Holly Ann’s dark, deep eyes locked onto Dot’s. “From time to time,” she said, her voice somewhat cool now. “But I really love it, and I can do a lot of it from home.” She dug in the bottom of her stroller and came up with a bag of crackers. “Gun, sit down for a minute. Garrett will get here when he gets here.” She handed him the snack, and Gun did what she said.
“Are you thinking of selling From the Ground Up?”
“From time to time,” Dot said, which was a complete lie. The words even tripped coming out of her mouth. Holly Ann cocked one eyebrow at her, and Dot sighed. “It’s all I think about. It’s just…I worked so hard on that place, and what am I going to do instead? This?” She gestured to the blanket on the front lawn, the umbrella, the hose quietly soaking the ground so she could weed along the front of the house.
“Yes,” Holly Ann said. “This. And all those hot dog roasts you and Ward do. Dutch oven night was spectacular. I think we should do a dessert-only night. Campfire desserts. Eat dinner first; join us at the ranch firepit for a dessert bar not to be missed.” She grinned with the strength of gravity, and Dot gave the same smile back to her.
“I love that idea,” she said.
“You and Ward are cornerstones of the ranch,” Holly Ann said. “He’s the foreman, and you’re the foreman’s wife. Those events at the firepit? They’re important for ranch unity.”
Dot shook her head about the time Holly Ann said cornerstone. “Anyone could do them.”
“Anyone could,” Holly Ann said. “But they don’t. You and Ward do them, because somehow, you know we need it as a family, and you know the cowboys and cowgirls who live in the cabins here need a community to belong to. Who do you think provides that?”
“Sammy,” Dot said instantly. “I see her out every week, pushing that stroller around with treats in the bottom of it.”
“Well, no one’s Sammy,” Holly Ann said, looking out toward the road that ran in front of the house. The breeze stopped, and it was so quiet. The stillness up here at Shiloh Ridge had been something Dot had definitely had to get used to. Sometimes she fired up Brutus just to infuse some rumble into the world.
“But what she does is behind-the-scenes. It’s personal, and important,” Holly Ann added at the end. “The big events are twice as important, in my opinion. They bring people together.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t be dreading tonight’s s’mores extravaganza.”
Holly Ann giggled and shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “You should be dreading it. I’m dreading it, but for an entirely different reason.”
“Marshmallows and little boys,” Dot said, because she knew Gun, and sure enough, he perked up at the M-word.
“Marshmallows?” he repeated. He got to his feet and went over to his mom. With her kneeling, they were about the same height. “Momma? I have marshmallows?”
“No, baby,” she said. “Not right now. That’s tonight. That’s why Auntie Bethany Rose is bringing Garrett.”
“How long tonight?” Gun asked, his face scrunching up as if he could truly understand how time passed.
“Let’s see.” Holly Ann plucked her phone from her back pocket. “It’s eleven hours till tonight, Gun.” She smiled at him and looked at Dot, clearly saying that her son had no idea what that meant. She’d humored him though, and he looked at his hands.
“I have ten fingers.”
“Right,” Holly Ann said. “It’s one more than that.” She looked down the road as the tell-tale sound of tires over the gravel roads met their ears. “I bet that’s my sister. It was good to chat for a minute, Dot.”
“Yes,” she said as Holly Ann took the crackers from Gun and put Pearl Jo back in the stroller. They left, with Dot waving to them, and she was once again left alone with Glory. She hadn’t thought of herself as “the foreman’s wife,” and she wondered if Charlie did.
She and Preacher lived down at the bottom of the hill, somewhat removed from this part of the ranch. They did come up to everything at the firepit and True Blue, and as Dot truly thought about it, she and Ward had gone down to the things Preach and Charlie planned for their cabin community around the farmhouse.
Sudden joy burst into her life, and she set Glory back on the blanket. She’d finish the weeding, and when Ward came home