Page 11 of Second Chance With a Cowboy

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” They’d been talking and getting along okay, but that didn’t mean she was ready to hop in the car and start cruising around town with him again.

“Remember how we used to drive around town and down all those back country roads? We spent hours in my old truck.”

She remembered. Although she remembered more of the times they’dparkedfor hours.

Chevy Lassiter might have broken her heart, but he was a dang great kisser.

He studied her, almost as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “You look good,” he said, reaching up to gently tug atone of her curls. “I like your hair longer like this. You look more grown up.”

She swallowed, her whole body warming at the softest touch of his hand as his fingers brushed her shoulder. She had been taking a little extra time to get ready in the morning, dusting on a little eye shadow and throwing her hair up into hot rollers and letting it set while she got dressed or adding a few twisted curls with her flat iron after she’d blow-dried it out.

She refused to admit she was taking the extra time with her appearance in case she ran into Chevy—but who was she kidding? Of course she was.

“That’s because Iama grown up,” she told him, pushing her shoulders back then yanking the car door open.

He dropped his gaze. “Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean anything. I just…it’s good to see you.” He lifted his head, catching her with a look that she couldn’t read. “Do you know how long you’re going to be in town?”

Her anger flared. She was mad at him for breaking up with her all those years ago and mad at herself for still caring. She narrowed her eyes. “Why? Are you dying to get rid of me already?”

Chevy shook his head, his expression sincere. “I just want to know how much time I have to try to get you to forgive me.”

She huffed out a sardonic laugh. “Not enough time in the world.”

She got into the car and forced herself not to look in the rearview mirror as she drove away.

Chapter Six

Don’t do it, man. Not again.

Chevy told himself not to, but he couldn’t help it.

The town of Woodland Hills was laid out in a long rectangle with the streets running longwise named for native trees, Aspen Grove Lane, Blue Spruce Street, Ponderosa Pine Avenue, Juniper Way, and Douglas Fir Drive, intersected by numbered streets.

Main Street ran through the middle of downtown with a courthouse in the center and the businesses fanning out in the blocks surrounding it. The houses and neighborhoods filled either side of the downtown area, with the larger more upscale homes built into the forested areas closer to the mountainside.

Aspen Grove Lane was named for the long band of aspen trees that ran along the creek behind the houses, including the yellow one toward the end of the lane where Chevy knew Leni was staying.

He tried to drive past her street. But it was as if the truck had a mind of its own, and suddenly his blinker was on, and he was turning the steering wheel. Just like he’d done the night before and the night before that.

He was completely conflicted—one minute feeling like a lovesick teenager driving by his crush’s house and hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the yard or through the window, the next feeling like a pervy creep driving down his crush’s street and hoping to catch a glimpse of her in the yard or through the window.

The night before, the house had been dark, except for one of the upstairs windows. The window used to be Leni’s room, but he wasn’t sure if Lorna had kept it for her. He knew Lorna and Max had moved back in with her mom after that jackass, Lyle, had left them. But then, during the middle of Lorna’s pregnancy, her and Leni’s mom had decided to remarry and move to Florida with her new husband, leaving Lorna the house.

The upstairs window gave off a soft glow, and he imagined Leni inside, tucked in bed, wearing a big T-shirt and fuzzy socks—because her feet were always cold. She’d be leaning against the headboard, her nose in a book, oblivious to the time, absorbed in some story.

Or the room could belong to Max now or have been turned into a nursery. Or Lorna could have taken it when Leni left, and she had the light on because she was up with the baby.

It was earlier tonight than it had been when he’d driven by the night before. The clock on his dash read a little past eight, so the sun had just set, but it was still light enough to see. But tonight, there was no soft glow of lamp light.

Instead, the flash of red and blue strobe lights pulsed through the dusky sky.

Chevy’s heart raced as he got closer, then stopped altogether when he realized the ambulance and a firetruck were parked in front of Lorna’s house.

He slammed on the brakes as he jerked the wheel to the right, almost jumping the curb in his haste to park. He threw the truck in park, cut the engine, and scrambled from the cab, almosttripping over a small yellow dump truck that had been forgotten on the sidewalk.

The front door was open, and he could hear the voices of the emergency personnel, the click squawks of their mics and their clipped measured tones, speaking over the sound of a hysterically crying baby.

He practically ran through the front door then froze at the sight of a woman strapped onto a stretcher. All he could see was curly hair, stained and matted with blood, hanging off the edge.

---