Second Chance Ranch: a Hope Springs novel (Entangled Bliss) Read Online Free

neighs and nudges that usually meant Stop being so stingy with the food . “I thought I’d catch up before the new group got here, but I’m still behind, and it’s only gonna get worse.” Since this batch of kids was brand-new and Mom was focused on getting to know them so she could see what they needed most, they weren’t very good ranch hands yet. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, now I get to worry about covering my ass before someone takes me to the cleaners and I lose everything my family’s worked their entire lives for.”
    Royce ran his hand across Chevy’s pregnant stomach—it wouldn’t be long until she had her foal. It’d be good not only to have her baby, but also to have her back to working condition. He and Dad had spent countless hours together breaking and training her, and he could still remember the way they’d celebrated when they discovered that she went after cows faster than any gelding they’d ever had. They’d planned on raising her to be a broodmare because of her cowy nature and strong bloodline, but after Royce entered a couple of rodeos with her, she proved that she was born to rope.
    Now they were both out of the roping scene for the most part, but she was still his best horse. Of course, she’d need time to recover, and the colt or filly would need training, too—which just brought him back to his current problem of needing another person to help. It was looking more and more like he might have to let some of the qualifications go and just find someone desperate for a job.
    …
    The instant Sadie stepped inside the house, Mom jumped up from the couch. As much complaining as she’d done over the phone about how old she was getting, she looked the same, not even a hint of gray creeping into her bright red hair. Sadie threw her arms around her, squeezing her tightly, then she leaned over to hug Grandma before she tried to get up from her chair. The silver lining in her currently broke-and-jobless situation was seeing her family. Earlier this spring Grandma had gotten pneumonia and been hospitalized for a couple of weeks. Sadie had been worried about her—they all had—but the strength with which she hugged Sadie gave her hope Grandma was well on her way to recovery.
    Grandpa watched on, silent but smiling, and her heart swelled. It was funny how one minute she wanted to escape town, and the next she couldn’t imagine leaving them again to live so far away.
    Mom glanced from the suitcase Sadie had rolled in to the large duffel bag Grandpa had set down at the foot of the stairs. “Is that it?” She looked at it again, as if she might have missed a bag. “I know you said it was just temporary, but I expected more.”
    “I would’ve brought more if I had my car, but it was on its last legs and there was no way it’d make the drive, so I sold it. I put most of my belongings in storage.” She didn’t mention that she’d used every last penny to rent the storage space and buy the one-way plane ticket.
    Having a singing contract in reaching distance—for the second time, no less—only to have it all fall apart again had drained the last of the fight in her. When she’d tried to get back on the horse—or stage, as it were—she’d only managed to crash harder. All she’d really been thinking when she’d called Mom and told her she was coming home to spend some time with her, Grandma, and Grandpa was that she needed to get away from Nashville and all of the pressure for a while. She’d be lying if she said running out of money didn’t have a little something to do with it. She might’ve been able to get her old job back if she hadn’t told her boss that she’d rather shovel horseshit than work for him when she’d quit. In hindsight, not the smartest way to go.
    But she didn’t think she could’ve gone back and made one more phone call for that company anyway. Dialing up random people and trying to convince them to take surveys they didn’t want to was exhausting,