BELINDA PRESCOTT FELT GUILTY AS SIN. She should be in mourning. Her husband of eight years had been buried a mere four months ago. She should be home wearing black and recounting the memories of her too-brief marriage. Instead she was riding the fastest horse in the stables across Wayne’s Wyoming ranch, King’s Castle, enjoying the early spring sunshine and feeling finally, at long last, free. Because for six of the past eight years, The Castle had been a prison and Wayne her jailer.

      It hadn’t started out that way, of course. She had met Wayne when she was a waitress in a short-order diner in Casper that he frequented. She had worked the graveyard shift trying to make ends meet, and he had often come in for a midnight breakfast. They had started talking, and one thing had led to another.

      Wayne had found out that she was supporting three sisters. He was more than willing to accept a beautiful and youthful bride in exchange for a substantial trust fund for each of her siblings. She and Wayne had each known exactly what they were getting into. Twenty-year-old Belinda had willingly said her wedding vows with a man old enough to be her father. It was a small enough sacrifice to make so her sisters could have better lives.

      She had been too young and desperate at the time to realize the ramifications of selling herself—body and soul—for money. In the years since, she had regretted her devil’s bargain, but never so much as now, when she was finally free of Wayne and ready to go on with her life. Belinda had given up something besides her youth to marry Wayne—she had lost her innocence. She was no longer credulous, gullible or naive. She would never trust another man. The lessons Wayne had taught were hard, and he had been brutally thorough.

      She spurred the mare beneath her into a lope and lifted her face to the sun. She didn’t want to remember. But she couldn’t forget.

      Wayne had been such a gentle husband. At first. Then his heart had started causing him trouble. He had needed to take medication to keep him alive, and the medication had made him impotent. He had felt less a man and had sought other ways to relieve his frustration. He had begun to gamble. Then he drank to forget his huge gambling losses.

      Slowly but surely he had become less gentle and more unreasonable in his demands. His fortune had dwindled until all that was left was The Castle, the land and a few prime head of breeding stock. And a twenty-eight-year-old wife who had learned that sometimes the price of security comes too high.

      Belinda pulled the mare to an abrupt stop and wiped tears from eyes that were too blurred to see the grassy prairie around her. Her chest felt leaden—not because of sorrow, but because she felt none. God help her, she had felt only relief when the heart attack killed Wayne. It was difficult for her to look Wayne’s mother, Madelyn, in the eye. Because Madelyn truly grieved, and Belinda could not.

      At least she had been able to do one good thing. She had convinced Wayne to leave half of everything to his son. If it hadn’t been for Wayne’s mother, Belinda would have urged Wayne to leave his entire ranching empire to Faron Whitelaw. But Belinda had no money of her own. She hadn’t had any trust fund put in her own name when she had married Wayne. He had gambled nearly everything else away. She had to have some way to take care of Madelyn, who had become as precious to her as her own mother.

      Over the years, as Wayne had become more cruel, Madelyn had often stepped in to act as a buffer between her son and his wife. Madelyn had been appalled when she caught Wayne slapping Belinda. She had threatened to call the police if her son ever threatened Belinda with violence again. The two women had never spoken about Wayne, but they had shared other confidences, other hopes and dreams. Which was why Belinda had been determined to light a fire under her stepson that would goad him into moving north as soon as possible.

      Belinda wondered what Faron Whitelaw would do when he learned the other conditions of Wayne’s will. Her brow furrowed in concern. She had to hope that he would want his half of King’s Castle enough to do what had to be done. She was counting on it. She was willing to do her part. She only hoped he would be willing to hang around long enough after he showed up to do his.

      Otherwise they were both going to lose everything.

       CHAPTER TWO

      FARON SPOKE SOFTLY AS HE UNLOADED the quarter horse gelding from the trailer. He had pulled his pickup well off the highway near a pasture gate. “I know it’s been a long trip, Sonny. We’re both tired of traveling. Just take it easy, boy. According to that old man at the gas station in Casper we’re standing on Wayne Prescott’s land. Just be patient a few more minutes until I get you saddled up, and we’ll take ourselves a look-see.”

      The horse nickered as though he understood Faron and stood patiently while Faron brushed him down and saddled him up. It had been a long drive from northwest Texas to northeastern Wyoming. As Faron stepped into the saddle he thought of what the white-haired gent at the gas station had told him about his father’s land.

      “Mr. Prescott had him a kingdom, all right. Called his spread King’s Castle. Miles and miles of the prettiest grassland you ever did see,” the old man had said. “That big old house is set off in the middle of nowhere. Near three stories high, made of gray stone, with them little pointy things on the roof like some storybook castle. Even called it The Castle, Mr. Prescott did.”

      Now, as Faron surveyed his father’s domain, he was humbled by its vastness, awed by its richness. On this warm, surprisingly summerlike day in May, blue grama grass and wheatgrass flowed in waves over the rolling hills as far as the eye could see. This was cattle country, but there was a wealth of riches under the ground, as well. Oil. Natural gas. And coal.

      Faron gave the horse his head and let him run. He felt the power of the animal beneath him, taking him farther into an untamed wilderness. He urged the animal on, as though by running faster he could escape the oppressive feelings that had haunted him since he had learned the truth about his birth.

      It had taken him a week to put his things together after he had told Garth he was leaving. He had received yet another letter from Belinda Prescott asking him whether he was coming. She had sounded desperate. It made him wonder why she was so anxious for him to visit King’s Castle. He had unbent enough to tell her he was coming, but he hadn’t given her a definite date. His wire had simply said, “I’ll be there when I get there.”

      Faron rode some distance from the highway, until there was nothing to remind him of the civilized world he had left behind. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he spied a blond woman riding a palomino in the