Page 15 of Once Upon A Second Chance (Once Upon A Time…To Happily Ever After #2)

Chapter Twelve

Penny

I change my morning route to the clinic.

Take the long way down Maple instead of cutting through Willow where the old Texaco sits—Travis’s usual haunt. It’s not that I’m scared. Not exactly.

It’s just that I don’t feel like being brave before my first cup of coffee.

I mean, why take chances? It’s just a weird week, I guess.

The parking lot at the clinic is already half-full, and it’s not even 7:00. Holloway’s truck is in his usual spot. Simmons’s obnoxiously clean SUV gleams like a dentist’s smile. And Richard’s familiar blue pickup is parked beneath the only tree that provides decent shade.

A relief and a problem, all at once.

The gossip hasn’t stopped.

Rebecca’s grenade of a Facebook post might’ve stopped exploding, but the shrapnel is still flying.

Patients canceling appointments.

Church ladies whispering in exam room corners.

Even a few doctors hesitating to share notes with him, like malpractice is contagious.

I slam the car door harder than necessary and head inside.

The front desk is quiet. Darlene barely glances up when I walk by—just shifts a stack of patient intake forms and mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, “Morning.”

Lena’s already in the break room, stirring creamer into her coffee with the aggression of someone imagining a face at the bottom of her mug.

“She’s still pissed,” she says by way of greeting.

“Darlene?”

“Darlene. Simmons. Half the clinic staff. Apparently, when a man has a bad surgical outcome with a child on the table—even if it wasn’t his fault—he should lose his license, be excommunicated, and fed to coyotes.”

I grab a cup and pour until the bitter smell nearly burns my nose. “Remind me what the policy is on poisoning coworkers.”

“Frowned upon.” Lena pauses. “Unless you make it look like a wellness smoothie.”

I snort, but it doesn’t last. The ache in my chest is too heavy. Too sharp.

Because the truth is, they can think whatever they want about Richard.

But I’ve seen him in action.

I’ve seen him stitch up a stranger with tornado debris embedded in his ribs.

I’ve seen him catch a heart murmur in a newborn that even the pediatrician missed.

I’ve seen the quiet way he touches his patients, listens to them, makes them feel like they’re not just a chart to be signed.

They don’t know that man.

I do.

But what scares me isn’t just their whispers.

It’s what happens if Travis hears them.

I rinse my mug, fingers twitching with nervous energy. “Has anyone… seen him?”

Lena doesn’t ask who I mean.

“Not since the night he showed up at your place. But if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll keep it that way.”

I nod, jaw tight.

But still—when I walk to Exam Room 3, I keep my phone in my pocket. My eyes scan every shadow in the hallway. I flinch when Simmons opens the supply closet too fast.

And when I pass the front window and spot a rust-colored pickup slowly driving past the lot, my heart stumbles.

Not his.

Not this time.

But it could be.

By midmorning, the clinic is humming like it always is—phones ringing, doors creaking, the occasional cough echoing from an exam room.

But under it all, I can still feel the edge in the air. Like the storm hasn’t passed so much as paused.

Richard’s voice floats down the hallway, low and steady as he walks a patient through the discharge instructions. I don’t need to see him to know he’s got that reassuring expression on his face—the one that makes even the most anxious patients believe they’re going to be okay.

He’s good at that.

Always has been.

But I also hear something else. The fatigue underneath. The forced calm. Like he’s holding himself in place with dental floss and stubbornness.

When he finally rounds the corner, clipboard in hand, I’m already leaning against the nurse’s station like I’m not totally checking on him.

He glances at me, eyes tired but still warm. “Hey.”

I nod toward the break room. “You should take five. Or twenty. You look like your coffee has given up on you.”

He leans on the counter beside me. “I think my bloodstream is 80% caffeine and 20% clinic soap at this point.”

I bump his arm lightly. “Mmm. Sexy.”

He grins, but it flickers too fast. Doesn’t linger the way it used to.

“You okay?” I ask quietly.

“Fine.”

I give him a look.

“Okay,” he amends, “I’m tired. Simmons keeps giving me that ‘I’m not judging you but I definitely am’ look.

Darlene passive-aggressively offered to ‘double check’ my charting three times today.

And Patel just left me a granola bar with a sticky note that said I trust you, so either she’s on my side or she thinks I need protein before I snap and commit homicide. ”

I snort. “Honestly? Could go either way.”

We stand there for a minute, not talking.

Then I say, “You slept over again.”

His brow lifts. “Is this a complaint?”

“Mmm, a lighthearted reprimand. You’re already at two this week. Remember the rules?”

He groans, dropping his head dramatically against the counter. “You’re seriously counting sleepovers?”

“Someone has to enforce the law,” I tease, nudging his hip with mine. “We said no more than two a week.”

He lifts his head, smiling faintly. “I thought the ‘no more than two sleepovers’ rule was to avoid dependency, not to ruin my life.”

“Both things can be true.”

He chuckles softly, the sound frayed around the edges. “You know I’d follow every rule in that contract if it meant keeping this thing working.”

I meet his eyes. “I know.”

But even as we trade jokes, there’s something heavier between us. The truth neither of us says aloud: the rules were supposed to keep things light, safe, manageable.

But nothing about this week feels safe.

Not with Rebecca circling like a vulture. Not with Travis skulking in shadows. Not with the town dissecting every glance we give each other.

Still, he reaches out—pinky brushing mine—and I let him.

Because despite everything, we’re still here.

Still trying.

Still holding the line.

Even if the storm hasn’t passed yet.

It’s dark outside and almost 9:00 when the knock comes.

I freeze.

Bijou’s ears perk up, and she lets out a low growl—her ‘I don’t like this’ sound that usually means a delivery truck or a squirrel has dared to exist near the porch.

But my stomach twists anyway.

Travis has been silent since the porch incident, and that silence is louder than anything. Every knock, every crunch of gravel outside, every creak of a step—my brain jumps to the worst.

I hover by the door, keys clutched in one hand like they’re some kind of magic talisman. I tiptoe just close enough to peek through the peephole.

Relief crashes over me so fast my knees nearly give out.

It’s Richard.

I swing the door open before I think twice. “You’re not a rule-follower, are you?”

He lifts a brow. “I’m sorry?”

“That’s three sleepovers this week,” I say, leaning against the frame, one hand still on my chest as my heartbeat tries to slow down. “Clearly breaking protocol.”

His smile is crooked and tired. “What if I told you I just came by to check on you and not sneak my way into your bed again?”

I step aside. “Then I’d say thank you. And also that I almost had a heart attack when you knocked, so if you were trying to flirt, poor execution.”

He sobers immediately as he steps inside. “I was afraid of that.”

He doesn’t head for the couch or the kitchen. He just stops there in the middle of my living room, eyes on me like he’s still not sure I’m actually okay.

“You’ve been on edge all day.”

“I’m fine,” I lie.

He gives me that look—the one that sees straight through it.

I flop down on the couch, Bijou leaping up beside me, and sigh. “Okay. I’ve been... not fine. But I’m managing.”

Richard crouches in front of me, resting his forearms on his knees. “Penny, I’m serious. I think you should consider a restraining order. Travis showing up the way he did? That wasn’t a misunderstanding or a coincidence. It was intimidation, as he meant it to be.”

“I know,” I whisper.

“I have a friend,” he says. “A lawyer. Trevor Lambert. Lives in New York, in Albany, but he owes me about seventeen favors and he’s good at this kind of thing. Quiet, discreet. Smart.”

“Of course your lawyer friend’s name is Trevor,” I mutter, trying to lighten the weight in the room.

Richard doesn’t laugh.

I reach out, brush my fingers against his. “I’ll think about it.”

“Penny—”

“I will,” I say firmly. “But not tonight. Tonight, I just want to be here. With you. Not thinking about porch shadows or legal paperwork.”

His jaw tightens like he wants to argue. But he nods. “All right. But I’m holding you to that promise.”

I squeeze his hand. “Deal.”

He stands and finally lets his shoulders drop as he joins me on the couch. Bijou immediately plops herself between us like a glorified throw pillow.

Once we’ve settled in, he says, “Andrew came to see me.”

I tilt my head, surprised. “Seriously?”

“Showed up at the motel like a ghost from a worse life.”

“And?”

“He says he regrets testifying against me. Claims he didn’t know what Rebecca was doing.”

I snort. “Sure.”

“Exactly. I don’t believe him either. But...” Richard pauses. “I think some part of him heard what I said. I told him to get her out of here, or leave her himself. I don’t think she’ll stop, but he might.”

I rest my head on his shoulder. “So that’s what we are now? Fighting exes and ghosts and town gossip like some Hallmark-adjacent Avengers team?”

He chuckles softly. “Only if I get to be the brooding one.”

“You already are.”

He turns his head, brushing a kiss to my hair. “You’re not alone, Penny. Not anymore.”

“I know,” I murmur. “That’s the only reason I slept last night.”

We sit in silence for a moment, the hum of the fridge the only sound besides Bijou’s snoring.

Then I grab the remote.

“Want to watch something stupid until our brains melt?”

“God, yes.”

I flip through the channels until I find 90 Day Fiancé and settle in, half-curled against his side. The couple on screen is arguing about hot tubs and language barriers, and somewhere in the chaos of that ridiculous drama, I find my shoulders loosening.

Richard’s arm wraps around me, his fingers stroking a lazy rhythm against my back.

Outside, the world is still full of what-ifs and dangers and people who want to tear us down.

But in here, on this couch, with bad TV and a man who stayed—

I feel safe.

For now, that’s enough.