Free Love and Honor: The Coltrane Saga, Book 7 by Patricia Hagan

for nothing for yourself.”
    “No!” Carlos told them. “The hombre , he say the señorita deserves a prize of her own, so he leave for her…” All eyes turned in the direction he pointed.
    Tied to a bush stood the regal Hispano.
    “He say to tell you,” Carlos said with a sneer, “that he is a man of honor…and always pays his debts.”
    Kit’s mouth dropped open, and her heart skipped a beat. Galen Esmond had paid his debt all right, and she was now the proud owner of her very own horse!

Chapter Six
    Kurt Tanner squinted against the sun. It was the middle of January and the weather should have been cold, but wasn’t. Winters in Spain could be as unpredictable as a woman. Hours ago, he had taken off his leather coat, rolling and tying it on his horse’s rump. Now he yanked off his neckerchief to wipe the perspiration from his forehead. He had been riding hard, having heard that the man he was looking for had been seen in a cantina in Valencia—nearly two weeks ago. He’d left his vaqueros to take care of things on his ranch, riding out alone in the hope that the trail was not too cold for him to follow.
    He reached for his canteen and took a long drink of lukewarm water, momentarily closing his eyes against the heat and dust. God knew he thrived on the ruggedness of the country, but there were times when he had to admit that he missed the pleasures he enjoyed when he visited Madrid.
    As in November.
    Kurt kept his eyes closed, picturing her in his mind—those lovely lavender eyes fringed with thick, almost golden lashes; her wild, fiery hair flying about her face as she danced so passionately. She could dance the tango, all right. A smile touched his lips. He had an idea that that was not all she could do well.
    He’d known who she was—Kit Coltrane, the daughter of one of the American emissaries, Colt Coltrane. After the ball, he’d made other inquiries, wanting to know more about the lovely young lady. It had been like opening a wonderful gift wrapped in black velvet, finding within an ivory treasure—a woman with more life and fire in her eyes than any he’d ever known before. Many times, he reflected without conceit, he had stared down at a woman in his arms, her eyes hot with desire. But no woman emanated the smoldering passion he’d felt in Kit Coltrane.
    Kurt opened his eyes. The lovely vision was gone, in its place the knowledge of what he had learned from his men about the spirited señorita . It was said that her mother, Señora Jade Coltrane, blood relative to the Czar of Russia, thought her daughter wild. She was infuriated because Kit rode with vaqueros like a man. Kurt chuckled to himself. From what his men hold told him, the fiery beauty could not only ride as well as any vaquero around, but could rope and brand. And, it was rumored, she knew how to use a gun…and use it well.
    A frown creased his forehead as he touched the scar beneath his eye. To him, it was not the mark of a wound, but a brand—a brand to remind him forever that women were never to be trusted, never to be loved. They were good for one thing, and one thing only—the pleasures of the flesh. If a man wanted children, a son to carry on his name, then he should take a wife and breed, but never, goddammit, love the woman.
    In the distance, Kurt could see the pens where young men studied and practiced tauromaquia —the art of bullfighting, in the hopes of one day becoming a great matador. Usually he enjoyed the action, but today he was not interested. He had allowed his mind to drift back to another time, another place—and his first insight into the treachery of which women were capable.
    He had grown up in Springfield, Illinois, a pleasant enough place…until violent race riots exploded in the summer of 1908. Kurt had never been a man of prejudice. His closest boyhood friend was a black man named Guthrie Hadden. The two had hunted and fished together, sharing dreams of one day setting out to explore the world. But