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Chapter One

Travis Blake stood under the stream of hot water and let the heat seep into his tiredcattle on his ten-thousand acre spread was behind hi the land and h his veins

He had never been afraid of hard work ItIt made a man independent

Fourteen years ago, at the age of eighteen, he had left the miserable life he kneith his drunken, snake-h school diplo, he had spent ten years travelling through Texas and the Western states, at first shoveling manure from one ranch to the next, until he drifted onto the rodeo circuit He had found a ho from one rodeo to the next

And he was good at it Daood

He had grown up, grown strong, and found out what really made a man

He wasn't anything like his father; he rarely took a drink of alcohol, and never raised his hand to a woman or child

Now, at thirty-two years old, he was king of the sand achieve in the saddle He had achieved a lot in the past years, as he worked to bring this place from the run-down, dried up patch of dirt he had purchased four years ago, to the pristine ranch it was today

The only family he possessed was his horse, and the cowhands who had been here when he bought the ranch, and who had transferred their loyalty to him, when he put them on his payroll

The only thingwas a woman

Every now and then, when his lusts raged and he couldn't stand it anymore, he travelled the road to Laredo, to one of the ht The short interludes wereelse

The drive was always a pain, and his days were too long and hard to find the tio very often

The last four years had been difficult to adjust to in that respect For ten years, when he had been on the rodeo circuit, there were always groupies Women who followed the cowboys, froreat deht to sleep in the bed of the world champion And he had held the title for several years He had spent few nights alone, and only when he chose to

And now that o without sex

As the water sprayed over his sore body, he thought of the relief a wo There were no females within ten miles that he knew of, and certainly none on his ranch An un the ranks, and that he could do without

But the thought of a wo his ass on the ranch, brought chills to his spine and a hardness to his groin Soft hands running down his back, soothing over his tired ht an ache of need

He gritted his teeth

He needed a woman Needed one bad

He felt like a ticking ti down to zero

Selena walked out of Nueva Laredo, Mexico and into Laredo, Texas through the Ah of relief She hadback and forth many times in her life But never to stay Fear for her future assailed her