“Will do, and you do the same for me to Sonny.” He lowered his chin and looked up at her over the top of his glasses. “And, honey, don’t you pay no mind to all these old women and their gossiping. What goes on between you and Cody Ryan is your business.”

“Thanks for that too,” Stevie said, and smiled.

Glen walked her out to the van. “I was right sorry to hear that you have to tear down your mama’s house. I understand you kind of fell through the floor and cut your leg up real bad. That why you’re limpin’?”

“Yes, sir.” Stevie got in behind the wheel.

“Well, you just drag that sumbitch if you have to, girl. We need us a vet like you around these parts, someone who will come when we call and not tell us we have to bring our animals to town for them to check. You will just bill me at the end of the month like always, right?” Glen asked.

“I sure will,” she answered.

He shut the door for her, then stood back and waved until she couldn’t see him in the rearview anymore. “I can’t leave folks like Glen,” she said as she turned left onto the county road leading back to the ranch. “I’m just now building up a decent practice here in Honey Grove.”

You are talking to yourself again, the voice in her head reminded her.

“I know, but I’ve got to figure this Australia and Oklahoma City thing out and make up my mind about one or the other, or neither before I talk to Cody about it,” she muttered.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Maybe Jesse was right, Cody thought as he drove his new pickup truck into town to buy a load of feed that morning. He had been too busy to actually go into town and look at trucks. He had liked the one he had totaled enough that he asked the dealer to order one just like it. Since the Ryans had always bought their vehicles from the same dealership with the same business, the manager even offered to deliver the one they had on the lot to the ranch. Cody had planned to have Stevie with him when he took the first ride in it, but she and Mia had gone off on a vet call, and besides she’d been acting strange for two days now. She had said she needed to talk to him about something when he got home from Dallas, but when he remembered to ask her about it, she was evasive, and distant.

For the past few days, she’d been distant and almost cold toward him. She’d answered his questions with a simple yes or no, and when he teased her about it, she just shrugged it off.