Read Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 for Free Online Page A

a long day riding the range that bordered the Carson River. He was tired, and after eating the dinner the Mexican cook had prepared for him, would have liked nothing better than to go to bed, but the blasted paperwork awaited him. He’d been putting it off for as long as possible, but it wouldn’t go away.
    Colt thought about the house, not for the first time. What in the world was he going to do with a fourteen-room mansion? It was a far cry from the two-room cabin they’d lived in when he was a child. There was a sweeping front porch, and there were pillars and marble steps. On the first floor there was, besides the study, a grand entrance foyer, a large formal dining room, and a smaller dining room for family gatherings. There were two parlors as well, a formal one and a family one, each with an ornate fireplace. Also on the first floor was a small room for Kitty to do her sewing and studying. She was forever reading about the latest medical developments.
    The kitchen was at the rear of the house, connected by a long, enclosed porch, where Kitty lovingly tended her many flowers and plants. Guiltily, Colt reminded himself yet again to water them all.
    Upstairs, his parents had large, adjoining bedrooms, each with its private dressing room. They had told him he could move into either one, now that he had the house to himself, but he preferred the room he’d always had, at the far end of the hallway. Between his room and his parents’ rooms were three guest rooms. One, of course, was meant for Dani. She had lived there only for a couple of years.
    Dani.
    He sighed. Colt wasn’t sure how he felt about the half sister he hadn’t seen in thirteen years. True, they’d had that vicious fight the day she left, but they’d been children, and he held no grudge there. What he did resent was that Dani had been able to turn her back on their father. In all the years of her estrangement, there hadn’t even been a letter from her.
    Colt thought about the conversation he’d had with his father the night before his parents left for France, when Travis went over the, papers the family lawyer had prepared, documents that divided the silver mine and the ranch equally between Colt and Dani. Travis and Kitty had enough money to live on comfortably for the rest of their lives without the mine or the ranch.
    Colt figured it was his father’s property, to do with as he pleased. If he wanted to give half of it to a daughter who didn’t give a damn about him, well, Colt just kept his mouth shut. Still, he couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before Dani showed up to claim her share…while he Colt, did all the work.
    The silver mine was not worth what it had once been due, in part, to the federal government’s limiting the role of silver in the monetary system in recent years. As silver prices declined, a lot of mines had closed down. Bustling mine towns became ghost towns. Silver Butte, once the biggest mining camp in the West, had simmered down and was now a respectable town like many others.
    What had kept the Coltrane family from suffering, and also made them very rich, was Travis’s wisdom in not depending solely on his silver mine for income. Travis threw himself into cattle raising, building up a large herd, and he’d been very successful despite unpredictable beef prices, high railroad rates, and several severe winters.
    All of that had been dropped in Colt’s lap. Oh, sure, he knew what to do. He’d worked the ranch and mine since he was old enough to hold a rope or a pickax. But he’d never expected to run it all, far from it. In fact, he’d been planning to hit the trail, travel the country for a few years, try to satisfy an itch for wanderlust.
    Well, he told himself grimly, that had certainly changed. Suddenly he had more responsibility than he’d ever dreamed of.He felt trapped, truth to tell, and there was nothing he could do about it.
    Hell, he might as well be married. He poured himself another drink and