Her Last Chance Cowboy. Tina Radcliffe
Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
—1 Peter 5:7
This final book in the Big Heart Ranch series is dedicated to the staff and children of Big Oak Ranch. Big Oak Ranch is a Christian home located in Alabama for children needing a chance. Find out more about them at www.bigoak.org.
Thank you to Tim at ARCpoint Labs for taking time to answer my numerous questions on DNA testing. All errors are my own.
A great deal of appreciation goes to my wonderful agent, Jessica Alvarez, for partnering with me on this series. Thank you, as well, to my editor, Dina Davis, who helped ensure that this last book of the Big Heart Ranch series was as heartfelt as the first.
Contents
Trouble.
Tripp Walker sensed it the moment he drove around the bend. He hit the brakes as he came upon the beat-up silver Honda parked awkwardly on the shoulder of the two-lane road that led to Big Heart Ranch. Dangerous place to park, which no doubt meant the vehicle was disabled.
His gaze shot toward the sky to assess the weather. Several hours ago, a tornado watch had been issued for Osage County, Oklahoma. Conditions were ripe for dangerous storms and even a tornado. By the time Tripp finished his business in Pawhuska and passed through the small town of Timber, the watch had changed to a warning, meaning a tornado had been sighted.
Overhead, the angry gray clouds tinged with green crowded closer, making the threat of the first tornado of May all the more real.
When a ping hit the windshield and frozen pellets began to descend, Tripp made a split-second decision. Despite his need to get back to the ranch and out of the dangerous weather, he couldn’t ignore the disabled Honda. He parked a safe distance from the vehicle and flipped on his pickup’s emergency flashers.
Pulling up the collar of his denim jacket, Tripp reached for his cowboy hat before he got out. He inhaled. The air smelled like a storm was imminent. The smell of the ugly, some folks called it. Rain and ozone mixed together.
Hail continued to fall fast enough to form shallow puddles of white as he headed to the Honda and rapped his knuckles on the driver’s-side window.
The tinted window inched down a fraction and a woman’s big brown eyes met his gaze. She stared for a moment, no doubt taken aback by the scar that ran down the left side of his face, stopping right beneath his eye. After eighteen years, he was used to people staring.
“Ma’am, do you need assistance? Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Okay? Not lately,” she replied with a sigh.
“What’s wrong with your car?”
“Apparently, I ran out of gas.”
His glance swept the Honda, from the cracked windshield on the passenger side to the temporary tags hanging in the rear window. Colorado. Well, that explained the funny way the woman talked. Definitely not an Okie. But it didn’t explain why she was driving around in this weather. “Didn’t you hear the news of the tornado warning on your radio?”
“The radio is dead and my cell is off to save battery life.” The window inched down a little more and her gaze followed his to the dark sky. “Has a tornado been sighted?” she asked.
“Funnel cloud south of here.” Tripp frowned and turned back to the woman, whose face registered alarm.
“Why aren’t there any sirens?” she asked.
“Too far off the beaten track. The only thing up this road is Big Heart Ranch.”
“That’s where we’re going.”
He barely had time to register the word we when a little girl, about five or six years old, poked her head into the front seat. She pushed back a riot of orange curls and grinned up at him. “We want to go to the ranch and see horses, Mr. Cowboy.”
Tripp bit back a smile, his good humor fading fast as he realized the child was in the path of a tornado. “I’ll take you to Big Heart Ranch.”
“And