Page 3 of Her Second Chance Cowboy

Ten minutes later, she drove through the main gates and parked outside the house. She waited a few moments, and then headlights turned off the road onto the ranch’s drive. She flicked open her visor and looked at herself in the tiny mirror. Hearing her mother’s voice, she ran her fingers through her brown curls, attempting to reshape them, and sucked her teeth when her hair refused to do anything but fall into her eyes.You can handle this, she thought.You’ve got it.

TWO

Colin spent the next morning mucking out stalls and deliberatelynotthinking about Nancy Sharp. More than once, he found himself wondering what he had been thinking, inviting her to stay at Mustang Crossing. Like he didn’t have enough to do trying to handle the ranch transition and get things in tip-top shape for the wedding, he had to add seeing the “one who got away” every day for the next month.

God, but why did she have to be even prettier than his memory recalled? Ballerina tall and slender, Nancy was always a graceful beauty. Even when they were kids, her big doe eyes had a way of drawing him in. Now she was in his guest house. What had he been thinking?

Colin finished spreading fresh hay in the horse stalls and grabbed the handles on his wheelbarrow. He walked it out of the barn in time to see Nick’s truck bumping along the road. The Ford pulled to a stop beside the barn, and Nick rolled the window down. “Hey, man.”

Colin set down the wheelbarrow. “What are you doing here?” He wasn’t usually so curt with his best friend, but damned if the circumstances didn’t justify it. Nick would’ve known as soon as it was decided that Nancy would be taking over as wedding planner—and coming back to town for the next month. A heads-up sure would’ve been nice.

“Had to drop off Evie,” Nick answered. “Her car’s in the shop again.”

“You could have warned me about Nancy,” Colin blurted out, the words refusing to stay inside any longer.

Nick laughed, a deep, belly-rich sound. “I was surprised to hear she was staying here,” he said and waggled his eyebrows. “That didn’t take long.”

Colin scowled at him. “She’s testing out the guest house.”

That only made Nick laugh again. “Sure, becausethatdoesn’t sound like some sort of weird euphemism.”

Jackass. “You could’ve warned me, that’s all.”

Nick’s smile wilted. “Sorry,” he said. “Everything’s been so up in the air since Evie fired Janet; it slipped my mind.”

Colin sighed and let it go. Nick and Evie had been under a lot of pressure lately; he guessed he couldn’t blame his friends for being forgetful. “So you came to drop off Evie—what’s Evie doing here?”

“Breakfast, apparently.”

“Breakfast?”

Nick whistled. “Maybe it’s best you get home,” he suggested. “I’ll see you later.” Before Colin could say anything else, Nick gave him a two-finger salute and drove away.

Colin quickly finished up and jumped in his John Deere gator to drive back to the main house. In the time that he’d been cleaning out the horse stalls, the gravel parking lot between the guest house and main house had filled with cars.What the hell?

Coming in the kitchen side door, Colin could see that Nancy, Evie, and the other bridesmaids—Lila, Cady, and Ericka—were seated around his dining room table, eating pastries. Bex was on Evie’s lap, tearing into croissant. “They all showed up a little bit ago.” Jessie, his ranch foreman’s wife who looked after Bex for him when she wasn’t in school, had sidled up to him. She was a nervous, birdlike woman with teased red hair that looked as if it could defy gravity. “I wasn’t sure if it was planned, but I saw Evie, so I thought it would be okay—”

He patted her arm. “It’s fine,” he told her—and it was mostly true. He was usually very particular when it came to who he allowed to spend time with Bex, especially when he wasn’t around, but Evie had been an honorary aunt since Bex was born, and Lila was Bex’s teacher. He trusted them…as much as he trusted anyone. “Thank you for being here with Bex.”

Colin turned his sights on Nancy, who was listening to Evie and writing down something in a sketchbook. He’d been so blown away over seeing her again that he hadn’t really realized last night how short she’d cut her hair. It was buzzed close on the sides and longer on top: she’d arranged it so that the longer bits were curled and swept across her forehead. His eyes traced the curve of her shoulder, the slender column of her throat. He had to shake his head to stop staring.

Nancy looked up, and their eyes met. She excused herself and hustled over to him. “I’m sorry,” she said in rush. “When I told Evie I was staying here, she thought it would be a good idea to come and walk the grounds, get a feel for the place as a wedding venue, you know? But then she brought the other bridesmaids with her, and there wasn’t really room for us all to sit in the guest house, so we came in here.” She looked nervous, and Colin wanted to reach out to steady her, but he didn’t. He stuck his hands in his pockets to ground himself. “When I came to tell you this morning, you’d already gone.”

“Work starts early.” The words came out harsher than he intended.Get it together, man. He was better than this; he was normally cool as anything. What was it about Nancy Sharp that always had him tripping over his own tongue? “Can I at least snag a bagel or something? For my trouble?” he asked, hoping to lighten the mood. It worked. Nancy smiled with gratitude and ushered him over to where the pastries were laid out. He sat down next to Bex. “So where are we on plans?”

Evie enthusiastically described the Behringer sound system she wanted to get so that they could play music in the barn and the sound would carry outside, in case couples wanted to dance under the stars. She turned eagerly to Colin, waiting for him to respond. He swallowed hard. “That may scare the horses,” he said and watched as the bride deflated.Crap. “I could put them in the back pasture for the night,” he conceded. Evie practically beamed. “Any other ideas?”

“I was thinking we could plant a few crabapple trees,” Ericka piped in. “The kind that flower, you know. They would be so pretty in the background of the photos.”

Colin’s stomach churned. He spent countless hours with his father, digging up apple trees that took root on their own, because they caused intestinal problems in livestock No way was he planting some on purpose. Before he could say anything, Nancy bent down, and he got a rush of her perfume. His mouth practically watered. “Nothing will be changed on the property without your say-so, of course.”

That didn’t make him feel much better. It hadn’t even occurred to him until now that they’dwantto make changes to his property. “Good,” he grunted and pushed away from the table. “Just…great.” He looked down at Bex. “I have to go to the hardware store in town. Want to come?” Usually, Bex loved running errands with him, but today she looked around at the room of women, and he saw her hesitate. “You can stay here if you want.” Jessie was due to leave for her part-time job at the bank soon, but it sure sounded like the women would be here for a good long while. He looked at Evie, who nodded over the girl’s head. “So long as you mind Evie.”

Bex’s face twisted. “And you won’t be mad or sad?” she asked.

Colin smiled. She was such an empathetic kid. She hated upsetting anyone, especially him. “No, darlin’, I won’t be mad or sad.”

Bex beamed at him, happy again. “Okay, then I’ll stay.”

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