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Vanessa and Clayton gone. After eating his usual hearty breakfast, he'd tromped over to the barn where Miles had been hanging out.
    "You know where they went off to?"
    "No sir, I sure don't."
    With dismay, Price had believed him. After deciding to wait a few days to see if they'd return, an evil gleam flew into his gaze. "She'll have to get off her high horse now, don't you think?"
    Before Miles could answer, Price continued. "When Vanessa returns, she'll be no better than the women at Camp Hope. She's used goods now, boy. You mark my words."
    Miles had been afraid to say a word.
    When he was alone again, a few of the cowhands appeared.
    "Where's Clayton?" one asked. Miles had never learned everyone's names.
    "Gone."
    "You in charge now?"
    Miles puffed up a bit. It was about time he got the respect he deserved. "Maybe."
    But only snickers greeted his reply. Slim George took charge instead. "Looks like it'll be up to me to hold things down for a while." In quick-fire manner, he assigned chores, directing hands to various pastures and jobs.
    Within minutes, they had abandoned Miles. And that was how he had ended up in Clayton's rooms.
    After tentatively testing out Clayton's mattress, he sat on the edge and dared to let himself remember the night his sister had been attacked.
    Price had been drinking all evening—slurring his words at dinner. Miles's mother hadn't said a word, just looked eager to escape to the kitchen. Vanessa merely ran up to her room.
    "Boy, you old enough for a shot of whiskey?"
    Miles had taken a glass and swung back the amber liquid.The whiskey had burned and scalded the back of his throat, but it had given him hope as well. Perhaps this was the way to gain acceptance.
    It hadn't been.
    Miles couldn't recall what he'd done wrong, but it had earned him a fierce slap and shove. Hours later, he heard Vanessa being dealt far worse.
    Her room butted up to his. He heard her cries through the thin walls.
    Standing in the hallway hadn't helped. Neither had the knowledge that though he'd worried for her, he had been too weak to help. Too weak to do much except be glad it wasn't him.
    Miles had accepted Clayton's anger—a part of him knew he deserved it. But just as big a part of him desired something even more than the will to do the right thing. He wanted acceptance and respect.
    He wanted what Clayton had gotten so easily. What other men gave him without so much as a raised voice or a cross word.
    Even Price had never dared to cross their formidable foreman's directives.
    Why was that?
    But as he scanned the room, Miles saw nothing there to give him a hint of how to become the man Clayton was. All that was there was old furniture, mismatched plates, a quilt constructed of old clothes, and a cross whittled out of birch.
    No, there was nothing of worth there at all.
    The lack of clues gave him pause.

    Vanessa was fairly sure her body remained the same under her skirts, but she wouldn't have been surprised to find certain vital parts missing. Sometime during the last twenty-four hours, her backside had become numb.
    They'd ridden hard over the last two days. Clayton had been anxious to make it to Lubbock, then just beyond it. He had a friend who owned some property on the outskirts, and wanted to spend the night there so they could relax in relative privacy.
    Even though they'd been on the trail for three days, in some ways it felt like forever. Everything in her life had changed, and because the outward changes were so drastic, she'd been holding onto what was inside of her like it was in danger of lifting up and taking flight.
    Her sense of self was as hard to keep hold of as her seat on Coco. Everything between her and Clay was now drastically different, their roles in each other's lives gone as topsy-turvy as the flight of a chicken hawk on patrol.
    No longer was she the ranch owner's daughter, he the trusted employee. Now, he was in charge. He guided her and provided for her. She was in his hands because he