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  Her antagonism forgotten, she watched enthralled as the sunlight turned the stallion's glossy coat to a fiery red when he reared up, lashing out with his hooves. It was a beautiful sight, and Sabrina sighed, "Oh, Senor Brett! He is so beautiful!"

  Dazed by the gift, Brett, too, for the moment, was able to put aside his grim resolve. Grinning down at her, he murmured mockingly, "Handsome, Sabrina, handsome. Males of the species are not beautiful."

  Sabrina grinned back at him, her spirits suddenly lifting skyward. Wrinkling her tipped-up little nose, she retorted firmly, "He is more than handsome. He is beautiful! Oh, see how the sun shines on his coat—he looks like a flame. A beautiful flame!" Earnestly she added, "That is what you should name him, Flame, for he is truly a horse of flame."

  "What do you intend to name him?" Sabrina's father, Alejandro, asked.

  Staring at the stallion, seeing the sleek, fiery coat and hearing Sabrina's words ringing in his ears, Brett said slowly, "Why not Flame? It certainly fits, and"—slanting a teasing glance down at Sabrina—"as Sabrina says, he is a beautiful flame."

  Her eyes huge, her own red-gold hair flame-colored in the sunlight, she demanded, "You will truly call him that? You will use the name I chose?"

  Unable to help himself, Brett flicked a caressing finger down her cheek. "Naturally. What gentleman could refuse such a lovely lady?"

  There was a murmur of laughter, and then, ever inclined to press her luck, Sabrina asked eagerly, "And you will let me ride him, si?"

  '"No!" came from the assembled adults, Brett's answer perhaps most fierce, a horrifying picture of what the untamed Flame could do to Sabrina's small body flashing through his mind.

  Surprised at the collective answer, Sabrina looked crushed, and Brett was moved to explain, "He is totally untrained, Sabrina, almost a wild horse. No one has ever ridden him, and even the grooms say he is difficult to handle. He is too powerful and dangerous for you to consider riding. I forbid it."

  All of her charity toward him vanished, and there was a mutinous cast to her chin when she glanced away from him. "I could, you know," she muttered stubbornly.

  Suddenly remembering that he wanted to keep her at a distance, Brett deliberately spoke coldly. "No, you couldn't. You're too young, just a child."

  Nothing he could have said could have wounded her more deeply. Throwing him a look of positive dislike, she tossed her red head and angrily flounced away. She would show him . . . and then maybe he would like her again?

  Sabrina's opportunity came sooner than expected, the very next morning in fact. Arising early, she discovered to her surprise that she was up before anyone else. After she had been put to bed the previous evening, there had been several toasts to Brett's good health, and with one thing and another, it had been extremely late when everyone had retired. Consequently, dressed and eager for the day, Sabrina found herself the only one of the family up. There were servants moving about, but they were busy with their tasks, and no one thought to demand that she stay indoors.

  Hopping down the curving staircase of the house, Sabrina glanced wistfully in the direction of the stables, the brown roof of one of the buildings barely discernible through the trees. She was drawn irresistibly by the lure of Brett's stallion and soon found herself leaning against the paddock fence watching with open pleasure as Flame haughtily trotted over in her direction.

  Cautiously they inspected one another, the big, untamed flame-red stallion and the little girl with the flame-colored hair. Eager to make friends, Sabrina hastily yanked up some clover growing near one of the posts of the paddock and lovingly held it out to the stallion. When Flame condescendingly nibbled the offering, Sabrina thought her heart would burst with excitement. Gingerly reaching up to touch his soft nose, she sighed blissfully when he blew softly and made no move to jerk away from her caress.

  Wanting something more worthy of him than clover, she dashed into the stables and quickly found the bin of oat and grain that were regularly fed to the Dangermond thoroughbreds. She dumped several handfuls into a nearby bucket and then offered them up to her new friend.

  She still hadn't really thought about riding the stallion, but as time passed and he seemed to accept her presence, she grew bolder and climbed to the top rail of the white paddock fence. Flame seemed unperturbed by this action, and Sabrina was delighted, even going so far as to gently pet his strong, straight back while he searched the ground for the last few kernels of corn that had fallen there.

  It was too tempting to resist. Flame was standing right next to the fence, barely a handspan away from where Sabrina sat on the top rail, and before she had time to think, she leaned over and slipped onto the stallion's back.

  Despite the late night, Brett had awakened not too long after Sabrina had skipped out of the house. And like Sabrina, he was drawn to the stables, wanting to reassure himself that Flame hadn't been only a wonderful dream. He arrived just in time to see Sabrina slide onto the stallion.

  Flame was startled by the unaccustomed weight on his back, and he arched his neck uneasily, snorting loudly and dancing nervously. Having practically been born astride a horse, at his first movements, Sabrina instinctively clamped her legs to his sides and tightened her hold on his mane.

  Brett froze. Aware of what could happen if the stallion decided to turn ugly, he forced himself to walk slowly toward the paddock, his heart beating with thick, painful strokes, his gaze locked on Sabrina's little figure. She looked so small, so defenseless, so incapable of controlling the stallion, that Brett felt a trickle of fright slide down his spine. Dear God, he pray fervently, dear God, don't let her be harmed.

  The stallion was growing agitated about the creature on his back, and restlessly he pawed the ground, tossing his head and making little, uneasy sidesteps. Unaware of Brett's cautious approach, Sabrina was filled with excitement and pleasure at her accomplishment and wished passionately that Senor Brett could see her now.

  Moving with agonizing slowness, Brett finally reached the fence. Not wishing to alarm the horse or the child, he said with far more calmness than he felt, "Good morning, Sabrina. I see you have managed to ride Flame after all."

  Her face filling with delight, Sabrina jerked in his direction and cried joyfully, "Oh, Senor Brett! I was hoping you could see me! I told you I could ride him!"

  But in that instant, Flame, with a whicker of anger, reared up suddenly on his hind legs. Caught off guard, Sabrina almost lost her hold, but instinctively she clung desperately to the rising stallion.

  At Flame's first move, Brett had leaped to the fence and was instantly poised on the top rail. Horse and rider were only inches from him, and as Flame's feet hit the ground and the stallion gave a powerful buck, Brett's muscled arm lunged across the space that divided them and roughly plucked Sabrina from Flame's back.

  Breathing heavily, beads of perspiration dotting his forehead, Sabrina clasped to his chest in a death hold, Brett slid thankfully onto the ground on the opposite side of the fence. Flame, relieved of his unwelcome burden, tossed his arrogant head and with a whistle of fury raced swiftly away.

  Sabrina was not at all pleased with her rescue. Twisting around to glare at Brett, she said angrily, "I could have stayed on—I have ridden many, many horses. I am not an infant!"

  Relief that she was safe had barely penetrated his brain when her words hit him, and instantly he was blindly, furiously angry. "Why, you little hell-born babe! I just saved your bloody life!" And then, as his anger fed on itself, the jade-green eyes nearly black with fury, he snarled, "And I forbade you to ride him! How dare you disobey me!"

  All her hurt and confusion of the past days rising up to sting her, Sabrina glowered back at him, screwing her features up into an awful face and sticking her tongue out at him.

  It was the final straw. Enraged as much because she could arouse emotions within him that he didn't understand as by her actions, Brett promptly turned her over his knee and gave her a hiding she was never to forget. His chest heaving, his mouth
thinned, moments later he stood her in front of him and snapped, "Let that be a lesson to you, brat—don't ever cross me again!"

  Furiously Sabrina blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. The full lower lip quivering pitifully, the amber-gold eyes a startling incandescent gold, she spat, "I hate you, Senor Brett! I hate you! I never want to see you again!"

  "Well, that suits me just fine!" he hurled back. Watching her stalk proudly away, he knew an urge to call her back, an urge to mend the breach between them, but fiercely he killed that urge. What a fool he was! It was a good thing that he had discovered her real nature before it was too late—an embryonic Jezebel, practicing her wiles already on the unwary male; headstrong, stubborn, and not to be trusted an inch!

  PART ONE

  BITTERSWEET AWAKENING

  Nacogdoches, Spanish Texas

  Summer, 1799

  For aught that I could ever read,

  Could ever hear by tale or history,

  The course of true love never did run

  smooth.

  William Shakespeare

  A Midsummer Night's Dream

  CHAPTER THREE

  August 1, 1799, Sabrina del Torres's seventeenth birthday, dawned bright and clear. It was one of those marvelous, lazy summer days that she so loved. Waking just as the sun was topping the tall, pungent pine trees that grew near the sprawling, gracious adobe house where she had lived all her life, she slid naked from her soft featherbed and ran gracefully to the double doors that opened to the rear of the room. Throwing them aside, she stepped out onto the small balcony that overlooked the back of the hacienda.

  She had no fear of being observed—her rooms were upstairs at the very end of a long wing that had been added onto the main dwelling when her father had married, and it assured privacy. All that met her wandering gaze was the endless lush green forest.

  Flinging her arms wide in pagan abandon, like a priestess of fire, she faced the glowing sun, her face and slender body bathed in its golden light. The sun lit the fire in the red-gold hair that tumbled to her waist, gilded the striking features that were upturned eagerly for its warm touch, and wandered like a lover's hand over the tall, slim body.

  The sunlight seemed to linger on the full, coral-tipped breasts, the flat, almost concave stomach, the fiery curls at the junction of her thighs, and the long, shapely legs as she stood there before it, her arms outstretched as if to embrace a lover. The sun transformed her into a slender flame, all crimson and gold; sighing with unashamed ecstasy she slowly pivoted, reveling in its warmth. Her arms slowly falling to her sides, a smile of pure happiness on her young face, she walked to the black iron railing that encircled the balcony.

  Leaning her elbows on the top of the railing, her chin cupped in her hands, contentedly she stared out at the expanse of forest that met her eyes, the scent of honeysuckle drifting to her. In the distance, she could just make out the glitter of blue from the small lake where she frequently swam on days like this one.

  But there would be no swimming today, she thought with a smile. Today was her birthday, and today there would be other delights in store for her. As her father's only child, and the heiress to a considerable fortune, her birthday was an important day in the lives of everyone connected with the Rancho del Torres. And not just the lives of those directly connected to the ranch—families with marriageable sons, neighbors and friends who had known her since birth would all be converging on the ranch to share in the joyous celebration of her seventeenth birthday. A fiesta had been planned for weeks, and for days the cooks in the kitchen had been baking and preparing foodstuffs. The grand salon had been thrown open and aired, scrubbed, and polished until every chandelier, every tile in the mosaic floor, every stick of furniture shone like a newly minted doubloon.

  As she thought of the grand salon, Sabrina's face suddenly clouded. Today would be the first time it had been used since before her mother's death nearly ten years ago.

  A shaft of remembered pain sliced through her like a knife as she thought of her mother's tragic death in Natchez in the summer of 1789. Such a sad and melancholy ending to what had been, for the most part, a wonderful trip to see Tia Sofia marry Hugh Dangermond.

  Her soft, voluptuous mouth thinned as she recalled unexpectedly and for the first time in years her painful, disillusioned parting from Brett Dangermond. What a beast he had been, she reminded herself fiercely. Sabrina, while generally a sweet, generous girl, never forgot an insult or an injustice, and to her way of thinking, Brett's treatment of her after the death of the quail had been both . . . especially the morning she had ridden the stallion. She had suffered dreadfully from his inexplicable rejection, but it had been nothing like the pain and suffering she had endured when, two days before they were to leave for home, for Nacogdoches, Elena had been killed when her horse bolted during a morning ride and she was hit in the head by the limb of a huge oak tree.

  Everyone had been stunned. No one could believe that dear, laughing Elena was dead. Sofia had seemed to age ten years, Alejandro had been like a man possessed, and Sabrina had looked like a small, pale ghost, blindly refusing Brett's or anyone's offer of comfort, unwilling to accept that her beloved mother would never smile at her again, never hold her again.

  They had buried Elena in the Dangermond plot in Natchez—it had been impossible to consider returning her body to Nacogdoches—and somehow that had hurt Sabrina even more deeply. Alejandro and Sabrina had not lingered in Natchez after the funeral. Natchez was now a place of unhappy memories for them both, and in the intervening years, while Alejandro had occasionally visited with the Dangermonds, Sabrina had never returned. Tia Sofia wrote regularly to her, and Sabrina eagerly replied, yet she wanted nothing to do with Natchez or its sad, painful memories.

  She and her father had grown extremely close after Elena's death. They were complete with each other, neither needing nor wanting the intrusion of another person in the warm circle of love they had created for themselves. Elena was never forgotten, and a stranger listening to them converse would have thought that Elena had merely gone on a journey just yesterday and would return at any moment. Her name cropped up often between the two of them, Sabrina sometimes coaxing her father to order a new pair of pantaloons or an embroidered waistcoat by saying softly, "Madre would not like to see you appearing so shabbily dressed. Padre—not when you are going to visit with the commandant in town!" And if Sabrina's way was a trifle devious, Alejandro was just as guilty of using Elena in bending Sabrina to his will. When all other arguments had failed to sway her from a course he disapproved of, he would arrange his handsome features into a mask of sorrow and murmur unscrupulously, '"'I do not think your madre would like you to do this, chico." And Sabrina would instantly fall in with his wishes.

  Despite Elena's untimely death, Sabrina's childhood was a happy one. She spent an inordinate time with her father as he went about the ranch supervising and doing the daily tasks. Her life was less restricted and confined than it would have been if her mother had lived, but her father's unorthodox regime and the maturity forced upon her by Elena's tragic death had not been harmful. Though she was petted and pampered, in some ways Alejandro treated her as though she were a son.

  And while there were some, notably Tia Francisca, Alejandro's eldest sister, who thought it outrageous that Sabrina could not sew a straight seam, had never fathomed the mysteries of the kitchen or instituted any of Francisca's multitude of orders for the running of a proper household, most found Alejandro's daughter a high-spirited, enchanting young creature. But if Sabrina might be found lacking in some of the necessary requirements for a young lady of her station, she most definitely made up for them with the uncommon and questionable skills she had learned from her father and the vaqueros on the ranch.

  She could ride like a Comanche, could shoot far better than most men, was unusually proficient with a knife, and could boast, if she wished, of a vocabulary that would make a drunken guttersnipe blush. Sabrina was unique; she was also, not su
rprisingly, the pride and darling of the Rancho del Torres, her warmhearted, unselfish nature making her all the more endearing. Which of course explained why her- birthday was such a special event in the Nacogdoches area.

  Conscious that soon Bonita, her maid, would be appearing with her breakfast tray, Sabrina ceased her profitless musing and went back into the room. She spared one last long look at the bright sky and murmured softly, "Wish me well, Madre ... I will think of you often today."

  Splashing some cold water into a china bowl, she swiftly completed her morning ablutions and then, picking up her silver-backed brush, quickly brought some semblance of order to her night-tousled curls. Crossing to her bed, she lifted up the white linen nightdress that had been laid out the previous evening and with a wry grimace, put it on. Too many mornings the sight of her naked body had unleashed a torrent of displeasure from Bonita—it was not proper, it was sinful to sleep naked. Bonita's plump face would set in determined lines. Every night with stiff, angry movements she would lay out a fresh, clean nightgown, and, of late, every morning Sabrina resignedly put it on—it was easier than offending Bonita.