Free Once and for All by Jeannie Watt Page A

with Beau and his math, Tyler and English, and then he went to bed. But still he thought about Jodie. Yeah, he was attracted, which surprised him. And perplexed him. She’d had some challenges on the ranch, more than her fair share, but she was a strong woman. She shouldn’t have that weird air of desperation every time something cropped up. Again he wondered how much Joe was to blame for that, and if Jodie was even aware of what she was doing, how she was reacting. Somehow he didn’t think so.

    J OE E-MAILED EVERY COUPLE of days for a ranch report and Jodie had just received her latest missive. Time to spin a heart-attack-preventing yarn.
    It’s still snowing on and off, but there’s been no problem getting the animals fed. There’ve been some small challenges due to the snow, but nothing out of the ordinary. Lucas had told her that injuries and illness were a normal part of ranch life, after all. I’ll fill you in when you get home, but so far nothing has happened I haven’t been able to handle . She had no idea if her father even knew what meant, and it wasn’t something she normally put in her messages, but what the heck? It gave the e-mail the no-worries feel she was aiming for.
    So was she lying?
    Damned right she was. It might be by omission, but she was shielding her father from the truth. Her one concern was hitting him with too much when he came back. However, if the bull recovered and the heifers calved safely, and the only incidents she had to fess up to were the cut horse and Mike quitting, then her dad would probably be ticked about being kept in the dark, and pout for a while, but it shouldn’t raise his blood pressure.
    She stared at her message for a moment. If she didn’t add some specifics, then Joe would start asking direct questions. She put her fingers back on the keys. We had some trouble with the plumbing in the house. A pipe froze two days ago and the plumber came. We had to wait forever for him to arrive and it was a bitch not having water, but he thawed the pipes and reinsulated. He assured us it won’t happen again. Also, the laser printer died, so I bought a new wireless model, which UPS delivered today. Hopefully I can get it up and running before you get home. She debated about another , then decided against it. No sense pushing things.
    There. She’d added enough reality that Joe wouldn’t think she was sugarcoating. Jodie pushed Send and slumped back in her chair.
    She was doing the right thing. She hoped. Joe should be enjoying his vacation, not pacing the floor over what was going on at the ranch in his absence, driving his blood pressure up and her mother crazy.
    So, when he came back, would she tell him about Colin Craig and Dave Hyatt while she was confessing the other truths? She usually told her father everything, but this…this she might just keep to herself.

    S AM NEVER EXPECTED to relive high school, but that was exactly what he was doing. In the evenings, unless he had a call, he and Beau went over that day’s math lesson, with books and papers spread across the antique oak kitchen table that had once belonged to his grandmother. Sam was brushing up on long forgotten skills. Beau had asked why he needed to learn math that hadn’t been important enough for Sam to keep in his brain over the years. Sam had scrambled for a reply and finally settled on the benefits of building a base of knowledge, because you never knew what you might need to know. Plus the self-discipline was good for the brain. The answer sounded pretty decent, if he did say so himself. Beau was not impressed, but he had gone back to work on the problem that had him temporarily stymied.
    Tyler went out Friday night without his brother, since Beau was grounded. He wasn’t happy, but he didn’t argue with Sam. Instead he sullenly continued to wipe down the kitchen counters while Sam put dishes into the cupboard.
    “But I get to go tomorrow, right?” The basketball team was working at a