“Yeah,” Tom nodded. “She’d sure do a nice job with him, wouldn’t she.”

“She’s the best I know of,” Tug repeated.

“Well then, Tom, why don’t we give her a call and see if she could take him?” Terri added. “How soon would you want him to go, Tug?”

“He’ll need a little more time to let that shoulder heal up.” Tug leaned back on the fence. “Maybe another month or so, I reckon. After that I expect he’d be good to go.”

“Fair enough,” Tom nodded. “I’ll give her a call in the morning and see if we can set something up.” Tug nodded his approval.

Feeling good about the map they had chosen for the colt’s future with the ranch, the three humans stood quietly in the fading afternoon sun looking at the colt, still standing calmly in the middle of his pen. After several seconds, Tom and Terri turned and eased away from the pen. Tossing his toothpick aside, Tug followed. The gray colt lowered his head and let out a long, soft sigh.

CHAPTER 19

The light from the kitchen shone through the screen door and splashed out onto the back porch, creating an odd-shaped yellowish rectangle on the wood in the quiet darkness of early evening. Jessie sat at the kitchen table still dressed in the clothes that got her through the day, sipping on her last cup of coffee. Normally she would put a teaspoon of sugar and a little milk in the cup before drinking, but on this evening she had slipped into her unconscious habit of drinking coffee black whenever she was trying to work out some sort of problem.

The guest season was going by quickly. But then, that was how it seemed to go the last several years. She was amazed at the fact she would no sooner be greeting the first guests of the season, then turn around and seem to be locking the gate behind the last. She remembered when her father first started taking in guests to help supplement income. It seemed the season lasted forever, even though back then it was really only four months, instead of the eight she was open now. Still, back then time dragged on. As a young woman she hated the fact strangers were running all over her home. Not that they ever actually went in her house, but rather that they were traipsing all over the ranch. She couldn’t wait to see the season end so she could have the ranch to herself again.

But things were different now. She was able to see things from a perspective that only comes with time. Where before she hated having people on the place, now she enjoyed it. She loved the fact the ranch brought so much joy to so many people. That would make her father happy, and the thought of it made her smile as she brought the steaming cup to her lips. Those thoughts were slowly pushed aside, however, as a list of projects that needed to get done gradually took over. There was fencing that needed to be replaced—a lot of fencing—maybe as much as three miles, as far as she could figure. The barn was going to need a new roof, the septic system for the guest cabins was getting old, and she was looking into replacing it with a leach field. That maybe could wait another year, but not much longer. She wanted to build some feed bunks so the horses wouldn’t have to eat off the sandy ground anymore. None of the horses had ever suffered from sand colic, not yet anyway, but she knew it was just a matter of time before one did. There were some hitch rails that needed to be repaired, several of the trails needed maintenance, and then of course, there were the horses. She had no fewer than ten colts of her own to start, and on top of that, she had just taken in a mustang colt to start for Tom Essex.