The second in the Circle C Milestones series Andrea Carter can ride, rope, and cut out cattle with the best of her brothers’ ranch hands. Yet, her mother has always held the family’s youngest daughter back from fully participating in ranch activities. With the approach of her fifteenth birthday, even the ranch boss, big brother Chad, can’t deny that his baby sister is better at ranch skills than some of his cowhands. When Andi announces that her quinceañera birthday wish is to join the upcoming cattle drive, her family is stunned. But after further discussion and multiple newspaper clippings about spirited women who balked at society’s expectations, even Mother agrees that the only way to get this cattle-drive notion out of Andi’s head is by letting her and her cousin Levi go along as Cook’s helpers. Andi is elated. What can go wrong on a two-week drive to Los Angeles? Andi quickly discovers that a cattle drive is a dirty, dangerous business with little sleep and the same food day after day. Between late nights, dust, mosquitos, and an abrasive cowhand trying to win Andi’s attention, it is definitely not a holiday. Andi grimly determines she will stick it out. When a river crossing goes wrong and Chad is shot in a gunfight with suspicious men who have been shadowing the herd, Mitch the trail boss finds himself dangerously shorthanded. Andi and Levi can no longer just give Cook a hand. It’s time to pitch in and help Mitch get their cattle to market―any way they can. Susan K. Marlow lives on a homestead in the great state of Washington. She began writing stories at ten years old, and she’s always on the lookout for a new story. When she’s not writing books, she’s often teaching writing workshops or sharing what she learned as a homeschool mom. Find all six of Susan’s Old West series and supplemental material at circlecbooks.com. Heartbreak Trail An Andrea Carter Book By Susan K. Marlow Kregel Publications Copyright © 2015 Susan K. Marlow All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8254-4368-8 CHAPTER 1 San Joaquin Valley, California, Spring 1883 I thought I was well on my way to outgrowing my penchant for finding trouble. Not so. Ever since Levi showed up at the ranch a month ago, I've discovered that keeping him out of trouble usually backfires and plunges us both smack dab into the middle of a muddle. Fourteen-year-old Andrea Carter scanned the miles of gullies and scrub-dotted rifts cutting the Sierra foothills and grunted. "Where's that boy got to now ?" Not for the first time this month, Andi was glad she had older brothers. Younger ones were too much trouble. Levi wasn't her brother, but her sister Kate's son was close enough in age to pester Andi like a little brother might. Or to get lost? Her heart skipped at the thought. "Levi!" she hollered for the third time, shading her eyes against the sunshine. "What's taking you so long? Are you lost back there?" Surely not. The valley was only a mile long and maybe a quarter mile wide, with only one way in or out. Andi sat on Taffy, her palomino mare, near the main trail. The April sun blazed hot and bright, and the brushy thickets lining the creek bottom offered little in the way of shade. The gully did, however, abound with countless hidey-holes for cows and their new calves. It also held a boy who didn't know as much about being a cowboy as he thought he did. Anxious to be included in the spring roundup, Andi had offered to help out on Saturdays, promising she'd do anything her brothers asked. Chad had snapped up her offer quicker than a frog after a fly. "Sure, little sister. You and Levi can scout around the draws and root out stragglers. I want to get the last of the calves branded before the drive." The cattle drive. Andi chewed her lower lip and slumped in the saddle. She had always wanted to go along on a real dust-in-yourface, gone-for- weeks, eat-on-the-trail cattle drive. With at least two thousand cattle. But no matter how often Andi begged, cajoled, and pleaded, the answer was always no. This year will be different, she vowed. I'm not a little girl anymore. I don't have to be looked after. Andi would convince her family she was well able to take care of herself, and also help take care of her family's interests. She set her jaw in a stubborn line. Mother might as well get used to the fact that Andi was not like her sister Melinda. Ladies' Aid Society meetings and helping out at the orphanage — or finding a beau — were not what Andi wanted to do when she finished school. She wanted to help run the ranch. Andi shook herself free of her musings. "I better get my head out of the clouds and back to business." She hiked up in her stirrups and hollered, "Levi!" Levi yahooed his reply from deep inside the canyon, and Andi rolled her eyes. He must have found a cow and her calf. Now, if he would only remember to take it slow and easy, to drive the cow gently and not chase her like he was going after a wild mustang. "Then maybe we can