Hot Like Fire by Niobia Bryant

the spot Kaleb had pointed out.
    Kade was the first one to reach the trees. `Just a
little preview of what I'm 'bout to do to y'all."
    "You haven't crossed the finish line yet, brother,"
Kahron told him.
    "Damn right," Kaleb threw in.
    Kaitlyn just held the reins tighter and positioned
her slender frame on the saddle, with a determined
look on her face.
    In the distance, Kaeden raised one arm. "On
your mark. . . get set. . . go!"
    They all took off.
    Kade rode his horse hard, rising up from the
saddle as he let the animal take the lead. He passed
the stretches of trees and grass drying from the
heat of the sun. He could hear the hooves thundering against the ground as his siblings all vied to beat him. His heart thundered from the exhilaration of
the race. Kaeden's silhouette increased in size as
Kade neared him.

    Risking a look back to check his competition,
Kade glanced over his shoulder. Kaleb was on his
heels. Kahron was coming up strong, with his shades
making him look like a robot. Kaitlyn brought up
the rear but was fighting to close the gap.
    Kade faced forward, but his expression went
from that of victory to confusion as his horse suddenly reared up and then stopped, causing his
body to go flying over the horse's head. He landed
on the ground, with a thud.
    "Shit," he swore, with a grimace, as pain radiated
across his body.
    "Paco, come and eat," Garcelle called out to her
brother as she left Marta's house. She counted her
poker winnings as she walked into the house. Two
hundred and thirty dollars, she told herself. She
walked straight into her room and grabbed the
empty pickle jar, where she kept her money until
she went to the bank. She rammed the money atop
the bills already crunched in there.
    She loved playing poker. Joaquin had taught her
how to play, and she had taken to it like a fish to
water. She hated when the state outlawed those
video poker machines, because it had been nothing
for her to win five hundred dollars or better in one
sitting. Most times when men heard she was a
skilled poker player, they laughed and tried to play
her like a joke ... until she had their pockets empty
or their backsides bare.
    She wasn't addicted to gambling at all. In fact, she only played with her friends on Sunday afternoons,
and even then, once she lost her fifty-dollar table
stake, she sat out or went home. Oh, she loved poker,
but the game wasn't serious enough to cut into her
money for school or make her borrow money to play.

    Garcelle left her room. "You awake, Papi?" she
asked her father.
    Carlos laughed as he wiped his hand over his
mouth. "Yes, and I'm starving," he answered.
    "Coming right up," she told him over her softly
rounded shoulder as she headed for the kitchen.
    "Paco, wash your hands, and go and set the table,"
she heard her father tell her brother in Spanish.
    They always ate their dinner together as a family.
It was their way of honoring her mother, because
family meals had been so important to her. Even
when Garcelle worked late, watching Kadina, or
her father and her uncles had an emergency at the
ranch that held them up, no one would eat until
everyone was home.
    Paco set the table as Garcelle placed steaming
platters of food in the center of the table. Her father
came into the kitchen and walked to the back door.
"Anthony and Raul," he called out to his two twentysomething younger brothers. They shared the same
father, but had different mothers. Once he was settled in America, Carlos had sent for her uncles and
got them the jobs at the Circle S Ranch.
    Garcelle enjoyed the family banter as they talked
freely and with ease in Spanish while she fixed the
plates and handed one to each of the men. As their
talk turned to the ranch, Garcelle immediately
thought of Kade.
    The women of Holtsville were on a full-blown
campaign to see who would be the woman to snag the very eligible but very reluctant bachelor Kade
Strong. In the two weeks since the