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      It was a blistering hot day in south Texas, even for early September. Christabel Gaines was wearing a low-cut white top with faded blue jeans, a book bag slung casually over one shoulder. The top outlined her small, firm breasts and the jeans clung lovingly to every softly rounded line of her young body. The faint breeze caught her long blond hair in her pretty bow-shaped mouth, against her wide forehead and high cheekbones. She moved the strands away, her big, warm brown eyes amused at something one of the students with her was saying about a classmate. It was a long, dull Monday morning.

      Debbie, a girl in her computer class, was suddenly staring past Christabel toward the parking lot. She whistled softly. “Well! I know what I want for Christmas,” she said in a loud whisper.

      Teresa, another classmate, was also staring. “Hubba, hubba,” she said with a wicked grin, wiggling her eyebrows. “Anybody know who he is?”

      Curious, Christabel turned around to see a tall, darkly handsome man walk gracefully across the lawn toward them. He was wearing a cream-colored Stetson, jerked down over his eyes. His neat long-sleeved white cotton shirt was fastened with a turquoise bola tie. His long, powerful legs were encased in gray slacks, his feet in gray hand-tooled boots. On his shirt pocket, a silver star in a circle glittered in the sunlight. Across his lean hips, a brown leather holster and gunbelt were fastened. In the gunbelt was a .45 caliber Ruger Vaquero pistol. He usually carried an automatic pistol, a .45 Colt ACP, but it was having a new custom handle and the Texas Ranger star added. Today also happened to be match day at the Jacobsville Gun Club’s Single Action Shooting Society, which he belonged to. The quick-draw-and-shoot group wore Western garb to meets. So it was convenient for him to wear the wheel gun to work just this once.

      “What have you girls done?” one of the boys asked with mock surprise. “The Texas Rangers are after somebody!”

      Christabel didn’t say a word. She just stared with the others, but her dark eyes twinkled as she watched him stride toward her with that single-minded determination that made him so good at his job. He was the sexiest, most wonderful man in the world. She owed him everything she had, everything she was. Sometimes she wished with all her heart that she’d been born beautiful, and maybe then he’d notice her the way she wanted him to. She smiled secretly, wondering what the other girls would say if they knew her true relationship with that dynamo Texas Ranger.

      Judd Dunn was thirty-four. He’d spent most of his life in law enforcement, and he was good at it. He’d been with Company D of the Texas Rangers for five years. He’d been up for promotion to lieutenant, but he’d turned it down because that was more of an administrative job and he liked field work better. He kept that long, lean body fit by working on the ranch, ownership of which he shared with Christabel.

      He’d been made responsible for Christabel when she was only sixteen. The D bar G Ranch had been run-down, flat-busted, and ready to crash and burn. Judd had pulled it out of the red and made it show a profit. Over the years, he’d put his own money into enlarging the crossbreed beef cattle herd they oversaw. With his canny business sense, and Christabel’s knowledge of computers, they’d been just beginning to show a small profit. It had allowed Christabel to work on her diploma in computer programming, and Judd even had an occasional spending spree. His last, a year ago, involved that cream-colored Stetson slanted over his dark brow. It was made of compressed beaver fur and it had cost him a paycheck. It did suit him, she had to admit. He looked rakishly handsome. Sadly, there hadn’t been any spending sprees this year. There had been a drought and cattle prices had dropped. Times were hard again, just when they’d been looking up.

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