Saturday 15 June 2013

Saturday, June 15, 2013 - ,

Lonesome Oak Ranch

by Leigh Smith
Published: Jun 11, 2013
Words: 24,548
Category: romance, western
Orientation: M/F
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OPENING EXTRACT
Lonesome Oak Ranch

Lisa Davis was driving down the bumpy dirt road wondering why she had agreed to this. She had grown up on a hard scrapple ranch much like the Lonesome Oak. When she left she vowed she would never look back.

Until she was five years old she didn't even realize they were poor. Her momma and daddy loved her, her sister and each other. There was always a lot of singing and hugging and kissing going on in their little house. She never felt the lack of anything. But that changed in the fall of the year she turned five, the year she started school. That was when she found out she was poor, not just poor but dirt poor. The other kids taunted her out of style clothes, her worn down shoes and even her lunch bucket and the contents therein. She hated school and by the time she reached the fourth grade she didn't want to go anymore. She started getting into scrapes and then she and Amanda Bennett had a hair pulling contest at recess and ended up in the principal's office. Her momma and daddy had to come to the school and have a conference with Ms. Snelling. After that conference Ms. Snelling took an interest in Lisa. She actually became her champion and instilled in her the love of reading.

Ms. Snelling was the reason Lisa had excelled in school. She went on to win scholarships, first to university and then law school. She passed the bar on her first try and subsequently got a job with a prestigious law firm, where she climbed the career ladder to reach the rank of junior partner. She commanded a six figure salary, owned several pieces of real estate, drove a Lexus and was lonely as hell.

Oh, she had many acquaintances and plenty of invitations to social events but since her best friend Jan had married and moved across the country there was no one she could call at a moment's notice to grab a cup of coffee or catch a movie. She missed the closeness. There was no man in her life right now - there hadn't been one since law school. She had dates but no one she would miss if they never called again.

As she continued driving, the car suddenly lurched and swerved to the side of the road. She edged the vehicle further to the side of the road and got out. Immediately she saw the problem. Her right rear tire was destroyed. The drainage ditch running alongside the road was filled with water from the recent thunderstorm. There was no way she was going to be able to replace the tire. She tried her cell phone but there wasn't any service this far out. Her only hope was that someone would be coming along that could lend a hand. If someone didn't come by within the next half hour, she would begin walking. The ranch house could not be that much further as she had already come more than two miles.