Page 66 of The Cowboy's Second Chance Bride

“Rod’s dad is right. Walking away is far harder, but there might be a time when you are going to have to punch someone, so you’d better know how to do it right.”

Rod wrapped an arm around my neck. “Mrs. Claudia is gonna yell at me.”

“Only because you scared her,” Sabrina said. “But I bet she makes a dessert you like.”

His eyes went large, and he looked at me. “I asked for Boston cream pie.”

I smiled and started for the door. “Attaboy.”

“That’s your favorite.” Sabrina fell into step with us. She poked me in the biceps. “Did you put him up to it?”

“I maybe mentioned it, and Rod wants to try new things, don’t you?”

Rod nodded. “It has pudding in it. I like pudding.”

Crème, pudding—I wasn’t going to split hairs.

“Nice job, by the way,” I said.

“Nice job for what?” she asked.

I did a small nod toward Rod. “You calmed him down instead of making him cry. Much better than how you were with the calves.”

“Oh, shut up.” She punched me in the arm. But she was smiling, and I knew that was exactly what she’d needed to hear.

ChapterTwenty-Six

CAL

No more letting the app suggest our dates. When you knew someone like I knew Sabrina, sometimes you had an idea that nothing suggested by the app could match. I had put together a real date for us, and excitement had me whistling as I set it up.

Our love for each other had that special something that people dreamed about. Our love was the kind that stuck forever. All this time apart, and it hadn’t waned. Now I just wanted to say how I felt, out loud. I really wanted her to say it too.

Looking back, I realized that the day we’d had to share a horse and I’d told her what I wanted to do with her—to her—I hadn’t done it to scare her away. She’d been sitting there, her legs over mine, so close and looking at me with the bright-blue eyes of the Sabrina who loved me, and I’d been body-slammed with the realization that I’d missed her so damn much. Then she’d looked at me like that again at the community center, and it had all just clicked. We needed to start making new memories, happier ones, and working on dismantling our walls.

Sabrina was in my office, talking to LA about her documentary. She’d spoken to the director and was now on the phone with the actor. Things didn’t sound like they were going all that well. All the more reason to take her out and get her mind off the parts of our lives that were unraveling.

I stood outside the door, waiting for the right time to interrupt. These last few weeks had been a whirlwind, a complete one eighty in my life. In Peru, I certainly hadn’t wondered what came next and then pictured myself at the ranch, drafting a plan to win a woman’s heart.

I stepped into the office and caught her eye.

“Hang on, Nick.” She raised a brow in question.

“Thought maybe you might want to go see the waterfall near No Man’s Lake.”

Her face lit up. “Yeah, I totally do.” She glanced out the window. “Isn’t weather coming in?”

I nodded. “We’ve got time. But we have to leave now.”

She quickly ended the call. “Let me change, and I’ll meet you outside at the barn.”

I pointed to the stairs. “Go. No horses today. We’ll take an ATV. Mom’s packing some food for us too.”

She took off up the stairs with a laugh and the slightest of limps. I hadn’t been fully cognizant of how exhausting our constant push and pull had been until now. It was much easier to stop resisting. I went outside to prep the ATV, caught my sister as she was coming in, and admired a vase she’d just created.

Sabrina bounced out of the house a few minutes later and stopped short when she saw me. “Where’s the other ATV?”

“I thought we would just take one. It’s easier.”

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