Page 1 of Second Chance With a Cowboy

Chapter One

“A second chance isn’t about starting over…it’s about continuing the story you were always meant to tell together.”

Chevy Lassiter had no idea the surprise he was in store for as a blast of cool air and the scent of coffee and freshly baked pastries hit him as he grudgingly pushed through the door and into the coffee shop at the end of Main Street. He’d spent the last two hours on the tractor bringing in hay from the north pasture, so the air conditioning should have lifted his mood, but he still felt cranky for having to leave the ranch and make the trip into town.

He wouldn’t be here at all if he hadn’t lost a bet to his brothers. He was way too cheap to pay six dollars for a cup of coffee, when he could make a pot of Folger’s at home for less than a nickel a cup.

He looked around and had to admit the space was nice—hardwood floors, soft gray walls, and ambient lighting. A long butcher block-topped bar ran the length of the back of the shop with pastry cases on one side and a huge chalkboard witha hand-lettered menu hung on the wall behind it. The back wall was open on either side, indicating office or storage space behind it.

Everything was either gray, white, or wood-toned with subtle pink and blue accents in the wall art and comfy throw pillows scattered around the furniture. The room was spacious with several small tables and chairs, but the two gray loveseats and a couple of comfy chairs turned toward each other in one corner gave it a cozy homey feel.

He nodded at Judy Fitzgerald, the County Clerk who was tucked into the corner of one of the loveseats and had looked up from the book she was reading to offer him a smile and then gave a wave to Will Perkin’s oldest kid—he couldn’t remember his name—who was pecking away at his laptop, a huge cup of coffee and a half-eaten Danish on the table beside the computer.

In a town of less than fifteen hundred people, it was rare that Chevy walked into any business and didn’t recognize at least some of the people inside.

His phone buzzed as he headed toward the counter, and he pulled it out to see the promised text from his younger brother, Dodge, with their coffee orders.

A copper-haired girl—she looked about fifteen—stood behind the counter and greeted him with a braces-filled smile.

Chevy smiled back. He couldn’t remember her name either, but he assumed she was a Johnson—the red hair and freckles giving her away. A person couldn’t throw a rock in Woodland Hills or the surrounding county without hitting one of the fair-skinned ginger clan.

“Welcome to Mountain Brew,” the girl said, her perky attitude not enough to change Chevy’s annoyed one. “What can I get you?”

“My brothers sent me in. I need some coffee,” Chevy said, tapping at his phone to get to Dodge’s message.

“You’ve come to the right place then,” she said, her smile firmly in place as she reached to pull a plastic cup from a stack on the counter. “How many drinks do you need?”

“Four, I guess.” As long as he was here, he might as well get one for himself too.

“Hot drinks or cold?

“Hot.” It was midmorning and already pushing eighty outside, but as far as he was concerned, coffee was meant to be drank hot.

She grabbed a marker and held it poised over the side of the cup. “And what’s the name on the first order?”

“Chevy.”

She spelled his name out in neat block letters before setting the cup on the counter and reaching for another one.

“Dodge,” he told her then waited a beat as she wrote his younger brother’s name then reached for another cup. “The next one is Ford.”

She lifted the marker and planted the hand holding the cup on her waist. “Is this a joke?”

He assumed she was referring to the names of himself and his brothers. This wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last, time he’d been asked that question or taken a ribbing for his and his siblings’ names. Their mother, presumably in a drunken state, since that’s the state she was usually in, had named him and his two half-brothers after the trucks their dead-beat dads had driven away from her in.

Yeah, Brandy Lassiter, was a real peach. She was also a dirty blonde, a decent singer, and a drunk, who had deposited her three young sons at her parent’s ranch and never come back for them. Ford had been used to seeing their mother in an inebriated state—he and Dodge had been too young when she’d left—but now they had no idea what state she was in. But they knew itwasn’tColorado. Not in Woodland Hills, at least.

They hadn’t seen, or heard from her, in years.

She used to send occasional birthday cards, usually a few weeks after their birthdays, and sometimes with a crumpled five or ten-dollar bill inside. Although one year—he’d probably been eleven or twelve at the time—he’d gotten a card with a twenty. He’d split the money with his brothers since Ford’s last card had come with three singles inside.

“Not a joke,” he assured the puzzled barista. But these coffee orders surely had to be. He glanced up at the menu board and saw several similarly named items before reading the ones in his brother’s message out loud to the girl. “It says Dodge wants a Purple Unicorn Volcano with an extra shot of caffeine, Ford wants a Dragon’s Breath Espresso, and Duke wants something called a Caramel Crappuccino.”

The girl wrinkled her nose as she wrote each order down on a slip of paper by the register. “I don’t recognize these. But I’m pretty new here, and lots of people have specialty drinks.” She chewed on her bottom lip as she scanned the orders again. “I think I need to get my manager.”

Great. Now this fool’s errand would take even longer. Where had these guys even come up with these drinks? He scanned the menu board behind the counter and didn’t see the ones they’d named.

The Johnson girl leaned her head around the back wall, presumably calling out to someone with more coffee drink experience. “Hey, can you come out here for a minute? This guy just ordered a Purple Unicorn Volcano and a Caramel Crappuccino, and I don’t know how to make either one.”

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