Page 30 of Last Chance Love

“Look,” she said sharply, draining her glass and standing up quickly. “If he can be pushed to gain more confidence and get out of this narrow little box he has himself locked up in, there are possibilities. Not just for the ranch and its programs, but also for him.”

I raised a brow. “Like what?”

“What options does he have when he leaves this place?”

“I…” I didn’t know, considering we hadn’t spoken for a long time before being reintroduced to each other in the clinic, “don’t know.”

“Honestly, we’re looking at factory work. Wemightbe able to get him into trade work, but those can be hit or miss, especially with his work and skills background being so thin,” she said, staring at the pictures on the wall. “And I would hate to have someone with his talents wasted on a damn factory job.”

Well, that was interesting. This seemed to be about more than just her ambitions for the ranch, which was understandable. This place was clearly her baby, and I didn’t think there was anyone who believed her attitude towards running the place was just about efficiency and feeling like she was doing a good job. There had to be a driving force, and considering how much she kept things running so it helped people more than generated an income, it was easy to see she passionately believed in the place.

Some of that passion seemed to bleed out to the people she oversaw. Not that I was surprised; I had always suspected she pushed Riley onto Max to help the latter break out of his shell. Now, she was showing some of that same vested interest in Leon, which I knew would confuse the hell out of him if he knew.

“But this?” she asked, gesturing to the air as if her idea was right between us. “On this ranch alone, we could include more than just a few mentor workshops and training exercises. We could have a mentor who trains mentors and does a lot more work with them to help them out personally with a job that is, quite frankly, the hardest one on this ranch.”

“No argument there,” I said, now seeing where she was going with this. “But that supposes Leon would even take that offer.”

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t, but I’m sure we could make a compelling offer so he’d stick around for a few years. Not just monetarily, as you said, he genuinely believes in this job, so why not help others and help create a template that others could use even when he’s gone? And with that under his belt, well, many other possibilities open up for him.”

Damn it all, her enthusiasm was catching. If she was right, and Leon really did have the potential to do more and better, he could have his life set up for him once he was out of the program. Felony or not, working on the ranch as a full-time employee in that kind of position was bound to set him up for life. Of course, she wasn’t saying the situation was a mutual back-scratching thing for the ranch and Leon. If he stepped up, they could open up a position for him here, and if he took that position, even for a little while, they would have the incentive to open more doors for him outside the ranch.

I couldn’t help but get swept up in the idea that it was a perfect opportunity for him. Leon had always struggled to see beyond his circumstances and find ways to improve his life. Improving the future had always been one of those things he struggled with, at least when it came to himself. In the end, just like all of us, he was the product of his upbringing, and his childhood had taught him that he was stuck with what he was given.

But I didn’t see things that way, especially when it came to him. Here was the potential for him to do more than scrape the bottom of the barrel to get by. A chance to do more than what he had to do, and instead do what he wanted. Even if it wasn’t what he wanted to do for life, it was still more possibility than he’d ever had before.

Fuck, but it meantlyingto him, not outright, but omission was a lie all the same. Mona was asking me to conceal something important from him in the hopes it would help him grow beyond the stasis he was locked in, either by choice or circumstance.

“Do you think that if he knew the truth, it would be better than if he didn’t?” she asked me as if able to read my thoughts.

I grimaced because I knew the answer. Leon would freeze, growing stubborn and defiant, if he knew what she was trying to do. “No.”

“Then, if we want to help him, this is how we must do it,” she said softly.

We, it was we now. She was already expecting me to follow her plan and keep everything under my hat. Maybe she was banking on the fact that she knew we had once been close, and that would be enough to compel me. Or perhaps she just knew that underneath everything, I was still a sucker when it came to Leon.

“You don’t think it won’t be a little strange if I suddenly show an interest in getting past that barrier between us?” I asked, one of the last-ditch efforts I had to save myself.

“Not if you find yourselves around one another through happenstance.”

“Happenstance.”

She grinned at my dry tone. “It’s about time you got out of that clinic a little more. And I’ve already told him I need him to take some shifts as an assistant elsewhere.”

“Let me guess at the clinic?” I asked with the same tone.

“You’re good,” she said with a wink, clearly in a better mood than when the conversation started. She was the type of person to get in averygood mood when she finally won or found a solution to her problem, so clearly, she thought the result of this conversation was inevitable. “He seemed amenable.”

“You’ve already spoken to him about the change to his scheduling,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Which means you think you know what I’m going to say.”

“Whether you agree doesn’t change the decision.”

“Great.”

There was nothing I could do. I could walk away, but it would feel like a betrayal of my friend. And sure, Leon had once disappeared from my life without so much as an explanation and probably would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for happenstance and maybe a little fate, but I still cared about him. I still loved him. Keeping something from him to push him toward something better felt like manipulation and a little ugly, but even uglier was the thought that I could walk away from the chance to improve his future and not look back.

Oh, the chains we willingly bind to ourselves.

“Alright,” I said as she smiled in final triumph. “When does this start?”

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