The Texas Cowboy’s Proposal

  A Texas Heritage Romance

  Debra Holt

  The Texas Cowboy’s Proposal

  Copyright© 2022 Debra Holt

  EPUB Edition

  The Tule Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First Publication by Tule Publishing 2022

  Cover design by Lee Hyat Designs

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-957748-30-6

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  For my readers…

  Welcome back to Texas and the beginning of my latest series, Texas Heritage. The history of the Lone Star State is long and full of rich color, characters, and great stories! It’s also a land of change. Unfortunately, some changes can be to the detriment. As I grew up here and learned of some of the founding ranches and the people who fought and died for them over generations, it became something that I felt strongly about seeing persevere.

  People change. Goals change. Work ethics and moral codes change. Some can cause history to be forever altered. Texas is comprised of some of the most historic ranches ever known…the King Ranch in the deep south, the XIT in the far north, the huge Waggoner spread, the Pitchfork, the YO, the Four Sixes and many more. Boundaries spreading across this country and even into others. I loved reading of their history and the people. Then I watched as their downfall began. The older generation died away and too often the younger generation did not share the same work ethic nor the patience needed to work and safeguard the land and animals…and the humans they had been entrusted with who had helped form those riches.

  Fast cash and lots of it could be had. Many of these sold on the auction block to people who had no idea of what they bought or why, except to show off their wealth and play at being cowboys for a weekend or two a month. I will give credit to those few who actually bought into the history of the land and have made many efforts to safeguard and be good caretakers for the next generation. But they are few.

  So I decided four years ago that I would write a future series that would begin with the possible demise of one such huge chunk of Texas history. Would it go to the auction block? Would someone step forward to save it or abuse it? What would the fight look like? And how would a glorious romance figure into it all? Many questions for me to jump off the end of the writing pier into deep water. What else is new? I tend to jump and then think about a life jacket.

  I begin a new series based on these painful events in Texas that is something I feel strongly about. I hope, as you read the stories about this particular family, the Burkitts, you will keep in mind that they are a compilation of many Texas ranch families who built empires with blood, sweat, and many tears. They have their places in the tapestry of Texas…good or bad.

  The pulpit is put away. I sit down in front of my laptop. The rest of the series awaits me to begin the keystrokes. I hope you enjoy where this journey will take us!

  Debra

  March 2022

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  The Texas Heritage series

  More books by Debra Holt

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “You can’t sell this ranch. It’s our heritage, our family’s legacy.”

  The words were both a defensive stance and a helpless plea from her soul. The news her sister Laurel had just handed to her sent Sammi Jo’s heart plummeting inside her chest. They sat side by side, their gazes sweeping across the vast space before them. Yet Sammi Jo knew they were seeing two different worlds.

  As far as one could see in any direction were the wide-open spaces opined in many a Texas song and legend. The Burkitt brand was on every gate, vehicle, animal, and even clothing the humans wore. The land they stood upon had been fought over and protected for generations before them over the last two hundred-plus years. And now there was another battle looming just beyond the distant horizon. Sammi Jo had just come face-to-face with a stark reality.

  “Times change.” Laurel made the blunt statement. “Grandmother always said that you better keep a fast horse at the ready. You never knew what or who you might have to outrace next. In this case, it’s pure economics.”

  “That’s a cold assessment of the last two hundred years of the Burkitt family’s footprints on this land. Strangers don’t belong on this ground…we do. They haven’t earned it. What do you think Grandmother would think?”

  “This was entirely her idea. And in her usual way, she left the delivery of the news up to me. I arrived out of the womb and on this land ahead of you by four minutes. That puts me in this unwanted position. And she knew I would have a more hard-nosed business sense than you would about this subject. You’re the one who has a heart the size of Texas and would want to keep every animal on this place and every cowboy and . . .”

  “Our animals can’t go to a slaughterhouse. Some of their bloodlines date back a century or more, from the days of the conquistadors from Spain. And those cowboys you refer to have been born here on this ranch and their fathers before them and even grandfathers. Their families don’t know any other home, any other way of life. They gave their blood, sweat, and tears for this land . . . for our family. We owe them more than just a severance check and a goodbye party.”

  “Then what would you have me do? I’ve got two offers on the table, both worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Not even a fool would walk away from that sweet of a deal. But if you want this place so much, buy me out. Take over. You have a trust fund. I’ll even take payments on the balance. I trust you and your credit rating.” Laurel was trying to add a touch of levity, but it was a no go.

  Sammi Jo was stunned into a brief silence while her sister’s words sank into her brain. She aimed her gaze at her. “You’d do that? Make a deal with me to buy you out? Why?”

  “Because I’m an idiot. Or a soft-hearted sucker, after all. Or maybe I think you might be the last true Burkitt. You just may have that strain of blood or genes or whatever it takes to get this place into the next century. And our grandmother did have a contingency plan just in case I found a soft spot in my heart—or head. Consider it Grandmother hedging her bets, as usual. Along with her odd way of making a right to an old wrong.”

  “What does that mean? What did Grandmother do?”

  “If you had strong objections to selling out, she gave me the leeway to make you a deal . . . with one provision. And that is why I haven’t brought it up before now. Because I really don’t want to see you go ballistic. And this could be a disaster in the making. Or maybe I just don’t want to see my little sister hurt.”

  “Well, you’ve come too far to stop now. Spit it out.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be spitting anything out. It’ll be you.”

  “Details, Laurie.” She used the nickname that few dared in her sister’s presence.

  “I can make this deal with you if you agree to the terms—all of them. No discussion. It is a yes or a no. And then the deal is off the table for good. This place is sold to the highest bidder.”

  “A foreign conglomerate that doesn’t give a damn about anything but profits and cutting up pieces of this country and . . .” Sammi Jo’s blood pressure was rising, but before it got to the danger zone, Laurel raised her palm.

  “Please. I have heard this all before. Save it to preach elsewhere. You just might need that sermon and voracity for someone else if you seriously contemplate taking me up on this.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You make the down payment in thirty days to me. And you make the rest of the payments each quarter over the next ten years.”

  Sammi didn’t hesitate. “That is possible. Between the trust fund, hard work, and trusting Mother Nature to help out when I need it, the horse stock, and the—”

  “The producing oil and gas wells are where I see those dollars coming from in case dear old Mother Nature fails,” Laurel interjected. “That leaves you relying on politicians and the global economy. I don’t know which is the worst trade-off. But it will indeed be work. I know you like that sort of thing. But what you won’t like is that little fine print in the deal. A potential deal breaker if there ever was one.”

 
“Our grandmother loved her fine print. She spoke with you about this? This was all her idea?”

  “It was more of her wish. The attorneys had this tidy little codicil to go along with the will. You know she always wanted to have a grandson to leave all of this to one day, and if she could find a way to lay to rest any traces of that old feud from the bygone days at the same time, that would have made her even more determined. For whatever reasons, she wanted to make amends.”

  But the Burkitt heirs were born without the correct genitalia. Just more females when all grandmother wanted was a tough male heir. She even hoped for a while that one of Aunt Naomi’s children might be a male. But cousins Kenzie and MacKenna blew that hope out of the water when they were born. MacKenna left the ranch as fast as she could after graduation. And Kenzie seemed determined to make medicine her calling. But Grandmother did do right by them both in her will. Everyone knew the cousins were left some very lucrative pieces of land bordering the Crazy Coyote River over in the west section of the ranch. And Aunt Naomi was given a nice sum of cash that would make life in Florida with her new husband much more enjoyable.

  “And where do we conjure up a male bloodline in all of this?

  “Seems she chose a way to right an old family wrong and gain that strong male in the family all at the same time, at least to her way of thinking. And she gets to make the selection. The solution is you marry one. And not just any old male will do. No, she even picked that one out for you herself, since she knew she couldn’t get you to see the straight of it in the time she had left. She killed two birds with one stone if you will. Always the one to cut to the bottom line.”

  “What old wrong? Not that ridiculous old feud over a game of cards? And why me? And marriage? Had she totally gone off the deep end?”

  Laurie rose to her feet and kicked a stone out of the way with the toe of one designer boot. She turned to face Sammi Jo. “She was pretty cryptic about the old wrong bit. At first, I thought it might be from the meds and painkillers clouding her brain. But she was sharp to the end. The attorneys had that verified. All she or her attorneys would say was ‘It’s time for the reckoning. Time for the Burkitts to right the wrong.’ So if you want a chance to have all of this to continue in this family, you will sacrifice not just a lot of your trust fund for it but also the rest of your life . . . or the next three years, at any rate. If you’ve met the financial obligations to that point, there is an escape clause: you can have a divorce with a strong pre-nup in place, of course. She even drew that up with the attorneys herself. Nothing was left to chance or something as fickle as romance, Heaven forbid.”

  Sammi Jo slowly shook her head. “I can’t believe this—but then, yes, I can. This sounds like her shenanigans. She’s still ruling our lives from beyond the grave. Why didn’t she just say this before she died and caused all of this uproar now?”

  “Because she loved the uproar. You know that. Sarah McNamara Burkitt was the grande dame of all she surveyed. People were to be moved around the chessboard as her pawns. Do you think she was going to stop doing that even in death? She could give and she could take away. And while she did divvy out her love to us after our parents died, she did so with an eye to the future. She knew I never took to this place, not like you did. You followed in her shadow every step she took. I loved ball gowns and you loved muddy jeans. You loved forecasting beef prices, I loved eating a good steak in a fine restaurant. That’s why I am off to California and bright lights and you are—well, that is up to you. Do you want to stay on this land and go along with her last hoorah at being in control of our destiny?”

  “You haven’t said who she chose. Which man is to be the sacrificial lamb in all of this? Does he even know about any of this?”

  “Beaudry Hawkes.”

  Silence. Only the Texas breeze daring to murmur through the grasses at their feet. A stunned silence and then a slow burn to a volcanic eruption as Sammi Jo found her footing beside her sister, hands on hips in a fighting stance. “Beau Hawkes?! Was she insane? We’re related! What was she thinking? Did the attorneys really test her for senility or whatever before they allowed all of this in her last will?”

  “First of all, insane? No. Not in the clinical sense. Maniacal mostly, devious definitely. But she had to be to run a ranch that is larger than most any three states put together and then some. And related? Like something a million years ago. Her great-grandmother or some such fell for this itinerate gambler in the Hawkes’ gene pool, but that long since thinned out of the bloodlines. Besides, you aren’t planning on offspring, are you?”

  “Not Beaudry Hawkes.”

  “Hmmm, I seem to recall that you had this major Texas-sized crush on the man for all your teen years. But then he up and married that Cindy Lou . . . Cindy Ray . . . something Cindy. That didn’t last long though. So, he is all yours now if you want him.”

  “It was Sandy Louise Betancourt. She was running around on him the whole time he was in the military. Then they got married and she went right back to old habits while he finished college. He was lucky to get rid of her. And she not only left him but their little girl too.”

  “Wow. I forgot there was a kid involved. Make sure that’s covered by your attorneys when they draw up the final pre-nup. No loose ends—something Grandmother taught us well, alongside good hygiene and don’t play in the finger bowls.”

  “I doubt there will be any need for attorneys because I am fairly certain that Beaudry Hawkes is going to order me off his land the minute he sees my truck pass through his gate. We might not have had the best of relationships the last couple of years.”

  “Then you need to start packing. Because this land and that house will be going to a new owner, and I am sure they won’t consider you as part of the bargain. Unless you can hire on as a cowhand or something? But then again, if they plan to subdivide or do something else like that, there won’t be any Aces High Ranch to worry about.” Her sister’s open arms brought her in for a hug. “I have a plane to catch, but you know how to reach me. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to make a decision. Then I will tell the lawyers to put up the Sold sign on the front gate.”

  *

  Twenty-four hours. The clock was ticking on her life. That wasn’t being dramatic. That was stating a simple and hard fact. Her sister had taken off for the West Coast in the ranch’s plane, which left Sammi Jo to do some fast contemplation of her own life. And just as determined as her sister was to grab hold of her life, so was she. The only life she had ever envisioned was within the confines of 600,000-plus acres of prime ranchland she had thought would always be home.

  Until the world upended itself with her grandmother’s help and now she was sitting on the side of a country road, alone in her pickup, contemplating the tall iron gate that led to her only hope. Only hope . . . could be the title of a sad country song if she had any talent for writing music instead of just being a rancher. And a rancher about to lose the only way of life she had ever known or wanted.

  Sammi Jo still remembered how she felt the day she and Laurel arrived at the gates to Aces High. Their parents had been buried in Dallas, after the helicopter they had hired to visit a glacier on their second honeymoon had crashed. That left the young pair to be packed off to the ranch. Sammi Jo had taken longer than Laurel to get used to the change. The house was huge and terrified her. Their grandmother had immediately separated the pair, who had shared a room for the first six years of their lives. Sammi Jo found herself hiding under the covers of a huge bed, a wicked-sounding wind banging the outside shutters, and no one to call out to in the darkness. Not after her grandmother had shown her to her suite of rooms and told her that she needed to grow up and realize that crying was a huge waste of time and never permitted on the Aces High or in her sight. Somehow, Sammi Jo had the feeling that the woman knew each and every time those first months when she would sneak off to one of the grain rooms in the stables and let the tears fall.

  And during her teen years, she’d often wondered if her grandmother took some perverse pleasure in placing her in situations that would test that rule. Such as when the mongrel dog she had latched onto not long after arriving at the ranch had been given away to another ranch without any warning and Sammi Jo had been ordered to place the animal in its crate and help load it. The woman had watched for signs of tears, but Sammi Jo had begun learning how to choke them down. Grandmother had remarked that bloodlines mattered to people like Burkitts. There needed to be only the finest horseflesh in their stables, the best equipment in their barns, the best of everything, because people expected it of them. So, no mixed-breed dog was needed.