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you’re going through a rough patch, but the ranch has been through them before. It’ll make it through this time as well. In any case, it’s your problem, not mine.”
    â€œWhat the hell do you mean, it’s not yours?” Will’s voice vibrated with temper. “Half of this damned ranch is yours now. It’s time you accept the responsibility.”
    Responsibility . Beau felt the surge of old anger, every bit as hot and strong as it once had been. How many times had Bull Tyler hurled that word at him, always following it with accusations that Beau was worthless, more interested in partying, chasing skirts, and pulling stupid pranks than he was in shouldering his workload. And every time it had ended in a shouting match between them.
    Pushed by that old fury, Beau rose to his feet, fists clenched tightly at his sides. At the same moment Will stood to meet him. Realizing his temper was on a hair trigger, Beau swung away.
    â€œGo to hell, Will.” He pushed the words through his clenched teeth and headed for the front door.
    Will called after him, “Dammit, Beau! You can at least sleep on it.”
    He didn’t waste any breath answering him, not stopping until the front door closed behind his back and the chill of the night air washed over him. He paused and drank in a deep breath of it and wondered why he had bothered to come home for Bull’s funeral.
    â€œFixing to run away again, are ya?” Jasper’s voice came from the porch shadows on his right. Beau jerked his head around, quickly locating the old cowboy’s dark shape sitting on the long bench. “Can’t say I’m surprised, considering this wouldn’t be the first time you did it.”
    â€œAnd I’m telling you the same thing I told my brother—go to hell, Jasper,” Beau muttered.
    Wisely, Jasper didn’t immediately respond. He waited a couple beats, then released an amused sound that fell somewhere between a chuckle and a harrumph. “Sorta gives a whole new meaning to that old phrase ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’ ”
    â€œDon’t try to lay some guilt trip on me, Jasper. It won’t work,” Beau stated. “I don’t know what Kool-Aid you two have been drinking, but the visions you’re getting have no basis in reality. I’ve been gone too long.”
    â€œIt’ll come back to you quick,” the old cowboy countered in an idle tone.
    â€œSo what?” he challenged. “For you and Will, this ranch is the center of your universe, but it isn’t mine! I have a job, a home, and friends waiting for me back in D.C. I’ve made a new life for myself, and it isn’t here. Why should you expect me to give it up?”
    â€œYour brother needs you.”
    â€œSure he does.” Beau didn’t try to keep the mockery out of his voice.
    â€œYou don’t believe that, do you,” Jasper stated. “I guess you have been away too long or you’d remember a Tyler breaks his own horse, no matter how many times he gets thrown. Nobody else does it for him. Will can’t break this one by himself. That’s a hard fact to swallow. So he did the most natural thing in the world—he turned to family.”
    For the first time, Beau had no ready comeback and fell silent, letting Jasper’s calmly issued statement sink in. He shifted his attention to the night’s darkness just beyond the porch. Overhead, the sky was a glory of stars—stars that, with all the light pollution, didn’t show up in D.C.’s night sky.
    Here on the ranch, the constellations greeted him like long-lost childhood friends. He could pick out the Big Dipper, the North Star, Orion, and the Seven Sisters. And stretching across the Texas sky in a breathtaking spill of light was the Milky Way.
    Again Jasper’s easy drawl invaded the silence. “ ’Course, you’re right. It is damned selfish of