Page 4 of Second Chance with the Rancher
She could do this.
That wasn’t nearly as excruciating as she’d anticipated it being. Nate wasn’t being weird… well, he wasn’t being that weird.
And given the past they shared, there was plenty of weirdness to be had between both of them.
And he was up for getting shitfaced, so…
You really think that’s a good idea? Remember what happened the last time the two of you got shitfaced? And what happened after that?
Triss held open the door to the farmhouse and Mieka wheeled her suitcase inside. It was just like she remembered it the last time she was here, only with a few more homey and feminine touches. A vase of flowers on the table, a throw blanket over the couch, a few decorative pillows and a picture of Mieka and her sisters sitting on the mantle next to a picture of Nate and Asher with their arms around each other, dressed in their wedding attire at Triss and Asher’s wedding.
“You know where the guestroom is,” Triss said, heading into the kitchen. She took down two drinking glasses from the cupboard and filled them with water from the tap. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“If I said that was undecided, would you glare at me and tell me to leave? I know that guests are usually like fish. Three days and they start to smell. But …” Mieka asked cheekily, accepting the water from her sister and taking a sip.
Triss smiled sweetly. “You can stay as long as you need. I’m assuming you’ll need to find a doctor in Denver, though?”
Mieka nodded. “I’m hoping you have a recommendation?”
“I’ll make a call. I have a client who owes me a favor since I bumped her son up on my waitlist and took him as a client even though I didn’t have space. She’s a physician.”
“Look at you making contacts and wheeling and dealing,” Mieka teased her sister. “This country life has done a world of good for you. Married with a baby on the way and a thriving business. And you seem more confident and at peace than ever.”
Triss grinned. “It’s the fresh air …” Her smile turned sassy. “And the hot cowboy sex.”
“I bet it’s more of the latter and less of the former.”
Triss sipped her water. “Ranchers have stamina, not gonna lie. Might do you some good to find one of the ranch hands and get him to scratch your itches on a hay bale or something”
Oh, Mieka knew first hand that ranchers had stamina. Nate was like the Energizer Bunny.
But she wasn’t interested in any of the ranch hands, not that they were terrible to look at. Nate and Asher had very nice-looking employees. But that could get messy, and unfortunately, there was only one rancher she was interested in having on a hay bale and scratch her itches.
“So, any idea what the next step is?” Triss took a seat at the kitchen table, so Mieka abandoned her suitcase in the hallway and joined her. “Where do you want to live? I suppose the possibilities are endless.”
It might seem that way to those on the outside, but in reality, the possibilities were slim. She was a dancer. That was it. She’d done nothing but dance as a hobby, career, and every hour in between for over twenty years. Ever since her mother bought her her first pair of ballet flats at six, Mieka knew that dancing was her life. And she never looked back. It was a way to combat her ADHD. It kept her mind and body busy. If she was too fidgety or couldn’t concentrate, she knew that she could get up and practice dancing. Move her body to keep her mind from wandering. Eventually, she did have to be medicated because it was the only way she could get through school without failing since she still struggled to sit still and study, read or write, but the dancing helped a lot.
She was hired by a dance company in New York right out of high school and danced and trained with them for three years, touring all over the country and over to Europe, then a fellow dancer recommended her for the cruise ships and the rest was history.
She’d traveled all over the world, made loads of friends and memories, but her body was suffering. She wasn’t twenty-two anymore. Her hips and knees hurt. The life of a cruise ship dancer was exhausting. They trained on land for four to eight weeks before boarding a ship for a two-week sailing. During that sailing they had anywhere between five and nine shows a week, as well as a welcome performance. Then there was practice and training on top of that, guest dance lessons, “meet the cast” nights, and murder mystery nights where they dressed up and engaged with the guests. She also ran the spot-light for the ice show.
When she was younger, she’d do all of this and then party all night with the crew on the ship or off. Only to wake up and do it all over again the next day. But her wild party days followed by two-hours of sleep then six cups of coffee were behind her. She liked her sleep. She liked not being bone-tired in the morning. Even though she wasn’t necessarily an introvert, at the end of day, she was often peopled-out and in need of some time to herself to decompress.
She knew her sisters thought her life was glamorous and wild, and for a time it had been. But now, everything hurt. Her body, her arm and her heart.
Because even though she knew it was for the best that she stopped dancing on the ships, stopped the insane schedule, she didn’t know anything else. All she knew was dance. All she had was dance. The only friends she had were other dancers on the ships, and just like her, they had no actual address. They lived in the rehearsal dorms in Fort Lauderdale, or on the ship. Then when their contract was up, they went home to visit a family member for a few weeks, then the entire process started over again. She was lost without her fellow dancers, lost without the need to get up every morning and perform.
“Trapped in a vortex of thoughts?” Triss mused softly, breaking Mieka out of her own head. Apparently, she’d been sitting there not saying anything staring at a knot in the wooden table.
But Triss and Mieka were close and Triss knew that Mieka would often get caught up in her own thoughts and go quiet.
Mieka smiled shyly. “Sorry.”
“What’s going on, Mieks?” Triss reached out and grabbed Mieka’s hand that wasn’t in a cast.
It was that little bit of contact, that touch, that connection that was like a pin prick on a water balloon and suddenly the tears just started falling.
She didn’t even say anything. She just cried.
