Her Last Second Chance

by Liz Isaacson

  The only way he’d been able to get her out of his system was through work. He put his head down and got the job done, and that pushed Sissy into the recesses of his mind, where she belonged.

  That evening, he showered all the llama and horse smells off his body and out of his hair. BrainyGirl had wanted to go out that night, and Dave didn’t have other plans. It had taken her a couple of days to answer him, but he didn’t mind. Their relationship was casual, easy. He’d learned she liked chocolate croissants and staying up late.

  He was more of a morning person, but he would eat anything with chocolate in it—especially Adele’s peanut butter bars. The woman was a genius in the kitchen, and in addition to hanging out with the goats and taking care of over sixty cats, she ran a social media foodie channel. He and the other cowboys were always more than happy to eat her leftovers, and Carson almost always had something with chocolate in it on the workbench in the hay barn.

  Hudson had put a mini fridge out there too, and everyone knew if you needed a snack, you checked the hay barn before going home.

  Dave certainly didn’t have great food at home. His time in the Army and his many years as a bachelor meant he could cook for himself. He just didn’t want to.

  He dressed in clean jeans and a blue T-shirt with the word ARMY across the front in big, blocky letters. It would give him and BrainyGirl something to talk about. Dave didn’t normally have a problem making conversation, especially if the food was good.

  She’d suggested Scooter’s, an upscale bistro he’d eaten at several times over the past year or so. He liked their jalapeno poppers, and their clam chowder was the best in Pasadena. He’d agreed readily, because the service was fast and the place was always busy. That alone would make a bad date just fine, and if things were going well, he’d suggest a walk around the nearby Balboa Park.

  BrainyGirl had said she’d be wearing a red sweater, but there wasn’t a woman in the waiting area wearing anything of the sort. Had she gotten a table already? He was five minutes early, already regretting the choice of restaurants because of the pounding music.

  He couldn’t wait for the silence and tranquility of the outer cabin, the lazy day walking through the pet cemetery.

  And that was when he realized his life had reached a new low. His idea of a good time was wandering through a pet cemetery?

  Please let this date go well, he thought. While he didn’t really want to settle down, the constant revolving door of women was getting tiring. His plan wasn’t working anyway.

  Sissy hadn’t been jealous of any of his dates. She hadn’t even seemed to care. And none of them had helped clear her from his head.

  Maybe BrainyGirl will, he thought. He had a good feeling about her, and he stepped up to the hostess station so he could see into the bistro better.

  “Can I help you?” a woman asked, and he looked right into the eyes of a woman he’d been out with last year.

  A trickle of embarrassment ran through him. “Hailey,” he said. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  She smiled at him, but not in the flirtatious way that had prompted him to ask her out. “It’s only been a couple of months. Let me guess—you’re meeting someone.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Uh…BrainyGirl.”

  Hailey’s eyes widened. “So you don’t know her real name?” The incredulity in her voice caused a passing waitress to pause. “Kirsten, he’s here for BrainyGirl.”

  The blonde looked down to Dave’s boottips and back to his face. “You’re kidding.”

  “I feel like I’m missing something,” Dave said. “Is she here?” He stood taller than the women, but he couldn’t see a flash of red anywhere.

  “He doesn’t know who she is,” Hailey said.

  “Which means she doesn’t know who he is,” Kirsten said. They seemed to have forgotten he stood there.

  “Excuse me,” he said, maybe with a little too much force. Both women startled and looked at him, almost like he was a ghost. “Is she here?”

  The two women exchanged another glance, and then Kirsten said, “Yeah, she’s here. I’ll take you back.”

  Dave followed her, trying to riddle through what had just happened while simultaneously searching the restaurant for that red sweater. He finally saw it, in a booth in the back corner of the farthest room. It was literally the table with the longest walk in and out, but Dave didn’t mind.

  This woman had long, dark hair which curled softly over her shoulders. The sweater was definitely red, and it was sleeveless, revealing tan arms.

  “Right there,” Kirsten said, and Dave stepped past her, his heart beating too fast in his chest.

  As if drawn by his approach, the woman turned to face him.

  He froze, his pulse womping him with the force of gravity. It actually hurt as it radiated through his body.

  “Sissy?” he said.

  The woman who’d been plaguing him for many long years slid to the end of the booth and stood up. She wore a mixture of emotions on her face, ranging from disgust to acceptance to…hope? That couldn’t be right.

  She folded her arms and asked, “You’re CowboyDan?”

  He couldn’t even nod. All he could think was that God certainly had a sick sense of humor.

  Or maybe He was simply trying to shove Dave into the place where he should be. It was a toss-up at this point, especially as Sissy continued to stand there and stare at him, no smile in sight.

  Chapter 3

  Sissy’s heart felt like it would burst from her chest, and she’d be left standing there with a hole in her body.

  CowboyDan was Dave.

  And he hadn’t run away yet. Hadn’t rolled his eyes and headed for the exit. Could she get him to stay? Feeling so unlike herself, which honestly was what she needed to be, she said, “I sure enjoyed talking to you through the app.”

  His eyes widened, and Sissy glanced left and right to see almost everyone in the nearby vicinity looking at them. “Do you want to eat?” She turned back to the booth, praying with every fiber of her soul that when she sat and looked at him, he’d be walking toward her.

  She sat. She looked.

  He’d moved a few steps in her direction. Relief swept through her in powerful waves, the way the ocean pounded into the cliffs in rocky areas.

  “Do you really like this place?” he asked, his voice still in the rude category.

  “I meet a lot of my blind dates here, yes,” she said. “I know the waitresses here, and we watch out for each other.”

  One of the said waitresses—Clara—appeared at their table, her eyes a bit on the wide side. “How are you two? Drinks?”

  “I want iced tea with a lot of lemon,” Sissy said, looking at Dave. A smile sprang to her lips. “He wants Diet Mountain Dew with a lot of ice.” At least he did eighteen years ago. And wow, eighteen years was a long, long time.

  Clara gaped at Dave, who gave her a quick nod and ducked his head completely, obscuring his face behind that sexy cowboy hat.

  Sissy really need to reign in her thoughts before she allowed them to get too far ahead of themselves.

  Clara looked at her, the seconds lengthening, all kinds of questions in her eyes.

  “We need a few minutes,” Sissy said. “I don’t think Dave here likes the food all that much.”

  “Yes, I do,” Dave said, finally looking up as Clara walked away on somewhat wooden legs. Sissy had expressed to her girlfriends that she was extra nervous about tonight’s date. She’d enjoyed her and CowboyDan’s conversations so much, and she worried that they wouldn’t hit it off. Or he’d be arrogant. Rude.

  “You don’t seem to like this place,” she said, unfolding her napkin and laying it over her legs.

  “They have the best clam chowder anywhere,” he said. “It’s just so…loud.” He glanced around as if he could turn down the music with just his eyes.

  “But it’s fast,” she said. “We could go somewhere quieter afterwar
d.” Why she’d suggested that, she didn’t know.

  Dave’s dark eyes sparkled like black gold. He’d probably shaved that morning, but by this late in the day, he looked like he had a week’s worth of growth on his face. She’d always been impressed by his scruff, and she distinctly remembered the feel of it beneath her fingers as she kissed him. The scratch of it along her neck as he kissed her.

  Heat filled her whole body, and she cleared the thoughts from her mind.

  “I like Balboa Park,” he said with a small shrug. “Could take a walk there.”

  “Sure.”

  Clara returned with their drinks and tucked her hands into her apron. “Have you decided?”

  Dave picked up the menu and put it back down. “I want the clam chowder and jalapeno poppers,” he said. “And the surf and turf, medium-rare, please.”

  Clara didn’t write a single thing down. She looked at Sissy, and she had a feeling her phone would blow up before their dinner arrived. “I want the number four.” She handed the menu to Clara, who gasped.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, and Sissy grinned at her. She glanced at Dave as if to tell Clara not to ruin this for her, and then she nodded.

  “I think there’s something I’m missing,” Dave said, picking up his menu again. He looked at the front and back of it. “There’s no numbers on this thing.”

  Clara practically ripped it from his fingers and said, “Coming right up.”

  Sissy sighed, but she wasn’t too terribly annoyed.

  “What in the world is going on?” he asked. “They acted weird when I got here too.”

  “We’re friends,” she said again, unwrapping her straw and putting all of her attention on it to do it. “Maybe I’ve told them about you. And maybe I told them about CowboyDan.”

  Dave was a smart guy, and she started nodding before she finished speaking. “So they were worried about how you’d react when you found out I was CowboyDan.”

  “I’m assuming. I don’t know what they did when you got here.”

  “They looked at me like I was a sea monster,” he said. “Bigfoot. Loch Ness. That kind of thing.”

  She burst out laughing, because her friends could exhibit some major drama from time to time. He smiled and brought his soda closer to him too. “I like that laugh. I’ve missed hearing that.”

  Sissy froze, her eyes locked onto Dave’s. More word vomit pooled in her throat. Could she be as honest with him? Almost like an out of body experience, she reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “I miss you too.”

  He stared at their hands, and she pulled hers back quickly, almost as if his skin had caught on fire. She had no idea what to say now, as she usually filled her first dates with stories of her life, her adventures around the globe, experiences she’d had.

  But it was exactly those things that had taken her away from Dave. Surely he wouldn’t want to hear about them.

  “Tell me about your last tour,” she said, clearing the emotion from her throat.

  “Maybe after you tell me what the number four is.”

  Sissy couldn’t help giggling again. “You really want to know?” She leaned into the table, feeling flirtatious. After all, this wasn’t a stranger. This was David Merrill, the man she’d known so well for so long.

  Yes, time had a way of changing a person. Experiences too. But down deep, he was the same, good man she’d fallen in love with. Could she survive losing him again? Maybe everything would be easier if he went back to ignoring her and she kept looking for someone on Christian Catch.

  “Of course I want to know.”

  “Okay.” She shook her hair back over her shoulders as if gearing up for something difficult. “I come here a lot on dates.”

  “Yeah, I got that part,” he said dryly.

  “Hey, you’ve dated everyone with two X-chromosomes since we came to the ranch.” She lifted her eyebrows as if to say, So there. And Why are you doing that?

  “The number four.” He took a long draw on his straw, and Sissy watched him, her throat turning so very dry.

  “Yes,” she said, blinking to keep her focus where it should be. “So we worked out a system. The number one means I need help getting out of this. Bring me my food quickly and don’t let me linger.”

  “Ouch,” he said.

  “It’s a scale of one to four.” She didn’t need to get into all the details. “A four means I like this guy and I’m having a great time. So don’t rush. Don’t worry. I’ll call you all later.”

  A slow smile spread across Dave’s face. Sissy worried that she’d said too much, too soon. That she was opening herself up to get her most vital organ sliced and diced—or that she’d do that to him again. She didn’t want to be that woman. Didn’t want to be deserving of the glares and the scoffs, the eyerolling and the animosity.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened,” she said, her voice quiet among all the hubbub in the bistro. She suddenly understood what he meant by this place being too loud. She didn’t expand on what she meant, or when that something had happened.

  Dave knew.

  “Did you get to have your adventures?” he asked in an equally quiet voice.

  “Yes.”

  Dave nodded, his smile fading completely. But he didn’t look angry or annoyed. Just…handsome. Contemplative. “I’m glad.”

  An hour later, they strolled through Balboa Park, the late spring sun starting to sink into the ocean in the distance. They’d talked most about the ranch during dinner, and she’d let him buy dessert just to make the date last longer.

  “So I don’t get to hear about the last tour,” she said, not asking.

  Dave took a breath in, held it for a beat, and then released it. “It was a very tough time for me,” he said. “I’ll save it for a different time.” He glanced at her. “The first date doesn’t feel like the time to tell the story.”

  Sissy smiled to herself. “So will there be a second date, Cowboy Dan?”

  He chuckled and wiped his hand across his jaw. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but yeah. I think I’d like to go out with you again.”

  “You don’t go on a lot of second dates, do you?”

  “So you have been watching me.”

  “We work on the same ranch,” she said. “And it might be big acerage-wise, but trust me. The gossip circles are tight.”

  “Can I confess something?”

  “Ooh, confessions on the first date.” She nudged him with her shoulder, but he was so much bigger and wider than her that he barely moved.

  He reached over and carefully, slowly—oh, so slowly—slipped his fingers between hers. “I went on all of those dates to make you jealous. Make you see what a great guy you missed out on.”

  Sissy turned her head and looked at him, holding hands and walking and staring at him difficult to do all at the same time. “Dave, I know what I missed out on.”

  He nodded, swallowed, and kept his eyes straight ahead. “Do you think we have another chance?” he asked, finally looking at her. “For real? Or are we kidding ourselves?”

  She had absolutely no idea. So she told him that, thinking, But if there’s one person I’d like to navigate the second chance road with, it’s him.

  Fear pinched her behind the heart, but she didn’t let go of his hand. He took her back to the bistro, but she didn’t get behind the wheel of her car. Darkness was falling, but there were still plenty of people eating.

  Sissy didn’t care. She needed to talk to all the girls about tonight, and she nodded to Hailey and Kirsten, and they’d get Clara. “Lots of Diet Coke,” she said as she went past them, back to the corner booth.

  Her stomach felt like someone had poured popping candy down her throat, and she didn’t even try to suppress the happy sigh that leaked out of her mouth as she sat down.

  “Girl,” Kirsten said, only two steps behind her. “Start talking.”

  “Not until Clara gets here,” Hailey said. “And she doesn’t like it when you call her
girl.”

  Sissy laughed, because no, she didn’t. She was forty-three-years-old, for goodness sake. But tonight, she didn’t think there was anything that could knock her off cloud nine.

  Clara arrived a minute later, four glasses of dark brown soda in her hands. “I have ten minutes,” she said, throwing down straws and sliding into the booth. “Talk fast.”

  Chapter 4

  Dave woke the next morning with the feel of Sissy’s hand in his. He had for quite a while after she’d broken up with him last time.

  “Can this time really be different?” he asked, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. “And if not, why’d you let me connect with her on that app?”

  God didn’t answer him, and Dave got up and got ready for the day. There was always something that needed to be done on the ranch, rain or shine. Healthy or sick. Great first date or a bad one.

  It was actually something that spoke to Dave’s soul. He’d much rather be busy than idle, and the cowboy life was perfect for a man like him.

  “C’mon, Stella,” he said to his rescue dog. “Let’s go see if Gramps has anything for you today.” His pup came with him, but he easily outpaced the older animal. She was a mixed breed found on the streets in LA, and she had bad hips. But she panted along behind him, finally catching him when they reached the grass at the homestead.

  “He’s on the porch, girl. Go say hello.” He lifted his hand in greeting to Gramps, who waved back. When he arrived on the porch, Stella was chomping on something Gramps had given her.

  “Morning, Gramps,” he said, sitting in the second chair on the porch. He didn’t come every morning. Sometimes they only spoke a few words to each other before Dave went off to get his chores done.

  Every evening, he found Stella on Gramps’s porch, whether the old man was there or not. Sometimes Dave let Gramps keep her overnight.

  “Mornin’,” Gramps said.

  “Good or bad today?” Dave asked.

  “Pretty good.” He stroked Stella absently, his eyes on the road in front of them, to the left, toward the entrance of the ranch. “Sawyer and Jeri are bringin’ that baby home today.”