Page 21 of Her Second Chance Cowboy

“Maybe we could add pussywillows,” he said without hesitation and laughed aloud when she rolled her eyes at him.

“Pussywillows would look beautiful in the guest house,” she said. “Just the right amount of rustic for your guests looking for the ‘real experience.’”

“But?” he challenged.

“But they are definitely not a wedding flower,” she said. “I do like the idea for the pebbles, but I think a spray of lilies might be more appropriate.” Colin could picture it now: it would look elegant next to the roses and the runner that Evie had chosen for the aisle.

Conversation dipped again as they worked on in comfortable silence. They finished placing and planting the rosebushes. Afterward, they looked through the pile of pebbles and set aside the prettiest ones for the vases. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I am starving.”

Nancy looked at her watch. “I’m surprised we got all of those planted by noon.”

He shrugged. “Helps to have good company.”

She glanced at him, a quick darting of her dark eyes. “Am I?” she asked.

“Are you what?”

“Good company.” She tried to sound casual and failed miserably. It would be cute if she didn’t look so uncertain about it.

“Do you want to grab some lunch at the diner?” he asked, instead of answering her question.

Nancy frowned. “Colin—”

“I’m not quite ready to part with such good company yet,” he said and watched as a smile bloomed on her face.God, but she is beautiful, he thought.

They climbed into his truck and headed back to the main house to wash up before going into town. Downtown was a little crowded, so they had to park farther away than they normally would. While they walked toward Ed’s, Colin thought about holding Nancy’s hand, but he kept to his side of the sidewalk. He wanted to touch her, but until they talked, he wasn’t sure he had the right.

Ed’s was fairly busy, but they were able to sit at a two-top table by the big window toward the front of the restaurant. He was disappointed that they weren’t in a booth, but Nancy sitting in the sun, flushed from working outside all morning, was a glorious thing. When Mary Elizabeth came by for their orders, Nancy told her, “The biggest burger you make and about a gallon of water.”

Colin grinned. “The same, please.”

The waitress ambled away, and a quiet fell between them that wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it had been while they were planting rosebushes. Nancy’s eyes kept darting from his face to her hands to the window; she seemed to be searching for something to say. “Nancy,” Colin said, bringing those dark eyes to meet his. “I want to apologize.”

A wrinkle formed between her eyebrows. “Apologize?”

“For last night,” Colin clarified. He’d been thinking about this all morning, while he and Nancy planted the bushes. When he saw how much she cared about making everything perfect, making sure that Evie would have a beautiful setting for her wedding, it had started to sink in just how much her work mattered to her. And what right did he have to resent that? He was the same way. “I was a jackass. If my foreman called me late with an emergency, I would’ve picked up the phone, you know? I wasn’t being fair to you. You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t trying to put out all of the fires.”

The delivery of their food halted the conversation for a bit, but after taking a few bites of her burger, Nancy said, “It was nice this morning. The sun, the smell of the flowers, getting to spend some time with you.” She met Colin’s eyes. “I hope I didn’t keep you from anything too important.”

“Nothing I can’t do tomorrow,” he said. “Besides working on the barn, all I had planned for today was going to put out markers for all of the trails for guests. Keep them away from the ravine where we found Mom.”

Nancy’s smile dimmed a little—it happened to everyone when he mentioned his parents—but she recovered quickly. “It’s early still,” she said. “We could get that done before you need to pick up Bex this afternoon. If you want company, that is.”

“I’d like that,” Colin said.

After paying for their meal, they walked back to the truck, and this time, he didn’t hesitate to take her hand. Nancy seemed surprised for a moment, but a pleased look toyed at her lips as she gripped his hand back. When they got to where he parked the truck, he let her go, but then he saw a spot of red in the bed of his truck. It was a rose that had fallen off one of the bushes. “Hold up,” he told Nancy before she could walk around to the passenger side. He tucked the flower behind her ear. “It shouldn’t go to waste,” he said.

Nancy touched the bud gently, and then she leaned up and kissed him. It took him a second to respond—he hadn’t expected it—but he cupped her face and slotted his lips between hers. After a few moments, Nancy slipped away with a little sigh. “Ready to go?” she asked him.

Colin was ready, but he was fairly sure that riding a horse wasn’t what he was ready for. “Yeah,” he said, pressing another, quick kiss to her lips. “Yeah, let’s go.”

FOURTEEN

The next morning, Colin felt like a different person than he had the day before. He came down to the kitchen to start coffee and decided to make pancakes for breakfast instead of the planned oatmeal. When Bex came plodding into the kitchen, she perked up at the sight, but when Colin put her pancake in front of her, she looked visibly disappointed. “What’s the matter, darlin’?”

Bex shook her head. “Nothing, Daddy.” She reached for her fork, but then paused. “Where’s Nancy?”

“Sleeping in today,” Colin said. “We worked really hard on wedding stuff yesterday.”

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