THE ONLY WAY Ryan Gallagher had figured he'd ever come back to Four Aces Ranch was if he arrived in a government-issue casket.

Returning home on his own power had never been part of his plans.

Now, standing at the entryway of the main house, he glanced over his shoulder at the deeply rolling land stretching to the horizon. Every gnarled cedar, every rocky outcropping stirred a flood of memories he couldn't hold at bay.

He'd been gone fifteen years, barring two brief trips home to see his brother married and his grandfather buried. It hadn't been long enough.

Ryan shook off his reservations. Just a few months, maybe less. How could this be any harder than Ward 57 back at Walter Reed?

Turning back to the ornately carved oak door with Four Aces Ranch written in sweeping script between images of champion quarter horses and prize cattle, Ryan knocked before letting himself in.

Nothing but the best, his father had always said.

From the livestock and land acquisitions, to every ostentatious detail of his massive brick house, Clint Gallagher still wasn't finished trying to impress the world.

His decades as a Texas State Senator had never been enough for him.

"I don't believe it." Adelfa stood transfixed in the middle of the foyer on her way to answer his knock. The elderly housekeeper's dark eyes filled with tears as she drank in the sight of him from head to toe.

"Madre de dios! I never thought I'd find you at this door!"

Steeling himself against the pain radiating through his shoulder, Ryan enveloped the stocky Hispanic woman in a hug. "And nothing could be better than finding you're still here."

He rele