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her from the room.
    “Jeth has to be told,” Cara said dazedly to the man whose arm was around her. “Someone has to tell Jeth that his brother is gone.”
    “Shh,” Harold St. Clair spoke soothingly. “Don’t concern yourself with that, Cara. The firm will inform him. It would be more appropriate for us to do so.”
    A week later on the first day of March, Cara sat in Harold St. Clair’s office. Sleet struck the windows, making the shapes of things beyond them gray and indistinct. In her lavender wool coat, the neck designed to reveal a matching dress beneath, she was like a splash of spring in the somber office, and Harold thought that he had never seen a more beautiful woman. “How have you been this past week, Cara?” he asked, observing her with his astute eyes.
    “Empty,” she answered briefly. “Quite empty.”
    “Yes, I can understand that,” the lawyer responded sympathetically, but in fact he did not understand at all. What had been the relationship of this lovely woman to Ryan? Had she been his mistress? Harold was now inclined to think not. This girl possessed an indefinable quality of sexual innocence, which made him believe that she had never warmed any man’s bed. Yet Ryan had loved her above all the women in his life, of that he was certain. Why else would he have arranged his will against Harold’s legal counsel and in direct defiance of his brother, whom Harold knew to be one of the most powerful men in Texas?
    The lawyer’s hands fidgeted with the legal document on the desk before him. Thank the saints that the two people it concerned would never meet. This fragile young thing in a clash with Jeth Langston, a man notorious for his ruthlessness, was almost obscene to contemplate. At least she would have the firm behind her as well as the courts. Together they would protect her from the vindictive rage that Jeth Langston was bound to be feeling at this moment.
    “Cara,” the lawyer began, clearing his throat, “did Ryan ever discuss with you the provisions of his will?”
    Her large eyes regarded him in surprise. “Of course not. Why should he?”
    The lawyer returned her gaze with equanimity. “Because you have been remembered very handsomely in it.”
    “What do you mean?” Cara was puzzled. Ryan would have known that she wanted nothing material from him.
    “You have inherited Ryan’s share of La Tierra Conquistada.”
    Cara sat like a stone figure in the chair, her eyes riveted on the man before her, hoping to see something in his face that would betray his words as a horrible joke. “You can’t mean that,” she said slowly in disbelief. “Ryan would never have done that to his brother.”
    “I’m afraid that he has,” Harold answered her quietly, in that moment utterly convinced of the girl’s sincerity. He would have taken bets of any amount that she had not known about the will.
    “I’ll give it back. I can do that, can’t I?” she demanded earnestly, her voice rising. “I don’t want any part of the ranch. It belongs to his brother. I can’t imagine Ryan doing such a thing!”
    “Before you make any decisions about giving up your inheritance, Cara,” Harold advised her, “I think you’d better read this. I was instructed to give this letter to you after I informed you of the will’s contents.”
    Wordlessly, her heart accelerating, Cara took the envelope. “I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes,” the lawyer said, and pressed her shoulder as he left the room.
    Her mouth dry, Cara opened the envelope and drew out a brief letter in Ryan’s handwriting. She began to read:
    Dear Cara,
    What must you be thinking now that you have learned that you’ve inherited one half of La Tierra Conquistada? No doubt, knowing you, your first scandalized reaction was to tell Harold that you want the land returned to Jeth.
    You cannot release the land to anyone, Puritan, not until you have lived for one full year, beginning the first day of spring, in the big house on La