Jesse pushed back his chair and brought the coffeepot to the table. “And now Max won’t ever know what y’all did, because he’s going from the hospital to his son’s place.”

Cody held up his cup for a refill. “That’s a decision he probably should have made five years ago, and it’s all right if he doesn’t know about the work we did. Doing it made me feel good.”

“I’ll make a deal with you.” Jesse refilled all three cups. “I’ll use the tractor to get you to any patients you might need to visit if you’ll help me do chores the next few days.”

“I told you before that I’m willing to help any way you need me,” Cody said.

“I know that, and you have helped a lot, but I’m going to depend on you even more for a little while,” Jesse said in a low voice.

“Mia is worth her weight in gold”—Sonny lowered his voice too—“but all this cold has created extra chores—shoveling, chopping through ice on the water troughs—and I can tell it’s wearing her thin. I don’t want her to hear me, but I’m going to tell her that I need her in the house a couple of days to catch up on the computer work.”

“I understand. What time do you want to get started tomorrow morning?” Cody asked.

“Soon as breakfast is done,” Jesse answered. “It’s been taking me and Mia until almost noon to get everything taken care of, but I reckon the two of us can be finished a little earlier than that. The water pipes from the well froze up today, so tomorrow we’re going to have to carry water from the barn out to the pasture.”

“Thank goodness we got a little forewarning and moved all the herd to the forty acres behind the barn, or y’all would have been running all over the ranch trying to feed and water,” Sonny said. “I hate that I can’t help you guys.”

“You help us by supervising,” Cody said. “We were raised on this ranch, but we were gone for a long time. We still need some help from a wise old head like yours.”

“It’s old, all right,” Sonny chuckled, “but I’m not so sure about the wisdom in it. I’ll tell you one thing, there’s more smarts up here”—he tapped his forehead—“than that rotten weatherman has. Telling us we might not get more than an inch of snow, and then changing his mind just about the time the blizzard hit. Your mother was the one who said we’d better get prepared for a big storm. She’s the smart one in the family.”