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the spurt of bitterness surging to the surface. He hated being treated like an employee on the very land that should have been half his. He wanted to believe he’d gotten over his father’s slight, but there were times, like now, when he felt the lash of David O’Connor’s punishment straight to the core. “I was over at the McAllister’s.”
    That snagged his brother’s attention. He closed the journal in front of him and pushed it aside. “Doing what?” he asked tentatively.
    Drawing out the moment of victory, Seth folded his frame into the dark brown chair in front of Robert’s desk, making himself comfortable. “I was claiming the Golden M, which I won in a poker game against Jake McAllister.”
    It took a few extra seconds for the importance of his statement to sink in. Seth knew the exact moment it registered—when selfish retribution glittered in Robert’s eyes. “No kidding? You won the Golden M?”
    “Lock, stock and barrel,” Seth confirmed. Prime cattle, fertile land, and a feisty woman who hated him enough to threaten his life with a rifle . . . all his in the span of one night, he thought wryly.
    “Well I’ll be damned!” Robert slapped a hand on the surface of his desk, a wide, gleeful grin splitting his face. “If that isn’t poetic justice, I don’t know what is.”
    “Yeah, it’s ironic all right,” he agreed mildly, “considering how we lost the land so long ago.”
    Leaning back in his squeaky chair, Robert began spouting plans for Seth’s winnings. “We can join the property again so it’s all O’Connor land, as it should be. We’ll combine the livestock-”
    Every muscle in Seth’s body coiled tight. “No.”
    Robert looked taken aback by Seth’s refusal. His brows snapped together, emphasizing his displeasure. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
    “The Golden M is mine , Robert.” His tone was low, undeniably firm, and a trifle dangerous. “And it’ll remain separate property.”
    “Why?” Robert challenged. Standing abruptly, he braced his hands flat on his desk and leaned toward Seth, glaring. “That’s O’Connor property! It always has been. It should remain in the family as a whole.”
    Under normal circumstances Seth would have agreed. Considering he’d been stripped of his rightful inheritance, he wasn’t about to share what now belonged to him. “It hasn’t been in our family for over seventy-five years. There’s no reason why it needs to be part of Paradise Wild again.”
    Robert’s mouth thinned in anger. “So, you’ll be competing directly against me then?”
    “I’ll be competing with no one but myself. You’ve got a fine breed of cattle, and there are plenty of buyers to accommodate both of us.”
    “I can’t believe this!” Robert’s temper exploded and his face turned a bright shade of red. “Dad is probably rolling over in his grave right about now!”
    “Probably, considering he left me with nothing, and I’ve acquired what he always wanted.”
    A sneer curled the corner of his brother’s mouth. “If you wanted half of the Paradise Wild, then you never should have messed around with Josie McAllister.”
    “Of course you’re right,” Seth graciously conceded to what had been the single most stupid mistake of his life. His brief affair with Josie had cost him so much . . . a chunk of his youthful pride, his half of the Paradise Wild, and the inability to give any other woman what he’d given her. His heart.
    Refusing to dwell on past mistakes, he casually added, “Just so you know, I’ll be marrying Josie by the end of the week.”
    Robert’s eyes nearly bugged right out of their sockets. “ What ?” he wheezed.
    A satisfied smile quirked Seth’s mouth and he decided that he enjoyed having the upper hand for a change. Very concisely, he explained the stipulation Jake McAllister had added to the deed to the Golden M, which included offering his daughter the benefit of marriage in order for her and his granddaughter