Chapter 1

      “MAY I KISS YOU good night, Tate?”

      “Of course you can, Hank.”

      “Your brothers—”

      “Forget about them! I’m a grown woman. I certainly don’t need permission from Faron or Garth to give you a simple little good-night kiss.” Tate Whitelaw stepped closer to the tall cowboy and slipped her arms around his neck. The bright light over the front door didn’t quite reach to the corner of the railed porch where she was standing with Hank.

      Hank took advantage of Tate’s invitation, drawing her into his arms behind one of the massive fluted columns that graced the front of the house and aligning their bodies from breast to hip. She was uncomfortably aware of his arousal, since only two layers of denim—her jeans and his—separated their warm flesh. His mouth sought hers, and his tongue thrust inside. It was more than a simple good-night kiss, and Tate suddenly found herself wishing she hadn’t been quite so encouraging.

      “Hank—” she gasped, pulling her head back and trying to escape his ardor. “I don’t think—”

      Hank’s arms tightened around her, and Tate found herself in a wrestling match. She struggled to get the heels of her hands to his shoulders to push him away. He gripped her short black hair with one hand and angled her face for his kiss.

      “Hank! S-stop it!” she hissed.

      Caught up in his lust, Hank was oblivious to Tate’s urgently whispered entreaties. Tate had already decided it was time to take desperate action when the issue was taken out of her hands. Literally.

      Tate knew someone had arrived on the scene when Hank gave a grunt of surprise as he was jerked away from her. Her brother Faron had a handful of Hank’s Western shirt in his grasp and was holding the young man at arm’s length.

      “What the hell do you think you’re doing with my sister?” Faron demanded.

      Hank blinked owlishly. “Kissing her?”

      “Who the hell gave you permission to kiss her?”

      “I did!” Tate said through gritted teeth. Fisted hands on hips, chin up, she faced her brother defiantly. “Who gave you permission to interfere!”

      “When I see my kid sister getting mauled—”

      “I can take care of myself!”

      Faron arched a brow, and Tate knew it was because she hadn’t denied the fact she was being mauled. Hank had just been a little exuberant, that was all. She could have escaped her predicament without her brother’s interference.

      To Tate’s horror, Garth shoved open the front screen door and asked, “What in blue blazes is going on out here?”

      “I found this coyote forcing his attentions on Tate,” Faron said.

      Garth stepped onto the porch, and if the sheer size of him didn’t intimidate, the fierce scowl on his face surely would have. “That true?” Garth demanded of Hank.

      Hank gulped. “Perspiration dripped at his temple. The color left his face. “Well, sir…” He looked to Tate for rescue.

      Tate watched Garth’s lips flatten into a grim line as he exchanged a decisive look with Faron. Hank had been tried and convicted. All that was left was sentencing.

      “Get your butt out of here,” Garth said to Hank. “And don’t come back.”

      Faron gave Hank a pretty good shove in the right direction, and Garth’s boot finished the job. Hank stumbled down the porch steps to his pickup, dragged open the door, gunned the engine and departed in a swirl of gravel and choking dust.

      There was a moment of awful silence while the dust settled. Tate fought the tears that threatened. She would never let her brothers know how humiliated she felt! But there was nothing wrong with giving them the lash of her tongue. She turned and stared first into Garth’s stern, deep brown eyes, and then into Faron’s more concerned gray-green ones.

      “I hope you’re both happy!” she snapped. “That’s the fourth man in a month you’ve run off the ranch.”

      “Now, Tate,” Faron began. “Any man who won’t stand up to the two of us isn’t worth having for a beau.”

      “Don’t patronize me!” she raged. “I won’t be placated like a baby with a rattle. I’m not three. I’m not even thirteen. I’m twenty-three. I’m a woman, and I have a woman’s needs.”

      “You don’t need to be manhandled,” Garth said. “And I won’t stand by and let it happen.”

      “Me neither,” Faron said.

      Tate hung her head. When she raised it again,