The Ruthless Rancher's Claim

Before Laura can survey Miller Spring or secure the Cinder Creek acres her grandmother left her, someone cuts the water serving sixty head of cattle.

She finds a cut lock, a crushed water line, and a forged deed linking an aggregate company to the gravel under her land and a haul road across Cade Talbot's ranch.

A break-in at her cabin and a pursuit down a mountain road push Cade to offer protection through a marriage contract, but Laura makes the ruthless rancher destroy it.

He can move his herd clear of danger, hold forty-two thousand acres, and face an armed man, yet trust is the one thing he cannot buy, so he puts his ranch behind her investigation and waits for the signal she binds him to obey.

When an excavator severs the spring line and armed men block both ways out, Laura closes the trap she set and Cade crosses the creek after the man aiming a gun at her, with Miller Spring and any future between them resting on exposing the forgery and proving a claim will never mean ownership.