Wide Open Spaces

Summer Marsh had suddenly appeared in the café.

Colt deliberately shut his eyes, then opened them again. She hadn’t gone. And she wasn’t alone. A child, a boy Colt guessed to be six or seven years of age, stood with her. The kid wore a too-big cowboy hat that rested on slightly jug ears. Colt grinned. Otherwise, the boy was pretty ordinary. But his body language suggested he wasn’t happy to be going out to dinner with his mother.

Colt realized Mrs. Marsh hadn’t seen him yet. An older waitress named Helen greeted Summer, grabbing a pair of menus. “How did the hearing go?” Helen asked as she directed them to the booth right behind Colt.

“Oh, fine, I guess,” Summer murmured. “The judge gave me six months to come up with money to buy out my ex.” She shrugged, looking dejected. “But the buyout’s based on an inflated price. To keep the Forked Lightning, I’d have to pay Frank three point eight million.”

They’d drawn abreast of Colt’s booth, and Summer stopped abruptly. “Mr., ah, Quinn, isn’t it?”

Colt rose politely. He’d been eavesdropping on her conversation with Helen. What Summer Marsh had said about the results of the hearing interested him a great deal.

“You two know each other?” Helen exclaimed. “Well, isn’t that nice. I hate seeing anyone eat alone.” Without fanfare, the waitress plunked Summer’s two menus on the table opposite Colt’s coffee mug.

Dear Reader,

The strangest things prompt writers to create a story. Of course, my primary goal as a Superromance author is to tell a love story that has a happy ending. To me, that’s the heart of my stories. The backbone often comes from obscure news articles, overheard conversations or a passing comment. In the case of this book, it was a small ad in the back of a conservation magazine.

The ad was titled “Buy into Conservation” and went as follows: “Wanted, buyer for an 18,600-acre oasis in beautiful Oregon’s high desert. Abundant wildlife includes pronghorn deer and bald eagles. The property comes with more than 25,000 acres of public grazing and allotments and three home sites along the river.” It ended with “Conservation buyers purchase property for their private use with certain restrictions on their development activities. By doing so, the buyer helps safeguard imperiled landscapes.”

As a former Oregonian, I remain passionate about land in its natural state. I’m someone who loves clean air, clear streams and unobstructed mountain views. Someone who routinely bemoans encroaching development on the beautiful desert near where I currently live, in Arizona. So this ad nagged me. It whispered and shouted and nudged until I dreamed up Summer Marsh, a cattle rancher in danger of losing her beloved ranch. And Coltrane (Colt) Quinn, a horse breeder. While serving his country on foreign soil, Colt lost his land when his greedy wife had him declared legally dead.

I don’t know whether anyone bought the Oregon ranch I saw advertised. I hope so. And I hope my readers agree that it should end up in the hands of people like Summer and Colt.

Roz Denny Fox

P.S. Write me at P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, Arizona, 85731 or e-mail me at rdfox@worldnet.att.net.

Wide Open Spaces

Roz Denny Fox

To Karen and Paul Belt, and Carol and Alvin Roy,

who know what it’s like to sink roots into family land

and coax a living from the soil year after year.

To Sharon and Bob Nistler, who own and operate the

granary in my old hometown and who have preserved the

historic railroad depot for future generations.

You all thought we were having a reunion,

but if you recall, I warned you I was researching a new

book. Any mistakes herein are mine. However,

you’ve all known me since we were knee-high

to a harrow, so the fact that I have a big imagination

shouldn’t come as any great surprise.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

COLTRANE QUINN STOOD at the rear of a horse trailer still attached to his Dodge Ram pickup. He was talking to Myron Holder, the local vet, discussing a pulled tendon on his favorite gelding. This was Colt’s second visit to Holder’s clinic, and he appreciated talking horses with someone who knew them as well as Holder did. Colt was cut off in the middle of a sentence by a big Ford dually and trailer bearing down on him. It seemed to be traveling way too fast. Dust and gravel engulfed Colt as the oncoming vehicle squealed to a stop inches from his rig. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman at the wheel, sitting to the right of a window sticker that read Badass Ladies Don’t Drive Mercedes. A moment later, she jumped from the cab and was obliterated by a cloud of grit.

“Fool woman,” Colt choked, waving away flying particles with both hands.

“Hardly,” Holder said. “Summer Marsh is one of least foolish women I know. Something’s wrong.” Already in motion, the old vet rushed toward the back of the woman’s single-horse trailer. She joined him, flinging down the trailer’s ramp.

Well, well, well! Colt was about to get his first look at the woman his boss had sent him to Callanton to assess. He’d been hanging around town for a week, enjoying the still-pleasant October weather of eastern Oregon while he filled a notebook with information on Frank and Summer Marsh. Finally, he was about to meet the wicked witch of Forked Lightning Ranch face-to-face.

Needing time to get a grip on his automatic hostility, Coltrane shook dirt off his Stetson. Eventually, he sauntered up alongside the battered trailer. The way it lurched back and forth, he figured the Marsh woman couldn’t handle a horse any better than she managed her life.

“Hey, Quinn,” Holder yelled, his voice hollow from inside the covered trailer. “Give us a hand.”

Colt stepped into the trailer’s opening, then dived back as some screeching thing hit his shoulder and knocked his hat clean off his head. “What the hell?” He ducked, squinting to see into the dim interior of the horse van.

“Grab her” came a woman’s frantic voice. “Oh, please! She’s going to injure her good wing if we don’t subdue her soon.”

Colt saw then that the Marsh woman and Doc Holder were wrestling a full-grown eagle boasting the widest wingspan he’d ever seen. One of the shrieking bird’s wings, he realized, trailed at an odd angle. Dark, rusty blood stained the white tips of the feathers. The eagle fought her captors valiantly with her other wing. Nor was she a slouch when it came to her beak and deadly talons.

Closing his mind as to why Summer Marsh might have an injured bird in her horse trailer, Colt jumped into the fray to do what he could. Dodging behind the flapping eagle, he threw his arms around her and clamped down for dear life.

He wasn’t a soft man by any means, thanks to special-forces training in the military. If only he’d had the sense to stay out of covert operations after he left the service, he’d be in better shape now. Instead, he’d let friends talk him into an occasional private rescue mission. The five years spent as a captive in that South American hellhole, had taken their toll. The few months thereafter, which he’d spent trying to drown in whiskey, had also contributed to his current breathlessness. But hell, he’d climbed out of the gutter and now worked out regularly again. Yet his arm muscles quivered and ached as he went down on one knee to add more leverage so he could hold the bird whose heart tripped faster than Colt’s own.

“Hot damn, keep her there, son,” Myron shouted. “I’ll get my bag and tranquilize her so I can take a good look at that injury.”

Colt felt Summer Marsh’s hands close over his wrists in her effort to complete the circle around the bird. Her hands were softer than he’d imagined a woman rancher’s hands would be. Knowing that about her delivered an unexpected jolt to his stomach.

Turning his head aside, Colt gritted his teeth and concentrated instead on listening to the cadence of their combined harsh breathing. It beat hearing the Marsh woman croon low and melodically to the eagle, like a mother might do to soothe a hurt child.

True to his word, Holder returned in a flash. One pop with a slender needle and the bird went limp in Colt’s arms.

Wheezing, Holder gasped, “Quinn, do you feel up to carrying our patient into an exam room?”

“I think so. Sure.” Colt figured that, aside from helping the vet, this would give him a chance to form his own opinion of Summer Marsh. But he’d barely skirted the trailer’s hub and heard her clang the ramp shut when she darted ahead of him and stopped Holder.

“Myron, I hate to dump trouble on you and then take off before you can assess the damage. I was on my way to circuit court over in Burns when some stupid hunter trespassing on my ranch shot the eagle out of the sky. It was pure luck that she practically fell in my lap. If I don’t scoot, though, I’ll be late for the hearing. Oh, and look at me. This shirt was clean when I started.”

Colt sneaked a peek around the bundle of feathers he held. Summer Marsh didn’t look anything like the harridan he’d conjured in his mind. For one thing, she was younger—more vibrant. Her medium-length russet hair curved from a center part toward a pointed chin. What Colt saw of her skin reminded him of a commercial that touted skin cream. Light gold, not the least bit leathery, the way you saw with people who spent long hours outdoors.

She wasn’t very big, either. Colt doubted the crown of her head would reach his shoulder. And that included her footwear. Boots. All but the tips of her dusty, square-toed boots were hidden beneath a split riding skirt fanning from a narrow, belted waist. Her once-white, western-style collarless shirt was the only thing Colt could see that seemed the worse for wear. Blood streaked one sleeve below a small rip in the shoulder. Considering how hard the bird had fought, it could have been worse. Much worse.

All in all, the lady looked good. Too damned good.

“Run along, Summer,” Holder was saying. “I’ll take care of your eagle. You want to leave her overnight, or pick her up on your way home to stable with the rest of your menagerie?”

“I’ll stop by and get her. If she’s the eagle I’ve seen hunting our north pasture, she has babies nesting in Kiger Gorge. I hope she has a partner. If not, I’ll have to figure out how to bring the little ones down for feeding.”

“Like you need that chore heaped on top of Frank acting like an ass! Is he behind this hearing you’re headed for?”

“I guess. Or his lawyers.” She paused again to check her watch. When she glanced up this time, it was straight into Coltrane’s eyes. He realized her irises were gold, flecked here and there with bits of green. Hazel, he supposed was the proper term. Something in her eyes reminded Colt of the firestorm he’d witnessed earlier in the eagle. And they invoked a sympathy he didn’t want to feel.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taking a step toward Colt. “We’ve never met. I’m Summer Marsh.”

“Coltrane Quinn,” he mumbled, slightly dazed by her suddenly blinding smile.

“Well, Mr. Quinn. I don’t know if you’re just passing through Callanton, or if you’ve settled in. Either way, you have my profound thanks for your willingness to help a stranger. If I can ever return the favor, you can usually find me twenty miles due east of town, somewhere on the Forked Lightning Ranch.”

Following a final wave at Holder, and after the old man’s murmured “Good luck today, Summer,” she was gone. Just the way she’d arrived, in a cloud of dust.

Colt shook off an odd sensation. Afraid he’d drop the limp bird, he hurried into Holder’s clinic.

“I realize you were first in order,” Holder told him. “If you don’t mind, though, I’d like to set this wing and place the eagle in a portable cage before she comes out from under that tranquilizer. Turn your gelding into the small corral out back of the clinic. There’s water and grazing enough to keep him happy until I finish.”

“Spirit’s okay in the trailer for now. As I was saying before all hell broke loose, I’ve wrapped his foreleg with Flexus Plus and administered Cosequin since you checked him earlier in the week. He seems to be on the mend. I’d just like another opinion before I let him bear my full weight.”

“A more professional opinion than that of a cowboy, you mean?”

“I don’t know if I’d describe myself as a cowboy, exactly.” Colt smiled across the bird stretched out on the steel table Colt smiled across the bird stretched out on the steel table. “Guess I never mentioned that I used to breed Morgan horses near Featherville, Idaho. Learned all I know about horse doctoring from Halsey Luttrell, best vet in the territory. He recommended you, by the way. Said you two met in college.”

Myron Holder scratched his beard. “Did the old son of a gun tell you I was number one in our veterinary medicine graduating class, and he was a distant second?”

Colt’s grin spread. “He neglected to pass on that detail.”

“Humph! So what brings you from that forsaken land to God’s country? I don’t imagine you’re scouting horseflesh. Not saying we don’t have our share of good ones hereabouts, but mostly there’s prime cattle in these parts.”

The smile slipped from Colt’s face. “I had a ranch sold out from under me. Since then, I’ve been doing a little of this and a little of that. At the moment I’m bunked at the Arrowroot Inn, and I’m boarding Spirit at Tucker’s Stable. Hey, as you’re something of an authority on local ranches, fill me in on the place belonging to the woman who brought in the eagle.”

The old man stared hard at Coltrane. “Summer’s a damn fine woman who’s been handed a raw deal by her snook of a husband. Ex he is now, thank goodness. But Frank’s still making mischief. That’s all I’m gonna say about them. The one who’s been most affected is their son, Rory. He’s just a little shaver. Too young to understand any of it.”

“A son?” Colt said absently, watching Myron conduct a thorough examination of the bird’s shattered wing. None of his records indicated that Marsh had a kid. Nor had he heard a single word about it when he’d nosed around town this past week.

“Hold this clamp.” The vet shoved a gleaming instrument into Colt’s hand. “I’ve gotta clean buckshot out of the wound. God damn every last city hunter who can’t tell an eagle from a pheasant. I wish Summer had nailed their ignoramus hides so they’d be sitting out their vacation in our poky. This bird’s gonna need care for a long time while her wing mends. Oh, Summer’s got the facilities, but she doesn’t need one more problem on her plate.”

“Earlier you referred to her menagerie.”

“I did?”

Colt waited impatiently for embellishment as the veterinarian set the eagle’s delicate bones and splinted them together with thin strips of nonflexible plastic.

“You seem mighty interested in Summer,” Holder finally growled. “Suppose it’s natural, though. I’ve never seen a cowboy yet who couldn’t pick out the prettiest woman in three counties.”

Colt gave a rough snort. “You’ve read me all wrong. I’ve been duly shafted by a pretty woman before. If I was planning to take sides in the Marsh matter, I’d more than likely toss in my lot with her ex.”

“Then you’d be dead wrong. But then, didn’t you say you were staying at the Arrowroot Inn? Probably means you spend time at Mason White’s Bar and Grill. I hear Frank Marsh hangs out there, bragging about what a cattle baron he is. Did nobody stop to wonder how he has the time to sit in a bar when ranching’s a twenty-hour-a-day job?” He shook his head. “It’s a good thing you aren’t in any position to align with Frank and further hurt Summer. The Forked Lightning means the world to her.”

“Hmm.” Coltrane watched Holder cage the groggy bird. He withheld his final thoughts on the subject of Summer Marsh. If she truly cared about the Forked Lightning, then he was in a position to further hurt her.

SUMMER ARRIVED AT CIRCUIT COURT Judge Roy Atherton’s chambers, ten minutes late. She hesitated before entering the room, where she could hear several men speaking, their voices low and intense. Summer thought she’d weathered the worst that could happen to her this past spring, during the Harney County court proceedings. She’d survived a bitter, name-calling divorce from Frank Marsh, her husband of eight years. Now, according to the most recent paper she’d been served, Frank was demanding she sell her beloved ranch, which had been home to four generations of Callans. Summer had always supposed that, if nothing else, she and Frank were agreed on one thing: passing the ranch to their son, Rory.

The hand she extended to open Judge Atherton’s door shook. That kind of fear was unlike her. Heavens, she wrangled beef for a living! And often supervised up to eight cowboys at any given time, all while managing a home and raising a child. She’d nursed her father, Bart Callan, through ten years of a hellish disease that had wasted his body long before taking his life. If she could do all that, she could certainly do this.

Lifting her chin, she staved off any perceptible tremor before striding into the room. All anyone there could do was hit her with words. They couldn’t touch her heart unless she let them, and she had a solid padlock on that.

“Mrs. Marsh, I presume?” snapped a hawk-nosed man seated at the head of the table. “Your lawyer, Mr. Crosley, should have informed you that it’s bad policy to be late. I’m Judge Atherton. I believe you know everyone else present at this informal hearing. The purpose today is to divide the physical property owned jointly by you and Mr. Marsh. Take a seat next to Mr. Crosley, please, and let’s begin.”

Larkin Crosley lifted his bulk from his chair with some effort. With a palsied hand, he pulled out another on his right. Summer sighed, wishing she could have afforded better counsel. Larkin had been her grandfather’s attorney, and her father’s, as well. She suspected that, at eighty-seven, he was past his prime. She knew he was hard of hearing.

She’d barely claimed her seat when the judge spoke again. “I assume you’re all aware that Oregon is an equitable distribution state. In case you aren’t, that means all tangible and intangible property owned by either or both spouses is subject to division by the court. This includes any gifts and inheritances, as well as property acquired prior to and during the marriage.”

Summer’s heart skidded toward her stomach, where it lodged. Larkin had explained the community property law. But falling from Judge Atherton’s impassive lips, the edict sounded far more ominous. Final. The Forked Lightning needed every acre, plus all the government grazing land Summer currently leased, to support a herd of the size she had to run to make a profit.

Add Atherton’s cold decree to Frank’s smirk, and Summer felt her hands turn to ice. But she’d promised herself she wouldn’t lash out under any circumstances. Frank had hurt and humiliated her and that was all she intended to allow.

His lawyer, Perry Blake, was senior partner of a prestigious law firm in Burns, the largest city near Callanton. Theirs was a rural community named for Ben Callan, Summer’s own great-grandfather.

Perry popped the lid on his expensive leather briefcase and removed stapled copies of a typed report attached to a map. He passed one to the judge and another to Larkin. “The holdings in question are outlined in red, Your Honor. It amounts to roughly ten thousand acres. Most is undeveloped. There’s a past-its-prime farmhouse, a few cottages, three outbuildings and a barn set on a fenced ten-acre pasture. My client wishes the entire properties to be sold to the highest bidder, so that his half of the settlement is all in cash. We accept that the court will then divide the proceeds equally between my client and the former Mrs. Marsh.”

The knot in Summer’s midsection grew tighter as she broke her promise to herself. “That house you’re calling ‘past its prime’ was built by my great-grandfather, Ben Callan, when Oregon was still a territory. My great-grandmother stood off marauding Nez Perce and Umatilla Indians for three days while she was eight months pregnant with Ben Junior. My dad, Bart, was born in that house, as was I and also my son. Rory deserves the right to raise his sons there, Frank. You know it’s what my dad intended.”

“For God’s sake, Summer. If you invest your portion of the money from the sale, Rory can live in a frigging castle if he wants.”

Judge Atherton rapped his knuckles on the table. “I think it’s safe to say that if you two agreed as to the dissolution of this property, we wouldn’t be here today.” He gazed over his half glasses. “Mrs. Marsh, since the property in question obviously has greater significance for you than for Mr. Marsh, the simplest way to resolve this situation is for you to buy out his interest.”

Frank and his lawyer exchanged a look Summer couldn’t read until Perry Blake rushed to say, “Your Honor, my client has a buyer willing to write a check tomorrow for 7.6 million dollars. But if the former Mrs. Marsh can give her ex-husband half that amount today, then your solution works for us.”

Stunned by the dollar figure Perry Blake bandied about, Summer had no doubt that her face reflected her shock.

Larkin Crosley roused for the first time, asking Summer to repeat what had been said. Which she did, in a shaky voice. The old lawyer shook his shaggy white head. “The majority of that land is rough, Your Honor, good for little but grazing. All the really big ranchers have been driven out due to government restrictions on land use. I’d like to ask Mr. Blake who is willing to invest so heavily.”

They didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Even before Larkin finished speaking, Frank Marsh turned to Blake and muttered, “Perry, what in hell are you doing? You know how hard Jill worked to secure this deal with Edward Adams. If I deal directly with Summer, Jill loses her commission.”

Summer understood everything now. Edward Adams and Associates financed and operated large resorts. It wouldn’t surprise Summer if they’d offered Frank a management role as part of the package. And Jill Gardner, a dynamic young Realtor in the area, was Frank’s latest girlfriend. Only after he filed for divorce had Summer discovered how many dalliances he’d had before Jill. People in Callanton—her friends and neighbors—had known. To Summer, that was the most humiliating aspect of this entire ordeal. The truths surrounding her sham of a marriage were unfolding in bits and pieces as townsfolk she’d known all her life chose to line up behind her or behind Frank.

Frank Marsh was a former cattle tallyman, whose job was to count and record cattle at the local stockyard. He’d finessed his way into Bart Callan’s circle of friends around the time her father was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Summer hadn’t understood until later that Frank’s sudden interest in her coincided with Bart’s seeking a husband for his only child. A daughter he’d raised alone from age nine—after his wife, Lucy, succumbed to a stubborn bacterial pneumonia. And Bart Callan, ravaged by illness and worry about leaving Summer alone to run the ranch, failed to see how long she’d actually been at the helm. It was too bad the picture hadn’t taken shape for Summer before her marriage to the man her father chose for her. Then it was too late. Except…she had Rory. Everything Summer did from now on would be for him.