Page 12 of Her Second Chance Cowboy

* * *

Colin carried Bex into the house to find their dining table covered in cake. Nancy was in the kitchen, and she practically jumped out of her skin when he closed the door. Bex stirred in his arms. “Cake!” she shrieked in his ear and immediately began wiggling to be let down.

“Sorry,” Nancy said. Her voice was guarded. “I went with Evie to the cake tasting because Nick couldn’t make it, and I brought back some samples for you both. I was going to put them in the fridge for you, so that you could surprise her.”

“That was really nice of you,” Colin said, and her dark eye met his. His arms ached to hold her, but that wasn’t an option.

Her lips quirked into a small smile. “Did you have fun in Boulder?” It struck Colin that she might be homesick, and he didn’t like the forming pit in his stomach at that thought.

Before he could form an answer, Bex asked, “Can I have some cake?”

He set her down. “Sure,” he said. “You can try a bite of each, okay? But you need to go wash up first.” He and Nancy laughed when she took off running down the hall to the bathroom. Nothing motivated a five-year-old quite so well as the prospect of sugar.

Without Bex, though, a thick silence stretched between them. “There’s no—”

“Coconut?” Nancy finished for him. “No, Evie wouldn’t taste anything with coconut in it. She’s looking out for her flower girl. Do you want some cake, too? I brought plenty back.”

He could say yes, and they could go back to the way it was before he kissed her—friendly and comfortable with the two of them and Bex—but something held him back. “I’m not really hungry,” he said, and her face fell a little. She nodded.

“Sure,” she said. “Of course.”

There was a crash from somewhere down the hall. Colin winced. “I better go check on Bex.”

Nancy nodded again. “Yeah.”

He left her in his kitchen and found Bex in the bathroom, playing in the sink. “Rebecca McCabe,” he said and crossed his arms over his chest.

Bex gave him wide, innocent eyes. “I was just—”

“You were just making a mess,” he said, looking at the water spattering the mirror and counter.

Her shoulders drooped. “Sorry, Daddy.”

Colin knew he shouldn’t allow her to have cake—she knew better than to splash around in the sink like this—but she looked so pitiful. It tugged on all of his heartstrings.I’m such a damn sucker. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go get your snack, and you can come back in here with a towel after.”

She lit up, and he laughed. “Okay!”

When they went back into the kitchen, Nancy was gone. He looked out the window and saw her standing just outside, phone pressed to her ear and a serious expression on her face. She saw him through the window, and she just waved and gestured toward the guest house. Colin nodded and waved back. When she turned and started walking away, Colin felt a strong urge to run after her, but he didn’t. He couldn’t let himself forget that she was going back to Boulder. He wasn’t willing to risk what it would be like if she spent the next few weeks playing happy family with him and Bex, only to lose her when the wedding was over.

Bex might never get over that, and he was sure that he wouldn’t, either. Nancy had been right: it was better if they just stopped now before either of them got too deep.

EIGHT

Drip. Nancy flinched as something wet hit her forehead.Drip. She cracked an eye open.Drip. “What the hell?”Drip.A fat water drop splatted on her face. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table: it was barely five AM. Well, that was just great. She got out of bed and saw out her window that it was raining. The roof was leaking, then.

She quickly pulled on some clothes and ran through the rain to the main house. When she opened the side door, she breathed a sigh of relief to see Colin up, putting coffee grounds into the pot on his counter. He took in her rain spattered clothes. “Nance? What’s going on?”

Nancy didn’t want to tell him—it was bound to add even more stress to his day—but if her room was leaking, others probably were. “I woke up to a leak above my bed,” she told him.

Colin swore out loud. “I should have never hired that contractor,” he muttered to himself. He set the coffee pot to start brewing in an hour. “Bex will probably sleep for another hour or so. Can you show me the leak?”

They crossed the yard to the guest house. She laughed when Colin swore again because of the rain. She showed him the leak in her room. The bed was wet. Nancy blanched. “Sorry! I should have moved the bed.”

“The frame is heavy. Don’t worry about it,” Colin said, pulling off the soggy pillows and sheets. “Help me move the mattress? I don’t want it to get ruined.” Nancy grabbed one side, Colin the other, and they hefted the mattress and leaned it against the far wall.

“We should check the other rooms,” Nancy said.

Colin sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Yeah,” he agreed. They went into every room. Luckily, they didn’t all have leaks, but there were two other guest rooms with drips. Colin groaned. “Fixing this is going to take hours.”

---