Cowboy in Colorado (Fifty States of Love)

by Jasinda Wilder

  I summon my steel spine, my nerves of ice, and the huge titanium balls—figuratively speaking, obviously—that have gotten me this far in my professional life.

  I gun the engine and head down the hill for the house—the Big House, Callie called it, and I understand why, the closer I get. It’s not anyone’s average A-frame log house, not by a long shot. This is a mansion, right and proper, just in a Western style rather than Cape Cod or Craftsman or French Estate. And, as I draw closer, I do indeed feel at least the tiniest bit intimidated. The barn is probably a solid mile away, and it’s titanically enormous even from here, and the house, as I pull to a stop in the broad circular driveway, is just as impressive.

  The house is positioned against the crest of a rise, and is angled so the wall of glass faces the pasture and the barn—overlooking the domain. The front of the house has a huge porch held up by a series of posts that are made from the trunks of entire trees, and not small ones either, but giant, venerable old pines. Underneath the porch is a garage, six full-size bays, a few of them open to display three huge pickups, several ATVs and utility vehicles, a golf cart or three, and what appears to be a sleek sports car under a tarp.

  Stairs—also handmade from tree trunks and branches—swing in wide arcs from either side of the garage from the porch to ground level, providing access to the main level of the house from the driveway without having to go through the garage, and even these stairs are built on a massive scale.

  I’ve faced the executives of globally influential corporations with less trepidation than I feel standing at the base of those stairs. This is the unknown, I realize. I know what to expect from corporate CEOs and board chairmen—I’ve dealt with those types my whole life. They are a known quantity.

  This is new, and even a little scary for me. But this is my chance to impress Dad, to make my own mark on the world. No backing out now—or ever.

  I shove my nerves down, squash them flat, and lift my chin. As a little girl, whenever I was upset or scared, Dad would say to me, “Chin up, Brooklyn. Head high. You’re a Bellanger.” And I would take heart in his words, lift my chin up and hold my head high, and overcome whatever it was.

  This is no different.

  I walk up the stairs, heart pounding a little. There’s no real front door, I realize. This is not a place for welcoming visitors.

  I reach the top of the stairs and the porch, which is an expanse of polished pine as broad as the acreage behind me. You could host several hundred people on this deck, with room for caterers and servers and food stations. You could just about park the Queen Anne up here and have room left over. There are tables and chairs here and there with umbrellas shut and tied off, an outdoor kitchen off to one side complete with a pizza oven, built-in grills, full-size refrigerators, and dishwashers, all tastefully integrated so they are barely noticeable. A large seating area at one end has a sheltered flat-screen TV and a sectional large enough for twenty people.

  I’m barely halfway across the football field-sized porch when a sliding door opens and young woman strides purposefully toward me. She’s about my age, with blonde hair in loose spirals around her slim shoulders; she wears tight blue jeans tucked into black snakeskin boots, and a bright red-and-white checkered short-sleeve button-down. Her expression is friendly enough as she approaches me, but I get the distinct impression unannounced visitors are neither common nor welcome.

  “Hi there,” she says in a sprightly, bubbly voice that belies the intelligence and appraisal in her eyes. “Can I help you? If you’re looking for the highway, it’s back that way.”

  “No, I’m not lost,” I say. “I’m looking for the Audens. Mr. Auden.”

  She frowns. “Well, you found them. This is the Bar-A Ranch, owned and operated by the Audens since eighteen twenty-nine.” She smiles, but it’s tight. “We weren’t expecting visitors. How can I help you?”

  “Well, I have a business proposition for Mr. Auden. Your…father?”

  The sun comes out from behind a cloud, and she squints through her still-tight smile, her expression giving nothing away. “Well, that there is a little complicated. There’s Mr. Auden my father, who doesn’t take visitors, and certainly won’t be conducting any business. There’s Mr. Auden my oldest brother, but he doesn’t live here and doesn’t have anything to do with the ranch. And then there’s Mr. Auden, my next oldest brother, and I’m guessing he’s the one you want if it’s business you want to talk, but…” She shrugs. “You won’t get far with him. We’re not taking any new livestock orders at the moment, and all our stock is spoken for, unless you want a few culls.”

  “I…” I blink. “Culls?”

  She frowns. “Herd culls? You’re not here about horses, are you?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Then I don’t think there’s much I can do to help you.” She shrugs. “Sorry.”

  “I would like to speak to Mr. Auden—your brother, who you seem to think is the one to talk business with.”

  Her voice hardens. “I don’t seem to think, lady. My brother, Will, is the executive operator of this ranch. He’s the final say-so for everything.”

  “Then I’d like to speak—”

  She sighs. “Lady. If you’re not interested in horses, you’re not getting anywhere with me or anyone else, and certainly not Will.”

  “Would you at least hear out my proposition?”

  “You want me to hear it?” She laughs. “I got a thousand things to do, and little enough pull with Will or my parents, but if you make it fast, sure, I’ll hear you out.”

  I grip my clutch, lift my chin, and smile my most winning smile. This was not the kind of reception I had anticipated, but I need to forget that and pull things together. “That would be wonderful. Thank you.” I shake my head, put on a rueful expression, and extend my hand to her. “And good grief, where are my manners? I’m Brooklyn Bellanger, with Bellanger Real Estate Development.”

  She shakes my hand, eying me. I’m not sure if she knows or cares about BRED. “Nice to meet you, Brooklyn. I’m Theo Auden.” She gestures at the house. “Why don’t you come in?”

  I follow her through the sliding glass door into the interior—and it takes open concept to a whole new level. The A-frame is easily fifty feet over my head, held up with a row of tree trunks as exposed beams. The kitchen opens to a sunken living room, and kitty-corner between the kitchen and the living room is what I guess one would call a breakfast nook, but it is large enough to seat a dozen people. I see an open archway to a more formal dining room beside the kitchen and, on the other side is a walk-in pantry. The A-frame is built into the side of the hill, so the exposed rock of the hillside forms the back wall of the home; the rock face has been chiseled away at an angle until it curves in and under to form an overhang—under this overhang is a hallway leading, I imagine, to the bedrooms. Also visible in the huge space is a wet bar on one side of the hallway opening and on the other side, a staircase leading downstairs.

  Theo leads me around the sunken living room to the kitchen island; a slab of granite that must be a hundred square feet, at least. A dozen stools are lined up under the lip of the island, and she pulls one out for herself and another for me.

  “So. What are you proposing, Brooklyn?” she says, folding her hands and resting them on one knee.

  I set my bag on the counter, knowing I won’t need any of the materials inside unless I can convince this woman to hear me out. “What I’m proposing is—”

  She stands up. “Wait, hold on. Would you like something to drink? Iced tea?”

  I nod, smile. “Sure, yes. Iced tea sounds lovely.”

  She goes to a refrigerator built into one wall, withdraws a pitcher of iced tea, pulls two glasses from a nearby cabinet, fills the glasses with ice and then tea, and brings them to the island. Reseating herself, she sips, and then eyes me.

  “Before you get started, let me just make one thing clear: There is no amount of money you or anyone could offer that would convince us to sell
this ranch. So if that’s your angle, you may as well save your breath.”

  I shake my head, and sip my iced tea. “No, no. Nothing like that. Goodness, I wouldn’t even begin to know what to do with a ranch like this. It’s incredible, and I get the feeling I only saw a fraction of it on the drive here.”

  Theo nods seriously. “A fraction of a fraction. Ten thousand acres, and the road from the highway cuts through a tiny corner of it. The Big House and the barn sit in the absolute northeast corner of the ranch, and the house is angled to face exactly down the middle. So, if you walked out the front door and walked in a perfectly straight line for a whole lot of miles, you’d eventually reach the southwest corner.”

  “Ten thousand acres?”

  “Yes ma’am.” She spins her glass on the granite. “So.”

  I let out a slow breath. “So, I deal primarily in real estate development. Meaning, I’m not a real estate agent in the sense that I buy and sell houses.”

  “You buy land and turn it into condos and shit.”

  “Essentially, yes. But condos are boring, if profitable. But yes, that’s what I do.”

  “Well, there ain’t a single inch of this ranch any of us would let you turn into condos or anything else. We need every blade of grass we own for graze.”

  I smile, but I’m getting frustrated with her. “No, listen, Miss Auden—”

  “Theo.”

  “Theo—listen, Theo. I’m not proposing condos anywhere on your land.” Nearby, maybe, eventually; I saw some likely spots on the freeway not too far away, but I’m not about to say that yet. “No condos, no malls.”

  “But you want to buy part of our land,” she surmises, eyes narrowing. “You’re a developer, right? So you want to buy some of our land and develop it.”

  “Sort of. But not really.”

  She shakes her head. “Well then color me confused.” She sips. “You’re going to have to explain.”

  I sigh. “Well, to be honest, I don’t really have all the details worked out, as it’s all still in the preliminary stages, but I need to know if you all are willing to even play ball with me before I invest any more of my time in nailing down details.” I hesitate, sip tea to buy myself time to think. “The idea is this—a working, living, breathing historical village.”

  Theo snorts. “Uh, maybe you missed it on the way in—I know it’s small, but…we’ve already got that. Auden Town has been the hub of this area for two hundred years, and it hasn’t changed much in that time. You want to buy our town? Why? To make something that’s already there?”

  I chew on my words. “Well, yes, it’s there. But I think with the right vision, we could take what you’ve already built here and make it even better.”

  “By better, you mean bigger. Newer. Shinier.” She says this as a bad thing.

  “Not necessarily. I stopped in town on the way here—I didn’t do a thorough walk-through, but enough to get a good feel for it. It’s really amazing. I felt like I stepped back in time. Truly. So, what I’m interested in expanding on is what you already have—all around.”

  “I guess I’m not sure why.”

  “To be honest, Theo, because there’s money in it. I’m not talking turning this place into a Disneyland Old West thing, not at all. But with the right marketing, you could get enough traffic to this place to make it profitable all around.”

  “But that means people.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Auden Town is a working place. By that, I mean it serves the families of our employees—and we employ several dozen people, as ranch hands, stable hands, groomers, trainers, and the like, as well as their families. The town is their hub—it makes life out here bearable for them, so they can get needful things and have a drink or two without having to drive into the nearest town thirty minutes from here.” She lets out a breath. “We used to employ more, as a matter of fact, but lately, things’ve been…tough,” she muses, eyeing me; none of this news to me, thanks to Tina’s research, but I say nothing. “So, you want to buy the town, but want nothing to do with the ranch itself. Is what you’re proposing? No fancy new structures? No malls, or big ol’ ugly modern buildings?”

  “I want nothing to do with your ranch, Theo, I promise. You have a lovely spot out here, and the town as it is now is amazing. A little too rustic, perhaps, so my thought, off the cuff, you understand, would be to modernize things just a touch—add A/C and Wi-Fi and the like, make things structurally and electrically sound, add a few necessary buildings, another grocery, for example, and let the general store become more of a…historically accurate general store.” I clear my throat. “Run, I would hope, by someone capable of staying sober and conscious past noon.”

  Theo snickers. “Yeah, Clancy’s sorta known for tying one on early in the day. But he owns the store, and his dad owned it before him, and so on for, oh, four generations, maybe. A Cartwright has run the general store since there was a store there.”

  “Well, that’s a hurdle for down the road.” I wave a hand. “Like I said, what I’m envisioning is adding a few things. An inn, in the bed-and-breakfast style, but right there in town. Have it built to look like it was always there, keep all the modern stuff hidden, so it looks and feels natural. A few things like that.”

  “To what end?”

  I blink at her. “To what end? Financial gain, Miss Auden. That’s the end. For your family, and for mine. And, as well, it would bring money into the area which would help everyone.”

  “It sounds like a lot of tourists up in our business.”

  “Well, yes, but…isn’t that the nature of business?” I ask.

  She sighs and stares off into the distance for a while. “I mean, I guess. But I’m not sure how Will is going to feel about the idea. He’s…old school. Traditional, in the sense that you could pick him up, plop him down in the eighteen-fifties, and he’d feel right at home. Maybe more so than he does here and now.” She chews on her lower lip. “But, the town has lost some of its hustle in the past few years. For that matter, so has the ranch. Maybe some new eyes and some new business would be a good thing.”

  “What is your primary product—at the Auden ranch, I mean?” I ask.

  Her frown is one that indicates I’d just asked if water is wet, or if the sky is blue. “Um? Horses?”

  I wave a hand. “I’m a New Yorker, born and bred. You’ll have to excuse my not knowing this, but…to whom do you sell them?”

  Again, I have the basics of this information in that folder on my passenger seat, but it’s important I hear things from her perspective.

  She shrugs. “All sorts of people. We breed primarily quarter horses, thoroughbreds, and paints, but our thoroughbreds are the biggest draws. The Bar-A Ranch has produced some of the highest quality racing thoroughbreds in the last hundred years. Horse racing outfits buy our stock regularly, ranches buy our stock for studs and broodmares as well as workhorses, and then there’s smaller, private buyers and breeders in the market for high-end stock…we get some buyers looking for dressage and show horses, but that’s not really our main clientele. Our paints are big in the barrel racing circuit, and we also sell a lot of mustangs to rodeos.”

  I blink. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

  She laughs. “You’re really, really city, aren’t you?”

  I laugh, too. “The most city a person could be, as a matter of fact.”

  “The point is, we breed very high-quality horses. These aren’t the kind of horses you find on internet horse-trading sites. If you know horses, and you can recognize quality, you know our horses. Will’s current project is a herd that’s mostly thoroughbred crossed with some select Percheron and Friesian—breeding for size, conformation, and temperament, destined for mounted police forces in New York, Houston, and London.”

  I nod. “I see. So you don’t cater to the general public.”

  She shakes her head. “Not at all.”

  “Hmmm. I can see why having a larger tourist influx could be worrisom
e, in that case.”

  Theo sips her iced tea, musing as she traces patterns in the sweat on her glass. “It may be time for a change, though. Auden Town is…I don’t want to say dying, but…it could use some rejuvenation, and this could be a way of doing that. Getting Will to agree, though?” She makes a face and shakes her head. “That could be an impossible task.”

  I frown. “You’ve made that point more than once already.”

  She shrugs, sniffs a laugh. “Well, let’s just say he can be…opposed to change.”

  “Even if it could mean making things better?”

  “I think the next step would be for you to pitch your idea to Mom and Dad. If everyone else is on board, it may help convince Will. But you should be aware that even if my parents and I all think your plan is good, and that we should do it, Will is the last word, and I have serious doubts as to whether he’ll even hear you out.”

  “Well, one step at a time. Let me present my idea to your parents.”

  4

  The meeting with the elder Audens takes place right away. I was surprised because the house seemed pretty quiet, but only a few minutes later Henry and Eileen Auden came into the kitchen. I could tell Theo was a little nervous, but she did a nice job of introducing me to her parents. Despite this, the meeting is nerve-racking.

  The senior Mr. Auden, Henry, is a lean, hard-bodied, hard-eyed old man who seems to have been carved out of a column of flint. His wife, Eileen, is willowy and quiet, the kind of woman, it strikes me, who is calm and kind under most circumstances, but whom you don’t ever wish to see upset. A woman who could be the softness a man like Henry Auden needs. Together, they’re an imposing couple, sitting side by side at the counter, staring at me with scrutinizing, thoughtful eyes. Listening to my pitch with curiosity, if not interest.