CHAPTER ONE
COLORADO SPRINGS
Triple C Ranch-East whipped tenderfoots into cowboys.
“Who agreed to this all-female dude ranch week, Sam?” Cash Cooper’s grumble was half teasing and half serious as they left the stables on horseback. “Especially with the Fourth of July barbecue coming up on Friday?”
“You did, boss.” Sam Reynolds, his longtime ranch foreman, smothered a grin.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Cash said as they rode their horses past the rambling farm-style house built by Clarence Cooper, Cash’s uncle.
Sam, black-haired and bearded, chuckled. “You told the owner ofRanchers and Rangeswe’d turn ’em into cowgirls. Our wranglers are looking forward to working with a bunch of inexperienced women as opposed to the know-it-all greenhorn men we sometimes get.”
Cash and Sam both gave a wave to Chase and Derek in the helicopter overhead flying due north. Then Cash pulled down the brim of his dark-brown, natural straw cowboy hat as the sun rose higher in the cloudless blue sky on this finalmorning in June.Ranchers and Rangeswas Cash’s favorite monthly magazine, thus he had a subscription. The magazine not only focused on a variety of ranches; dude ranches, cattle ranches, and horse ranches, but reported on the 3,000 miles of ranges making up the Rocky Mountains. Equally beautiful, the hundred mountain ranges were divided into four main groups: the Canadian and Northern Rockies, the Middle Rockies, the Southern Rockies, and the Colorado Plateau.
“If anybody can turn a bunch of city gals into ranch gals, it’d be our guys,” Cash said.
“You know it, boss,” Jeff Reynolds agreed as he reined in his horse and trotted alongside them. Jeff was Sam’s son and lead wrangle on Triple C-East. Without the beard, he was a tough, younger version of his father both in good looks and good manners. “We can outride, rope, and herd horses better than any wranglers on any ranch anywhere.”
“That, we can,” Sam said.
Cash asked, “But what possessed me to claim we could whip a group of haphazard, first-come-first-served contest winners into cowgirls in one week?”
The magazine owner, Kirk Devereux, had come up with the idea and contacted Cash with an offer of a three-way split for expenses. The magazine was covering a third of the cost, the guests were paying a third of what they’d normally owe, and Cash was receiving the publicity for his third of the expense.
“What do you think, Sam?”
“I think Devereux isn’t taking it nearly as seriously as we are, Cash.”
“He said his wife liked the idea of placing a group of city ladies into the hands of a bunch of country cowboys,” Cash told them. “She says it will add romantic suspense to the magazine.”
Jeff nodded. “I’m with Mr. and Mrs. Devereux and the guys in the bunkhouse. I like it.”
“I forgot you’re single again,” Cash said and laughed.
“Oh yeah,” Jeff said and grinned. “Like you, boss.”
“Single works well for me.”
Cash hoped none of the women were redheads. He had a weakness, a fondness, no, an all-out preference for women with red hair. People often had types and his had red hair. Medium auburn. No, a rich burnt orange-red to be exact. No, that wasnotthe right color, either, but close. He had a gut feeling this week was going to be challenging enough without the added distraction of a random redhead in the mix.
“Technically, we only have to turn ten of the twelve women, who will be arriving any minute via a van, into cowgirls,” Sam pointed out, watching the highway for the van.
“Why only ten?” Jeff asked.
Cash explained, “Discounting the male magazine photographer, who’s agreed to sleep in the bunkhouse, one of the women is an assistant to the writer and the photographer. The other woman is the journalist who’s writing the human-interest story on this ranch and its legacy.”
Triple C Ranch-East had been in the Cooper family since the 1800s. Cash’s ranch, at 40,000 acres, represented one-third of the 120,000 total acres owned by himself and his two siblings. In square miles of Colorado land, the Coopers were responsible for 187.5.
To the west of his dude ranch, Chase Cooper, his older brother by five years, owned Triple C Ranch-Central, a 40,000-acre Black Angus cattle ranch with hundreds of cows, heifers, bulls, and calves. Chase had inherited the childhood homestead from their parents who’d been lost to COVID. Chase lived with his wife, Jade, and their two young children, Colton and Courtney, in a mountain-style house, built of stone and wood. At 10,000 square feet, it was the largest of the three main houses. Among other attributes, his brother and sister-in-law’s homestead boasted aGone with the Windstaircase, an elevator, and on the basement level, an Olympic-size indoor pool. Jade was a mental health therapistwhose practice consisted of elementary school-aged clients. In addition to talk and play therapy sessions, she offered equestrian therapy to the children, provided by the American quarter horses on Triple C-Central. Crawford Cooper, the patriarchal grandfather of the Cooper clan who went by Coop, had built and lived in a log home also on Triple C-Central.
A few miles past Chase’s ranch, toward Pikes Peak, lay Triple C Ranch-West. Cash’s older sister by two years, Chloe Cooper Brevard, operated a newly constructed bed-and-breakfast near the original country-style house built by their Uncle Chester Cooper. Prior to marrying her husband, Derek Brevard, Chloe had run her bed-and-breakfast business in the country-style house. But these days, Chloe and Derek were glad to have the home to themselves, their son, Cooper, and the twins; a boy, Austin, and a girl, Abilene. Chester, having had a competition of sorts with his brother, Clarence, while building their respective houses, had agreed only to keep the square footage similar. Each was determined to build the more unique home. On Triple C-West, Chester had an indoor fishpond, two dumbwaiters, and an outdoor swimming pool. Derek, a former Marine sniper and deputy sheriff, was responsible for adding the new bed-and-breakfast beside it. After leaving law enforcement, Derek had returned to his family’s roots of horse ranching. On Triple C-West’s 40,000 acres, he’d also built state-of-the-art stables for Percheron stallions and mares which he bred and trained for mounted police throughout the United States.
At thirty years old, Cash had his parents, Carson and Elle Cooper, grandparents, Crawford and Zoe Cooper, Uncle Clarence Cooper, and ancestors to thank for his property and house. Grateful to have this ranch, he was a serious steward of the animals, wildlife, land, and natural resources for which he was responsible.
“What do you think your uncle would say about this all-female dude ranch week?” Sam asked as they neared the wide front gate separating the driveway from the main road.
Sam had worked for Clarence Cooper up until the day Cash’s uncle had keeled over in a corral from a heart attack seven years prior.
