Page 1 of The Texas Cowboy's Proposal

Chapter One

“Youcan’tsellthis ranch. It’s our heritage, our family’s legacy.”

The words were both a defensive stance and a helpless plea from her soul. The news her sister Laurel had just handed to her sent Sammi Jo’s heart plummeting inside her chest. They sat side by side, their gazes sweeping across the vast space before them. Yet Sammi Jo knew they were seeing two different worlds.

As far as one could see in any direction were the wide-open spaces opined in many a Texas song and legend. The Burkitt brand was on every gate, vehicle, animal, and even clothing the humans wore. The land they stood upon had been fought over and protected for generations before them over the last two hundred-plus years. And now there was another battle looming just beyond the distant horizon. Sammi Jo had just come face-to-face with a stark reality.

“Times change.” Laurel made the blunt statement. “Grandmother always said that you better keep a fast horse at the ready. You never knew what or who you might have to outrace next. In this case, it’s pure economics.”

“That’s a cold assessment of the last two hundred years of the Burkitt family’s footprints on this land. Strangers don’t belong on this ground…wedo. They haven’tearnedit. What do you think Grandmother would think?”

“This was entirely her idea. And in her usual way, she left the delivery of the news up to me. I arrived out of the womb and on this land ahead of you by four minutes. That puts me in this unwanted position. And she knew I would have a more hard-nosed business sense than you would about this subject. You’re the one who has a heart the size of Texas and would want to keep every animal on this place and every cowboy and...”

“Our animals can’t go to a slaughterhouse. Some of their bloodlines date back a century or more, from the days of the conquistadors from Spain. And those cowboys you refer to have been born here on this ranch and their fathers before them and even grandfathers. Their families don’t know any other home, any other way of life. They gave their blood, sweat, and tears for this land... for our family. We owe them more than just a severance check and a goodbye party.”

“Then what would you have me do? I’ve got two offers on the table, both worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Not even a fool would walk away from that sweet of a deal. But if you want this place so much, buy me out. Take over. You have a trust fund. I’ll even take payments on the balance. I trust you and your credit rating.” Laurel was trying to add a touch of levity, but it was a no go.

Sammi Jo was stunned into a brief silence while her sister’s words sank into her brain. She aimed her gaze at her. “You’d do that? Make a deal with me to buy you out? Why?”

“Because I’m an idiot. Or a soft-hearted sucker, after all. Or maybe I think you might be the lasttrueBurkitt. You just may have that strain of blood or genes or whatever it takes to get this place into the next century. And our grandmother did have a contingency plan just in case I found a soft spot in my heart—or head. Consider it Grandmother hedging her bets, as usual. Along with her odd way of making a right to an old wrong.”

“What does that mean? What did Grandmother do?”

“If you had strong objections to selling out, she gave me the leeway to make you a deal... with one provision. And that is why I haven’t brought it up before now. Because I really don’t want to see you go ballistic. And this could be a disaster in the making. Or maybe I just don’t want to see my little sister hurt.”

“Well, you’ve come too far to stop now. Spit it out.”

“I don’t think I’ll be spitting anything out. It’ll beyou.”

“Details, Laurie.” She used the nickname that few dared in her sister’s presence.

“I can make this deal with you if you agree to the terms—allof them. No discussion. It is a yes or a no. And then the deal is off the table for good. This place is sold to the highest bidder.”

“A foreign conglomerate that doesn’t give a damn about anything but profits and cutting up pieces of this country and...” Sammi Jo’s blood pressure was rising, but before it got to the danger zone, Laurel raised her palm.

“Please. I have heard this all before. Save it to preach elsewhere. You just might need that sermon and voracity for someone else if you seriously contemplate taking me up on this.”

“I’m listening.”

“You make the down payment in thirty days to me. And you make the rest of the payments each quarter over the next ten years.”

Sammi didn’t hesitate. “That is possible. Between the trust fund, hard work, and trusting Mother Nature to help out when I need it, the horse stock, and the—”

“The producing oil and gas wells are where I see those dollars coming from in case dear old Mother Nature fails,” Laurel interjected. “That leaves you relying on politicians and the global economy. I don’t know which is the worst trade-off. But it will indeed be work. I know you like that sort of thing. But what you won’t like is that little fine print in the deal. A potential deal breaker if there ever was one.”

“Our grandmother loved her fine print. She spoke with you about this? This was all her idea?”

“It was more of herwish. The attorneys had this tidy little codicil to go along with the will. You know she always wanted to have a grandson to leave all of this to one day, and if she could find a way to lay to rest any traces of that old feud from the bygone days at the same time, that would have made her even more determined. For whatever reasons, she wanted to make amends.”

But the Burkitt heirs were born without the correct genitalia. Just more females when all grandmother wanted was a tough male heir. She even hoped for a while that one of Aunt Naomi’s children might be a male. But cousins Kenzie and MacKenna blew that hope out of the water when they were born. MacKenna left the ranch as fast as she could after graduation. And Kenzie seemed determined to make medicine her calling. But Grandmother did do right by them both in her will. Everyone knew the cousins were left some very lucrative pieces of land bordering the Crazy Coyote River over in the west section of the ranch. And Aunt Naomi was given a nice sum of cash that would make life in Florida with her new husband much more enjoyable.

“And where do we conjure up a male bloodline in all of this?

“Seems she chose a way to right an old family wrong and gain that strong male in the family all at the same time, at least to her way of thinking. And she gets to make the selection. The solution isyoumarry one. And not just any old male will do. No, she even picked that one out for you herself, since she knew she couldn’t get you to see the straight of it in the time she had left. She killed two birds with one stone if you will. Always the one to cut to the bottom line.”

“What old wrong? Not that ridiculous old feud over a game of cards? And whyme? And marriage? Had she totally gone off the deep end?”

Laurie rose to her feet and kicked a stone out of the way with the toe of one designer boot. She turned to face Sammi Jo. “She was pretty cryptic about the old wrong bit. At first, I thought it might be from the meds and painkillers clouding her brain. But she was sharp to the end. The attorneys had that verified. All she or her attorneys would say was ‘It’s time for the reckoning. Time for the Burkitts to right the wrong.’ So if you want a chance to have all of this to continue in this family, you will sacrifice not just a lot of your trust fund for it but also the rest of your life... or the next three years, at any rate. If you’ve met the financial obligations to that point, there is an escape clause: you can have a divorce with a strong pre-nup in place, of course. She even drew that up with the attorneys herself. Nothing was left to chance or something as fickle as romance, Heaven forbid.”

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