Second Chance at Sunflower Ranch (The Ryan Family #1) by Carolyn Brown

If only, Jesse thought, then shook the idea from his head. He and Addy were back on friendly ground. She had Grady now, whether Jesse liked him or not.

* * *



Addy loved being a nurse, but the first time she got on a four-wheeler and helped Henry herd a bunch of cattle across the huge ranch, she knew what she’d been missing. She had thought that she had to choose between the two things she loved, but Sonny and Pearl had offered her both worlds. She had never regretted the choice she had made to come help on the ranch that day, especially that morning when she started up the engine of the four-wheeler.

“Move ’em out,” Jesse yelled over the noise of the two engines. “Round ’em up, Tex!”

The dog chased a rangy old bull from out of a mesquite thicket, while Jesse and Addy worked the stranglers into a herd. She yelled and waved her hat in the air to make the cattle move along. The distance from one side of the pasture to the other was only a half a mile, but this bunch of cows had evidently made themselves a home right where they were.

“I thought Mia had a home here, too,” she muttered as she helped Jesse round up the cows. “I guess the grass was greener on the other side. But if that’s the case, why don’t these damned cows see that?”

Several of the cows, especially those with calves, had hidden in the corners of the pasture, and Tex had to work to get them headed in the direction they needed to go. When they were all moved and the gate was closed, Jesse and Addy sat down on the ground and leaned their backs against his four-wheeler. He had brought two bottles of water from his saddlebag. He twisted the top off one and handed it to her.

She took a long drink and then brought out a sack with protein bars and apples in it. “Thought we might want a little pick-me-up before we get on the tractors and start plowing.”

“Ranching must go on.” Jesse took an apple and an energy bar from the bag. “If we get the pasture plowed by dark, we can seed it tomorrow and then pray that cockamamied weatherman is right about the rain.”

“You think it’s raining on Mia today? Think she’s already missing the ranch?” Addy asked.

“Don’t know about the rain, but I bet she’s missing home. She won’t admit it for a while longer, but she’s wondering already if she made a mistake,” Jesse answered.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

“Think about it, Addy,” he said. “When did you start missing home when you left to go to your granny’s place? Don’t know about you, but the morning after…” He stared off into space for several seconds before he went on. “After we spent that night together, I wished I wasn’t leaving. I had already signed on the dotted line, so I had to go, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to be here with you and all that was familiar to me.”

“When I found out I was pregnant, I just wanted to run away, but I cried the whole seven hours it took me to drive out there,” she answered truthfully. “When I got the opportunity to come back, it seemed like a dream come true. Like I was being given another chance, but Mia wasn’t happy living in town, so…” She hesitated.

“So when Sonny got sick and needed a full-time nurse and some farm help, did it seem like an answer to a prayer?” Jesse asked.

She nodded. “It really did, but enough nostalgia. We’ve got a pasture to plow under. I’d hate to be that weatherman if he’s wrong about the rain. Sonny needs someone to be mad at right now, and he might put a curse on that guy.”

They didn’t take time to go in at noon, but kept plowing until it was dark, and then used the tractor lights and the light from the moon to finish up the last couple of acres. All day long, Addy’s thoughts ran in circles. She would think about how wonderful it was to have her good friend back. Then she would go back to worrying about Mia, hoping that her daughter was all right and happy. Then the next moment, she would hope that Mia was so miserable that she would learn her lesson and be ready to come home. Not once did she think of Grady until she and Jesse were in the truck and on the way back to the ranch house.

“You remember Betsy Massey?” she asked.

“Wasn’t she in a grade or two above us in school?” Jesse answered with another question.

“That’s right. She works at the bank,” Addy said.

“Is that who you talked to this morning? Julie’s mother?”

“Justine,” Addy corrected him. “The seventeen-year-old mother of Ricky’s most recent baby. If the rumors are right, he’s got one over in Bonham and maybe one or two more scattered around this area. Anyway, she says that she saw Grady having lunch with a woman in Bonham last week and said that the woman was the image of Amelia, Grady’s wife who was killed. I’m worried about him, Jesse. I don’t think he’s recovered from her death, and he’s grasping at someone to take her place.”

“He’s the chief over at the hospital,” Jesse said. “That could have been a drug rep, or an insurance rep, or maybe a lawyer. Hospitals are always getting sued for one thing or another.”

“You really think so?” Addy asked.

“Hell, no!” Jesse said. “I think he’s seeing a woman he met at a strip club. Her name is Cotton Candy, and she’s twenty years old, and he doesn’t want to talk to you about her any more than you want to talk to him about me.”