Second Chance Cowboy

He’d had a great time tonight. That alone worried him. He’d signed up for the dating service on a whim. Once he’d met Arlene, he hadn’t wanted to meet any other women. He wasn’t even sure he was ready to date. It felt too dangerous. But he’d asked Arlene out. And he couldn’t say he was sorry. Just worried.

There were some things that were inescapable. Guilt. Regret. And his old life. It dwarfed the other two in comparison.

That was the reason he never bothered to lock his house. He knew from experience how easy it was to get into any house, even those with expensive security systems. He had bought the ranch from a corporation that had used the house for conferences.

Because of that, the place was way too large for him. But he’d fallen in love with the view of the Little Rockies and he’d told himself that with all the land surrounding the place he would be as safe here as anywhere.

As he stepped into the house, he found himself whistling. He couldn’t remember a night he’d enjoyed more. Arlene was a fun date—once she relaxed.

They’d had dinner, then gone to the movie—the only one in Whitehorse. A comedy had been showing. That was something else he had in common with Arlene—the way they laughed.

“You bray like a donkey,” Bitsy had told him when they’d first gotten together. “You really need to do something about that.”

He’d quit laughing around her.

During the movie, he’d found himself simply enjoying the sound of Arlene’s laugh. It had felt so good, so natural.

Later, he’d thought about kissing her good-night but had chickened out. Coward. The desire had been there. He’d told himself he was just afraid of scaring her off. Clearly this dating thing was as alien to her as it was to him.

But he knew that he was the one who wanted to take it slow. That was another thing they shared—the feeling that when things were going too well, something was bound to happen to jinx it.

As he passed his office, he saw that the message light on his answering machine was flashing. He preferred an answering machine with small disposable tapes over voice mail. Just as he’d always periodically checked his house and car for listening devices. Even here on the ranch in Montana.

He would have liked to believe he’d dropped off his former associates’ radar. But he’d worked for the agency too long to pretend that was even possible.

Still, as he pushed the play button, he was startled to hear a familiar voice.

“Hank, it’s Cameron. Call me. We need to catch up. It’s been too long.”

He stared down at the machine, shaken. By the unexpected sound of his old friend and former boss’s voice as much as by the calmness of the words—and the underlying threat. Code words. They brought it all back, and for a moment it was as if he’d never left the agency.

He didn’t need to replay the message. He quickly deleted it, knowing it was futile to think that would be the end of it. The words echoed in his head. Code words that informed him there’s been a breach in security. He was in danger.

ARLENE EVANS WOKE smiling. That alone shocked her. Normally the blare of Bo’s music down the hall or the sound of Charlotte clamoring around in the kitchen started her day off wrong.

But this morning, after her date with Hank Monroe, nothing could ruin her good mood. They’d had a nice dinner. He’d been easy to talk to. The movie had been enjoyable. They’d stood out in the moonlight and talked afterward.

She been afraid he’d kiss her. And afraid he wouldn’t. He didn’t. But he’d asked her out again. She felt like a schoolgirl.

Just the thought seemed…foolish. She was too old to be having these feelings. Especially the ones Hank Monroe had sparked with just the brush of his fingers when they’d both reached for the popcorn at the same time. Or when he’d put his arm around her. Or touched her back with the palm of his hand as they’d left the theater. Desire after all these years of feeling nothing?

She rose and dressed, wrapped in the memory of the night before and the prospect of another date tonight. He’d also invited her to the county fair this coming weekend—his first county fair, he’d said.

She hadn’t told him, but she planned to enter in the baking division and almost always took blue ribbons. It was the one thing she excelled in, and normally she would be a nervous wreck worrying that she might not win this year. That she’d lost her touch.

But Hank Monroe had taken her mind off the fair this year.

Which, she reminded herself sternly, wasn’t good. Baking lasted. Men didn’t. “Stick to what you’re good at,” her mother had always said. “It’s little enough.”

Arlene felt her smile slip. She was making too much of one date with the man. Getting her hopes up was always a mistake.

She’d learned that the hard way, she thought, remembering high school dates that never showed while she waited by the window and her mother berated her for opening herself up to that kind of humiliation.

By the time Arlene reached the kitchen, she was no longer smiling. She yelled down the hall for Bo to turn down the music. He didn’t. She started to tell Charlotte to go down the hall and tell him when she noticed her daughter wasn’t lying on the couch, where she usually was this time of the morning. Nor was the television on or the kitchen counter a mess from where Charlotte had made herself a snack before breakfast.

More puzzled than worried, Arlene walked down the hall to her daughter’s bedroom and pushed open the door. The bed was just as it had been when Arlene made it the previous morning.

Charlotte hadn’t come home last night.

Stepping across the hall, she opened her son’s bedroom door. The room was bedlam—just the way he apparently liked it. He’d barred her from cleaning it, which she should have been grateful for. Instead the room was an embarrassment, a reflection on her.

“What if someone comes by and sees this mess?” she’d demanded time after time.

“No one comes by,” he’d said.

“Well, if anyone did, they’d think I was a terrible mother.”

Bo had laughed at that.

“Have you seen your sister?” she mouthed now over the horrible music blasting from his stereo.

He was sprawled on his bed, frowning at her and motioning for her to go away and close the door.

She reached over and grabbed the cord on the stereo and pulled hard. The music stopped, filling the room with an abrupt deafening silence.

“What?” he demanded.

“Your sister. She didn’t come home last night.”

“So?”

“She’s eight months pregnant.”

“I noticed. But I’m not my sister’s keeper.” He reached to plug the stereo back in, but she still held the cord and jerked it back out of his grasp.

“I want you to clean your room.”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“I’m serious, Bo.”

He mugged a face at her.

“I also want you to get a job.”

He let out a surprised laugh. “I have a job. I help you with your Internet dating service.”

“No, you don’t.” She tossed him the end of the cord and closed the door behind her, telling herself she shouldn’t be worried about Charlotte.