A Cowboy's Pride

“Cora’s Tear,” Katlynn corrected, knowing the legend of the priceless stone having grown up in Carbondale, not to mention being engaged to the oldest son in the Loveland clan.

“That’s your hometown, right?” Braydon asked.

Katlynn nodded, masking her dread. After leaving twelve years ago, she hadn’t looked back. She never wanted to remember the nobody she’d been, the love she’d lost. Could she face her difficult past?

To save her show...yes. She’d have to see Cole to cover the story about his family. Only this time he’d realize he’d been wrong to ask her to give up her dreams, her ambitions. She’d learned to shine on her own so she’d never be diminished again.

“Do you have a connection with the families? An in?” Tom demanded, his voice rising. Excited murmurs circled the table.

Katlynn cleared her clogged throat with a cough. “I’m acquainted with them, yes.”

Tom’s broad smile revealed capped teeth in a flash of white. “Then it’s settled. Katlynn, you’ve saved the day.”

She lingered as the group filed out.

If she solved such a sensational historical mystery, it’d secure Scandalous History’s spot in next season’s lineup, put them on the map and might even win her an Emmy. Could she handle returning home where her family, and the man she’d once loved, had made her feel inconsequential to do it?

* * *

“SHE’S DROPPED HER CALF,” Cole Loveland informed his approaching father, pointing to the bellowing gray Brahman lying on the frosted ground. He’d herded the “heavy” into the small field adjacent to the calving shed last night when he’d noticed the beginning signs of labor. Since then, Cole had checked on the heifer every hour, concerned for the first-time mother.

“Doesn’t appear interested in her calf.” Boyd reined his brown quarter horse to a stop, and they watched the wet newborn shiver in the freezing dawn.

If the mother didn’t lick it dry soon, it’d die of hypothermia. Cole’s brown and white paint horse, Cash, sidestepped and nickered, sensing Cole’s unease.

“She’s new to it.” Cole steadied his stallion while keeping his eyes on the imperiled calf.

“Might have to pen the two and see if we can’t force them to bond.” Boyd huddled in his saddle. His fleece-lined work jacket was zipped against the arctic temperature.

Spring officially began a couple weeks ago, but frigid air still gripped their Rocky Mountain ranch. Lingering snow capped nearby Mount Sopris, and the rising sun reflected on the white peak, coloring it rose gold against the lavender sky.

“Let’s give her a minute. See if we can avoid stressing them.” Cole watched, narrow-eyed, as the exhausted heifer snorted then sank her head to the ground. Meanwhile, the newborn struggled to rise, its sodden limbs heavy and uncoordinated. It bawled, a child’s universal appeal to its mother for help. The Brahman continued to stare listlessly forward, though, as if she hadn’t heard a thing.

“Can’t afford to lose any more calves.” Boyd reached into his saddlebag and passed over an insulated coffee thermos.

Cole’s fingers, numb despite his gloves, fumbled to open the tab. He lifted it to his nose and breathed in the fortifying, pungent brew. Scalding black liquid burned his tongue as he swigged it back. Instantly, energy zapped his fatigued body, worn through after twenty-four hours of ranch work, anxious vigilance and no sleep. “Saw we got a letter from the bank yesterday.”

“Yep,” his father answered, noncommittal.

Cole slid a sideways glance at his pa’s weathered face, his expression inscrutable beneath the wide brim of his rancher’s hat. Tough old cowboy. He never gave a thing away.

“What’s it say?” Cole asked as the calf hoisted itself on its front legs before it slipped and fell again. Its mother glanced back and pushed to her knees. A sign they were beginning to bond?

“Final notice.”

His father shared the devastating news as if relaying the weather. “Cold out today,” Cole imagined him saying. “Mind the ice. And our one-hundred-and-thirty-year-old family ranch is about to be foreclosed on.”

Cole swore under his breath. The Lovelands had battled to remain solvent for generations, despite their lack of access to the Crystal River. Property lines ceding water rights to their feuding neighbors, the Cades, required longer, danger-riddled cattle drives to distant water sources, depleting Loveland herds. A recent three-year drought pushed them nearly to the point of no return.

He had to find a way to save the ranch.

And it wouldn’t be by benefiting from his father’s imminent marriage to Joy Cade, Cade Ranch’s widowed matriarch, despite whispered speculation. Lovelands made their own way, provided for their family and didn’t take charity.

Besides, Cade Ranch was jointly owned by the Cade siblings, and Joy only owned a small percentage of the property.

“How much time do we have?” As Cole watched, the new mother struggled to her feet and meandered a short distance from her crying calf, attempting to graze. Was she about to abandon it? Cole’s anxiety intensified.

“It’ll go up for auction within the month.”

“Before the wedding.” Cole passed the thermos to his father, his dismay compounding. News like this set tongues wagging. It’d further fuel rumors of his father being an opportunist who married for money.

“Yes.” The hint of despair in Pa’s voice set Cole’s teeth on edge. “Unless we accept James Cade’s offer.”

“No.” They’d never allow rivals to buy their land and rent it back to them, no matter how fair the offer. James vowed the deal would be just between them, but Cole’s pride wouldn’t let him accept.

Being talked about in public got under his skin. The child of an alcoholic parent, he’d grown up in a house full of secrets. When his mother killed herself on his sixteenth birthday, her father, a senator, fed the press fake stories and suggested foul play to pressure law enforcement to open a homicide investigation.

When the press labeled Boyd a murderous opportunist after his wife’s inheritance, it’d nearly broken him.

Now, on the eve of a second chance at love, Cole’s father might be the subject of malicious, widespread gossip and press again.

No.

He could not let that happen.

The heifer inched farther away, rutting hay scattered over the frozen ground, an eye flicking to her calf now and again. She was curious. If Cole gave them more space, would she take to mothering? Some things couldn’t be forced. Even penning them together wasn’t a guarantee. His mother had been surrounded by her children and she’d never considered them over her addiction.

His lonely father deserved happiness, a scandal-free wedding and a loving marriage with his former childhood sweetheart. Yet the Cade-Loveland family truce was temporary at best given their continued water rights and cattle disputes. They’d be fortunate to get through the wedding peacefully without outside pressure riling simmering tensions.

Tomorrow Cole would ask the loan officers to postpone the foreclosure until after summer. A rainy season might turn things around and help them replenish the herd. Despite the long-shot odds, he had to try.

He’d devoted his life to Loveland Hills, sacrificed all, including his heart, once. He’d never leave it voluntarily. Not while he still breathed. Lovelands stood by each other. His father gave up his happiness for his kids’ sakes. He’d earned their loyalty, no matter how it’d nearly broken Cole when he’d had to let go of the one person who’d meant everything to him.

The calf ominously stopped bawling, and its movements slowed to mere twitches. An arctic gust billowed Cash’s mahogany mane like a sail. Another five minutes in these conditions and the newborn would die. Cole’s fingers clenched around the reins.

“Let’s bring ’em in.” Boyd patted the rope looped on the side of his saddle. “She’s not keen on being a mother.”

Cole watched the now listless calf. His heart went out to the youngling. A mother should care for her offspring, dang it.

“Got one last idea.” He whistled for their cattle dog, Boomer. The black-and-white border collie sprang from beneath the calving shed’s eave, ears up and forward, eyes on his master. Cole ordered Boomer into the field and held his breath.

The clever dog crept across the white ground, body low. The newborn’s eyes rolled, whites showing, as it struggled to drag itself away from a perceived threat. The stream of its frantic bleats whipped the heifer’s head around. White huffed from her flaring nostrils when she spied Boomer.

“Get him, girl,” Cole urged the Brahman beneath his breath, leaning forward in the saddle. Hopefully, his gamble paid off and the “predator” nearing her offspring would arouse her maternal instincts.

“Boomer’s got her attention,” Boyd observed quietly as they watched the tense standoff.

The collie crept closer, and the heifer stamped her hooves.

Fueled by terror, the calf surged to its feet and trembled in place, its strength expended. Boomer advanced a couple more steps, and the heifer issued a loud warning bellow.

“You gonna call that dog back?” Boyd asked out of the corner of his mouth. “He’s likely to get trampled.”

“I trust him,” Cole replied firmly. As the ranch manager, he trained all their cattle dogs, including Boomer, to herd, load and drive. Despite everything gone wrong in his life—a called-off wedding, failed love life and looming foreclosure, Cole excelled at commanding his working dogs.

Cole watched as Boomer eyed the thousand-pound Brahman, sliding another paw forward, then another, drawing within bite distance of the terrified, braying calf.

Then the mother charged, fueled by maternal fury, surging at Boomer. The cattle dog expertly dodged her deadly hooves and scuttled clear.

Cole held up his hand, halting the collie’s retreat. They weren’t out of the woods yet. Best keep pressuring.

One eye on Boomer, the heifer sniffed her calf. Her tongue darted out and her rough lick tipped the newborn’s head.

“Atta girl,” Cole muttered, his chest loosening as he dragged in his first full breath in hours.

“Nicely done, son,” Boyd said and the rare praise from his stoic father caught Cole with unexpected warmth. Living life on the edge of personal and financial disaster had a way of threatening a man’s pride. He took his victories where he could. They’d saved the calf whose mother now lavished it with a thorough bathing.

Could they save the ranch, too?

“Looks like our work’s done.” Pa wheeled his horse around and nudged it into a walk down the rutted lane to their stable.

“I’ll keep checking on them.” Cole brought Cash up alongside his father’s mustang. Boomer kept pace.

Only the twittering of waking birds, and the clip of hooves striking hard ground, broke the silence. Overhead, the iridescent sky glowed. Light now striped the fallow fields awaiting this year’s planting, and their shadows rode ahead.

“I’ll stop down to First National at nine,” Cole said once they’d reached the stable and untacked the horses. The sweet smell of grain rose as he poured cornmeal into Cash’s feed bucket, a treat for the exhausted horse.

“No need to waste your time, son.” Cool water misted the air as Boyd filled the water troughs. Several horses hung their heads outside their stall doors, nosy about the early activity, nickering to the new arrivals.

“It’s not a waste.” Cole doled out halved apples to his siblings’ mounts. “If I can convince them to hold off a couple months, and we have a good season, we could turn things around.”

“I figured out another way without including the bank.” Boyd pulled the stable door shut behind them once they finished.

“Good to hear.” Cole glanced at his frowning father from the corner of his eye. Why didn’t Pa seem pleased?

“Not sure you’ll think so.” They ambled closer to the two-story homestead built by their ancestor, Colonel Archibald Loveland, an army veteran. He’d deserted from the Colorado War, married a Cheyenne interpreter and settled here over a hundred and thirty years ago, breathing life into the first of many Loveland scandals.

Must be in their blood.

“Why would I object?” Cole noticed a few green shoots alongside the fieldstone walkway to their front porch. With any luck, they might get three hay crops...

Boyd paused on the porch’s stairs. “Was approached by an outfit to do a story about our feud with the Cades. They’ll pay enough to cover our mortgage through the season if I give them access to the property.”

Cole leaned against the pine banister, absorbing his father’s news. Like the rest of the home, it’d been culled from the distant forests and hauled over great distances. Their ranch was a bastion against a landscape of forbidding mountains, its warm hearth and hand-hewn timber beams communicating self-reliance, simplicity and lack of pretentions. His heart swelled at the thought of what his ancestors had wrought.

They’d fight to their last breaths to safeguard their family’s legacy. But a story dredging up old scandals? It’d upset the tenuous peace between them and the Cades and jeopardize his father’s wedding. His hard-won happiness.

“What kind of outfit? Something local?” Cole’s hands tightened around the banister as he recalled the frenzied media who’d hounded his family after his mother’s death.

“Cable show.” For some reason, his pa seemed to have trouble meeting Cole’s eye.

“National TV?” Cole squinted into the strengthening sunshine and glimpsed an approaching black car bumping down their drive. “We don’t want them sniffing around the place, dragging out old skeletons.”

“Better than being thrown off our land before the wedding,” Pa countered.

Cole shoved his balled hands into his pockets, unable to counter the argument. “They’ll drag up stuff about Ma.”

The vehicle neared, its engine’s smooth purr sounding expensive, foreign. Out-of-towners. Someone lost?

“Got assurances to the contrary.” Boyd stepped off the porch and, to Cole’s astonishment, waved two hands overhead as if he expected whoever was driving.

“Who’s this?” Cole strode to his father’s side and peered at dark-tinted windows as the town car slid to a smooth stop.

“The show’s producer and host.”

“This is a done deal!” Cole exclaimed. “Why’d you keep it from me? Does anyone else know?”

The door opened and a fetching pair of slim, shapely legs in black heels emerged.

“Nope. You’re the first.”

A tall blonde ducked gracefully from the car. Something about her struck him as if he knew her, though he wasn’t sure with the sun backlighting her, casting her features in shadow.

“I don’t understand.”

A suited man joined the lady, and they stepped gingerly across the pebbled drive. She held her head high and stared directly at him.

“The show’s called Scandalous History,” Pa said, then hustled to greet his company.

Scandalous History... Now where had Cole heard of it?

Then it hit him, a sucker punch straight to the gut, leaving him off balance.

“Hello, Cole.”

His body stiffened at the familiar, silky-smooth voice. A flash of memory—listening to her speak as they’d watched campfires, stargazed, fly-fished—pulled a lump into his throat. He’d once thought her words sounded like lyrics, her laughter a song. He’d also thought she walked on water until she’d skated right out of his life.

He peered into the beautiful face he’d seen in his dreams, the one he envisioned while riding the range, gorgeous as ever with her perfectly symmetrical features and large blue eyes in a heart-shaped face. Only she looked different somehow. More sophisticated. Elegant. As if someone had slapped a coat of varnish over her natural beauty, making it harder to see who she really was...if he’d ever really known at all.

Old hurt stalked through him, residual anger on its heels. When she’d left, she’d nearly done him in. Was she back to finish the job? Not a chance.

His jaw clamped shut, and he spoke through gritted teeth, minding his manners for Pa’s sake until he got rid of her and the threat she posed to him and his family.

“Welcome home, Katie-Lynn.”

CHAPTER TWO

KATIE-LYNN.

Besides her family, no one had used her real name since she’d changed it to match her makeover. Katie-Lynn was another person, a ghost from her past.

In LA she was a star.

Remember that girl.

“Katie-Lynn, you’re as pretty as ever.” Boyd beamed at her as he pulled a can of coffee from a wooden cabinet. He hadn’t changed much. Sun streaming through the kitchen’s windows glowed on his thick white hair and highlighted unbowed shoulders in a flannel shirt. The extra lines on his craggy face added to his distinguished appearance.

“That’s sweet of you. Thanks. And I go by Katlynn, now.”

“Help yourself to some fruit if you’re hungry,” Boyd added. “I could make you some toast if you haven’t had breakfast.”

“No. This is great.” She leaned across the oak table, filched a cherry from a bowl and popped it into her mouth, hyperaware of Cole’s eyes trained solely on her. The sensation was unsettling. It reminded her of the buzz of anticipation accompanying a roller coaster’s first lurch, one she’d ridden before. This time, however, she knew the drops, twists and corners ahead.

Her limbs stiffened, and her jaw clamped as she fought the crazy urge to squeeze her eyes shut. She practically lived under a microscope in California; why did Cole’s scrutiny fluster her?

She squashed the disturbing question—he had no sway over her anymore—and glanced across the table at the inscrutable rancher. Cole Donovan Loveland, the first man she’d ever loved, and the only man who’d ever broken her heart.

His eyes were still that unnerving shade of clear, glacier blue. Clipped black hair showed no signs of gray or thinning. And he was still crazy tall—obviously—people don’t shrink in their thirties, least of all a Loveland.

Katlynn’s toes tapped the wide-planked floor.

Cole was as mountain-size and rugged as his surroundings, and he still radiated his enigmatic, I’m-the-puzzle-you’ll-never-solve vibe. Oh...no. This was not good.

“Katie-Lynn?” Tom’s nose scrunched as if he smelled something bad. In his polished Italian loafers and custom suit, her producer appeared out of place in this rustic setting. Hollywood called him a shark, but in the Rockies, he resembled a beached guppy.

“I didn’t have a say in picking my name,” she said beneath her breath. “Then.”

Cole’s narrow-eyed gaze darted between them.

“Don’t you think she looks pretty, Cole?” Boyd persisted, dumping ground beans into an old-school coffeemaker.

At Cole’s noncommittal grunt, her shoulders squared inside the tasteful black dress she’d carefully selected for today.

For Cole.

To impress him; to show him how far she’d come from the mouse he’d once dismissed. To earn his approval...

Why?

Because you’re an idiot.

An empty watering can atop a mat in the center of the table snagged her eye. In a flash, she was seventeen again, picking daisies with Cole to fill it.

“Here’s one for your hair.” He’d tucked a flower behind her ear. “Though you’re the one making it look pretty.”

And she’d blushed, amazed the popular, athletic boy in high school had even noticed her, let alone made her his girlfriend. She’d felt special. Important.

“How about some coffee?” Boyd’s question pulled her back to the present with a jolt, her stomach tipping side to side.

A roasted-bean aroma erupted from the gurgling coffeemaker. Over Boyd’s shoulder, a brick hearth covered most of the back wall. Her mouth twitched as she recalled a disastrous strawberry-rhubarb pie-making attempt with Cole using one of the baking slits. They’d spent hours scrubbing goo off those stones...and had a fun time doing it.

How her tastes had changed.

Refined.

A good time nowadays meant a glass of Dom Perignon, preferably White Gold, while attending a star-studded event to see and be seen.

“None for me.” Tom stabbed at his cell phone then circled it overhead, searching for a signal.

Her eyes lingered on the coffeemaker’s glass carafe. One pot for everyone. No individual cup allowances for mint chocolate coffee or hazelnut vanilla... Here, coffee was coffee. Period. There was a simplicity about it she found refreshing. Sometimes when you had too many choices, you focused on the little things and lost sight of the big picture. Her eyes flicked to Cole again then scurried off, circling the room, landing anywhere but on the magnetic cowboy.

“Katie—I mean, Katlynn?” Boyd gently prompted, as considerate a host as ever. “Coffee?”

“Sounds great.”

“It won’t be fancy like Starbucks,” Cole drawled, his deep, Johnny Cash baritone as gravelly as she remembered. Her heart added a couple extra beats.

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” she replied firmly, striving to stay “mindful” and in the present moment as her life coach advised. Deep breath in, anxiety, frustration, despair, out.

Deep breath in, returning attraction and insecurities regarding ex-fiancé, way out.

“Are you staying at the Holsford?” Boyd asked, referring to the small town’s only hotel.

“They’ve double-booked my suite.”

“You’re welcome to share mine.” Tom’s perfectly shaped eyebrows twitched in the limited way his Botox allowed.

Cole’s lips pressed into a flat line.

“Or you could stay here.” Boyd cast a quick glance at Cole.

Sunlight glinted off Boyd’s silver and turquoise bolo tie, the one he donned for special occasions. How sweet that he’d dressed up. “We’ve got plenty of room now that Cole’s living in one of the cabins and Maverick’s out on his PBR tour,” Boyd beamed. “Oh—and Daryl got hitched a while back. He and his wife have a cottage not far from here. You’re welcome to stay.”

From a professional standpoint, staying on Loveland Hills gave her immediate and frequent access to the investigation as well as her location shoots. From a personal standpoint, it’d mean spending too much time around Cole.

Too dangerous.

“Thanks, but I’ll stay at my folks’ place.” She crossed her fingers on her lap. Hopefully...if her mother would return her calls...

“Where can I get a signal?” Tom scooted his spindle-backed chair from the table and stood.

“Signal?” Boyd stared at him, confused, the line between his brows deepening.

“For his cell phone.” Cole jerked his thumb at the door. “Try the porch.”

Tom mumbled his thanks as the screen door clicked shut behind him.

“We don’t have cell service.” Boyd poured coffee into a World’s Best Dad mug.

The upward tug of Cole’s full lips snared her attention. He looked so handsome sitting across from her, his broad shoulders filling out his thermal shirt, his lightly bristled jaw begging to be touched. He cocked his head and caught her staring. Katlynn dropped her eyes, sure everyone could hear her heart thundering in her chest.

“It got him out of our hair at least.” His thick-lashed eyes gleamed at Katlynn when her gaze darted his way again, and he arched a challenging brow.

Was he planning on getting rid of her next?

She lifted her chin. Well, he could try. She wasn’t as easy to discard as she used to be.

“Cream? Sugar?” Boyd held up a pitcher of foamy, fresh milk.

“Do you have skim milk? Artificial sweetener?” she asked with a sigh. After failing to zipper Jennifer’s rose sheath, Katlynn vowed to lose five pounds on this trip.

“No. But I could run to the store.”

“She’ll survive without fake sugar,” Cole asserted, folding muscular arms even a personal trainer would envy. “And a few extra calories would do her some good.”

Was he calling her skinny? She was a size six—practically obese in her industry, hence the necessary evil of slimming undergarments. Speaking of which, she shifted in her seat to alleviate their cruel pinch.