CHAPTER ONE

      EBENEZER SCOTT STOOD beside his double-wheeled black pickup truck and stared openly at the young woman across the street while she fiddled under the hood of a dented, rusted hulk of a vehicle. Sally Johnson’s long blond hair was in a ponytail. She was wearing jeans and boots and no hat. He smiled to himself, remembering how many times in the old days he’d chided her about sunstroke. It had been six years since they’d even spoken. She’d been living in Houston until July, when she and her blind aunt and small cousin had moved back, into the decaying old Johnson homestead. He’d seen her several times since her return, but she’d made a point of not speaking to him. He couldn’t really blame her. He’d left her with some painful emotional scars.

      She was slender, but her trim figure still made his heartbeat jump. He knew how she looked under that loose blouse. His eyes narrowed with heat as he recalled the shocked pleasure in her pale gray eyes when he’d touched her, kissed her, in those forbidden places. He’d meant to frighten her so that she’d stop teasing him, but his impulsive attempt to discourage her had succeeded all too well. She’d run from him then, and she’d kept running. She was twenty-three now, a woman; probably an experienced woman. He mourned for what might have been if she’d been older and he hadn’t just come back from leading a company of men into the worst bloodbath of his career. A professional soldier of fortune was no match for a young and very innocent girl. But, then, she hadn’t known about his real life—the one behind the facade of cattle ranching. Not many people in this small town did.

      It was six years later. She was all grown-up, a schoolteacher here in Jacobsville, Texas. He was…retired, they called it. Actually he was still on the firing line from time to time, but mostly he taught other men in the specialized tactics of covert operations on his ranch. Not that he shared that information. He still had enemies from the old days, and one of them had just been sprung from prison on a technicality—a man out for revenge and with more than enough money to obtain it.

      Sally had been almost eighteen the spring day he’d sent her running from him. In a life liberally strewn with regrets, she was his biggest one. The whole situation had been impossible, of course. But he’d never meant to hurt her, and the thought of her sat heavily on his conscience.

      He wondered if she knew why he kept to himself and never got involved with the locals. His ranch was a model of