His Small-Town Sweetheart

“That’s great,” she said. “Maybe you can tell me what some of these bugs are called. I think Dad and the brats avoid me because they know I’ll talk their ear off if they come near. But you don’t mind if I talk, do you?” She watched his face carefully.

He shrugged but looked distinctly uncomfortable, as if he really would like her to just remain quiet but didn’t want to upset her. If he wasn’t going to protest, she’d talk his ear off because she liked chatting with him. Even if he was just being polite, she couldn’t help her smile.

“I knew I could count on you.”

When she moved to grab her bucket, he held up a hand. “No hugs.”

She laughed. “Oh, trust me, I’m not hugging anyone smelling like I do. I don’t believe in sharing sweat when hugging. Don’t worry, though...I’ll just hug you more next time.”

When he grimaced, she laughed again.

“You’ll get used to it. I swear.” She bent down to pull another weed.

He walked beside her silently, pulling weeds as he went. Investigating the leaves and corncobs. Occasionally he’d point out an insect and let her know whether it was beneficial or needed to be gotten rid of.

She talked about nonsense the entire time. He didn’t respond, but it didn’t bother her. She was glad for the company. She got only that partial smile, though. Not even a flash of dimple. What would it take to make Sam Ward smile? When her mind started turning over certain ways to make a man like Sam smile, she bent down to tie her shoe to hide her suddenly red face. When they made it to the end of her row, her father was there.

“John,” Sam acknowledged.

“You ready for us?” Dad put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“The trailer is at the gate, ready for loading.”

“Good, good.” Her father turned to her as if noticing her for the first time. “You coming with, kid?”

She hated it when he called her “kid.” Even “Nik” was better than “kid.” “Yeah. I was hoping to take a quick shower first, though.”

“No need,” her father said. “Just going to get muddy anyway. Come on.”

They followed him down the hill, where Ethan and Wes waited next to their dad’s truck.

“Why don’t you ride with Sam?” Dad said and left them to join the boys.

“Well, that’s not at all awkward.” Nicole smiled up at Sam. “Do you have room for me?”

He nodded and led the way over to his truck. He pulled open the passenger door, and she climbed into the truck.

She slid off her gloves and put them in her lap, suddenly very conscious of the small space and her current lack of personal hygiene. Her deodorant had given up at least a half hour ago, and while she would have loved to believe her sweat didn’t stink...she was fairly certain she didn’t smell like a bed of roses right now, but more like the fertilizer. “Sorry for the smell. Normally I bathe before getting into enclosed spaces with other people.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” He started the truck and drove up the driveway.

“I suppose when you work with cows, pigs and sheep all day, one stinky human isn’t overwhelming.” She turned to watch his expression.

“You don’t stink.” His tone didn’t imply anything negative or even positive, but the simple comment made her heart sing a little.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to be nice. After all, I’m about to climb into your hog pen and get all muddy. I’m sure the hogs won’t mind the smell.” She glanced out the window as they passed the field where their tree house was. Friends didn’t care if other friends liked the way they smelled. She didn’t know how to act around him. So she did what she did best—talk. “I don’t think I’ve carried my cell phone around with me at all. It’s odd because I always checked it in LA. But the reception is so iffy at Dad’s that I just don’t bother. The funny thing is, I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything.”

“Don’t you have friends who call?” Sam asked.

“Funny thing, that.” She twisted in her seat to face him. “Jeremy got our friends. Turns out they were mostly his to start. The friends I had in college all went their separate ways, but we email once in a while.”

The lack of people to hang out with had made her decision to head back to her dad’s that much easier. She could just imagine what Jeremy was saying about her now that she was gone. For all she knew, he’d already hooked up with someone new. She could name at least two girls in their group of friends who had always wanted him. That gave her pause. Nicole must still be in the numb phase of the breakup, because that didn’t hurt as much as it would have a few months ago. Or would it have hurt then?

Sam turned down his driveway and pulled up next to the barn. She snapped out of her thoughts.

“How many hogs are we loading?” She wished she could find a way to make him talk for longer than a minute and finally see his smile. If he was gorgeous sullen, would he be stunningly handsome full-on smiling?

“A dozen.” He opened his door and got out. Before he could reach her side, she opened her door and hopped down in front of him.

“A baker’s or literal?” Maybe if she were funnier, he would smile. She never was good at jokes or funny stories. Her jokes tended to meander too much, and she always screwed up the punch line.

“Literal.” Not even a crack of a smile. Though she swore she saw a little merriment in his eyes.

“Awesome.” She followed him down to the pen. Her father and brothers joined them.

“Spread out around the outside and then we’ll slowly work them forward,” Sam said and handed her a square board about three feet by three feet and less than an inch thick. It had cutouts for her hands. “If they get past you, don’t worry, but try to keep them in the circle we create.”

He could read the directions to build an IKEA chair and his deep voice would hold her enthralled. Maybe that was the way to get him to talk: read instructions. He raised his eyebrow at her when she didn’t respond. She nodded.

“Don’t slip up.” Wes winked as he passed her.

She wished she’d never taught those two brats to wink. The way they did it was obnoxious, as if they knew exactly what she was thinking about. Ideally Sam didn’t. He didn’t need to know that she had the equivalent of a schoolgirl crush on him. It wasn’t as if she was drawing hearts with their initials in her notebook or anything like that. All he needed to know was that she wanted them to be friends again.

They all moved into the pen, and Sam showed her where to stand before going to his place near the gate. The poor pigs sensed something was up and moved away from them.

When Sam nodded, they all started working the hogs. Moving them out of their comfortable home and into a trailer seemed cruel, but she wasn’t about to become a vegetarian over it. She liked her bacon too much to give it up.

The majority of the hogs were blocked in, and her brothers helped Sam get them into the smaller run that would lead them to the trailer. Of course, the ornery one had to be near her. She pushed it with the tip of the board, but it merely rolled on its side in the mud. The chaos in the rest of the pen hadn’t reached this one’s brain yet. Or it just didn’t care. Maybe it didn’t have a brain. One too many dunks in the mud pit, perhaps.

“You’re making me look bad,” she muttered to the pig. It snorted in response. Maybe a different tactic was in order. “What if I promised you some good slop tonight? The very best carrots and potatoes? What if I dump my whole plate in your slop bin? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

The pig finally got up and meandered toward the gate.

“Good pig. Who’s going to get a big apple with dinner tonight?” She followed behind with her board positioned between the pig and her. “The biggest pig in here, that’s who.”

Proud of herself and her pig, she couldn’t help beaming at Sam as the animal kept heading his way. His gaze followed the hog, but then those blue eyes focused on her and she stopped in her tracks. His lips curved into a smile so genuine that her grip loosened on the board and her heart beat a little harder.

As if sensing her resolve slipping away, the pig turned. It happened so quickly she didn’t have time to brace herself before the hog plowed into the side of her board and around her. She tried to turn, but the ground beneath her feet was wet for the pigs to wallow in, and the ground slipped out from under her. She set the board into the mud to try to keep herself from falling.

Ethan and Wes would never let her live it down if she fell into the pig muck.

* * *

Sam couldn’t do anything but watch as Nicole’s feet went out from beneath her. The twins were already after the last hog. Sam rushed over to where she fell and knelt in the muck next to her. His pulse raced with fear. She could be hurt. The mud squished beneath the knees of his jeans. The wetness reached his skin. The board lay across her chest. She’d landed faceup in pigpen mud. It covered her back from head to toe.

“If he thinks he’s getting an apple now,” she muttered angrily, “he has another think coming. I can’t wait to have bacon when I get up. And maybe some ham.”

Sam couldn’t help the smile that touched his lips or the relief that flooded through him when he realized she was okay. Even down, she kept talking. He pulled the board off her and tossed it to the side. When he turned back to Nicole, she looked at him as if he were an alien.

“What?”

“Oh, don’t stop. Darn it. I finally get a full smile and it’s over before I can fully appreciate it.” She pushed up on her elbows. The mud sucked at her back and hair. Her face scrunched up. “Oh, that’s so gross.”

“I smile.” He pulled off his brown work glove and brushed some mud off her cheek with his thumb. The touch hadn’t been anything other than an attempt to clean off her cheek before the dirt got in her mouth, but electricity sizzled through his blood. He almost missed her slight intake of breath and widened eyes, as if she felt it, too.

“I’m not sure I can get out of this...mud.” Her smile was softer than the normal grins she gave him. “Would you mind giving me a lift, please?”

He nodded and stood, leaning over and offering his hand. She grabbed his wrist, and he yanked her up. He hadn’t been thinking. The motion pulled something in his chest near his scar. It was enough to take his breath away for a moment.

“Sam? Are you okay?” Her bare hands touched his cheeks, and she lifted his head until she was looking into his eyes. At some point, she must have taken off her filthy gloves. Her forehead was wrinkled with concern.

He focused on the mixture of green and gold within her eyes and took slow breaths, willing the pain away. The color was soothing, like a field of spring grass, soft and damp with morning dew. Her eyes searched his, as if she was looking for some reason why he was acting as if he were an old man trying to catch his breath.

“I’m okay.” He straightened away from her hands and took in a full breath. He rubbed at his chest. He’d felt like an old man before the surgery on his heart. The doctor assured him that he’d feel young again once he was done healing.

“Did I hurt you?” She covered his hand on his chest with her own. “I’m going to blame the mud, because surely I don’t weigh that much if you can bench-press a bull.”

He smiled. He couldn’t help it. Heck, he didn’t want to help it. She always said the oddest things. “I thought it was a cow.”

“If I weren’t covered in more mud and...ew, other stuff than you, I would so hug you right now, Sam Ward.”

“I’ll remember that next time you try to hug me.” He gave her a half smile, which seemed to please her to no end. He hoped she’d forgotten about his chest pain. He didn’t want to see that look of concern that always filled his brothers’ eyes when they looked at him. He’d had a bum valve. It was all fixed now and he should have no issues living his life. Except the odd strain on the healing scar.

“I don’t suppose you are going to let me into your truck looking like this.” Her eyes danced as she met his gaze.

“Brush the mud off and quit playing around, Nik.”

Nicole winced at her father’s voice. “I’m not playing, Dad. I’m fairly certain this is more than a brush-the-mud-off situation.”

“Oh, I can’t go on, either,” Wes yelled. His green eyes twinkled with mischief. “I have a little mud on my pants. I can’t help anymore. I think I’ll go inside and play Xbox for the rest of the day.”

“Shut it, Wes,” her dad said. His gaze went over Sam and her. “Looks like neither of you are up to going into the sale barn, Sam. The boys and I can take the hogs in for you. Hose her down and send her home if you don’t mind, Sam.”

Sam watched the emotions run through Nicole’s eyes. Pain, embarrassment, resignation.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure she gets home. Thanks, John,” Sam said.

Before the twins were born, Nicole had been John’s little helper. After the boys, though, no matter how much she acted like one, her father still preferred to spend his time with them. She could never find her way back into the favorite slot. These were just a few of the secrets shared between best friends in the tree house they’d built.

He couldn’t imagine the pain of having her folks split their family in half. What must that have felt like for her? Had she felt like the last one to get picked? If her mother hadn’t moved so far away, would Sam and Nicole have been split up?

“You ready to get hosed down?” he asked as the truck doors slammed behind them.

She lifted her eyebrow at him. “You aren’t serious.”

“How else are you going to get all the pig smell off you?” Sam flicked a chunk of mud from her shoulder. “I can’t exactly let you into the house looking like that.”

Her smile was downright wicked when she stepped close to him. “If I’m going to get hosed down, then you are, too.”

She put a handful of mud from her leg on the front of his shirt and smiled up at him. “Just so you know, if you hadn’t grown so big, I’d have just tackled you in the mud.”

The images she conjured in his mind were enough to make him welcome the cold hose water. The truck engine vanished into the distance, leaving him and Nicole alone. If she wanted to play with mud, he decided two could play at this game.

Chapter Four

Nicole took one look at the mischievous look in Sam’s eyes and knew she was in trouble. So when he bent over to scoop up some mud, she shoved him off balance.

“Hey!” He fell to the side and into the mud. She took the opportunity to turn to make her getaway.

If the mud hadn’t sucked down her boots, she might have made it, too.

As she tried to pull free of the mud, Sam said, “Not so fast, Nikki.”

His hand wrapped around her calf and yanked her backward. She lost her balance and fell backward on top of him. The air rushed out of her lungs, but at least he was more solid than the mud beneath his back.

“I hope your plan was for me to squish you more into the mud and get more on you,” Nicole said. She started to struggle to get up, but his hands on her hips stopped her.

“If you squirm any more, we are going to have more than just a mud problem,” he said through his teeth.

Heat rushed to her cheeks. She glanced over her shoulder. Sam half leaned out of the mud, but he was definitely more covered in it than she was. A spark of heat in his eyes made her aware of the intimacy of their position. The warmth of him against her backside surged through her. If it hadn’t stunk like crazy and the flies weren’t trying to bite every piece of mud from her body, she might have been tempted to...

She looked away. He was probably worried about an elbow to his crotch, and here she was getting all hot and bothered while covered in mud and...stuff. She took a deep breath and instantly regretted it. It was the other stuff that made her wrinkle her nose.

Needing to keep things easy, she glanced back again and flashed him a grin. “Afraid I’ll get more mud on you?”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” He pushed her up by her hips until she could regain her footing. “And here I thought you’d play fair.”

She turned to watch him peel himself out of the mud. “There’s nothing fair about your height or weight advantage. You just fall easy.”

He raised his eyebrow at her as he stood up. “Maybe unbalanced in a pigpen, I fall easy.”

She shook off what mud she could. This wasn’t exactly facial or soothing mud bath material. “It’s starting to itch.”

“That’s because it’s drying. We should go over to the hose.” He started to lead the way out of the pen.

“You aren’t serious about the hose?” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Seriously? When there is a perfectly good hot shower in the house?”

He stopped and faced her. “We’re not allowed to track mud through the house.”

“Isn’t it your house?” She crossed her arms. “If I’d known about the lack of warm water facilities, I would have fallen in the mud at my own house.”

“You’re welcome to walk home.” He gestured for her to go ahead.

There was a lot of land between the two houses, and going the road way wouldn’t be any better. Screw that. “Oh, no. You drove me here, and you’ll be driving me back.”

“I suppose you could ride in the truck bed, but only after I’ve had a chance to shower and change.”

She weighed her options. Cold and dripping wet followed by a nice warm shower or being eaten alive by flies and itching from the drying mud for some unknown amount of time? She could feel Sam watching her as she made her decision. “What will I change into?”

His eyes flared hot for a second before his cool demeanor slipped back into place. Probably just her imagination running wild. To Sam she’d always just been that annoying tomboy from next door, who happened to be his best friend.

“I’m sure I can find you a T-shirt and sweats,” he said.

“Somehow I don’t think we are the same size like we were way back when,” she grumbled. She’d always liked wearing her boyfriend’s shirts, but she needed to remember Sam was just a friend, even if wearing his clothes seemed intimate. “I suppose I’ll let you hose me down, but on one condition.” She held up her finger.

“What’s that?” The corner of his mouth twitched.

She narrowed her eyes and shook her finger at him. “As long as you don’t like it.”

A laugh burst from his lips. Her heart skipped a beat at the sound as she smiled up at him. It didn’t last long, but it soothed her to know that he still could laugh.

His mouth settled into a small smile that made her catch her breath. “I’ll try. But you better not have any fun hosing me down, either. This isn’t the water balloon fight of ’95.”

Shaking off the sudden feelings of giddiness bubbling under the surface, she said, “Okay, hug on it.”

He held out his hands. “No—”

As if that would stop her. She stepped into his arms and squeezed him around the waist. The mud on them made weird smacking noises. She laughed as she released him. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Says you.” He continued toward the back of the house where the hose was. Hose water was hose water, and she’d never had a warm soak from a hose. The water out here was either from the well or the cistern. Either way, it would be frigid underground water, regardless of the warm weather.

“Don’t you have a pond that we can jump into?” She stopped a few feet away from him as he went to turn the hose on.

“Not unless you want to get eaten by mosquitoes.” He turned the handle, and the rush of water could be heard flooding through the line. He picked up the other end of the hose as the water cascaded to the ground. “Besides, it’s a runoff from the hog pens. You’d get cleaner from rolling in the pens.”

The spray created a rainbow. Of course, a rainbow would normally be a happy thing, but not when it was created by water from the Arctic.

“Wait.” She held up her hands to ward off the oncoming blast of cold water. “What if I just take off my clothes?”

“I don’t think—”

His words stopped the second she started unbuttoning her shirt. “It’s not like we’d be naked. I have on a bra and underwear, and I’m sure you are wearing some sort of underwear. The mud would mostly be our heads, which would be just fine walking through your house. Not that our heads walk, but—”

“Nicole.” Her name was gruff, almost strangled, on his lips.

“I’m just trying to make it easier on us.” She stopped unbuttoning her shirt and glanced up at him, uncertain of what she was going to see.

His eyes were glued to her hands as they hovered over the last button. She watched in fascination as he swallowed. Her skin prickled, and it had nothing to do with the heat or the drying mud. She had thought to avoid the chill of the hose water, but at the intensity of his gaze, she would almost have welcomed the cold.

Try as she might, she couldn’t deny the attraction in his eyes or the desire burning beneath her skin. Even covered in...stuff. Oh, she was in trouble. And she didn’t know how deep she wanted to dig herself. She could laugh this off and pretend she didn’t see or feel what was happening between them. Deny this intense longing to just go with her gut for the first time in a long time.

Her gut was saying go for it. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t as if she’d fall for the boy next door. What was sex between old friends? Would he be up for a roll in the hay with no obligations? Or was he looking for more at this point in his life?

It didn’t matter. If Sam had wanted to act on this attraction, he would have. The men she’d been with had always taken the initiative. If a man wanted to kiss you, he’d kiss you. Right? She needed to get it through her head that this wasn’t happening between them. They were just friends. Not even real friends. Friends from childhood.

“I think this is the quietest I’ve been in a long time.” She tried to laugh, but it came out stilted.

He lifted his gaze to hers, and she took an involuntary step back. The intensity of his eyes struck some primal need deep inside her. Whoa, who would have known that Sam Ward was the type of guy who could melt her into a puddle with just a look? If she felt this way from a look, what would happen if he actually touched her? Goose bumps rose on her exposed skin. That was a very dangerous idea. As much as she longed to finish taking off her shirt and let whatever happens happen, she wasn’t sure she could handle the intensity of Sam. Maybe being partially naked in front of him wasn’t a great idea, even if the alternative was freezing cold water.

She pulled her shirt together. The mud squished between her fingers.

“You know, the hose probably won’t be that bad.” Lord knew her flesh needed cooling down. She flinched but braced herself for the cold. “Go ahead. Spray me.”

* * *

Eighty-five. Eighty-six. Eighty-seven. If Sam kept counting, he could fight this urge to walk over and finish stripping Nicole naked. He started counting the second he caught sight of Nicole’s hot-pink bra under the dull flannel shirt. Its little bow seemed to beckon him with its innocent temptation. It’d been almost easy to think of her as one of the guys with her body completely covered. Almost. It had been a hell of a lot easier before seeing that flash of femininity.

As he’d counted in his head, she’d innocently revealed a bit more of her skin. She hadn’t even been aware of what she was doing to him. The low simmer of desire that pulsed through his veins every time she was close was now a full boil. He was barely managing to keep it from boiling over.

“Are you going to do it?” She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself. She’d covered herself, but the image was burned into his retinas. Satin pale skin that looked soft yet stretched over muscles that were clearly toned. His fingertips twitched with the need to feel if it really was as soft and lush as it looked.

Ninety-four. He looked up into the sky. Maybe a plane would fall on him. Just a few more numbers and surely he’d be able to focus again. Ninety-five.