Brenda Minton - Second Chance Rancher

Her Texas Homecoming

At eighteen, Lucy Palermo couldn’t wait to join the army and leave Bluebonnet Springs behind. Ten years later, she’s come home to fix her family’s falling-down ranch and repair the bond with her troubled siblings. Neighboring rancher Dane Scott is even more handsome—and distracting—than she remembers. The single dad’s priority is making a stable life for his daughter. He needs someone who’ll stay—and straight-talking Lucy doesn’t seem to need anyone. But beneath that tough exterior is a loving, softhearted woman. A woman Dane can’t help wanting, if he can show her that the town she once fled is the perfect place to start over—together.

“I don’t need you there to hold my hand.”

He held up both hands. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Friend.”

“Neighbor,” she mumbled as she walked away.

Dane followed Lucy inside. He shouldn’t have. He should have gotten back to work. Instead he walked behind her, ignoring the tense set of her shoulders and the fact that she didn’t want him along for this journey.

“Stop thinking about me.” She shot the comment over her shoulder as she walked through the kitchen. “I’m not a project. I don’t need to be fixed. Go do whatever good deed you were going to do here today.”

“I’m replacing light fixtures and repairing some sockets. You’re not on my to-do list.”

He couldn’t stop himself, though. For the last few years he had focused all his energy on the ranch and his daughter.

The last thing he wanted was to get caught up in Lucy’s messy life. But here he was, intrigued and unable to walk away.

Dear Reader,

Lucy Palermo is a character I couldn’t leave behind. She’s someone we might want to have as a friend, but we know that she wouldn’t give that friendship easily.

There are people in our lives who are very much like Lucy. They appear strong, distant, or cool. If we take the time to get to know them we will find that they hide their pain beneath that cool facade.

Every day we pass people on the street, see them in the grocery store, ignore them in the hallways at school and we think we know them. We judge what we see on the outside. The popular girl in school must have it all. The boy walking by himself in worn jeans and a stained T-shirt, we pass on by without a greeting. The woman at the store who never smiles when we say hello, she must be unfriendly.

They all have stories. And often, they just need a friend. Today, take time and be the person who reaches out.

BRENDA MINTON lives in the Ozarks with her husband, children, cats, dogs and strays. She is a pastor’s wife, Sunday-school teacher, coffee addict and sleep deprived. Not in that order. Her dream to be an author for Harlequin started somewhere in the pages of a romance novel about a young American woman stranded in a Spanish castle. Her dream came true, and twenty-plus books later, she is an author hoping to inspire young girls to dream.

Second Chance Rancher

Brenda Minton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For God has not given us a spirit of fear and

timidity, but of power, love and self discipline.

—2 Timothy 1:7

To my family for the love and encouragement

they’ve given me over the years.

To Melissa, for the opportunity to

continue writing the books I love.

And Giselle, for all her work in this process.

Thank you both for keeping me on track.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Late morning sun in his eyes, Dane Scott thought he couldn’t be seeing right. There was an old Chevy truck tangled up in the fencerow and a half-dozen head of his cattle grazing in the ditch. He pulled to the side of the road and got out. His dog jumped off the back of the truck and followed him down the slope. As he drew closer, Dane prepared himself, hoping he wouldn’t find anyone inside the truck that he knew belonged to his neighbors, the Palermos.

Fortunately the truck was empty. The tires were bogged down in mud, compliments of two days of rain and a driver who had tried to back out of the mess. Barbed wire from the fence was wrapped around the passenger side tires.

At least he could surmise that seventeen-year-old Maria Palermo wasn’t injured. The big problem was, who to call. The Palermo family was what the good folks of Bluebonnet Spring, Texas, called “a mess.” That was usually followed by a “bless their hearts” or “it wasn’t really their fault.”

The most functional member of the family was Lucy Palermo. But last he’d heard, she was a couple of hundred miles south, near Austin. The twin brothers, Alex and Marcus, were somewhere riding bulls. Their mother was in California with husband number three.

Dane knew Maria was home alone and running wild. Even when her brothers showed up and pretended to be responsible, she was on her own.

He guessed he could call Essie Palermo, great-aunt of the four siblings and owner of Essie’s Diner in Bluebonnet Springs. Essie lamented the children of her late nephew. She said a little religion wouldn’t have hurt them, but the kind they’d gotten from their own father had wounded them to the core.

Dane pulled the keys out of the ignition of the abandoned truck and walked back up the embankment to the road. He pulled his hat low and scanned the field where another two hundred head of Black Angus cattle grazed. Good thing they hadn’t spotted the truck-sized hole in the fence.

At the moment it didn’t matter who he called. He had to get that truck out of his field and patch up the fence. As he headed for his vehicle, a dark blue truck parked behind his. Even with a glare on the windshield, he could see the driver, her dark hair pulled back and a big frown tugging at her mouth.

Lucy Palermo. The oldest of the Palermo siblings, and the last person he expected to see on this stretch of the road. A year younger than his thirty years, she had reasons for avoiding her childhood home. And they had reasons for avoiding each other.

She was out of her truck and heading his way, cutting short his trip down memory lane. Not that he wanted to go there. He opened the toolbox on the back of his truck and pulled out gloves and wire cutters. From the frown on her face he could tell she was half mad and half worried.

“She’s not in the truck so she must be okay.” He guessed that might ease her worry, and then she could focus on being mad.