1

Jocelyn Montrose didn't mean to eavesdrop. But the arguments and shouting coming from the library at the Castle, the legendary ranch house at Bitter Creek, were hard to ignore. Her future husband, Clay Blackthorne, was being verbally attacked in that room.

Those assaulting him were his family—his twin brother Owen and sister-in-law Bay, his younger sister Summer and brother-in-law Billy Coburn, and his father Blackjack and stepmother Ren. Clay's brother Trace and his wife, Callie, were on the speakerphone from Australia, where Trace owned a cattle station.

Jocelyn pressed her cheek against the wall next to the slightly open door, peeked inside and listened.

"You see what a reliable advisor Morgan DeWitt turned out to be," Owen snarled, his hand on the SIG P226 he wore as a Texas Ranger. "That bastard was an out-and-out thief and murderer."

"Morgan's suggestion to incorporate the Bitter Creek Cattle Company and sell stock seemed sound to me," Clay replied. "The DeWitt ranch is incorporated, and they've never had a problem. I didn't know until a year ago that Morgan was anything less than the astute advisor he seemed to be."

"We incorporated Bitter Creek on your advice," Summer said angrily.

"A suggestion I made based on—"

"That sonofabitch's advice," Blackjack interrupted. "This is getting us nowhere. The question is, how do we stop that bastard—whoever he is—from buying up a controlling interest in the Bitter Creek Cattle Company?"

The silence was deafening.

"This is a disaster," Trace said from the speakerphone on Blackjack's desk.

"It's not my fault!" Summer shot back.

"I wasn't blaming you," Trace said.

Jocelyn saw Clay's jaw tighten. It was clear they blamed him. She wanted to walk into that room and put her arms around him and comfort him. But he'd forbidden her to attend the family meeting. She wasn't Clay's wife yet, as he'd made very clear to her earlier this morning.

They'd arrived at Bitter Creek last night to make final preparations for the wedding and had discovered that all hell had broken loose. Clay's rejection of her offer of support, her plea to be allowed to stand by his side, still stung.

"Anybody got a useful suggestion how to get us out of this fix?" Billy said, his dark-eyed gaze moving from grim face to grimmer face around the room.

Jocelyn felt her heart sink. No one seemed to have any idea how to stop the anonymous corporate raider who was threatening to steal the Blackthornes' heritage. In a hostile takeover, the existing management was usually terminated. Summer and Billy ran the ranch, but the Blackthornes had owned Bitter Creek, a property in South Texas the size of a small northeastern state, for nearly a hundred and fifty years. The new management would have the power to do whatever they wanted—even sell the ranch to strangers.

"Maybe this raider just wants greenmail," Trace suggested.

"What's that?" Bay asked from her seat in one of the two horn-and-hide chairs in front of Blackjack's desk.

"He makes a quick profit by threatening to take control and then selling the stock back at a premium—more than it's really worth," Clay explained to his sister-in-law as he poured himself another glass of Jack Daniels from the bar.

Jocelyn watched Blackjack, who sat in a swivel chair at his desk, down a glass of whiskey in two swallows.

Clay's stepmother laid a hand on Blackjack's shoulder and said, "It would be worth any price to save Bitter Creek, wouldn't it?"

Copyright © 2005 by Joan Mertens Johnston, Inc