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

“Beer, please,” she answered.

He went to the kitchen area and brought back two more long-neck bottles. “I missed good beer when I was out on a mission. Sometimes all we could get was nonalcoholic.”

“Monkey piss tastes better than that.” She reached out for the bottle he offered her.

“How much monkey piss have you tasted?” he asked.

“None, but I have an imagination.” She was glad that Jesse was home, happy that their friendship was coming back, but she wanted to get serious now. She had never been one to beat around the bush, especially with Jesse, so she came right out and asked, “What’s wrong with me, Jesse? I can’t even keep a best friend.”

“Nothing that I can see, except maybe your hair is a fright on rainy days,” he chuckled.

“I’m serious,” she declared. “You wouldn’t ask me out in high school. We had a one-night fling because we were both sad that you were leaving. I haven’t been able to hold on to a relationship since, so something has to be wrong with me. Tell me what it is. I don’t want to grow old by myself.”

Jesse didn’t answer for so long that she thought he was avoiding her question altogether. Finally, he said, “We didn’t want to ruin the friendship, remember. We had been best friends since we were maybe four years old. I couldn’t imagine not having you to talk to or to lean on in times of trouble. That didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in you, Addy, or that I didn’t dream about you. That night here in this very room was…” He paused and gazed into her eyes. “More than words can ever describe.”

“And now?” she asked.

“Now we have a smart-ass daughter we have to figure out how to handle.” He blinked and studied his beer bottle. “We can’t go back and recapture that night. We’re not eighteen anymore.”

“Tell that to this room,” she said with another sweep of her hand. “I’d say that you’ve done a pretty good job of it.”

“Well, then…” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Don’t tease me,” she said.

He slid down to the middle of the sofa and drew her close to his side. “You are a wonderful person, Addison Hall. You have a kind heart and just enough sass to make you interesting. You are beautiful, even when it rains and your hair gets crazy, and any man on the face of this earth should be glad to have you as a friend. Grady is a stupid ass for not seeing that and treating you like the queen you deserve to be. He will never, ever find as true of a friend as you are, and I’m speaking from experience. Want me to go toilet paper his house or write ugly things on his car with shoe polish?”

“No, I just want to sit here with you until suppertime and know that there’s one man in the universe I can trust to make me feel better when I’m pissed,” she whispered.

“I’ll always be here for you, Addy. Don’t ever forget it,” he said.

“I know, Jesse, and I’m sorry we drifted so far apart, but I’m glad we’re back in each other’s world now.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Me, too, darlin’.”





Chapter Twelve



The temperature had already risen to eighty-nine degrees by ten o’clock that Tuesday morning when Addy and Jesse got on the four-wheelers and headed over to her old home place to check on the alpacas. They crossed two pastures, waved at Henry and the hired hands who were putting up new fencing, and then drove across the dirt road. Since alpacas didn’t do well when the weather got hot and needed a shady place to get under, Henry had moved them into the corral next to the hay barn, which had a lean-to shed attached to its side.

Addy brought her four-wheeler to a stop, slung a leg over the side of the seat, and counted the animals before she stood up. “Looks like they’re all here,” she said. “I’m seeing the male or macho in the middle of his harem, six hembras, and two crias. You ever dealt with alpacas before?”

“Nope. I’ve seen a few but never dealt with them,” he answered.

Jesse nodded as he parked, got off the four-wheeler, and went over to the corral fence. “Dad wants us to move them over closer to the ranch house on Sunflower Ranch so he can enjoy them more. Maybe that pasture right outside the yard fence?”

“Great idea,” Addy agreed. “The shed at the end of the barn could provide shelter for them in hot and cold weather, and there’s a water trough up there close by. We’d just have to be careful to keep the barn door closed. All that hay and feed would be like a never-ending buffet to them. We’d be calling Stevie out every week to take care of them if they ate too much.”

Jesse propped a foot on the bottom rail of the corral and leaned on it. “I never thought Stevie O’Dell would turn out to be a vet. She was so prissy in high school. Is she still single?”

“Yep,” Addy answered. “You interested?” A shot of jealousy stabbed her in the heart.

“Nope, never did like prissy girls,” Jesse answered. “I prefer women with a little sass in them.”

Addy cocked her head to one side. “I hear a cria crying from inside the barn. One of them must’ve found a way in, and now it can’t find its mama.”

“That’s not a cria,” Jesse said. “It sounds more like a human, not a baby, but a child. Maybe somebody’s kid got lost.”