Page 29 of Last Chance for Her Rancher Boss

He gave her a halfhearted scowl over his shoulder. “Is this making you feel better?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Well, that’s all that matters, I guess,” Nash grumbled, losing his battle and absentmindedly running a hand over the back of his head as they entered the hardware store.

The smell of paint and pine wood was overwhelming from the second they walked through the doors. It was quiet, with only a handful of customers here on a weekday and soft country music playing over tinny stereo speakers in the ceiling. The building had probably had the same sound system since the day it was built.

“Should probably get a cart,” said Nash. “This seems like a cart sort of shopping trip.”

As he wrestled one out of the designated cart area at the front of the store, Meg put a hand on his arm and caught his attention.

“You can leave, you know,” he said to her. “You can hang out in the car. It’s fine.”

Meg smiled because it was a sincere offer. He was worried about her. That alone made her feel better.

“It’s not that,” she said. “I just want to make sure that you’re not going ahead with this crazy plan just to… keep up appearances?Or rise to the challenge or something? We don’t have to put all this work in, not if you really don’t want to.”

He took a moment to think it through, mulling over her words. That made Meg feel better too, the fact that he was thinking about all of this and not just jumping in feet first. It was a skill he finally seemed to pick up over the last decade.

“Nah,” he said finally, yanking his selected cart out. “It’s like you said, if we give this a shot and it still doesn’t work out, then at least I know I really did everything I could. And you’re helping, which makes it not so daunting.”

Meg nodded, more determined than ever and followed him through the aisles.

They had decided to paint every possible surface white and leave the hardwood as it was. It would pass as “rustic,” while the white would make it all look brand new. Plus, it was cheap, and that had been the deciding factor. If they went cheap and simple, they could advertise it as chic and minimalist. If Meg had learned anything from her time at college, it was that the perfect word made all the difference.

Despite growing up in Fordswell, Meg had never been in the hardware store before. She’d never had any reason to. She didn’t think either of her parents had ever held a hammer, let alone needed to buy one before. Nash, however, seemed to know this place like the back of his hand. He led her straight to the paint section, the smell of chemicals thick in the air, and stopped the cart in front of a wall with what looked like a million different paint samples.

“You sure you don’t want to go with this color?” Meg asked, plucking out a paint card the color of a neon highlighter. Nash rolled his eyes and tutted like an old man.

“That’s a no, then?”

“That’s a no.”

Meg sighed dramatically and popped the neon sample back in its place while Nash scanned the multiple rows of white, cream and light gray options.

“How many different types of white are there?” he muttered.

“A lot, apparently. Do we just flip a coin?”

Nash plucked half a dozen different variations of white paint cards from the wall, shuffled them up like he was playing poker and fanned them out face down in front of Meg.

“Pick one,” he said like he was performing a magic trick. Well, it was as good a way as any to choose. Meg tapped a finger on a card, and Nash plucked it out.

“Swiss Coffee Creamer it is, then,” he declared. “Whose job is it to name these things?”

“I don’t know, but it sounds like a pretty good job to me. Maybe I’ll jump ship and become a color-naming person.”

It had been meant as a joke, but it came out sounding tired and sulky. Nash just nodded, putting the rejected paint cards methodically back in their slots and hanging onto Swiss Coffee Creamer, which really was a stupid name.

“Are you thinking about jumping ship?” he asked, suddenly way more serious than he had been just a minute ago. “Giving up being a vet?”

“I can’t just throw away my career,” Meg said, throwing a paint roller into the cart perhaps a little too aggressively.

“It’s not necessarily throwing it away,” Nash said. “Maybe just downsizing, you know. Or taking a break.”

“Hmm.”

She turned her attention to the wall of painting tools, looking for a roller extender, already knowing she was going to be way too short without one. Nash, however, put a hand on her shoulder and caught her attention.

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