The Rancher's Homecoming. Cathy Mcdavid

from Nessa, amazed the biscuit halves hadn’t already landed on the carpet. “What else is for dinner?”

      “Nothing,” Nessa singsonged. “Just biscuits.”

      Uh-oh. Annie walked to the kitchen, her steps slow and her stomach sinking. Nessa danced in circles beside her. Fiona stood at the sink, staring vacantly out the window. Definitely not good.

      Her mother watched Nessa during the day while Annie worked for the NDF. Her paycheck and Granny Orla’s social security, which she’d started collecting just this month, were their only sources of income. Without them, they wouldn’t be able to afford even this lowly apartment.

      Lately, Annie had begun to question if her mother was up to the task of caring for an active child. More and more often, Fiona would disappear into her own world. For minutes on end. Five, ten, twenty. Long enough for an unsupervised Nessa to find trouble.

      What Fiona should be doing while Nessa played was dealing with the insurance company, finalizing their settlement and obtaining quotes from contractors for rebuilding the inn. That was their agreement.

      Hard to do when she could barely drag herself out of bed in the mornings.

      “Where’s Granny Orla?” Annie asked Nessa, hoping her question would rouse her mother. “Taking a nap?”

      “I dunno.”

      “At the Rutherfords,” Fiona answered without looking away from the window. “They called.”

      “How long has she been there?”

      “Most of the afternoon, I guess.”

      The Rutherfords and the Hennessys’ other neighbors were a godsend. Annie’s grandmother, sharp as a tack until the fire, had started taking walkabouts during the day, easily escaping Fiona’s less-than-diligent guard. She mostly wound up on some neighbor’s doorstep—one whose house hadn’t been lost to the fire. The neighbor would invite her inside until Annie came by later to fetch her.

      Last week, Annie had found Granny Orla at the inn ruins and was shocked she’d managed the two-mile trek alone.

      Annie doubted Alzheimer’s or senility was responsible for her grandmother’s increasing confusion. Like all of them, she’d suffered a great loss. And, also like them, she’d chosen a means of coping. Fiona emotionally retreated, Annie buried herself in work and Granny Orla chose to forget.

      “I’ll go get her.” Annie set her plate of biscuits on the table, the little appetite she’d had now gone. “You want to come with me, sweetums?”

      “Yes, yes!” Nessa swung her Barbie in an arc.

      “Okay. But you have to pick up your toys and finish your milk first.” Annie cringed inwardly. Biscuits and milk wasn’t the most nutritious meal. Then again, Nessa wouldn’t starve.

      Annie should eat, too, if only to keep up her strength. Seeing Sam had drained the last of it.

      Why had he chosen now to return, and why buy the Gold Nugget? She still couldn’t believe he’d asked for her help.

      While Nessa gathered the many toys strewn throughout the house and returned them to the plastic crate stored in the bedroom she and Annie shared, Annie changed into more-comfortable clothes.

      “We shouldn’t be long,” she said upon returning to the kitchen.

      Fiona, who hadn’t moved from the window, suddenly turned and stared at Annie with more intensity than she’d shown in weeks. “Sam Wyler’s in town. He bought the Gold Nugget.”

      That took Annie by surprise. “I know,” she said. “How did you hear?”

      “Everyone’s talking about it.”

      “I ran into him. On my way home. I stopped by the Gold Nugget, and he was there.”

      “I suppose if someone had to buy the ranch, I’d rather it be him.”

      “Mom! How can you say that?”

      Fiona went slowly to the table, pulled a chair out for herself and dropped into it. “He’s one of our own.”

      “Because he lived here two years?” Annie was aghast at her mother’s calm acceptance. “He’s going to turn it into a working guest ranch.”

      “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

      Finally! Reason had returned. “I agree. A bed-and-breakfast makes more sense.” Like her own plans for the place.

      “I like the idea of a working guest ranch. Not sure why someone didn’t think of that before.”

      “But you said—”

      “What I meant was the fire’s discouraged people from coming to Sweetheart. Bed-and-breakfast or working guest ranch, both need customers.”

      “Fine with me. When he flops, we’ll buy the ranch from him.”

      “Sam was always a hard worker. If anyone can pull it off, he can.” Fiona talked as if she hadn’t heard Annie.

      “He’ll be in competition with us. Once we rebuild.”

      “If we rebuild,” Fiona said tiredly.

      Annie didn’t listen to her mother when she got this way. “Did you have a chance to make Nessa’s immunization appointment at the clinic?”

      Fiona shook her head. “I was busy.”

      Biscuit making? Annie thought grouchily. Did that take all afternoon?

      She tried to be patient and understanding with her mother. Really she did. Fiona’s fragile emotional state made the task of rebuilding too overwhelming for her to bear. But once they broke ground, she and Annie’s grandmother would be their old selves and life would return to normal.

      Annie had to believe that. If not, she’d be overwhelmed herself, and she couldn’t afford to let that happen.

      Long before they finished rebuilding, however, Sam’s working guest ranch would be up and running. Damn him! Annie wanted their inn and not Sam’s ranch bringing the honeymooners and tourists back to Sweetheart.

      “Mrs. Rutherford mentioned Sam has a little girl.”

      “He does.” Annie made herself eat a biscuit half in case Nessa noticed.

      Normally, her daughter would be pestering her to leave. Instead, she’d become interested in a puzzle she was supposed to be putting away.

      “I heard she looks like him,” Fiona said.

      The food stuck in Annie’s throat. “No need for DNA testing. She’s Sam’s child through and through.”

      Except for the sorrow in her eyes.

      Annie was no psychiatrist, she didn’t have to be. The girl was obviously troubled—which might not be Sam’s fault. Her mother had died and, as Annie could attest, life-altering events changed a person.

      “I bet he’s a good dad.”

      She rose from the table, not wanting to talk about Sam or his daughter. “Come on, Nessa. Find your shoes so we can go get Granny Orla.”

      Nessa abandoned the puzzle and went on the hunt for her shoes.

      “It was a shame things didn’t work out for you and him,” Fiona said from the table. “You must have really broken his heart.”

      “Let’s not forget, he left me.”

      Fiona sighed. “Bound to happen. Can’t fight the inevitable.”

      Her mother’s words stayed with Annie as she and Nessa walked hand in hand to the Rutherfords’.

      Ask anyone in town, and they’d say the Hennessy women were cursed. All of them, grandmother, mother and daughter, had loved their men, only to be abandoned by them. In Granny Orla and