Her Single Dad Hero

She gasped. “Jolly!”

The nickname, a reference to her middle name, Jollett, had once been used by those closest to her, but Dean had momentarily forgotten that particular circle had never included him. The look she gave him said so in no uncertain terms, the message coming across loud and clear. He sucked in a quiet breath.

“You really don’t remember me at all, do you?” he asked on a wry chuckle, scratching his nose to hide a hurt that he had no real right to feel.

She tossed her long, wavy hair off her shoulder with a flick of her hand. “Should I?”

“We went to school together.”

“We did not.”

“Oh, we did,” Dean insisted lightly. “I was ball boy for the softball team all four years you played.”

Ann stiffened. “That was you?” Obviously she didn’t like being reminded of those she had once considered beneath her. “Ah. Well, you’re younger than me, then.”

“Not that much younger. Three years.”

“A lifetime in high school,” Ann retorted dismissively.

“High school,” Dean said drily, “doesn’t last forever. Three years makes a difference at thirteen and sixteen. Not so much at twenty-five and twenty-eight.”

She lifted her pert little nose. “Matter of opinion.”

Stung, as he had so often been in the past by her, he switched his attention to the boy. “Get your cookies?”

“You sent him to the house to steal cookies?” Ann yelped.

“How is it stealing,” Dean asked, frowning as he plunked his hard hat onto his head again and pulled his son to stand against his legs, “when Callie left the cookies for him and told us where to find them?”

He saw the shock of that roll over her, deflating her anger, but then she lifted that stubborn chin again.

“He should at least knock.”

Dean looked down at the boy. “Donovan, did you knock?”

“Yessir.”

“I was sitting at the desk in the study, right next to the front door,” Ann argued.

“I sent him to the back door,” Dean Paul pointed out, “because his shoes were dusty.” He looked down at Donovan again. “What did Miss Callie say you were to do if no one answered?”

“Go in and he’p myself.”

Dean looked to Ann, who colored brightly even as she sniffed, “Well, no one told me.”

He lifted his eyebrows to tell her that wasn’t his problem. Then he looked down at his son and said, “Why don’t you and Digger go explore the corrals while I take care of the big feed bin.” He speared Ann with a direct, challenging look then. “If that’s all right with you.”

“Yes, of course,” she muttered.

“Just don’t go into the stables,” Dean warned his son.

“Mr. Wes said it was okay.”

“Yes, he did, but you’re not to go in there alone. I’ll take you inside to look at the horses later. Understood?”

“Yessir.” The boy reached into his pocket and produced a cookie for his father. Despite the boy’s grimy hands and the melting chocolate, Dean took it and bit off a huge chunk.

“Yum.”

“Don’t tell Grandma,” Donovan said in a husky whisper, “but Mizz Callie makes the best cookies.”

Dean held a finger to his lips, but the boy was already running toward the big red barn and the maze of corrals beyond it. Smiling, Dean polished off the remainder of the cookie in a single large bite.

“He may be right,” Dean mused after swallowing. “All I know is that they’re really good. Don’t you agree?”

Ann jerked slightly. Then she nodded, shook her head, nodded again. “I’m sure they are.”

He swept his gaze over her. “You haven’t even tried them.”

Was she that vain now, this polished, sophisticated version of the fun, competitive girl he used to know—and admire? Did that svelte figure and the fit of those pricey clothes matter more to her now than a little sugar, a moment’s enjoyment? Oddly, it hurt him to think it, but it was none of his business. Nothing about her had ever been any of his business, much as he might have wished it otherwise.

“He’s awfully young to be out here with you, isn’t he?” she asked pointedly.

“Donovan’s been coming into the field with me since he was toilet trained,” Dean informed her. “I figure he’s safer with me than anywhere else. I always know where he is and what he’s doing. Besides, I want him with me. The day’s fast coming when he can’t be.”

“I see. Well, it’s your business.”

“It is that.”

“And I don’t care for sweets,” Ann called defensively as he turned away and began to trudge toward the newly installed feed bin, plucking his sunglasses from his shirt pocket.

“It shows,” he drawled, and not just in her trim figure. Her attitude could use some sweetening, in his opinion, but he couldn’t fault her shape.

Telling himself to put her out of mind as he had so often done before, he strode to the feed bin, climbed the attached metal ladder and began releasing the chains with which he had hoisted the heavy, white-painted steel bin into place. Tomorrow he would begin harvesting the oats that would be stored in this particular bin.

The second bin—this one painted green—was even larger and would contain the sorghum crop. This, too, Dean would harvest, but only after the oats were in, as much more heat would strip the oats of their protein content. After that, a blending plant would be built.

Rex and Wes Billings had decided to take the ranch onto an organic pathway. Wes had started the process months ago when he’d allowed Dean to plant and oversee the two forage crops without any pesticides. To Dean’s surprise, Rex had even given up his law practice in Tulsa to permanently move home to the Straight Arrow Ranch and oversee the transition, while his dad received treatment for his cancer. Wes imagined that Rex’s wife, Callie, had something to do with that decision.

If Rex was happy living on the Straight Arrow and practicing law in War Bonnet, the tiny Oklahoma town where he, Ann and their younger sister, Meredith, had all gone to school, then Dean wished him well, but he couldn’t imagine that Ann would follow suit. She had long ago let her disdain be known for this community and everyone in it, himself included, not that she’d ever seemed to know he was alive until now.

So why, Dean wondered, did he feel particularly slighted? Why had Ann Billings always had the power to wound him?

* * *

Ann marched across the pasture to the road. Red-orange dust settled on the toes of her buttery, pale leather flats as she crossed the hard-packed dirt road that ran between the big sagging red barn and the house. She told herself that Dean Pryor’s disdain meant nothing to her. Why should it? He was just another local yokel. She’d barely noticed him in high school—and yet now that she thought about it, he’d always been there on the periphery during what she thought of as her jock phase.

Memories of that time in her life made Ann mentally cringe. She hadn’t stopped to think back then that being able to compete with her brother, out-swinging half the guys on the baseball team and generally acting like a tomboyish hoyden would mark her as less than feminine. Her middle name, which she shared with her mother and grandmother, had been a source of pride for her, even when the coach who’d given her extra batting practice with the boys’ baseball team had shortened Jollett to “Jolly” and the nickname had stuck. It hadn’t occurred to her that being seen as “one of the guys” would literally mean being seen as one of the guys. Even now, though, all these years later, she couldn’t seem to outlive either the nickname or the impression.