Cowboy Coarse (Branding Dylan) [NOOK Book]

A summer at the family ranch had been carefully planned for Brandon by his father, to impress upon him the kind of life he should not want. Old man Ashcot had not anticipated Brandon’s love of the land, nor did he anticipate Brandon’s love for a ranch hand. Brandon discovers much more than love while on the family ranch. Brandon discovers family secrets which his father has worked a lifetime to keep hidden from him.
Excerpt:
This past year on the ranch and away from the family business was a welcome change from the mundane life of prep school. Brandon had never felt so free. He lived among the ranch hands, many nights sleeping outside under a star studded clear blue sky. Unlike his life back east, he had plenty of free time to experience new adventures and meet new people, people who were happy with their lives on the ranch, the simple way of life, people to whom prestige and money were not required to validate their existence. It was during this year that he had met Dylan.
Dylan Todd was one of the many ranchers who worked on the Ashcot ranch to which Brandon had been sent in order to learn about life on a working ranch and to learn an appreciation for, if not a love of the land so seemingly important to the Ashcot family. Dylan had been working on the ranch since he was a young boy and loved all aspects of it, loved the elk and bison too numerous to count, the sheep which were shorn each spring, the limitless number of stars which shown each night in the big Montana sky, but Dylan especially loved the land, the land which knew no bounds, the land which spread out before him like his life spread out before him also knowing no bounds. His life thus far was like a book whose pages were so far blank to be filled as he chose. He did know one thing for certain. He would never leave this land he had come to know and love, for there was nowhere Dylan would rather be. When Brandon had first arrived at the Ashcot ranch it was Dylan who was to show Brandon all aspects of a working ranch, a charge which Dylan took very seriously. Dylan was eager to share all he had learned and experienced during his life on the ranch in the hope that perhaps Brandon too would come to love the land as he did. New to the ranch, Brandon found in Dylan a friend unlike any of his fellow students at prep school, as they wanted to be friends with him for one reason and one reason only, to say they knew one of the great Ashcots. Dylan’s friendship seemed sincere and indeed it was, so proud was he of this land he loved, and so unimpressed with money and status. Far removed from the amenities which were readily at his disposal back east, Brandon found life on the ranch hard work, tiring, yet so unlike what he had become accustomed to that he came to look forward to each day with a childlike enthusiasm, as each day was unpredictable and so unlike the day before that Brandon developed a newfound love of the unpredictable. This was in stark contrast to his life back east where each day was laid out for him, each day the same as the one before, holding few surprises and even fewer events of the day worth mentioning. -------- Slowly but cautiously Dylan moved toward the sound. He didn’t see anything or more importantly, anybody. He ascended to the top of the barn as quietly as he could. When he reached the top he moved to the right corner where the rustling continued. As he neared the sound, a large mouse ran out from where the noise had been, right in front of him causing him to almost fall backward. Oh, what a relief, he said to himself. He continued to where the mouse had been because he thought he saw something white in the darkness. He moved toward it slowly and was relieved to see that it was just some papers. The mouse probably dug them up from the bottom of the dirt which was abundant in here to be part of its indoor habitat thought Dylan, but was curious about them nonetheless. As he bent to pick them up he realized that they were legal documents of some sort.