9

      DESPITE HER DETERMINATION to join the hands for chores, Molly woke up late. Well, late for her. Her sleep had been plagued with haunting images of her ancestors frowning at her as she let the Abernathy family lease their land. She’d have no choice but to accept Wil’s offer if the bid for the training facility wasn’t successful.

      She needed to do something to move their plan forward. She showered and got dressed and then looked at herself in the mirror and decided to leave her hair down today. She went downstairs to find Rina singing along to Beyoncé and cutting up meat to go in the slow cooker.

      “Late night?” Rina asked as Molly went for the coffeepot.

      “Yeah. Still not sleeping well,” Molly said. Last night had been different. She didn’t want to dwell on it as she knew Jason wasn’t long for Cole’s Hill and the Bar T Ranch. He’d be back up on missions as soon as he could make it happen, no matter what they decided to do with the ranch.

      “Have you seen, Jason—I mean Ace—this morning?” she asked Rina.

      Rina chuckled. “Yeah, that boy lit out of here early.”

      “Oh? Did he say where he was going?” Molly asked.

      “Nope. He wasn’t too sure he’d be back for dinner,” Rina said.

      Figures.

      He was gone already.

      Molly took her coffee down the hall to the office to work on the books. Their finances looked just as bleak as the last time she’d gone over them. They needed a solution. Something that would bring an influx of cash to keep the ranch going. How long would the NASA bidding process take? Could she count on Jason to see it through? Was there anything she could do now to hurry it along?

      Molly just knew if she leased the acres to Wil she was going to bring down a shitload of bad karma on herself. But she had to consider all her—their—options at this point.

      She found the hair elastic that she kept in her pocket and pulled her hair up into a ponytail.

      Rina brought in a tray with lunch and some sweet iced tea on it and placed it on the desk before plopping down in the guest chair. The chair was a dusty old recliner that her mom had told her dad to throw out years ago, but Mick had never been able to part with it.

      “You’ve been in here a long time,” Rina said. “What’s up?”

      “Just trying to decide how much bad karma I can handle if I make a deal with Wil Abernathy for part of the land.”

      “That bad?”

      “Worse. Remember that spa we went to up near New Braunfels last year?” she asked Rina. Sometimes she and the housekeeper, who was really more like a friend, would decide they’d had enough of all the testosterone on the ranch and declare it “girls’ weekend.”

      “Yeah, why?”

      “Do you think people would pay to come out here and stay?” Molly asked. It was the only other idea she had that didn’t involve leasing part of the land.

      “Maybe. We have the river and the pond is nice. Plus we could have trail riding out to the pond. Mick had talked about fixing the dock. The pond is already stocked so you could offer fishing,” Rina said.

      Rina had some really good ideas and Molly jotted them down beside the ones she already had. Of course, she’d have to run them by her partner...if he came back. Jason seemed enthusiastic about the NASA bid, but there was more at stake for her and she had to keep an open mind.

      “What’s the matter, sunshine? You look sad,” Rina asked.

      “Just miss Dad,” she said.

      “I do, too. I never thought I’d miss that cantankerous old coot, but I do. I wasn’t ready for our fights to end.”

      Rina and her dad had fought like brother and sister. There was love under it, but they’d still both been stubborn and very sure they were always right. Rina was ten years younger than her dad. She was more of a surrogate aunt than a mom to Molly.

      “Me, neither. I could use his stubbornness now, I think.”

      Molly glanced down at the list and doodled Jason’s name on the top of it. “What am I going to do with him?”

      “Nothing,” Rina said, following Molly’s train of thought. “Just do you. He’ll take care of himself. Isn’t he going back to NASA and on another mission soon?”

      She drew a scroll pattern down the side of the paper. Doodled the words To boldly go underneath it, remembering Jason’s tattoo. His health was his business to discuss and so she just shrugged at Rina, but she was concerned. If his condition improved, would he still want to pursue his training-facility idea? It was clear he didn’t want to work on the ranch. Originally, he had wanted her to buy him out.

      She added that to her list.

      “I don’t want to have to mortgage any of the land. That was what Dad was trying to avoid when he borrowed money from Jason.”

      “You can only play the cards you’re dealt. Your dad knew it and you do, too. Don’t try to do right by him. He’s gone and he wanted you to be happy. Do right by you, Molly. Does one option sound better to you than the others?”

      “No. I don’t want people on our land. I want it to remain the way it always was...but I also wish Dad were here riding out checking fences and doing his chores.”

      Rina stood up and came around the desk, leaning over to hug her, and Molly just turned her head to the side and hugged Rina back. Tears burned the back of her eyes and she felt more lost now than she ever had in her life. But there wasn’t another person who could make this decision for her. And as supportive as Rina was, she was an employee of the ranch like the hands. Molly knew she couldn’t screw this up. She brushed her hand over her eyes and shifted back.

      “Thanks, Rina.”

      “No problem, sunshine. You will figure this out. You always do.”

      * * *

      DENNIS LOCK HAD been an astronaut on the shuttle missions and had been Ace’s mentor since he was recruited by NASA. Ace trusted the older man and respected him. The news about Ace’s slow recovery hadn’t been easy for either of them. But it was all part of Dr. Tomlin’s research.

      “You’re back pretty quick,” Dennis said. “I doubt your bone density has improved much in the last few days.”

      Ace nodded as he shook his hand and then took a seat in one of the guest chairs.

      “I’d be just as shocked as you if it had. I’m here for another reason. I have recently inherited half of a 760-acre ranch about an hour’s drive from here and we need to figure out what to do with the land. They only use about a third of it. I want to know more about the new Cronus facility. Has the bidding for that project closed yet?”

      Dennis leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He was in his early fifties and wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a military style. The former astronaut had been married and divorced three times while he’d still been active.

      “Not yet. But it’s getting close,” Dennis said, pulling his keyboard toward him. “Are you thinking you want to bid on it?”

      “Yes. It would be a solution to both of our problems,” Ace said. Molly and the Bar T would