The Ranch (A Second Chance Romance)

Poppy’s sweet and sleepy smile turned into a big yawn. “Good morning. I, um, I slept in a little later than I meant to.”

Nolan followed right behind her. “We all did, babe.”

“Speak for yourself.” I turned back in time to check the breakfast, and add more of everything to the pans. “How do you like your eggs, Poppy? Hopefully scrambled? I can try for sunny side up, but no promises.”

“Scrambled will be perfect,” she laughed. “And I’d kill for some coffee, even that diabolical stuff you drink and pretend like it is coffee.”

“No need to kill,” Nolan grinned as he fetched two mugs from the cabinet. “I’ve got you covered.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw her watching the two of us busily moving around the kitchen. “Just imagine, if you lived here, you’d get breakfast and cowboy coffee made for you every morning.”

Not that something as small as that would sway her decision, but it never hurt to put the information out there into the universe, right?

“You make a persuasive case.” She tossed me a wink as Nolan carried her coffee over to her, and I started heaping eggs onto a plate. “And I can’t pretend I haven’t thought about it. Or dreamed about breakfast with you two hunky cowboys.”

Nolan sat down next to her and reached over to squeeze her hand. “That’s a good start, though, right? A good sign, at least? If you’re seriously considering staying here with us.”

I bit my tongue and kept my mouth shut while I waited for what she had to say. If I started voicing my opinion, I would only end up pressuring her into doing—or at least considering things she wasn’t ready to commit to.

But if Nolan wanted to bring it up, that was completely fine with me.

“Well...” She paused and cleared her throat, apparently choosing her words carefully. “To be fair, I’ve thought about it a lot over the past few years.” She looked from me to Nolan, as I brought the plates over and set them down on the table before taking a seat. “Some years more than others, I guess.”

A wry laugh escaped my throat.

“I’d like to. This is one of the times when there’s more of an urge than some of the others.”

And I already knew she was serious. She’d been giving our situation a lot of thought over the past twenty-four hours or so. But I also feared we hadn’t gotten any closer to bridging the final few gaps between us than the night before.

Which, unfortunately, were some pretty big gaps.

She fixed me with an earnest look. “This is the closest I’ve been to making such a huge decision since I moved away to Los Angeles.”

I waited for a beat. “But...”

Nolan made eye contact with me, and I could tell he wanted me to back off a little, but I didn’t feel like I should. Or could. I worried if we didn’t work this out sooner rather than later, we’d all end up going on pretending like no time had passed at all and like nothing would ever come between us again. And that wasn’t the reality we lived in.

Not at the moment, anyway.

Poppy finished taking a bite and set her fork down. “I thought we weren’t going to decide anything for sure yet.”

“We aren’t,” Nolan said, giving me another of those forbidding glares. “We aren’t trying to pressure you into anything you’re not ready for. Are we, Coop?”

I didn’t answer right away because my impatience had begun to get the best of me. I didn’t want to sound harsh or pissed or unwilling to compromise when the truth was that I still considered myself too damn lucky that Poppy entertained my dream of returning home for good and living with us.

But I’d never been great at keeping my thoughts to myself, especially over something as important as this. Nolan and Poppy both knew that. They understood me better than anyone else on the planet.

So it wasn’t exactly fair for either of them to expect me to sit back and shut up now, just because we had a difficult topic to talk about.

“No,” I finally answered. “I ain’t trying to rush you or push anyone into doing anything at all.”

This time it was Poppy’s turn to ask, “But?”

And she was right. There was a “but.” A big one.

“But I ain’t gonna be this fun thing you do on the side, either. I want you, Poppy. I want to be with you. Nolan and I both want that. I also want to tell everyone who will listen that we didn’t steal those SAT papers when we were in the proctor’s office together. Admitting the truth is the only way we’re going to clear your name, and I would do it right now—right this minute—if you’d let me.”