“Sweet Jesus!” Addy muttered. “What do you mean, most of your classes? Last semester you had all A’s.”
“Well, this semester I failed three classes.” Mia shrugged. “I’ll retake them later if I go back. Ricky and I haven’t decided what we’re going to do at the end of summer. If we don’t want to work on ranches, we may both join the Army, if they’ll promise to station us at the same places. I hear the truck coming to get the sheep. I can get them herded in without y’all’s help. I just have to go by the house and get my stuff, then pick up Ricky…” She smiled at her mother. “I’ll call you on Sunday.” She dashed out the back door without so much as giving Addy a hug.
Jesse moved over to sit closer to Addy. “Are you going to survive all this?”
Addy pulled her knees up, propped her elbows on them, and buried her face in her hands. “Wake me up, Jesse, and tell me this was all a nightmare. What did I do wrong? How could I have been so blind as to not know she had moved out of the dorm. Pearl and Sonny paid so much for her to live there.”
He slung an arm around her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, but today is very real. Want me to call Grady? Does he know that I’m Mia’s father?”
“Hell, no!” Tears flowed down her cheeks. “He wouldn’t understand any of this, and he’d have a million questions about why I didn’t see it happening. I failed by not giving her a father figure…and now she’s about to ruin her life. I can’t even imagine her…in the Army,” Addy said between sobs.
“Right now, that might be the best place for her and Ricky both.” Jesse pulled her closer to his side. “There’s no way they’ll promise them the same duty stations, so she’d be separated from him and have some time to think for herself without him telling her what to do. From what y’all have told me about him, he probably wouldn’t last past basic training. But before that happens, it’s a sure shot that he’s about to spend every bit of that money she’s getting today. You would be wise to freeze her accounts, or he’ll use that up, too.”
“I hate to do that.” Addy laid her head over on his shoulder. “What if she gets off somewhere and needs the money to get home?”
“I have no rights here, but you would be protecting her interest. She knows that you love her and that she can call you,” Jesse answered.
Mia blasted through the door like a whirlwind. “I forgot—” She stopped dead in her tracks. “So I was right. You have been flirting with Jesse, haven’t you?”
“Jesse has always been my good friend,” Addy said. “You just broke my heart, and he’s here for me.”
“Grady would be here for you if you’d call him, and he’s supposed to be your best friend,” Mia huffed, “but if you want to sleep around and get pregnant again in your old age, that’s your business. I forgot the papers that show what good stock my buyer is getting. See you later, Mama, but be careful about sleeping with dogs. You might get up with fleas.”
Addy was a blur as she got on her feet and took several steps toward Mia. “You are certainly one to talk about sleeping with dogs. Go on and have your fun, and when the money is gone, call me. I’m your mother, and I’ll always be here for you, but don’t you dare ever talk to me like that again. I raised you better than that.”
Mia glared at Addy. “Ricky loves me. You’re all wrong about him, and I’ll prove it.”
“I hope you do.” Addy wiped tears from her wet cheeks. “But right now, all I see is a girl who is about to get her heart broken. And, honey, for your information, I was not sleeping around. Someday when you grow up a little, I’ll tell you all about your father.”
“I’m not sure I even want to know.” Mia picked up her envelope of pedigree papers and left.
Jesse stood and wrapped Addy in his arms. “Evidently, she has to learn the hard way, but I’m here for you anytime and anyplace. We can get through this together.”
“Helluva homecoming for you, isn’t it?” she said as she laid her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. If only she could go back and get a do-over, Mia would be facing both her parents that day, and Jesse would be having one of those come-to-Jesus talks with Ricky.
“The night is always the darkest just before the sun comes up” Jesse whispered.
Chapter Nine
The afternoon heat beat down relentlessly on Addy as she jogged from the truck to the house. She was glad Sonny was in the office and Pearl was in the kitchen. She couldn’t face either of them right then. She went straight for the bathroom, adjusted the water in the shower, and stripped out of her dirty, sweaty clothing. She pulled the shower curtain back and stepped over the side of the tub. Tears and water mingled together as she sat down on the far end of the tub and sobbed until her sides ached.
How could she love her daughter so much and yet be so angry with her at the same time? Had her mother cried like this when she realized that Addy was six months pregnant and wouldn’t even tell them who the baby’s father was? Was this her payback for the choices she’d made?
She had no answers, only a heavy feeling in her chest that nothing would ever be right again between her and her daughter. It took all her strength to stand up and finish her shower, and yet, she still had to face Pearl and Sonny. She turned the water off, wrapped a towel around her body, and padded barefoot to her bedroom. Dressed in underwear, a T-shirt, and a pair of denim shorts, she finally looked at herself in the full-length mirror.
“I am strong,” she told the woman looking back at her, a woman who seemed to have aged twenty years in the past few hours. “Mia will get over this boy and come home, and things will be normal.”
She had to believe that, or she couldn’t go out there and face the family. She rounded the corner of the hallway and ran smack into Jesse. He wrapped her up in his arms for the second time that day to keep her from knocking them both on the floor, and he held her there for several seconds. Water droplets from his quick shower still hung on his dark hair, and he had changed from his dirty shirt and jeans into clean ones.
“Have you talked to them?” he whispered.
She took a step back and shook her head. “No. I needed to get myself together first.”
“Then we’ll do it together.” Jesse laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here to support you, Addy, like I should have been all these years.”
“Thank you. I guess we might as well get it over with.” She took a deep breath and started for the office.
Sonny looked up from the desk. “Looks like you two got cleaned up after that job. Did she really sell the sheep, or was she just testing you?”
“She really sold them. Did she come by here and talk to you?” Addy answered.
“Nope. I heard someone come in the house and leave again, but she didn’t say a word to me and Pearl. What’s going on?”
“Reckon you and Mom could come into the kitchen or the living room? We need to talk,” Jesse said.
“Sure thing, and here’s something for you.” Sonny handed her an envelope. “Henry had to go into town for more barbed wire, so he brought us the mail on his way back down the lane. I reckon that’s Mia’s grades. I’m sure she’s got a solid four point, just like last semester.” He picked up his cane and started for the kitchen.