GREEN CALDER GRASS

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. . . .

. . . at the Triple-C (as in Calder) ranch, that is, since that’s where things are always happening. Now, just as rugged Ty Calder is recovering from a shootout, his wife Jessy is expecting twins. And Tara Dyson Calder, Ty’s ex, is piqued. The spoiled daughter of strip-mining magnate E.J. Dyson can’t understand what Ty sees in honey-haired and lissome Jessy. Why, she’s only the daughter of a ranch-hand and even has a faint wrinkle or two under that golden tan. Tara and Ty have been divorced for six years, but that was his idea, not hers. She’s ready to weasel her way back into his heart, beginning with a grandiose scheme to build a cattle-auction barn to end all cattle-auction barns. Noah Richardson, “the current wunderkind of the architectural world,” has been handsomely paid to tackle the project and swoops down with Tara in a private jet to meet and greet the taciturn Calders. Talking a mile a minute, showering Jessy with expensive baby gifts, Tara simply will not take no for an answer and thus is reluctantly invited to stay at the Triple-C. But her scheming is all too obvious. She must be involved somehow in the Calders’ loss of a grazing lease for thousands of acres of rich pastureland. Or could her brawny henchman Buck be the culprit? Hands are stuck into the pockets of weathered jeans, and there are manly mutterings and veiled threats aplenty. But Jessy stands by her man and the Calder heritage . . . until the tyrannical Tara is bested at last.

Dailey serves up another oater in the tradition of Calder Pride (1999), etc., getting the ranch details right and neatly tying up the loose ends of a sprawling plot. More to come? Undoubtedly.