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PROLOGUE

San Antonio, Texas October

EIGHT SECONDS.

Outside the world of rodeo, it was hardly any time at all.

Add two thousand pounds of ticked-off bull—aptly named Buzzsaw—to the equation, though, and eight seconds could seem a whole lot like forever.

Standing at the bar in a little backstreet, hole-in-the-wall dive a more prudent man would likely have steered clear of, Austin McKettrick reflected on the ride he’d made a few hours before and wondered why he didn’t feel more like celebrating.

For months now, ever since the first go-round with that particular bull, when he’d nearly been killed, Austin had thought about little else except riding Buzzsaw.

Now that he’d done it, and laid a demon or two to rest in the process, he was fresh out of worthy objectives.

A flicker in the mirror behind the bar drew Austin’s attention; he adjusted his hat and scanned the shadowy width of the glass with an imperceptible movement of his eyes.

Shit, he thought as he watched his brothers, Tate and Garrett, approach.

They were both cowboys, lean and tall, with broad shoulders and Clint Eastwood attitudes. Folks just naturally stepped out of their way.

Without turning around, Austin lifted his mug and took a long, slow sip of beer.

Tate, the eldest of the three, bellied up to the bar on Austin’s right, while Garrett took the left side, both of them crowding into his space. As if he might not have noticed them otherwise. He grinned to himself and adjusted his hat again.

Pinky, the bartender, a woman in her mid-seventies with her hair plaited into a long gray braid and skin that glowed with good health behind a veil of wrinkles, appeared right away.

“What’ll it be?” she asked, her gaze moving from Tate’s face to Garrett’s, but slipping right on past Austin’s as if he weren’t there.

Once married to one of the wranglers on the Silver Spur, Pinky was still a friend of the family. The wrangler, on the other hand, was long gone.

Tate, always a hand with the ladies, tugged at the brim of his hat, gentlemanlike, and favored the woman with that famous white-toothed smile of his. “Nothing for me, thanks,” he said, exaggerating the drawl. “How’ve you been, Pinky?”

“I’m holding up okay,” Pinky allowed. She smiled, nodded to Garrett. “I hear there’s going to be a double wedding out there on the Silver Spur come this New Year’s Eve. That true?”

“Sure is,” Garrett answered easily. “Your invitation will be along in the mail, Pinky.”

“So you’re both getting hitched?” Pinky said after clucking her tongue at the marvel of it all.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tate replied. “I’m marrying Libby Remington, and Garrett’s tying the knot with her sister, Julie.”

Pinky gave a long, low whistle of exclamation through her teeth. “Brothers marrying sisters. Don’t that beat all? Your kids will be double-cousins, won’t they?”

“Yep,” Garrett said.

At long last, Pinky fixed Austin with a look. “Tate’s taking a wife,” she said, cutting straight to the chase. “So is Garrett. What’s keeping you single, handsome?”

Tate and Garrett both leaned in a little, putting the squeeze on him.

Austin felt heat climb his neck, and he was glad for the dim, smoky light, because there were a few things he wanted to keep to himself.

Nobody needed to know he was embarrassed.

“I’m too young to get married,” he told Pinky, employing his most endearing grin.

“Nonsense,” Pinky blustered. “Marriage might settle you down a little. And you could do with some settling down, if you ask me.”

Austin refrained from pointing out that he hadn’t asked her.

It was right about then that he felt a strange squeezing sensation in his lower back, and his left leg went numb to the knee. He shifted his weight to the right, hoping to relieve some of the pressure, but it didn’t help much.

“Tate and I couldn’t agree more,” Garrett chatted on. “Austin definitely ought to settle down. Quit bumming around the rodeo circuit, start a family, do something constructive with his life.”

Privately, Austin scoffed at his brother’s remark. Garrett had a hell of a nerve making a speech like that. Up until a few months ago, when Julie Remington had roped him in and then hog-tied him for good, Brother Number Two had worked for a United States senator and had his pick of smart, beautiful, willing women.

Tate hadn’t exactly lived like a monk either, back in the wild days after he and Cheryl divorced and before he’d fallen back in love with Libby, his high school sweetheart and Julie’s older sister.

The way they talked now, a person could almost imagine that they’d been living saintly and celibate lives right along.

Austin took a long swig of his beer and waited for the feeling in his leg to come back.

“Do you know what he did tonight?” Tate asked, on a roll now, resting an elbow on the bar and leaning earnestly in Pinky’s direction.

“No tellin’,” Pinky said with a shake of her head. “Could have been just about anything.”

“He rode Buzzsaw,” Garrett informed the bartender, as though Austin weren’t standing right there between his brothers, both of them shoulder-mashing him. “Managed to draw the same bull that tore him apart last year. Took a whole team of surgeons to sew our baby brother back together, and what does he do?”

Pinky’s blue eyes grew round. She stared at Austin as though he were seven kinds of a fool and then some. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. “Always said you had more looks than good sense, and now here’s the proof.”

Austin didn’t have an answer handy, and he wouldn’t have gotten the chance to use one, anyhow. Suddenly, the floor pitched sideways, and he leaned against the bar, waiting for the room to right itself.

When it did, the motion was sudden, and Austin’s knees buckled.

He might have gone down if Tate and Garrett hadn’t gotten him by the elbows and held him upright.

“I swear that’s only his second beer,” Pinky said, sounding worried.

Garrett waved off her concern. “He’s all right, Pinky.”

“Can you walk?” Tate asked Austin, his voice quiet now and serious.

If fierce determination had been enough, Austin would have made it across that barroom floor and outside to his own truck, told his brothers to go to hell and driven himself back to the seedy motel room he’d rented a few days before. A hot shower and about twelve hours of sleep and he’d be fine.

Unfortunately, determination wasn’t enough, not that night anyway. Austin managed to stay on his feet, but only because Tate and Garrett were holding him up.

“Hell, yes, I can walk,” he lied.

“You damn idiot,” Tate muttered, as they crossed the parking lot, headed for his big extended-cab truck. With some help from Garrett, Tate muscled him into the backseat.

He’d have fought back for sure if his legs hadn’t turned to noodles. He felt light-headed, too, and slightly sick to his stomach.

“My truck,” he said. “I can’t just leave it here. This isn’t exactly the best neighborhood in San Antonio—”

Garrett cut him off. “We’ll get your truck later.”

“It’s a classic,” Austin said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Garrett replied, sounding grim. “Whatever.”

The world was on the tilt again, and a strange sense of urgency sent a rush of adrenaline through Austin’s system. “There’s a dog,” he added anxiously. “Back at the motel, I mean. I’ve been feeding him and—”

Tate got behind the wheel.

Garrett buckled himself in on the passenger side.

The numbness in Austin’s leg washed back up his spine and turned to pain. He swore. “I can’t just—leave—the dog—” he insisted.

“We’ll see to the dog, and the truck, too,” Garrett assured him quietly. “Let it go, Austin.”

Austin passed out, woke up again. He wondered if somebody had slipped him something back at the bar.

Over the course of the next few minutes, time seemed to lose all meaning. He was in the back of Tate’s truck, and then he wasn’t. He was sitting up, and then he was lying down flat. Lights spun around him, a strange mix of neon and moon glow and fluorescent bulbs glaring brightly enough to dazzle his eyes.

A pretty nurse in scrubs smiled down at him. Red curls poked out around her face.

Something leaped inside Austin. Paige Remington?

No, this couldn’t be Paige. His luck was neither that good nor that bad. Anyway, Paige had dark hair.

“What...” he began.

He realized he was on a gurney, his brothers at his side, being wheeled through a hospital corridor. It was a familiar scenario. Déjà vu all over again, he thought. Then he frowned. Wait a second. Sure, Buzzsaw had gotten the best of him that other time. He’d been airlifted to Houston, undergone a couple of different operations, fought his way back from the banks of the River Styx. But he had recovered.

That was then and this was now—tonight, he’d ridden that bull to the buzzer. He’d scored high enough to take first-place money, though it hadn’t really been about winning, not this time.

He’d walked out of the arena, gotten into his truck and driven to Pinky’s, thinking he ought to whoop it up a little.

After that, the details were a mite sketchy.

So what the hell was he doing in a hospital?

He would have asked why he was there, but for the pain. It swelled to a crescendo and then gulped him down whole, and there was nothing but darkness.

* * *

AUSTIN CAME TO lying in a bed with rails on either side, still dressed except for his boots. The curtains were drawn all around, shutting him in, and he couldn’t begin to guess what time of day—or night—it might be.

“If the pain is under control,” Austin heard a woman’s voice say, “I’ll release him. If not, he’ll have to stick around for more tests and some observation.”

“But you don’t think there’s any permanent damage?” Garrett asked quietly, sounding hopeful, bone-tired and completely exasperated all at once.

They were shadows against the curtain, the three of them. The lady—no doubt a doctor—and Tate and Garrett.

“That depends,” the woman answered, “on your definition of ‘permanent damage.’ Your brother has a herniated disc. With rest and reasonable caution, he could make a full recovery.”

“Austin wouldn’t know ‘reasonable caution’ if it bit him in the ass,” Tate said.

“What’s your definition of reasonable caution, Doc?” Garrett asked.

She sighed. She could have been fresh out of med school or as old as Pinky; Austin couldn’t tell by her voice or her shape. “Well,” she replied, “it certainly wouldn’t include riding bulls in rodeos.”

Austin closed his eyes.

He was a bull rider and not much else. Who the hell would he be if he quit the rodeo circuit?

“What about horses?” Tate asked. “He can still ride them, right?”

“If you’re talking about regular saddle horses,” the doc answered, “that would probably be fine, once he’s had some time to recover, and if he uses common sense.”

The sound Garrett made was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “That’ll be the day.”

Tate again. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”

Tate, being the eldest brother, the one who oversaw the day-to-day operation of the family ranch, took himself pretty seriously sometimes. More so since their folks were gone.

The doctor didn’t reply right away. That, Austin concluded, probably wasn’t a good sign.

“Doc?” Garrett prompted.

Another sigh. More hesitation.

Austin tried to sit up, but his back spasmed and he barely bit back a groan.

He must have made some kind of sound, though, because he’d drawn their attention. The curtain zipped open and the doctor appeared at his bedside, peering at him.

She was young and pretty. Some consolation, under the circumstances.

“Mr. McKettrick?” she said.

Austin nodded. “That would be me,” he told her.

“How are you feeling?”

If the pain is under control, I’ll release him. If not, he’ll have to stick around for more tests and some observation.

“Never better,” Austin said, scrounging up a grin.

She looked him over skeptically. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure.”

“You will need to see your own doctor within the next few days.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Austin agreed cheerfully. “I will surely do that.”

Tate and Garrett exchanged suspicious glances. They’d probably figured out that he’d say just about anything he had to say to get out of that place.

“I’m prescribing muscle relaxants,” the doctor rambled on. “But only for the short term. It is imperative, Mr. McKettrick, that you rest. I’m sure your personal physician will agree that, except for moderate exercise, definitely low-impact, you shouldn’t move around a lot for the next several weeks.”

“Whatever you say,” Austin told her, sweet as pecan pie.

Garrett rolled his eyes.

Tate folded his arms and frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe our brother ought to stay here after all,” he said. “For some of that...observation.”

Austin spoke up. “I need to get my gear from the motel room,” he said, suddenly scared that Tate might convince the doc to admit him after all. He’d spent enough time in hospitals to last him the rest of his life. “And the dog. He’ll be wondering where I went—”

“Will you forget that damn dog?” Garrett snapped.

“No,” Austin said, leveling a look at his brother. “I won’t forget the damn dog.”

Garrett subsided, coloring up a little.

The doctor gave a few more instructions, promised that a prescription would be waiting downstairs at the pharmacy by the time Austin had been wheeled down there in a chair and signed all the insurance forms. With that, she left.

A good half an hour had gone by before they finally turned him loose. He’d scrawled his name on various dotted lines and retrieved his cell phone and wallet, along with the key to Room 3, over at the Cozy Doze Motel.

After climbing into Tate’s truck—this time with no help from his brothers—he shook two pills out of the bottle into his palm and swallowed them dry.

Then he directed Tate to the motel where he’d left a change of clothes and the dog he’d found cowering in the alley the first night, slat-ribbed and down on his luck.

“Room 3,” he said as they pulled up to the crumbling adobe structure. “It’s around back.”

Garrett turned in the front passenger seat to look at him, both eyebrows raised. “You were staying here?” he asked.

Austin chuckled. “The Ritz was full,” he replied. Then he rolled down the back window and whistled, shrill, through his front teeth. He’d chosen the Cozy Doze because he’d wanted to keep a low profile until after he’d evened the score with Buzzsaw the night before at the rodeo. Folks in San Antonio knew him, especially around the fancier hotels, and he hadn’t wanted word of his presence to get back to his brothers before he’d had a chance to make his ride. But clearly Tate and Garrett had eventually tracked him down.

Much to his relief, the dog he’d named Shep wriggled out from behind a pile of old tires all but overgrown by weeds, wagging his tail and lolling his tongue.

Part German shepherd, part Lab and part a lot of other things, by the looks of him, Shep wasn’t a big dog, but he wasn’t a little one, either. He was about the same size as Harry the beagle, and his coat was probably brown, although it would be hard to tell until he’d had a bath.

Austin tossed his room key to Tate, while Garrett got out of the truck to call the dog.

Shep growled halfheartedly and laid his ears back. One of them was missing a chunk of hide.

“It’s all right, boy,” Austin told the frightened animal through the open window of Tate’s rig. “This is my brother Garrett. He used to be a politician, but you can trust him just the same.”

The dog gave a low whimper, but he wagged his tail and let his ears stand up.

Austin pushed the truck door open. If Garrett tried to touch the poor critter, he’d be bitten for sure.

“Come, Shep,” Austin said very quietly.

Shep sort of slouched around Garrett, then crept over to stand on his hind legs, both front paws resting on the running board of the truck.

“Let’s go on home,” Austin told him.

After considering the proposition, the dog high-jumped into the rig, scrambled across Austin’s boots and clawed his way up onto the seat next to him.

Tate appeared with Austin’s shaving kit and duffel, a five-pound sack of kibble under one arm.

“You square on your bill and everything?” he asked, flinging the works into the truck bed. He turned to take in the sorry place once more, no doubt registering the overflowing garbage bin and the broken asphalt in the parking lot, where weeds poked up through the cracks.

Tate shook his head.

“Yeah,” Austin told him. “I paid in advance.”

Tate nodded, crossed to the office to drop off the key.

“This is a real shit hole,” Garrett observed, settling into the front passenger seat again and wearing his hotshot aviator glasses.

Austin didn’t see any point in refuting the obvious. “Why did you and Tate track me down to Pinky’s last night?” he asked. Shep was lying down on the seat now, and Austin ran a light hand over the animal’s matted back, letting him know he’d be okay from then on.

“You’re our kid brother,” Garrett said, sounding tired. “When nobody sees you in a while, we come looking for you. It’s what we do.”

Tate was striding toward the truck now, resettling his hat as he moved. He opened the driver’s-side door, got in, started the engine. Although he wouldn’t have admitted as much, Austin was glad to be headed home, and glad to have his brothers’ company, even if they were a couple of royal pains in the ass.