Page 3 of Roaring Fork Wrangler

“And I don’t know who is other than an LLC.”

“Gotcha.” I pushed my chair back and stood. “Iguess you’ll keep in touch.”

Six-pack looked down at the paper he’d read from. “I wish I could say when.”

On the returntrip to Roaring Fork Ranch, I tried hard not to stress about what our dad had in store for me. Given what he’d required Buck to do was something my brother swore he never would, I thought about what I might’ve told the bastard I hated. The only thing I could come up with was leaving the ranch.

Out of the five of us, only Porter and I felt that way, mainly because we shared the same dream for it. Originally, Flynn and I had thought about turning the place into a dude ranch. That plan came apart when she fell in love, got married, and had twins.

By that time, Porter had already approached me about starting a roughstock business. His side of it was to contract with rodeos to provide horses for both bareback and saddle bronc riding along with bucking bulls. I was in charge of all the livestock we raised, which included cattle, along with overseeing the maintenance of the property.

Neither of us was interested in providing steers or calves for tie-down roping, team roping, or bulldogging, but another ranch in Gunnison Valley, the Flying R, which the Rice family owned, did. Their participation made it easier for our team to either caravan with them to the bigger events or combine hauling to the smaller ones.

The work Port and I did had played a significant role in the ranch turning a profit in the last year, and we were damned proud of it. If I was required to leave for any reason—or if Porter was—I didn’t know how in the hell we’d be able to stay in the black.

2

CORD

DECEMBER

“Cord, can you come to the office this afternoon?” Six-pack asked when I answered his call.

“Weather’s bad over here in Crested Butte. How urgent is it?”

“I’ve received word regarding the trust’s codicil.”

We’d already gotten two feet of snow, and there were another two on the way. The last thing I wanted to do was get stuck in Gunnison overnight. While there were only thirty miles between there and home, driving to and from in a blizzard also meant running the risk of getting stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

“Let’s get together one day next week,” I suggested.

“No time, Cord. You need to be there on Monday.”

“Be where?”

“A place called East Aurora, New York. It’s near Buffalo.”

“This isn’t even a little bit funny. There’s no way in hell I’m traveling to New York, especially at this time of year.”

“You’ve got no choice, Cord. The truth is, if I could get you there tomorrow, I would.”

None of us had looked forward to Christmas much when our dad was alive, but now that Buck had a little guy of his own and Flynn and her husband had the twins, our whole family was looking forward to it being different this year, like it was before our mom passed away. “Come on, Six-pack. I can’t leave before Christmas.”

“As I said, you don’t have a choice. You know what’s at stake here. If you don’t get there on the stipulated date, you and the rest of your family will lose everything.”

I shook my head and scrubbed my face. “I’m expected to get from Colorado to New York in the dead of winter in less than a week?”

“You could fly.”

“How long do I have to stay there?” I asked.

“You already know the answer.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Three hundred and sixty-five days.”

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, knowing if there was any way possible to get out of this, Buck would’ve figured it out.

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