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       Chapter Two

      “What do you mean he’ll be staying for a while? Staying where? And for how long?” Kenzie and her father stood in the center of the long horse barn. She had just walked most of the mares out to the corrals and was getting ready to release the last two.

      “Here,” her dad said, looking a bit sheepish.

      “Here, as in on this ranch?”

      “Where else? You know the Scotts are always welcome.”

      “Well, I hope that horse trailer is equipped with a sleeper compartment, because there’s no room inside the house, what with my siblings still claiming their bedrooms as their own. You can’t just drop somebody in one of their rooms without them knowing about it.”

      Not exactly the truth. Her sisters Coco and Callie had long since moved their important things out of their shared room to their own homes, and only used that room on the rare occasion when all the sisters wanted to be together. Kayla would typically just share Kenzie’s bed. And she couldn’t even remember the last time Carson spent the night.

      She was betting her dad hadn’t really noticed.

      “What about the guesthouse?” he asked after a short pause.

      She’d known her dad would think of that dang guesthouse. He’d built it special for relatives and the Scotts to use whenever they came to visit.

      She shook her head. “It’s still loaded down with boxes of Carson’s rodeo memorabilia.”

      That was the truth. She’d been after him for the last two months to get it cleaned out in anticipation of their parents’ anniversary party, but he’d always been too busy, or so he said. Her brother had mixed feelings about his Cowboy Days, especially after a near-fatal accident on a dismount following a solid bronc ride. Got his foot caught-up in a stirrup. Had to be saved by a rodeo clown who nearly died when the bronc Carson had been riding kicked him straight in the chest.

      Carson didn’t like to be reminded of that time, despite his having moved on. Kenzie feared he’d never get around to moving those boxes to his own shed in town where he lived with his wife, Zoe. But at the moment, Carson’s procrastination was proving to be a good thing.

      “Jake can sleep out on the bed on the enclosed porch. Your mom can fix it up nice for him.”

      No way did she want Jake Scott bedding down anywhere on their property, and she especially didn’t want him only steps away from her own bedroom.

      She didn’t understand any of this, and had a hard time believing Jake would want to hang around the Grant ranch for “a while.” And what the heck defined “a while,” anyway?

      “Why would he want to spend more than one night? Isn’t he just passing through? Doesn’t he have his own ranch to tend to? And why would he bring his horses with him? What’s going on, Dad?”

      “I can’t answer all them questions at once. Maybe you should come on inside where we can talk, where we can sit a spell. Your mom can brew up a fresh pot of coffee or maybe a nice hot cup of tea might be better.”

      This mystery was now getting out of hand. She wondered if her dad and Jake’s dad hadn’t struck some kind of agreement, some kind of bargain that might turn everything she was doing for the ranch into something she wasn’t prepared to handle, like maybe a sale. Maybe her dad was thinking of selling the ranch to the Scott family? Was that it?

      “I don’t want to sit ‘a spell.’ Tell me here. Now. What’s this all about? You wouldn’t make some sort of financial deal with the Scotts and not tell me, would you?”

      “Never. You’re runnin’ the show now, not me. But there’s one thing I’d like to, well, make a couple changes to. That’s why we should go inside where we’ll be more comfortable. Your mom can put the tea kettle on.”

      “I don’t want any tea. I have a lot of work to do today, beginning with cleaning out these stalls.”

      She tossed the clean straw against the walls with her pitchfork, and moved everything soiled to the center. Then she used a shovel to pick up what had been piled in the center and dumped it into the small manure spreader she’d moved to the front of the stall.

      “I called him in to help you,” her dad said, picking up a broom and sweeping up anything that had fallen from her shovel.

      She quickly swept out the center of the stall once all the soiled straw was gone, sprayed an absorbent deodorizer on any wet spots on the rubber mats, and went on to the next stall, allowing the previous one to dry while her mares were outside.

      “You asked Jake to leave his own family ranch to come and help me? I thought you liked how I’m handling things. For the first time in years we’re making a profit again. I don’t understand. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

      Kenzie had worked out a plan for the ranch down to the smallest detail, which included how to care for each stall. She’d learned from experience that right before she’d bring her mares in for the night, she’d move the good straw back into the center, and add whatever straw was needed to make a soft bed. It took a little longer to care for each stall this way, but she was proud of the fact that her animals had never had any hoof problems since she’d been in charge.

      “Of course it is. I just thought—”