Ghost Mountain Ranch by Jan Scarbrough

Ghost Mountain Ranch Series

by Jan Scarbrough

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Book Blurbs:

The Ghost Mountain Ranch series is a good blend of mystery and romance. 

The secrets of the past still haunt the living… 

DARBY: 

Thirty years ago, Darby Heston fled her family’s Montana dude ranch. Now she must return to help her father. Would the boyfriend she’d abandoned still be there? Hank Slade has never stopped loving Darby, but is he willing to risk his heart again? Secrets tore them apart once. Given a second chance at love, will more shocking secrets from the past destroy their hopes for the future? 

SLADE: 

Slade Heston is spending the summer as a hired hand at his grandfather’s dude ranch, trying to figure out life, not fall in love. Laurie Chastain is supposed to write promotions for the ranch, but she has a secret goal. What did a 1970s radical resistance group have to do with her grandfather? Laurie’s only clue leads her to Ghost Mountain Ranch. Will their growing attraction be enough to protect Slade and Laurie from the ghosts of the past? 

KELSEY: 

Kelsey Heston’s using the skills learned at her family’s Kentucky horse farm to improve tourism at her grandfather’s dude ranch. But what is her old college sweetheart doing here? Max Lee has come to Ghost Mountain Ranch searching for a missing woman. Instead, he finds Kelsey. But old secrets are stirring, secrets someone might be willing to kill to keep. Can they finally lay the old ghosts to rest, or will the echoes of a decades-old murder destroy their second chance at love? 

 

"Kudos to Jan Scarbrough for keeping the characters interesting and the plot twists intriguing from the first book to the last." Reader Review 

 https://books2read.com/GhostMountainRanch (ebook) 

Paperback: https://amzn.to/3vHieeS 

Excerpt 

 Hank Slade placed the receiver back on the cradle, hauled a lung full of air, and faced Leo’s I-can-take-it expression. “She won’t come.” 

“I didn’t think she’d come.” Leo’s voice was flat. His old, rheumy eyes followed Hank across the office floor. 

Hank sank into his desk chair. His shoulders slumped. “She said she was busy.” 

“But you sure did shame her good.” 

Hank tilted back in his chair. “Tried to.” 

“Well.” Leo pushed himself out of the armchair across from Hank’s desk. “I thank you for doing what you could do.” 

“For as much good as it did.” Hank rummaged through the stack of papers on his desktop shifting an invoice into another pile on the right. When he came on at the Ghost Mountain Ranch back in January, he hadn’t realized the extent of Leo’s estrangement from his only child Darby. “Thirty years is a long time to hold a grudge.” 

Leo hefted on a Carhartt coat over his down vest and picked up his cowboy hat from a side table. “Girl ran away, and she’s just not coming home.” 

Hank’s gut snarled into a knot like the one he’d felt that Friday night when he and Darby were eighteen. He’d been worried then about the first kiss he wanted. Now he worried about the man he’d known most of his life. Leo was no longer the energetic cowboy he remembered. Bad heart, plus a fall from a horse had taken its toll on the eighty-five-year-old. “I hope I didn’t have anything to do with it.” 

“Nope.” The old man grasped the office doorknob with a gnarled hand. “Her mother dying like she did caused Darby to leave.” 

“But why would she leave you?” 

“She had her reasons.” 

His answer made no sense, but that was all the taciturn man would give. Leo set his cowboy hat on his head, opened the office door, and stepped out onto the porch. 

Montana cold blew into the cabin, and Hank felt the chill more keenly than normal. It seeped inside him, turning the concern he felt into an icy shard in his stomach. Hank tapped a finger on the desk. He’d left the ranch at eighteen, after he and Darby had broken up, and he’d never been back. But if his dad had been alive and he knew he might be dying, he’d have come home straight away. 

“Damn, Darby, this isn’t right.” 

He stood, snatched up the phone, and dialed the office number back in Kentucky where a woman who said she was Darby’s daughter might answer again. 

 

Bio: 

The author of two popular Bluegrass romance series, Jan Scarbrough writes heartwarming contemporary stories about home and family, single moms, and children. Living in the horse country of Kentucky makes it easy for Jan to add small town, Southern charm to her books and the excitement of a Bluegrass horse race or a competitive horse show. 

The Ghost Mountain Ranch series is a contemporary western series with a good blend of mystery and happily-ever-after romance. The Dawsons of Montana is another four-book contemporary western series. The character of Hank brings together two series: The Dawsons of Montana and Ghost Mountain Ranch. 

Jan leaves her contemporary voice behind with two paranormal gothic romances, Timeless and Tangled Memories, a Romance Writers of America (RWA) Golden Heart finalist. Her historical romance, My Lord Raven, is a medieval story of honor and betrayal. 

A member of Novelist, Inc., Jan self-publishes her books. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with two rescued dogs and two rescued cats. 

https://janscarbrough.com/ website 

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