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

“I’ll drive. You get out there and make ’em sweat. Nothing sexier than a guy with big muscles and a sweaty body,” Addy teased.

“God, Mama!” Mia shook her head.

“No, I’m not a god, but thanks for thinking I am,” Addy giggled.

“If that’s the truth, then why aren’t you flirting with Jesse? He’s pretty darn sexy, and he kept stealing looks at you all during breakfast.” Mia jumped out of the truck and whistled for her crew to get to work.

Oh, my sweet spitfire of a daughter, you may come to regret saying that in the next few weeks.





Chapter Three



You all settled in, Dad?” Jesse asked.

“Ready to go.” Sonny laid his cane to the side of the passenger seat. “I’m so glad you’re home, son. I was wondering if any of you boys would ever come back to the ranch.” He patted Jesse on the shoulder. “I keep saying that, but I want you to know that I really mean it. Henry wants to retire as soon as summer ends, and you’ll need to take over, but that’s not the only reason I want you here. Your mama is going to need you if…when…” he stammered.

Jesse leaned across the console and gave his dad a quick hug. “That gives me six months to get a handle on things, Dad. And the new trial meds are helping so I expect to celebrate your hundredth birthday with you here in about twenty years. Don’t you disappoint me!”

“You know I’ve always loved you as much as if you belonged to me and your mama by blood, don’t you? I regret that I didn’t tell you boys that as often as I should have.” Sonny wiped away a tear hanging on his eyelashes.

“You did just fine, Dad. We all three knew we were loved,” Jesse assured him and then started the slow drive around the property line fences.

Sonny cleared his throat, took out a hanky from the bibbed pocket of his overalls and blew his nose, then put it back. “Thank you for that, Jesse. These damned drugs make me as emotional as a teenage girl, but while we’re on the subject, do you ever wonder about your biological parents? The other boys asked questions years ago, and we answered as best we could.”

Jesse sure hadn’t thought about having this conversation the very morning he got back home. “I looked into it myself a few years ago. I found out my birth parents’ names and that they had died. Maybe that should have bothered me, but it didn’t. Some guys I knew in the service that had been adopted had issues, but I never did. You and Mama loved me so much that it didn’t matter. The only thing I wondered about was why you and Mama didn’t adopt me right away, rather than waiting until you did the paperwork for Lucas and Cody.”

Sonny sighed, inhaled deeply, and let it out slowly. “All your mama ever wanted was a family, and it was my fault we couldn’t have kids, not hers. She loved me enough to stay with me even after we found out why after almost twenty years of marriage, we didn’t have children. If we couldn’t have our own flesh and blood, I didn’t want to have any kids at all, but I love your mother more than life, and she wanted children, no matter how we had to get them.”

Jesse felt his heart fall down into his cowboy boots. His own parents hadn’t wanted him, and that didn’t bother him, but the thought of Sonny not wanting him was another matter. Jesse felt tears welling up in his eyes, but he blinked them back.

Sonny went on, “Your mother talked me into trying out foster care, just to see how it would go.”

“Dad, you don’t have to tell me all this.” Jesse got out of the truck and opened a gate, jogged back to the truck and drove through it, then hopped out again to close the gate.

“Sorry that I couldn’t do that for you,” Sonny said when Jesse was behind the steering wheel again.

Jesse patted him on the shoulder. “No problem.”

“Now, where were we?” Sonny asked, then went on before Jesse could answer. “Oh, yeah. Back to when the foster lady brought you to our house. You were a big baby at nine pounds, but you scared the bejesus out of me. I was terrified that I’d drop you or do something wrong. There I was the same age as you are right now with a baby in my arms. I’d always managed to steer clear of even my buddies’ newborn babies, but Pearl was so in love with you from the first moment she took you from that social worker’s arms, that she wanted me to feel the same thing.”

Jesse had held his friends’ babies, and he’d felt the exact same way. Flying into war zones on a rescue mission, tornadoes, and red-haired women didn’t scare him as much as a tiny baby did.

“Merrylee, the social worker, who was a childhood friend of your mother’s, said she could pull some strings and we could adopt you right away,” Sonny said. “I was the one who wanted to wait. Your mother wanted a family, not an only child, and I wanted to see how we’d do with one before I consented to having more babies in the house. When you were two years old, Merrylee called and said she had a three-year-old and his year-old brother who were available to foster like we did you, and in six months we could probably adopt them. I was in a turmoil. I always figured that if we did take in another child or two, you’d be the oldest and inherit the farm when I was gone, and by then you were mine…my son…my child. I didn’t think I could love any others the way I did you.”