Cowboy Rush (Dalton Boys Book 5) Read Free

but her plain jeans were in the wash.
    “Hunter here.”
    “For goodness sakes, Ryan, isn’t it bad enough your father gave you a man’s name without adopting another one?”
    She pushed out a breath and braced herself for a phone call with her mother. “If you didn’t like the name Ryan, why’d you let him call me that?”
    “He was a strong-willed man, you know that. He took care of everything.”
    “Even naming babies, I guess.” Ryan tried to keep her tone light, but since her father’s passing, she and her mom had been constantly butting heads. First the reading of the will had set her and her three brothers on edge, then her mom had told them she was selling the ranch to Uncle Jay.
    That still jabbed poisoned barbs into Ryan. Daddy had worked hard to grow the ranch to what it was today. She and her brothers could have easily managed it for years to come. They wanted to. But her mother claimed she’d always hated ranching, had her sights set on a property in Boca Raton and selling was the only option—for her.
    “Why are you calling, Mom?” Ryan’s horse gave a soft whicker and nudged her sleeve. Her favorite mare knew Ryan came bearing treats and she hadn’t yet gotten one. Switching the phone to her other hand, Ryan fished into her front pocket for a bit of oatmeal bar.
    As the horse chomped it down, Ryan leaned against its warm, comforting side and listened to her mother gush about the scenery at the retirement community she was moving into.
    “So it’s a done deal, Mom? The ranch is no longer ours?” Ryan’s chest felt tight. She’d always been a country girl, doing ranch chores since she could walk. But after her father’s cancer battle, she’d taken over in earnest. Learning the ropes fast, determined to do everything her brothers had before they’d gotten married and branched out on their own. Nobody was going to look down on her because she was a woman doing what had been men’s business for hundreds of years.
    She wasn’t her mother—a soft, pampered Southern woman who’d depended far too much on her husband. So much so that when he’d been unable to take care of her, her mother had crumbled. Somehow a little two-bedroom cottage with a palm tree in the front had restored her, though.
    “Yes, Ryan, the ranch is no longer ours. But Jay promises you’ll always have a place if you want it.”
    She looked out the barn door at the lush green fields. Knowing the land no longer had the Hunter name on it made her feel like an intruder. Her heart gave an odd flip-flop but she did what was becoming the norm for her since her father’s death—she stuffed her emotions down and put a brave note to her voice.
    “It might be time to strike out on my own, Mom.”
    “Where will you go? You can always come down here. There are plenty of jobs.”
    The idea of sleeping in her mother’s guest room made her more claustrophobic. A crawling feeling settled over her. “Thank you but no. I’ll find something myself. I have a lot of experience ranching.”
    “Oh Ryan, please tell me you aren’t planning to take a job as a ranch hand.” She said the words as if they were covered in manure.
    “It’s what I love, Mom. Of course that’s what I plan to do.” Until she spoke, she hadn’t realized it was true. Since hearing the ranch would no longer belong to her and her family, she’d been thinking about taking off. Ranchers always needed good workers, and she was that much.
    She listened for several more minutes to her mother talk about the paddle boats she could use in the community lake and how she was having a brandy with a ladies group. All the while, Ryan’s mind flitted from local ranch to ranch, wondering just where she would be welcome.
    A woman ranch hand had to prove herself tenfold. Nobody would give a five-foot-four-inch redhead—with freckles, for God’s sake—a job over a strapping tough guy.
    With a sigh, she decided it was time to let her mother go, along with the ranch and all