Excerpt from Never Say Never There was an old saying that a man could not serve two masters. Wryly, Dustin Reed acknowledged that was true. The cattle herd he had started building two years ago--replacing the dairy cows that had been on the ranch since his parents had owned it--took all of his time. Since the ranch made him a livable income, it was only fair that it should be a demanding master. However, the anger Dustin kept burning inside him was a draining and unforgiving master. There was no release from the anger he felt at the speeding, drunk driver that had killed his wife, Nina, leaving him to raise their son, Joey, now three-and-a-half. Like a slow-burning torch growing hotter, Dustin was angry that Nina's parents had filed a custodial suit for Joey, that he feared they just might win. The judge who was presiding over the case was sitting squarely in David and Maxine Copeland's silk-lined pockets. Though his lawyer had filed for a change of venue, the request had been denied. But the greatest anger burning inside Dustin was that it was the start of the Christmas season, the first since Nina had died, a fact time was pushing inexorably his way. Now it was only a matter of days until either he or the Copelands won custody of Joey, and though he was going to fight like hell, something inside him was frozen when it came to his son. Maybe it was that he didn't have any practice with small children, and had let Nina do most of the rearing. Of course, that was when he'd been living under the assumption that he had all the time in the world to learn to be a good father. Time had run out on him. The frozen part of him couldn't thaw for the wrenching fear that Joey was going to be taken from him. Dustin hadn't expected Nina to be taken. Now he couldn't seem to relax around his son, knowing that in a few short days, they, too, might be separated. The anger grew, becoming a master over Dustin. Selfishly, perhaps, he needed to ignore the marching of time. This year, he was having nothing to do with the spirit of the season. Because the only way he could see to take the edge off the anger was to ignore Christmas. There would be no festive lights in his home this year, no Christmas tree. It would be a small gathering for holiday dinner, just his mother, Eunice, who lived at the Regret Ranch with him, and his son. Dustin scanned the north for signs of breaking clouds, knowing that his pet name for the ranch symbolized his acceptance of that insidious master thriving inside him. This place where he was standing, this large stretch of property fit primarily for running herds of beef cattle, had been the Reed Ranch since his grandparents' time. But since the last two letters in Reed had fallen off the metal sign at the entrance to the ranch, he'd renamed it to suit himself. And avoided rehanging the letters. The faster the Christmas season passed, the faster people stopped saying "Happy holidays!" to him and sending him cards he instantly tossed in the trash without opening, the faster life might return to normal. Yet, he had a feeling that the well-meaning merriness in the town was only going to escalate as Christmas approached. A blue flash at the south end of his property suddenly caught Dustin's eye. He squinted, wondering if a blue-jay was foraging red berries off the yaupon bushes. There the flash was again, only the blue looked more like denim this time. And if he didn't know better, the flash was a trespasser on his ranch. Dustin walked to his truck, reaching inside for the shotgun off the rack and some shells out of the box. Silently, he crept down the hill, watching as the denim-wearing intruder appeared to be sneaking toward the house. His mother was home, alone with Joey, with only the aid of a cane to protect her. The arthritis in her hips and back that plagued her regularly was acting up now; she couldn't escape from an attacker. For Dustin, this was the last straw. Enough bad things had happened this year. A trespasser he knew how to deal with--swiftly. The denim paused, and now Dustin could see the person wasn't large, perhaps just a teenage boy out for a prank. The big-horned steers that ran on Regret Ranch were an awesome sight, and likely the boy couldn't resist a chance to spy on them. However, he'd have had a better chance at getting a tour if he'd rung the front bell. A good scare now would keep the young prowler from trying this trick on Dustin's property again. Without hesitating, Dustin crept behind the next pecan tree, just behind the trespasser. With one hand, he reached out, clamping his hand down in a vise on the boy's shoulder. "Aiee-ee!" Dustin grinned at the terrible shriek of fear. The boy whipped around to see what had grabbed him, and the first thing Dustin registered was what large, darkly lashed blue eyes the boy had. The second thing Dustin saw was that he wasn't gripping a boy at all. It was a woman, a woman so adorably cute that she took his breath away faster than the nippy air did. "How dare you?" the woman gasped. "Take your hands off of me!" She saw the shotgun and her eyes became huge and round. She started backing away. "Don't touch me. Don't even look at me. I'm going right now." The look on her face told Dustin that the woman thought she was in grave peril. He would have smiled, but he was still too shocked by what he'd bagged on his own land. "Wait," he said, holding up a hand. "I didn't mean to scare you so badly. I thought you were a trespasser." "I am," she asserted. "Well, I guess I am. But I'm leaving now!" He wanted to tell her that she wasn't a bad trespasser. He definitely wasn't going to shoot the lady. Her voice, he'd noticed, was light and sweet, even though she was frightened out of her wits. Her full mouth trembled, and the nostrils in her dainty nose flared. The cap she'd been wearing had fallen off when she swung around, revealing shiny, chin-length blond hair. The woman was the prettiest thing he'd laid eyes on in a long time. Jill had never been so petrified in her life. If this was the man who'd run the ad in the paper, then she'd been very smart to come out here and check out the situation. He was crazy. That shotgun he was holding looked like it meant business, and she wondered if the cowboy carried that thing around like an ordinary billfold. Just several more steps and she'd be at her car. Jill turned, dashing that way. "Wait!" the crazy man called. "I can't," she said on a gasp, fumbling in her purse for the keys. Drat them, but they fell from her nervous fingers into a deep wheel rut in the dried mud. She got down, scrambling to find them, all the while glancing nervously back up at him. He was the most handsome crazy man she'd ever seen. "Please, I've got to go," she told him. "If you'll give me a second, I'll--" He knelt down beside her, retrieving the keys which had taken an unlucky bounce toward the other side of the tire where she couldn't see them. "Here." "Um . . . thanks." Jill brushed hair from her eyes and tried to look like she wasn't impressed by the man's size. Or that he smelled wonderful, all outdoorsy and warm. Of course, this whole area had quite a different scent than what she had become accustomed to in Dallas. Lack of pollution, for one thing. Growing vegetation, for another. "I'll be going--" "Why are you here?"