by Zoe Matthews
Majestic Mountain Ranch Romance Series
Contents
Colorado Dreams
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Colorado Secrets
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Colorado Destiny
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Colorado Dawn
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Colorado Skies
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Colorado Promises
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Colorado Christmas
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
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Colorado Dreams
Majestic Mountain Ranch Romance Series, Book 1
Written by Zoe Matthews
Copyright © 2015
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1
Sierra Collingsworth Newby sat in her family attorney’s office with four of her siblings. They were waiting for their youngest brother to arrive. It was the day after their father’s funeral and Mr. Anderson had requested that they all meet with him for the reading of the will. It had been a very stressful week since the small plane accident that had killed their father, Richard Collingsworth.
She looked around Mr. Anderson’s office. Sheridan, her eldest brother, was standing by the window, tapping his foot with impatience. Sierra knew he was irritated because Spencer was late for the meeting. Spencer was always late to everything. Sierra had learned to just accept that trait in her brother, but for some reason Sheridan took it personally when Spencer didn’t do whatever Sheridan thought he should.
Sierra felt a hand grasp her own and turned to her sister who was sitting next to her. Stephanie was about 16 months younger than her own 30 years, and the only sister she was close to. Stephanie looked sad and, given the circumstances, Sierra would have thought the tears in her sister’s eyes were from the death of their father, but she knew that something else was going on to cause some of the sadness. Sierra squeezed her hand in response and then looked at her two other sisters.
Sadie and Stella were sitting together, but their bodies were turned away from each other. Sierra shook her head slightly at the sight, knowing that Sadie had never got along with Stella. Sadie had always been reserved and was not close to anyone in the family. She was also tapping her fingers on her leg, showing some of the same impatience Sheridan was displaying.
Stella and Spencer were twins and the youngest in the family. Stella had come from Los Angeles for the funeral. She was an assistant to a sous chef at a five star restaurant. Spencer lived in New York and had just started a new job at an advertising company, his third job change in the last two years.
Sierra closed her eyes, wishing this meeting was over. She did not understand why the attorney could not have just met with Sheridan alone. He was likely the one who would inherit the Majestic Mountain Ranch anyway. Even though Sierra lived on the family ranch with her twin daughters and helped wherever she was needed, she had always known that Sheridan would inherit the ranch since he was the oldest son. The other siblings would not get anything other than a small amount of money.
She heard some sounds outside the office and Spencer burst into the room in his usual style. She smiled at him as he greeted everyone in his cheerful way, ignoring the fact that he was late, and disregarding the somber reason they were all gathered together.
“Now that you are all here, we can get started,” Mr. Anderson said as Spencer took a seat on the other side of Sierra. The attorney shuffled some papers as if looking for something specific. When he found what he wanted, he continued. “I am sure you all know why you are here…”
“I don’t,” Sadie interrupted Mr. Anderson. “I am sure everything is going to Sheridan. I don�
��t think we all needed to be here to hear that.”
“Don’t be rude, Sadie,” Stella admonished her older sister. “Maybe there will be something.”
“Your father insisted that things be handled in this way,” Mr. Anderson broke in before Sadie could say anything else. “If you will allow me to proceed, you will understand in a moment.”
The attorney looked around the room as if daring anyone to comment and smiled slightly when they were all silent. He stood and handed each one of them a letter. When Sierra received hers, she saw her name written in her father’s hurried handwriting.
“Your father has requested that you each read your letters when you are alone. Please do not open them here.
“Now for the reading of the will. I will not read it directly, but you will each get a copy and if you need help understanding any of it, please make an appointment with me and allow me to explain it to you. Please save any questions you may have until I am finished.
“I will summarize the main part of the will. To each of Richard Collingsworth’s living children, Sheridan, Sierra, Stephanie, Sadie, Stella and Spencer, he is leaving the amount of $500,000 each.”
Sierra narrowed her eyes at the attorney, wondering if she had heard the amount correctly. She heard gasps around the room. Everyone was surprised at hearing that the estate had this much money to be given to each of them.
Mr. Anderson cleared his throat and continued. “In order to receive your inheritance, each of you will need to agree to spend a period of six months on the Majestic Mountain Ranch. All of you must agree on the six months and live there together during the same period of time. After the six months are up, if any of you wish to leave and go back to your previous lives, you will be free to do so. The six months must be accomplished within a year of your father’s death.
“If any of you choose to not spend the six months on the ranch, your share of the inheritance will be given to a charity that your father has specified. None of the inheritance you will be given will need to be used to run the ranch. Money has been set aside for this purpose.
“Jed and Kathy Wilson, the caretakers of the ranch, will be given some money as well. They also are given the option of staying in the home they have been living in on the ranch until they choose to leave.
“Now, do any of you have any questions?”
“It seems to me that Dad is doing his best to control us from the grave, just like he did when he was alive,” Sierra heard Sadie mutter.
“Let me make sure I understand,” Sheridan said as he gave Sadie a quelling look to silence her. “We are going to receive half a million dollars each if we all agree to spend six months on the ranch at the same time. Is that correct?”
Mr. Anderson nodded.
“Where in the world did he get this money?” Stella wondered aloud.
“All I can tell you is that your father had invested well,” Mr. Anderson answered. “He had been able to take the inheritance he received from his father, your grandfather, and through many well placed investments, the estate grew.”
“Wow,” Spencer breathed in disbelief. “I knew there was some money. After all, he did build the Ranch House and the ranch hasn’t gone under, even when other ranches around us have because of the economy. But I didn’t know there was this much.”
“Six months?” Sadie asked in disbelief, ignoring Spencer’s words. “Do we really have to live on the ranch, together, for six months to get the money?”
Mr. Anderson nodded. “I am afraid that is not negotiable. He was quite insistent on that requirement.”
“What if we can’t get away from our jobs? What if…” Stella asked, her voice raising with each word.
Sheridan broke in. “Let’s talk about this later, at the ranch.” He looked at Stella in warning to keep quiet. Sierra knew Sheridan hated having their issues and problems displayed in front of strangers, although she suspected Mr. Anderson was well aware of their family issues. He had been her father’s attorney for many years.
Mr. Anderson gave each of them a folder that held official copies of the will. They all quickly said their thanks and goodbyes to the attorney. Soon they had all filed out of the office and were standing in the parking lot.
Sadie and Stella continued arguing with Sheridan, but Sierra quickly found her SUV. She had no desire to talk about this now.
“Why don’t we all meet back at the ranch and decide what we want to do,” Stephanie suggested to her siblings, and surprisingly everyone actually agreed.
They decided to meet in the Great Room in the Ranch House later after dinner. Not everyone was going back to the ranch immediately because some of them had errands to run, but Sierra wanted to leave immediately. She wanted to see her daughters and she had a one-hour drive ahead of her.
While she drove out of Pinedale, a small city that was located a few hours away from Denver, Colorado, and turned on the road that led to the ranch, she thought over the events of the last week. Their father, Richard Collingsworth, had been flying his plane from the ranch to the small airport just outside of Pinedale. Somehow, his plane stalled and crashed into the side of a mountain, killing him instantly. The entire situation was surreal to Sierra, since her father had been flying since he was in his early 20s. He was an excellent pilot. After a short investigation, the authorities said the plane’s engine somehow failed.
Her father had written specific instructions in his will about how he wanted his funeral done. It was a closed casket due to the circumstances of the plane crash. There was a small graveside service just for family and close friends. He was buried next to Elizabeth, his wife who had died from complications during the birth of Spencer and Stella 24 years ago.
They are now together, Sierra thought as she remembered her beloved mother. Sierra had been six years old when her mother died. She did not have very many memories of her, but she did remember snuggling next to her mother while she read to them every evening. She remembered things being very different in her family when her mother was alive. Her family had been very close, spending quite a bit of time together working and playing. They lived in a small home that only had three bedrooms, the home that the caretakers, Jed and Kathy, now lived in.
After her mother’s death, her father built the Ranch House. They called their new home the Ranch House, but to Sierra it was a mansion. It was a two-story U-shaped building. The home had a large kitchen and dining area with a large room that the family called the Great Room next to it. Each child had their own small suite with a large bedroom, a bathroom, and a sitting room. Sierra enjoyed living in the large Ranch House since there was quite a bit more room to spread around, but she missed the closeness of living in the small house that was now located behind the Ranch House.
Even though she had good memories of her mother, she was not close to her father. In fact, none of the children were close to him, except maybe Sheridan. Their father worked all the time. When he wasn’t somewhere on their land, he was away from the ranch working on something else. Basically, Kathy and Jed had had more to do with raising them than their father did. Sierra remembered that usually the only time her father interacted with her when she was a child was when she did something he did not like or approve of. As a teenager, she had avoided him. As an adult, she had tried her best to have a relationship with him, but she had always felt he didn’t care very much.
As she drove along, she thought of her five-year-old daughters, Ashley and Elysha. They were her pride and joy. She had met their father, Paul, in college and they fell instantly in love. After she graduated with an Elementary Education degree, they married. She was able to teach for about a year and then became pregnant with the girls. She had had a hard pregnancy and had to be on bed-rest the last two months, but the babies had been born healthy. Paul insisted she be a stay-at-home mom while he worked as a stockbroker for a firm in Pinedale. One summer when the twins were three years old, Sierra had gone to the ranch for a long visit with Ashley and Elysha. Paul had driven up to spend the week
ends with them. One weekend he was killed in a car accident on his way to the ranch.
Sierra had been alone now for almost two years and she missed Paul desperately. He had been her best friend. She was devastated when Paul died and had promised herself she would never fall in love or marry again. She was doing fine as a single mom. She had her girls. She did not need anyone else. After Paul’s death, she moved back to the ranch permanently and into her suite that she had lived in as a child. She turned the small sitting room that was located next to her bedroom into a room for her twins.
She loved living on the Majestic Mountain Ranch. In her opinion, the location of her family ranch was located in the prettiest place in the Rocky Mountains. The road from Pinedale was long and windy with a thick forest of pine and aspen trees on either side. The road followed a river on one side. This river got its start from a lake that was located a mile above the ranch and it ran along the edge of a large meadow where the Ranch House, barn, and other buildings were located.
Sierra switched the radio on to help pass the time as she drove. She was anxious to get to the ranch to see how Ashley and Elysha had spent their day.
Chapter 2
That evening, after she had put Ashley and Elysha to bed, Sierra met with the rest of her siblings in the Great Room of the Ranch House. This was the room where the family always met when they needed to talk about something or just spend time together, although Sierra couldn’t remember the last time all of them were in the Great Room at once. Spencer, Stephanie and Stella were leaving early the next morning, and Sheridan wanted to have the issue about when the six months were going to start resolved before they left.
