“Morning, Mr. Dixon. What’re you doing here so early? I thought eight was more your speed.”

“Howdy, Rachel.”

“He slept over,” Amy said mysteriously.

“What for?” Rachel asked him. “Problems at your place?”

“Problems at your place is more like it. I heard about the trouble in the valley on Monday, and figured the more folks around here, the safer it’ll be until the sheriff gets it sorted out. A shame, the way kids these days treat violence like it’s a video game.”

His assessment of the situation was predictably geezeresque, but it was easier to take the path of least resistance than correct him. She nodded noncommittally and sipped her coffee.

Amy plopped into a chair. “He’s sweet on Tina. Stayed over so they could watch television together in the living room late into the night.”

Rachel grinned at him. “No kidding.”

Tina was Kellan’s mom. She’d been skin and bones when she’d arrived last December, a recovering junkie and alcoholic, looking for Kellan’s forgiveness. He’d given it to her, and Rachel and Amy had provided her with a place to stay and a job while she found her footing. Douglas Dixon was doing his part, driving her to daily AA meetings in town and being a sympathetic ear. Guess Rachel had underestimated how sympathetic he was.

He swatted the air. “Aw, now, you know it’s not that way. I’m too old for those kind of shenanigans.”

“You’re sixty-one. That’s too young to use words like shenanigans, much less give up on your love life,” Amy said.

“Pshaw. Love life indeed. I had a love life for a lot of good years before my wife passed on. Lord knows I’m not looking to start down that path again.”

Amy’s eyes turned dreamy and lovesick. “You don’t always get to choose when or who you fall in love with. Sometimes love sweeps you off your feet and there’s nothing to be done but to go along for the ride.”

Rachel snickered. “Says the blushing bride-to-be.”

“Mm-hmm,” Mr. Dixon added. “She thinks everyone should be in love because she is.”

Amy tossed her hair. “You should. It feels great.”

Oh, boy. “I can’t believe we’re discussing the merits of falling in love at four-thirty in the morning. Ames, I know you get up early these days, but isn’t this pushing it a bit?”

“Kellan stayed over last night again, but he has work to do at his ranch. He left a few minutes to four. Are you feeling better? You slept straight through dinner. Vaughn called, wondering why you hadn’t come to the station house like you two had arranged. I told him you weren’t looking so good and that it’d have to wait until today. He said that was no problem. You must’ve needed the sleep because I checked on you every hour or so until I went to bed, to make sure you didn’t get feverish, and you were out cold every time.”

“Thanks for doing that. I’m feeling much better today.” Which was sort of true, so long as she didn’t take her throbbing, seeping gunshot wound into account.

“You’re not working today, just so you know.”

Rachel set her mug down with a clatter. “Not to be rude or anything, but I don’t see how you’re going to stop me.”

She quirked a brow. “I have my ways.”

“Which means what? You gonna chain me to the table?”

“Maybe I’ll call Vaughn.”

Rachel leaned back, her hands gripping her thighs. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Calm down. I was teasing about having him arrest you to keep you from working. You need to learn how to take a joke.”

She sipped coffee to hide her relief. “I’ll get right on that. Right after I feed the livestock.” She rose, mug in hand, and walked to the bench her boots were under.

“I’m telling you, there’s no sense putting those boots on.”

She stuffed her feet in the boots, donned her work jacket and hat, and headed outside. Rudy and Damon were in the stable yard, tinkering under the hood of the tractor along with a clean-cut young man she recognized as one of Kellan’s ranch hands, though she couldn’t recall his name.

Whereas most young ranch workers tended to blow off steam at Smithy’s Bar after quitting time, she couldn’t ever remember seeing this guy outside of Slipping Rock Ranch. When he noticed Rachel crossing the stable yard toward him, he removed his cream-colored cowboy hat. His eyes were wide and anxious, his light hair was buzzed short enough that she got an accurate reading of the shape of his head.

“Morning, Rudy, Damon.” She touched the brim of her hat in greeting, then stuck out her hand to the newcomer. “Rachel Sorentino. You’re one of Kellan’s workers, right?”

His handshake was firm, his hands as calloused as hers. “Yes, I was, ma’am. Ben Torrey.”

“What can we do for you, Ben?”

He pulled back, blinking, then chanced a look at Rudy and Damon, like the question had been in a foreign language and one of them might be able to translate. With his head turned, she could make out the circle of early pattern baldness that his shorn hair rendered barely perceptible, but didn’t completely mask. As young as he looked otherwise, she’d bet he’d started balding in high school. Poor guy.

“Go on and tell her,” Rudy said, grinning like a salesman. Maybe the global weather was especially rousing that week.

Ben curled the brim of his hat in his hands. “I work here now, ma’am.”

He said it like it should clarify things, but his answer only got Rachel to believing he wasn’t the sharpest barb on the wire. “How do you figure that?”

Behind him, Damon closed the tractor hood with a bang. Ben jumped out of his skin and his hat fell to the ground. He picked it up and dusted it off, then went back to curling the edges. “I’m the new foreman. Hired yesterday.” He paused and looked expectantly at her as though hoping he’d jogged her memory.

Amy’s doing, no doubt. Good grief. “Who hired you exactly?”

“The other Miss Sorentinos and Mr. Reed, ma’am. Before yesterday, I worked at Slipping Rock Ranch for three years, second in command to Mr. Reed’s foreman.”

Did Kellan think she wasn’t handling the farm well enough? So much so that he needed to step in without discussing matters with her? It’d be a cold day in hell before she let anyone waltz in and take over her life’s work, even someone she admired as much as Kellan. “Go on,” she prompted through gritted teeth.

“Mr. Reed told me you and your sisters were looking to hire a foreman who knew about growing alfalfa. He sent me here yesterday to interview for the job. Your sister, Miss Sorentino—”

“Which sister, now?”

“Miss Sorentino.”

Rachel took a long, slow sip of coffee, and silently counted to ten. “What’s her first name?”

“Oh. Amy, ma’am.”

She’d called that right, though it didn’t mean she was going to strangle Amy any less for being predictable. Amy could spot a needy soul waiting to be collected into her menagerie of misfits from miles away.

“Congratulations, sis.” Amy’s smug voice sailed down to the stable grounds from behind her. Rachel whirled around to face her, a whole batch of fighting words on the tip of her tongue. Before she could let them fly, Amy added, “As of yesterday, you’ve been promoted from worker to full-time manager of Heritage Farm.”

Even in the dim light of predawn, Amy’s smile shone down on the stable grounds.

“What do you mean?”

Taking a cue from the annoyance in her voice, and knowing better than to get between Amy and Rachel when they were fixing to butt heads, Rudy and Damon slunk off toward the stable with a wheelbarrow of feed. Ben watched them go with an expression of longing.

Amy sauntered toward Rachel, clearly feeling proud of herself. “It means that from now on, you only have to get your hands dirty when you want to. It means the entire burden of the farm work doesn’t fall on your shoulders anymore. It means you can delegate, and maybe even take a day off every now and then.”

“But I . . .” Tulip, Amy’s damnable pet cow, nudged Rachel’s hand with her wet nose. Absentmindedly, she reached up and scratched it between its ears. “But I like getting my hands dirty. I don’t want to take a day off. Why didn’t you consult me on this?”

Amy’s expression turned serious. “When you were in the hospital, Jenna and I realized how dependent the farm is on you. I mean, we knew it already, but you being injured really drove the point home. Kellan pitched in, but he’s got his cattle business to contend with. We need some permanent help. You, Jenna, and I had debated about hiring a foreman since the oil was discovered, and Jenna and I had already decided to surprise you for your birthday. But then you were shot, so we thought, what the heck. Early birthday present.”

Tulip raised her head to position her nose right under Rachel’s palm, so she took to scratching the wiry hair of the cow’s face. “You can’t give me a person for my birthday. It doesn’t work like that.”

Amy crossed her arms over her chest. “Who says it doesn’t?”

“Miss Sorentino, with all due respect.” Ben had curled his hat into looking like a taco shell. “This is the job opportunity I’ve been waiting for. A chance to use what I’ve spent my whole life learning. Working on Slipping Rock was great, but my know-how is all about growing premium alfalfa.”

“Did you grow up on an alfalfa farm?”

“Yes, ma’am. Lucky Fields Farm over in San Ysidro.”

“Why aren’t you working there?” Rachel had no use for a man who turned his back on his family’s farm to seek his fortunes elsewhere.

He nodded gravely, though his eyes glittered with pride and he stood up straighter. “I would if I could. The dream I had was getting a degree through New Mexico State University in agricultural business. My folks made it happen with the understanding that I’d eventually take over their farm, but three years into the program, my dad got injured and the money ran out. I went home to work as soon as I learned of it, but the place was past the point that I could do much good.”

A stab of sorrow sliced through Rachel’s gut. Ben’s was a story she’d lived herself. She nodded, trying to put his defensiveness at ease. “Once the alfalfa starts to go, it’s gone. Happened to this place much the same way.”

He swallowed. “After we lost the farm to the bank, that’s when I took the job at Slipping Rock.”

Rachel scrubbed her face with her hand, frustrated by what Ben had gone through, what they’d both gone through. “You tried to grab hold of something for yourself by going for your degree, and the whole world exploded when you were turned the other way.”

His jaw grew tight. “Yes, ma’am.”

Rachel had never thought seriously about getting a degree while she was young. She couldn’t afford the time away from the farm, and anyhow, she didn’t think she’d have tolerated being indoors that many hours and years. Still, she never quite forgot about the disadvantage her lack of formal training put her at in the alfalfa industry, especially after her crops started dying off. A part of her would always wonder if things would’ve turned out differently if she’d had a better education. “You went through all that and didn’t get to finish college anyhow. That’s a shame.”

“Actually”—he tipped his head and raised an eyebrow, his pride restored—“I earned my degree through night school. Took a lot longer that way. I was already working for Mr. Reed by the time I graduated. But I did it. He helped me with the tuition and books, even. That’s why I’m perfect for the job as your foreman, Miss Sorentino.”

Hard not to admire that sort of determination. “How’s your dad’s injury?”

He stuck his curled hat on his head. “Thank you for asking after him. He’s coping, but he never did get himself back to what he was before. He and my mom moved into an apartment in town.”

No way she could deny him the job now. Not when she understood what he’d gone through, or his qualifications to help her get her alfalfa crop thriving again. So young, so much responsibility. She knew all about putting what you want on hold to take care of things. Crops and livestock were the hands that never stopped reaching for help, never stopped needing. Relentlessly. The thought made her tired all over again, despite her thirteen hours of solid sleep.

“Please tell me Amy offered you a decent wage at least.”

He smiled a big old toothy smile full of rows of crooked teeth. “Yes, ma’am. She was very generous.”

“Did Damon and Rudy go over the morning routine in the stable yet?”

“No, ma’am. We were seeing about getting the tractor running.”