The Cold River Ranch Series

The Everetts are three very different brothers, kept at each other’s throats by their bitter father for most of their lives. Now they’re forced to come together after their mean old man’s funeral to decide the future of the family legacy in the Colorado Rockies, Cold River Ranch.

Little do these tough, hard cowboys know that it isn’t just the ranch they stand to lose… but their hearts.

The Cold River Ranch series is connected to the Kittredge Ranch series. The Last Real Cowboy features an Everett and a Kittredge!



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Characters in the Cold River Ranch Series

A True Cowboy Christmas

  • Gray Everett

    Background:

    Gray Everett has always loved his land.  It’s people he has trouble with.

    He’s never thought about dependable Abby Douglas from the neighboring farm one way or the other, but once he starts thinking it would make sense to find himself a wife, she’s the only one who will do.

    She’s practical, down to earth, and not at all dramatic. She understands the life of a rancher. She’ll even make a good stepmother to his motherless teen daughter.

    He plans to enjoy their arrangement. But when passion explodes between them, Gray might have to face the fact that none of this is going to be as neat and tidy as he expected…


    Likes: The land, his family's legacy, his quiet life.

    Dislikes: Anything that distracts him from his land, his family's legacy, or his quiet life...

    Favorite Country Song: "The Cowboy in Me" by Tim McGraw

  • Abby Douglas

    Background:

    Abby Douglas has been in love with her neighbor, Gray Everett, all her life.  He’s never noticed her existence.

    Until the day stern, uncompromising Gray shows up with a marriage proposal any sane woman would turn down. Of course she can’t marry him. Of course she can’t sign up to be whatever the modern equivalent of a mail order bride is… can she?

    But Abby never claimed to be particularly sane.  And maybe, just maybe, she can love enough for the both of them.


    Likes: Gray Everett, who has never so much as glanced at her

    Dislikes: How much she wants to marry a man who's never so much as glanced at her, because now he has...

    Favorite Country Song: "Cowboys Like That" by Alyssa Micaela

Cold Heart, Warm Cowboy

  • Ty Everett

    Background:

    What Ty remembers about his life is good enough: ranch family, bull-riding career, and sure, that terrible accident.

    And maybe the other stuff has its dark sides too, this side of his mean, drink father’s death and his older brother’s determination to keep the ranch in the family. He can remember all of that well enough.  Too well.

    It’s what he can’t remember that’s beginning to get to him.

    Like beautiful Hannah Monroe, who make him feel things when he’s been numb and alone since the day he woke up in the hospital…


    Likes: Whiskey, glory, and his own company. Okay, and maybe hers.

    Dislikes: That two-year gap in his head.

    Favorite Country Song: "Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound," Johnny Cash

  • Hannah Monroe

    Background:

    Hannah worked hard to win the Miss Rodeo Forever crown two years running – something no other rodeo queen has ever done.

    And she knew the rules her fierce mama laid down when she was still a girl.  No cowboys. No men at all, but particularly no cowboys.

    But she never saw bull rider Ty Everett coming.

    Eighteen months later, she’s come to Colorado to find him and sort out the wreckage.  She might have lost her crown, but she has something far more precious to protect these days – with or without the cowboy who broke her heart.


    Likes: Rhinestones, too much mascara, and one stubborn cowboy, for her sins.

    Dislikes: Lying, no-good cowboys. One in particular.

    Favorite Country Song: Anything by Miranda Lambert, the bloodier, the better.

The Last Real Cowboy

  • Brady Everett

    Background:

    Brady has spent his life as the youngest of the Everett brothers being soundly ignored by first his father, then his older brothers.

    He’s spent the last year seeing his promise to work the land and see where that takes the family now that their father is gone. But that hasn’t made his brothers take him any more seriously, so at this point, he’s just counting down the days until he can give up and go back to his life in the city.

    But he’s an Everett whether he likes it or not, and the land is in him, like it or not.

    And the last thing he needs is his best-friend’s little sister, suddenly all grown-up…

    Except it turns out Amanda might be the one thing he needs the most.


    Likes: His family's land, his family's history, the life he imagined he'd live on Cold River Ranch.

    Dislikes: His father and oldest brother's refusal to take him seriously. And Ty doesn't help things, either.

    Favorite Country Song: "Same Damn Road," Charles Esten

  • Amanda Kittredge

    Background:

    Amanda is tired of being treated as everybody’s baby sister.

    Her older brothers refuse to acknowledge that she’s not a baby any longer – and they’ve pretty much run off any man who’s ever looked at her twice.

    Which maybe why she’s always had a secret little thing about the one man who’s never even glanced at her…

    But everything changes when she actually takes her life in her own two hands, moves out of her parents’ house, and does as she likes.

    Is she ready to handle it?


    Likes: Overly sweet coffee drinks, her older brother's best-friend.

    Dislikes: Her four overbearing older brothers.

    Favorite Country Song: "The Long Way Around," Dixie Chicks



Go Deeper into the Cold River Ranch Series

In the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, some miles and whole worlds away from the tony ski slopes of Aspen and the glittering city life of Denver, lies Cold River Ranch. Three generations of the Everett family poured their lives into the land, running Angus cattle on over four hundred acres of prime real estate outside the small, western town of Cold River in the remote and scenic Longhorn Valley.

When Amos Everett dies unexpectedly, he throws everything into chaos—a state of affairs that likely would have pleased him. A gruff and unforgiving man at the best of times, Amos managed to alienate all three of his sons after he ran their mama off for good when the boys were still young.

Some wounds never heal, especially in families. And some grudges run as long and deep as the stretch of the Colorado Rockies…

That’s why, by unspoken agreement, Amos’s grown sons have had as little to do with their father—and each other—as possible since they grew up and got out from under the old man’s thumb.

Brought back together at their father’s funeral, Amos’s three sons have a lot of decisions to make. The bank is circling and rich, fat cat investors want to develop the land into condos for Colorado’s ever-voracious seasonal tourists.

The Everetts have one gorgeous year in the Rocky Mountains to come together as a family and save their heritage once and for all—or lose the ranch, and each other, forever.



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