Last Chance Reunion

Chapter 3

David Merrill had drawn the way short stick when he’d been assigned to take Gray Lennox around the ranch. He hated the tours in general, but this guy was a real piece of work. He’d flirted with every woman he’d come in contact with, making Dave—who’d been out with fifteen women in the past two years—seem like he never got off the ranch.

As he sweated beneath his cowboy hat, Gray sauntered along next to him. “Does she have a boyfriend?”

Dave employed all of his patience. “Not that I’m aware of.”

“She and I, we did go out,” Gray said, as if Dave had challenged him on the point.

“Congratulations,” Dave said, unwilling to get into a game of who was better between the two of them. Dave had dated Sissy for eight months before asking her to marry him. She’d cried and kissed him, and he could still feel the way she fit perfectly in his arms.

The anger he carried wasn’t healthy, and he knew it. It had been a very long time, and while he’d gotten over Sissy, moved on, dated other people, he’d never gotten married. Never asked another woman to marry him.

And he’d lost serious girlfriends because of it. Two of them had actually accused him of having commitment issues, which he supposed he did.

On their way to Horse Heaven, he pulled out his phone and messaged BrainyGirl, the woman he’d been messaging through the Christian dating app he’d found about a month ago. Not that Dave had trouble getting a date. He’d been out with over a dozen women, most of them from right here at Last Chance Ranch.

He wasn’t looking for serious. He had band practice a couple of times a week, and he wanted to be social in the evenings. It wasn’t a crime to ask a woman to dinner or a movie, have someone to spend his down time with.

He didn’t hold hands with everyone, and he hadn’t kissed any of the last several women he’d been out with.

When he’d first come to Last Chance Ranch, he’d told Sawyer he didn’t want to be set up, and he was fine on his own. Both were true. He had no problem getting his own dates, and he simply didn’t want to get married.

Even if the bride were Sissy?

Even if the bride were Sissy?But the bride will never be Sissy, he argued with himself. So it’s a moot point.

But the bride will never be Sissy, So it’s a moot point.“Do you think I could ask her out again?” Gray asked.

“Sissy?” Dave scoffed, his thumbs flying over the screen to make plans with BrainyGirl. “I don’t know why you’d want to, but sure. Ask her out.”

“You don’t like her?”

“It’s…she’s fine,” he said, unwilling to say anything too negative about her. “She’s not my type, but hey, if you like her, by all means, ask her out.” Just the thought of Sissy going out with Gray made his blood boil, and he had no right to feel that way.

She’d made it quite clear how she felt about him, breaking their relationship right in half, even though she’d cried. Then she’d left town, and Dave had to find out through a mutual friend that she’d gone right back to the boyfriend she’d had before they’d started dating.

That had hurt the most. He’d wanted to march right to her house, pound on the door, and demand to know what she was thinking. But he’d been stationed in Virginia at the time, and that was a long way from California.

He finished making his date with the woman he’d been getting to know online, hoping she’d be as charming in real life as she was on the screen.

“There you are,” Hudson said, and Dave shoved his phone in his back pocket. “You must be Gray.”

“Hudson Flannigan,” Dave said. “He’s the foreman over Horse Heaven.”

“Dave’s over the llamas,” Hudson said. “He tell you that?”

“We haven’t made it to LlamaLand yet,” Dave said.

“And he’s a bit sore he didn’t get the dogs.” Hudson grinned at Dave like it was so funny he’d wanted Canine Club and had lost the game of rock, paper, scissors to Cache. The man already had his hands full with the cattle, and Dave got assigned as second-in-command over the canines. So it was still acceptable to him.

Lance Longcomb was foreman over Piggy Paradise, and Adele had domain over Feline Frenzy. Amber Haws ran the volunteer programs, as well as did goat yoga. But Adele’s husband, Carson took care of the goats in the Goat Grounds.

Sawyer and Jeri took care of the chickens, and Sawyer worked wherever Hudson needed him most. Dave got him a lot of the time in LlamaLand, and he really liked Sawyer. He and Jeri were off the ranch for a few days while they went down to a hospital in Los Angeles to pick up the baby boy they were adopting.

“I need someone out at the cemetery later this week,” Hudson said, glancing between Dave and Gray.

“I’ll do it,” Dave said, because Gray couldn’t go off on his own so soon. Not only that, but Dave loved going out to the remote cabin about an hour’s ride from the epicenter of the ranch. He liked laying on his back as the stars came to life, and he liked walking through the pet cemetery and thinking about the people who’d buried their pets at Last Chance Ranch.

“I just need a report by Monday,” he said. “I want at least two sections mapped.”

“Yes, sir,” Dave said, though Hudson hated being called sir. Maybe he shouldn’t bark so many orders, the way Dave’s military sergeants did, and he grinned at Hudson, who rolled his eyes.

“Gray, you’ll be with the chickens until Sawyer and Jeri get back.” Hudson looked down at the clipboard in his hand. “Karla will have lunch today, and Dave, Gramps wants you to bring your new dog by for a visit.” Hudson looked up. “We’re moving horses from pasture six to pasture three today, and then Dave, you’re free to LlamaLand.”

Dave nodded and pulled on a pair of leather gloves. “How many horses?”

“Sixteen.” Hudson turned and hung the clipboard on the nail by the door before putting on his own gloves. “Where are you from, Gray?”

“Marietta,” he said. “It’s inland a bit. Nice place.”

Dave listened with one ear, wondering when Sissy had been in Southern California, an hour from the beach. That didn’t sound like her at all, but Dave supposed he didn’t know who she was anymore. Nearly two decades had passed since their romance, and a keen sense of missing pounded through his bloodstream he wished wouldn’t.

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.

couldHe 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 jalapeño 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.

Please let this date go wellSissy 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.

Maybe BrainyGirl will“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 whacking 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.