the program.
That’s what Tina and Wyatt find themselves doing, struggling to get with the program. It’s clear they each must start over in life and where that new start should begin. Just how intertwined their new lives should be, though, is a mystery—until they get their individual suppositions and baggage out of the way. Isn’t that always the struggle?
May your struggles be brief and your trust in Him absolute.
God bless,
Arlene James
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
—Jeremiah 29:11
For Kay Hensley Strickland, who has never lost her sweetness and knows the true meanings of family and friendship.
DAR
Contents
“Maybe Uncle Dodd didn’t specifically mention the house in the will because he considered it unlivable.”
Wyatt Smith glanced at his brother Jacob and back to the old house in front of them. Jake had only said out loud what everyone else was thinking. Barely a speck of white paint clung to the old two-story ranch house. Its once green scalloped shingles had faded to a military gray. The front door hung slightly askew, broken glass and all, and the porch showed gaping holes where floorboards ought to be. Obviously, Uncle Dodd hadn’t spent any money on upkeep in his final years, so why had he sold off all the cattle, and what had he done with the proceeds?
“We’ll make do,” Wyatt stated flatly, ignoring the anxious hammering of his heart.
He and his brothers could camp out, if necessary, until they got Loco Man Ranch whipped into shape, but Frankie, Jake’s three-year-old son and Wyatt’s nephew, needed a safe, comfortable place to live. There had to be three or four habitable rooms in this big old house. Besides, it was too late to change their minds now.
They’d sold three businesses and two houses in Houston to make this move and raise the funds necessary to restock the ranch. Two thousand acres in south central Oklahoma could support a lot of cattle, and Wyatt was determined to bring the ranch back to profitability without selling off any acreage. Sink or swim, the Smith brothers were now officially residents of Loco Man Ranch on the very outskirts of War Bonnet, Oklahoma.
He’d never dreamed that the old house would be in such a sorry state, however. This was where he and his brothers had spent many a happy summer, playing cowboy and riding horseback every day. They’d stopped coming for the summer, one by one, after high school, but they’d each made time to see Dodd at least yearly until circumstances had kept them in Houston, occupied with the deaths of their dad and Jake’s wife, as well as fully taking over the family’s businesses. But they were ranchers now and, like three generations of Smith men before them, their hopes lay in the land beneath their feet. God willing, they were going to put Loco Man back on the map. And put the past behind them.
At least it wasn’t too hot yet. The weather in mid-April was plenty warm but not uncomfortably so.
“Let’s see what we’re up against,” Ryder said, striding forward.
