“I guess I’ll be looking for a new truck when this thaws out,” Cody said. “What’s the weatherman saying?”

Jesse shifted the tractor into gear and pulled out onto the road. “We’ve got sunny days until the first of next week, but the temperature isn’t going to be above freezing. Dad thinks it will be the end of next week before the roads are clear into town. And we got news about Max. He had a heart attack, and he’s still in the hospital, but he’s not going back to his ranch when he gets out of the hospital. He’s going to live with his son in Oklahoma.”

Stevie heard what they were saying about Max, but it was like words coming through a staticky phone line. The last time she’d felt such a rush of emotions had been when she and Cody were dating back in high school. So much for being completely over him and moving on with her life the past twenty years.

*  *  *

Cody felt like a little boy at Christmas when Jesse made a turn down the lane onto the Sunflower Ranch. Even with snowdrifts as high as the porch, the house was a welcome sight, but then Jesse drove right past it, toward the barn.

“What are you doing?” Cody asked. “You could let us out at the house.”

When Jesse was close to the barn, he drove the tractor off the plowed path and turned it around so he could back into the barn. “Somebody—that would be you, brother—has to get out and open the barn doors and help me get Stevie’s van unhitched.”

“And then we can have coffee?” Stevie groaned.

Jesse kept an eye on the rearview as he slowly backed up to the barn doors. “You haven’t had coffee for four days, for real?”

“We had coffee one morning,” Cody answered.

“That wasn’t coffee,” Stevie protested. “That was something between road tar and mud from the bottom of the Red River.”

When he braked, Cody slid Stevie off his lap, got out of the tractor, and opened the barn doors. Once both tractor and van were inside, he closed the door and went around the tractor to help Stevie, but she was already headed for the van. He had liked having her so close to him on the trip home. She had been a beautiful girl, but she’d grown into an even more lovely woman—so warm and kind and funny that he was already wishing that they were back in the tack room with just Dixie and the cats to keep them company.

Jesse was right behind her. “There’s a mama alpaca in one of the stalls. She gave birth a couple of days ago. Hopefully, she’ll adopt your cria and raise it with hers.”