Do You Take This Enemy?

“Mr. Brant, Get Off My Ranch.”

Ashley didn’t bother to hide the fury in her voice. “You can get right back in your truck and go.”

“Hear me out, and I think you’ll let me stay. Give me ten minutes.”

Her eyes narrowed. Gabe was facing a beautiful woman who was poised and determined. And she was going to be trouble.

“Ten minutes is all you have,” Ashley said. “You’ve already wasted the first minute. Now what do you want?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Gabe took a deep breath. “I’m building up our ranch, and I want more land and more cattle. I can get the cattle, but I can’t get land in this neck of the woods.”

“If you think we would ever sell you one inch of this land, you’re dead wrong.”

“I know you don’t want to sell. I didn’t come to buy.”

Gabe realized he could gaze into her blue eyes indefinitely.

“What do you want, Mr. Brant?”

“I came to offer you a marriage of convenience.”

Do You Take This Enemy?

Sara Orwig

MILLS & BOON

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With many thanks to my editors, Joan Marlow Golan and Stephanie Maurer

SARA ORWIG

lives with her husband and children in Oklahoma. She has a patient husband who will take her on research trips anywhere, from big cities to old forts. She is an avid collector of Western history books. With a master’s degree in English, Sara writes historical romance, mainstream fiction and contemporary romance. Books are beloved treasures that take Sara to magical worlds, and she loves both reading and writing them.

Contents

FOREWORD

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

FOREWORD

Stallion Pass, Texas—so named according to the ancient legend in which an Apache warrior fell in love with a U.S. Cavalry captain’s daughter. When the captain learned about their love, he intended to force her to wed a Cavalry officer. The warrior and the maiden planned to run away and marry. The night the warrior came to get her, the cavalry killed him. His ghost became a white stallion, forever searching for the woman he loved. Heartbroken, the maiden ran away to a convent, where on moonlit nights she could see the white stallion running wild, but she didn’t know it was the ghost of her warrior. The white stallion still roams the area and, according to legend, will bring love to the person who tames him. Not far from Stallion Pass, in Piedras and Lago counties, there is a wild white stallion, running across the land owned by three Texas bachelors, Gabriel Brant, Josh Kellogg and Wyatt Sawyer. Is the white stallion of legend about to bring love into their lives?

One

Gabriel Brant’s stomach knotted as he drove along the hard-packed dirt road. He was tempted to make a U-turn and head home, but then he rounded a bend in the road and saw a sprawling house, two long stables, a corral, a guest house, a bunkhouse and several outbuildings. As his knowledgeable eye ran over the structures, his qualms vanished.

To his right was a fenced pasture filled with fine-looking horses. A sleek bay and a graceful sorrel, their ears cocked forward, paused to look at his pickup. Land spread out in all directions and his pulse jumped as he imagined all that prime land belonging to him. Still, as he drove, he was aware how much his father would have hated what he was doing. Father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather. He wasn’t too happy about aspects of it himself. The Ryders and the Brants had been feuding since the first generations of each family had settled in Texas.

Gabe was convinced that his relatives would understand his actions once they knew what the Brants would gain. “Keep telling yourself that,” he added aloud.

The possibilities—vastly more land, more water resources and a mother for his son—reassured him that he was doing the right thing. He crossed a narrow wooden bridge, speeding over Cotton Creek. The Creek was the reason the Brants and the Ryders had originally settled in this area. It was also the source of the old feud—water rights and border disputes. Gabe glanced at the winding narrow ribbon of murky water that gave life to both ranches. Today it was only inches wide, but Gabe knew it could go from a trickle to a flood.

As he approached the house and stables, a woman stepped from the porch into the May sunlight and strode down the wide graveled drive toward him, her cascade of midnight hair startling him. He hadn’t seen Ashley Ryder since she was a kid. Back then she had been skinny, gangling and had worn braces. He’d occasionally heard news about her—going to the University of Southern California, working in the advertising business in Chicago. Then, three months ago, she had suddenly moved home, and rumors had started flying around town.

She waited, facing his pickup as he slowed. His gaze ran over her swiftly. Tall for a woman, Ashley Ryder was wearing cutoffs and a blue cotton T-shirt that she filled out nicely. He noticed the bulge of her stomach and saw for himself that the rumors were true. Since she had returned home, she had stayed in seclusion on the Ryder ranch.

Aware that he was not only breaking the tradition of generations of Brants, but that he had tricked her into this meeting, Gabe climbed out and closed the pickup door, going to meet her and offering his hand. “Ashley, I’m Gabe Brant.”

Ashley’s blue eyes blazed with fire. For an instant, Gabe forgot family histories, his grief over his losses, his mission, the rumors, the future, everything. The world vanished, and he was swallowed in blue. It shocked him to discover that Ashley was a beautiful woman. All he could remember was that skinny kid with pigtails, years younger, all awkward arms and legs.

“Mr. Brant, get off my ranch,” she said, not bothering to hide the fury in her voice. “I have an appointment with a lawyer, one Prentice Bolton. Did you put him up to calling me so you could get on our land?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“It’s a wonder lightning isn’t striking,” she snapped.

“Yeah, it’s a wonder it isn’t,” Gabe replied for a far different reason. He was doubly shocked at himself and his reactions because it was the first time since losing Ella three years ago that he could remember even noticing a female beyond the most cursory awareness.

“You can get right back in your truck and go.”

“Hear me out, and I think you’ll let me stay. Give me ten minutes.”

“No! I don’t want to spend ten seconds with a Brant! Get off our property!”

“Look. I have a deal I want to make, and it’ll benefit you as much as me. You can’t be so closed-minded and bullheaded that you won’t give me ten minutes,” he said patiently.

Her eyes narrowed as she considered what he said. Still in shock, Gabe waited. He hadn’t thought of her as a person, just a nebulous nonentity—the only image that had ever come to mind was that scrawny teen she used to be. He was facing a beautiful woman who was poised and determined. And she was going to be trouble.

“Ten minutes is all you have.” Ashley stood in the driveway with her arms crossed.

He looked past her across thick, green grass to a porch with clay pots of bright yellow bougainvillea and planters of ivy hanging from the rafters. Chairs, rockers, lounges and a swing stood along the shady, inviting porch. He took a deep breath. “We’re just going to stand here and talk and not sit on the porch?”

“That’s right. I don’t want a Brant on my porch now or anytime.”

“Where’s your dad?” Gabe inquired.

“You’re lucky he isn’t home or he would be out here with a shotgun. I would have been myself if I’d known it was you coming up our road.”

“Frankly, I’m glad he’s not here. I can’t imagine telling mine that I’m here—but I won’t have to. He died almost two years ago.”

“You’ve already wasted the first minute. What’s on your mind?”

She was prickly as cactus, Gabe reflected, but easy to look at. Her skin was flawless. Ashley Ryder was probably half a foot shorter than he was. That made her almost six feet tall. As his gaze ran over her, he speculated that she must be about five months along.

He leaned against the front of his pickup and crossed his long legs.

“Your ranch is nice. Looked like I passed some fine horses when I drove in.”

“The finest. We both know that,” she said, sounding calmer and slightly pleased by his compliment. “Now what do you want?”

“You believe in getting right to the point, don’t you?” Usually he got along with pretty women, although he knew why she was acting so prickly.

“I certainly do when I want to get rid of someone. I think this is the first time in my life I’ve ever talked to a Brant and I don’t particularly like it.”

“You don’t know me,” he reminded her.

“I don’t have to know you. You’re a Brant. That’s enough,” she retorted.

Her legs were bare, smooth and shapely and it was an effort to keep his eyes away from them. Of all females to notice, this one was not only a generations-old enemy, but pregnant.

“There are a lot of rumors going around town about why you’re back home on the ranch.”

“I’m sure there are,” she said, looking away, but not before he glimpsed a glacial chill in her blue eyes. “That’s no deep secret, though, because there’s no hiding the reason.” She met his gaze with a lift of her chin. “I’m pregnant, single and I came home to take care of my dad and have my baby.”

“That’s what I’ve heard. I also heard you were very successful in Chicago, and you left a thriving advertising business behind.”

She nodded. “That’s right, but life changes. My values changed. Now the advertising world doesn’t seem as important as family. Do you ever get to the point, Mr. Brant?”

“I’m getting to it,” Gabe said, trying to keep the purpose of his visit firmly in mind, because Ashley was becoming more interesting than his proposition. Crossing his arms over his chest, he took a deep breath. “I’m building up our ranch and I want more land and more cattle. I can get the cattle, but I can’t get land in this neck of the woods.”

Her brows arched. “If you think we would ever sell you one inch of this land, you’re dead wrong. Never! Now—”

“I know you don’t want to sell. I didn’t come to buy.”

Her eyes narrowed. He realized he could gaze into her blue eyes indefinitely. Why did the woman have to be so damned pretty? He hadn’t considered that possibility.

“What do you want Mr. Brant?” she asked.

“First thing I want is for you to call me Gabe,” he said.

“Your time is running out.”

“All right. I’ve heard your father’s health isn’t as good as it used to be. And I’ve heard that before you came home from Chicago, your ranch had slipped into debt.”

“Maybe it has, but none of that has anything to do with you.”

“Maybe it does. You need help and your dad needs help. You can’t afford to go out and hire the help.”

“We’ll manage,” she said with a frosty tone and a lift of her chin that he had to admire. “That’s strictly a family problem.”

“I came to offer you a marriage of convenience. It would join our ranches and benefit both of us.”

“Marriage!” Her jaw dropped and her brows arched. She placed her hands on her hips and then to Gabe’s surprise she threw back her head and laughed. It was a peal of merry laughter that held no rancor and piqued his interest even more. She shook her head. “You’re loco! Get in your truck and go home, Mr. Brant. Thanks, but no thanks.”

She had been gorgeous with sparks in her eyes. Now, with laughter, she was irresistible. “Forget it,” she said, turning to walk away.

“Just listen to me,” he ordered, catching her lightly by the arm to turn her around. The moment he touched her an electric current rippled through him. “You’re being stubborn.”

“Stubborn!” she said, spinning around to glare at him, yet her tone of voice softened.

“Yeah. I feel like I’m talking to my grandma when she’s in one of her moods. You may be cutting yourself, your baby and your dad out of a deal here. Just listen a moment,” he commanded, assured that he had a viable proposition for her.

Ashley was breathing as hard as if she had run a race, but she was silent. He was as aware of his hand on her arm as if he had touched a burning brand, and he stood close enough to catch a tempting, flowery scent. As their gazes locked, he could feel the sparks snapping between them and suddenly, he wondered if her ragged breathing was for a reason other than anger. Was the lady responding to him when he looked into her eyes? Fascinated by what was happening between them, he let the silence lengthen.

He had come over here to give her a good business offer, but his interest had shifted from her ranch to her. How long had it been since a woman had made him feel anything? Since the loss of Ella, and then both of his parents, he had been buried in grief. Yet here was this wild, volatile chemistry that had broken through grief—a chemistry that had ignited the moment he looked into Ashley’s eyes. He suspected she was feeling it, too.

“Listen to me,” he repeated in a husky voice, and she merely nodded. “I can rebuild this ranch. It’ll help your dad, yet he’ll still be a big part of it because he knows horses and I don’t. My money will be backing you and with both ranches joined, we’ll have one of the most successful spreads in the Southwest.”

“Mr. Brant, you’re plenty good-looking. Find yourself another woman. I’m sure you can,” she said, yanking her arm out of his grasp.

“It isn’t your body I want.”

“You’re not getting your hands on this land.”

“Just remember, mine would be yours, too. I want to join them. Running something this large has to be hard on your dad and on you as well.”

As she looked away, a flush brought pink to her cheeks. When he saw her fists were clenched, he realized that he had struck a nerve.

“Look, we can help each other,” he insisted. “You have room for me to run cattle.”

“I’ve always heard that you’re driven with ambition,” she said, looking him in the eye again.

“Damn straight, I’m ambitious.”

She tapped her toe on the ground and crossed her arms in front of herself, shaking her finger in the direction of his truck. “Get in your pickup and get off our land. Your ten minutes are up. I’m not marrying a Brant. No way in hell. And you’re not getting your hands on our ranch.”

They stared at each other, and he knew he was running out of time.

“I can end all of the Triple R’s debt and with no demands on you—” he began.

She tossed her head and a curtain of silky black hair swung across her shoulders. “Get off our land. You’re trespassing.”

“I’ll go, but you think about it. For both of us, it would be a means to an end.”

He moved toward the door of his pickup. “You could protect yourself with a prenuptial agreement. You have lawyers.” He opened the door of his pickup and paused, his gaze raking over her again.

“How far along are you? Five months?”

“Seven months.”

“Seven! Then, Ashley, you better think about my offer,” he said, liking the way it felt to call her by her first name. “You don’t have much time left to make choices. You’ll be so busy when your baby comes, you won’t have time for this ranch. A paper marriage would take a huge burden from your father. Life and family are more important than land or money,” he added harshly. “I can promise you that.”

While her eyes narrowed, he climbed into his pickup and started the motor, backing and turning, driving slowly so he wouldn’t stir a cloud of dust in her face. He looked into his rearview mirror. Ashley Ryder stood with her hands on her hips, still watching him. Even pregnant, she was one good-looking woman.

Mule-stubborn, she was trouble, yet she still had him attracted. She was gutsy, quick-witted and he suspected she was tough, willing to give up her plans and successful career in advertising to come home to help her father—all admirable enough qualities to offset stubbornness.

The Ryders were trouble, but they’d never been dumb. They were smart people, and he knew she had heard what he’d said, and she would think about it. For a first visit, it could have gone much worse.

If they joined their ranches, he could buy more cattle and expand. He knew for a fact that the Ryders’ horses weren’t taking up all the land they owned. Their ranch was as big as his, and it had been talk around the county for some time now about how Quinn Ryder had cut back and was in poor health, and the ranch was failing. The old man needed help desperately, yet couldn’t afford to hire it, and Ashley was going to be too busy to take charge completely. Quinn Ryder’s brothers had their own problems that kept them from stepping in. Ashley was seven months along. That didn’t leave a lot of time if they wanted to be married before the baby was born.

Gabe was lost in thought about Ashley and the future until he rounded a bend on his Circle B ranch and saw the two ranch houses ahead. The main road led to the old family home, a sprawling house that had been added to through generations. A branch of the road led to the house he had built for Ella.

Grief swamped him, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter, his throat closing up. He and his son Julian now lived in the family house. Memories tore him up in his home, so he had moved, but it made little difference because the memories still hurt. First he’d lost Ella, then two years ago, both his parents. Too many losses too close together.

He took a deep breath and tried to think about the Ryders and what he had just done in proposing to Ashley.

He had calculated how much land he would gain down to the last acre and he had flown his own plane over the Triple R, studying it carefully. It was the only way he could expand. Each of his neighbors was a descendant of settlers who had acquired the land at statehood or earlier, and no one around here was willing to sell. As far as he could see, Ashley was his best hope. She and her dad needed what he was offering. Gabe hoped she was mulling over his offer right now.

Ashley stood watching the dust hang in the road behind Gabriel Brant’s red pickup. She shook with anger. There would be a next time. The Brants didn’t give up on anything they set their mind to. The two families were still fighting over Cotton Creek, only now the battles were in lawyers’ offices instead of with fists.

Marry him! Paper marriage, sham marriage, it wouldn’t matter. Anything that tied a Ryder to a Brant was impossible. For four generations—five counting hers and Gabe’s—the Ryders and the Brants had fought over water rights. They had fought over damming up Cotton Creek, over the boundaries of their two ranches where Cotton Creek angled between the two and was the boundary line—a boundary line that kept shifting as the creek had shifted and changed. Now this miserable Brant wanted to break all traditions.

She thought of the generations of hate, years of silence. Even in her childhood, she could remember her father’s rage at finding dead horses and overhearing him talk to Gus, their foreman, about killing cattle. When old Thomas, Gabriel Brant’s father, had run for the Texas senate, her dad had done everything he could to defeat him, including making very generous donations to Thomas’s opponent. Yet, in spite of her father’s efforts, Thomas Brant had won, giving the Brants even more power.

Ashley had always heard that Thomas Brant was ruthlessly ambitious. The son obviously took after his father.

She was furious that Gabriel Brant had tricked her into meeting with him and angry with herself because the moment she had laid eyes on him her pulse had jumped wildly. When she was younger, she had always thought he was the most handsome boy in Piedras and Lago counties—a deep secret she had never admitted to anyone except Becky Conners, her best friend growing up. Ashley shook her head. She didn’t want to discover that Gabriel Brant had turned into a sexy, handsome hunk who could make her short of breath. She should have outgrown all that when she got braces off her teeth and went away to college.

But in all of Chicago, she had never met a man who made her breathing alter and her pulse jump like that. Not even Lars Moffet, and she had been ready to marry him. She was still seeing Gabriel Brant—tall, long-legged, dressed in a tight-fitting T-shirt that revealed abundant muscles. His dark-brown, thickly lashed bedroom eyes were sinful. His ruggedly handsome features were devilish. And his ambition was pure Brant.

Frustrated, Ashley picked up a pebble and threw it down the road as hard as she could, wishing it was a big rock and she could lob it through the back window of Gabriel Brant’s pickup.

She turned to walk to the house, but she knew she had to get control over her emotions before she returned indoors. Mrs. Farrin, their cook, had been with them since Ashley was three years old. She wasn’t ready to discuss Gabe’s proposition with Mrs. Farrin.

Gabriel Brant had called her stubborn. “You’re a greedy snake, Gabriel Brant!”

What angered and hurt the most, though, was the truth in what he said. Her dad had had a heart attack. He took medication for his blood pressure. They had had a run of sick horses and she knew that her dad wasn’t able to handle the ranch the way he used to. She had come home to help, but she couldn’t do all that needed to be done. She wasn’t a horse trainer, either. She was spending sleepless nights trying to figure out what to do because every month they were running deeper into debt and every month her father was working too hard.

Constantly she ran through possibilities, but never came up with a good solution. She had two uncles who ranched, but Uncle Dusty’s health was worse than her father’s and he had his hands full trying to keep his ranch going. Her other ranching uncle, Colin, had had a run of bad luck: his barn and house had burnt and he’d carried no insurance. Cal, the youngest brother, a dentist in San Antonio, had helped all of his older brothers, but there was just so much he could do and it wasn’t enough when there were three who needed help.

She inhaled and rubbed her hand across her brow. Gabe Brant’s words hurt because she knew they were true.

Life and family were more important than land. Her father’s life meant more than the ranch. She kicked a clod of dirt, hating that she had to give Gabe’s words some serious thought.

She shook her head. It was simply a ploy by a Brant to get the Ryder ranch. Forget it and forget Gabe Brant. But she had never been able to do that in her life. She thought she had, giving him little thought when she’d lived in Chicago. Yet the moment he had stepped out of his pickup, her pulse had jumped. And when he had touched her, every nerve had quivered. She could still hear exactly how his voice had sounded when he had spoken her name.