Page 99 of The Last Second Chance
He surveyed the barn, looking for the ideal spot. He settled on the small storage room off the main door. It had a handful of small windows that looked out on the snow and it was far enough away from Clementine’s stall that she wouldn’t ruin the moment.
In the farmhouse he pulled the quilt off of his bed and gathered some floor pillows from the great room. He tweaked the set up on the barn floor, angling the quilt this way and that for effect until he was satisfied. Then it was back to the house to forage for a lunch that didn’t look thrown together.
It wasn’t easy in a household of vegetarians. But Jax raided his own lunchmeat stash and built a pair of sandwiches that would make a deli proud. He wrapped up dill pickles and stole two of the single serve bags of chips that Summer rationed for herself. Dessert was difficult. There was no ice cream in the freezer and if he wanted baked goods, he’d have to sneak into Joey’s cookie jar. Finally, he spotted Oreos in the back of the pantry and filled a sandwich bag with them.
He found a bottle of champagne that Carter had tucked away after Beckett and Gia’s wedding in the wine cooler. Jax grabbed two champagne flutes and threw everything into a cardboard box he found upstairs and headed back across the yard to the barn. The mound of snow next to the door made a convenient champagne ice bucket so he screwed the bottle into the drift up to its neck and left the glasses sitting on the window’s ledge.
Back inside, he unloaded his haul and neatly laid sandwiches on plates and accessorized with chips, pickles, and Oreos.
He folded the paper towels he’d brought as napkins and tucked them under each plate. The whole scene looked cozy and romantic. Even Joey wouldn’t be able to resist, he thought with a satisfied nod.
He took the Jeep over to the stables and found Joey picking the hooves of a freshly groomed pony on the crossties in the stable aisle. Jax loved watching her when she worked. Every move was competent, efficient. No energy was wasted. She moved with a precision and a purpose that made horses and people fall in line to keep up. It was obvious that her heart was here, too.
She never skimped on the care of her horses, never let anyone else give a sub-par effort there either. It was one of the reasons her riding lesson program had grown so quickly. She had a way of impressing the importance of care and discipline, while still preserving the wonder of what it felt like to ride and be in tune with a mount.
“Good boy, Roscoe,” she said, patting the pony’s neck. “Everything healed up nicely.”
“Thrush?” Jax asked.
Surprised by his presence, Joey glanced up. “Nope. A sole bruise. But everything looks good now.”
“Good. Are you hungry?”
Joey frowned. “What time is it?”
“Almost three. I thought we could break for a late lunch.”
“Sounds good. I’ve got chili leftovers at the house,” she offered.
He shook his head. “I took the liberty of arranging lunch for us.”
Joey raised her eyebrows. “Well, aren’t you thoughtful? Let me put Roscoe here back in his stall and I’ll be ready. Where are we eating?”
“I thought we’d do a little farm to table in the barn.”
“That sounds…odd.”
Jax grinned at his practical girl.
They bumped along the snowy drive from stables to farm, pausing briefly to note that the plows hadn’t yet come through on the road.
“We could be snowed in for days,” Joey said, sliding out of the passenger seat.
Jax led the way to the barn door. “I wouldn’t mind.
“The only downside is Carter and Summer can’t come back and pick up the slack. Summer already texted me four times asking me to go into her office just to check this and check that.”
“She’s probably driven the guest editor insane by now and that’s why she’s coming to you,” Jax predicted, he pulled the bottle of champagne out of the snow.
“The thought had crossed my mind. Just exactly what kind of lunch are we having here?” Joey asked suspiciously.
“A blizzard picnic,” he said, twisting the cork until it popped free.
He plucked the flutes off of the windowsill and filled them with the festive liquid.
“To blizzards,” he toasted.
“To blizzards,” Joey echoed, raising the glass to her lips.
