Ranchers' Daughters (ePub)

"I killed him because the voices told me to. They keep me up most nights and I can't sleep because of them. There is only one way to make them stop and that is to end his life and mine because the voices tell me he must die."

Lucy St. James writes these cryptic words in her suicide letter minutes before killing her son, Tom, and then turning the gun on herself. The murder-suicide of this well-respected ranching family shocks everyone in the small town of Ouray, Colorado-everyone except Kevin McAllister, the ranch's foreman who knows why the 83-year-old grandmother pulled the trigger.

Kevin sets out to destroy Lucy's journal, handed down by four generations of women who have owned and operated the family ranch. Kevin would be suspected in Tom's murder if anyone read it-and he has secrets of his own that he wants to keep. Kevin attempts to destroy the journal but gets distracted and sets it aside for another time.

Forgiveness has never come easy for Teagan St. James, Tom's daughter who has been estranged from her father and grandmother after they once accused her of being an alcoholic. The single mom works as a model in New York City but longs to stay at home with daughter Haley. Her agent lines up a shoot-in her hometown. She agrees and takes Haley with her but gets in a car accident when the photographer attempts to assault her.

Dinah St. James is Teagan's mother. Divorced from Tom, she was once an aspiring model herself. She rushes to the hospital where she learns the truth: Teagan was drunk behind the wheel, Social Services is now involved, and Haley will be removed from her care. Dinah agrees to take temporary custody until Teagan gets back on her feet-a decision that Teagan will come to regret.

Teagan is shocked when she hears about the murder-suicide and that she now owns the ranch. Depressed and desperate to get Haley back, she returns to the ranch to regain custody of her daughter. She meets Kevin and they strike up a friendship that develops into something more. Meanwhile, Teagan is alarmed to discover that her mother has ulterior motives regarding Haley.

As she struggles with her alcoholism, guilt and ability to regain custody of Haley, she finds the family journal and begins to read it. As she delves deeper into the journal, she realizes that her troubles are only beginning when she learns the truth about Kevin, her father's death and the role her grandmother played in it, further testing her sobriety, happiness and ability to forgive.