Paniolo Tide

At twenty-five, Scott Danner has worked enough ranches to be pretty sure he knows cattle.

Then he goes to Hawaii.

The Kealoha Ranch sits in the high country above Waimea, where green pasture runs into fog, horses pick their way over black lava, and the ocean is never as far away as Scott would prefer. The work is familiar enough. The ground under his boots is not.

For once, Scott is the outsider who doesn’t know how to read the country.

Then he meets Manu Haukea.

Manu comes from generations of Hawaiian cowboys. He knows the ranches, the lava gulches, and the water surrounding the island. He’s unhurried, precise, and has the irritating habit of answering Scott’s questions exactly as asked, leaving him with nothing extra to puzzle over.

Scott knows cattle.

Manu knows everything around them.

That turns out to matter when Scott begins noticing things at the ranch that don’t quite add up.

Before long, a job that was supposed to last a few months has Scott riding into country unlike anything he has worked before, learning that an ocean can be read just as surely as a horse, and spending more time with Manu than either of them probably needs to.

Scott has spent years learning when to hold on.

Hawaii may teach him something about letting go.

Paniolo Tide is the sixth and final prequel novella leading to Rodeo Clown, following Scott Danner from eighteen to twenty-five through the ranches, roads, men, and choices that shape the person he will become.