Free The Bride Wore Denim by Lizbeth Selvig Page A

look with Harper.
    “But more and more they can get by with fewer,” Bella said.
    A moment of uneasy silence fell after that. Cole found himself watching Harper from the corner of his eye. He could almost see her processing all the information she was taking in.
    “So . . . ” She frowned. “There used to be the one old-fashioned round-up every fall. The first herd would get brought in the last five or ten miles on horseback. Are you saying that’s not done anymore?”
    “There hasn’t been time or manpower,” Bella said. “All they do on horseback now is the last push into the main cattle yard and the sorting. Last year all it took was your father, Leif, Bjorn, Neil, and Rico.”
    “Not Bjorn’s kids? Not Rico’s? It used to be the best family time we had when it came to ranch tasks.” Harper stared around the room. “Why aren’t we all saddened by this? This is something we talked about all the time, around dinner tables and campfires and family outings. How we’d never let the old way be forgotten. Now you’re saying my own father allowed this to happen?”
    “Sit down, Harper. What happened to my kind little artist?”
    “That’s what you think of me, isn’t it? Still a little girl with her head in the clouds.” She looked around. “What have we all let happen around here by leaving and staying away?”
    “Don’t be dramatic. As if we could have changed anything Dad decided to do anyway.” Mia spoke quietly.
    “We certainly could have tried.” Harper’s voice rose in agitation.
    “Girls. Stop it.” For the first time, Bella raised her voice. “Let me tell you what’s happened since you’ve been gone. Ranching has continued to grow with the times. There are still many things we do the old way, but there are efficiencies and new techniques that have saved our skin many times by helping us get things done faster and for less money. We needed all the help we could get the past couple of years.”
    “The bottom line again. I see.” Harper was not to be mollified.
    “The line that gave you all food, shelter, college, and the lives you wanted, yes.”
    “Harper, you make my point. Isn’t this just another nail in the Paradise coffin?” Mia sighed theatrically.
    “Kind of a bad choice of words, don’t you think?” Joely asked.
    “Intentionally so.” Mia leaned back in her chair. Cole stared at her. When had she turned into this cool, hard Steve Jobs? “Our time here is dying—as surely as Dad died. I am sorry to say it, but there’s no other logical way to solve this. Look, Harper. I know you don’t think I understand, but that’s not it. I hate all this as much as you do. But have you got time to go on a week-long round up so you can have your time to live in the past? Of course you don’t. And neither do I. We all work. Does anyone have vacation time enough to come back here in between duties of your other job and run this place? Or fight off the evil oil executives for that matter? Don’t answer, it was rhetorical. Bottom line is, who here honestly has time to fix all these problems?”
    “I do.”
    Dead silence followed the quiet words. Cole stared across the table to Joely. Stunning, popular, Rodeo Queen Joely lifted a pale face to her siblings and mother. Her saucer-eyes looked like they belonged to a child who’d realized she’d taken a stupid dare—like maybe to walk across the Grand Canyon on a spaghetti noodle. But she lifted her chin.
    “I have Mom, and Leif, and Bjorn and his family. I can do it.”
    “What about Tim? Your job in LA?” Harper asked.
    Cole hadn’t thought Joely could go any paler. She lowered her head and stared at her hands, which fidgeted on the table until she clasped them firmly together. When she’d stilled them, she spread them open and grasped the wedding ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. Slowly, with her mouth pinched as if the motion hurt like hell, she pulled the ring off and set it on the table.
    “There is no Tim. There