The Last Second Chance: A Small Town Love Story (Blue Moon Book 3) by Lucy Score Read Free Book Online

and as a kid, once she realized that, she always made sure to set aside a bag just for him. She bit her lip, considered. What harm would setting aside one baggie do? It would be her secret stash in case the girls inhaled the rest of them. Or she could save them and give them to Jax.
    Their fight at the brewery played in her head on a constant loop. And so had the feelings that it had dredged up. She’d gotten so used to her simmering animosity and unavoidable, uncontrollable physical attraction. But she’d forgotten about all the other long-buried feelings associated with Jackson Pierce.
    It’s all for you. I came back for you.
    His words, earnest and angry, rolled through her head.
    What the hell had changed? And why now? She’d spent the last eight years moving on, building a safe, manageable life. Sure, she’d refused on principle to watch any of the movies he’d written. She’d done her best to put Jax out of her head and heart. Of course, she’d slipped a few times over the years and did a little online research. He’d certainly moved on, many times over. A different woman on his arm at every event.
    She bit violently into a cookie, remembering the blonde with the watermelon-sized rack.
    The idea that he’d come back for her was…unsettling, confusing.
    They’d gone eight years without contact. When he came home for sporadic, infrequent visits, she made herself scarce. And that included John Pierce’s funeral. Joey’s father had taken her decision not to attend the services as a sign that she’d finally gotten over it all.
    What her father didn’t know was that while everyone else in town was at the funeral, Joey snuck into the farmhouse and cleaned it from top to bottom leaving behind a few million calories of baked goods to help feed the flood of visitors that Phoebe would face in the following days.
    But things were different, now. Phoebe was happily engaged to the charming Franklin. Carter and Summer had made the farmhouse their home. And Jax was back, professing the things that her heart had yearned for years ago. But it was too late.
    Wasn’t it?
    Too little, too late. And without answers to her whys, there was no altering her course. Her heart would remain closed where Jax was concerned, she decided, even as she bagged up four cookies and tucked them away.
    Joey took one last sip of precious coffee and willed herself to put him out of her head. She shrugged into her down field jacket and stomped off to the barn to focus on her Wednesday night lesson. This was her more intermediate group. Six of them, each with their own care horse. They were still young enough to enjoy the easy repetition of grooming and tacking up.
    “Nice seat, Alesha,” she called out to a lanky girl with braces and pink jodhpurs. Their neat little circle trotted around the indoor ring, inches of sawdust muffling the hoof beats.
    Evan, Gia’s son, posted nicely on the ten-year-old bay, Tucker. “Okay, Evan, switch over to a canter and lead off a figure eight,” Joey ordered.
    Beneath his riding helmet, she saw the spark in his brown eyes. He’d started lessons just two months earlier and was clearly a natural.
    Colby, one of the helpers she shared with Carter and the farm, sauntered up. “Kid looks good,” he said, nodding at Evan. He took his hat off and shoved his hand through his corn silk hair.
    “Picking it up fast,” she agreed. “Watch your hands, Aliya.”
    The girl on the strawberry roan corrected her grip on the reins and earned a nod from Joey as she passed.
    Joey patted Colby on the shoulder and let him take over the instruction. She wandered over to the edge of the ring, ran her hand over a hoof-sized ding in the wall. Romeo had been feeling spunky when he decided to kick the shit out of the boards.
    She took a deep breath of horses and sawdust. The creak of the saddles, the occasional giggle from the kids. It was all home to her. Home and heaven.
    God, she loved this place. Even the long days, the