“Sometimes it works that way,” Mia said, adding her two cents. “I couldn’t wait to get out of this place, but before many days passed, I felt like the prodigal son. I didn’t care what I had to do, I just wanted to come home. I guess age doesn’t matter when the heart longs for home, does it?”
“You are so right about that.” But if that was the case, why did Stevie feel more at home in Addy’s kitchen than she had anyplace she’d been in a very long time—including her own house?
Must be the town of Honey Grove, or maybe the state of Texas calling us home, not a particular house, she thought.
Chapter Twelve
Cody had been in and out of the bunkhouse since he was a toddler. There were times when it was completely full, and when Henry had the foreman’s bedroom. In those days, the place seemed huge to him. As years went by more and more of the hired hands lived in town and commuted to the ranch. Nowadays with the newer equipment, they could make do with hiring spring, summer, and weekend help, and there were always teenage boys willing to work. And somehow, as Cody grew up, the bunkhouse got smaller. There were now two sets of bunk beds on the far wall, the foreman’s bedroom and bathroom with a tub and shower, and a large living room, kitchen, dining area all combined.
“Did things seem bigger to you when you were a kid?” Cody asked as he brought a beer and a bottle of sweet tea out of the kitchen, twisted the top off the tea, and handed it to Stevie.
“Thank you, and of course they did. I remember when our backyard was enormous and the walk to school, which was barely a block, seemed like a mile,” Stevie answered.
Cody settled on the other end of the sofa from her, laid his phone on the coffee table, and hit an icon. “Here’s to country music at the end of a long day.” He held out his bottle of beer toward hers.
Stevie touched her bottle with his. “Music and cold beer. It don’t get no better than this.”
“If you get tired of it, we can watch something on television, or just talk,” he said.
“I don’t get tired of music.” Stevie swayed to Chris Stapleton singing “Broken Halos.”
“Do you think of Dineo when this song plays?” she asked.
“Yes, I do,” Cody answered. “But I got to admit that I didn’t do what the lyrics say about not asking Jesus why, because I did many times.”
“I’ve seen my share of broken halos too, and I didn’t let it go without asking God why he had to take them from me since they were all I had. First my dad and then my mama, and I still want answers now, and I don’t want to wait to get them until the by-and-by, like the words say.”
“Evidently, we aren’t supposed to know the reasons why.” Cody took a long drink of his beer. “Are you still feeling all right, Stevie? It’s been twenty-four hours since your fall, and a brain bleed can hide and present a little later. I would sure feel better if we could have gotten an MRI.”
“I feel just fine,” Stevie assured him. “Not even a headache. Did y’all get the four-wheeler checked out? Did it need an MRI?” Her eyes twinkled when she joked.
“Nope”—Cody flashed a smile—“when I set it up on all four wheels and turned the engine over, it started right up. I drove it back to the barn. Nothing wrong with it but a slight dent on the front, which matches the one on the other side where Jesse dented it last fall.”
“I’ll be glad to have that repaired,” Stevie offered.
“It’s a farm machine, and they get dinged up. Don’t worry about that,” Cody told her. “Did you enjoy the day at the ranch?”
“Yes, I did.” Her expression said as much as her words. “I’m excited about Mia working with me a couple of days a week, but in a couple of years, she’ll know enough that y’all won’t even need me out here on Sunflower.”
“I kind of doubt that,” Cody said, “but it’s good to see her so excited about something. She’s bouncing off the walls about the idea, but Addy was right in saying that we’d pay you what we would have to for college classes. She’ll get one-on-one, hands-on training this way, whereas she’d only get book learning with online courses.”
“We came to an agreement this evening while we were cleaning up the kitchen after supper. She works for me free, and I don’t charge anything. It’s a win-win situation,” Stevie said. “Getting back to the day, Addy’s twins are so cute. They’ll be crawling soon, and that playpen won’t hold them then.”
“They grow up fast, don’t they?”
“Yep, they sure do. Jesse and Addy seem to be enjoying every minute of each phase, though,” Stevie said. “Speaking of that, Mia and I went out and checked on Dixie this afternoon. Her new mama has adapted to her new herd so well that a stranger would never know that she was once an orphan.”
“Kind of like the twins, right?” Cody didn’t give her time to answer. “Or like me and Jesse and Lucas?”
“Just look at how good y’all all turned out.” Stevie locked gazes with him.
He felt as if he was drowning in her mossy green eyes. Every little yellow fleck glittered and beckoned to him to dive right into her soul.
“Yep, all for the best all the way around,” he said.
Cody laced her fingers in his and stood, pulling her up with him. “May I have this dance, Stephanie O’Dell?”
She got to her feet. “No, but Stevie loves to dance. Stephanie is a little bit shy.”
“I don’t believe that any of your personalities have a shy bone,” Cody chuckled as he draped an arm around her waist. He sang the lyrics to “Tennessee Whiskey” right along with Chris Stapleton.
Her arms snaked up around his neck, and she laid her head against his chest. “I haven’t danced in years. This is nice, but I’m not believing a word of what you’re singing.”
“Oh, honey, you really are as smooth as Tennessee whiskey,” he whispered softly in her ear.
“But sweet as strawberry wine”—she leaned back and smiled at him—“that’s definitely not me. I’ve been called a lot of things, but sweet is not one of them.”
“The sweet is down deep in your soul and takes a special cowboy to find it.” Cody was kind of proud of himself for remembering how to flirt.
“Well, if you’re thinking you might be that special cowboy, you had best bring two shovels, because one will get dull before you dig that deep,” she giggled.
“I’ll remember that,” he said.
When the song ended and “Millionaire” started playing, Cody kept two-stepping around the floor with her.
“You only asked for one dance,” she told him.
“This second one is a vertical MRI. It’s for medical purposes only, to see if you get dizzy when you move around the floor,” he teased.
“You, Dr. Cowboy, are full of…” she started.
He kissed her on the forehead before she could say another word.
“Is that medical too?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s to test your endorphins. If you have a brain bleed, a kiss from a sexy cowboy might cause dizziness.” He reached up and removed her hands from around his neck and swung her out, then brought her back to his chest with a thump. “Your heart is beating fast, and your eyes have even more gold flecks in them than usual, which tells me that you are enjoying this.”