Heart of Texas Volume One

Rady had warned her repeatedly. He'd told Savannah that the ghost town was dangerous, that it was a disturbing place. He'd told her over and over not to look for it. And all these years Savannah had stayed away. But the more her brother cautioned her, the more convinced she'd become that she had to find it. If for no other reason than the roses. Roses were Savannah's passion"especially old roses, planted before 1867 and now found mostly in cemeteries and abandoned homesteads.
It was because of the roses that she ignored Grady's advice and began to seek out the long-lost town.
After a six-week search, roaming about the rugged Texas hill country, first in the truck, then on horseback and finally on foot with no map and little information, she'd located it. Bitter End. What a strange name, but no stranger than the town itself.
No matter how furious Grady was when he discovered what she'd done, it'd been worth the risk. This certainly wouldn't be the first time she'd defied her older brother. Nor would it be the last. Grady seemed to carry the weight of the world on
his shoulders; he rarely smiled anymore. He was as loud and demanding as Savannah was quiet and intense. But her stubbornness was easily a match for his.
Glancing at the truck's speedometer, she pressed her foot to the floor, although it generally wasn't in her nature to rush. However, her chances of escaping Grady's anger were greater if she got back to the house before he returned from his duties around the ranch. Not that she feared his anger; she simply preferred to avoid it.
Her brother was so often angry these days, with beef prices dropping and all the other problems associated with running a large cattle ranch. It didn't help that, thanks to Richard, they continued to struggle with debt and financial hardship.
Savannah forced her thoughts away from the unhappy events of six years earlier. It was wrenching enough to have lost both parents in one devastating accident, but Savannah feared that their brother's betrayal, which had followed so soon afterward, would forever taint their lives with bitterness.
"Oh, Richard," she whispered as the truck sped down the winding country road. The pain he'd wrought in her life and Grady's was the kind that even love would never completely heal.
Grady had changed in the years since their parents' tragic deaths"and Richard's betrayal. Finances and other concerns had harassed and tormented him until she barely knew him any longer. Through sheer stubbornness and backbreaking work he'd managed to accomplish the impossible. He's saved the Yellow Rose Ranch, but at a terrible price. Grady had sacrificed himself and his youth to hold on to the land that had been settled by their great-great-grandfather shortly after the Civil War. Or, as her Southern grandmother called it, the War of the Northern Aggression.
Savannah had wanted to help with their finances; after all, she had a college education. It would be a small thing to return to school and take the necessary courses to obtain her teaching certificate. The Promise school board had repeatedly advertised for substitute teachers, and a full-time position was bound to become available within a few years. Grady, however, wouldn't hear of it. He needed her on the Yellow Rose, and Savannah accepted that. She handled the majority of the paperwork, cooked, cleaned the house and did the gardening. She'd indulged her love for roses, started keeping goats and occasionally hand-raised orphaned or abandoned calves. For six years she'd picked up the slack and made a decent life for herself. But compared to Grady, she didn't feel she was doing nearly enough.
Her desire to contribute to the family income had prompted her to establish a mail-order business for her roses, and while Grady had politely listened to her plans, he hadn't encouraged them. Her small venture was just now starting to show a profit, of which Savannah was extremely proud.