“I feel like a swim.” Irene tossed her shirt onto the bed. Her bra was a dingy white.
“Is there a lake around here?” Eve seemed to remember there was.
“We have a swimming hole.” Irene’s blue jeans hung off her slim hips, revealing the wide white waistband of her underwear.
Eve did a double take. “Are you wearing tighty-whities?”
Irene tried to catch sight of her backside.
Eve came over and gently led her to the mirror. “I think you are.”
The old woman stared blankly at her reflection over her shoulder.
Katie had her hand under Irene’s starburst quilt, wriggling her fingers to tempt Poppy to pounce on them. “What are tighty-whities?”
“It’s a kind of men’s underwear.” Eve kept her voice low and nonthreatening. “Are they Clyde’s, Gran?”
The old woman nodded. “I think… I think the washer decided to eat mine a while back. Can’t quite remember.”
Eve drew Irene away from the mirror. “I need to run some errands in town before dinner. Why don’t we buy you new underthings while we’re there?”
It took some convincing, but eventually Irene agreed.
But not without asking for their names once more.
Chapter Twelve
School had let out for the day.
The feed store was crowded with kids and parents, many of whom took a moment to congratulate Hayden on his nuptials or give their condolences for his grandfather’s passing.
Because of the crowd, it took Hayden longer than expected to gather the supplies he needed to feed the orphaned newborn calf—bottles, colostrum, and a whey-based milk replacer. He grabbed two riding helmets, thinking of Evie and Katie. And it took him longer still to move through the line to the cash register clerk.
I should have sent Roddy in.
Instead, his ranch hand had chosen to stay with the rig out back.
“Hayden Bennett. As I live and breathe.” Darnell Robins was the owner of Robins Feed, a business started by his great-grandfather. He had gray hair as long as his gray beard and favored tractor-branded baseball caps over cowboy hats. “How’s married life treating you?”
“Better than ranching most days,” Hayden replied, surprised that his words reflected the truth of his feelings. He added a bottle of water to his purchases so that he could mix the formula for the calf before driving home.
Darnell chuckled. “Before you know it, you’ll be having your fiftieth wedding anniversary, like me and my missus.”
Hayden made a noncommittal noise while Darnell loaded his purchases into an empty cardboard box.
“Hayden?” That was Darnell’s wife, Kathy, coming out from the back room. Her reading glasses were perched on top of her too-bright red hair. Her expression wasn’t as welcoming as Darnell’s. She handed Hayden a sheet of paper. “I was hoping to catch you. Don’t want to be crass, but your grandfather was behind on his line of credit.”
A five-figure total at the bottom of the invoice caught Hayden’s eye. He gulped. “I’ll get this sorted in the next few weeks. I’ve got some cattle up for auction.” And now he had a need to sell even more.
“Don’t worry about it, son,” Darnell said, earning a frown from his wife. “Pay it when you can.”
“It’ll be sooner rather than later,” Hayden promised. He settled his current bill and headed out the door with his purchases.
Outside, the wind had picked up, tugging at his hat and kicking dust across the feed store parking lot. Hayden deposited his purchases in the back seat of his truck with more force than necessary, the weight of that invoice pressing down on him harder than a bulk bag of cattle feed.
Another debt. Another circus act to perform.
There’d be no margin for error at the auction now. He had to get top dollar.