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“Oh God, Becca. Why gamble? Take my advice and sell her!”

“To whom?”

“Anyone!Surely someone’s interested. You should have listened to me and sold her at Keeneland when she was a yearling. It’s going to be a lot tougher now that she’s racing age and hasn’t even bothered to start!”

“And you know why,” Becca charged.

“Because you didn’t have the guts to let Brig Chambers know about the horse, that’s why. I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep so quiet about her, or why you’d want to. The more you build her up to the press, compare her to Sentimental Lady, the more she’s worth!”

Becca’s thin patience frayed. “I didn’t run her as a two-year-old to avoid injuring her. As for hype about a horse, it’s highly overrated. Any owner worth his salt judges an animal by the horse itself—not some press release.”

“I don’t understand why you’re all bent out of shape about it,” Dean announced as he threw the twisted empty can into a nearby trash basket.

“And I don’t understand why you insist on trying to run my life!”

Dean’s flushed face tensed. “Because you need me—or have you forgotten?” He paused for a moment and his face relaxed. “At least, you used to need me. Has that changed?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I . . . I just don’t like fighting with you. It seems that lately we’re at opposite ends of any argument.” Despite the tension in the room, she managed a smile. “But you’re right about one thing,” she conceded. “I did need you and you were there for me. I appreciate that, Dean, and I owe you for it.”

“But,” he coaxed, reading the puzzled expression on her face and knowing intuitively that she wasn’t finished.

“But I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about Brig and why you hid the fact that he called me several times.”

Dean seemed to pale beneath his California tan. “So he told you about that, did he?”

“And Ian explained what happened.”

A startled look darkened his pale eyes but swiftly disappeared. His thin lips pressed into a disgusted line. “Then you realize that I was just trying to protect you.”

“From what?”

“From Chambers!Becca, look. You’ve never been able to face the fact that he used you.” Becca started to interrupt, but Dean held her words at bay by raising his outstretched fingers. “It’s true, damn it. That man can hurt you like nobody else. I don’t know what it is about him that turns a rational woman like you into a simpering fool, but he certainly has the touch. He used you in the past; and if you give him another chance, he’ll do it again. I don’t think he can stop himself, it’s inbred in his nature.”

“You’re being unfair.”

“And you’re hiding your head in the sand.”

Becca ran her fingers through her hair, unfastening the thong that held it tied and letting it fall into loose curls to surround her face. She thought back to the warm moments of love with Brig and the happiness they had shared in the snow-capped Rockies; the passion, the tenderness, the yearning, the pain. Was it only for one short weekend in her life? Was she destined to forever love a man who couldn’t return that love? Could Dean be right? Had Brig used her? “No,” she whispered shakily, trying to convince herself as much as her brother. “I can’t believe that Brig ever used me, or that he ever intentionally hurt me.”

“Come off it, Becca!”

“That’s the way I see it.”

Dean’s eyes were earnest, his jaw determined. “And you live with your head in the clouds when it comes to horses and men. You dream of horses that run wild and free and you try to turn men into heroes who bare their souls for the love of a woman—at least, you do in the case of Brig Chambers.”

“Now you’re trying to stereotype me,” she accused.

“Think about it, sis.” Dean gave her a knowing smile before striding toward the door.

Becca couldn’t let him go until he answered one last nagging question that had been with her ever since she had spoken with Ian in the tack room. “Dean, why did Martha leave the ranch when she did?”

Dean’s hand paused over the doorknob. He whirled around to face his sister, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that she left rather suddenly, don’t you think? And it’s odd that I haven’t heard from her since. Not even a card at Christmas. It’s always bothered me.”

Dean’s face froze into a well-practiced smile. “Didn’t she say that she left because her daughter needed her?”

“That’s what you told me.”