella had showed up in her broken-down Ford pickup.

"Morning, kid," Bella grunted as she dragged her aging Hoover through the side door of his kitchen. "You sleep last night with all that racket the Irish were making?"

Zack grinned and poured a cup of coffee into her old pink mug she kept on his windowsill. Bella had been his mother's housekeeper and friend since before he was born. He might be thirty-four, but she still called him kid. And she still defined thunder as the dearly departed Irish throwing potatoes in heaven.

When his mother died, Zack kept Bella on even though his place was hardly big enough to demand much care. Folks told him she once had a drinking problem and had no steady job, so he figured she needed the work.

Regular as clockwork, once a week, she cleaned. Of course, her eyesight was fading and her joints were stiff. Nothing got dusted above her head or below her knees. It didn't matter that he'd bought a new lightweight vacuum; she only trusted her Hoover. She cleaned the old-fashioned way with ammonia and water, vinegar for spots and bleach settling in the sinks long after she left. For days after the spring cleaning, Zack's eyes would water every time he entered the house. Luckily, she only felt the need to spring clean every third year or so.

He handed her the cup as she made herself comfortable at the tiny dining table crammed into a small kitchen. The yellow linoleum tabletop was covered with Zack's efforts at bookkeeping.

Bella showed no sign of being in a hurry. After all, she worked by the hour. Zack's house took her all day, no matter what she cleaned or how long they talked.

"Storm kept me up," he finally answered. "How's the road from town?"

"A little muddy, but not bad." Bella's chubby finger gripped the mug. "Why?"

"I thought I'd go in after a few supplies. You need any thing?"

She shook her head. Hair that had never known a style wiggled around her wrinkled face. "I learned a long time ago, kid, to bring what I need when I come all the way out here. No sense driving into town for something you should have remembered. When I was young, we only went to town once a month and that was plenty. Folks nowadays think the Farm-to-Market Road is the interstate."

"Now, don't give me a hard time-" Zack fought down a grin "-or I'll get married again on you."

Bella snorted. "Oh, please, not that."

Zack remembered the hell his wife had put Bella through. From the moment they married, Bella could do nothing right. The only time his wife stopped complaining about the housekeeper was when she started picking on him. It took Zack only a few months to discover he did everything wrong, then a few more months to decide not to change. By the time he got around to telling his wife the bad news, she was packing.

He smiled at Bella, the only woman he needed in his life. "You want me to bring back some of that Chinese food for lunch while I'm running my needless errands?"

Bella acted like she pondered the question. "It's hardly fit to eat." She scratched her chin. "'Course, I'll be mighty busy today. Don't know if I'll have time to stop and eat, much less cook anything."

Zack cut her brainstorming short before she did any damage. "Extra egg rolls and extra sauce, right?"

"You talked me into it. But I'll still make you a batch of brownies for dessert. Them Chinese places never have fit desserts."

He nodded as if they'd struck a bargain. "I'll be back in a few hours, and we'll eat. Then, if the ground's not too wet, I'll work on the fence that borders the Montano spread."

Bella sipped her coffee slowly. "Sad about the accident. That poor beautiful woman left all alone. She's not stuckup like some folks claim. I go over now and again to help her clean."

Standing slowly, Bella reached into the canister on the counter and pulled out two cookies from her stash. "Not that her place needs cleaning. You could eat pudding off the floor and not get a flea's-weight of dirt."