Return to Marker Ranch by Claire McEwen

On Tour with Prism Book Tours.

Lori let Dakota have a loose rein so the horse could pick her own way up the hill. Arching her back, she stretched in the saddle, trying to let some of the stress go. A ride on a hot fall afternoon would normally relax her. The drone of insects and the crunch of dry brush under Dakota’s hooves melded in a soothing rhythm that should have made everything feel hopeful and okay. But the tension that had been buzzing in the back of her brain ever since her father moved away clamped claws onto her shoulders, making them ache.
Taking over the ranch had been so much harder than she’d ever imagined. She had a lifetime of experience and a degree in animal husbandry, but that hadn’t prepared her for the pressure of making all the decisions, every day. She’d always respected her father, but that respect had grown tenfold since she’d tried to fill his shoes these past couple of months. She rolled her shoulders, wincing at the stabbing pain. Her well was dry and damn, she needed that water.
Dakota took them over a rise, and Lori turned her onto a faint path that meandered along the summit. From up here, Lone Mountain Ranch looked tiny, a distant patchwork quilt rather than the busy operation it really was.  But it wouldn’t be busy if she didn’t have water.  Panic threatened again and Lori bit it back.  She looked up at the mountains instead, their fierce grandeur a reminder to keep her problems in perspective.
And then she saw it on the next hill over. Something white and shining—and unfamiliar. The closer she got, the more it took shape—a large metal water tank, brand-new and gleaming in the sun.
“What the…” She stood up in the stirrups, trying to get a sense of the size and scope of the thing. And then she jerked Dakota to a halt at the sight of barbed wire. They’d reached the rusted old fence marking the far northern boundary of her family’s ranch. The new tank was on the other side. On Marker Ranch. The Hoffmans’ land, abandoned for the past decade.
But apparently not abandoned anymore.