Page 46 of Her Second Chance Cowboy

He slid between her parted thighs, and she trembled to feel him against her. Had it only been a handful of days since the last time they’d done this? Why did tonight feel so different? She wrapped her leg around his waist and moaned when he slid inside. His head slumped against her collarbone. “Nance, Jesus,” he breathed, even as his hips found their rhythm. He slid in as far as he could before pulling away, only to push back in and fill her again. They weren’t frenzied, trying to seek release. That would surely come, but this was something far more tender.

Nancy held him as tightly as he held her; she barely gave him the room to pull away. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand it being separated from him even for a second. They kissed, panting into each other’s mouths, as he sped up slightly. He reached between them and thumbed at her throbbing bud in time with his thrusts. Her back arched off the bed, and she met his movements, needing him. “Colin,” she gasped. “Oh, God, Colin, please!”

He kissed at her throat and kept rubbing gentle circles with his thumb, sending her spiraling toward her release. “Come for me,” Colin begged her, and the taut place in her belly suddenly went lose, and she groaned at the pleasure that peaked inside her.

His movements sped up; Colin was chasing his own pleasure now, and Nancy clung to his back, holding him through it. He came with a quiet moan and jerked against her. He did what he could to not collapse directly on top of her, but Nancy held onto him, wanting to feel his weight against her. “I love you,” he murmured into her hair again and again. “I love you.”

A wedding night, she realized in a bit of a daze.This is always how I imagined feeling on my wedding night.

TWENTY-NINE

Colin looked at the big, wooden frame of the barn and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. He couldn’t believe that it had gone up so quickly. Two weeks after the wedding, and most of the town had shown up to help him put this piece of the ranch back together. Nick and Evie actually postponed their honeymoon in order to help out. He glanced at Nick, who was working on an exterior wall with Daryl Rivers, and felt a rush of gratitude for his best friends.

Then, the man turned and spotted him. “I don’t think I’ve ever done this much manual labor in my life,” he complained and stretched. “Don’t you ever question that people love you.”

Colin laughed: that he knew all too well at this point. “How’s married life been treating you? That also more manual labor than you’ve ever done before?” He waggled his eyebrow at Nick and laughed again when the man scowled.

Nick very subtly flipped him the bird, but then he grinned. “I’m guessing you’ll find out soon for yourself,” he teased. “You got a ring yet?”

He held up his hands in a “slow down” gesture. “Nancy and I have been official for two weeks, Nick, and with the ranch opening and our first guests arriving next week, we’ve barely been able to sit down. There’ll be time for rings later.”

It was a total lie. Colin thought longingly of the ring box that he had stashed in the back of the bottom drawer of the dresser. It was filled with sweaters and long shirts for winter, and he hoped that Nancy would have no reason to open it. The ring had been his mother’s. He’d always thought he would give it to Sabrina as an heirloom, but when he called and asked for her permission to give it to Nancy, she had squealed with joy. “If you give her any other ring, I will be angry with you for the rest of your life, big brother,” Sabrina had said to him. “You’ve done so much for me,” she’d added when he’d gotten quiet and a little bashful. “You deserve this more than anyone I know. Be happy with them.” Before hanging up, he’d made her promise to come home for Thanksgiving, and she’d made him promise in return that Nancy would be wearing the ring by then. He wanted to get through the first set of guests for the ranch, but he’d opened the drawer every day this week to look at the box. He wasn’t sure if he was going to make it until the first guests left.Maybe the day they arrive, he mused. Sort of celebrate their new life beginning and all.

At noon, Nancy rang the ancient dinner bell that she’d found, calling everyone for lunch. She, Evie, and some of the ladies from town had made all of the volunteers lunch. Colin walked slowly over to where everyone was gathering. He wanted to take in the image of Nancy—bustling around smiling at everyone, handing out waters, laughing with Evie—and cement it in his memories forever. She’d found her place here, with them, and he didn’t think his heart could take the happiness that swelled in his chest.

“Colin?”

It was Sally Weston. He had seen much of her or the Hunters since he’d started the ranch’s transition; he had been a little surprised when she’d showed up to volunteer to help feed everyone this morning. “Hey, Sally,” he said. “Good of you to be here.”

She nodded. “You should know,” she said, “that Jarod’s back.”

Colin’s throat felt a little tighter. Jarod Hunter, the Lucky Star’s heir apparent turned Hollywood stuntman. He didn’t know if Jarod would be upset or not about Mustang Crossing becoming a direct competition for his aunt and uncle’s ranch, but he didn’t think Jarod wouldn’t care at all. He'd have to talk to his old friend about it all, and soon. “Thanks for telling me, Sal,” he said. “I’ll…handle that.”

She nodded. “Please do.”

But not today, he thought, catching sight of Nancy again. Today was about feeling immense gratitude to the people in his life; it wasn’t a time for guilt. He thanked Sally again for coming and walked straight to Nancy, who was securing a rib bib around Bex’s neck, and wrapped an arm around her. “Everything all right here?”

She leaned against him, closing her eyes for a moment, as if she couldn’t be any happier. “I’ve had four more calls today,” she told him. “I actually had to tell people that we weren’t going to start booking for the new year for a couple of weeks.”

Before, Nancy’s work phone buzzing drove him crazy, but now he loved when it started ringing because it meant more interest in the ranch. When their story went out to the local news, interest had gone through the roof. Everyone loved hearing about the scrappy little ranch that had held a wedding despite the tornado damage, and that the town was pulling together to repair. They’d gotten a flood of bookings. Then, a news van from a bigger regional station had shown up, asking for a “feel good” interview. Now, there were evenmorebookings. Nancy had declared yesterday that they were officially booked up through Christmas.

Bex looked at them. “Does that mean that the tornado was a good thing?” she asked with that little kid curiosity that never ceased to amuse him. Everyone around her laughed, and he saw her get flustered for a moment before Nancy reached out and touched her shoulder, comforting and reassuring. Although she had told him that she wasn’t sure if she was exactly the maternal type, Nancy had fallen into the caretaker role more readily than he ever would have thought possible. When he asked her to marry him, he was also going to ask her to be Bex’s mom for real, and he knew that she would say yes.

Evie slid next to Bex at the picnic table. Her plate was piled with ribs and all of the fixings, but when Nick offered her a sip of his iced tea, her face scrunched up in disgust, and she shook her head.No way she’s not pregnant, he thought, which inevitably brought up the thought of Nancy being pregnant, and a surprising ball of want formed in his gut. “The tornado itself wasn’t a good thing,” Evie said, breaking through his spiraling thoughts. “But what’s important in life is how you deal with unexpected things. Do you understand?”

Bex seemed to mull this over for a moment. “I think so,” she said, though she didn’t sound one hundred percent certain.

“Look at what we’ve built here, over the last few weeks,” Nancy pointed out to her. “The ranch looks better than ever, right?”

Bex nodded. “Right.”

“So that was a great thing, and it might have never happened without the tornado,” she said. “And the storm was also what made me realize what really mattered to me. So while the storm was scary and awful, and I would never like to repeat it, it also showed me that what I wanted was right here.”

Bex still looked confused, but she smiled. “I’m glad you stayed, Nancy.”

Nancy hugged her, but her eyes flicked up to Colin. “I am too, honey.”

After lunch, there was more work to be done, but by the end of the day, the barn was nearly finished. There were some shingles to be put on the roof, and the whole thing needed a fresh coat of paint, but the structure was solid. Colin and Nancy sat at the main house’s new front porch—a gift from Evie and Nick for giving them the wedding of their dreams, despite everything—and sipped at some lemonade. “I can’t believe we pulled this off in time for the opening next week,” he said.

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