Stevie gave her some space, both mentally and physically. She wanted to hug Mia and tell her everything was going to be all right, not to let things upset her that much, but she kept quiet.

When they were out of the cold and in the warm bunkhouse, Mia removed her coat and threw it on the rocking chair, then collapsed on the end of the sofa. Stevie sat down beside her and draped a supporting arm around her shoulders again.

“That icicle…” Mia stammered, “could have killed Poppa…” She hiccuped. “If he’d set his chair even closer to the corral like he usually does. It really scared me, and then I got to thinking about him not being…” More tears flooded her cheeks. “You know, not being here all the time.”

“But he didn’t sit closer because Pearl didn’t want the cold breeze to hit him. She takes good care of him, so you don’t have to worry,” Stevie said.

“It breaks my heart that I disappointed him and Nana so much.” Mia had gotten the crying jag somewhat under control, but she kept hiccuping. “I took what all they had done for me for granted, and I can’t ever undo what I did. Every time I look at those alpacas, I think about how foolish I was.”

“Sometimes, it takes a pretty hard shock to wake us up.” Stevie went to the bedroom and brought back a box of tissues. “I wish I would have come home a year before I did, or that I would have started a vet service here when I first got out of school. I missed years and years with my mama.”

“I can’t bear to think of not having Poppa and Nana around.” Mia pulled a tissue out of the box and blew her nose. “I would have never forgiven myself if something had happened to either of them while I was off blowing my money on Ricky.”

“Neither of them would want you to worry like this,” Stevie told her, “but I understand how you feel.”

“Thank you,” Mia said. “It’s been a tough year. This time last year I just stopped going to classes so I could pay the bills on the apartment Ricky and I were living in. I wound up going through thousands of dollars that I had in my savings, then I sold my sheep, and we ran off together.”

Stevie’s phone rang, and she pulled it out of her hip pocket. “This is Stevie O’Dell,” she said without looking at the caller ID.

“This is Raymond Green, and I’ve got a horse tangled up in a roll of barbed wire. I think she might need stitches,” he said.