He finally pulled out on Highway 81 and headed north a mile, then turned left into the O’Donnell horse ranch. She’d find out that a person couldn’t make a living by petting the cat and feeding the dog, and when she did he intended to be the first in line to buy her twenty acres. It was the only property for a three-mile stretch down the highway that didn’t belong to the O’Donnells.

He parked in the backyard, crawled out of the truck, and sat down on the porch step to his folks’ house. His older brother Dewar drove up, parked next to him, hopped out of his truck, and swaggered to the porch. Just a year older than Raylen, Dewar was taller by several inches. His hair was so black that it had a faint blue cast as the sunrays bounced off it. His eyes were a strange mossy shade of green and his face square. His Wranglers were tight and dusty, and his boots were worn down at the heels and covered with mud.

“Y’all get those cattle worked at Rye’s?” Raylen looked down at his own boots. They were just as worn down at the heels as his brother’s were and covered with horse manure. His jeans had a hole in one knee and frayed hems on both pant legs. His shirt looked like it had been thrown out in the round horse corral for a solid week and then used for a dog bed after that. He let out a long, loud sigh. He’d planned on at least meeting Liz the first time in clean duds, not looking like a bum off the streets.

“Yes, we did, and we would’ve got them done sooner if our younger brother would’ve helped,” Dewar said. “You look like you just saw a ghost and lost your best friend. What’s going on?”

“If you worked harder and played with our niece Rachel less, you’d get more done, and nothing is wrong with me.”

“You’re just tryin’ to find excuses,” Dewar said with a grin.

Rachel was the first O’Donnell grandchild and only a few months old. Her father, Rye, was Raylen and Dewar’s oldest brother. Her mother, Austin, had been a Tulsa socialite until she inherited a watermelon farm across the river in Terral, Oklahoma, and fell in love with Rye. Rachel was getting to know her two uncles, and there was an ongoing battle about which one would be the favorite.

“Want a beer?” Dewar asked. “I swear I’m spittin’ dust, and hot summer is long since past.”

“I’d drink a beer with you,” Raylen said. “And I believe what we’ve got going on now is just about the last warm weather we’re going to see for a while, so don’t get used to it.”

Dewar disappeared into the house and in a few minutes he brought out two longneck bottles of Coors. He twisted the caps off both, and handed one to Raylen. “So, you got the chores done around here or am I going to have to do those too?”