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his way of thinking in the end.
    “Now, Jace,” Duncan began, mediating as always.
    “I’ve got work to do,” Jace growled, pivoting on his booted heel. “Come on down to the Kennedy bottoms when you’ve had breakfast and I’ll show you the young bull I bought at the Western Heritage sale last week.”
    “Can I bring Amanda?” Duncan asked with calculating eyes.
    Jace’s broad shoulders stiffened. He glanced back angrily. “I’d like to keep this one,” he said curtly, and kept walking.
    Amanda’s face froze. She glared at the long, muscular back with pure hatred. “I wish he’d fall down the stairs,” she muttered.
    “Jace never falls,” he reminded her. “And if he ever did, he’d land on his feet.” He grinned down at her. “My, my, how you’ve changed. You never used to talk back to him.”
    “I’m twenty-three years old, and he’s not using me for a doormat anymore,” she replied with cool hauteur.
    Duncan nodded, and she thought she detected a hint of smugness in his eyes before they darted away. “Get dressed and come on down,” he told her. “I’m anxious to hear about the ad campaign you and Black have worked up.”
    “Do Tess and her father have to see it, too?” she asked suddenly.
    “Tess!” he grumbled. “I’d forgotten about her. Well, we’ll cross that bridge later. Jace and I have a bigger investment than the Andersons, so we’ll have the final say.”
    “Jace will side with them,” she said certainly.
    “He might surprise you. In fact,” he added mysteriously, “I’d bet on it. Get dressed, girl, time’s a-wasting!”
    She saluted him. “Yes, sir!”
    * * *
    Later in the day, Duncan took his guests out for a ride around the ranch on horseback, taking care to see that Terry—an admitted novice—got a slow, gentle mount.
    The ranch stretched off in every direction, fenced in green and white, with neat barns and even neater paddocks. It was a staggering operation.
    “Jace’s computer stores records on over a hundred thousand head,” Duncan told Terry as they watched the beefy Santa Gertrudis cattle graze, their rich red coats burning in the sun. “We’re fortunate enough to be able to run both purebred and grade cattle here, and we have our own feed-lot. We don’t have to contract our beef cattle out before we sell them. We can feed them out right here on the ranch.”
    Terry blinked. Ranch talk was new to him, but to Amanda, who knew and loved every stick and horn on the place, it was familiar and interesting.
    “Remember how that old Brahma bull of your father’s used to chase the dogs?” Amanda asked Duncan wistfully.
    He nodded. “Mother always threatened to sell him for beef after he killed her spaniel. When Dad died, she did exactly that,” he added with a shake of his head. “Over a hundred thousand dollars worth of prime beef. We actually ate him. A vindictive woman, my mother.”
    “Didn’t Jace try to stop her?” Amanda asked incredulously.
    “Jace didn’t know about it.” He chuckled. “Mother dared me to open my mouth. And he was off the property so much checking on the other ranches, he didn’t notice the animal was missing.”
    “What did he do when he found out?”
    “Threw back his head and laughed,” Duncan told her.
    Both eyebrows went up. “All that money…!”
    “Strange how different Jace is with you,” he remarked. “He’s the easiest man in the world to get along with, as far as the rest of us are concerned.”
    Amanda turned away from those probing eyes and looked out across the range. “Did you mention something about showing us the new bull?” she hedged.
    “Sure. Follow me.” Duncan grinned.
    * * *
    It was roundup at its best, and hundreds of calves were being vetted in a chuted corral with gates opening into paddocks on all four sides. In the midst of the noise, bawling cattle, dust, yelling cowboys and blazing sun was Jace Whitehall, straddling the fence, overseeing the whole operation. His interest in