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as he
     disgustedly shoved her away from him. She stared at him as he
     turned to stalk toward the door.
    "I want you out of this job and out of Silicon Valley. In fact,
     lady, I want you out of California," he shouted from the doorway.
    "I don't work for you," she managed. "You can't fire me."
    "Either you quit today or I'll bring this company down on its
     ass. I can do it, Sabrina. This firm is strung out to the hilt on
     borrowed capital. I'll take it over and I'll fire you myself if I
     have to. Greg's probably going to prison because of you. Do you
     think I'm going to let you keep this cushy job while he suffers?
     Get out of the state, bitch. Believe me, I'll see to it you never
     work here again. I'm going to let every computer firm in
     California know you were the real reason behind Greg's deal with
     the Russians."
    Then, as if the sight of her was too much for him, Talbot
     Sheffield had slammed out of the office, leaving a dazed and
     slightly sick-feeling Sabrina behind.
    In the end he hadn't had to make good his threat to ruin
     Sabrina's firm. Sheffield had simply planted the suspicion of her
     in her employers' minds, and that was all it took. Working
     conditions soon became intolerable. The rumors and speculation
     were enough to drive anyone away, much less someone who was
     rapidly growing disgusted with the whole volatile world of high
     technology. Sabrina resigned her job a month later. It wasn't the
     first job she had left because she'd run afoul of authority, but
     it was the first one she'd actually been forced out of, and the
     knowledge bit deeply. She'd sold the condo. Then she'd packed the
     Alfa Romeo and left for the new frontier: Dallas, Texas.
    En route to the land they called the Third Coast, Sabrina had
     faced a few facts. One of them was that it was time she packed in
     the attempt to make it in the corporate world. People with her
     maverick tendencies needed to be their own bosses. Never again
     would she let her career and her reputation be vulnerable to a man
     like Talbot Sheffield.
    The headlines about her involvement had hit during Greg's trial.
     The FBI hadn't considered her worth any more than a few questions.
     She hadn't even been called to testify. But the newspapers had a
     field day—with the encouragement of Talbot Sheffield, she had no
     doubt—labeling her the "expensive mistress" who had driven a good
     man to sell his company's secrets. Getting her to quit her job,
     apparently, had not been enough to satisfy Sheffield's sense of
     justice. Sabrina hoped bitterly that the scandal he had created
     around her name was sufficient to quench his thirst for
     retribution. It would be all he would get from her, she'd sworn.
     And if fortune ever granted her a shot at revenge she would grab
     it in a flash.
    The headlines and the speculation they had caused had lasted only
     a couple of weeks and had interested chiefly just the business
     world of the West Coast. But that was more than enough time to
     reach the staid little town in Oregon where her father and two
     brothers ran the main bank.
    She knew what it had cost their sober, pillars-of-the-community
     souls to stand behind her, but they had claimed to believe her
     side of the story. Nevertheless, Sabrina knew it had shocked all
     of them deeply, providing one more damning bit of evidence that
     she sorely lacked guidance and discipline.
    They had all hoped for the best when she had announced her
     intention of starting over again in Texas, but their hopes had
     been dashed. Her new lifestyle was sending cold chills through the
     restrained offices of the bank. Sabrina's fierce determination to
     live by her own rules was terrifying the three men of the Chase
     family.
    "A souvenir shop? Little ashtrays and cowboy hats?" her father
     had raged long distance. "Sabrina, you're an accountant!"
    "Not anymore, Dad. I'm a scarlet woman, given to leading young
     men to their doom, remember?"
    "Nolan and Jeffrey and I