Ryan's Hand Read Free Page A

Tierra Conquistada. Translated, that means The Conquered Land. I suppose that after four generations, the land can be considered conquered, but it wouldn’t stay that way long without care and dedication. Jeth was saying I had to let it go. I couldn’t divide my loyalties.”
    “And so you left to study law,” Cara stated quietly.
    “Yes. I went away to Harvard that fall, and I never went back to stay. We both knew that I was never cut out to be a rancher. Jeth was. I had the blood of my music-loving, aesthetic mother in me; Jeth had our father’s. My brother has always insisted that the ranch was as much mine as his, but also that it couldn’t be run from a distance. He’s made all the decisions concerning La Tierra, scrupulously dividing the profits. He’s made me a very rich man.”
    “You could have done that for yourself even without your brother,” Cara said warmly. “You’re a brilliant lawyer!”
    Ryan opened his eyes to stare down at her in amusement. “What is there about Jeth that nettles you so, Puritan?”
    Cara reddened in embarrassment and withdrew her hand. “Forgive me again, Ryan. It’s just that your brother sounds so…so high-handed. I’ve always been a little prickly about arrogance of that kind.”
    “Arrogance is often the unavoidable twin of power, Cara, and Jeth never had a chance to be anything but what he became: a very powerful man. When our parents were killed, I was eleven and Jeth eighteen. He had a very different kind of dream then; he wanted to be an Olympic swimmer. That ended when he had to take over the reins of La Tierra. There was no one to help him. The very men he thought he could trust—lawyers, bankers, other ranchers—proved to be the most unscrupulous. They saw a chance to get their hands on La Tierra and they tried every conceivable chicanery to do it. But they didn’t figure on Jeth’s brains and guts. He proved too smart for them and too tough. He wasn’t a compassionate winner, either. Every one of those men lived to regret the day he ever crossed Jeth Langston.” Ryan paused to give Cara his crooked grin. “I guess I do make the guy sound high-handed and hard-nosed, don’t I?”
    “I think you’re worrying about him unnecessarily,” she said. “He sounds like a completely self-sufficient man who will marry when he feels ready to. Besides, he’s young yet, only thirty-four. I’m surprised he doesn’t have to fight the women off. He has a…certain virility that’s very attractive to most women.”
    “But not to you?” Ryan queried, and laughed when her eyes dropped in discomfort. “Don’t be embarrassed, Puritan. You’re right in thinking that the two of you would lock horns—at least at first.” He sat up suddenly and shook his head as if tired of his thoughts. “Come on,” he said, hoisting Cara to her feet. “Let’s go down to the beach before the light begins to fade.”
    Devereux Beach, a thin neck of land separating Marblehead Harbor from the Atlantic Ocean, was a favorite Sunday spot for Cara and Ryan. On the first Sunday after they met, Cara had taken the handsome Texan beachcombing there. It had been a blustery day in February almost a year before. They had arrived to find the beach deserted except for the seabirds that scurried about on the wet sand and cawed their plaintive cries overhead. Cara had explained to a curious Ryan that the salt-logged oak burned in spectacular colors. “I’ll show you this evening,” she promised.
    They had made quite a haul and finished the day at Cara’s modest one-room flat, which was perched atop a three-story house. The room featured a widow’s walk, a narrow balcony facing the Atlantic where seamen’s wives of old would go to watch for their husbands’ ships returning from the sea. While a casserole bubbled deliciously in the oven and she opened a bottle of wine, Ryan had stretched his legs out on the floor before the old stone fireplace, fascinated by the brilliant colors in the