Second Chance at Sunflower Ranch

by Carolyn Brown

  If only, Jesse thought, then shook the idea from his head. He and Addy were back on friendly ground. She had Grady now, whether Jesse liked him or not.

  * * *

  Addy loved being a nurse, but the first time she got on a four-wheeler and helped Henry herd a bunch of cattle across the huge ranch, she knew what she’d been missing. She had thought that she had to choose between the two things she loved, but Sonny and Pearl had offered her both worlds. She had never regretted the choice she had made to come help on the ranch that day, especially that morning when she started up the engine of the four-wheeler.

  “Move ’em out,” Jesse yelled over the noise of the two engines. “Round ’em up, Tex!”

  The dog chased a rangy old bull from out of a mesquite thicket, while Jesse and Addy worked the stranglers into a herd. She yelled and waved her hat in the air to make the cattle move along. The distance from one side of the pasture to the other was only a half a mile, but this bunch of cows had evidently made themselves a home right where they were.

  “I thought Mia had a home here, too,” she muttered as she helped Jesse round up the cows. “I guess the grass was greener on the other side. But if that’s the case, why don’t these damned cows see that?”

  Several of the cows, especially those with calves, had hidden in the corners of the pasture, and Tex had to work to get them headed in the direction they needed to go. When they were all moved and the gate was closed, Jesse and Addy sat down on the ground and leaned their backs against his four-wheeler. He had brought two bottles of water from his saddlebag. He twisted the top off one and handed it to her.

  She took a long drink and then brought out a sack with protein bars and apples in it. “Thought we might want a little pick-me-up before we get on the tractors and start plowing.”

  “Ranching must go on.” Jesse took an apple and an energy bar from the bag. “If we get the pasture plowed by dark, we can seed it tomorrow and then pray that cockamamied weatherman is right about the rain.”

  “You think it’s raining on Mia today? Think she’s already missing the ranch?” Addy asked.

  “Don’t know about the rain, but I bet she’s missing home. She won’t admit it for a while longer, but she’s wondering already if she made a mistake,” Jesse answered.

  “How can you be so sure?” she asked.

  “Think about it, Addy,” he said. “When did you start missing home when you left to go to your granny’s place? Don’t know about you, but the morning after…” He stared off into space for several seconds before he went on. “After we spent that night together, I wished I wasn’t leaving. I had already signed on the dotted line, so I had to go, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to be here with you and all that was familiar to me.”

  “When I found out I was pregnant, I just wanted to run away, but I cried the whole seven hours it took me to drive out there,” she answered truthfully. “When I got the opportunity to come back, it seemed like a dream come true. Like I was being given another chance, but Mia wasn’t happy living in town, so…” She hesitated.

  “So when Sonny got sick and needed a full-time nurse and some farm help, did it seem like an answer to a prayer?” Jesse asked.

  She nodded. “It really did, but enough nostalgia. We’ve got a pasture to plow under. I’d hate to be that weatherman if he’s wrong about the rain. Sonny needs someone to be mad at right now, and he might put a curse on that guy.”

  They didn’t take time to go in at noon, but kept plowing until it was dark, and then used the tractor lights and the light from the moon to finish up the last couple of acres. All day long, Addy’s thoughts ran in circles. She would think about how wonderful it was to have her good friend back. Then she would go back to worrying about Mia, hoping that her daughter was all right and happy. Then the next moment, she would hope that Mia was so miserable that she would learn her lesson and be ready to come home. Not once did she think of Grady until she and Jesse were in the truck and on the way back to the ranch house.

  “You remember Betsy Massey?” she asked.

  “Wasn’t she in a grade or two above us in school?” Jesse answered with another question.

  “That’s right. She works at the bank,” Addy said.

  “Is that who you talked to this morning? Julie’s mother?”

  “Justine,” Addy corrected him. “The seventeen-year-old mother of Ricky’s most recent baby. If the rumors are right, he’s got one over in Bonham and maybe one or two more scattered around this area. Anyway, she says that she saw Grady having lunch with a woman in Bonham last week and said that the woman was the image of Amelia, Grady’s wife who was killed. I’m worried about him, Jesse. I don’t think he’s recovered from her death, and he’s grasping at someone to take her place.”

  “He’s the chief over at the hospital,” Jesse said. “That could have been a drug rep, or an insurance rep, or maybe a lawyer. Hospitals are always getting sued for one thing or another.”

  “You really think so?” Addy asked.

  “Hell, no!” Jesse said. “I think he’s seeing a woman he met at a strip club. Her name is Cotton Candy, and she’s twenty years old, and he doesn’t want to talk to you about her any more than you want to talk to him about me.”

  Addy air-slapped his arm. “You are crazy.”

  “Do you want Grady to be more than a friend?” Jesse became serious.

  “No, I do not,” Addy answered. “I might need a how-to book to even know what love is. I’ve had a couple of relationships that I thought might turn serious in the past twenty years, but for the most part, I’ve just concentrated on taking care of Mia. But there is no chemistry between me and Grady. We’re friends, and I care about him in that respect, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “Well, maybe Cotton Candy loves him so much that he can’t get her out of his mind. Maybe she keeps those little blue pills in her purse for all the times when—”

  This time Addy slapped him for real. “The Air Force certainly didn’t make you grow up. You’re just as ornery as you were when you left. I’m trying to be serious.”

  “Let him have his secrets. He’ll bring his new woman around to meet you when he’s ready?” Jesse asked. “What makes you think he’s not ready to move on anyway?”

  “He called me by his dead wife’s name when he drove me home from church.”

  “Sounds like he’s got some sortin’ out to do for sure, but that’s his business.” Jesse parked his truck at the back of the house.

  “You sound like Mia,” Addy said.

  “In some ways she was right, you know. Some stuff is her business, and she’ll have to learn from her mistakes, just like we did,” Jesse said.

  “I don’t want to talk about that anymore. It makes me sad,” Addy said. “I’ll race you to the refrigerator. I’m starving.”

  She was out of the truck in a flash, jumped the fence, and beat him to the back door. “That cold fried chicken leg is mine, buster.”

  “Not if I grab it first.” He picked her up and set her behind him, then hurried over to the refrigerator and grabbed the container with the leftover chicken. “Would you look at this?” He grinned. “There’s four legs in here. Three for me and one for you.”

  “I’ll tell Pearl if you don’t share fair and square,” she threatened.

  “Tattletale.” He handed over the container to her.

  She took out two legs, one for each hand, and gave the open container back to him. “Reckon there’s any chocolate cake left?”

  “If there is, I get half of it, or I’ll tell Mama you don’t play well with others,” he teased.

  I might learn how to play well with others again now that you are home, she thought as she bit into the cold fried chicken.

  Chapter Eleven

  Grady didn’t make it to church on Sunday morning. When he called, he said that he couldn’t be there for Sunday dinner, but that he would stop by around three o’clock to check on Sonny’s progress. He also said that he had something to
talk to Addy about, but not on the phone. Grady was always on time, so when he had not arrived by three thirty, Addy began to worry. She tried calling his phone but got the voice mail message telling his patients if they had an emergency to go to the nearest hospital.

  “What do you do if the doctor himself is the emergency?” she muttered.

  She finally went out to the porch and waited on the swing, and at exactly four o’clock, he parked his car beside her truck next to the yard fence.

  “You are late,” she called out when he got out of his vehicle.

  “Sorry about that. We’ll talk later. Right now, I need the reports on Sonny, and could you start faxing them to me at the hospital on Friday morning from now on?” he asked as he made his way across the yard.

  “Sure, but you’ve always picked them up here.” She stood and headed into the house. “I would have appreciated a call if you weren’t going to be here at three. I’ve been worried.”

  He opened the screen door and talked through it. “Time got away from me. We’ll talk as soon as I visit with Sonny. I’d like to do a private exam today, so if you’ll wait on the porch, that would be great.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Sure thing. Bring out a couple of beers when you come back.”

  “I’ll bring one for you, but I’d better pass,” he said. “I’m driving, and I need to be in Bonham at five.”

  He went on into the house, and Addy sat back down on the swing. Something definitely was not right. She might have blinders on when it came to Mia, but not with Grady. He was an open book for the most part. He hadn’t been around in a week. Yep, something was amiss, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it had to do with the woman Betsy had seen him with. She had her phone in her hand to call her friend and ask for directions when Jesse came round the house.

  He rested his arms on the porch railing and smiled. “You look like you could chew up fence posts and spit out toothpicks. What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure, but Grady says we need to talk,” she answered, “so you need to get lost.”

  Jesse snapped to attention and saluted her. “I’ll be down at the bunkhouse if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Jesse,” she said.

  He dropped his hand and whispered, “One more thing. Have you heard from Mia?”

  She shook her head. “Now, go. I’ll see you in a little while. You got beer down at the bunkhouse?”

  “Yep, and whiskey, both.” He waved and disappeared around the end of the house.

  Addy sat back down on the swing for a think. She hadn’t quite figured out what could be so important that Grady couldn’t talk to her on the phone by the time that he came out of the house and sat down in one of the wicker chairs instead of on the swing beside her.

  “We need to talk.” Grady pulled out a clean white handkerchief from his pocket, removed his glasses, and cleaned them. “I don’t know how to say this other than just spit it out: I’ve met someone, and I’ve fallen in love with her. I’m in love with Aurelia, like I was with Amelia.”

  “Really?” Addy asked. “Tell me more about her.”

  “She’s the head nurse at the hospital, and I don’t know why we have taken so long to realize that there’s something between us.”

  “It sounds like you should be really happy. So why the need for such a serious talk?” Addy said.

  “Well…” Grady fidgeted in his chair. “I told her about you, and she’s not comfortable with me having a woman for a best friend.” He wrung his hands the whole time he talked.

  “So because she says so, you’re going to give up our friendship? Just like that?” Addy could barely believe it. “Is this why you didn’t tell me about her before? How long have you two been together?”

  “I’ve been seeing her since New Year’s, and I didn’t tell you because I knew this is what you would say,” Grady answered. “We moved in together this morning.”

  “Wow, that’s mighty fast. And don’t you think it’s odd that her name is so close to Amelia’s? Betsy said she looked just like her, too. Are you sure you’re not confusing love with grief?”

  “I would have told you sooner, but with Mia and Jesse both coming home and…” He let the sentence hang.

  “Hey, don’t blame this on Jesse or Mia. I think you need to take a step back and think this over. First, are you really over Amelia? And second, do you want to move in with a woman who says you can’t even talk to a good friend? Neither one sounds healthy.”

  “I’m sorry I kept you in the dark, but you haven’t always told me everything either. Like who Mia’s father is, and I had to hear it through gossip about Mia leaving with Ricky O’Malley. I was here the day that she left, and you didn’t mention it,” he said. “Or is it because you had Jesse here to talk to instead?” His gaze came up to meet hers. “I can see there’s something between you two and that it was hindering our friendship.”

  “Hey, Jesse’s been home a week and you’ve hardly even been around the whole time he’s been here. In fact, I don’t think you once asked how I was doing. Maybe then it would’ve been easier to tell you about Mia and Ricky.” She suddenly realized just how one-sided their friendship had been, and that made her even madder than him telling her that he couldn’t talk to her anymore.

  Grady stood and headed toward the porch steps. “You can just fax Sonny’s reports to the hospital every week from now on.”

  “Fine, Dr. Adams.” Addy stood too and crossed her arms over her chest. “I wish you and Aurelia the best of luck. I have a feeling you might need it.”

  As soon as Grady had driven off, Addy marched out to the bunkhouse and slung open the door without knocking. Jesse was sitting on the sofa with his feet propped up on an old coffee table that had seen lots of scuffed-up boots in its lifetime. Everything that she had packed away and stored out there had been taken out of the boxes, and the living area of the bunkhouse looked a helluva lot like Jesse’s bedroom had when she first moved into the house.

  “Did he ask you if y’all could be more than friends?” Jesse asked.

  “Why did you put all this stuff out?” She slumped down on the sofa beside him.

  “My question first.” He picked up one of the two beers from the end table and handed it to her. “Is Coors still your favorite?”

  “Yup.” She downed a third of the long-neck bottle before setting it down on the coffee table and burping. “That wasn’t very ladylike, but then I don’t feel much like a lady today. Grady didn’t want to take our friendship to a new level. His new girlfriend doesn’t want him to talk to me anymore. She’s not comfortable with him having a woman for a best friend. Now, your turn about all this.” She waved her hand around the room.

  “I’ve lived in barracks for twenty years. I wanted to feel like I was home. Now back to you, why are you so pissed?” he asked. “You can kick any bush between here and the Gulf of Mexico and find a dozen best friends. There’s one sitting here drinking beer with you if you don’t want to start kicking.”

  “He shouldn’t let a woman control him, especially one who’s named Aurelia, and looks like his deceased wife, Amelia,” Addy said.

  “He hasn’t been out here to the ranch in days. Didn’t that give you a clue that something was going on?”

  “You’d think it would have, but I was giving him all the benefits of doubts.” She turned up the bottle again. “And that pisses me off.”

  “I’m not surprised that Grady let a woman railroad him into doing what she wants. He always was kind of a pushover.” Jesse dropped his feet down to the floor. “I’m having another beer. You want one, or do you want a shot of Jack Daniel’s?”

  “Beer, please,” she answered.

  He went to the kitchen area and brought back two more long-neck bottles. “I missed good beer when I was out on a mission. Sometimes all we could get was nonalcoholic.”

  “Monkey piss tastes better than that.” She reached out for the bottle he offered her.

  “How much monkey
piss have you tasted?” he asked.

  “None, but I have an imagination.” She was glad that Jesse was home, happy that their friendship was coming back, but she wanted to get serious now. She had never been one to beat around the bush, especially with Jesse, so she came right out and asked, “What’s wrong with me, Jesse? I can’t even keep a best friend.”

  “Nothing that I can see, except maybe your hair is a fright on rainy days,” he chuckled.

  “I’m serious,” she declared. “You wouldn’t ask me out in high school. We had a one-night fling because we were both sad that you were leaving. I haven’t been able to hold on to a relationship since, so something has to be wrong with me. Tell me what it is. I don’t want to grow old by myself.”

  Jesse didn’t answer for so long that she thought he was avoiding her question altogether. Finally, he said, “We didn’t want to ruin the friendship, remember. We had been best friends since we were maybe four years old. I couldn’t imagine not having you to talk to or to lean on in times of trouble. That didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in you, Addy, or that I didn’t dream about you. That night here in this very room was…” He paused and gazed into her eyes. “More than words can ever describe.”

  “And now?” she asked.

  “Now we have a smart-ass daughter we have to figure out how to handle.” He blinked and studied his beer bottle. “We can’t go back and recapture that night. We’re not eighteen anymore.”

  “Tell that to this room,” she said with another sweep of her hand. “I’d say that you’ve done a pretty good job of it.”

  “Well, then…” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Don’t tease me,” she said.

  He slid down to the middle of the sofa and drew her close to his side. “You are a wonderful person, Addison Hall. You have a kind heart and just enough sass to make you interesting. You are beautiful, even when it rains and your hair gets crazy, and any man on the face of this earth should be glad to have you as a friend. Grady is a stupid ass for not seeing that and treating you like the queen you deserve to be. He will never, ever find as true of a friend as you are, and I’m speaking from experience. Want me to go toilet paper his house or write ugly things on his car with shoe polish?”