It brought tears to her eyes as she contemplated losing this one final family possession. Her family had been some of the earliest settlers in the area and had been the largest landowners for a thousand miles. Death, gambling, and silly forays into unsuitable investments during the past couple of generations had left Thea and her father as the only Danvers left alive in the area. And they’d had nothing but the ranch, the motel, and the local bar. Her father had succumbed to the gambling fever that was a common trait in the family line and first lost the bar and then the ranch to the bank. Unless she could come up with the mortgage payments, the bank would have the motel, as well. That meant that George Andrews would have full control of everything she held dear. Her father’s death hadn’t helped at all. They told her that he’d been drinking heavily the evening he’d left town to visit a sick friend—at least that’s what his friends said. Her father hadn’t had a sick friend that she was aware of, and his car crashing into the ravine ten miles from town had been senseless and totally unlike her father.
