Once A Rancher. Linda Miller Lael

I could order you guys a pizza, how’s that?”

      Ryder nodded. “As long as it isn’t like the ones they have at the spa, with goat cheese and whatever those green things are. I tried to like the stuff, Grace, but no way.”

      “Artichoke hearts,” she supplied helpfully. “How about plain old pepperoni?”

      Ryder grinned. “That would be great,” he said.

      “Okay, you’re on. I just need your word that you’ll stay out of trouble for five minutes.” She feigned a narrow glare. “I didn’t like facing Mr. Carson with what you’d done any more than you did, buddy.”

      Ryder’s grin broadened. “Maybe not,” he agreed, “but I think he sorta enjoyed it.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      BEYOND THE TALL windows of the breakfast room off the ranch-house kitchen, the Tetons soared against a morning sky of heartbreaking blue. Slater sat in his usual place at the table, coffee mug in hand, silently marveling. He’d looked out on that same vista almost every morning of his life and never once taken it for granted.

      He was a lucky man, and he knew it.

      The sound of boot heels on the wide plank floor alerted him to company.

      “Hey, Showbiz.” Slater’s youngest brother, Mace, meandered in from the next room, pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the table and dropped into it, an easy grin surfacing. Of the three of them, Mace most resembled their dad, who’d been killed in a fall from a horse when Slater was twelve. Sometimes just the sight of his brother brought him a pang of grief.

      “Hey, yourself,” Slater responded lazily. As nicknames went, he figured Showbiz was something he could live with; both Mace and Drake, his middle brother, used it often.

      Mace reached for the carafe in the middle of the table and filled a waiting mug, adding a hefty splash of cream before closing his eyes, savoring that first sip and giving a blissful sigh. Next, he raised the lids on the metal serving dishes and helped himself to a heaping portion of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage and three slices of buttered toast. He’d consume all of that, and most likely repeat the whole process.

      Slater, a devout aficionado of home cooking, was continually astonished by the sheer quantity of food Mace could put away.

      Finished with his own meal but in no particular hurry to head elsewhere, or to pad the silent spaces with talk, Slater replenished his coffee. He sat there, gazing quietly out the window, soaking in the special ambience of a country morning, content to be who he was, where he was.

      Which was home.

      When he needed a few minutes to digest the staggering view, like he did right now, he reined in his attention, absorbing his immediate surroundings.

      He much preferred this simple but elegant space to the much larger and fancier dining room on the far side of the kitchen; the polished oak table was sturdy, seating six people comfortably.

      The room doubled as a sort of butler’s pantry, with two huge sideboards full of antique china and glassware. The liquor cabinet his great-grandfather had brought over from England towered against the inside wall, and the stained-glass panels in the doors gleamed with jewel-like colors. Even as a teenager, when he’d been tempted to raid the contents, figuring, as teenage boys sometimes do, that getting falling-down drunk would be a good move, he’d never actually carried out the plan. Prudently, his folks had kept the cabinet locked, and Slater hadn’t been able to summon up the courage to risk damaging a treasured heirloom.

      No, he’d swiped beer from the refrigerator instead and settled for a mild buzz rather than a full-on booze blitz.

      “Nice morning,” he said, watching as Mace did justice to the mountain of grub on his plate.

      “Yep,” Mace agreed. He was auburn-haired like their mother, with clear blue eyes, and he had a talent with anything that grew. That knack had manifested itself early in his life. When he was ten, their mother had given him a garden plot, a hoe and several packets of seeds for his birthday. While most boys wanted a new bicycle, he’d busied himself with tackling the GP as Slater and Drake called it (translation: the Garden Project), and they’d eaten green beans with supper every night until they’d finally begged for an ear of corn or even some spinach.

      Slater wasn’t a picky eater, but he wasn’t a big fan of spinach, either.

      A few years ago their mother, Blythe, had revisited her roots in the wine country of Northern California and decided to plant vineyards and produce a brand of her own. Mace had been the natural choice to run the operation. If a plant had leaves, he could make it grow—and thrive—in just about any soil.

      “When did you get back?” Mace asked, serving himself up a second breakfast, now that he’d wiped out the first. Slater wondered if his brother’s appetite would catch up with him one day, if Mace would pack a layer or two of fat over those lean muscles of his.

      No sign of it so far.

      “I got in last night,” Slater answered. He’d slept like the proverbial rock, although he vaguely recalled a series of dreams involving a certain feisty redhead. No surprise there. Grace Emery was the last person he’d seen before he’d stripped off his clothes, showered and fallen face-first into bed. Meeting a woman like that was bound to be a memorable experience, even for somebody half-dead with fatigue.

      Mace nodded.

      Slater, not usually given to idle chitchat, kept talking. “The production went well and we wrapped early, which almost never happens. Not by much, but early is still early.”

      “Sweet.” Mace picked up a piece of toast. “Now you go into the cutting and editing thing, huh?”

      “The director will handle most of that.”

      “What comes next?”

      He’d been thinking about that; on some level, he was always thinking about the next project. “I’ve been playing with the idea of doing a history of Wyoming—how it was settled and all that—but what it also is today. Too many people seem to believe the whole state is barren, except for a ski resort or two and a couple of million sheep. I figure it might be time to update the image a little.”

      Mace nodded again, his expression thoughtful. “You could throw in some stuff about the ranch—you know, about Dad’s family and the railroad money his grandfather inherited and then used to establish the ranch. You might even include the estate in California Mom’s people founded.” He was warming to the idea, visibly picking up steam. Trust Mace to find a way to work the winery angle, never mind the logic of highlighting California history in a movie about Wyoming.

      Slater smiled—and listened. His brother was on a roll, and some of his ideas were good.

      “And what about this place?” Mace went on. “How many historic Wyoming ranch houses were specifically designed to look like something out of Gone with the Wind? There’s a story there, don’t forget.”

      There was indeed a story. The mansion had been built, back in the day, to assuage the homesickness of their great-grandmother, a young Southern bride, far from home and yearning for the plantation of her childhood.

      By now, Mace was so caught up in the impromptu brainstorming session that he waved his fork in enthusiasm. “I think it would make a great project. You could call it ‘The Carson Legacy: One Family’s Journey in the Great West.’”

      Slater smiled again. “Okay, the Carson clan made its mark, I’ll grant you that. But there were a lot of other pioneers, too.”

      Mace grinned back at him. “I wouldn’t mind seeing myself immortalized on film,” he said.

      That was when Drake wandered in, yawning, probably not from lack of sleep but because he’d been out tending horses since the crack of dawn. “Now why, little brother,”