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

Addy took off in a run around the end of the barn. She slid the door open enough to slip inside and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Mia’s truck. Had the vehicle been sitting there the whole week and no one noticed it? If so, had she left with Ricky in his truck?

“Holy smoke,” Jesse gasped. “Isn’t that Mia’s truck?”

Addy’s hands trembled, and her stomach twisted into knots. Something was dreadfully wrong. She felt like a boulder the size of an elephant was sitting on her chest. Her child was out there without a way to get back home.

“Yes, that’s her truck,” Addy whispered. “And I think there’s someone inside it.”

Jesse closed his hand around hers. Together they eased across the scorching hot barn. The windows were rolled down and the truck was covered with a layer of dust. When Addy peeked inside, the whole world around her disappeared and everything went black. Jesse caught her as she started to fall backward and held her tightly against his chest.

“It’s Mia,” she gasped when she got her bearings.

“Mama?” Mia sat up and slung the door open at the same time. She fell into her mother’s arms, laid her head on Addy’s shoulder, and sobbed until she got the hiccups.

“I should go,” Jesse said.

Addy shook her head. “Don’t you dare leave.”

She led Mia over to the side of the barn and pulled her down to sit beside her on a bale of hay. “How long have you been here? Why didn’t you come to the house?”

Mia kept her eyes glued to her boots. “I’ve been here since midnight last night. I didn’t want to wake up the whole house. Poppa might have had a heart attack.”

“You could have called me, and I would have let you in the house. You didn’t need to sleep in your truck,” Addy said.

Mia shook her head but still didn’t look up. “No, ma’am. I don’t deserve to come home, and you have every right to say that you told me so.”

Jesse sat down beside Addy. “We’re just glad you’re safe.”

Addy put her arm around Mia and drew her close to her side. “What happened, sweetie?”

Mia put her head in her hands. “I was a fool. I trusted Ricky.” She hiccupped through her tears.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Jesse said.

Mia shook her head again. “I don’t want to say his name or talk about him or anything, but Mama, Poppa and Nana deserve to know what happened. “On Sunday night we had this big argument. I went out to get food…” She closed her eyes and shivered in spite of the steaming hot barn. “When I got back, there was another woman in our room, and he was kissing her.”

Addy’s mother instincts kicked in and anger boiled up from depths that she didn’t even know existed. Not only had Ricky taken advantage of her child, he had broken her heart. The guy had better stay out of Fannin County for a long time because it would take years for her to be able to look at him without wanting to strangle him.

“He said that she kissed him and…” Mia wiped tears away from her cheeks and sat up straight. “I was a fool to believe him, but I did. That night he lost the rest of our money at the poker table.”

“How much money did he put in with yours when you left together?” Jesse asked.

“That’s none of your business,” Mia said through clenched teeth.

“I’d say it is our business,” Addy disagreed. “You need to face the fact that you’ve been conned, not only for the past week, but for six months. How much did Ricky contribute to the living expenses when you two moved in together last semester? Did he get a job and help with food and rent?”

“Did you get a job?” Jesse asked. “Is that why you failed every class?”

Addy was about to ask the same question, but hearing it said out loud made her angry at her daughter as well as Ricky. Mia should have known better than to throw her entire future away on a smooth-talking bad boy.

“Did you?” Addy asked.

“When my money was gone in my savings and checking account, I worked as a waitress in a café not far from our apartment. I couldn’t go to school and keep up with the bills. Ricky liked to have his friends over to play poker and drink beer. That took money.” Mia shrugged. “I was happy if he was.”

“Do you want me to go find that worthless guy and kick his ass?” Jesse asked.

She nodded. “I wish you would, but he’s not worth driving all the way to Vegas for. Mama, I have no money and no sheep, and…” Mia started sobbing again.

“You’ll make more money. Time will heal your broken heart. You can go back to school in the fall and repeat last semester. There’s an old saying that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” Addy told her. “But you will take your fall classes online and pay for them yourself. You are going to apologize to Sonny and Pearl. Then you are going to talk to Jesse, one on one, not here but after you talk to Sonny and Pearl. It’s up to him whether you have a job on the ranch.”

“Why not Henry?” Mia asked.

“Because he’s retiring pretty soon, and Jesse will be the foreman and boss then. If you’re going to stay on the ranch, then you will be working for him, and it’s only right that he makes the decision,” Addy answered. “You wanted to make your own decisions and you have. Now it’s time to be accountable. Sonny paid out money for your tuition and books, and your dorm and meal ticket. You wasted every bit of that, so you can study and work at the same time next year. Then we’ll talk about whether you can go back to the campus to live in another year.”