Wyoming Promise
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Anna J. Stewart
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17
HarlequinPROLOGUE
“HEY, GRAN.” CORLISS BLACKWELL dropped out of her beat-up red truck and circled around to help eighty-year-old Denny Blackwell out of the hospital wheelchair. “Happy Independence Day.”
“In more ways than one,” Denny announced as she motioned for Corliss to open the rusted passenger door. “Told the doctor to release me today or I’d make a break for it by sundown.” Denny touched gentle, trembling fingers to Corliss’s hand as she sat and pivoted into the seat.
Her gran’s long silver braid that once upon a time had been the color of sable hung long over one shoulder. Tanned, weathered skin stretched over her lightly lined face, but the spark of light—the light that had kept the home fires of the Flying Spur Ranch of Eagle Springs, Wyoming, burning for more than sixty years—was newly restoked. “Not even a bout of kidney disease is going to stop me celebrating the holiday with my kin. That’s what I told them, isn’t it, Raymond?”
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Denny, you did.” The elderly orderly who had aided Denny’s approved “escape” winked at Corliss. “To everyone within hearing distance. Miss Blackwell?” Ray handed over the travel bag Corliss had delivered to the hospital shortly after Denny’s admission. “All your grandmother’s medications and discharge instructions are in here along with the doctors’ contact information. If you have any questions, just let us know.”
“Thanks so much, Ray.”
“Miss Denny?” Ray leaned over and gave Denny a wave. “You take care now, you hear? Drive safe,” he added to Corliss before he wheeled the empty chair back inside.
“We’re wasting daylight!” Denny called as she reached out to pull the door closed.
Corliss signaled to the truck pulling in behind her and, after tossing Denny’s bag behind the driver’s seat, quickly jumped behind the wheel to make room in the patient-pickup roundabout of the Wyoming Medical Center. The Center was one of the smaller hospitals in the state and more than thirty miles outside Eagle Springs. It had been a drive to get here. But the drive was worth it for the closest facility capable of treating Denny’s chronic kidney condition. “How do you feel?”
“Fine. And I’m gonna tell you what I told those doctors,” Denny said with obvious exaggerated patience. “I’ll be less fine if I have to keep answering that question. I’m right as rain and plan to stay that way for a good long time. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Corliss echoed the orderly’s tone even as she tamped down on the worry that had locked around her chest ten days ago when she’d found Denny passed out on the bathroom floor. Worry she’d thankfully been able to share with her sister and two of her three brothers. Partially, at least. Denny’s worsening health came on top of a devastating year for their business and town. But with Denny coming home, things looked promising once more. “Understood.”
“Glad to hear it,” Denny said with a firm nod. “Make sure you pass that information along to the rest of the family. I don’t want any fretting and fussing.”
Fat chance of that. Blackwells always took care of their own. It was just the way things were. Even when it came to stubborn, independent, elderly female Blackwells. But Corliss played along, nodded and said, “Understood.”
“Hope that boy of yours has the barbecue stoked,” Denny went on as she watched the open sky of Wyoming guide them home. “I’ve got me a mean appetite after all that hospital food.”
“Mason put the brisket in the smoker last night,” Corliss confirmed. Just the thought of her thirteen-year-old son brought a smile to her face. She might have struck out big-time in the relationship department, but she’d been gifted with an amazing kid. “I don’t think Nash appreciated being ejected from the meat-and-fire process, so he dragged out the charcoal grill for ribs and steaks. Wouldn’t be surprised if he turned tonight’s dinner into a grilling competition.”
Denny chuckled. “Your big brother’s always had his way of doing things. Thankfully, he’s magic with horses, otherwise he’d have driven both of us around the bend by now.”
Corliss cleared her throat. “Speaking of horses—”
“Mason’s fixing a batch of his baked beans, isn’t he?” Denny asked. “And corn bread. Can’t have a barbecue without corn bread. No sir, not on Blackwell property. And it best have jalapeños. Corn bread ain’t corn bread without jalapeños.”
Corliss’s brows shot up. “You really are hungry.” It had to be a good sign considering Denny’s appetite had been dwindling for months. Given Denny’s upbeat attitude, Corliss wasn’t about to remind her grandmother about her new dietary restrictions: low sodium, high fiber, less meat. Little to no sugar. And no alcohol.
Corliss cringed. That last one was going to be fun to enforce. Denny Blackwell loved her evening shot of whiskey with a beer chaser. But they’d get to work on all of it. Starting tomorrow. Tonight? Tonight they were going to celebrate.
“In answer to your question,” Corliss said, “yes to all of the above and more. Levi’s picking dessert up at the Pie Place in town. Adele’s bringing the salad. And the twins.”
“Good.” Denny’s approving nod was firm. “I need some toddler time. Adele still doing that brokering thing?”
“If you mean is Adele still selling vintage antiques and farm equipment to online buyers, yes.” Her younger sister had to do something to earn a living after the family auction-and-rodeo business shut down last year, thanks to a devastating blight of strangles. The respiratory infection had swept through their stables and wreaked havoc with both the Flying Spur Ranch and its connected businesses. The long-reaching effects had wrapped a stranglehold around the entire town of Eagle Springs, as Blackwell-sponsored events like the annual rodeo and livestock auctions came to a screeching halt.
The Flying Spur was only now, almost a year later, beginning to recover the business their cutting-horse training facility had lost. The rest was going to take more time.
Time they might not have.
Which was why Adele, a widow with two-year-old twin girls was making the best of things by putting her online skills into action. While Adele loved the ranch, she was more of a social creature than the other Blackwell siblings. Living in town in the house she’d bought with her late husband gave Corliss’s sister the chance to pick up extra jobs to supplement her income. Besides, living on the ranch was impractical for Adele as the only reliable thing about the ranch’s internet connection was its constant unreliability.
“You’re thinking awfully loud over there. Something on your mind, Little Miss?” Denny tapped a finger against the air vents. “Air conk out on you again?”
“I’m hoping Wyatt can fix it when he gets back to town.” Her youngest brother was pretty handy with the mechanical side of things. Corliss stared into the distance, finding comfort in the deep violet and fire yellow streaking across the sky. She sighed. There was nothing like a Wyoming sunset.
“Don’t go loading up your baby brother before he’s even here,” Denny warned.
“Wyatt might be the baby, but he’s not a baby,” Corliss reminded her grandmother.
“He’s got jumpy feet,” Denny said. “Doesn’t like to be tied down to any one place.”
“I am aware,” Corliss said slowly. “But he’s twenty-seven. That’s old enough to take on some of the family responsibility.” The baby Blackwell had been flitting from ranch to ranch, hiring out his cowboy services long enough. Before the blight, she could let it slide; they’d had plenty of ranch hands on staff for Wyatt to sow whatever oats he wanted. Having to let all of their own help go had been devastating, but as they’d been left with very few horses and animals to care for, Nash, Corliss and their brother Levi, a rodeo rider, figured they’d be able to cover.
Then Levi had injured his back, which left him with physical limitations coupled with a massive reevaluation of his future. At least, as far as work was concerned. Since his divorce, Levi, who shared custody of his ten-year-old daughter, Isla, lived on the opposite side of town in the two-story money pit of a home he’d built for his family. With Levi down and no income for the ranch to hire a replacement, cornered Corliss called Wyatt to ask him to come home. It would be the opportunity she needed to also fill him in on the new bank-loan developments.
They needed his help, and not just with the ranch. It had taken some coaxing, but Wyatt was on his way back to the Flying Spur, and chances were, he’d be bringing a defiant attitude along with him. A concern for later, Corliss supposed.
“Gran, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Thought as much.” Denny sat back and sighed. “Always could tell when you were worrying. You and your daddy, you have that in common, you know.”
“That’s about all we have in common,” Corliss muttered.
“Don’t you go disrespecting your father, Little Miss,” Denny said with more sadness than anger. “He wasn’t meant for the ranch like I was.” She turned her head and surprised Corliss by touching a gentle finger to Corliss’s cheek. “Like you are. He stayed a lot longer than I had any right to expect. Him and your mama. He gave this town a caring doctor for a good long while.”
“And now Dr. and Mrs. Hudson Blackwell are living in sunny Arizona off the money you gave them.” It still irritated her that her parents literally took the cash and ran. She’d floated the idea of asking her parents to give the money back to help pay off some of their debt, but her in-town siblings had overruled her.
“It wasn’t a give,” Denny said. “I bought your dad out of his inheritance. Him and your uncle both. They’ve relinquished their claim on the Flying Spur. I don’t hold it against them. I can’t.” Her matter-of-fact tone couldn’t hide the sadness in her voice. “You don’t stay where you don’t belong, and neither of my boys ever felt as if this was home.”
Corliss could only imagine how much it must hurt that Denny’s only offspring had rejected everything Denny had built.
“If it makes you feel better, the Flying Spur is the only place I belong.” Corliss swallowed the lump in her throat. Softening the blow, that’s what she was doing. “I had a meeting at the bank last week, Gran.” Better to dive in before she lost her nerve. “I went in to apply for another loan.”
“Another loan? What happened to the—”
“Hospital bills, mainly.” Some things she couldn’t keep secret. Gran still looked over the books; she’d know exactly where each penny went soon enough. Best to prepare her for the financial reality now. “Then there were the settlements with clients over the horses we lost in the blight. The deductibles we had to pay on our insurance policy, a policy that’s now nearly doubled. I figured that since the ranch is in the clear with the health department and we have clients back on the books—”
“We do? Since when?”
“Oh. Right. Surprise!” Corliss cleared her throat. “That was supposed to be a welcome-home announcement for you tonight at dinner.” She flashed her grandmother a smile. “We have two clients willing to take another chance on us. Horses should arrive within a few weeks. We had to offer a severely discounted rate for the boarding and training, but Nash is over-the-moon excited to get back to work. Anyway, I figured we had some new collateral to apply for an additional loan to get us over the last few humps.”
“I take it the bank turned you down.” Denny’s temper caught like a lit match. “I should go down and have a talk with that branch manager. I was one of the first investors in that bank. There wouldn’t be a bank without my money.”
“Something I did remind him of,” Corliss admitted. “To make a long story short...” Her pulse kicked up several beats. Better to just rip the bandage off the wound, right? “They didn’t just turn us down for a new loan. They’ve also called in the others, supposedly on the say so of a new investor. All one hundred thousand dollars. We have until the end of December to pay it.” Her hands tightened around the steering wheel as she braced for her grandmother’s reaction.
“Supposedly...on the say so?”
“That’s the rumor. Around the bank and around town.”
“I see.”
Corliss frowned. She’d expected anger. Prepared herself for it. She’d definitely expected a few choice descriptions for Brock Bedford, the current manager of Eagle Springs Treasury. Denny’s subtle, subdued reaction definitely set warning bells clanging in Corliss’s overwrought brain.
“We’ll figure it out, right?” Once Corliss got over the initial hurdle of admission, the rest came out in a flood. “I’ve got some ideas, and Nash and I have been talking about investing in new cutting horses to train. Ones we can sell for a significant profit. We’re going to... Well, we’ll need a little investment cash, of course, but it’ll work out. We’ll be fine.”
“Of course we will,” Denny said as if it were a given. “We’re Blackwells. We’ve had tougher times than this.”
Corliss wasn’t so sure. The bank was literally pounding on the ranch house door. It was only a matter of time before they nailed an eviction notice to the porch post. Corliss didn’t want to lose her home, let alone the only way of life she’d ever known. The only life she wanted. The ranch had been destined to be hers from her very first breath.
But the desperation inside of her went far deeper than that.
Property, house and income aside, she wasn’t going to let Denny lose what it had taken her six decades to build. And she had built it. By herself.
Post by post. Nail by nail. Horse by horse.
“We’ll find an answer somehow,” Denny said as if chanting a mantra. “We’ll find an answer.”
“I’ve been thinking...” Corliss slowed as they drove through downtown Eagle Springs. Downtown might have been a misnomer. It consisted of a solitary street of shops, businesses and offices. Side streets led to homes, the grammar-slash-high school and the sheriff’s office, which was attached to the fire station. Everything a small town needed, nestled into one compact area. Eagle Springs’s biggest attraction was the Cranky Crow, a family-friendly bar and grill that offered various games and options for entertainment. All in all, Eagle Springs was a blink-and-miss-it kind of place, and it didn’t take long for Corliss to reach the other end of town and veer off toward the Flying Spur.
“You were thinking what?” Denny asked when Corliss didn’t continue.
“I’ve been thinking about family. How important it’s been to us. To you.” The words were there, right on the tip of her tongue, but they didn’t seem to want to emerge. At least, not without some effort. “I’ve been thinking about your brother. Elias,” she added as if Denny had any other sibling. “I’ve been thinking Elias Blackwell could help.”
“Stop the truck.”
Even at thirty-two years of age, Corliss knew when to obey her grandmother’s commands. Especially when uttered in that tone.
She pulled off to the side of the road and slipped the truck into Park. She didn’t dare turn the engine off for fear she might not get it started again. They sat there, in silence, while the engine idled and the sun settled into its fiery bed for the night. “They’ll be wondering where we are, Gran.”
“They aren’t going anywhere.” Denny took a deep breath and let it out in slow, loud increments. “I’m going to say this once and only once, Corliss. Because it will not bear repeating. And I want you not only to listen but to hear me.” She shifted in her seat and waited for Corliss to meet her determined gaze. “For sixty years, I’ve gotten along just fine without any assistance from my big brother. He made it clear when I was nineteen years old that what I wanted out of this life was no matter to him. He and my parents, they turned their backs on me and wrote me off when I fell in love with your Grandpa Cal. They disowned me when I left with him. I vowed then and there I would never go back to Falcon Creek. And after Cal died, I started over here in Eagle Springs. I used the little money we had left and I bought this place. I built that house on my own. I started that ranch on my own. And I did so pregnant with twins I birthed on my own.”
“I thought Miss Odette—” Corliss held up a hand at Denny’s glare. “Sorry. You were going for dramatic effect. My bad.”
“There will be no going to Elias Blackwell, do you hear me, Corliss?” It wasn’t anger she saw in her grandmother’s eyes, or even defiance. It was pain.
Plain, simple, heartbreaking pain.
But it was pain Corliss couldn’t allow to sway her.
“Gran, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I have a choice. Adele and Levi, they’re already each working on raising a portion of the loan payment, but me and Nash? We don’t have anything to barter or bargain with. I can go to Elias myself, on my own, ask for a loan. We still have Skyfire. I can offer him as collateral. With his pedigree and promise, it’s a no-lose offer. And then I can use the money to buy enough cutting horses for Nash to train and sell for our portion. Gran, I’m telling you, it’s the only way. If there was another, I’d have found it by now.” She took a long breath. “No other bank will do business with us. We’ve gone to Billings and Cody and had every door slammed in our faces. No one will invest in the ranch. In us. And we’re fast running out of collateral. We are officially out of options.”
“I forbid it.” Denny’s voice trembled. “I forbid you to go to my brother.”
Tears burned Corliss’s throat and blurred her vision. She twisted her fingers together as the tears dropped onto her cheeks. “I love you, Gran. I’ve always done what you’ve asked, what you’ve demanded of me, even when I thought you were wrong.” She shook her head, wishing there was another path to take. “But I can’t do that now. I’m going to go. Because I won’t let us lose what you’ve spent your entire life building.”
“I’d rather lose the Flying Spur than go crawling back and begging to my brother.” The detached chill in Denny’s tone made Corliss shiver. But she couldn’t back down.
She was Corliss Blackwell. Firstborn granddaughter of Denny Blackwell. Manager and primary operator of the Flying Spur Cutting Horse Training Ranch. She’d survived being ditched on her wedding day, single motherhood and thriving in a traditionally male-dominated business. Corliss Blackwell did not give up.
Even if it meant defying the person she admired most.
“Then I guess we’ve finally discovered the difference between us. I’m not willing to watch it disappear without a fight, Gran.” Corliss put the car into Drive and gently pressed her foot on the gas. “It’s going to take all the ammunition we’ve got to keep our home, and the only bullet I’ve got left is Elias Blackwell.”
“He’ll disappoint you,” Denny warned and crossed her arms, defiant. “It’s what he does best. Especially when it comes to his family. He’ll send you packing the second you step foot on his land.”
“Then I go forewarned.” But she was going.
Once she and Nash got their two new clients’ horses settled and a routine established, she was going to Falcon Creek, Montana.
With or without her grandmother’s blessing.
