Her Last Second Chance Read online

  In the afterglow of Dave’s excellent date with Sissy the night before, he’d forgotten. “That’s right. I’m supposed to put the balloons out.” He started to stand up just as Gramps pointed.

  “Carson’s doin’ it.”

  Dave settled back into his seat, a slip of guilt pulling through him. He’d told Scarlett he’d tie the blue balloons to the fenceposts at the entrance of the ranch and in Prime’s hand to welcome the new baby to Last Chance Ranch.

  “Hasn’t been a baby on this ranch in decades,” Gramps said.

  “Yeah,” Dave said, because he didn’t have anything else to say. Scarlett and Hudson had been married for a year, but he had no idea if they were planning to start or have a family. He was better friends with Carson, since Carson had joined the Last Chance Cowboys once he’d returned to the ranch last summer. He knew Adele and Carson were still talking about it.

  Dave thought of Sissy. He was no expert in the ways of women, but he knew they couldn’t have babies forever. When he’d dated her all those years ago, she hadn’t been interested in marriage or family. She didn’t want a house. A white picket fence. A cute backyard.

  No, she’d wanted to travel. See the world. Experience everything.

  He could distinctly remember the conversation they’d had about exactly that. Dave had thought they’d travel, visit, and experience everything together.

  She’d broken up with him two months later.

  Dave had made a few major decisions in his life since then, but he honestly felt lost most of the time. Adrift.

  He sure did like Last Chance Ranch, though, and living out in the Cabin Community and sitting on Gramps’s front porch in the mornings. He’d worked on three other ranches, staying no longer than five years at each place. He’d only been here for two, and he hoped he didn’t feel like moving on in a few years.

  “I better go help,” he finally said, getting his old bones off of Gramps’s porch. He wasn’t surprised when Stella stayed behind and Gramps didn’t say good-bye. He arrived at the robot mailbox, Prime, just as Carson lost one of the balloons in his hand.

  “Dang it,” he said, watching it float away. Dave laughed behind him, and Carson turned toward him. “There you are. Scarlett made me do your job.” He grinned though, and he handed Dave the few balloons he had left. “Hold these.”

  Dave did as instructed, and they got each balloon tied in Prime’s hand to welcome Sawyer, Jeri, and their new baby to the ranch.

  “Once this baby gets here, nothing will get done on the ranch,” Carson said. “So let’s go get the basic feeding done so we can have the rest of the day off.” He grinned at Dave, and Dave couldn’t argue with his logic.

  A couple of hours later, they had all the animals fed when the bell started ringing. He turned his head in the general direction of the homestead, where the bell hung from the front porch. He couldn’t see it past the barns in the way, but he finished up with the potbellied pigs and wiped his hands down the front of his jeans.

  Everyone would be going to see the baby as soon as they finished their tasks, and instead of going straight over to Sawyer’s, he detoured toward the Administration Annex. Maybe he’d see Sissy. They hadn’t set an official time for their second date, but Dave had been thinking about it while he fed the pigs.

  Several people streamed out of the volunteer building and adoption center. So many people Dave didn’t even know them all. At least twenty volunteers, paid for by Forever Friends, came to the ranch every day to help with the animal care in the Canine Club and Feline Frenzy. Very few came out to the larger animal areas, which suited Dave just fine.

  He didn’t see Sissy, and he hoped he hadn’t missed her. For some reason, he wanted to see her reaction to this baby. But the administration building had a west door, and she’d probably gone out that away.

  He continued toward the east door anyway, and he heard Sissy’s voice when he entered the building. He walked through the lobby to her office and found her on the phone. Their eyes met, and her voice trailed off.

  Holding up both hands in a surrendering gesture, he backed up a few steps. She continued talking, ending her conversation several seconds later. She came out of the office, and Dave drank in the sight of her in that cute little black skirt and a white blouse with lemons all over it.

  He grinned. “They rang the bell.”

  “I heard,” she said, walking toward him in heels. Didn’t she know she worked on a ranch? A living, breathing ranch, with almost two hundred animals on it? He shook his head at her feet. “So I take it we’ll be driving to Sawyer’s.”

  She glanced down at her feet. “I can walk in these.”

  He bet she could and actually wanted to see her do it. “All right then.” He gestured for her to go first out the door, which she did.

  “That was Forever Friends,” she said as they went down the steps. “They’re doing an audit of our financial records.” She gave a heavy sigh. “As if I don’t already have enough to do, what with that new loan Scarlett wants.”

  “New loan for what?” Dave asked.

  “Increased agriculture,” she said. “From here out to the pet cemetery. Hay fields.”

  Dave slowed, his heart skipping a beat or two. “What about the cabin out there? Are they going to tear that down?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Gray and Scarlett came by this morning and proposed a hundred a fifty new acres of alfalfa. And that takes cash to seed, cash to buy equipment to harvest, to plant, to water.” She shook her head, her dark hair swinging wildly. She really could move fast in those heels and Dave sped up to keep up with her. “I’m obviously still working through everything. And now the audit.”

  “Sounds intense,” he said.

  “It is.” Sissy slowed down and glanced at him. “So, Sawyer and Jeri adopted a little boy.”

  “Yeah,” Dave said.

  “Do you want kids?”

  “Sweetheart, we haven’t even been out on our second date yet.” He cocked one eyebrow at her, wondering if she’d somehow seen into his mind, knew he’d wanted to be with her when she met the baby so he could somehow determine if she wanted children.

  She pushed playfully against his bicep. “I know. I just….” She didn’t continue, and Dave felt the melancholy nature of her words filter through him.

  “You just what?” he asked, because he really wanted to know how she’d finish that sentence.

  “Do you ever wonder if you’ve made poor life choices?”

  He chuckled. “I think everyone feels like that at some point.”

  “Yeah.” Their feet crunched over the dirt and rocks in the road. “I’m too old to have babies.”

  Dave didn’t know what to say to the sadness in her voice. He reached over and took her hand in his, quite surprised she let him, what with all the potential witnesses. He realized in that moment that he was the one keeping them apart. He’d been the one to snub her, walk away from her at every ranch function, and go out with anyone willing to say yes.

  Sissy had never said a word about it, and he wondered if he’d hurt her with his behavior.

  Probably, he thought, humiliation filling him at how immature he’d been acting. Still, his heart beat pulsed in the back of his throat, begging him not to let her shatter him again.

  She released his hand as they passed the homestead, and they approached the crowd that had gathered on the front lawn at Sawyer and Jeri’s.

  Some people were leaving as Dave and Sissy arrived, a happy glow about them. Babies had a way of doing that, and Dave looked toward the porch, where several people sat. Scarlett and Hudson, Adele and Carson, Cache and Lance and Ames.

  He moved toward them, not making a conscious effort to separate himself from Sissy but doing so nonetheless.

  “What did they name him?” he asked the group on the steps.

  “Brayden,” Scarlett said. “He’s beautiful.” She sighed, pressing one hand over her heart as she gazed to where Sawyer and Jeri stood, still quite a few
people gathered around them.

  Dave waited with his friends, watching as Sissy got closer to the baby, Amber at her side. She looked nervous, but he couldn’t really tell. He had a good memory, but he hadn’t seen Sissy in so long that he wasn’t sure what was nervous and what wasn’t.

  When it was her turn to say congratulations, Jeri actually passed the bundle to Sissy. Her whole face lit up, and she gazed down at that baby with pure love shining on her face.

  Dave’s heart expanded three sizes, and his emotions spiraled up and out of control. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid when he was younger. Couldn’t believe he’d let her break up with him, walk out of his life, and get on a plane bound for Costa Rica. Couldn’t believe he’d gone on his second tour to fight, instead of staying to fight for her. For them.

  Half of him wondered if it would’ve even made a difference. The other half wanted her to look at their baby like that, adoration and happiness streaming from her.

  She passed the baby to Amber, who likewise showered the baby with love and smiles.

  “I’m going to ask her out,” Lance said. “I have to.” He stood up as if he’d go ask whoever he had his eye on right now.

  “Who?” Cache asked, echoing Dave’s thought.

  “Amber,” Lance said, lowering his voice.

  Cache exchanged a glance with Dave. “Whoa, bro. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” Lance looked back and forth between Dave and Cache. They’d started the Last Chance Cowboys in Cache’s living room, and they didn’t have a lot of secrets between them. Except Lance’s crush on the blonde woman who ran their volunteer center, apparently.

  “She’s dating that guy who cleans the dog enclosures,” Cache said under his breath. Dave noticed Scarlett was leaning a little too close to them.

  “She is?” Lance asked.

  Dave coughed, and that was the end of the conversation. He’d gotten his answer about the babies too.

  But he still had some questions about that cabin, and he turned to Scarlett and Hudson to get the answers he needed.

  Chapter 5

  I’ll meet you at your place. Sissy sent the text to Dave a few mornings later, their second date only twenty minutes away.

  My place? he sent back. You’re at the ranch?

  She looked away from her phone and down at the peaceful, slumbering baby in her arms. This might be as close as she ever got to holding a gift straight from heaven, and Jeri had been kind enough to let her stop by before seven in the morning.

  “Trust me,” she’d said when Sissy had said she could say no. “We’re up. If you’ll hold him for half an hour, I can shower without panicking.”

  And so Sissy had been stopping by at six-forty-five for the last three days, snuggling with baby Brayden while Jeri got her shower, and then going to work to deal with the audit and the loan details.

  The time she spent in the living room with that baby had quickly become the highlight of her entire life. And she hadn’t even had to fly for twenty-four hours to get the experience.

  Another wave of unrest rolled through her. She was really second-guessing herself and all the choices she’d made up to that point in her life. If she’d have known how much joy a newborn would bring her, she might not have been quite so hasty to break up with Dave. At the very least, she would’ve focused on different things in her life.

  Can’t change it, she thought. Does no good to look backward.

  But rocking a baby was one of the most soothing things on the planet. She did that until she had three minutes to get to Dave’s house. He’d said he could get a late start on the feeding in Piggy Paradise, and they were going to breakfast for their second date.

  Jeri still hadn’t come down the hall, and Sissy got up and padded that way, patting the baby as she went. “Jeri?” she asked, knocking lightly on the door. Brayden didn’t stir even the tiniest bit, and Jeri didn’t answer.

  Sissy pushed the bedroom door in to find her fast asleep. Fondness for the woman struck Sissy right behind the heart, and she silently moved over to the bassinet beside the bed and carefully laid Brayden down.

  He made a soft groaning noise, his tiny face scrunching for a moment. His eyes didn’t open, and he settled right back to sleep.

  Sissy tiptoed out, hoping he’d let his mom sleep for a while.

  She grabbed her phone from the arm of the couch, realizing Dave had called her. She dialed him back, slipped on her heels, and hurried out the front door.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Coming,” she said, not ready to share her new morning routine with him. “Yes, I’m on the ranch already.”

  “You’re working too hard on this loan,” he said. “There’s not a fire, sweetheart.”

  She felt like there was, and she didn’t particularly like him telling her she didn’t need to work so hard.

  “I’m coming down your street now. Get in your big truck and come pick me up, cowboy.”

  He laughed, the sound carrying down the road to her ears and booming through her phone. “I’m hanging up now,” she said, and she ended the call. He backed out of his driveway, and Sissy waited on the side of the road.

  After she’d climbed into his truck, she wrestled with her skirt to get it to lay right. “This thing is huge,” she complained. “How do you get in without a ladder?” She yanked the fabric out from under her and smoothed it down, feeling sweaty and out of sorts already and they hadn’t even left the ranch yet.

  “You didn’t need to walk over from the Admin Annex,” he said. “I would’ve come to get you.” He cut her a look out of the side of his eye as they turned to leave the ranch.

  Sissy drew in a deep breath, wondering how to tell him she wasn’t in the Admin Annex. He obviously didn’t see her car parked right there in Jeri’s driveway. She put a smile on her face and said, “It’s fine. It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

  “That it is.” He reached for her, but his monster truck really was huge. “Come sit by me.”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked with a heavy dose of teasing in her voice. “My skirt doesn’t allow for sliding across seats.”

  His lips twitched with a smile. “Maybe you just don’t want to hold my hand.”

  She did, but she didn’t want to seem desperate to do it. “Fine,” she said, making a big show of unbuckling her seat belt and gathering the little bit of fabric on the pencil skirt so she could make the move.

  It happened, but it was awkward and difficult. She smoothed her skirt, making sure she wasn’t showing too much leg, before he took her hand in his. He lifted her fingers to his lips and pressed them there.

  Sissy’s body reacted, almost violently. She hadn’t realized how many dormant feelings she still harbored for Dave. Did he have some still-there feelings for her too? From eighteen years ago?

  “I’m going to be heading out to the cabin this week,” he said.

  “Right. The pet cemetery thing.” She squeezed his hand. “What did Scarlett and Hudson say about the cabin? Are they going to tear it down?”

  “No,” he said. “They’re going to leave it, thankfully. When they send cowboys out there for harvesting and whatnot, it’ll get used.”

  “Good,” Sissy said, knowing Dave loved that cabin for some reason and hadn’t wanted it removed to make room for alfalfa fields. Truth was, there was plenty of room at Last Chance Ranch for both. “Why do you like the cabin so much?”

  “It’s…nice to get away from time to time,” he said.

  “You live on a ranch no one in town even knows exists,” she said. “What do you need to get away from?”

  He looked at her, something raw and vulnerable in his eyes. “Things.”

  “Oh, I see. We’re not saying.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “We’re not saying. Yet.”

  He didn’t trust her. The thought stung, because it was absolutely true. He wasn’t going to share much of himself until he knew she wasn’t going to rip
out his heart and throw it as far as she could.

  She suddenly felt like crying. Maybe she had done that before. She hadn’t meat to, but maybe she had. “I’m sorry,” she said very quietly.

  “For what?”

  “For last time,” she said, the floodgates in her head about to open. “For making it so we couldn’t be friends. That you had to go out with so many people to try to prove you were over me. For—”

  “I am over you,” he said.

  Sissy shook her head. This wasn’t going well at all, and she had so much work to do, and she wanted to ask him to turn the truck around and take her back to Jeri’s so she could hold Brayden again.

  Her mind traveled back through time, to the first trip she’d taken after breaking up with him. “Years ago, I went to Costa Rica,” she said, not really sure how long this story would be, or why she was telling him. Beside her, he stiffened, his grip becoming tight and painful until he released her hand completely.

  She kept going anyway, folding her hands in her lap. “It was beautiful. We hiked to all these waterfalls. Went to the beach. Museums. Sampled food.” She sighed with the memories. “I had a good time.”

  “I’m so happy for you,” he said dryly, his fingers strangling the steering wheel.

  “I could’ve had a great time,” she said. “An amazing time.” She looked at him, having the luxury to do so without having to glance away to keep the truck on the road. His jaw twitched, and she reached up and ran her hand down the side of his face, hoping to loosen it.

  “I realized on that trip—which was the first one I took after we broke up—that I could’ve had a better time if you were there with me.”

  He glanced at her, his dark eyes almost slicing right through her. “Sissy,” he said. “I don’t….” He sighed and didn’t say anything else.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I know I hurt you last time, and I just want you to know I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t want to imply he was weak and not over her, which he’d obviously interpreted her apology to mean.