Her words. Her enthusiasm. Her joy...
The combination softened the rusty locks on his heart. He’d tucked himself away years ago, and you couldn’t get much further away than a wide-ranged ranch in western Idaho. But this past summer, with the hint of new hope coming to the neighboring farms. To the town...
Something was awakening in him. Something he’d put to sleep a long time ago.
“Now, you folks come and eat—there’s a lot of good food here,” instructed Sally Ann. “I made hash brown rounds, a farm favorite,” she told them. “And I was thinking about you two when I was up in McCall with my dad,” she went on as they filled their plates from the warming trays on the counter. “Dad won’t be going back to his house, and he had three boxes of Christmas decorations he’ll never use again, so I brought them back here to give to you. I figured any house with a little one would love to decorate properly for Christmas.”
“I love Christmas so much.” Dovie scrambled into a tall chair with help from Ty and inhaled deeply. “This smells so good, Miss Sally! I think we need to have so many pretty lights at Christmastime, don’t you?”
“So Santa can find his way to your chimney?” asked Ty with a smile.
Dovie shook her head. “No. To show baby Jesus how much we love Him and that we want to have a pretty party, just for Him. For His happy birthday, mister. We don’t want Him to think we forgot His most special day ever. Right?”
His birthday.
Ty’s heart slowed.
Why had he thought that an extraordinary child would give an ordinary answer?
“The best reason for the season is that sweet baby,” added Jessica. She smiled at Dovie. “And I’d love to go through those decorations, Miss Sally.”
“Just call me Sally,” she told her. “I’m happy to find a home for them, and Dad will feel the same way. He’s ready to be done living on his own,” she explained. “My kids are grown and only one lives in the area, so Dad and I are going to buy one of the village homes and fix it up. That way we’re close to my work, close to church and close to the village businesses. When we have some again. So we’ll be living near you gals.” She beamed a hearty smile their way.
Jessica waved a piece of Texas-style toast. “Do you think it’s doable? To bring life back to the town? Because compared to Council, it’s barely breathing.”
“Overdue but doable. Yes.” Sally poured a mug of coffee and slipped onto a nearby stool. “It’s amazing what folks can do when they all work together. We just kind of forgot that for a while.”
“May I have some more syrup, please?” Dovie asked.
“You sure can, sweetie. Does my heart good to see a child like real maple syrup.”
“I got spoiled growing up in Pennsylvania,” noted Jessica. “We had real maple syrup all the time. There were small farms producing it every year. When I moved here, I had to have it shipped in at first. Then one of the big-box stores began carrying it from Canada and it was like a taste of home.”
“What brought you west?” The minute Ty asked the question, he realized his mistake.
She didn’t look up. She gazed down, at her food. Her hands didn’t move. Neither did her head. Then she drew in a deep breath and faced him. “I met Dovie’s father in college. He was Lakota, I was part Onondaga and we belonged to a Native American social justice group. He challenged me to reacquaint myself with my Native American roots. To gain a greater understanding of life on both sides of the reservation.”
Sally made a small sound. She didn’t say anything, but she moved to put her coffee mug in the sink.
“Then they got married and my mom moved with my dad, and then my grandma died and I never even really met her. Not once.” Regret darkened Dovie’s normally happy tone.
“I’m sorry.” Ty aimed a look of apology to Jessica. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t. Not really. I don’t keep secrets from Dovie—most of the time.” She hiked her brows, gently teasing her daughter. “We learned a great deal about our history on both sides of the ocean because I’m a true melting pot. But after Dovie’s father passed away, I wanted Dovie to grow up in a kindly town. Childhood passes all too quickly,” she added with a smile. “A few years of fairyland aren’t too much to ask.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Sally. She motioned to the clock as she drew her jacket down from a hook. “I’m riding over to check on Dad for an hour or so, then I’m meeting Lizzie Caufield and the crew at Pine Ridge to help plan the Christmas potluck we’ve got scheduled for Christmas Eve. Why don’t you come by Pine Ridge Ranch around three thirty?”
“I couldn’t barge in,” Jessica protested. “That would be rude.”
“It would be wonderful,” Sally Ann corrected her. “We can use all hands on deck, and what better way to show your little one how a town works together than by jumping in and helping out?”
“You’ll have your car back by then,” Ty said. “And I expect Dovie would like to meet those lambs.”
“Oh, that’s right! Is that the farm you told me about, mister? Because I would love to see those babies!”
“Seems like I’m outnumbered.” Jessica looked from Ty to Dovie and back again. “Yes, we’ll be there. You’re right. There’s no way to get to know a town better than by volunteering. And Lizzie asked us to come by.”
“I’ll text Lizzie and the gals and let them know. It will be a good planning session. It’s so nice to see this town planning things again,” Sally added. “We’ve been in a dry spell, but the drought is over. Rain falls soft upon our fields.”
Sally didn’t mean the literal rain.
She meant the promise of hope and the strength of faith from the old Celtic prayer.
Ty was totally on board with the hope thing. The faith mandate?
Not so much.
But when he caught little Dovie whispering a quiet prayer over her fruit-glazed pancakes, it was like looking into a mirror. Back when he was innocent. Believing. Trusting.
Then he’d grown up. And found out the hard way that faith didn’t move mountains and a broken heart could still be broken nearly five years down a long, lonely road.
“I’m so glad you invited us over to do this.” Jessica’s voice drew him out of the past and into the present. “Seeing the animals. Seeing a big farm or ranch like this, whatever you call it. It’s marvelous. It brings back so many good memories for me.”
“I’m glad.”
“I’ll see you later,” said Sally as she withdrew keys from a hooked rack near the door. “I’m taking the ranch SUV, Ty, so I can move more things today.”
He stood quickly. “Sally, I can help you.”
“No need. I’m just killing time while we finish things up at the hospital and Dad’s place. The new folks want to be in before Christmas so if I bring down a load each day, it’ll be done in a week or two. See you gals later!” she called over her shoulder as she hurried out the door.
“Does she put up all your Christmas decorations, mister?”
“Mr. Ty,” said Jessica.
Ty shrugged. “I think the mister thing is kind of cute,” he told Dovie, then he waggled his brows. “But that might be because the kid saying it is supercute.”
“Thank you!” She sat up straighter and brightened her smile. “But will Miss Sally put up your Christmas decorations, because a big house like this must have a lot of decorations, right? So you can be bright and shiny?”
The ranch hadn’t been bright or shiny in a long time.
He was unsure of what to say, but Jessica saved him.
“I bet they work together on it once they’re not busy with cows, but you saw how many cows there are, right?”
Dovie bobbed her head and spread her arms. “So many!”
“And that takes a lot of love and a lot of work for Ty and all the cowboys here on the ranch.”
“And the pigs and horses.”
“Them, too. So I think we’ll give Ty and Sally some time to get things done. Okay? We don’t want folks to think we’re hurrying them.”
“Okay, Mom. I won’t even hardly say anything about it.”
“Perfect.” Jessica slid off her stool and carried her dish to the sink. “And now we’re going to take ten minutes and surprise Sally with a clean kitchen when she gets back.”
“I can do this,” said Ty, but Jessica made a face at him.
“I know you can, but it’s nice for folks to work together. And it teaches young ones how to get on in this world. Acts of kindness are never out of style.”
The way she talked stirred him. Her gentle thoughts moved him. And the way she looked in those black leggings and rose-and-pink shirt was an absolute pleasure of a different sort.
He smiled as he rinsed the dishes and set them into the dishwasher.
She had beauty and strength. Something that went above and beyond the norm. When they had the dishes put up, they drove to Council. Within an hour he was saying goodbye and realized that was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Ty, thank you for all of your help.” She’d paid the car bill and hadn’t winced. The total bill had been just shy of a thousand dollars, and he couldn’t believe that wasn’t a hit on her budget.
Still, she’d paid it and hadn’t complained.
“Glad to do it. And if there’s anything you need, just let me know.”
“My house?” she said brightly, then laughed when he looked chagrined.
“Listen, we’ll get that straightened out,” he promised. “If it’s really your house, we’ll renege on the deal. It’s not like we paid a fortune for it. We didn’t. So let’s just settle that now. I’ll have the paperwork drawn up so that everything is signed over to you.”
“Ty.” She reached out and took his hands in hers, and suddenly he didn’t care that the wind had picked up or that the snow was now falling with a ferocity he hadn’t seen yet this season. “If the county messed up, the county should fix it. That’s not your fault. Or mine. And if they had taxes due, they had my address as owner of record. Let me have a face-off with them. Then we’ll see.”
“I can go with you.”
She shook her head. “No need. Dovie and I like to take things on. I want her to know that women can do anything they need to do to take care of themselves.”
“Women power.”
“Women empowerment,” she corrected him. “I don’t need more power than a man. But I need to be respected for my own self-worth.”
There had to be a reason she said it that way, but now wasn’t the time to push. “Have a safe drive home.”
“We will! Thank you, mister!”
He couldn’t help it.
He grinned.
Something about that cute kid calling him “mister” and grinning up at him. Trusting him to hold her. Carry her.
His clunky old heart stretched inside his chest as he watched her pull away.
He’d have to call Eric about the house, but the simple fact was that neither brother needed the house in town and they could buy another block of houses without a blink of an eye, which meant Jessica had a whole lot more to lose than the Carrington brothers.