Rodeo Rancher

“Sammy!” he said, and his voice was so familiar and so dear her eyes filled with tears. After all, they had only each other. Their parents were gone and they didn’t have anyone else, not even the usual aunts, uncles and cousins.

“Where are you?” Travis asked. He sounded concerned.

“I made a mistake and missed the turnoff for Rodeo.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

“What? You’re out in this weather?”

Cripes. Was she the only one who didn’t know snowstorms got this bad? She and Travis had been raised in southern Arizona, and she’d lived in Nevada for years and then California for the past year. She’d seen snow a handful of times in her life, but never a storm.

“I’m not out in it now,” she replied. “The car broke down.”

“But you just bought it before you left.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t buy used, did you?”

“No! It’s brand-spanking-new. I don’t know what happened. It just stopped running and the boys and I were stuck.”

“Stuck? Are you still in the car?” His voice had risen.

“No. We walked to a rancher’s house.”

“Whose house? What rancher?” Her older brother was fiercely protective of her and her sons.

“Michael Moreno.”

“Hold on.” She heard Travis talking to someone else. A second later he came back on the phone. “Okay. Apparently Michael’s a good guy.”

“That’s my impression.” A good guy, even if he was grumpy.

Travis sounded calmer, as though whoever he’d just spoken to had done a good job of reassuring him. “You can trust him.”

She sort of, kind of already did, even though he was obviously not at all happy to have them. Her instincts about people were pretty good.

“We’re going to stay here tonight,” she said.

“At least for tonight. This storm system is massive.”

“I had no idea. I usually check the forecast on my phone, but it’s been acting up.” Unease raced through her. Now that she’d heard Travis’s voice, all she wanted was to be with him. “Honestly, Travis, I didn’t know what I was heading into.”

She cupped the phone and her mouth with her hand so Michael wouldn’t hear her. “I was so scared, Travis. I will never drive in a snowstorm again.”

“This is a bad one. You and the boys stay put until this whole thing passes and I can come get you, okay?”

“Okay.” She exhaled. She would be able to relax soon. All of the trouble of the past two years would be over once they made it to Travis’s house. “Who’s there with you? Your new girlfriend?”

“Rachel. Yeah. I can’t wait for you two to meet. I love her, Sammy. She’s the one.”

“Oh, Travis. I’m so happy for you.” She was. Truly. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

It was just strange for Travis to have someone. Not just a girlfriend, but the one. He’d never talked about love before though he’d had plenty of girlfriends, even that phony Vivian he’d been so infatuated with. Thank God that hadn’t lasted.

But who was this Rachel? How had he fallen so hard so quickly? What was she like? Could Sammy trust her to love Travis as much as he deserved to be loved?

“I’m going to marry her, Sammy.”

Samantha choked. When she stopped coughing, she whispered, “Marry?”

“Yep.” Her brother had never sounded more certain.

“I’m happy for you, bro.” She was, but a tiny part of her knew that this changed everything.

She bit her lip. “Where will you live? In the house?”

“Yes, with her two children.”

Rachel had children? “But—” She’d thought the house would be a home for her and the boys.

“It will all work out, Sammy. We’ll make it work. You’re going to love Rachel and her girls,” Travis said, and his calm confidence soothed her even while she still worried. How on earth was it all supposed to work?

Sammy and her boys would never again have her brother’s undivided love and attention.

Well, wasn’t that the point you were going to make when you arrived at the house he bought for you? Weren’t you determined to pay him every cent he paid for that house, even if it took years?

Weren’t you the one who was going to finally fight for independence from every single man, even your brother?

Her father and her ex-husband had let her down. Depending on men sucked. Only Travis had been trustworthy.

“I love you, bro.”

“And I love you, sis. Tell the boys I love them, too.”

“I will. Bye.” She hated to hang up, hated to wait another day or two before seeing him, before moving to a happier home than this one seemed to be. But the house she was moving to with Travis would soon contain another woman and two more children.

She just didn’t know what to think.

Everything was topsy-turvy. Her ex had taught her some hard lessons about life. She would find a way to be independent, for her own sake and her sons’.

If the house didn’t work out, she would find some other place to live. After all, she was a hard worker and had a job to start next month.

Turning away, she found Michael watching her. “Is everything okay?” he asked. “Did you get through?”

She smiled. “Yes. It was good to talk to him. Thank you.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

“Close to six months.” She rubbed her hands on her thighs and shivered.

He frowned. “I didn’t ask. Did your clothes get wet in the snow?”

“My pants are really damp.”

“Follow me.” He led her into his bedroom. “I’m a lot wider than you, but we can find something.”

He handed her a pair of gray sweatpants. “You can cinch these with the string at the waist. If that’s not enough, I’ll find you a belt.”

He also gave her a sweatshirt, which was faded but soft. “Layer this over your sweater to keep warm.”

Michael left the room. The pants were snug in the hips, but big in the waist. She managed to tie the string tightly enough to hold them up. She put on the sweatshirt and immediately felt warmer.

In the bathroom, she hung her pants over the shower stall to dry.

She joined him in the kitchen. “Thanks. That feels a lot better.” She stepped close to the counter. “We should probably start cooking, right?”

* * *

DAMN. SAMANTHA LOOKED good in his clothes. They weren’t the least bit feminine, but she made them so...and that was a problem.

Michael turned away from her to open the fridge door, resisting even the faintest hint of awareness.

“We do need to cook,” he finally said in answer to her question. Lighten up, Moreno.

He might not be able to control the situation, but he could control his reaction to it. “It’s better to have the food cooked before we lose power. It’ll keep longer than raw.”

“What’s all the meat for?”

“Chicken soup and meat loaf. The kids like both.”

“My boys would like that, too.”

So they weren’t vegetarians like her? Strange.

He got the proteins out of the fridge.

“That’s a lot of ground beef,” she said.

“I was going to make a couple of loaves. I’m not much of a cook, but I can handle the basics.”

“Would you mind if I check your cupboards to see what else there is?”

He spread one arm wide. “Have at it.”

He stood back, leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms while he waited.

He didn’t like having her in his kitchen, but maybe she could come up with more ideas to feed six people with his supplies.

She dived into the task, surprising him with what excited her. A tin of black beans nearly sent her into raptures. He almost smiled.

“You have spaghetti and canned tomato sauce. Your spices look old, but we can try to jazz it up a bit. How about one meat loaf and a pot of Bolognese?”

“We’re having bologna?” Mick asked. He stood behind Michael with the other children.

Samantha spun around. “Bolognese. Basically, beef sauce for spaghetti.”

Why didn’t she just say so? Awkward and unsophisticated beside her with her fancy words for meat sauce, he bristled.

“We’re hungry,” Mick said.

“You keep checking out the food,” Michael told Samantha. “I’ll make snacks.” He gave them cheese strings and granola bars.

“They need a fruit or veggie with that.”

He knew how to feed children, for God’s sake. He had two of them. The woman didn’t seem to notice that she’d butted in. She insisted they have apple slices spread with peanut butter. Health freak.

Not a bad idea, though. They carried their snacks to Mick’s bedroom.

She rummaged through his cupboards again.

“Barley!” she squealed.

“You get excited about strange things,” he said.

“I can use it to make a vegetarian soup for myself.”

He cocked his head. “You said your sons eat anything. Aren’t they vegetarians, too?”

“No. I’ve told them my philosophy, but they can eat what they want and make their own choices when they’re old enough. They eat all of my food, but if anyone offers meat, they eat that, too.”

Hell of a way to go about it. He taught his children his values and he expected them to follow. He didn’t give them choices.

He shrugged and moved on. No skin off his nose if she was a screwball parent.

“What are you comfortable making?” he asked.

“I love cooking soups. Do you want to make the meat loaf with half the ground beef and brown the rest for the spaghetti sauce?”

“Suits me fine.”

While he focused on the meat, she started pulling out every vegetable in his crisper—cabbage, carrots and celery.

“Do you have potatoes?”

“I’ll get them. How many do you want?”

“As many as you have.”

“I’ve got ten pounds.”

While she digested that, she chewed her bottom lip. “An entire bag?”

“Close to it.”

“There are six of us. Should we use half of them to make mashed potatoes to go with the meat loaf and bake the rest?”

“Yeah. We can always eat them cold tomorrow if need be.”

He stored the bag at the top of the stairs to the basement. He retrieved it and also snagged a rutabaga and a bag of onions.

He returned to the kitchen and came up short. It was strange to see a woman there and even stranger that he had to pass close to her to get to his own counter.

Careful not to touch her, he sidled past, feeling her heat nonetheless.

It was going to be a long night.

She asked, “Are you sure you’ll have enough food? We’re three extra mouths.”

Without a word, he opened the freezer door. Loaves of bread filled half of the space, with plenty of meat crowding the other.

“Living this far from town, I’m always prepared.”

“Hey!” she declared, reaching in as though she’d found a treasure. “Look at all of this spinach. Awesome! You said the kids didn’t eat greens.”

“For some weird reason, Mick likes the frozen stuff, so I keep plenty on hand.”

“May I use it?”

“Of course.”

They worked side by side for an eternity, or so it seemed to Michael. Every time he had to pass her to get into the fridge, or to retrieve a pot from a low cupboard, he held his breath.

She was almost as tall as him, maybe only a couple of inches shorter. He wasn’t used to that. Lillian had been a little bit of a thing.

The first time they brushed arms, he just about jumped out of his skin.

He wasn’t the skittish type, not usually. He might not be attracted to this woman, despite her beauty, but he also wasn’t used to having a woman in his kitchen. Other than Lillian’s friend Karen, that is, who came around more often than he liked under the guise of helping him with the children.

Things were getting complicated there. All Michael felt for Karen was a small level of affection. He’d known for a while now that she was expecting more from him than he wanted to give.

She’d been good to him, and he felt nothing other than gratitude. It made him feel ashamed...and guilty.

Samantha brushed past him again. He glanced her way sharply, but she wasn’t doing it on purpose. The working area of the kitchen was just too damn small for two people who didn’t know each other.

The harvest table took up pretty much all of the room, but at least there would be plenty of space to seat everyone at dinnertime.

Earlier, when she’d pulled her sweater up over her hair for Lily’s benefit, she’d revealed a trim waist and perfectly tanned tight flesh. His libido had performed a tap dance worthy of Gene Kelly.

It had been two and a half years since he’d been with a woman. Once Lillian had become too weak for intimacy, all he’d done was hold her.

Maybe sometime in the two years since her death he should have slept with a woman. But who? This was a small town. Everyone knew everyone else and all of their business.

He suspected the town might already think he and Karen were having relations, even though he’d been careful to set boundaries there.

Did his physical discomfort matter? In the space of a silly heartbeat, Samantha had won over his daughter. That had been clear when Lily had whispered, for his ears only after that trick with her hair, “I like her, Daddy.”

That was good enough for him, even if he did find her ditzy and too beautiful.

She puzzled him. Without a speck of self-consciousness, she’d messed up her own hair, just to break the ice with Lily.

In his experience, beautiful women cared too much about their appearances. His mother had. So had his baby sister.

Michael strengthened his defenses and set his confusion aside. The power could go out at any time and there was a lot to do.

Between the two of them, they managed to make the meat loaf and put together one pot of chicken soup and another of spaghetti sauce.

Samantha had made a small pot of barley soup for herself and had used the steak to make a larger one of beef and barley.

Michael had also boiled and mashed potatoes—more potatoes than he’d seen in one place since he was a child with his mom, dad and Angela around.

“Oh,” Samantha breathed, breaking into his thoughts of the past. Good thing. He didn’t want to go there.

“I just had a thought,” she said.

“What?”

“If the power goes out and we have to conserve diesel, how will we heat this up? How will we cook the pasta?”

“Camping equipment on the fireplace. I have a kerosene camp stove I can use on the back porch as well as a barbecue I can cook just about anything on.”

Samantha looked curious and engaged, as though the details truly interested her. “How about if I make things easier by boiling the spaghetti now and mixing it with the sauce? Then we can reheat in one pot.”

Opening the door of the refrigerator, she said, “I saw some Monterey Jack in here. I can add cheese to the pot to make it tasty.”

“Sure. Lily will like that. She loves that cheese.”

She stopped what she was doing and became pensive. Seemed out of character for the woman. “Oh. It’s Lily’s cheese. Okay, let’s leave it for her.”

She put it back into the fridge almost reverently.

“She won’t mind if you use it,” Michael insisted.

Her smile looked a little sad. “I’d like it to be hers.”

Weird. What was wrong with the woman? Lily wasn’t going to die if she couldn’t have a piece of cheese.

She seemed adamant, so Michael reached past her for the cheese, calling, “Lily, come here.”

Samantha’s perfume floated around him like a soft cloud. He held his breath, grabbed the cheese and backed away from her.

Lily ran into the kitchen, cheeks flushed.

“What, Daddy? Hurry. I have to play.”

“Your Monterey Jack cheese. You okay if we use it in some spaghetti sauce or should we leave it for you to eat?”

“S’ghetti sauce!” She turned and ran to the back of the house.

“You have permission. Use it,” he ordered, dropping it into Samantha’s hands.

“Okay.”

“You like children? Especially girls?”

Her lips twisted, her smile rueful. “Oh, I do. I really do. I wish I’d had one. Don’t get me wrong,” she rushed on. “I love my boys to heaven and back. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. They are my heart. I do like little girls, though. I guess I just relate to them.”

What had that sadness been about with the cheese and Lily? Somehow he didn’t think she would have reacted in the same way had it been Mick’s cheese.

He didn’t want that kind of curiosity about her. The less he knew about the woman, the better.

Samantha started to chatter about everything and nothing and he wondered what the heck was going on. Something had made her nervous.

When she paused for a breath of air, he said, “You going to quit talking any time soon?”

She caught her breath and stared at him.

He hadn’t meant to sound harsh. It was meant to be a joke. He might not want her here, but he didn’t willingly hurt others. He was about to open his mouth to apologize when she burst out laughing.

“Travis says that exact same thing to me all the time. He says I’m long on air and short on content.”

Her smile, like sunshine bursting through heavy clouds, turned his guts to pudding.

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