Kat Brookes - Their Second Chance Love

If only Logan’s momma were here today. Because Hope was feeling very broken now. Like nothing in her life was right. The job she worked. The fast-paced city she had chosen to live in. Her discontented heart. Her abandonment of a faith she had once held so dear. But his momma wasn’t here and she was a grown woman who needed to find a way to live with the choices she’d made.

Opening her eyes, she searched the front nursery grounds, hoping Logan hadn’t witnessed her moment of self-reflection. Thankfully, he was nowhere to be seen. So she shored up her shoulders and made her way to the storefront, the building that housed the checkout counter, gardening goods for purchase and the office. As she’d told Logan, she needed to look over the calendar and the delivery sheets to see what orders were scheduled to be picked up that week and make certain he would be able to have them ready in time.

Exhaustion mixed with the steady thrum of rain on the office roof had lulled her to sleep in her daddy’s big, comfy office chair the night before. When she’d awakened, well into the night, the rain had finally stopped. Too tired to focus, she’d decided to call it a night and made her way back to the house to grab a few more hours’ sleep before tackling a new day.

She smiled wistfully as she looked around the main storefront. Her momma had loved this business. She’d built it with Hope’s daddy every bit as much as he did. So much so, they’d chosen to name the nursery they opened not long after Hope was born after her.

She moved about the room, tidying each and every shelf. While her daddy had never been one to fret over the fine details when it came to putting up the sale displays, it had been important to her momma. Therefore, it was important to Hope.

Twenty minutes later she stepped back from the assortment of gardening books she had finished sorting alphabetically to glance around the room. She had placed things in a way she felt would present the most appeal to the customers that would be passing through on a daily basis. Everything looked neat and inviting. She had no doubt her momma would have been pleased.

Satisfied, Hope made her way back to the office. Pausing in the doorway, she glanced about the room. The same room she’d nearly lost her daddy in if it hadn’t been for Logan. The thought of what might have happened had her stomach turning.

Settling herself into the leather swivel chair, she began sorting through a pile of paperwork. Sales flyers from their suppliers. Paid receipts that needed to be filed away. Purchases that had yet to be billed. Order sheets for pickups. And several letters postmarked as far back as a month ago.

As she was opening those up, she was surprised to find several past due bills from a couple of their suppliers, as well as for some of the utilities. But then in today’s day and age her daddy had probably taken care of the payment online and simply hadn’t taken the time to mark the paper bills as paid and filed them away. To be sure, she made a mental note to ask him in a day or so, once he got to feeling better.

Gathering up anything she had questions on, she stood and made her way outside to find Logan. This time she spotted him almost immediately, his tall, muscular frame making the trunks of the potted fruit trees look like sticks. He’d pushed his dark, wavy hair away from his face, the still-damp strands glistening beneath the rays of the awakening sun. Logan Cooper was a good man and a hard worker. He always had been. The kind of person who put his heart into everything he did. Just as he was doing now. He could have easily done nothing more than sit back in the office, waiting for customers to require his assistance. But he was seeing to everything her daddy would have taken care of himself were he there to do so.

As she watched him work, she thought back to those few moments they had shared in the greenhouse when no hurt or bitterness, or, as in her case, longing for a life she would never have, hung in the air between them. Only joy and laughter.

Her lips quirked up into a grin as she recalled the stunned expression on his handsome face when she’d taken his advice to “water away.”

Logan chose that particular moment to turn her way, his gaze narrowing. “Coming back for round two?” he called out, his husky voice carrying across the yard to where she stood watching him.

“Nope,” she said, holding up her empty hands. “No hose. You’re safe.” It was her heart that wasn’t safe. Not around Logan. “I’m sorry I got carried away earlier.”

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