Page 14 of Second Chance with the Rancher

He took another puff on his pen, blew out the smoke, then before he could stop himself, the words were coming out. “About that night.”

Her head jerked up and those gold-flecked brown eyes bore right through him until they hit bone.

Fuck. He was an idiot.

“What about it?” she asked slowly, her gaze sharp but guarded.

He swallowed. “Are you uh… are you okay after that?”

She scoffed and her top lip curled up in derision. “We had one night, Nate. Don’t read too much into it. I’m not broken-hearted if that’s what you’re worried about. We had one fun, drunk, sloppy night. We were stupid and didn’t use protection. That resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. Which we—I dealt with—I’m fine. No regrets.”

“How drunk were you that night?” he asked carefully. He’d been super drunk, but now that he thought about it, what if she’d been too drunk to properly consent? Had he taken advantage of her? He didn’t think he had, but things from that night were still a little fuzzy.

“Blottoed. Why?” She took the pen back from him, took another puff, not as big of one this time, held in the smoke for a moment, then blew it out into the middle of the barn before moving to the next horse, Princess Sparkle Glitter Fairy Blossom. She was another horse they boarded for a family and their daughter had renamed the horse when they got the mare. Their daughter had been six. She was now eleven and simply called the horse Princess, thank fuck.

Worry spun through him. “Did I … did I take advantage? I thought it was consensual.”

She rolled her pretty brown eyes. “It was. You didn’t take advantage. Just because I was forget-my-own-phone-number drunk, does not mean I was not one million percent on board with you sticking your dick in me. We flirted and shot fucky-eyes at each other for days before we finally acted on it. It was inevitable. Do I wish I hadn’t been so drunk? Sure. It took me forever to get off. I had whiskey-clit something fierce.”

“Oh, I remember. I thought my balls were going to fall off from how long I had to hold off.”

“I told you to come.”

“A woman always comes first. You’re not a gentleman if you come before your partner. Leaving her to ride a softening dick is the lowest of the low.”

She snorted. “Do gentlemen also stick their fingers in the ass of women they fuck for the first time?”

“If the woman agrees to it—which you did, right?—and it gets her off faster—which it did.”

“Touché.” She smirked, then her expression sobered. “I did agree to it, and you didn’t take advantage of me, Nate. I swear it. But it was just one night. And if you’re wondering if I regret the abortion, I don’t. You’re a great guy, but a baby was not in the cards for us. I was still dancing—I wasn’t a shriveled up old crone like I am now—and you have your life here. As hot as you are, and as hot as that night was, it was an unwanted clump of cells that I was in no way prepared to gestate and raise. It wouldn’t have made sense.”

No, it wouldn’t have, but that didn’t stop him from wondering what would have been if things had been different.

He’d never begrudged her decision, and in reality, it was the right choice. It was her choice. He was over forty and with a good job, plenty of land and love to give, so a small part of him hurt that the clump of cells they made together hadn’t grown into more, no matter how much he didn’t want it to.

He also took note of the fact that she was using the past tense. A baby was not in the cards for them. It wouldn’t have made sense.

Was she thinking differently now? Or was she speaking her weird stoned speech again?

Did she come here for more than just commiseration with her sister and to sort out the next chapter of her life? She had four other sisters, what made her choose to visit Triss as opposed to Oona in Montreal or Rayma and Pasha in Victoria? Why Triss?

A tremor of excitement shot through him at the idea that she didn’t just come here to visit Triss, but she also came here for him. That even though she kept telling herself that it’d been just one night, deep down she knew they had a connection. She knew that it might have been just one night at the time, but it was more than that now. Or at least, it had the possibility of being more than that.

Bruno barked and came trotting through the barn. The dog slept where ever he pleased. He had beds in the house, in the barn, and sometimes during the summer when it got particularly warm, he just crashed on the wrap-around porch outside. He knew not to go onto the road and to stay on the property, and he could hear Asher or Nate whistle for him from over a mile away.

The arrival of Bruno seemed to break the tension that had grown tighter than a harp’s cord between them. He bent down and scratched the dog’s ears as Mieka moved on to the next horse, Tiberius, which was the horse Asher bought for himself after Dare passed away.

He was probably destroying any chance they had of rekindling anything, but the curiosity and concern for her well-being burned too hot inside of him to ignore. “And you’re okay after … after the procedure?”

“You mean after the abortion?”

He nodded.

“Say the word, Nate. It’s not a bad word.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re okay after the abortion?”

“I am, thank you.” Her eyes held his. “And I’m not sure if I said it at the time, but, thank you for coming and being with me when it happened. You didn’t have to.”

---