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

seventeen. This part was his least favorite, where it was more about showing tough love and laying ground rules, and he didn’t know the kids well enough to relax his guard. He eyed the tall scrawny kid in the middle, who had his arms crossed and an exaggerated scowl on his face so he could show everyone how unhappy he was to be here. The other kids were still a little standoffish, but settling in. Elijah—who’d spat to call him Eli—had bad attitude written all over him, and he wasn’t about to let it go.
    Mom lifted her clipboard. “Eli, Addison, and Brady, you’re team one. Your job today is to clean the cabins, then we’ll take you over to the horses and introduce you, and tonight you’ll peel the potatoes for dinner.”
    Eli rolled his eyes.
    “Anyone who doesn’t pull their weight gets extra chores,” Royce said, directing the comment at the kid, who immediately clenched his jaw. “We’ll check over the work, and if you don’t do it right, you’ll be redoing it. But if you do it fast—and you do a good job—you’ll get time to go to the river later.”
    “Ooh, the river,” the kid mumbled. “Yeah, that sounds fun.”
    Royce’s patience was wearing thin, especially after the exhausting morning he’d already had, on top of the late night he’d pulled.
    Mom must’ve seen it, because she stepped in front of him, handed out the rest of the chores to the other two groups, and dismissed them. For now, each group needed to be supervised. The last thing they needed was a fight breaking out or for one of them to get angry and try to tear the rooms apart. They’d had plenty of both through the years. Dad had been better at handling it. He was more patient than Royce would ever be. That familiar longing of missing his dad settled into his lungs. There were still some days when it was harder than others, and the beginning of a new session always brought on the harder ones.
    Mom tucked her clipboard under her arm and gave him a consoling smile. “It’s always like this at first. They’re a good group.”
    “That Eli kid worries me.”
    “He’s a big grouchy pants, that’s for sure.”
    “‘Grouchy pants.’ That the textbook term?”
    Mom laughed. “He’ll come around. I put him with Addison because I think he’s got a crush on her, and she’s feisty enough to deal with his crap and give it right back. She wants to go down to the river and explore, too, so she’ll keep him in line.”
    Royce expected Mom to head off to check on the groups, but she turned to face him, and there was something about her expression that made his muscles tense. “What now?” he asked. “I don’t think I can handle one more problem.”
    “I had to take Oscar to the vet this morning.”
    Relief flooded him that the problem wasn’t as bad as he expected, although he knew Mom would be devastated if anything happened to her mangy cat, despite the fact that he was the most high-maintenance animal they had. “Is he okay?”
    She waved a hand through the air. “Oh, yeah. I was worried because he’s been all sluggish and sneezy and goopy eyed. Doc said he’s got a respiratory infection, so he’ll have to be on antibiotics—not to mention he’ll be pissed off at me for days for taking him in. But that’s not why I brought it up. While I was there, I just heard that”—she wobbled her head, and apprehension crept into his gut—“Sadie’s back in town.”
    Royce let out an exhale. “I know. I ran into her last night, actually.”
    “And…?”
    “And nothing. I saw her, we…” He didn’t want to tell Mom they’d argued, and that made it sound like a bigger deal than it was, anyway. “We just said hi and went our separate ways.” Sadie’s wide green eyes came to him again. He glanced toward the hills, doing his best to keep the talk casual. “They said she’s back, back? Like going to stay?”
    “Sounds like she’ll be here for a while, anyway.”
    Dammit. He could wait out a visit—it wasn’t