Second Chance with the Billionaire - Ava Storm Page 0,1
always just wanted to find something to last, something special. Of course, every time I thought about that someone special, my mind tripped back to one person, that one moment in time, and I felt lost all over again. That familiar tang of old humiliation at the mercy of the town’s rumor mill started to rise up in me again.
Sam.
My former best friend. I had not seen him since that night in high school, when I thought...well, it wasn’t important now, was it? We grew up together, me a tomboy with reddish hair and freckles, him a quiet, pale boy with dark hair and eyes like a storm cloud. He had been a different sort of kid to live in Blakes Corner. He was quiet and nerdy, more interested in his computer than he was in horses, although he always managed to make time for whatever outdoor nonsense I wanted to do with him that day. I had always thought it made a sort of sense for him to leave Blakes Corner one day.
It just hadn’t made any sense for him to leave me.
I leaned over in the saddle and pressed my lips against Reggie’s mane, feeling the coarseness of his hair, listening to his breathing and the comforting sound of his hooves hitting the ground as he walked. The weather had a nice bite to it, almost cold, but not quite. I hugged the horse until I could stop thinking about stupid things that happened ten years ago. Living in the past was half the reason I was single now. I was stuck in the past over a boy who was now a ghost. I had to move on.
“Let’s go, Reggie!” I let him pick up the pace a little bit. It was time for him to get back home, time for me to start work. It could not spend all day dreaming in the woods as much as I wanted to.
Reggie’s stable was a short walk from where we had stopped. He was not one of the pampered horses of the wealthy, but instead was a meticulously cared for show horse loved by a family in town and being spoiled rotten in his retirement. Mrs. Richards, or “Call-Me-Allison-Please”, as Stella Jane and I liked to call her, stood waiting with a to-go cup of coffee in her hand as Reggie and I returned.
“Thank you so much, Dr. Mayhew,” the matronly woman said as she watched me dismount.
“Call me Cassie, please,” I said, suppressing a smile. Allison took Reggie’s reins and began to lead him into the stable.
“Of course, and you can call me Allison, please,” she replied, not for the first time and probably not for the last. “Once this hip heals, Reggie, we’ll be right out again for our walks, sweetie, don’t you worry.”
Blakes Corner
“Well, in the meantime, he is a dream to ride,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. She had brewed it with cinnamon and nutmeg. It tasted like fall. “See you tomorrow?”
Allison nodded enthusiastically. “Such a love of horses, Doctor, it is a shame you do not have one yourself.”
Try paying for one with six figures in student loans to take care of first, I thought, taking a sip of coffee to keep myself from responding.
“One day,” I replied.
One day.
Blakes Corner Veterinary Center was a small operation, but a very well renowned one. Our little operation occupied a place built to look like a log cabin, which was a touch I thought was charming, but Stella Jane hated. We were two of a handful of vets that flitted in and out of the space. Stella Jane’s focus was less on the larger animals and more on household pets, so she was more often found in the main building, while I made house calls for the large animals and then occasionally lent a hand in-office when needed.
Stella Jane favored dark grey scrubs that set off the paleness of her skin and the black of her hair, giving her a bit of a gothic vibe. She stuck out in our quaint little town, but she faced it with such a calm acceptance of herself that everyone she met ended up loving her about as much as she loved every single animal that came into our office. She had moved to Blakes Corner from our college town in Vermont and never looked back, embracing the town as though she had been born there. She was like a sister to me.
“I hate to do this to you