“I told you that you can use my car, or I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t drive Nanny Lucy’s car. Like the house, it belongs to all of us,” Nessa reminded her, hoping that she would get the job. That would leave her with a quiet house in the afternoons to work on her quilt tops. Nanny Lucy said it was all right to make the tops on the sewing machine, but she wouldn’t have one of those big quilting machines in her shed. Oh, no! In her opinion, a real quilt had to be hand-stitched.

“Are you sure?” April asked.

“If she isn’t, I am,” Flynn said. “I can walk over to Jackson’s place. I won’t need the truck during the afternoons.”

“Thank you, Flynn, for the offer, but I can drive Nanny Lucy’s car. I had forgotten all about it. I sure hope she hasn’t filled the spot,” April said. “And I can’t believe that even the possibility of something like this just fell into my lap. Thank you, Jackson.”

He shrugged. “No problem. Maudie can use the help, and so can I.”

Nessa had no reason to be jealous about a woman she’d never met and a neighbor she’d only been around a handful of times, but she was.

“What’s her last name?” Nessa asked.

“West,” Jackson answered, “but everyone just calls her Maudie or Doc.”

“I don’t remember Nanny Lucy ever mentioning her,” April said.

“She moved here from out in West Texas when she retired about ten years ago. Her sister and mother were living in Paris back then, and when they passed, she got bored and opened up a small-animal clinic, but the place was previously set up for horses and cows as well, so she turned that part into a shelter,” Jackson explained. “She said that people kept dropping strays at her door, and she had to do something with them. When I took Tex and Waylon in for their shots, there were balloons and flowers in her office. She had turned eighty that day. I don’t know how she’s doing everything with only volunteer help from Stella and Vivien one day a week.”

“That’s amazing,” Flynn said.

“Yep,” Jackson answered. “As active as she is, she’ll probably live to be a hundred.”

Nessa felt a little guilty about being jealous, and mildly embarrassed about the relief that had washed over her when she found out that Maudie was eighty. “I want to grow up and be like her and Nanny Lucy. I want to work right up until I drop dead.”

April shivered. “Don’t talk like that.”

“It’s the truth, and it’s also time to take the pie out of the oven.” Nessa pushed back her chair, got a couple of hot pads from the cabinet drawer, and carefully removed the pie.