ROCK CANDY RANCH

Miss Jane

A/N:  So, this is a light fluffy Hallmark/Lifetime movie of a story.  I love them, but they never have any black women starring in the kind I'd like to see. This is my version of that.  A big city hipster travel writer and a country cowboy who wants no parts of that life. What happens when they fall for one another?

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Fir Springs is a pretty little town to be as hard as it is to get to.

That was Jane's first impression of all fifteen blocks of it, wedged within a valley of the Grey Peak Mountains.  All of the shops were well-maintained and locally owned, with authentic wares for the various local mostly outdoorsman trades.  

She stood at the edge of a sidewalk staring at her smartphone screen looking for photos of the place she currently was... and was astounded to find little to no information on the internet about the area. 

The locals stared at her, but she was used to that. 

Jane Cressie is a natural-haired black woman whose trade is travel, after-all.  If it wasn't about her skin color, it was her hair.  If it wasn't about her hair, it was about street harassment.  Men shouting and whistling is very much a thing in many countries besides the good old U.S.A.

And if it wasn't about that...

"Excuse me, Miss..." said a short wispy-haired white blonde woman, with skin pinkish-tan by extensive time in the sun, pushing a man, who likely was her husband in a wheelchair in front of her.  They were trying to get up the ramp Jane was currently standing on.

"Oh! I am so sorry..." she said, and moved immediately.  "I just don't know my way around here." 

The woman looked her up and down. "Well, that's as clear as day.  Where ya trying to get to?"

"Uh, Candy Rock Ranch?" Jane said. 

 "You mean Rock Candy Ranch?"

"Yes!"

The man in the wheelchair chuffed and the woman frowned at her.  "How'd you come to hear about it?" the woman asked.

"I'm a travel writer, so I hear about places not many know about.  -Hi, I'm Jane." she said, not keen to give the full truth of it just yet, and stuck out her hand awkwardly before remembering that the woman was steering her husband's wheelchair.

"Wanda, the woman replied flatly, without moving her hands.

Jane cleared her throat and smoothed her hand along her sundress. "You wouldn't happen to know how to get there would you?"

Wanda raised her eyebrows and looked down at her husband who continued to look somewhere midway between amused and disapproving.

"I would but, uh... I have never seen any out-a-towners out round by that way, before.  It's a working ranch, you know."

 Jane flashed her brightest smile, but she was getting annoyed with this woman. 

"-I mean, your dress is a bit nice for that,"  the woman continued, trying to soften the cut.

"Oh. Well, I do have other things packed." Jane lied. "It's just that I heard that it's one of the prettiest stretches of land in all of America." 

"Well, that is the truth." the man in the wheelchair agreed.

She would have to step into one of these shops and get proper gear.  She was no stranger to work, though.  She'd been to remote places this woman likely could scarcely imagine. She'd hiked shear cliffs in China. She'd seen mountain gorillas in Rwanda.  She'd had monkeys climb all over her at a sacred temple in India.... She'd even been shot at in Beirut.  

She could handle an American dude ranch, of all things.

"I wouldn't bother you except that my map isn't showing an exact location."  she said, flashing her smartphone.

The man in the wheelchair whispered up to his wife.  "You know that place is seasonal, ranch-hands aren't there for no tourist vacay... She planning to stay three whole months?"

The woman hand-waved to shush him.  "It's around five miles down River Road, three left turns and you're there."

"Thank you,"  Jane said, and immediately entered the nearest shop to get more rugged gear.