by Deb Kastner
They shared a laugh, but that only brought more attention from those seated around them.
Rowdy clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Sure, you can try to demonstrate all God has done in your life and how much becoming Toby’s mother has altered your character for the better, but at the end of the day, folks will still think and feel what they want.”
She realized she didn’t care what people thought of her. They would change their opinions. Or not. It didn’t matter.
But Rowdy? That was a whole other thing, and her heart warmed at his words.
Did he sense a change in her—alteration for the better, as he had said?
But this wasn’t about her.
“It’s not my reputation I’m worried about. Think about what this is doing to you.”
She snatched her hand back and clasped her hands under the table.
“It was wrong of me to bring you here. You shouldn’t be seen with me.”
“It’s not like you hog-tied me and dragged me in here with you. I’m my own man, and I make my own decisions.”
And he’d decided to be seen with her?
“Despite the fact that people will be talking about you behind your back?” she pressed. “I know what that feels like, and it’s not nice. At best they’ll believe you’re foolish and vulnerable for spending time with me again after all I’ve done to you.”
“We both know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and that is nobody’s business but ours. Speaking of which,” he said as he shook out the last crumbs of his potato chips into his palm, “here comes Jo with Toby.”
He funneled the chips into his mouth, chewed and swallowed before he finished his thought.
“And she’s carrying an envelope.”
* * *
Rowdy swallowed down the flood of panic that rose like molten lava as he read his and Ange’s names scribbled on the front of the envelope.
Just like the last time. The message that had resulted in more confusion than he’d ever felt in his life. He was an emotional basket case.
What now?
Oddly, Ange’s expression mirrored his, as if she’d swallowed something too large and it had stuck in her throat despite repeated attempts to swallow.
And yet she’d been the one who’d suggested asking Jo for the next envelope—all the better to leave Serendipity in the dust again with, my dear.
And the sooner the better, in her view.
She should be elated.
But now that the envelope rested on the table between them, she didn’t look so certain. In fact, she was staring at the thing as if it were a rattlesnake, poised and ready to strike at her.
Ange had given Jo a bottle with which to feed Toby, and the older woman was seated in a chair nearby—far enough away to lend them a semblance of privacy, but then again, not really.
She was close enough to hear their conversation if she wanted to, and Rowdy guessed she did. She obviously knew a lot more about the envelope trail than he did.
Was this it?
The last missive?
At this point, he had no way of knowing. He would have to find a moment to pull Jo aside and ask her straight out. But first, there was the as-yet-unopened envelope to deal with.
Rowdy tested his feelings, gently poking at his myriad emotions and vulnerabilities.
Good memories. Bad memories. The pain of heartbreak.
And then there was what was happening between them now.
Bonding. Laughing. Spending time with Toby.
A friendship?
Or was he kidding himself and wanted more?
Did he still want Ange and Toby to leave? Was there a tiny, well-buried part of him that hoped, however unlikely, that Ange would stay and make Granny’s ranch her home?
He shook his head. Why would he even consider such a notion?
They had a long bridge to cross to get anywhere near the closure they both needed.
However long or short she intended to stay, they hadn’t yet approached the tender but necessary subject about what had happened to send Ange literally galloping out of his life all those years ago. It was a conversation they needed to have, no matter what kind of choices Ange made for her future.
But first—the envelope.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So far, the missives, however short and vague, had turned out to be fairly straightforward. Hopefully this one was, too.
Granted, teaching Ange about the work Granny Frances had spent her whole life doing was a pretty tall order, but even in the short term, it was doable. To a point.
Sheep. Chickens. Avoiding roosters.
Ange’s first letter, merely inviting her to a picnic, had been only the tip of a very large iceberg hovering just beneath the surface. But they’d weathered that one, too.
“Jo is giving us the eye,” Ange said in a stage whisper, leaning forward on her elbows.
“You mean the one that is telling us to hurry up already? The one that brooks no argument?”
Ange chuckled and nodded. “That would be the one.”
“Guess we’d better get at it, then.”
“I suppose so.” Ange picked up the envelope and slid her finger under the seal.
Her breath was coming heavy and erratic, nearly as erratic as Rowdy’s pulse, as he opened the single sheet of tri-folded printer paper and shook it out to read.
“Teach My Lambs.”
“What is it with Granny Frances and three-word instructions?” he asked, frustration turning his voice into gravel.
Rowdy had hoped for more, something that they could clearly understand, for starters, and not have to guess as to its meaning.
And then, possibly, something that would keep Ange and Toby in town for a little while longer, at least long enough for him to work out his conflicting feelings toward her and her precious son.
“Okay, then,” Ange said, letting out a breath. “Picnic With Jo was a picnic with Jo—more or less. Feed My Sheep was feeding sheep—and avoiding Psycho Rooster. So now we have Teach My Lambs. Teach them to do what, do you suppose?”
At a total loss, Rowdy snorted and shook his head.
“I’m a sheep farmer and I obviously have a strong bias toward them. I honestly care for my stock.” He chuckled. “That said, sheep really aren’t that smart. If I don’t have one of my dogs constantly herding them and one sheep wanders off, the rest will dumbly follow. I’ve had pregnant ewes get confused and claim a lamb as their own when they haven’t even given birth yet.”
She shook her head. “And then there was the ewe who rejected one of her twin lambs. How can that even be possible? It still blows me away.”
“I’ll be honest. I can’t think of much of anything we could teach the sheep. And this letter doesn’t even mention sheep. It says lambs. That’s just nuts.”
In his mind, he was picturing trying to coax a lamb to jump through a ring or roll over or beg. Bank off a hay bale or do flips?
A lamb?
So not going to happen.
“I told Frances this note would be too cryptic for you,” Jo said, suddenly appearing at their table. Clearly, she’d been waiting for this precise moment to approach and intervene.
“Scooch over, big guy.” She used her ample hips to bump Rowdy farther into the booth and take a seat beside him.
Toby was now sleeping silently in Jo’s arms, and Ange offered to put him back in his car seat, but Jo would have none of it.
“I don’t have nearly enough opportunities to cuddle with such sweetness,” she said, pressing a kiss to Toby’s forehead. “You’re going to have to pry him away from me before you leave. He has the most precious features, doesn’t he? Those almond-shaped blue eyes are to die for. I know experts say it’s just a reflex at his age, but I am positive he smiled at me earlier. Plumb takes
my breath away.”
Rowdy couldn’t agree more. He might be turning upside down and backward trying to figure out his feelings for Ange, but he had no such problems when it came to Toby. That little fella had Rowdy’s heart wrapped tightly around the tiny thumb he was sucking.
Ange beamed at Jo’s compliments about her son, but her expression morphed into a combination of confusion and frustration when her gaze returned to the letter in her hand.
She folded it back into thirds and tapped the corner on the tabletop.
“Obviously, this doesn’t give us enough to go on. I’m currently working with Granny’s sheep, with Rowdy’s help, just like the last note suggested. But now she wants me to do what? Teach my newborn lambs how to sing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’?”
He was startled at Ange’s use of the word my.
She’d said my lambs, not Granny’s. Did that mean she was taking mental ownership of the ranch work she’d been doing?
Jo chuckled. “Singing sheep. Now that’s something I’d like to see.”
“Rowdy said it won’t be easy to teach a lamb any kind of trick,” Ange continued. “Sheep apparently aren’t as smart as some other farm animals are.”
“But Granny Frances knew that,” Rowdy inserted. “So why would she even want us to try? It makes no sense.”
“Because, my sweet darlings, she isn’t talking about your lambs,” Jo said. “She had a much smarter type of animal in mind, though no doubt a good bit more unpredictable.”
Amusement twinkled in Jo’s eyes. She was thoroughly enjoying taking them on this little roller-coaster ride. Rowdy wished she’d just get to the point and tell them what they were supposed to be doing.
Maybe he could at least get a little something from her without all this game playing.
“You’ll tell us when we’ve received the last envelope, right?”
Her gaze widened in surprise. “Why, of course, my dear. I wouldn’t even dream of leaving you both hanging indefinitely. That wouldn’t be fair to either one of you.”
And yet, she was, saying the lambs in the current letter weren’t lambs at all, but not giving so much as a hint as to what they were really talking about.
He realized in hindsight that he hadn’t asked the right question to clarify the whole shenanigan. He should have asked how many notes were left, got a precise number so they could at least have some clue where they were on the Granny Frances’s Last Wishes Continuum.
Too late now. Knowing that this letter wasn’t the last—and ignoring that tiny part of him that was leaping for joy that Ange and Toby weren’t going away quite yet—would have to be enough.
At the end of the day, no matter how many envelopes were involved, Ange and Toby would be going away. No doubt she was already thinking about Toby’s future and the many benefits he would have in the big city that Serendipity simply didn’t and couldn’t offer. And rightly so.
Rowdy returned his thoughts to the present just as Ange prompted Jo with another question.
“So, the lambs we are supposed to teach are actually...?”
“People. Teenagers, to be exact,” Jo crowed with laughter at the expressions on their faces.
Teenagers?
Rowdy nearly choked on his breath. What on earth did Granny Frances think he’d be able to do with teenagers? That was so far out of his comfort zone—not to mention his skill set—that it might as well be dinosaurs he was being asked to teach.
And the question remained—teach what?
Maybe he’d been mistaken and the letter had only been addressed to Ange.
Rowdy turned the envelope over to check out the front side.
Nope.
There it was, in black and white. Rowdy’s name scribbled right next to Ange’s, followed by three exclamation points for good measure. Granny Frances had definitely not wanted them to be mistaken on this point.
Ange cleared her throat, so Rowdy knew he wasn’t the only one at the table having a hard time breathing through this new revelation.
“Which teenagers, exactly, are we talking about? And the note says nothing about what we are supposed to teach them.”
Rowdy was glad Ange had picked up the conversation and was ferreting out the details, because he was still stunned to silence.
“Frances was very involved in the youth group at church,” Jo explained.
Rowdy already knew that, but he had no idea what she did when she was with them. Led them in Bible studies and service projects, presumably.
Hmm. They could manage to do that, he supposed, especially if Jo pointed the way for them.
Collect clothing for the needy, or help a neighbor harvest early crops in order to give some of the bounty to some of Serendipity’s poorer residents. Maybe do some sort of summer missions project.
“Frances was spearheading the annual ranch rodeo for the Fourth of July.”
The ranch rodeo?
Jo’s words were a sucker punch right to Rowdy’s gut, robbing him of breath.
His gaze shot to Ange. Her face had drained of color until she was as white as a sheet. Her mouth opened and her lips were quivering, but no words emerged.
“I know it’s usually the ranch hands who compete,” Jo continued, as if she hadn’t taken note of their reaction, “but this year it’s going to be the teens from church. She did most of the legwork before she got sick, but she wanted you two to make sure the event goes off without a hitch, if you’ll pardon my pun.”
Rowdy’s hands fisted in his lap.
“You must be mistaken,” he said through gritted teeth. “Granny Frances would never ask that of us.”
“Oh, I’m not mistaken, and she did,” Jo affirmed promptly. “And before you ask, she knew exactly what she was doing when she wrote this letter and she was completely in her right mind. So I suggest both of you cowboy up and get used to the idea, because this ranch rodeo isn’t going to happen unless you two get it in gear.”
Ange was staring at the tabletop as if she hoped it would open up and swallow her whole.
Rowdy shook his head and set his shoulders.
“Then I’m sorry, Jo. You have to know that up until today, Ange and I have done everything required of us in Granny Frances’s directives. We love her and we want to honor her last wishes.
“But a ranch rodeo? That’s just not going to happen.”
Chapter Seven
Rowdy’s response didn’t surprise Angelica in the least, and she doubted Jo was shocked by it, either. But Granny’s note had floored her as effectively as an uppercut to the jaw would have done.
Fortunately, she was already seated, or the lurch her stomach took might have sent her reeling. And she was glad Jo still held on to Toby. Angelica didn’t want her sweet son picking up on the maelstrom of emotions sweeping like a hurricane through her chest.
A ranch rodeo?
How could Granny have even considered such a thing?
Not for Angelica and Rowdy.
The ranch rodeo was a yearly event in Serendipity, where local ranchers competed in laugh-out-loud-hilarious events like wild cow milking and paint branding as they mimicked the work they did on the ranch.
“You both owe her so much,” Jo inserted, as if in response to Angelica’s thoughts—and Rowdy’s white-faced expression. “I don’t have to remind you that these are her last wishes. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, no matter how painful it gets.”
“Yes, but—” Angelica didn’t know how to finish her response, so she let it drop. Her eyes flew to Jo, who nodded as if the matter was settled.
Angelica switched her gaze to Rowdy, who appeared even more befuddled than she was—and angry, as well he should be. His whiskered cheeks darkened to a deep cherry and worry lines creased his forehead.
Granny should never have asked this of him.
For once, Angelica
could really see his age, and the effects of all the stress he’d had to endure, including the many ways she’d hurt him.
“You know what you have to do,” Jo reminded them. “Frances’s plans are in the top drawer of her filing cabinet in her home office. The youth group meets on Sunday afternoons, which means you’ll only have a couple of sessions between now and the day of the ranch rodeo to sort out who is doing what and when. We’ve been rotating teachers from the congregation to fill in for their weekly meetings, but now that you’re here you can take over.
“Frances won’t be the only one you’d be letting down. The kids will be so disappointed if you don’t step up and help them make this rodeo a success. And you only have two weeks to plan.”
That was one last jab Angelica didn’t need.
“Granny Frances couldn’t have meant that she wanted us there,” Rowdy protested. “She knew I never attended the Fourth of July activities, and I especially avoided the ranch rodeos. Everyone in town knows why.”
Angelica’s breath left her in a whoosh and her heart felt as if it was being squeezed by an invisible fist.
The fallout of Rowdy’s statement, the emotional shrapnel, rained over her.
Picnicking with Jo, even if she had ended up in the middle of a town crowd she had very much wished to avoid, and even learning how to work a sheep farm—those were doable, if difficult, tasks.
But organizing and overseeing a ranch rodeo?
Now, that was just plain cruel.
Angelica and Rowdy—especially Rowdy—ought to get up and walk away right now.
She hated to disappoint the teens in the youth group, but one year without a rodeo wouldn’t be the end of the world for Serendipity and the teenagers would have many more opportunities to compete in future ranch rodeos.
Besides, there were plenty of other activities for townsfolk to enjoy on the Fourth of July—music, a rope obstacle course for the kids, community games and of course fireworks to end the evening with a bang.
“I know this will be difficult—for both of you,” she acknowledged. “But I really think it’s important. Important enough for Frances to make this request of you.”