After the Music by Diana Palmer

gallop, through a herd of white-faced, red-coated Herefords, so close to his horse that they seemed to be irrevocably joined. Sabina watched him, fascinated, and wondered if he was one of the cowhands who. worked for the Thorndons. That lean, easy grace spoke of hours in the saddle.
    "He rides beautifully, doesn't he?" Al murmured. "I remember watching him when we were boys and wishing I could do it half as well. He used to ride in rodeo competition, but then Dad died and he had to take over the oil company. I don't think he's really been happy since."
    Sabina frowned slightly as the meaning of the words penetrated. The solitary rider had closed the gate he'd just ridden through and remounted, coming near enough that his face was recognizable. He cocked his hat over one eye and gave Sabina a slow, insolent smile. The black eye had lost some of its vividness. Now just a faint discoloration attested to its existence.
    "Hello, rock singer," Hamilton Regan Thorndon the Third said mildly. "Fancy you on a ranch, cream puff."
    She looked at him expressionlessly, as if he were a faintly interesting exhibit in a museum. "Yes, I know, I'll just be bored silly. But I'll muddle through somehow, oil baron," she said with a sweet smile.
    He didn't like that cool appraisal or the taunting words, and his eyes narrowed as he lit a cigarette.
    "How's it going?" Al asked casually.
    "Feed's low," Thorn said. "We'll have to supplement the stock through the winter. I've sold off the culls already."
    "That's the cattle business for you," the younger man agreed. "Is Mother here yet?"
    Thorn's face grew colder. "She isn't coming."
    Al stared at him. "Not coming?"
    "The new boyfriend doesn't want to come all this way for a holiday," the older man said with a mirthless laugh. He drew on the cigarette. "And Mother doesn't want to leave him. Early days, you know."
    "I'm sorry," Al said. "I'd hoped...It's been over a year since she's set foot on the ranch."
    "She doesn't like the smell of cattle." Thorn's eyes went to Sabina, chilling blue eyes. "You won't be able to wear satin shorts around here, honey," he added.
    "Okay." She shrugged. "I'll just go naked. Al won't mind," she said with a grin.
    Thorn threw his cigarette to the ground. "You'll have separate rooms here," he told them. "And no midnight wandering, or so help me God, I'll throw both of you out the door!"
    He turned his horse without another word, leaving Sabina spellbound.
    "Whew!" Al sighed, easing the car up the driveway. "Mother really must have upset him this time."
    "Does Thorn resemble her?" Sabina asked curiously.
    "He looks like our father," he said. "A mirror image. Sometimes he acts like him, too. Dad was a passionate man, but he had a core of pure steel, and he used it on everybody. He could send our mother into tears with a look and keep her that way for days if he was angry. She got even, in the most basic way."
    She stared at him. "Other men?"
    His face darkened. "Other men. Thorn's always hated her for it, and she knows it. I think that's why she stays away. She can't really help the way she is, I suppose, but Thorn never forgave her for betraying Dad." He glanced at her after he'd parked the car behind the Rolls. "Dad caught her with one of her lovers. He dragged her out of the hotel, threw her into his car, and was driving her home in a rage when he wrecked the car. He was killed."
    Sabina bit her lower lip. "How old was Thorn?"
    "Twenty-four. My age. I'll never forget the way he looked at Mother, or what he said to her. She left the ranch just after the funeral and went to live with an aunt in England."
    She shivered. So he knew, too. He knew. Her eyes closed.
    "What is it?" Al asked, concerned.
    "Nothing," she murmured. "Just a chill." She pulled her coat closer around her. Under it, she was wearing her only pair of cowboy boots, with designer jeans and a bulky gray sweater over a white blouse. The jeans and sweater, like the coat, were from the nearly new shop, and Al just