"The whole thing?"

Cash's gentle voice and wry question drew a hesitant smile from Mariah. She stopped inching backward and shook her head. "Just the part that held water." A smile changed Cash's face from forbidding to handsome. He walked out of the house and onto the front porch. Clenching her hands together, Mariah looked up at the big man who must be her brother. He had unruly, thick hair that was a gleaming chestnut brown where it wasn't streaked pale gold by the sun.

He was muscular rather than soft. He looked like a man who was accustomed to using his body for hard physical work. His eyebrows were wickedly arched, darker than his hair, and his eyes were "The wrong color."

"I beg your pardon?" Cash asked, frowning.

Mariah flushed, realizing that she had spoken aloud.

"I'm – that is – I thought this was the Rocking M," she managed to stammer.

"It is."

All other emotions gave way to dismay as Mariah understood that the unthinkable had happened: the MacKenzie ranch had been sold to strangers.

Of the many possibilities she had imagined, this had not been among them. All her plans for coming back to the lost home of her dreams, all her half-formed hopes of pursuing a lost mine over the landscape of her ancestors, all her anticipation of being reunited with the older brother whose love had been the bright core of her childhood; all that was gone. And there was nothing to take its place except a new understanding of just how alone she was.

"Are you all right?" Cash asked, concerned by her sudden pallor, wanting to fold her into his arms and give her comfort.

Comfort? he asked himself sardonically. Well, that too, I suppose. God, but that is one sexy woman looking like she is about to faint at my feet.

A big, callused hand closed around Mariah's upper arm, both steadying her and making her tremble. She looked up – way up – into eyes that were a dark, smoky blue, yet as clear as a mountain lake in twilight. And, like a lake, the luminous surface concealed depths of shadow.