by Liz Isaacson
“Hey, Lola,” Sissy said, her voice staying steady and strong.
“Hey, guys,” she said from the bed. She wasn’t holding the infant girl, and she looked into the plastic bin beside her bed.
Dave couldn’t look away from the perfect baby there, swaddled in a white blanket with pink flowers on it. She wore a pale pink hat that contrasted with her dark skin, her eyes pressed closed as she slept.
His heart grew and filled with love. Once, twice, over and over again.
“Can I pick her up?” Sissy asked.
“Of course,” Lola said, a tentative smile on her face. “Did you decide on a name?”
Sissy didn’t answer as she scooped the little girl into her arms. She faced Dave wearing a smile so big, it filled her whole being. He couldn’t help but smile back at her, his eyes filling with tears.
“Evelyn,” he managed to say. “It was my grandmother’s name.”
“That’s beautiful,” Lola said, watching Sissy and the baby. “I let them know you were coming. All the paperwork is ready.”
Gratitude and love moved through him again. “Thank you, Lola.” He stepped over to the bed and bent down to hug her. They’d met her several times over the months, and he’d always liked her. But this was a different feeling. She was giving them something they couldn’t get on their own. Her sacrifice was not lost on him, and as her tears made his shirt wet, he kept his arms around her.
“Take good care of her,” she said, her voice choked.
“We will,” he promised. “And it’s open, Lola. You can come see her any time you want.”
“Any time,” Sissy said, her tears streaming down her face. She passed the infant girl to Dave, who marveled at her perfection. She snuggled right into his chest, and he couldn’t stop the tear that slid down his cheek.
Sissy too embraced Lola, and he held Evelyn out to her so she could give her biological daughter one last kiss before they left.
Everything happened so fast after that. Dave carried the baby as they went down the hall to the office where the adoption counselor waited for them. Papers were signed, and Sissy carried Evelyn out to the car and lovingly strapped her into the car seat they’d picked out together a couple of weekends ago.
Back in the car, Dave felt completely different. He looked at Sissy, realizing that this was definitely the happiest he’d ever been. “Well.”
“We have a baby,” she whispered, glancing in the back seat.
“We sure do,” he said, leaning over to kiss her.
She cradled his face in both her hands, making him feel cherished and adored. “I love you, Dave.”
“I love you too, Sissy.”
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Sneak Peek! Her Last Secret Sweetheart Chapter One
Cache Bryant sat on the front steps of his cabin, his acoustic guitar across his lap as he watched the sun rise in front of him. The golden rays filled his soul with light and peace, and he loved this time of the morning.
Before dawn, he didn’t have to worry about his tasks for today. He didn’t worry about the bills he had to pay, or the cows he had to train, or the woman he wanted to impress.
Cache enjoyed the moment while he could, because he had a lot to do today. Scarlett, the owner of Last Chance Ranch, had been hounding him about getting the cow cuddling up and running. She simply had no idea how much it took to make a bovine lay down and be petted. It wasn’t natural for cows, though Cache had found that they liked it.
But cows were stubborn, and the training had taken longer than he’d anticipated. Than anyone had anticipated.
As they were wont to do, his thoughts wandered first to his family’s dairy farm in Nevada. They’d lost it a couple of years ago, and Cache had come further west to Last Chance Ranch while his brother and father had gone east to Shiloh Ridge in Colorado.
Maybe he just needed to go visit them. Get a change of scenery for a few days. He wasn’t sure, but the funk he’d fallen into recently seemed to be plaguing him for longer than usual.
He liked his job here at Last Chance Ranch. He did. He loved the people, though he was feeling particularly lonely now that Sawyer was married and Dave had started dating Sissy. Cache felt like so much of his life had passed him by, while he watched the sun rise and milked cows.
But it was his life, and he actually enjoyed it—most of the time.
He sighed as he got to his feet. After taking his guitar inside and propping it in the corner against the coat closet, he grabbed his work gloves from the end table near the couch and headed out.
“Mornin’,” Dave said as he moved down his front steps too, and Cache smiled at him.
“Yep, it’s morning again,” Cache said. They started down the road together, though Dave sometimes drove his truck down to the stables where he worked. Cache had jobs all over the ranch, but he worked on the south side of the ranch, with the bigger animals. Horses, llamas, and pigs. Oh, and his dairy cows.
Last Chance Ranch wasn’t really set up to be a dairy operation, and his cows’ milk had dried up a while ago. They grazed, and lowed at the chickens that got out of their coops, and hopefully, Cache could start getting people into the pasture for the cuddling.
“How are the cows doing?” Dave asked, and it seemed that was all anyone asked Cache.
“Great,” he said. “How’s the new dog?”
A smile spread across Dave’s face. “Awesome. I might get another one.”
“They’re all over anyway,” Cache said, smiling. A couple of cars turned onto the road behind them, and Cache moved to the side. “Goat yoga this morning.”
“I don’t understand it,” Dave said.
“Yeah.” Cache said nothing about the cuddling. Until they were ready to launch to program, Scarlett had sworn him to secrecy. She wouldn’t even tell Karla, the ranch’s marketing director, and surely she’d need time to put together something for the announcement of the program.
Cache wasn’t sure. What he knew was limited, only what he could glean from a couple of articles online about a farm in New England. Connecticut, if he remembered right. If there were other farms or ranches picking up on the idea, he hadn’t heard of them.
“Band practice Friday?” Dave asked.
“Yeah,” Cache said, wishing he had a date on Friday night. He could ask someone, he knew. Plenty of women came to the ranch each day, from volunteers to regular employees like the new veterinarian technician Scarlett had hired a few months ago.
“Got any new songs?” Dave asked, and Cache finally started to feel more like himself.
“Yeah,” he said. “And Sawyer’s said he’ll have one too. Apparently, being awake in the middle of the night with a baby has helped his creativity.”
Dave chuckled with Cache. “Yeah, I bet.”
“Cute baby they brought home,” Cache said.
“Totally,” Dave said, keeping his gaze down the road as they passed in front of the homestead.
“I’ll see you later,” Cache said, detouring to the right while Dave kept going. The administration building was down that way, and Dave had taken to stopping by that building in the morning since he’d started seeing Sissy more often.
Cache hadn’t asked him specifically about her, but Dave had been in an increasingly good mood the past month or so, and Sissy had been the only thing in his life that had changed. Cache could put two and two together.
He cleaned out the watering troughs for the llamas and refilled them, enjoying the crisp start to the day. He took a deep breath and got to work cleaning out a couple of stalls in the llama barn. They had three pregnant llamas right now, and they liked to bed down in the barn at night. He’d taken on the duty of making sure their s
talls were perfectly clean for them, and he couldn’t wait to see the baby llamas.
Everything about a living, breathing, working ranch enthralled him, and always had. He loved the circle of life, even when sometimes he lost a horse or a cow or a dog.
The chores done with the llamas for now, he headed back toward the homestead, where his ninety-six dairy cows were housed in a huge field across the stretch from the cabins that bordered the back yard of the homestead.
He couldn’t help glancing to the row of cabins there. Gramps lived in the end one, and Cache loved the old man as if he were his own grandfather. Adele and Carson lived in the one in the middle, and Karla Jenkins lived in the third.
Karla Jenkins.
The woman Cache had been trying to impress for a while now. He’d invited her to the Halloween carnival eight months ago so she could see his band. She’d come, and she’d clapped and laughed along with everyone else.
But she hadn’t gushed over him the way the girls did to Dave. Cache could sing too, but his first love was the guitar. His second was these insufferable cows, and he jumped over the fence to join them in the pasture.
He whistled at them as if they were dogs, and several turned toward him. “Cookie. Daisy. Come on, girls.”
Some of the cows he’d named and could tell them one from another. Only about eight or nine of them, the ones he’d been working with tirelessly to get them to lay down on command.
His cows lumbered toward him, all but two who stayed stubbornly out in the field a ways. He didn’t whistle again, as he’d been working for months to get Jenny and Flower to lie down and stay there.
He went to them instead, starting to talk to them the closer he got. “What’s going on with you two?” he asked. “Are you sick?”
His other cuddlers came with him, their footsteps heavy in the grass. He avoided a spot of cow manure, asking, “Flower, what are you doing?” He reached the cow and ran his hand down her side. She didn’t seem to be bloated.
“What—?” It was then that he saw the sandy blonde hair of a woman curled into the cow’s chest.
Karla Jenkins herself tilted her head back and looked up at him. A smile sprang to her face, and she looked like a bright ray of heaven. “Morning.”
“Good morning,” he said, glad it was a natural reaction and he didn’t have to think to do it. Karla Jenkins, out in his cow pasture, cuddling his cows. He had no idea what to make of it.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, staring openly at her. She’d been in his dreams for months, and yet she’d never really indicated that she was interested in him at all.
“Scarlett told me you were training your cows for a cuddling thing,” she said. “I thought I’d try it. Is this how it’s done?”
Cache wanted to blurt that her cuddling into Flower’s side was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen. Instead, he just nodded. “They’ve only had me to practice with,” he said.
“I’m happy to volunteer as a test subject,” she said.
“You could get kicked.”
She smiled at him again. “Oh, I don’t think so. This cow is nothing but a sweetheart.” She patted Flower’s ribcage.
Cache chuckled, some of the awkwardness between him and Karla leaking away. It didn’t seem fair, though, that she had to be here, looking so soft and lovely and cuddling with his cow.
Maybe he could just ask her to dinner. He’d never really come out and asked. Maybe he was absolutely terrible at flirting and needed to be more forthright.
“Cache,” she said, and he blinked himself back into focusing on her.
“Yeah?”
She stood up and brushed dirt and grass from her clothes. She wore a pair of khaki shorts and a cute T-shirt with lemons on it. “I didn’t mean to step on your toes.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “I was just surprised. Scarlett didn’t want anyone to know about the cow cuddling.”
Karla ran her fingers through her hair, driving Cache toward the brink of madness.
“You wouldn’t want to…I don’t know. Go to dinner with me. Would you?” Cache swallowed, and he swore Flower sighed as if to say, Oh, buddy, bad idea.
Karla blinked, shock traveling across her face in slow waves. “Dinner?”
“Yeah, dinner,” Cache said boldly, refusing to look away. No more games. No more dancing around this woman at the meals she cooked for the whole ranch.
The longer she stood there and stared at him, framed by his lounging cows, the stupider Cache felt. Was she going to say anything? He’d even take a no at this point. At least then he’d know.
Still, she said nothing.
Oh, poor Cache! What is Karla going to say?
You can preorder HER LAST SECRET SWEETHEART by tapping here. Coming May 9.
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Read More by Liz Isaacson
Want to stay at Last Chance Ranch? Great! Preorder HER LAST SECRET SWEETHEART. which features Cache and Karla as they try to keep their relationship in the shadows at Last Chance Ranch.
Love cowboys who can sing and play the guitar? I’ve got you covered for all of the above! Read FALLING FOR HIS NANNY, Book 4 in the Horseshoe Home Ranch Romance series.
Love small town western romance? Journey from sunny California to cold Montana and meet the cowboys at Horseshoe Home Ranch. Start with FALLING FOR THE BOSS.
Want a short, evening read featuring former rodeo stars? Read A WEDDING FOR THE WIDOWER tonight!
About Liz
Liz Isaacson is the author of the #1 bestselling Three Rivers Ranch Romance series, the #1 bestselling Gold Valley Romance series, the Brush Creek Brides series, the USA Today bestselling Steeple Ridge Romance series (Buttars Brothers novels), the Grape Seed Falls Romance series, the Christmas in Coral Canyon Romance series, and the Last Chance Ranch Romance series.
She writes inspirational romance, usually set in Texas and Montana, or anywhere else horses and cowboys exist. She lives in Utah, where she teaches elementary school, taxis her daughter to dance several times a week, and eats a lot of Ferrero Rocher while writing.
Learn more about all her books here. Find her on Facebook, twitter, and her website.
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HER LAST SECOND CHANCE
Book Four in the Last Chance Ranch Romance series
by Liz Isaacson
Copyright © 2019 by Elana Johnson, writing as Liz Isaacson
Published by AEJ Creative Works
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover by Victorine E. Lieske
Interior Design by AEJ Creative Works
ive.