Page 9 of Once Upon A Second Chance (Once Upon A Time…To Happily Ever After #2)

Chapter Eight

Penny

The glow of my laptop screen casts flickering shadows across my living room as I half-heartedly scroll through patient progress charts.

Bijou is sprawled across my feet, snoring softly, her tiny paws twitching in some small doggy dream.

Outside, the cicadas hum their endless summer song, the sound drifting through my open windows along with the faint aromatic scent of Mrs. Delaney's honeysuckle bushes.

My phone buzzes on the coffee table, rattling against an empty wine glass. Richard's name flashes across the screen.

Richard: Hypothetically.

I roll my eyes even as my lips twitch. He's been starting texts like this all week, ever since the diner incident.

Me: Hypothetically what?

Three bouncing dots appear. Disappear. Reappear.

Richard: If someone wanted to spend 48 hours in a cabin in the Smokies... would that violate Ground Rule #3 (No Cohabitation Before Six Months)?

I sit up so fast Bijou startles awake with an indignant yip. My thumbs hover over the screen as my brain scrambles through possible responses.

Me: Define "hypothetically."

The response comes instantly:

Richard: Completely theoretical. Purely academic.

Before I can reply, another message pops up:- a photo of a gorgeous A-frame cabin nestled in dense woods, its wide deck overlooking misty blue mountains. Sunlight glints off a steaming hot tub in the corner of the frame.

Richard: Two separate bedrooms. Full kitchen. Private hiking trails. Hot tub works. And before you ask, no, I didn't rent it just for this. A buddy from med school owns it.

My pulse kicks up. I can practically smell the pine trees through the photo.

Bijou paws at my knee, sensing my distraction. I absently scratch behind her ears as I type:

Me: Is there WiFi?

Richard: Nope.

A slow smile spreads across my face.

Me: Good.

The response is immediate:

Richard: Is that a yes?

I stare at the message, my stomach doing a slow flip.

This is a terrible idea. We're barely a month into whatever this is. There are rules. Boundaries.

But then I remember the look on Rebecca's face at the diner when the entire town turned their backs on her performance. The way Richard had squeezed my hand afterward.

Me: Hypothetically... what time would we leave?

My phone starts ringing before I even finish sending it.

"Friday after your last appointment," Richard says when I answer, his voice warm with barely contained excitement. "We can grab dinner on the way up."

I can hear the grin in his voice, that particular lilt he gets when he knows he's about to get his way. It's the same tone he used to use when convincing me to skip class for an impromptu road trip.

"What about your own patients?" I ask, playing with the frayed edge of my couch blanket.

"Covered. Holloway owes me for taking his weekend call last month. Besides, in the ‘good news’ department, he’s offered to make my locum position permanent. Looks like I’m here to stay.”

The certainty in his voice sends a shiver down my spine. He's really thought this through. I’m taken aback a bit to realize that Richard may actually be sticking around. Could we possibly make this thing work?

“That is good news. So, are you sure this cabin has two bedrooms?"

"Cross my heart." A pause. Then, softer: "We don't have to do this if you're not ready."

The sincerity in his voice undoes me.

"Pack warm socks," I say before I can overthink it. "I remember how cold you get."

His quiet laugh curls around me like smoke. "Still have the socks you stole from me sophomore year?"

"I didn't steal them. I liberated them from your tragic laundry habits."

"Same difference." I can practically hear his smirk. "See you tomorrow, Morgan."

The line goes dead, leaving me staring at my darkened screen, equal parts terrified and exhilarated.

Bijou cocks her head at me, her ears perked.

"What?" I mutter, rubbing my suddenly damp palms on my thighs. "It's just a cabin."

But the way my heart is pounding tells a different story.

Friday morning arrives with golden sunlight spilling through my bedroom curtains, painting stripes of warmth across my half-packed duffel bag. I stare at the mess of clothes strewn across my bed—a pile of sensible hiking gear on one side, a few lacy, completely impractical things on the other.

What am I doing?

Bijou trots in with one of my socks dangling from her mouth, her tail wagging like she knows something’s up.

“Oh, now you bring me socks,” I mutter, plucking it from her. She yips and immediately steals a pair of rolled-up leggings instead.

My phone buzzes.

Lena: So. You survived the night without chickening out?

I snap a photo of my disastrous packing situation and send it.

Me: Debatable.

Three dots bounce. Then—

Lena: OMW. Do NOT make any life choices until I get there.

Ten minutes later, my front door flies open without so much as a knock.

Lena breezes in like a hurricane, her arms laden with two iced coffees and a paper bag that smells suspiciously like cinnamon rolls.

“Okay, first of all,” she says, shoving a coffee into my hand, “you’re way overthinking this.”

I take a long sip, the caffeine hitting my bloodstream like a lifeline. “It’s a weekend trip, Lena. With Richard.”

“Uh-huh.” She plops onto my bed, sending a pair of jeans sliding to the floor. “And?”

“And we made rules.” I gesture wildly at the invisible list between us. “No big romantic gestures. No moving too fast. No—”

“—no fun, no spontaneity, no living,” Lena finishes, rolling her eyes. She digs into the bag and produces a gooey cinnamon roll, thrusting it at me like a peace offering. “Pen. Look at yourself.”

I frown. “What?”

“You’re glowing. And not just because you’ve been staring at that photo of the cabin like it’s the Holy Grail.”

She takes a massive bite of her own roll, talking around it. “You want to go.”

I slump onto the bed beside her, the fight draining out of me. “What if it’s too soon?”

Lena levels me with a look. “What if it’s not?”

The question hangs between us, heavy and undeniable.

Bijou chooses that moment to leap onto the bed, trampling my carefully folded sweaters in favor of shoving her nose into Lena’s pastry bag.

“See?” Lena says, scratching behind Bijou’s ears. “Even she knows you’re being ridiculous.”

I exhale, long and slow, then reach for the lacy bra I’d been debating and throw it in the suitcase. “Fuck it.”

Lena whoops, tossing a pillow at my head. “Finally.”

The late afternoon sun slants golden through the clinic parking lot as I lug my duffel bag toward Richard’s truck.

He’s already there, leaning against the tailgate with two steaming to-go cups from The Daily Grind.

The sight of him—worn jeans, a soft-looking cotton button-down rolled to his elbows, that infuriatingly perfect hair slightly mussed from a long day—makes my stomach flip.

Oh, this was a mistake.

He straightens when he sees me, his grin widening as his gaze drops to my bag. “So you are coming.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” I mutter, heaving my bag into the truck bed beside a neatly stacked pile of firewood and a cooler.

“I wasn’t.” He hands me one of the cups. “Mostly.”

The coffee is still piping hot, exactly how I like it—black with two sugars. The familiarity of it, the fact that he remembers, sends warmth curling through my chest.

I take a sip to hide my smile. “You’re awfully cocky for someone who spent three years thinking Die Hard 2 was the best sequel.”

Richard gasps, clutching his chest like I’ve wounded him. “First of all, how dare you—”

“—second of all, you’re wrong,” I finish, mimicking his lecture voice from college.

He shakes his head, laughing as he rounds the truck to the driver’s side. “Get in, heathen.”

The cab smells like leather and the faint, spicy scent of Richard’s cologne. I buckle in as he cranks the engine, the rumble vibrating through the seats. The playlist that starts up is all 90s alt-rock—Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the kind of stuff we used to blast during late-night study sessions.

Richard glances at me as he backs out of the parking spot. “You good?”

No. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t push, just nods and turns onto the main road, the clinic shrinking in the rearview mirror.

For a while, it’s just the music and the hum of tires on asphalt.

The town blurs past—the diner where we humiliated Rebecca, the gas station where we buy slushies, the turnoff that leads to the lake where we once skinny-dipped during a weekend visit to Mount Juliet sophomore year.

Then Richard reaches over and turns the music down. “Remember that time we drove from school to Chattanooga for the aquarium?”

I groan. “Don’t.”

“We were so close,” he says, grinning.

“We passed the same Walmart four times.”

“I had a system.”

“Your system was refusing to ask for directions!”

Richard laughs, the sound warm and easy, and just like that, we’re off—trading stories like cards in a game we’ve played for years.

We talk about the time we broke into the campus pool after hours.

“You promised you knew how to pick locks,” I say, nudging his shoulder.

“I did,” he insists, grinning. “Just not quickly.”

“We almost got arrested because you took twenty minutes to open a screen door.”

He only shrugs, like he’s proud of the delay.

We move on to the prank war with his old roommate.

“I still maintain that glitter in his shampoo was justified,” Richard says, smirking.

“Oh, absolutely,” I agree. “But the fake parking tickets? That was diabolical.”

“Says the woman who replaced all his coffee with decaf for a month.”

I grin at the memory. “That was self-preservation. The man was feral before noon.”

“Then there’s the night we got caught making out in the library stacks.”

The car quiets for a beat. I see his hands tighten slightly on the wheel.

“Dr. McCormack’s face,” he says finally, his voice lower now, rough with memory.

I shift in my seat, pressing my thighs together as the heat blooms under my skin. “I thought she was going to have an aneurysm.”

“Worth it.”