Jake cursed himself for having admitted what he had to Diamond. The last thing he wanted was for her to start getting ideas that he was interested in her. She was used to men falling at their feet over her, both on and off the screen, and he had no intention of being one of them. Women who thought too much of themselves irritated him to no end. Usually they were women who lived in a world where money, looks and social status mattered a lot more than a person’s character. Over the years, he had dated a number of those types. He’d even been married to one nearly twenty years ago.

      Jessie Wellington, of the Boston Wellingtons, had had this farfetched opinion of what a real man should be. Besides being good-looking, of course, he needed a wealthy family background, a big home and plenty of money. Although he hadn’t had any of those things at the time he’d met her, in him she had seen potential, and therefore she’d had no doubts about marrying him. After all, he had graduated at the top of his class from Harvard with a master’s degree in finance, and he was good friends with the newly elected senator from Texas, Nedwyn Lansing. And everyone knew Senator Lansing was going places.

      Jake shook his head. Jessie had gotten angry, frustrated and put-out with him because she could not bend him the way she wanted. She hadn’t appreciated a man who valued honesty and hard work. She had wanted a man who would spoil her and give in to her childish tantrums like her father had always done. It had taken a little less than a year for her to discover that he was not that man. Her leaving had hurt because he had truly loved her. But she had shown him that there was no such thing as true love.

      Looking back, he knew he and Jessie had been a bad match from the start. They had been as different as night and day, and she had thought she could mould him into something he was not. She had also thought that she could destroy his love for this land.

      He had been born on this land in a small house that still stood on the other side of the north pastures. The Madaris family had settled on the land six generations ago, back in the eighteen hundreds after acquiring a ten-thousand acre Mexican land grant. At a time when most newly freed Blacks were still waiting for their forty acres and a mule from the United States government, Carlos Antonio Madaris, half Mexican and half African-American, along with his wife, Christina Marie, were shaping their heritage on the land they used to raise cattle. A parcel of land they named Whispering Pines.

      Jake thought about his six brothers. All of them were alive and well except one. Robert had gotten killed in the Vietnam War. Jake was the youngest of the Madaris brothers. His mother had been in her late thirties when she gave birth to him and his father pretty close to fifty. All of his brothers, except for him and Robert, had chosen the profession of educator instead of rancher. There had never been any doubt in Jake’s mind that he would run Whispering Pines one day. It was as much a part of him now as it had been then. He had spent six long years away from the land he loved while attending Harvard. The day he returned, he had vowed never to leave it again. He had also vowed to build it into everything his ancestors would be proud of, and where future Madarises could take pride in their heritage. Believing that he would fulfill his dream, his brothers had signed their shares of the ranch over to him, keeping only an investment interest. That act of faith and show of confidence from his brothers had made him that much more determined to succeed.

      And he had.

      With the things he had learned from working closely by his father’s side while growing up, and by putting to use the vast education he had received from Harvard in the financial sector, the Whispering Pines ranch had tripled in size and now employed thirty men on a full-time basis. All of them had been hand-picked by him, and all of them were men he knew he could trust.

      “There you go again, staring into space. At least this time you have your eyes open.”

      Jake muttered something about not being able to go anywhere to find peace, before turning around to Blaylock. Blaylock Jennings, who was in his late sixties, had once been a rodeo star during a time when very few African-Americans competed on the national circuit. He had been doing pretty good for himself until a mean and nasty bull decided to plow into him one night. In the end, Blaylock’s battered body had been rushed to the emergency room with internal bleeding, a bruised kidney and a deep, long slash on the side of his face when the horn of the bull had tried ripping him apart. That slash was now a horrendous-looking scar that got a lot of attention when people saw him for the first time. Jake didn’t know of any one person who had a heart of gold like Blaylock nor a man who could be trusted more. His job around the ranch was to keep him and the ranch hands fed and to keep the ranch house clean. Blaylock did both effortlessly. His only fault, as far as Jake was concerned, was thinking that anything that went on around Whispering Pines was his business. He thought of Jake as a son, and Jake had to admit that he looked up to Blaylock as a father figure, as did most of the younger men who worked on the ranch.

      “Don’t you have the dinner dishes to wash or something?” Jake asked. His question was gruff but he knew the teasing in it came through.

      “They’re all done. You barely touched your meal tonight. You’re not coming down with something, are you, boy?”

      Jake wanted to laugh. He was a long way from being a boy. “No, I’m not coming down with anything.” He saw no need to tell Blaylock he had ruined his appetite for dinner when he’d eaten about two dozen cookies and drank nearly a gallon of milk earlier that afternoon.

      “So, Jake, how’s your little actress doing?”

      Jake frowned. “I guess she’s doing fine, and she’s not my little actress.”

      Blaylock shook his head. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. Anything that sets foot on Whispering Pines is yours, and that includes Miss Hollywood.”