The Princess of Coldwater Flats Read Free Page B

word.
    “Will the Triple R be sold?” Cooper had asked, already knowing the answer. He’d planned to buy the ranch no matter what; money was a big talker. But this state of affairs made things so much easier he almost laughed aloud in delight.
    “Gonna have to be, I’m afraid,” Jack murmured sorrowfully.
    But Cooper hadn’t heard a word after that. Plans filled his head. He would expand his own property and have one of the area’s largest ranches. Maybe he’d make money; maybe he wouldn’t. It hardly mattered. He already possessed more than any decent soul had a right to. He only wanted to ranch. Hands-on. His palms wrapped around a shovel, his throat choked with dust. It was his dream. It had just taken him decade or so to figure it out.
    How many nights had he stood at his office window, staring across a smog-gray moonscape of the Los Angeles skyline? How many times had unnamed longing filled him? How many times during his ill-fated marriage to Pamela had he asked himself if anything else was out there? Something better. Something good.
    Now he knew. He wanted earth and dirt and aching muscles and plain, hard work.
    But Sammy Jo Whalen was going to be a problem. That he could tell straight away. Was it worth his while to try to get to know her, to soften her up, so to speak? Or would it be smarter to just wait for the inevitable to happen and let the Triple R fall into his lap? She wouldn’t be able to make those payments for long, and Matt Durning was more than anxious to be rid of her bad loan. Three months? From what Cooper could see, she’d be lucky if she managed to make it for one.
    But there was no doubt she’d go down kicking and screaming.
    “You know, you ought to think about acquiring the Triple R,” Matt Durning suggested, unwittingly reading Cooper’s thoughts. “It’s a nice piece of land. Folks around here have always known that if Serenity and the Triple R were combined, it’d be the biggest ranch for three, maybe four, counties.”
    Cooper hid his feelings on the subject. “Think Sammy Jo’ll sell it?”
    “She won’t have any choice,” was Matt’s grim prediction.

    Sammy Jo’s pickup bumped up the long driveway to the Triple R’s ranch house. Dust plumed out the back like the tail of a comet, which was about the speed Sammy Jo was traveling. She absently waved to the huge oak that stood like a sentinel at the turn, a ritual she’d begun as a child. Her mind churned in turmoil. Damn, damn, damn! How could Gil have been so foolhardy?
    I’ll take care of everything…‌
    “Yeah. Right.”
    Yanking on the wheel, she rounded the final turn, screeching to a halt in front of the house, a sprawling, slightly dilapidated building with one shutter hanging drunkenly and about to fall off completely. Yes, the place wasn’t pretty. It never had been. Her father had built it himself and, as a carpenter, Gil Whalen made a good rancher.
    Only he really wasn’t much of a rancher, especially these past few years before his death. In fact, he was about as bad a rancher as you could be.
    “What did you think you were doing?” Sammy Jo demanded, slamming open the front door. Tears stood in her eyes. She was so angry at him, she could spit nails. “How could you do this to me?” she cried to the empty house.
    Plunking down on the footstool, she dropped her chin into her palm, feeling like a child, an idiot and a complete failure. She’d been snookered. Snookered by her father and now by Valley Federal. It was all an elaborate plot. Gil Whalen hadn’t thought his only daughter could take care of the ranch so he’d made certain she wouldn’t get a chance.
    In fury she stomped her foot on the faded hooked rug her grandmother had made. Dust soared into the air and she waved it away, coughing. For the first time that day, she saw the terrible shape her boots were in and she stomped off to the back porch and the bootjack.
    Evening shadows striped the field behind the house, companion to the