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

just getting a record out so their careers could start.
    Stupid girls. Wait till they’ve been trying for several years and they realize opportunities like that don’t come along every day.
    Sadie turned when she heard the back screen door close, and Grandpa nodded at her. “Mornin’. Getting close to afternoon, actually. I wasn’t sure you were getting up today,” he teased.
    After working late shifts for the past few years, she thought being showered and dressed by ten a.m. was a bragworthy accomplishment. “Good morning.”
    Casanova whinnied at her for attention, and she scratched his cheek again.
    “Where’s Apollo?” Just as she was starting to worry that something had happened to the mare, she came trotting out of the barn, a sturdy fence between her and Casanova.
    Grandpa threw the horses more hay, and Sadie picked her mug back up and took a sip. She glanced at the now-empty chicken coop, remembering all the times Grandma would send her to get eggs and the chickens would scratch and peck at her.
    She gestured to the coop. “You ever miss them?”
    “Do I miss those peckers?”
    “Grandpa!” Sadie laughed. She’d gotten in trouble at school for using that word, in addition to the many other colorful terms he’d taught her while she’d been helping him on the farm.
    “Nah. Not at all, actually. Miss having more horses sometimes, though. Royce invites me to the ranch here and there so I can still play cowboy with him and Cory. I can’t keep up, but it’s nice of them to humor me.”
    She could picture Grandpa riding beside Royce, and while she was still irritated about how frustrating her ex was yesterday, warmth filled her chest. She knew how much Grandpa liked to get in some cowboy time. “I’m sure you do fine.”
    “I’m old and slow.” He tossed in a couple more flakes of hay.
    Sadie wanted to ask a hundred questions about Royce, but she wasn’t sure she could handle the answers or what they’d do to her emotions. It wasn’t a good subject to go into, especially not with Grandpa. Although her grandparents had always been supportive, she had a feeling they’d wondered what she was thinking running off to the big city to try to become famous. Mom had encouraged it, of course, but after Sadie had been in Nashville a few years, even she’d mentioned that maybe college was the way to go—just to have something to fall back on.
    Between work and auditions and performances that didn’t pay much but gave her “great exposure,” she’d doubted she could fit in college. She’d explained that the first few years were more like an internship that’d eventually pay off, and it’d come so close to being true. Maybe this next time around she’d take classes on the side—somehow she’d fit it all in.
    But now she was getting ahead of herself, the way she often did. “So, I was planning on going around town and applying for jobs today,” she said to Grandpa. “Mind if I take the truck? Or do you need it?”
    “Go right ahead. Keys are in the ignition.” Of course they were. This was Hope Springs, where people weren’t worried about locking their vehicles or taking their keys inside.
    “Thanks, Grandpa.” She gave him a quick kiss on his whiskered cheek and headed back through the house. She wiped off the bits of hay that had gotten on her frilly white button-down top and black slacks—she was probably overdressed for most of the jobs she’d be applying for, but she needed to make a good impression. First impressions were long gone, so she could only hope to sway someone into seeing that she was qualified, regardless of a résumé that claimed otherwise.
    I’ve sung in front of large crowds and jaded record execs. I sang a Blue cover in front of their fans and all of the media outlets covering his induction to the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. I can handle a few interviews in Small Town, USA.
    …
    Royce looked over the lined-up teens, five girls and six boys, ages fourteen through