Fortune's Second-Chance Cowboy

How many times had she lain awake at night, wondering if Donnie ever regretted enlisting before the war had taken him from her. Even now, after all this time, she hadn’t really come to any sort of a satisfactory conclusion.

“No,” he told her honestly. “I went to fight for my country, and I’m proud of that part. I just wish I hadn’t seen what I’d seen. Nobody should see that kind of thing,” he said quietly. “Nobody should have to live through it, either.”

Then, as if he replayed his own words in his head, Chance blew out a breath, mystified. “How’d I get started on that?” he asked. The question was meant more for him than for her. Clearing his throat, he abruptly changed the subject. “Anyway, at least now we know that we’re not out for the same job.”

Roger, who had been hanging back quietly this whole time, finally spoke up.

“Well, glad that’s been cleared up—and just in time, too.” His attention was immediately redirected to the sound of the front door being opened. “Looks like your future bosses are back,” he told Chloe and Chance with a broad wink.

They turned toward the front door in time to see Graham and Sasha walking in, along with a little girl. With her straight blond hair and her delicate features, she looked like a miniature version of her mother. All except for the arm that was in a cast and held by a sling around her neck.

Chloe winced in sympathy. That had to be Maddie, she thought, her heart immediately going out to the little girl. She hoped that Maddie wasn’t in too much pain.

“Well, we made it back,” Sasha announced. “Sorry for the wait.” She looked around. “Uncle Roger, where’s the baby?”

Roger pointed to Chloe. “This one got her to go to sleep just like that.” He snapped his fingers to illustrate just how fast Chloe had performed what was clearly a magic trick to him.

Sasha smiled warmly at Chloe.

“Well, I’m won over. You’ve got the job,” Sasha quipped.

“You’re not serious, are you?” Chloe asked uncertainly.

“No, she’s not,” Graham agreed. “But almost,” he told Chloe. “Sasha goes on gut instincts, same as me,” he told her.

“Hey, kiddo, you want to go upstairs and lie down?” Roger asked his grandniece, who had momentarily gotten lost in this verbal exchange between the adults.

“No,” Maddie cried, protesting the very idea. “They had me lying down forever when I was in the hospital, getting all those pictures took of my arm.” She looked at her cast. “What I want is you to sign my cast,” she declared, pointing to the newly applied cast with her other hand. Barely an hour old, the cast already had a handful of autographs and well-wishes written on it. “I got these from the nurses. And that’s from that doctor who put it on,” she told her granduncle, pointing out the different signatures. “Isn’t it neat?”

“It sure is,” Roger agreed with the kind of enthusiasm that appealed to young children. “Neatest thing I’ve ever seen. What do you say you and me go get us a sandwich in the kitchen and I’ll see if I can come up with something real good to put on that cast?”

Maddie perked up visibly. “Can I have anything I want to eat?” she asked eagerly.

“You can have anything that’s in the refrigerator,” Roger qualified with a wink.

Maddie’s grin all but split her face. “Cool!”

Roger pretended to misunderstand her declaration. “Cool or hot. Whatever’s there, is yours.”

Sasha exchanged looks with her amused husband. “I think maybe I should go supervise,” Sasha said, following her uncle.

Wanting to be as accommodating as possible, Chloe called out after Sasha’s departing back, “I’ll just sit right here until you get back.”

“You can if you want to, but feel free to move around if you like. You’ve already got the job,” Sasha called back over her shoulder, accompanying her injured daughter to the kitchen.

Chloe looked at Graham. Sasha hadn’t asked her a single question that had to do with the job she was applying for. Just what had gotten the woman to decide in her favor?

“I’m confused,” Chloe confessed.

He laughed. “Sasha’ll do that to you,” he said in a completely understanding voice. “I feel like my head’s been spinning ever since I first met her. But since she’s a better judge than I am when it comes to this position, I’ve made up my mind. You do have the job.” And then he grew more serious. “Do you mind being left alone for a few minutes?” he asked. “I’d like to ask Chance some questions in private.”

Then, before she could answer him, he made a suggestion. “Feel free to look around the house, or to join Sasha, Maddie and Uncle Roger in the kitchen.”

Chloe shook her head, declining both offers. Right now, she just wanted to sit exactly where she was and absorb what had just happened.

And, in her opinion, what had just happened amounted to being given a job, a rather important job in her estimation, practically sight unseen.

Well, she’d been seen, Chloe amended, but obviously a great deal had just been read into whatever Sasha Fortune Robinson thought she saw in her.

“I’m good, thank you,” she told Graham, turning down his offer.

In response, her half brother smiled at her and nodded. “I won’t be long,” he promised.

Her half brother.

It was still hard to think of him that way, Chloe thought as she watched him take Chance into what appeared to be a den that was directly off the living room.

Hard to think of herself as being anyone’s half sister.

Or a half sister to what amounted to practically a legion of other half siblings, she added silently. She’d grown up thinking she had no family at all beyond her mother and now she had more family than she could shake that proverbial stick at.

And one of those half siblings had just given her a job.

Not just any job but the kind of job she had set her heart on before she’d ever sent in her application to college. So far, she’d been stitching together a living taking anything she could get—even working at a local coffee shop on weekends to help pay her rent. She felt as if she’d finally crossed a threshold into her field.

Talk about luck.

Glancing around to make sure no one could see her, Chloe pinched herself. And then, just to make certain, she pinched herself again because she had to admit this all seemed like some sort of dream. A dream that she was going to wake up from at any minute now.

Except for the part about Donnie, she thought grimly. If this was a dream, he’d be right here beside her.

But he wasn’t.

She was sitting in this big old living room all by herself, waiting for her half brother to come back in and tell her all the details she needed to know about this job she was going to be starting. She was convinced that she’d gotten this position strictly because she was “family” despite all of Graham’s talk about instincts and gut feelings.

No matter, she was determined to prove to them that they hadn’t made a mistake in hiring her. She was going to work really, really hard and be the best counselor they could have possibly hoped for. She owed it to them.

Most of all, she owed it to herself—and to the memory of her husband, who had always encouraged her and told her she could be absolutely anything she wanted to be once she set her mind to it.

She glanced toward the door that Graham had closed behind him and Chance. She wondered how the interview was going.

She really hoped that Chance was going to get the job. She’d gotten the impression that although Chance wasn’t down on his luck, landing this position at Peter’s Place was really important to him.

Without realizing it, Chloe crossed her fingers for him, wishing that she was one of those people who actually believed in sending good vibes. Because if she was, she’d be sending them right now.

She watched the door intently.

And when it finally opened, only a few minutes later, she popped to her feet like a newly refurbished jack-in-the-box. Fingers still crossed, her eyes immediately went to the taller of the two men emerging from the room.