West Routt Library District

A collection of stories set in Wyoming. They range from The Mud Below, on an itinerant rodeo cowboy, to People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water, which is on a family feud

Opposites attract...but can they fall in love? Jake McGuire has worked hard to earn his success. The only threat to his peace is the last woman he should ever want. He knows Ida Merridan by reputation only, but the stories he's heard are enough for him to keep her at arm's length. Twice divorced and independently wealthy, Ida did nothing to deserve her bad reputation-except choose the wrong husbands. Live and learn in a small town, but after everything...

Three teenaged girls splash in the lake on a sweltering summer evening. Shiloh, Kat, and Ruth are unaware of the man who spies on them from the woods. They have no idea how their lives will be changed by the brutal violence that follows--and the vow of secrecy they take. Fifteen years later, Ruth and Shiloh have both returned to Prairie Creek, Wyoming, where Kat is deputy sheriff. Though they've tried to leave their shared past behind, each has the...

"If widowed seamstress Nell Armstrong has to make one more pair of boring chaps for the cowboys in her tiny Wyoming town, she might just quit the business altogether! So meeting Brand Nolte, a widower struggling to raise three girls on his own, seems like her dream come true. Brand has no idea how to dress the girls properly, and Nell finally has a chance to create beautiful outfits while also teaching the girls to sew. But Nell is much more than...

Wolf Patterson and Sara Brandon are arch enemies from ages ago, but mischievous fate has brought the tall rancher with the pale blue eyes together with the dark-haired beauty-on nearby Wyoming and Texas ranches. At first, sparks fly, but despite Wolf's misguided notions about the spirited Sara and her indignance over the assorted injustices he has thrown her way, a truce-of sorts forms. Suddenly Sara notices Wolf's face, while not conventionally handsome,...

The story of an eleven year old boy whose one intense desire is that he have a colt of his own. The whole action of the story takes place against the pattern of a ranch devoted to raising blooded horses, out in Wyoming. At last his wish is granted, and he chooses his yearling, against all advice. The story is centered on the process of winning 'Flicka' and of proving the rightness of his choice.

Cultivating his vast Wyoming ranch is all security expert J. C. Calhoun wants. His land is the only thing the betrayed rancher can trust in after discovering his fiancee was pregnant by another man. But all J.C. holds dear becomes compromised when a lost little girl leads him to Colie Jackson, the woman who destroyed his life. Colie stops at nothing to protect the people she loves. Years ago she left J.C. for his own good. Now, for the sake of her...

"In a wild frontier boomtown like Rattlesnake Wells, it's hard to know who to lock up, who to let out, and who to gun down. But as town marshal, it's Bob Hatfield's job to separate the sinners from the saints -- or at least keep them from killing each other. Now there's a new boy in town, fresh out of prison and swears he was wrongfully convicted of embezzling from his boss at the local mine. He wants to clear his name and reclaim the woman he loves....

Two handsomely produced editions of this award-winning story coincide with the release of the major independent film directed by Ang Lee and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger.

Rancher Lonny Ellison has never known a woman like Joy Fuller. For one thing, she doesn't seem very interested in him, and as a former rodeo cowboy, Lonny's not used to that. Women mobbed the Wyoming Kid during his rodeo days! And another thing. He and Joy -- who's a schoolteacher and his sister Letty's best friend -- seem to argue constantly. But it doesn't matter, does it? Because he's not interested in Joy, either. Wait a minute. Maybe he is. At...