Someplace North, Someplace Wild - Paperback

CODY BRANDON, a driven and optimistic recent college graduate, leaves his Texas home to pursue his lifelong dream: managing a cattle ranch in the rugged mountains of British Columbia. The stakes are immense; a $250,000 family inheritance, crucial for buying his own ranch one day, is contingent on him holding a job for one year before his upcoming birthday.

His journey north is fraught with complications. In northern Idaho, his kindness to help a stranded motorist, FRANK JOHNSON, by pushing his disabled car becomes a catastrophic misstep, leaving his fingerprints on what will soon be a crime scene. After a tense border crossing, Cody's unreliable truck finally dies, leaving him stranded in the Canadian wilderness. He buys a new vehicle, but arrives at the Double Bar Ranch hours late and is unceremoniously fired, shattering his immediate prospects and putting his inheritance in jeopardy.

Adrift, his plan in ruins, Cody follows a cryptic tip from a First Nations hunter to the remote Grand Valley Ranch. He lands a job not as a manager, but as a low-level cowboy under the stern but fair owner, TOM HOLDER. Here, his path crosses again with JULIE STEWART, a beautiful and independent teacher he briefly met, and a powerful romance begins to blossom against the backdrop of the vast, unforgiving landscape.

Cody's resolve is tested when a costly mistake nearly gets him fired again. To prove his worth, he accepts a dangerous assignment: retrieve a herd of lost horses deep in the grizzly-infested back-country. The mission forces him to confront the raw power of the wilderness head-on, culminating in a terrifying, life-altering showdown with a massive grizzly bear. He returns to the ranch a proven and hardened man, only to have his world completely unravel. He learns from a friend that he is the prime suspect in the murder of Frank Johnson's wife in Idaho. Realizing he's been masterfully framed, he must abandon his job, Julie, and his last hope for the inheritance to go on the run.

A fugitive in a foreign land, Cody discovers the local county attorney, MARC MALONE, is corrupt and complicit in the cover-up. With a new ally, Cody goes on the offensive, breaking into Johnson's home where they uncover the key to the conspiracy: Johnson is blackmailing Malone with a photograph of the attorney's adulterous affair. Alone once more, Cody orchestrates a direct confrontation with the murderer, Frank Johnson. He risks everything to goad him into a confession, which he captures on a tape recorder during a violent, desperate struggle. The police arrive just as the fight concludes, and with the taped confession and the evidence of blackmail, Cody is finally exonerated.

In the aftermath, a stunning revelation from his father changes everything: the inheritance deadline was misremembered and is still a year away. With his name cleared, his dream miraculously restored, and the promise of his future with Julie secured, Cody Brandon heads home to Texas, a transformed man ready to properly claim his life someplace north, someplace wild.