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you. These people will go back to Brazil and everything will be back to normal.” They had to go back to Brazil and Rafael had to go back with them. Soon. Immediately.
    “Yeah,” Paul added, digging at his sister’s ribs, “the normal thing, hard work, more hard work, working from early morning until late at night. Getting up in the middle of the night and working more.”
    “Don’t we all wish you did that,” Colby teased. “Seriously, you two, forget this problem with the De La Cruz brothers. They don’t like me any more than I like them. Those men are positively archaic. I can see them as some kind of dungeon masters in the fourteenth century, where women were owned by their fathers and husbands.”
    “Really?” Ginny looked dreamy for a minute. “I picture them as kings in a castle, great lords or something like that. They’re good-looking.”

    Colby wrinkled her nose. “Do you think? I hadn’t noticed.” She managed to keep a straight face for all of three seconds before she dissolved into gales of laughter along with her younger sister while Paul looked on in complete exasperated disgust.

2
    G inny knocked on Colby’s bedroom door a few minutes after she heard the shower shut off. Colby had put in so much time with the cattle and out in the garden and the hay field that Ginny was afraid she might have forgotten the appointment with Joclyn Everett.
    Colby was towel-drying her long hair and smiled at Ginny as she peeked through the door. “Got everything set up for barrel racing?”
    Eagerly Ginny bounded into the small bedroom, seating herself on the bed. “Did you send in my entry fee for the Red-bluff Rodeo?” she asked hopefully.
    “I told you when you were twelve you could travel a bit. The local rodeo’s enough until then.”
    “There’s an eleven-year-old girl barrel racing already,” Ginny protested. “She’s making enough money for her college education.” Shrewdly she pulled out a magazine and read quickly from the article, determined to prove her point.
    “Shelve it, chickadee, I’m tired and in a hurry. As it is I’m going to be very late meeting with Mrs. Everett. What do you think? Should we take on the daughter?”
    “I wouldn’t mind if she was nice,” Ginny admitted. “Itwould be cool to have a friend. Maybe sometimes I could go to her house. Paul told me Mr. Everett is really just a business associate of the De La Cruz family; they aren’t like really close friends or anything. Maybe if I was friends with Mr. Everett’s daughter and Mr. De La Cruz wants to do business with him, he’ll start being nicer to you.”
    Colby didn’t want Rafael De La Cruz to be nice to her. She didn’t want him near her. “Don’t count on it, honey.” Colby grinned impishly. “I have this strong feeling the De La Cruz brothers would rather give up their business ties with Everett in a minute than be nice to me. They don’t like independent women.” It was strange how Colby thought Nicolas was so cold, the coldest man she had ever met, yet she found Rafael just the opposite, a seething cauldron of dangerous emotions, intense and darkly erotic. Rafael De La Cruz was a truly sensual man and he scared the hell out of her. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon.
    Ginny scowled darkly. “You aren’t ever serious, Colby,” she reprimanded.
    “I wouldn’t say that.” Colby pulled on a long-sleeved cotton shirt to cover the white marks marring her tanned skin.
    “Did you notice how good-looking Rafael was? He’s a hunk,” Ginny pointed out solemnly. “His brother is a hunk too. And they’re stinking rich, Colby. You’re missing a great chance.”
    Snorting inelegantly, Colby stamped her foot down into her worn boots. “Have you ever noticed the type of women who flock around those men?” Throwing her hips forward, shoulders back, she batted her eyelashes. “Dawling,” she purred, mimicking Louise’s voice perfectly, “you’re just soooo strong! My little old