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sidesteps. Unaware
of Brett's cautious approach, Sabrina was filled with excitement and pleasure
at her accomplishment and wished passionately that Senor Brett could see her
now.
     
    Moving
with agonizing slowness, Brett finally reached the fence. Not wishing to alarm
the horse or the child, he said with far more calmness than he felt, "Good
morning, Sabrina. I see you have managed to ride Flame after all."
     
    Her
face filling with delight, Sabrina jerked in his direction and cried joyfully,
"Oh, Senor Brett! I was hoping you could see me! I told you I could ride
him!"
     
    But
in that instant, Flame, with a whicker of anger, reared up suddenly on his hind
legs. Caught off guard, Sabrina almost lost her hold, but instinctively she
clung desperately to the rising stallion.
     
    At
Flame's first move, Brett had leaped to the fence and was instantly poised on
the top rail. Horse and rider were only inches from him, and as Flame's feet
hit the ground and the stallion gave a powerful buck, Brett's muscled arm
lunged across the space that divided them and roughly plucked Sabrina from
Flame's back.
     
    Breathing
heavily, beads of perspiration dotting his forehead, Sabrina clasped to his
chest in a death hold, Brett slid thankfully onto the ground on the opposite
side of the fence. Flame, relieved of his unwelcome burden, tossed his arrogant
head and with a whistle of fury raced swiftly away.
     
    Sabrina
was not at all pleased with her rescue. Twisting around to glare at Brett, she
said angrily, "I could have stayed on—I have ridden many, many horses. I
am not an infant!"
     
    Relief
that she was safe had barely penetrated his brain when her words hit him, and
instantly he was blindly, furiously angry. "Why, you little hell-born
babe! I just saved your bloody life!" And then, as his anger fed on
itself, the jade-green eyes nearly black with fury, he snarled, "And I
forbade you to ride him! How dare you disobey me!"
     
    All
her hurt and confusion of the past days rising up to sting her, Sabrina
glowered back at him, screwing her features up into an awful face and sticking
her tongue out at him.
     
    It
was the final straw. Enraged as much because she could arouse emotions within
him that he didn't understand as by her actions, Brett promptly turned her over
his knee and gave her a hiding she was never to forget. His chest heaving, his
mouth thinned, moments later he stood her in front of him and snapped,
"Let that be a lesson to you, brat—don't ever cross me again!"
     
    Furiously
Sabrina blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. The full lower lip
quivering pitifully, the amber-gold eyes a startling incandescent gold, she
spat, "I hate you, Senor Brett! I hate you! I never want to
see you again!"
     
    "Well,
that suits me just fine!" he hurled back. Watching her stalk proudly away,
he knew an urge to call her back, an urge to mend the breach between them, but
fiercely he killed that urge. What a fool he was! It was a good thing that he
had discovered her real nature before it was too late—an embryonic Jezebel,
practicing her wiles already on the unwary male; headstrong, stubborn, and not
to be trusted an inch!
     
     
     

PART
ONE
     
    BITTERSWEET
AWAKENING
     
    Nacogdoches,
Spanish Texas
     
    Summer,
1799
     
       For
aught that I could ever read,
    Could
ever hear by tale or history,
    The
course of true love never did run
       smooth.
     
    William
Shakespeare
    A
Midsummer Night's Dream
     

CHAPTER
THREE
     
    August
1, 1799, Sabrina del Torres's seventeenth birthday, dawned bright and clear. It
was one of those marvelous, lazy summer days that she so loved. Waking just as
the sun was topping the tall, pungent pine trees that grew near the sprawling,
gracious adobe house where she had lived all her life, she slid naked from her
soft featherbed and ran gracefully to the double doors that opened to the rear
of the room. Throwing them aside, she stepped out onto the small balcony that
overlooked the back of the