“So you and Grady are best friends?” Jesse asked.
“He’s a good man.” Addy sounded defensive even to her own ears. “And we have a lot in common, him being a doctor and me a nurse, so we kind of speak the same language.”
“Hey, everyone needs a best friend.” Jesse smiled.
“I wish he was more than her friend.” Mia got up and started toward the door. “I like him, and he makes her laugh. Maybe things won’t work out with him and his new girlfriend. We can always hope.”
“Grady is a good friend, nothing more, not even in the future.” Addy didn’t leave room for argument.
“Speaking of the future, remember that I told you about this new trial drug for MS? It seems to be slowing down the symptoms, and we’re grateful for that.”
“Does he get out to check fences or—” Jesse started.
“Every day,” Addy butted in. “We help get him in the truck and drive him around the fence lines. We let him check the cattle and make decisions about moving them from one pasture to the other.”
“But Mama and I have been helping with the bookwork.” Mia turned around from the back door. “He hated doing it anyway, and it gives me work experience for my degree.”
Pearl reached over and laid a hand on Jesse’s. “You can’t know how glad we are that you are home, son. If you could drive him around after breakfast, it would be a big help.”
“Whatever you need, Mama,” Jesse replied. “I’ve also had medical training.”
“That’s great,” Mia said. “Now we’ve got a nurse and a medic on the ranch. Can you do vet work? We could save a lot of money if we didn’t need a vet a couple of times a month.”
“Sorry, but that’s not in my field,” Jesse answered. “But if you break a leg or get on the wrong end of an IED, I can fix you up enough to get you to a hospital.”
“I don’t think there’s any bombs on Sunflower Ranch,” Addy said.
Other than the one about to go off in your heart right now? Her grandmother’s voice popped into her head.
She ignored the question and stood up. “I’ll help with cleanup, and then when Mia gets back from the sheep pens, we can get out there to get a pasture full of hay baled and ready for the barn. Think Sonny will ever go for the big round bales?” Keeping her hands busy would keep her crazy emotions in check—hopefully anyway.
Pearl shook her head. “He says there’s too much waste in those things. Besides he likes to give jobs to the high school boys in the summertime. Says it teaches them hard work.”
Mia laughed out loud. “What it does is teach them to go to college and do something where they won’t have to sweat.”
Jesse turned to look at her, and Addy’s heart skipped a beat. He’d have to know before long, and it would turn everyone’s life upside down.
“Is that why you’re going to college?” he asked.
“No, sir,” she answered without hesitation. “I’m sitting through all those classes because Poppa says I have to if I’m ever going to be the foreman of this place. That’s been my goal since I moved onto this ranch, but…”
“But what?” Addy asked.
Mia shrugged and looked guilty as hell. “But I might…” Another shrug. “It’s nothing.”
“Thinking about changing your major?” Jesse asked.
“What I’m thinking about isn’t a whole lot of your business,” Mia smarted off. “I’m going to feed the sheep. I’ll meet y’all at the hay field.” She slammed the wooden screen door on her way out.
“What’s that all about?” Pearl asked.
“Who knows?” Addy answered. “She’s been different since she came home from college this semester, but she’s said that ranching is in her blood, and she would never want to do anything else.”
“Teenagers.” Jesse headed into the living room.
Addy’s pulse raced. “I’m on duty to drive a hay wagon today. When you get back from driving Sonny around, we can use you in the field.”
“Go on,” Pearl said with a wave of her hand. “If Jesse is going to take Sonny out for his morning drive, I’ll have plenty of time by myself in the house. And I’ll appreciate every minute of it.”
Mia pushed back into the house. “I forgot my hat. Where’s Jesse?”
“Right here.” He poked his head around the kitchen door.
“You should know that I’m a rancher.” She glared at him. “I was born on my great-grandmother’s place out near Cactus, Texas, in the middle of a tornado. Granny couldn’t get Mama to the hospital, so she delivered me in a storm cellar. When everything cleared out, she put me and Mama in her old pickup truck and took us to the hospital. The next day, she took us home, and I’ve lived on a ranch my whole life. So don’t look at me like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Addy wondered who Mia was trying to convince—Jesse or herself—and why she was being so belligerent. She had been the kind, sweet daughter that Addy had raised when she had come home for the Christmas break, but the girl who arrived at the ranch for the summer had changed into a sassy, sometimes even hateful person. Could it be that knowing Jesse was coming home had made her question her own place on Sunflower Ranch?
“Well, I, for one, am glad that you’ve been here to keep the ranch going while I’ve been out running missions for the Air Force,” Jesse told her.
“Thank you,” Mia said as she took her cowboy hat off a rack by the door and settled it on her head. “When you get done with Poppa, I’ll expect you out in the hay field.”
“Mia Pearl Hall,” Addy fussed at her.
“Pearl?” Jesse raised an eyebrow.
“It’s my grandmother’s middle name as well as mine,” Addy answered.
“And my first name, so I claim her, too,” Pearl said.
“Enough about names,” Mia said. “Can I expect you in the hay field? Those young boys don’t want to listen to me, and Henry has a crew fixing fence this morning.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I get back with Dad,” Jesse promised.
“Good.” She nodded and left by the back door.
Jesse raised an eyebrow at Addy. “Looks like she’s well on her way to making a pretty fine foreman. She’s certainly bossy enough, but then she comes by that honest. I remember you being pretty sassy.”
Addy crammed her straw hat down on her head. “If you don’t have a hat anymore, you’d better rustle one up. This hot sun will fry your brains.”
“It can’t be any hotter than it was in Iraq or Kuwait,” he said, grinning.
“And you had a hat there, I’m sure,” Addy said as she pushed the back door open.
She went straight to the old ranch work truck. The thing had been new the year that Jesse left for the Air Force. Now the paint had rusted off in places, and the bench seat inside was cracked so badly that she kept a quilt thrown over it. But the engine still hummed like it was new. She started the engine, clutched and put it in reverse, then just sat there for a few minutes. Hoping to quiet her racing thoughts and all the memories, she leaned her head on the steering wheel. When that didn’t work, she rose up and backed the truck out of the yard.