Second Chance at Sunflower Ranch (The Ryan Family #1)

Second Chance at Sunflower Ranch (The Ryan Family #1)

Carolyn Brown



To Tammie Edwards,

with much love!





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Dear Readers,

As I finish this book, winter is slowly pushing fall into the history books. The yards are full of leaves, and the poor trees are naked. Even with all the unusual, difficult situations that 2020 has thrown into our laps, the time seems to have flown by this year. For Jesse Ryan, going home to Honey Grove, Texas, is like going back in time twenty years—is he ready for that? For Addy, who hasn’t seen Jesse in twenty years, it’s a little scary—can she continue to keep a two-decade-old secret?

There are several people who have helped me take this book from a rough idea to the finished product you hold in your hands. The process is a lot like taking a chunk of coal and turning it into a diamond. All those people deserve more than just a simple thank-you for their hard work, but my sincere gratitude and a few virtual hugs are what I’ve got to offer them today.

Thank you to my publisher, Grand Central and the Forever imprint, for continuing to support my cowboy series. Thank you to my friend and editor, Leah Hultenschmidt, for working with me to make this a stronger book. To all those folks behind the scenes who created the amazing cover, who copyedited, who worked in promotion, and those who helped in any way to take this from a figment of my imagination to the book it is today, thank you!

Thank you to my agency, Folio Management, and to my agent, Erin Niumata, for all you do! We’ve been together for twenty years—longer than most Hollywood marriages!

Thank you, once again, to Mr. B, my husband who endures long days of living with an author who walks around arguing with the voices in her head. And to my son, Lemar Brown, who went with me and Mr. B to research the town of Honey Grove and who took pictures of the area for me.

And a big thank-you to all my readers who continue to support me by reading my books, by telling your neighbors about them, for writing reviews, for sharing them with your friends and everything else that you do. Without readers, there would be no need for authors so y’all really are the wind beneath my wings.

Until next time, here’s hoping that 2021 is a wonderful year!

Happy Reading,

Carolyn Brown





Chapter One



Honey Grove billed itself as “The Sweetest Town in Texas.” Jesse Ryan certainly hadn’t agreed with that when growing up there, but as he drove back into town, he hoped things had changed in the past twenty years. The morning he had left—a lifetime ago—the sun had been low in the eastern sky. He’d hoped his best friend, Addy, would have at least shown up to wave goodbye, but she hadn’t. Jesse remembered all too well the lump in his throat that morning and the same feeling returned as he drove past the familiar sights in the small town.

He remembered how his mother, Pearl, had managed to hold back her tears until she had hugged him in front of the Air Force recruiter’s office in Paris, Texas. She had clung to him and wept on his shoulder.

“Mama, this is no different than if I was going to college,” he had said.

“It seems different to me.” She’d stepped back and looked at him like it was the last time she’d ever see him. “I love you, son.”

His father, Sonny, had kept a stiff upper lip, but had shaken his hand firmly. “This has always been your dream. Go make us proud.”

“Call and write when you can,” Pearl had whispered.

“I promise I will,” he had managed to get past the baseball-sized lump still in his throat. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“We’ll look forward to that.” Sonny had grabbed him in a fierce hug.

Jesse had kept his promise and come home when he could, sometimes twice a year, but most of the time just around Thanksgiving so his team members with wives and kids could be with them at Christmas.

The sun peeked up over the horizon beyond the rolling hills of North Texas. That he had left at sunrise and was now coming home twenty years later at dawn seemed fitting. With the sun rising ahead of him, he was beginning a new chapter in his life—right back on Sunflower Ranch, where he’d grown up.

Not much had changed. The OPEN sign in the window of the same old doughnut shop that had been there forever flashed on just as he passed, and he was tempted to stop and buy a dozen to take home. But he forgot all about that when he saw a banner strung up across Main Street, announcing the Honey Grove Rodeo in a few weeks.

The banner wasn’t the same one that he’d seen in the rearview mirror when he left all those years ago, but it reminded him that not much ever changed in a small town. He made a left-hand turn at the first of two traffic lights, drove down the familiar road about three miles, and braked before he entered the ranch property. He rolled down the window of his pickup truck and inhaled the fresh country air. A south wind kicked up and caused the Sunflower Ranch sign above the cattle guard to squeak as it swung slowly back and forth on rusty hinges.

“First order of business after breakfast is to grease that sign,” Jesse said as he drove under the sign and down the long lane to the house. When he’d left, his two foster brothers, Lucas and Cody, had waved goodbye from the porch, but they weren’t there to greet him that morning. Cody was working for a program similar to Doctors Without Borders, and Lucas traveled all over the world training cutting horses.