Texas Homecoming

by Carolyn Brown

  “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.”

  “I’d have to be stone-cold dead to not think you are sexy. I’ve already told you that I had a crush on you for five years,” she said. “I wouldn’t have wasted my time and energy on a cowboy who wasn’t good-looking.”

  “Thank you, love.” He gave her another kiss on the forehead.

  “Just stating facts…love,” she shot back and then asked, “Do you really think that love is more precious than gold?”

  “Yes, I do,” Cody whispered in her ear. “A man can have empty pockets and still feel like a millionaire if he’s got love to spare like Chris is singing about. I see it in Jesse and Addy and have always seen it in my folks. If and when I ever find that kind of love, I’ll be a millionaire, even if I don’t have two dimes to rub together in my pocket.”

  When that song ended, Cody brought Stevie’s hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Thank you, Stevie, for the dances. Maybe someday, we’ll go over to the Rusty Spur and dance some leather off our cowboy boots.”

  “Why would we go to a crowded bar when we’ve got music, a dance floor, and beer right here?” She sat back down on the sofa and picked up her beer.

  Tex woke up, stretched, and hopped down off the sofa. He made his way to the kitchen, where he lapped up water from a bowl and ate a few bites of his dry food, then he flopped down under the table.

  “Because I might want people to think we were out on a date,” Cody answered.

  * * *

  Had Stevie really heard Cody right? She wondered if maybe she ought to ask him to repeat what he’d said, then realized from the quizzical look on his face that he had indeed just said something about a date. She jerked her head around, almost choked trying to get the swallow of beer down, and gasped. “You’re asking me on a date?”

  “Yes, I am, but from that reaction, I guess that I’m going to suffer from rejection.” Cody picked up his beer and took a long drink.

  “You aren’t God, so you don’t know what I’m thinking,” she told him.

  “T
hen you’re saying yes?” Cody asked. “But going out dancing was just a suggestion. If you’d rather go out to dinner and maybe to a movie, that’s fine with me. The snow is melting, and we’ve gotten word that the road from here to town will be clear by day after tomorrow. I want to spend more time with you.”

  “After you broke up with me, I never thought you’d ever ask me out. But I would like to spend more time with you too, so once I’m back home, give me a call. You’ve got my number,” Stevie said.

  Twenty years ago, if Cody Ryan had called her for a second chance, Stevie would have danced a jig around the floor. Her heart would have thumped right out of her chest, and sucking on lemons wouldn’t have been able to wipe the grin off her face. Ten years ago, when she came home and saw him at church that Christmas, if he had asked her out, even just for ice cream, she would have probably told him to drop dead and go to hell.

  Time and life change the way we look at things. Those were some of her mother’s last words before she died.

  You are so right, Mama, Stevie agreed now.

  “I will call you, but how about Sunday?” Cody asked. “I’ll pick you up for church, and afterwards, we can go over to Paris for dinner, and then maybe take a long slow drive back home.”

  “I’d like that,” Stevie answered as she recognized the piano lead-in for “Broken Roads” by Rascal Flatts. “Hey, this song could be Jesse and Addy’s theme song, couldn’t it?”

  “It might be.” Cody flashed a brilliant smile. “Or who knows, in fifty years we might look back on tonight and think it’s about us. The only way we’ll ever know if every one of those long, lost roads has truly brought us back to Honey Grove is if we bury the hatchet and get to know each other better.”

  “Think there might be a grander plan in all of this like they’re singing about?” Stevie asked.

  “We can hope so,” he said and smiled.

  She rolled the cold, sweaty beer bottle across her forehead. “Let’s watch a movie or reruns on television.”

  “Reason?” Cody asked.

  “Between the beer, the dancing with you, and you asking me out, I’m getting all emotional.” She was bluntly honest—the only way she knew how to be.

  “Is that good or bad?” Cody asked.

  Stevie was wondering if she would wake up tomorrow morning in her own house and discover that everything that had happened was just a dream. There had been no crazy winter storm. Her van would be sitting in the driveway with no flat tires, and she would realize that she hadn’t had a bad fall from a four-wheeler.

  “It’s all good,” she finally answered. If this was a dream, she might as well enjoy it to the very end.

  “I’m glad,” Cody said as he turned off the music, picked up the remote, and hit the guide channel. “Looks like we’ve got reruns of NCIS and Law and Order, or we can bring up Netflix and watch something there.”

  “The Ranch,” Stevie said without hesitation.

  “Yes!” Cody nodded and punched in the right buttons on the remote. “What season are you on?”

  “Two,” she answered.

  “I’ve been watching the third one, but I don’t mind going back and doing season two again.” Cody settled onto his end of the sofa.

  How could he go from talking about a date on Sunday, to thinking about a television show? Stevie wondered. Her mind was still going around in circles, as she tried to figure out what she should wear to church, and how Addy and Mia would feel about her actually dating Cody. If the two of them decided that they didn’t like each other, would that interfere with Mia being her assistant? Or worse yet, would the ranch stop calling on her to do vet work for them? If Sonny quit using her services, then how many other ranches would stop calling on her?

  “Want another beer?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” Her voice sounded strained in her own ears. “Maybe…” she started to say that dating might not be such a good idea.

  “Maybe some pretzels?” Cody was already on his way back from the kitchen. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Don’t close the door when opportunity knocks, the voice in her head said. Didn’t you just tell him to face his fears? Well, take a dose of your own medicine.

  “Yes,” she said again. “Pretzels would be great, and bring that package of chocolate kisses I saw in the pantry. I like salt and sweet together.”

  “You can have as many of my kisses as you can handle,” Cody chuckled.

  “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.” Stevie flirted right back at him.

  “Want to give that a try?” Cody returned with half a bag of chocolate and an unopened one of pretzels.

  She held up the kisses. “See, only half a bag. I could put away two bags between now and bedtime. Oh!” She clamped a hand over her mouth. “You were talking about real kisses. This is a failure to communicate. I thought you were offering me as many of these as I could handle.”

  “Sure, you were, but to clear things up…” Cody bent forward, tipped her chin up with his fist, and kissed her on the lips.

  Stevie was glad that she was sitting down because her knees went all weak. When the kiss ended, her heart was pumping double time, and her pulse raced like she had just run a marathon.

  “How many of those can you handle tonight?” Cody asked as he sat down on the other end of the sofa.

  “As many as you can, Dr. Cowboy,” she lied. One or two more of those and she would be unbuttoning his chambray shirt.

  “We’ll test that theory when you are completely well. Don’t want to overload your brain with too many endorphins,” he said with a grin.

  “Or yours either,” she told him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Glad to be free of the confines of the stall, Dixie and her adoptive sibling romped around in the corral while their mother, Maggie, kept a watch from a distance. Sonny sat in a lawn chair just inside the barn and kept an eye on all the alpacas plus the heifer and her newborn baby calf. Animals and humans alike seemed to be enjoying the nice warm sun and trying to ignore the breeze blowing down from the north.

  “Can I get you anything?” Stevie asked as she dragged a couple more chairs over for her and Pearl. “There’s water, bottles of sweet tea, and apple juice in the tack room refrigerator.”

  “I’m just fine,” Sonny said, “but thank you. Getting to come out here and see the new babies is all I need today. Jesse and Cody are turning the cows back out into the pastures where they belong since the snow has melted down to where we can see grass. But for a few hours, I can enjoy seeing them milling about out there beyond the corral. They seem to be as happy as I am to see the weather getting back to normal. Only trouble with that is that spring will be here soon, and it’s getting to where I can’t do a damn thing except supervise.”

  Pearl tucked her scarf into her coat and zipped it up. “I’m just glad to see the sun and the temperature up in the forties today. Even the drifts in the shady areas should be melted pretty soon, and, Sonny Ryan, we’re of an age where all we need to do is supervise, so stop your bellyaching and enjoy the day.”

  “You’re probably right, but it ain’t easy. We don’t like the snow when it’s here, but it sure helps the soil bring up good grass,” Sonny pointed out into the corral. “Look at that little girl, darlin’. She’s fitting right in with Maggie’s new baby. Pearl, darlin’, what are you going to name her?”

  “I figured Mia would name her,” Stevie said.

  “Nope,” Sonny sighed. “She thought she was going to sell the alpacas right along with her sheep, but I reminded her that I had paid for them, so they were mine. She’s done very well since she came home, but she doesn’t get to name the new babies. It’s a reminder to her that choices have consequences.”

  “Tough love?” Stevie sat down on the other side of Pearl.

  “I’m not sure who it’s the toughest on,” Pearl said, “Mia or us two old people who would like to step in and tell her that we’ll make everything all right for her.”

&n
bsp; “I can’t even imagine how hard that would be on parents,” Stevie said.

  “Letting them make their own choices, and then not rushing in and trying to make everything perfect when they make bad ones is probably the hardest part of being parents,” Sonny said. “Speaking about Mia, I want to thank you for taking her under your wing when it comes to this vet tech stuff. I’m glad that she wants to pursue that in addition to the business end of ranching. She’s going to make a good foreman someday.”

  “Hey, where is everyone?” Mia’s voice floated across the barn.

  “Back here,” Pearl called. “We’ve turned the heifer and her calf and all the alpacas out into the corral. They’re happy to be free of the stalls.”

  Mia sat down on a bale of hay beside Stevie. “The road crew just phoned the house and said we can get through to town now. We’ll be weeks getting all the trees taken care of here on the ranch, and I bet they’re awful in town too, but at least we can get out if folks need a doctor or a vet. Are you excited to be able to go home, Stevie?”

  “Yes, I am,” Stevie answered.

  Who are you kidding? You or them? the aggravating voice in her head asked.

  “But I’ll sure miss having folks around me all the time,” she admitted.

  “You don’t have to leave,” Mia said. “Your van isn’t fixed yet, so you could just stick around here for another week.”

  “I can use Mama’s car until I can get someone out here to put new tires on my van,” Stevie said.

  “If you get bored, you can always come back and spend a few days with us,” Mia offered. “I talked to Dad, and he says whatever days are good for you are fine with him. So once you get home, just let me know when I can be your assistant. I’ll kind of be on call, like you are.”

  “Sounds good to me, as long as Jesse can spare you,” Stevie said.

  “I’m just so excited about working with you, and guess what?” Mia sucked in a lungful of air and let it out slowly. “Beau said he would love to go to church with me and come to Sunday dinner. Will you come too? It would help so much.”