Page 4 of Her Second Chance Cowboy

Colin looked at the women, bent over Nancy’s spread of reference materials, and he ignored the kick of unease at the thought of what they’d get up to while he was gone. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “Have fun, ladies.”

* * *

The local hardware store didn’t have the rewiring kit he needed to bring updated electrical wiring to the barn, so he had to drive two towns over to get what he was looking for. It was mid-afternoon when he pulled back in. The cars were all gone, so he assumed Evie was waiting on Nick to come back for her.

However, when he walked through the front door, he found only Bex and Nancy in the living room, watchingMy Little Pony. Bex let out a happy shriek when she saw him. “Daddy! Wait ‘til you see what Nancy gave to me!” she bellowed and ran for the kitchen. The little girl snatched a slender box from the counter and ran it back to him before he could pull off his work boots. Looking down, he saw that she was holding a box of gourmet chocolates.

Colin tensed, but he tried to keep it off his face, not wanting Bex to think he was angry with her. Oh, he was angry, all right—but not with her. He held out his hand and asked for the box. Bex knew him well enough to realize that handing it over meant she might not be getting it back. She hugged it to her chest and silently begged him not to take it, but Colin insisted. “These look great, and it was so nice of Nancy to give them to you,” he said, “but chocolates are an after-dinner thing.”

“Daddy—” Bex whined.

“It’s just a little treat,” Nancy started, but Colin cut her off with a look.

“Rebecca, hand me the box,” he said, using his “Daddy” voice. Bex, still pouting, handed him the chocolates, and then stomped off to her bedroom. That was fine: he could deal with that in a little bit. First, though, he needed to deal with Nancy. “You gave her these?” He held up the box.

“I bought them for my parents,” she explained, “but they aren’t home. I’m not going to eat them, so I thought she might like them. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” he said. He tried to keep his voice composed, but he couldn’t help getting a little heated. He couldn’t stand the thought of anything bad happening to Bex, and this had been a close call. Averyclose call.She didn’t know, he reminded himself—but that didn’t make him feel much better. “First off,” he said, “if you’re going to be around for the next month, I’m going to need to ask you to not undermine my parenting. If I tell Bex that chocolate is just for after dinner, or that it’s bedtime, or that she needs to turn off the TV and do her chores, I can’t have you coming around behind me and saying something different. Understood?”

Nancy looked uncomfortable, as if she realized she’d overstepped but wasn’t quite ready to admit it out loud. She’d never been one to back down. “I just wanted to give her a treat. I didn’t think you’d mind,” she mumbled.

“Idomind,” he said, rattling the box of chocolates, “because some of these have coconut filling, right? They usually do in a box like this.”

Nancy nodded. “I assume so—you could always check the little legend they include to be sure.”

Colin ground his teeth together. “She’s allergic to it.”

At that, Nancy went pale. She twisted her hands together. “Colin, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“No,” he agreed, “you didn’t.” He took the chocolates to the kitchen and stuck them in the pantry. He’d go through them later, throw out the coconut ones. Bex’s allergy wasn’t bad enough for him to have to ditch the whole box, thankfully. While he wasn’t happy that Nancy had given the chocolates to Bex without asking his permission, he didn’t like the idea of taking away his little girl’s treat completely. She’d just have to deal with a picked-over box. “Look, I have some non-negotiable boundaries when it comes to Bex, okay? If you’re going to stay here, you need to learn them.”

Nancy nodded her head “I understand.”

“When it involves Bex, anything you want to give her, or show her, or do with her has to go through me. End of story, no questions.” It might seem a little over the top to some people—he knew that it drove Nick and Evie crazy—but he was determined to do a better job bringing up his niece than he had as guardian to his sister. Sabrina got pregnant because he wasn’t there for her. That was on him forever. He had to do better this time, had to be the best parent to Bex that he could be.

“Understood.” Nancy still seemed shaken, and his anger abated as guilt crept in. He hated coming across like such a bulldog, but Bex was the most important person in the world to him. As he watched, Nancy pulled herself together, straightening her shoulders and putting on a determined expression. “So,” she said, “we need some ground rules.” She smiled, and it was just a little bit stiff. “I’m good with ground rules.”

Colin nodded. “Decisions about Bex and the wedding come through me. I don’t want anything planted on my property or torn down without it being cleared by me.”

“The fence tear-down was Lila’s idea,” Nancy said. “She thought the barbed wire sent the wrong message about marriage.”

Colin blanched. He had been trying to make a point—he didn’t know someone had actually suggested ripping anything down. “You’re kidding, right?”

Shetsked. “I wish I were, but I did remind her that this was a ranch with real animals that needed to be kept in their pastures during the wedding.”

He let out a breath. “Thank you.”

“We didn’t get a chance to walk around the grounds and look at the ceremony space,” she told him and fluffed her hair. Some of her curls broke free from the product was holding them in place. He wanted to put his hands in her hair, mess it up even more. “Evie told me that you fixed up your family’s old chapel. That’s where the ceremony will be, right?”

“Right.”

Nancy nodded and told him that she was going to go back to the guest house now that he was home; she had some emails to look through. Colin should have held her back, maybe apologized for his behavior, but he watched her disappear through the door without saying anything.

THREE

Nancy sipped at her champagne and hummed at the tickle of the bubbles on her tongue. She and the other bridesmaids were waiting for the elderly seamstress to finish up with Evie’s fitting so she could do theirs. Nancy had hoped to be able to grab a second of privacy with Evie to ask if it would be possible to bunk with her until the wedding, give Colin some space, but there hadn’t been time to ask before the seamstress swept Evie away. When she stepped back into the room, she was wearing her gown. She looked like a literal angel in white satin and lace.

Evie’s gown was a simple A-line number with lace-netting sleeves, but it hugged her body in all the right ways. Nancy could just imagine Nick’s face when he saw her coming down the aisle toward him: he wasn’t a crier, but he just might start after getting a look at her in this. “You don’t think this is too short?” Evie asked the seamstresses, who looked offended at the suggestion.

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