“I’m not leaving.” Not without Jessie.

“Yes you are. Sitting here feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to have you thinking clearly. Not to mention the alcohol factor. You need to jump on Dancer’s back and ride the fences. Then maybe you can pull your head out of your ass and figure out what to do. Sitting in this hotel room isn’t going to do it.”

Dancer…he hadn’t thought of his horse back home for months. Riding along the fences of the property was mindless and helped to clear his head. The fact his sister remembered that about him made him smile.

“I think you might be right.”

“Hon, I’m always right. Now shower. You stink.”

He stumbled into his bathroom and the phone in his pocket rang. He managed to pull it out and recognized Dean’s number. “Hello?”

“Well, hell, at least you sound sober this time.”

“I take it we talked last night?” Not that Jack remembered.

“You slurred, I listened.”

“I’m sure it was very entertaining.” He sat on the edge of the counter and pulled off his socks.

“Enlightening, actually. I just wanted to call and make sure you were OK.”

His heart was shattered in a zillion pieces. He was anything but OK. “I’m fine.”

Dean snorted into the phone. “Right. Listen, while you’re sober I thought I might try and give you some advice. You know when you told me that Maggie and I had two different ideas on what life was all about?”

“Yeah.” It took Maggie dumping Dean for Jack to tell his friend he was better off without her.

“Well, this girl, Jessie…she’s a waitress at Denny’s, Jack. Not exactly the kind of woman you’ve dated before.”

Jack’s jaw started to throb as his back teeth gritted together. “Dean,” he warned.

“I mean, a waitress. C’mon. Did she even finish high school?”

“It’s a damn fine thing you’re calling on the phone, Dean, or my fist would be through your face.” Jack clutched his phone with one hand and pounded on the counter with the other.

“Whoa, OK, Jack. Calm down. Just wanted to point out that these things happen for a reason. You said the same thing to me not too long ago.”

Yeah, he had. But this was Jessie they were talking about.

“I’m going to forget we ever had this conversation.”

“Just trying to help.”

“Well, next time…don’t!” Jack hung up and tossed the phone on the counter.

Katelyn watched her brother wobble to the bathroom while talking on his cell phone. She waited until she heard the sound of water before reaching for her phone. She’d learned more of Jack’s story than he could possibly remember.

Arriving near midnight, Katie had found Jack sprawled on his sofa, moaning about his life. It took her hours to decipher it, but when she did, she knew she had to help.

Her brother was bonkers over this Jessie he had called out to repeatedly. From what Katie could tell, her brother had decided to find true love by keeping the truth of his wealth from the single mom. Then when the chips fell, the wise woman refused his proposal for fear he’d leave her when he decided to follow his dreams.

He even drove his old beat-up pickup truck he’d had since he was sixteen. No wonder Jessie said no.

“She thinks I’m a w-waiter, here at the hotel,” he’d said last night once Katie got him going. “A temporary holiday waiter.”

Katie wanted to reason with him, but knew he wouldn’t remember much, if any, of their conversation in the morning.

Jack had even showed her a picture he’d taken with his phone of Jessie and her son. The expression on Jessie’s face was one of pure devotion. Her son, Danny, had a beaming smile for the camera.

Katie had taken the time to jot down a few phone numbers he’d put in his phone. For later use, she’d told herself, justifying her invasion of his privacy.

But she knew better than to push a man. Her father was just as stubborn as Jack was, or maybe it was the other way around. Still, the two men had one very big thing in common. When they fell in love, they did it all the way. No second time around for either of them. Watching her father pine for her absentee mother for years had made Katie hate her mother more and more.

Katie wouldn’t allow her brother similar years of pain.

He was in a tight spot and needed to think.

He needed his little sister to watch his back until he could come up with his own way of fixing the problem.

Sure, Katie could call this Jessie lady up and tell her the truth about her brother, but who knows how that would go? If it went south, Katie and Jack’s relationship would be strained more than it was.

She missed her brother. Her own trials in recent life reminded her how much she needed the tiny family she had.

She called room service, ordered a high-protein breakfast for her brother, and then asked the manager of food services to meet her downstairs with the acting manager of the hotel.

She had a few things to cover before she and Jack jumped on the plane.

In the manager’s office, Katie asked the two people to sit. “I have a big favor to ask of both of you, a private favor that needs to be between the three of us.”

For the first time in months, Katie started to feel good about herself.

Monica stood beside her sister as they walked around the car lot full of shiny new chunks of machinery. Although Danny was feeling better, the cool day had made Jessie ask the neighbor to sit with him long enough for her to pick out a new car.