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

“All settled?” Jesse asked.

“Yep, but it gets harder to get in and out of a vehicle every time,” Sonny admitted. “Don’t wait until you are past seventy to retire, son. Do it as soon as you can and enjoy a few years when you can travel.”

Jesse patted him on the shoulder and stretched the seat belt over his chest. “Been there, done that already, Dad. I’m ready to do ranchin’ work until I drop now. Fasten this thing. Addy’s always driven too fast.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black. I’ve never had to call Sonny to bring the tractor and get me out of a ditch,” she smarted off to him.

“Hey, don’t go draggin’ up the dead bones of old mistakes.” Jesse flashed a brilliant smile across the top of the SUV.

“Then don’t make me,” she said with a grin.

He tossed the stretcher over into the back of his truck, got in, and drove across the pasture to where Henry, Mia, and the summer help were all working on putting up a new fence and taking down the rotted old wooden posts. Mia came over to the truck and got the stretcher and jogged back.

“You and Pete tighten up this length while me and these other two boys get the next few posts in the ground,” Henry said.

Pete whipped off his cowboy hat and wiped sweat from his brow with a bandanna he pulled from his hip pocket. “Put me with someone else. I’m not working with her. She’s ruined our family by dragging Ricky off to Las Vegas. Mama is crying because he won’t come home, and Daddy is mad all the time. He says he’d sue her if he could afford a lawyer.”

Mia didn’t waste a bit of time getting right up in Pete’s face. “It was Ricky’s idea to go to Vegas, and he went through thousands of my dollars at the poker tables, then ran off with another woman and left me stranded. How can this be my fault?”

“He told Mama that he felt sorry for you, and you begged him to move in with you. Then you promised him anything he wanted if he’d go to Vegas with you. You’re the reason he flunked out of college last semester and why he left town. You ain’t no better than that slut Justine, who says her baby belongs to him.” Pete jacked his chin up a notch so that he was looking down at Mia. “Daddy says I can work here, but I’m to stay away from her.”

Mia’s hand knotted into a fist, and she drew it back to deck Pete, but Jesse closed his big hand around it and held tight. “Pete, you collect your gear, whatever it is, and go home. Don’t bother coming back. The next time you even remotely insult Mia, I won’t hold her back from knocking you on your ass.”

Pete turned around and stomped back toward the house, then he turned with a sneer and said, “You’ll be sorry you did this to us, Mia. Ricky is a good guy, and he just felt sorry for a big old plain girl like you. You shouldn’t have ruined his life.”

“We’ve got fences to build before quittin’ time,” Mia said through clenched teeth, “so let’s get with it. Thanks, Jesse, for standing up for me.”

“Anytime,” he said, then turned to the other three guys. “Any of you have something to say?”

“No, sir,” Tommy said. “I’m glad you fired him. I got tired of hearing him bad-mouth Mia. We all know what kind of person Ricky is.”

“Then we’ll all get back to work,” Henry said. “Jesse, why don’t you help Mia with the wire while we put down some more posts?”

“Be glad to,” Jesse agreed.

As soon as the others were out of hearing, Mia turned around and glared at Jesse. “Why didn’t you let me hit him? He deserved it.”

“Yes, he did, and it took all the willpower I could muster to keep from knocking him cold myself, but think about it, Mia,” Jesse answered, “if you had hit him, Patrick O’Malley would have brought assault charges against you, and that would feed the gossip that Lylah is spreading. We want it to go away, not keep spreading like weeds in a pasture.”

“You’re right, but it would have felt good to put him on the ground.” She shoved her hands down into her gloves.

“You’ll have your chance, but when it comes around, do it with your brain, not with your fists,” Jesse advised.

“What does that mean?” Mia asked.

“You’ll figure it out,” Jesse answered and changed the subject. “Your feet dried out yet?”

“Nope, but I’ve kind of gotten used to the warm slushy feeling of wet socks.” She smiled. “How about you?”

“Same here. Are you thirsty?” He pulled a bottle of water out of his hip pocket and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said as she opened it and downed a third of it before tucking it away in the back pocket of her jeans. “Now let’s get this wire stretched. We can probably catch up with the other crew by suppertime if we work hard.”

A little more progress, Jesse thought.





Chapter Sixteen



Addy had spent the afternoon in the office and was more than ready to get out of the house that evening after supper. She ran a brush through her shoulder-length hair and twisted it up on the top of her head with a wide hair clamp. She didn’t bother with makeup, since the only place she was going was to the pharmacy to pick up the next month’s supply of medicine for Sonny. She was looking forward to some time alone to think about whatever this was with Jesse, and how to tell Mia that Jesse was her father.