Free The Bride Wore Denim by Lizbeth Selvig

landscape and habitat, not to mention loss of grazing land if one of them blows.”
    “You don’t know they’d find oil at all,” Amelia said. “It doesn’t hurt to look.”
    “And if they do find a ‘black gold mine,’ as these people told me today? It’s too late then, don’t you think? We’d have sold our souls.”
    “Oh, that’s not a little dramatic.” Amelia rolled her eyes.
    “So put your name in the ‘for’ column, then?” Harper’s eyes shone with anger.
    “I wasn’t aware we were voting.”
    “We’re not voting on anything,” Bella said. “We’re discussing. And in this issue, like the others, no decision needs to be reached tonight. Personally, I think it’s a gift from the hand of God that Harper ran into these people. We are forewarned and forearmed.”
    “What’s your vote, Mom?” Joely asked.
    With a great sigh, Bella hugged herself and ran her hands quickly up and down her upper arms as if she were cold. For the first time since Cole had arrived home, she looked small, uncertain, and exhausted. “I don’t want this beautiful piece of land marred by ugly man-made structures like oil wells. But I also know how bad things look on the books. I don’t know yet what the right answer is.”
    “The real right answer is to sell and let someone else worry about it,” Amelia said. “None of us has the time to deal with things like this. Honestly? I don’t know what there is to discuss. This all makes it clearer than ever that we can’t keep this place.”
    As it had ever since Mia had first made this declaration, a boulder settled more deeply and painfully into Cole’s stomach. He couldn’t bear the thought of selling Paradise Ranch now. Not when he was this close to getting the Double Diamond back. Once he had the money secured, he could pay off his debt to the Crocketts, and then they could sell.
    “Doesn’t heritage mean anything at all to you, Mia?” Harper asked.
    “I don’t see how you can ask that, Harper. You haven’t exactly been gracing people here with your presence around here the last, oh, eight years or so. I’d say heritage means at least as much to me as it does to you.”
    To her credit, Harper’s cheeks flamed with cherry-tomato spots of color. For one moment she looked like she wanted to counter, but her features relaxed in defeat. “Touché,” she said.
    Cole’s heart twisted in sympathy. She’d never held her opinions lightly, but she usually knew when she’d overstepped her boundaries.
    “I have an idea,” he said. “Tomorrow, let’s all take a ride out to where Harper met the oil company crew today. We’ll have a good look at the land that’s involved and then discuss it more.”
    “I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Joely said. “I’d like that.”
    “We don’t have enough horses for all five of us right now,” Harper said. “Dad’s gelding and Rico and Neil’s horses are the only ones here. Mom, why don’t you have your horse anymore?
    “We had to put him down six months ago. Since I rarely rode anymore, I never looked hard for a replacement.”
    “We used to keep ten horses around here,” Joely said. “What happened?”
    “There are still tasks we need horses for.” Bella gave a shrug. “Moving the cattle around close-in, the calving season, and a handful of jobs in the winter. But the trucks and four-wheelers were already indispensable when you were young. You know you can check a lot more fence in a day with a truck and a toolbox than with a few hand tools in a saddlebag.”
    “But there are so many places you can’t get to by vehicle,” Harper said.
    “We can survey them by helicopter or plane. If we need to get someplace remote, we can determine from the air how to best do it.”
    “My dad still has his plane,” Cole said. “He takes landowners up on a for-hire basis now.”
    “Still, no matter how convenient trucks and planes are, a ranch can’t survive without good horses.” Joely shared a troubled