Page 4 of Seaside Cowboy's Second Chance

Could be worse. She could’ve picked up a stray Newfoundland.

The dog let out a whine as if to say she was far from fine. Frankly, Skylar wasn’t anywhere close to fine, either. But she’d done her best to appear that way for fifteen long years.

“You came back to arrange your grandmother’s wedding.” With the way he said it, it was a statement, not a question. News traveled fast in their small town.

Did he anticipate her appearance? Or did he dread it?

The dog wiggled in her hands, and she struggled to hold onto her. Dallas didn’t have a pet in his hands, but she didn’t dare ask why he was here. On the other hand, he’d always have her heart in the palm of his hand. Did that count?

Wow.

Where did that thought come from?

She should’ve sought him out years ago, tried to explain everything. It was too late. A proverbial ocean of hurt flowed between them now. She opened her mouth to say how sorry she was, as lame as it was by now.

He intercepted her. “Seriously, let me carry the dog.”

The dog did seem to weigh a ton at this point. Skylar might drop her. Okay, she messed up this relationship so badly already, what did she have to lose? “Well, if you don’t mind the dirt...” She transferred the injured animal. The dog growled and showed teeth, and Skylar froze. But, thankfully, the stray didn’t bite.

“I’m a cowboy, remember?” He nodded to his weathered cowboy boots spattered with dried mud. “We’re fine with dirt.”

While she’d scrubbed her life and her apartment spotlessly clean as if she could erase scary memories that had waited way too long to show up.

Dallas held the stray as if she were light as a feather. But then he was probably used to lifting calves while the heaviest things she was used to carrying were her laptop or a purse.

No, the heaviest thing she was used to carrying wasregret.

“Yes, I do remember,” she whispered. She remembered too many things.

The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. The way her heart fluttered when he tipped her chin. The way butterflies danced in her belly when he kissed her....

“Aren’t you going to follow me?” He asked over his shoulder as he strode toward the room.

“Right.” This was her pet. Well, not her pet exactly, but her responsibility, and all she did was stand there, traveling down memory lane. “I need to talk to the receptionist first. I don’t know if they’ll accept a walk-in.” She should’ve called first. Usually, she wasn’t so scatterbrained. But being in her hometown did a number on her.

“I’ve got it.” His tone and his words were clipped, and she didn’t blame him.

He could’ve walked right past her, ignoring her, and she wouldn’t blame him.

Before her graduation, she’d painted inside the hall here, adding more animals to the mix. Birds, turtles, chickens, and horses. The horses were for Dallas. He’d loved them.

Why hadn’t they remodeled in all these years? Well, the leather furniture might be brand new, and they’d added a station for dogs to play and another one for cats. The ceiling looked different, not white but light blue like the sky, and the large, funky emerald-green tile—as if to imitate grass—on the floors didn’t have cracks in it. More houseplants flourished in the corners. But the walls with her work had stayed the same, and she touched their smooth surface as if she could touch the past and relive those blissful moments.

He opened the vet’s office door.

She hurried forward to protest. “We can’t just barge in.” It didn’t work like that in her new life. Everything required an appointment and scheduling.

“We sure can.” He stepped inside the office with her dog—okay, not hers yet. “Bro, I brought you a new client.”

Bro?

She followed him and blinked. “Austin! What are you doing here?” Then heat rose up her neck. The white coat should’ve clued her in. “You became a veterinarian, and you came back to Port Sunshine.”

“I sure did. I worked in the city first. But when the town’s veterinarian retired seven years ago and needed someone to take his spot, I came back.” Austin, one of Dallas’s younger brothers and Skylar’s childhood friend, raised a reddish eyebrow at her as he got up from his chair and walked over. His eyes were as shockingly blue as Dallas’s, but his now neatly trimmed hair held a tint of the red Dallas didn’t have. He was leaner than his brothers, and the only one she’d ever seen without a cowboy hat. “Long time no see.”

After breaking up with Dallas, she couldn’t bring herself to talk to his brothers, though they used to be her friends. Even with her girlfriends, she’d fallen apart. Because her girlfriends had kept asking herwhyand she couldn’t answer without revealing too much. Their once-tight group of friends had continued without her.

She swallowed hard and stared at the tile, avoiding looking at Dallas and Austin. Austin and Dallas—yes, Mrs. Laurence hailed from Texas and did homage to her home state by naming two of her boys after its towns. She’d even named one of her other sons “Tex.” “Things... things got messed up. Then I messed them up worse. I–I’ll understand if you hate me. I–I guess I can take the dog to the city. It’s only an hour’s drive.”

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