Page 55 of One Wild Chance

I frown. “I thought you had things to do?”

“I’d planned to fix some fence rail. But Mother Nature threw those plans out the window.”

“You don’t want to work on more spreadsheets?”

He grimaces. “I’d rather muck a stall.”

I survey the mess. The barn is mostly empty except for my flower supplies and some old wood.

“You can start with the leftover lumber stacked against the wall.” He picks up a board while I take a broom and start on the floor. The heat all week has been unrelenting, so the cooler temperature is a welcome change now that the storm has rolled through. I’m sweeping near the back corner when I bump a stray board and find a hole in the barn floor big enough to put my fist through.

“What’s this?” I say to Jaxon.

He comes over and pokes around the edges. “Hole big enough for a groundhog.”

I shake my head. “We can’t have wildlife in here. If a groundhog runs across the aisle on someone’s wedding day, the reviews alone would ruin our reputation.”

“So you’re not afraid of a stallion,” he says, “but you draw the line at a groundhog.”

“Stallions are predictable. Groundhogs have no respect for anyone.”

A smile ghosts his lips, before he pulls the board aside. “Rhett was terrified of them as a kid.”

“Really?”

“Stepped on a dead baby groundhog our dog dropped on the porch as a gift. Didn’t get over that for months.”

“That’s truly awful,” I say, covering my laugh. “At least you shared some trauma bonding.”

“I’m not sure I’d call it bonding.” Jaxon stands and picks up a broken piece of wood, then tosses it out the open barn door into the rain.

“Does it bother you—that Rhett’s still playing?” I ask, changing the subject.

He keeps working, not answering right away. “I’ve been a hockey player since I was six years old. I didn’t realize how much a part of my identity it was until I had to let it go.” He throws more wood out the door. “Especially when people still confuse me with my brother in the NHL.”

I stop sweeping and lean on the broom. I understand, better than most, what it’s like to carry something I didn’t choose. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for Mom’s blank face when she sees me, for the gap in her eyes where recognition used to live.

“That’s the hardest part,” I say. “Letting go of what we’d keep if we had the choice.”

His mouth opens like he’s about to say something, but my phone buzzes in my pocket. I stare at the screen. “It’s the vet. I should take this.”

I walk to the far end of the barn to take the call, explaining a foal situation while Jaxon sweeps, giving me space. When I turn back around, he’s already swept the section I left.

“The vet is coming in thirty minutes to meet me in the foal barn,” I tell him.

I look around at everything still left to do—cleaning every nook, finding a table, making a bouquet, hanging the lights—and feel the familiar squeeze of too much to do with not enough time.

“I don’t know how I’ll get all this done tonight,” I say with a sigh. We’ve scheduled the proposal for the Chance brothers tomorrow.

“Go take care of the foal,” he says. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Jaxon, you don’t have to…”

“You’ve got a vet call.” He picks up another board. “And I can’t fix the fence in the rain anyway.”

I head for the door, then stop, searching for the right words to thank him. But he’d probably just blow it off anyway, so I leave without saying anything.

I don’t make it back that evening. The vet visit takes longer than expected, then one of the mares needs looking after, and by the time I think about cleaning up the old barn, I’m so tired I can barely see straight.