There was many a night when Randy and Donny were deposited on their front step by Sheriff Tate after being caught drinking, carousing and trespassing on some poor farmer’s land while trying to tip a cow or two. It’s all harmless mischief, Thomas used to tell Tess after the boys, pale and hungover, were out of earshot.

Yes, until someone gets hurt, Tess would shoot back until it became kind of a joke between them. They laughed halfheartedly at the time but it was with great relief when Randy finally graduated high school and went off to a nearby community college. Donny went his own direction and left Iowa for college in Oregon. Out of sight, out of mind, Thomas thought. And it worked, at least for a few years. Until Randy showed up on their doorstep with a round-faced spitfire of a four-year-old in tow and they found themselves worrying all over again. This time about Jordyn.

Again Thomas pummels the ceiling with the broom handle. He’s discovered over the years that with girls, with Jordyn, anyway, it was different but much more complicated. The boys only had two moods: silly and sleepy. Jordyn, on the other hand, had too many moods to count. But how Thomas loved that girl.

Thomas was sure that Tess felt the same way, though they never really talked about it. Maybe it was because they’d never had enough time with Betsy. Jordyn had the same round cheeks, the same widow’s peak, the same belly laugh as their daughter.

Thomas knows that Jordyn is just on the edge of growing up. That there’s going to be a lot more sass than sweet in the years to come and it scares him to death that Tess might not be around to guide her, and him, through it. Jordyn needs her. He needs her. He tries not to think about life without Tess. It was just a fall, a bad fall, but Tess is tough. Hell, she put up with him all these years. She’ll be able to get through a pesky setback like a broken hip.

With a sigh, Thomas gives up banging on the ceiling and makes the long trek up the stairs. He pushes open her bedroom door only to find it empty but in typical disarray. Jordyn must be in the bathroom.