Page 87 of Second Chance with the Rancher

“She’s inside booking a flight to Toronto right now,” Triss said, coming up to kiss Umber on his long nose. “I’m really sorry it didn’t work out, Nate. Truly.”

Then she was gone from the stall, leaving Umber, Nate and Nate’s broken heart as he fell to the floor of the stall on his knees and the tears started to fall.

If you didn’t know Mieka was a dancer from talking to her, you’d know she was based on the way she expertly danced around Nate for the last seven days. He hardly saw her, and when he did finally catch a glimpse of her, she was on her way out.

He never saw her in the morning, she stayed in the guestroom until he and Asher headed out to the barn to work for the day, then when they came in for dinner, she was quick to head out to the corral to give Hank his dance lessons. And if Nate was still up after dance lessons ended, Mieka and Triss went for a walk, or hung out in Triss’s office.

He hated himself for what he’d done. To not only Mieka, but to himself, his brother and his sister-in-law. It was awkward for everyone and it was his fault.

He and Asher had taken the first batch of guests to the cabins on Monday, so Ray and Mieka rode out to the cabins on the ATVs Friday afternoon—after Nate had returned with the guests on horseback—and they cleaned and set up the cabins again for the next batch of guests who rode out on Saturday. Ray said that they needed to develop a better system, since it was a lot of work for two people to do four cabins in that short amount of time, and also pack out a vacuum and all the laundry.

Nate wished he could talk to Mieka about it all and get her opinion and ideas for improvement, but the woman gave him no room for a conversation, so he was left trying to figure out a way to simplify things himself.

He hated all of this. Every second of it.

And he was the only person to blame.

He’d gone and obliterated not only their romantic relationship, but their friendship, as well, and if he was being honest with himself, he missed not being able to just talk to Mieka about stuff and pick her beautiful brain more than anything. Sure, the sex was phenomenal and he missed that, too, but he missed her friendship, her sense of humor, her cheekiness and intelligence the most.

But he had to go and be stupid and selfish and try to get her to give him more, even though she’d been upfront from the beginning that that wasn’t an option.

Not a night went by where he didn’t lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling reliving that moment in the field on their date where he told her he loved her, and he wished he could just take it all back. Where he kept his mouth shut and just kissed her instead of confessing his true feelings. He’d ruined everything and now so many people were in pain because of it.

It was Saturday morning and even though he knew he couldn’t, all he wanted to do was lay in bed with his self-loathing. She was leaving today.

But the horses and goats weren’t forgiving or understanding when it came to matters of the heart. They wanted their breakfast regardless of Nate’s five-day pity party.

It was almost like the animals knew that something was going on. Macklin was particularly put out this morning, huffing and snuffling more than usual. Nate tried to give the attention-whore horse more attention to settle him, but it didn’t seem to work. Asher was leading the horses out to the fields with Ronny, while Ray, Wes, Braiden and Nate mucked stalls and got the place ready for when the petting farm opened at ten.

Hank’s sister’s wedding had been last night and apparently, he’d brought his sister to tears with his surprise dance skills. He sent them all pictures of him with his sister, a big smile under his bushy red mustache as his sister—beautiful in her white dress—beamed like a Disney princess as he twirled her around the floor. Nate didn’t have to ask whether he sent the same images to Mieka, he knew Hank would have.

“Looks like Hank stole the show at his sister’s wedding yesterday,” Braiden said, returning with an empty wheelbarrow for Nate to shovel shit into.

“Not sure that was his intention, but I think he got the shock-factor he was going for,” Nate replied. “Never seen the big ginger smile that wide before.”

Braiden chuckled. “Yeah, me either. Mieka worked her magic on him, that’s for sure. I was wondering about asking her if she’d teach me, since my sister is getting married next year and I’d love to be able to surprise her, too. But I guess I missed the boat.” His face turned sad, emphasizing the cleft in his chin. “How are you doing with all of that?”

“How do you think?” Nate said, lifting an eyebrow.

“Shitty how it all went down. She’ll be missed for sure.”

“That she will be,” Nate exhaled as he tossed a big pile of manure into the wheelbarrow.

He didn’t know when her flight was, but Triss said Mieka would be leaving at noon. She’d already ordered her cab, even though all of them offered to drive her to the airport. Apparently, she didn’t want to put them out anymore than she already had and wouldn’t hear of taking them away from the busy petting farm.

The woman was honestly one of the most selfless people he’d ever met. No wonder she didn’t want a future with him, not when all he ever did was take and think about himself and his own feelings.

The morning flew by and before any of them knew it, the first guests of the petting farm arrived. The parking lot filled up quickly and the raucous laughter of children and families could be heard all over the ranch.

It was hard to discern the different engines or crunching of gravel beneath tires from that of petting farm patrons or other vehicles, but he knew one of those cars would eventually be the cab to take Mieka to the airport. Nevertheless, he wasn’t prepared for the bright yellow sedan to show itself at precisely noon, pulling up right in front of the house.

The driver got out and lifted his chin at Nate. “Cab for Mieka?”

“Right here,” came her assertive, husky voice as she opened the door of the house and hauled her suitcase behind her. Bruno was hot on her heels, smiling and trotting beside her, completely unaware of what was about to happen.

Triss followed behind her sister, tears in her eyes.

Asher came running up from the barn and stood next to Nate, clapping him on the back, then squeezing his shoulder as a sign of support. They hadn’t talked much about what had happened, Asher figured his wife took care of that. But Asher understood how Nate was feeling and was there for support, even if they didn’t dissect it all which was something Nate appreciated. He extended his empathy to Nate, told him he was there if he wanted to talk, then let the whole thing drop. Nate appreciated that. He didn’t need to rehash his fuck up over and over again. He felt shitty enough about it already and knowing Mieka was so close and yet so far away was punishment enough.

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