A Rancher To Trust. Laurel Blount

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       Chapter One

      As Dan Whitlock pulled his pickup to a stop in the middle of the quiet Oklahoma cemetery, his cell phone buzzed against his chest for the third time. He fished it out of his shirt pocket and checked the screen. Sure enough, he had two missed calls and a text from rancher Colton McAllister.

      Call me.

      Dan looked out the truck window at the snowy cemetery and weighed his options. He’d planned to get this private errand over and done with before he touched base with Colt, but the new boss of the Bar M Ranch wasn’t known for his patience. Might as well go ahead and call him back. Then maybe Dan could tend to his personal business in peace.

      Colt answered the phone on the first ring. “About time.”

      “I was driving. Sorry, Colt, but my advice is pass on these heifers. They look a lot better on paper than they do in person. I know how bad you want to get in on the Shadow Lady bloodline, but trust me, these aren’t your girls.”

      Colt made an irritated noise. “I should have figured as much. Price was too good. I’ll start looking in a higher dollar range and see what I can find.”

      The Bar M didn’t have that kind of money to play around with right now. Dan started to argue but thought better of it.

      Not my call, he reminded himself, not anymore. As the elderly Gordon McAllister’s foreman, Dan had overseen the day-to-day ranch operations. But now that Colt’s grandfather had passed on, Colt had shifted from being Dan’s friend to being Dan’s boss. The younger McAllister preferred to handle things on his own.

      “Anyway,” Colt said, “I appreciate you taking a look. You about ready to head home?”

      Dan’s gaze drifted back to the scattered gravestones, sparkling icily in the brittle January sunlight. “Yeah, shortly. I have something I need to do first.”

      “No rush on this end. Take your time.”

      Dan could barely hear his friend’s muffled words over the whistle of the Wyoming wind and the sound of cattle lowing. Colt probably had his phone clenched between his chin and his shoulder, which meant his hands were busy with something else.

      “You out choring? I thought you were supposed to be helping Angie take care of those new twins of yours.”

      “I’m fixing that section of fence in the south pasture. I was going stir-crazy in the house, so Angie finally shooed me outside. Oh yeah. She said you had a phone call yesterday.”

      “Who from?”

      “Some girl, Angie said. She wanted to talk to you, wouldn’t say why. Angie thought it might be something important, though, because the number came up Pine Valley, Georgia. Isn’t that your hometown?”

      Dan tightened his grip on the phone. “This girl. СКАЧАТЬ