Prologue

Black Forest, Colorado – 1879

Lantern light flickered hazily off the light wooden walls of the barn as Lena Bell raked the brush down the coat of the large horse in front of her, adamant not to stop until the beast’s coat was gleaming. The smell of straw pervaded her nostrils, and she fought off a sneeze as the horse stomped one large hoof, impatient for another sugar cube.

“You hush, now,” she admonished it with a chuckle.

Maximus, or Max as everyone called him, was her father’s horse. A tall, proud Quarter Horse with a brownish-red coat that was perfectly unmarred except for a white spot on his nose in the vague shape of a heart, and a matching one on his rump.

“It’s because he’s so full of love that God couldn’t help but let everyone know about it,” her father always said.

Max gave a huff, his large, velvety nostrils flaring with indignation, and Lena rolled her eyes.

“Fine.”

She gave in, reaching into the pockets of her dress and pulling out another white cube. She brushed her hand along his coat as she walked toward Max’s front, making sure that he was aware of her position at all moments, to not spook him. When she reached his face, she held out the sugar cube flat in her palm, allowing his lips to flap open as they lifted the treat into his mouth.

It disappeared with a crunch and Max let out a loud, satisfied whinny, nuzzling into Lena’s face in thanks.

“You great big brute,” she laughed as the warm breath coming from Max’s snout stirred her blonde hair.

Her father had purchased Max when he was barely more than a colt. Lena herself was only eleven then, and she had been obsessed with him. Now, a little over twelve years later, she found herself more enamored with the animal with each passing day.

Max, satisfied now that he had retrieved his treat, went back to looking over the short gate of his stall, staring out past the opening of the barn and into the waning sunset outside. She lost herself once more in the rhythm of brushing Max’s coat, listening to the whisper that it made as the bristles smoothed down his glossy hair. But it wasn’t long before a sound coming from outside of the barn grabbed her attention.

She paused, holding the brush still as she listened. It took her a moment to fully register what it was, but when she did her heart leaped anxiously. Someone was running for the barn, yelling.

“Lena!”

The voice grew clearer, and she was finally able to gather that they were yelling for her.

“Lena! Come quick!”

She was also able to place exactly who it was that was calling out for her; Ian, one of their farmhands, who had been helping her father that evening with the final bit of chores. The boy appeared only a second later, his face bright red from running to her. Sweat poured from his brow, and his eyes were wild with something that Lena could only describe as fear.

“What is it, Ian?” Lena asked, setting the horse’s brush on the half wall of the stall and then pushing her way past Max and out the door.

The horse behind her gave a low, anxious whinny, alerted by the sudden shift in the air and the tension that now filled her body.

“It’s your Da’,” Ian explained, his voice high and panicked. “One of the cows, they got spooked and it hit the rest of ‘em. There was a stampede and Thomas…” The boy’s voice broke, and his sentence stopped. His gaze turned to one of sympathy as he took a split second to gather himself. “You have to come, Lena. Just come.”

Lena didn’t wait for him to continue. She slammed the door to Max’s stall shut with a snap and took off as fast as her legs would carry her.

“Where was he?” Lena yelled as Ian began to trail behind her, unable to keep up with her determined, panicked strides.

“East pasture, far side.”

She didn’t slow her pace to wait for him to catch up. The look on Ian’s face and the way his voice had broken had told her all she needed to know about what the scene would be like when she arrived. Lena pushed herself as hard as she could, her long, powerful legs screaming with exertion and still she did not slow, her desperate need to reach her father spurring her on.

She jumped over divots in the ground, ran past empty feeding troughs, past animals startled by her sudden appearance. She ran and ran until finally, she came to the pasture that Ian had indicated.

Lena threw around a hurried glance, spotting a form lying prone on the ground and she put on a final burst of speed to get to it. As the form came into view, she suddenly felt like she was going to lose her dinner right there in the grass.

At first, she had thought the red all around was from the sunset painting the ground in its evening hues, but when she got closer, she realized it was not the sun at all. Her father lay on the ground, blood seeping out of him and pooling on the grass that was already sodden with it. His face was beaten and swollen, and his leg twisted at an odd angle.

Lena fell to her knees next to him, crying out as she tried to delicately reach her arms under him, and pulled his torso into her lap as much as she could without hurting him further. His chest rose and fell, but only barely. And his breathing was nothing more than a wet rasp. One of his eyes, the one that was not entirely swollen shut, fluttered open and landed on her face, his bright blue irises swimming in a sea of red, burst blood vessels as they searched her face.

“Lena,” her father breathed when his gaze finally focused on her. “My Lena.”

He groaned with pain as he reached up a shaky hand toward her face, trying to stroke her cheek.

“Don’t, Papa,” Lena cried, tears already streaming from her eyes, dripping down her nose, and onto her father’s torn and bloodied shirt. “Don’t move.”

Footsteps sounded behind her as Ian finally made it to her side and she threw a hurried glance over her shoulder.

“The doctor,” Lena yelled at the farm hand. “Take Max! Go! Now!”

A look of doubt crossed the young man’s face, and she knew what he wanted to say. They were both very aware that by the time he made it to the doctor and came back, it would be too late. Her father didn’t even have minutes left, let alone enough time for someone else to make it to get help and return. But she couldn’t stand to not try. Lena knew that if she did not send Ian to fetch the doctor, if she didn’t know for certain that there was nothing else she could have done, it would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Ian must have been able to read in her expression what she was thinking, and the boy just nodded at her. He turned and sprinted back for the barn, and Lena brought her attention back to her father.

His eyes were closed again, and he was still breathing, but only barely.

“It’s alright, Papa,” she whispered just loud enough for him to hear. “It’s all going to be alright.”

She grabbed one of his hands, the one that looked like it hadn’t been damaged too badly, and she held onto it lightly as she stroked his hair with her other.

“My Lena.” Her dad’s voice was faint, and Lena had to dip her head close to his bloodied mouth to hear him. “I love you. Raising you has been the greatest gift of my life. Don’t….”

But his sentence remained incomplete as his final breath left him in a whoosh. Lena blinked through the tears, looking down at her father’s face which was no longer contorted with pain.

“It’s alright, Papa,” she whispered, continuing to stroke his hair as she began to rock back and forth, his torso now heavy where it rested across her legs. “It’s alright, Papa.”

She said the words over and over again, never once ceasing her rocking as the air around her grew cold, grew cold just like her father. Some untold amount of time later, a warm hand pressed onto her shoulder, and still Lena did not stop rocking.

There was the sound of murmuring around her, and Ian’s face dipped into her field of vision.

“The doctor is going to take him now,” Ian said calmly, trying to meet her gaze but Lena could not stop.

“Lena.” A deep, comforting male voice came from beside her, and it sounded enough like her father’s that she jolted for a moment, her eyes darting toward it.

But of course, it wasn’t her father. Her father was lying in her lap with no breath and no heartbeat. It was just the doctor by her side, looking at her with sympathy and compassion as he reached out a hand and placed it over hers.

“I know that this is terrible, but let Ian lead you to the house, let’s get you inside and I will take care of your father from here.”

“You’ll take care of him?” Lena asked, her voice rough and broken from her lamenting.

“I will.”

He held her stare, his green eyes kind, and finally Lena nodded. She let Ian help her shift her father’s weight from her lap. Without it, she suddenly felt very cold and as Ian helped her climb to her feet she shivered.

She hardly registered the walk to the house, or when he led her to her sofa so that she could sit. In fact, days later, she stood at the grave site as the minister droned on about her father’s life and what he left behind, Lena hardly understood how she had gotten there. It had all been such a terrible, horrendous blur.

When she returned home after the wake, a few of the townsfolk came with her. Many were laden down with trays of food and items for her that they claimed would help her with her grief, but she knew that nothing would do that. There was nothing on the earthly plane that could help fill the empty chasm that had opened inside of her.

If it hadn’t been for John Combs, the man who had been helping her father manage the ranch since before she had been born, and Ian, she wasn’t even sure the animals would have been fed or the ranch tended to over the days between her father’s death and his wake. The old women that had come with her back to her homestead cooed over her, trying to make sure she was warm enough, or cool enough. One added a blanket to her shoulders, so she didn’t catch a chill, and minutes later another removed it so that she did not come down with a fever.

On and on it went, with Lena having no idea how much time had passed. At one point, a man sat down beside her. She blinked her eyes at him blearily, trying to search her memory to see if she knew who he was, but she did not.

His hair was as black as night, and slicked back with so much pomade it looked perpetually wet. He had a large, beakish nose that took up most of his face, and black eyes that regarded her with shrewd interest.

“I am very sorry to hear about the passing of your father,” the man said, leaning in close so that only Lena could hear him.

“Thank you,” Lena replied.

She had said the words so many times that day they had begun to lose all meaning. And so, as the words left her lips, they sounded hollow, even to her ears.

“I know that this is quite a difficult time for you,” he continued as if she had not spoken. “But my name is Larry, and I am the manager at Black Forest Bank.”

The man, Larry, snapped his suspenders and looked at her expectantly, as if Lena was supposed to be impressed. But she did not feel impressed, she did not feel much of anything as she regarded him.

He cleared his throat after a few seconds had passed, clearly uncomfortable that she did not react to his statements, and began speaking again.

“I’ve come today on quite a delicate matter. You see your father, Thomas, rest his soul, was quite behind on his payments to the bank for the ranch. Thomas had taken out a few loans as of late to help keep things afloat, and many of them are in arrears.”

Larry furrowed his brow in concern as he looked at Lena, her mind beginning to turn as she tried to make sense of what the man before her was saying.

“The ranch… is in danger?” she repeated, trying to piece everything together.

“It appears that way, yes.” Larry nodded solemnly, clicking his tongue. “And since your father passed, the burden of that debt would fall to his next of kin. Which I assume would be you.”

He looked at her pointedly, but Lena just blinked at him. Her thoughts were racing as she worked to understand everything. She tried to recall any large purchases or improvements that her father had made, but none came to mind. Lena had always helped with the ranch, but only with the physical labor, and more material parts of it. Her father had handled all the finances, always telling her that he did not want her to worry about such things and that he would teach her that side of their business when she was older.

But now she was twenty-three and he was gone, and she was left staring at a man with a crooked nose and a smarmy smile who was telling her that she was about to lose it all. Her chest began to feel tight, and she clenched her hands into fists to try to dispel the sudden surge of panic that welled inside of her.

Larry glanced down at where Lena’s now-fisted hands rested in her lap and then his eyes moved back to her face.

“Now, now,” he said in a hurry. “Do not fret. I did not come here to place a burden on your shoulders. Quite the opposite, actually. If you would like, I know of a third-party financier that some of the bank’s other clients have worked with. He could loan the money to bring the debts current, and you would just pay him back in an agreed-upon schedule.”

The black-haired man said this all in a very matter-of-fact tone as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world. And Lena, unable to think about much of anything too deeply, nodded her head.

“And this would keep the ranch safe?” she mumbled.

“It would most definitely help, at least for now. And buy you a little time.” Larry gave her a grave nod.

“Then, yes. Yes, absolutely.”

“Excellent.” A serpentine smile tugged up the corner of Larry’s lips. “I will have someone bring by the papers for you to sign later this afternoon. Once again, Miss Bell, my deepest condolences regarding your father.”

He stood abruptly, the conversation dropping between them as he made his way out the front door. Now that the immediate danger of losing the ranch had abated, the haze of Lena’s grief threatened to wash over her once again.

She tried to claw her way out of it, pushing herself up off of the sofa and walking around to talk to some of the people that were still loitering in her home. And it kept the worst of her sadness at bay. She knew that her father would not want her to wallow, would not want her to succumb to the melancholy that danced so enticingly inside of her.

The man from the bank that Larry had indicated arrived an hour or so later, and Lena signed the papers before sending them on their way. And slowly, everyone who had visited after her father’s wake left until it was only her in their house. The sound of the grandfather clock in the family room ticking, and her world-ending grief were the only things she had left for company.

Chapter One

Black Forest, Colorado – 1880

Lena sat on the front porch, rocking back and forth in her father’s old rocking chair as she stared out over the rolling lands of the ranch in the direction of the road, patiently waiting for John Combs’ return. She looked down at the book in her lap, trying to read a few words but it was no use, they would not stick in her mind as her thoughts bounced around.

Her gaze darted upward once more, this time spotting a dot on the horizon, and she sprang to her feet. Ever so slowly, the dot began to take shape. First, a man riding a horse. Then, as it got ever closer, she could see the features of the white and brown Arabian mare and the familiar man astride it. His raven hair, as always, was sticking out in all directions from underneath his rancher’s hat.

And though he was too far away for her to see them, and the brim of his hat cast a stark shadow across his angular face, she could imagine the grim set of his dark blue eyes underneath. The mare he rode was at a steady trot, making its way down the familiar path that led from town to the front porch of the Bell Ranch.

She cocked her head at John as he approached, a silent question about how things went dancing in her amber eyes. And when the man shook his head before dismounting, tying off the mare’s reigns beside the porch, her heart sank.

“I’m sorry, Lena,” he said, his deep voice filled with the remorse he so clearly felt. “I tried; I really did. But they want no part in it. Said that working with a woman is as good as being cursed.”

Lena flinched at his words, her hands fluttering up to toy with her thick blonde braid with nervousness. “You could have left that part out. I just needed to know what they said about the contracts. Not what they said about me.”

“Sorry again.” John apologized, dipping his hat in her direction. “I’m just so angry.”

He stomped past her and into the house beyond, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair in frustration. Lena followed after him, the two of them making their way to the kitchen for a light supper before they would resume their chores for the evening. Ian had already eaten earlier before John had set off toward town. But Lena had been too anxious about the outcome to eat, now she wished she had because her stomach was tying itself in even worse knots as John continued to talk.

“I tried to tell ‘em you’re one of the most capable women I’ve ever met. That you worked beside Thomas every day since you were born, and you knew more about running a ranch than most men that I know. But they wouldn’t have it.”

John pulled out one of the chairs at the kitchen table and plopped down into it, the old wood creaking under the weight of his large frame. He set his elbows on the table and placed his face in his hands, exhaling a giant sigh.

“And they are completely unwilling to budge? Even if we told them that it was you they would be dealin’ with?” Lena asked, sinking into the chair across from him.

John shook his head, bringing his face out of his hands to look at her.

“I tried,” he explained. “I told them that, too. But they’ve been around too long. They know how Thomas raised ya. They know you wouldn’t take a step back from this ranch if you had a choice in the matter. So, they are well aware that even if they would technically be dealing with me, they would still be workin’ with you.”

Lena sighed, picking up a piece of bacon and a slice of bread from the plates on the table and beginning to munch on them. It had been six months since her father’s passing. And although her pain at his loss had not lessened, she had gotten more used to carrying the massive weight of it on her shoulders. She had expected things to get tough, but she had not expected them to be quite as bad as they had gotten.

After her father had passed away, once the standard amount of grieving time had come and gone, businesses and stores that they had worked with to supply milk and veg backed out of their contracts, followed slowly by some of the butchers. At first, they had been kind about it, claiming that they were cutting back on budget, going to a cheaper supplier. But when Lena offered to drop her prices, eventually the truth came out. They did not want to work with a woman.

They had made it through the winter, but only barely. And now that the spring was upon them, their final slew of contracts that she, John, and Ian had been counting on were beginning to waiver. This new one was a blow, and she needed a moment to process it.

“How were the fields looking this morning when you were out there?” John asked, and again, Lena winced.

“Not good.” She took a bite of her bacon and allowed herself a moment to chew it. “The rain these last few weeks has made planting hard. Anything we’ve put down keeps getting washed out with the soil. Only about half the fields are taking.”

John shook his head, cursing aloud as he grabbed a piece of meat for himself and gnawed on it in frustration.

“We’ll figure it out,” Lena told him, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “We always do.”