Page 38 of Her Second Chance Cowboy

Nancy’s eyes began to burn with tears, but she did her best to keep her expression calm. “Come on, sweet girl,” she said and helped Bex to stand. “We need to get that wrist looked at.”

The entire drive to the emergency care center, Nancy called and texted Colin, but wherever he was working must have had no cell signal because all the calls went straight to voicemail. The doctor wanted to get an X-ray as soon as possible. “Will you come with me?” Bex asked Nancy, still holding her own in spite of the pain.

Nancy nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Every step of the way.”It may be the last time your daddy ever lets me near you, she thought as she followed the nurse who was leading them to radiology. She texted Colin once more while standing behind the little screen while Bex’s arm was X-rayed in as many positions as she could stand, and she called again when the doctor came in to show them the fracture. “Will she need a cast?”

The doctor nodded. “For at least six weeks.”

Bex, amazingly, didn’t cry. Instead, she asked, “Do I get to pick the color? My friend Olivia got to have a purple cast when she broke her arm last year.”

The doctor smiled kindly at her. “The tech will show you all the colors you can choose from,” he said.

Nancy murmured her thanks, and then she settled in to wait for the tech to come in to start her cast. “You’re being so brave,” she told Bex. “I’m so proud of you.”

Bex gave her a wobbly smile, and Nancy distracted her from the throbbing pain by showing her pictures on Pinterest of what they could do to decorate her cast: they could get stickers and have her friends sign it, and for the wedding, Nancy could use a bit of the flower garland to make her a bracelet.

Finally, after a small eternity, a tech came in with the plaster and colored wraps. Bex picked out a soft pink, and she watched with laser-like focus as her arm was wrapped and set. A nurse came in with a prescription for painkillers and the care instructions for her wrist. “If you have any questions, you just call us, okay? Your little girl is going to be just fine.”

The word hit Nancy like a punch to her solar plexus. She should have corrected the nurse, explained that Bex wasn’t actually hers, but she didn’t and hoped that Bex either didn’t notice or wouldn’t say anything. “Thank you,” she said, and after more than two hours, they were released to go home.

Bex was quiet the whole ride home—who could blame her?—but Nancy kept up a steady stream of cheerful chatter, even as her heart beat a tattoo against her ribs. She’d explained what happened in the many messages that she’d sent to Colin, and she’d apologized again and again, but she could only imagine how he would react.If he’s even seen the messages yet, she thought. There hadn’t been a reply or a call back.

But when they came up the road to the ranch, Colin was pulling in himself. She parked her car beside his truck: she caught his absolutely frantic expression before she climbed out. “Colin—” she started, but Colin ignored her completely. He wrenched her back door open and unlatched Bex from the booster seat.

All of Bex’s restraint and bravery fled the moment she saw her dad. She began to wail pitifully and clung to Colin. “Daddy! There was a big hornet, and I fell off the pony, and I was so scared, Daddy.” She cried into his neck. “You didn’t answer your phone.” Her words were accusatory, and Nancy saw Colin flinch like he’d been hit with something heavy.

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he crooned. “I should’ve been there. I’m so sorry.”

“Colin,” Nancy tried again, but he turned on his heel and carried Bex into the house. She should follow them inside, but she dragged her feet, unsure of where she was meant to be. It didn’t take long to get her answer, anyway. Colin came back outside. She could see that he was shaking.

“Where were you today?” he asked her through gritted teeth. “When my daughter fell off a horse?”

“It was a pony,” she said, “and—”

“Were you on your phone? Talking to Reagan?” Colin spoke over her; he wasn’t interested in what she had to say, really. Nancy understood he was scared and upset—and he had every right to be. She already felt awful; she blamed herself for pushing Colin to let her ride in the first place. This would have never happened if Colin had never allowed Bex to ride at all. But she did want to offer whatever reassurance she could.

“I was watching her the whole time,” Nancy told him. “The pony rides were set up just like at the fair: the ponies were tied to a post and walked in a circle. Everything just happened so fast with the hornet; there wasn’t much I could do.”

“You could’ve walked with her,” he countered. “You could’ve caught her.”

Nancy just stared at him. Was he being serious right now? “Colin, that’s not fair.” The guilt she felt dimmed as anger bloomed in her belly. She would take the blame for a lot of what happened, but when Bex rode the pony at the fair, she and Colin stood together to watch. She wasn’t even sure adults were allowed into the ring. If everyone did that, wouldn’t they have just gotten in the way? Besides, she couldn’t have predicted a hornet scaring Bex into falling off. It was a freak accident.

Colin scowled at her. “I should have never let her go with you. I should have never passed off my responsibilities to someone like you.”

The world narrowed to him and the roaring of the blood in her ears. “Someone like me?”

He shook his head and dug his hands into his pockets. “You’re practically a stranger, and I trusted my daughter with you. What did I expect to happen?”

A stranger?The word thrummed through her. “I would hardly call us strangers.”

“Whatever we were wasn’t enough to keep you here back in the day—and it won’t be enough now either, will it?” Colin said. “We had some fun, but we both know that you don’t belong here. Once the wedding’s over, you’ll head back to Boulder, and this whole thing will become a story that you tell your city friends.”

Nancy watched as the man she was so sure she was falling for become a stranger before her eyes. It made her nauseous. “If that’s what you think of me,” she said, “then you’re absolutely right. This isn’t my place, and this thing between us is over.”

She walked away, leaving him standing in the driveway, enrobed in his own self-righteous anger. It wasn’t until she closed the door of the guest house that the weight of it all hit her, and she collapsed onto the couch with a sob.

TWENTY-FOUR

When Colin’s alarm clock went off the next morning, he threw it across the room. It hit his laundry basket with a thud, still chiming incessantly. He sighed and hauled himself out of bed and crossed the room to turn the damn thing off. He felt like he’d gotten into a barfight and lost. Colin placed the clock back on his bedside table and considered climbing back under his sheets. They smelled like soft vanilla and Nancy, and he felt pathetic even thinking about it.

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