Touched by Fire, by Janis Flores.
The drama of high-stakes horse-racing...
A winner-take-all match race only one can win...
A woman who refused to give up or give in...
After years of searching, Briar McKenna had almost given up hope of finding her lost family. Then a private investigator arrives, naming her as the last surviving heir to the once-famed but now defunct Caulfield Farm, and Briar feels reborn.
Under her direction, the great Thoroughbred breeding and racing farm in Northern California rises like a phoenix from the ashes, and Briar believes that her life is finally complete.
But all too soon, the ruthless Rupert Jaeger, owner of the nearby Mondragon Stud, reignites a bitter century-old feud between their families, promising to crush her and the Caulfield Farm forever.
As Briar seeks to conquer the elite circles of the racing world, the dark specter of the Jaeger-Caulfield feud threatens everything she holds dear, including a growing relationship with her new ranch manager, Stefan Yager, a man with dark secrets of his own.
Then Rupert manipulates her into a historical winner-take-all match race between her undefeated filly, Touch the Fire, and his own Galland, the colt that has been called the "Bolt of the Decade."
With everything riding on the horse who had once before sustained a life-threatening injury, Briar--and Stefan--are forced to confront the tangled family histories that could destroy them, and prevent her from restoring the Caulfield name to racing glory once and for all.