He looked down at Will, a suspicious emotion knotting like a fist in his chest. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I guess that works both ways.”

He shook the memory off, disgusted with himself. God knew, he had more important things to do than reminisce about childhood. The day was sliding away and he had spent half of it beating his head against a brick wall. He shifted in his saddle now and urged his gelding into a canter, eating up the distance to the gate of the holding pasture.

Will rode out to meet him. If his color was better than it had been in the morning, it was impossible to tell for all the dirt on his face. Both he and the gray horse he straddled looked as if they had been ridden long and hard and were equally grateful to drop down into a walk.

“I just brought in the last of them,” he said as he turned his gelding around and fell in step with J.D.’s mount. “Tucker went up to the house to start supper. Chaske’s seeing to the horses. Anything more for today, boss?”

Will fielded the narrow look J.D. tossed him with a weary version of his infamous grin. He’d been in the saddle for the better part of ten hours, chasing animals that were too ornery and too stupid to live. He felt as if each and every one of them had trampled over his body on their way to the holding pen. He was beat and dirty. Razzing J.D. was going to be the only high point of his day.

On paper, they were equal partners in the ranch. In reality, J.D. was, always had been, and always would be boss of the Stars and Bars. Even when their father had been alive, Will had felt that the real power had lain in J.D., dormant, but strong, far stronger than Tom Rafferty had ever been. All their father’s energy had gone into the useless effort of trying to keep Sondra chained to a life she hated. The ranch, for all he had been bound to it by tradition, had never come first with him. But it was J.D.’s mistress, his first love, his only love outside the horses he nurtured and trained.

Will had never felt anything close to his brother’s love of the land. To him it was an anchor, something he had been shackled to by an accident of birth. He had never challenged J.D. for control, had always felt more like a cowboy than a rancher. He did his job and gladly left the worry and the responsibility to fall on J.D.’s shoulders.

That weight seemed to be sitting heavy on his brother now. There was a tightness around his mouth, a grim, angry cast to his eyes.

“You talk with Lyle?” Will asked.

“Yeah. For all the good it did. He said he’d hold off for a time, but his mind is made up. He’s selling. It’s just a matter of who. I told him I’d try to put something together.”

“You can’t outbid Bryce.”

“I shouldn’t have to.”

“You can’t expect Lyle to give you a bargain when Bryce is offering to make him rich. Loyalty goes only so far.”

“Is that so?” He shot a hard glance at his brother, then turned to survey his cattle, not wanting to think about how far Will’s loyalty would go.

They sat at the pasture gate, their horses content to stand side by side with their heads hanging, nipping at each other in idle play. In the pasture beyond, the cattle that had been herded in during the course of the long day were grazing quietly. Calves slept, curled into lumps on the ground near their mothers, or played in groups, chasing each other, bucking and running.

For a moment J.D. allowed himself to appreciate the quality of those animals. He had worked hard to establish a breeding program that would improve the size and grade of the Stars and Bars cattle. The cows were black angus, good mothers who were hardy and gave ample milk. Their calves, which ranged in color from near white to near black, were the result of crossbreeding with top-notch Charolais bulls, a cross that produced big, blocky animals that matured early and finished out well in the feedlots. But beyond their value, J.D. enjoyed just looking at them, knowing they had been bred here, knowing he was responsible for them, knowing that all the hard work had produced something good and worthwhile.

He thought of Lyle Watkins and wondered what he was thinking on this spring afternoon as he looked over his cattle. If he sold out-when he sold out-everything his family had worked for on the Flying K would simply cease to exist.

“It doesn’t mean that much to everybody, you know,” Will said, his voice low, as if he were blaspheming in church.

J.D.’s jaw tightened. He straightened in his saddle, the old leather creaking a protest. “It’s got to mean that much,” he said. “Or what the hell are we doing here?”

With nothing more than the pressure of his legs and a shift of his weight, he turned his horse around and rode away.

J.D. SAW the fire from a good distance up the hill. Swearing, he nudged Sarge into a gallop. Lucy MacAdam was proving to be as much of a nuisance in death as she had been in life. He cursed himself briefly for taking on the task of looking after her place, but if Miller Daggrepont hadn’t come to him, he would have gone to Bryce, and J.D. didn’t want Bryce getting any kind of a foot in the door. He intended to have first crack at buying the property. If that meant he had to put up with the headache of looking after the animals and calling the sheriff after vandals trashed the place, then that was a small enough price to pay.

The sight of orange flames through the curtain of the trees put everything else out of his mind. Panic sparked instantly. If a fire weren’t contained immediately, there was every chance that it would sweep across acres of forest and grassland, charring everything in its path. He braced himself back in the saddle as the big gelding skidded down the steep trail. Berry bushes and saplings slapped at him and snatched at his clothes. Then they broke onto clear, flat ground and the horse exploded beneath him, hurtling toward the MacAdam place with his ears pinned and his neck stretched, his powerful body rolling beneath J.D.

He lost sight of the flames as the ground dipped and the trail bent around a thick copse of tamarack. His brain raced, leaving the business of staying astride to reflexes developed almost from infancy. He had to formulate a strategy to fight the blaze, wondered how he would summon help, wondered if Bryce would still want the place if it burned to the ground.

Mari stood in the corral, watching the flames lick high into the air. She felt a certain solemnity for the ceremony and a tickle of giddy excitement that stemmed from exhaustion and cognac. She had used the liquor to help start the blaze, then stood back and took a swig in honor of Lucy’s last wishes. It went down like liquid gold, burned in her belly, and spread its own fire through her, numbing the raw feelings and lending a certain romantic glow to the proceedings. She tossed the bottle into the blaze and saluted, then jumped back with a shriek as the glass popped and the remaining alcohol went up in a hot burst.

Sheepishly she glanced at the Mr. Peanut tin, which stood on a gatepost and oversaw the bonfire from a safe distance, top hat tilted to a jaunty angle. Through the wavy haze of heat it appeared to be moving, wiggling like a hula dancer, dancing in celebration.

Lucy would have approved of the festivities wholeheartedly. In fact, Mari had planned on her friend standing beside her for the ceremonial burning of the business suits. The bonfire signaled her change of direction as she stood at this crossroads of her life. In one direction lay the life her family had herded her down, a straight and narrow path paved in concrete and stripped of scenery, a toll road that took something essential out of her at each gate. In the other direction lay the great unknown, all the mysteries of life, all the possibilities her soul had yearned for. It was bumpy and hilly and wound through uncharted territory that may be a little scary but promised never to be dull. On the road less traveled there were no expectations, no standards to fall short of, no boundaries, no burdens-except her own hesitancy.