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“Zack?” Sam turned, and so help him, he swore she batted her eyes. “You coming?”
Man, it had been a while—he’d like to come. The moment the thought registered, he cringed. No. No! He was not lusting after this woman and that was that. Mixed signals notwithstanding, she was the toughest woman he’d ever met and she was also currently his boss. He ordered his dick to get a grip on reality and followed Sam into a tack room that was almost the size of his new home. Sam chose the third saddle from the right, hefting it off its brace with one hand before she selected the fifth bridle off the opposite wall. So far, so good.
Then things got complicated. Sam approached Taylor and slung the blanket-thing on his back. “The fold goes in front.”
Right. She was all business. That’s what he needed to be focusing on. Time to cowboy up. Literally.
“Flip everything over the saddle,” she went on, “and then set—not throw—the saddle up a little before you settle it back into place.” She hefted that saddle up like it weighed nothing, and then rocked it back.
Dear Lord, Zack prayed, please don’t let me throw the whole thing right over to the other side of the horse.
Sam was unaware of his silent bargaining. She walked around to the other side of the horse and flipped everything that had been up back down. “You’ve got to be gentle when you do this. You’re building a relationship of trust with your horse.”
“I can do gentle.”
She shot him a look that found the line between “watch it” and “prove it” before she walked back around to his side. “Do you remember what the girth is?” She reached underneath the horse’s belly and grabbed the thing that was hanging down.
Girth rang a bell, but not enough of one for him to actually remember what it was. “I think so.”
“For this saddle, you’ve only got to fasten the one. Do this part first, bridle the horse, then tighten the girth.”
Man, that was so close to being familiar. He took mental notes as she looped the leather strap twice through the rings and then put her hand on the horn. Hey! He remembered what the horn was!
She took the horse’s halter off. Zack froze. He’d done that before, too—suddenly he remembered what had happened. The horse he’d been trying to bridle had felt the halter fall free and had bolted out of the barn, Zack trailing at top speed. He’d tripped and fallen face-first into the muck before the real cowboys managed to get his horse lassoed. The other boys at camp had laughed at him, and he’d had to shovel the whole barn and clean the saddles as punishment. It had taken him all day.
But then the head cowboy had fetched him after dinner and spent the better part of the night showing him how to bridle the horse. Yeah, he’d screwed up. But he’d been given a second chance to do it right.
Zack looked at Sam. The crook of her mouth curved into a barely-there smile as she stroked the horse’s nose. “This is just a simple snaffle bit,” she said as she slid it into the horse’s mouth.
This was his second chance. He damn well better do it right.
Sam went back to the girth and cinched it down. “Always leave enough space to slip two fingers in between the horse and the girth before you mount up,” she said as she demonstrated. “No need to make link sausage out of this old guy.”
This calm and patient Sam was something new. “You act like you’ve done this a lot.”
One shoulder moved up and down as she walked around the horse. “About half the women who come here have never been on a horse. Heaven hadn’t.”
She made it sound like she hired a lot of cowgirls—only cowgirls. At least he wouldn’t be the worst person she’d ever seen in the saddle. “How long has she been here?”
“Heaven’s been here for almost a year and a half. Lindy’s only been here for about three months.” Her inspection of the horse complete, Sam turned to him. That crook of a smile got just a little deeper. “Mount up.”
He stuck his foot in the left stirrup and glanced at her. She gave him a little nod, so he took that to mean that he was doing this from the correct side.
Okay, Taylor, he thought as he counted to three. Here goes nothing.
He swung his leg high over the horse’s back and hit the saddle with a thump. Taylor did something jumpy that felt like all four of his legs went in four different directions.
“Whoa, now, easy. Gentle and easy,” Sam said from below him. Then she was at the horse’s head, holding onto the bridle and cooing in a soft voice. “He’s not going to bolt on you, okay?”
“Okay.” But that’s exactly what it felt like the horse was going to do—and take him along for the ride.
Sam let go of the bridle and walked up parallel with Zack’s thigh. “You’re too far back in the saddle.” She reached up and patted the saddle—right between his legs. “You need to be up here, snug against the horn.”
She wasn’t touching him, but she was close enough that he could see her fingers within centimeters of his crotch, ever-so-lightly stroking the saddle.
He went hard in a heartbeat—painfully so, between the saddle and the belt buckle. He looked at her. Her face was almost level with his crotch. And she was staring.
And staring. And staring. For what felt like a thousand years. All he could do was sit there and try not to squirm, because squirming would only make it worse.
“Scoot up,” she said in that not-an-option tone of voice, pulling her hand back. And immediately putting it on his ass.
Jesus. Bad was not the word for this torture test. He was trapped, because if he made one wrong move, he’d be lucky to walk out of here. Her tough-yet-stunning act was getting to him. Surely she wouldn’t kill him because he was man enough to notice? He did the only thing he could and scooted forward.
“Good.” For the first time, he heard a catch in her voice. This was good? She was giving him a raging hard-on after promising to shoot him on sight, and it was good?
Then bad officially got worse. Her hand—shaking just a little—moved to his thigh and on down. She pulled his leg forward. “You don’t need spurs with Taylor.” Her voice had started to shake, too. But not in a terrified kind of way. Call him crazy, but he swore that tremble was a thing of need, not of fear. “Just push, like this.” She kept her eyes down—and away from his crotch. Her fingers traced over his calf with just enough pressure to push his leg into the horse’s side. “Okay?”
Need. It hung in the air between them, as painfully obvious as his unavoidable hard-on. It hit him in a flash. Rule number one was no men. When was the last time someone had gotten past the tough-as-nails, rifle-toting cowgirl front to actually see the stunning woman underneath?
When was the last time Sam Kenady had needed someone to take care of her?
Slowly, Sam raised her eyes to meet his. Her breath was shallow, her eyes almost completely dilated, and the pink loveliness on her cheeks spread down to her pretty tank top.
Need. When was the last time someone had needed him?
Even through the denim, he could feel her nails try to dig into his leg. Her mouth parted, begging for a kiss.
His fingers itched. He shouldn’t. Just one touch. He reached out, trailing a finger down her cheek. Her breath caught in her throat. Need. She needed him. Him.
“Well, I say he looks good up there.”
At the sound of the new voice, Sam went stiff and blank as she snapped her face away from his touch and her hand away from his leg. Left with his hand hanging in mid-air, Zack did the only thing he could. He leaned forward and petted Taylor’s neck as he looked toward the house to see every other woman in the place out on the porch. He’d been so focused on Sam—and her hands—that he hadn’t even heard the door open and shut.
Wonderful. More witnesses were never a good thing.
“That’s Heaven?” he asked under his breath.
“Yup.” Sam sounded irritated as she adjusted the other stirrup for him. At least she wasn’t touching him now.
He didn’t want to stare, but they were all openly gaping at him. Granny and Andy—he remembered the bigger woman quite clearly—were sitting in chairs. The other women were hanging over the porch railing as if they were watching a parade. He couldn’t see their faces well enough to see which was the older of the two, but the thinner one waggled her finger, and when she saw him looking, she waved. The other woman was dressed all in black and wearing so much black eyeliner that he had no trouble seeing her roll her eyes at this distance. That’d be Lindy, the surly teenager in action.
Heaven was pretty, as far as pretty went, but that was it. Not interesting. “Not my type.”
“Keep it that way.” The stirrup set, Sam walked around the horse—and him—again. “Not bad,” she said in what sounded like reluctant agreement with Heaven. “But let’s see you get down. Gently.”
He managed to stick the dismount without error. Sporadic applause echoed from the porch.
Sam grimaced. “Ignore them. Now pay attention.” In short order, she had the horse unsaddled and unbridled, and everything back in the tack room. “We clean our saddles every other day, depending. Everything goes back where it came from.”
“I can clean saddles. No problem.”
“Good.” She shot him a full-on, no-holds-barred smile. “Your turn.”
“Excuse me?”
“Saddle up.” She left the tack room.
Oh. Great. With an audience.
No need to panic. He had done this before, after all, and he’d just had a little refresher. He grabbed the horse’s bridle and saddle and headed out.
Sam was leaning over the fence gate, watching him with unreadable eyes. Zack was forced to notice her cleavage at this angle, but only in passing. He was more focused on not being laughed at.
The stirrup slipped off the horn and thunked the horse on the back, but he got the horse to take the bit on the first try. All that practice years ago paid off. He even remembered to tighten the girth.
This time, he mounted up nice and easy. More applause from the porch. Taylor didn’t do anything bolt-like, so Zack took that as a sign he was doing well. That, and Sam’s half-smile as she opened the gate. “Keep him at a walk.”
“Where am I going?”
She gave him a look. “It’s a big ranch. You’ll figure something out.”
Okay. Sam with an audience was a whole different creature than Sam without an audience. At least when she was unreadable, he was less likely to get uncalled-for hard-ons. He pointed the horse up the driveway, which led him right past the porch.
Heaven giggled at him. “Not so bad for a wannabe cowboy. Granny, he looks good in those clothes.”
“Good to hear. Dinner’s in an hour, so don’t get lost.” Granny stood and waved him goodbye. “Have fun!”
“But not too much fun,” Andy added with a wink. “It’s against the rules.”
He thought he heard Lindy make a noise of sheer disgust. He ignored her.
“Okay, that’s enough out of everyone.”
He didn’t want to turn around and look, but it sure sounded like Sam was stomping around on the porch.
“Let the man be.”
Lord, how was he going to survive the summer surrounded by every different kind of female ever made?
***
“He’s cute.”
Andy snorted as Heaven took up residence in the only other chair in the office. Sam bristled over her computer screen. “Heaven, may I remind you that if you do so much as bat a single eyelash at him—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m gone and he’s gone and we’re all gone.” She completed a world-class eye roll. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s really cute.”
Sam did not have time to have this conversation. Celine Ruzekia was going to be here in three and a half days. Zack Baker was a temporary distraction. Celine Ruzekia had the potential to rearrange her world.
“Sam, when was the last time you had any fun?” Heaven looked at Andy. “Not since I got here, that much is for sure. Did she have any fun before that?”
“Heaven!”
Andy laughed again. Sam thought Andy was enjoying herself just a little too much at Sam’s expense. “Some people have different definitions of fun, girl.”
“So, what? You’re saying Sam’s definition of fun is—”
“Stop right there!” It wasn’t like Sam didn’t know the girls talked about her, but that was behind her back. Not to her face.
Heaven grinned with pure wickedness. “You’re wearing the green shirt. You think he’s cute, too.”
Sam pointedly opened the day’s bills. “I’m not going to dignify that with a remark.”
Heaven and Andy shot each other the same look and broke out in giggles. Those two drove her nuts sometimes, bordering on all the time since Zack had shown up.
“Don’t you two have something to be doing?”
“Actually,” Heaven said as she settled her butt into the chair, “I needed to talk to you.”
Sam knew that tone of voice—quiet and serious. At least by Heaven’s standards. Crap. “Yeah?”
“I set a trap.”
Sam started rubbing her eyes. When had life gotten so complicated? It used to be all she had to worry about was Royal Gunderson and enforcing the rules. “Yeah?”
“I left my favorite lipstick out on my dresser.”
“And?”
“Gone.” Heaven looked deeply put out by this.
“Why’d you leave your favorite one?” Andy asked. “Why not your least favorite?”
“I didn’t think she’d take my least favorite.” Heaven looked back at Sam. “I can’t tell if she’s a kleptomaniac who just can’t help herself or if she’s just doing it to irritate us. Or both. Either way, I don’t want her in my room.”
“Me, neither,” Andy said. She was still smarting from the loss of her twenty.
“Can’t we have locks on our doors?” Heaven trotted out the big doe eyes. Sam could only assume that look had gotten results back when Heaven was walking the streets.
It didn’t work on Sam. “We’ve never had to use locks before.” Whether the household operated as a crew or a family, they’d never needed locks.
Plus, when they had to search a room, it made it easier to do it without busting down the door.
“We’ve never had a klepto in the house,” Andy reminded her.
“If we had some way of keeping an eye on her,” Heaven said, “then she couldn’t sneak around and pocket stuff. But I can’t watch her all the time. I’m helping Granny in the kitchen.”
“And I’m not giving up my nights to babysit her,” Andy added. “But we’ve got to do something.”
“Zack,” Sam said before she realized she’d spoken out loud.
“What about him?” Heaven asked.
“He used to teach college classes—science. He said he could tutor her.”
Andy and Heaven shared a look that Sam didn’t particularly care for. “You’d leave him alone with her?”
“No, not alone,” Sam said too fast. “If we made them work in the kitchen, where Granny could keep an ear on them...”
“Oh, great,” Heaven moaned. “You might as well just make me watch her.”
“I’m thinking about it,” Sam snapped. Then she took in a deep breath. “Look, I know Lindy’s a pain in the butt. But she’s a teenager. It goes with the territory. I’m not going to give up on her and I expect the same out of you all.”
Heaven huffed and Andy picked at her cuticle.
Sam sighed. “And we’ll get locks.” After all, they now had a man living on the ranch. Being able to lock doors at night was a safe precaution.
“Yah!” Heaven said. “Although I’m sure you’ll have rules about those, too.”
“I imagine so. Now,” Sam said in her best are-we-done-here voice as she focused on her bills, “don’t you two have something else to be doing?”
“Yup.” God bless Andy, she was pulling Heaven to her feet and out the door. “Celine’s coming, girl. I want you to make a good impression, and that means a clean room. We may have to take a blowtorch to Lindy’s room.”
“You’re such a—”
But the door closed, shutting out the immaturity and leaving Sam in blissful silence.
Lindy was going to be a problem for the foreseeable future. Granny wouldn’t be happy about locks. This was her house, she liked to remind the newcomers. But as long as Sam and Granny had keys that worked for every lock, it shouldn’t be a problem. And maybe Zack could tutor Lindy. The girl might actually learn something—something more than what Sam could teach her.
Zack Baker. Here, alone in the peace and quiet of her office, Sam could own up to the fact that Zack Baker wasn’t cute. Heaven was just going off what he looked like in borrowed cowboy duds. Sam knew the truth, and the truth was that Zack Baker was hot. Hot in an eager, geeky sort of way, but hot nonetheless. She’d seen all the hard evidence. The jeans didn’t do his backside—or his front side—justice.
That feeling, tight and aware, hit her again, lower this time. It almost hurt.
He had a lopsided smile that was boyish at the same time it said all man, loud and clear. He hadn’t looked like a total fraud in those duds, either. In fact, he’d looked even better in a belt than he had in his own clothes.
She shouldn’t have touched him, even if he was sitting in the saddle all wrong. She shouldn’t have let her hand touch any part of that saddle. She should have made him adjust his own stirrups.
She shouldn’t have looked—not this morning when he was skinny dipping, not this afternoon when he was sitting high in the saddle. She shouldn’t have seen, because now her brain was meshing the two looks into one scene, and that scene included a bed, and some pillows, and...
Her.
She never should have let him touch her, even if it was just her cheek.
Sam was so pissed off at herself for breaking at least two of her own damn rules in one day that she almost missed the tiny thought that flashed across her mind. He was a man who’d been, well, horny. And what had he done? Nothing. No crass comments. No lewd hip-thrusts. No grabbing at her private parts.
He’d done nothing that the men who owned the land around her ranch had done. Nothing some of the men on the White Sandy rez had done. There were always exceptions, of course. The sheriff of the White Sandy trusted her and he’d given her no reason not to trust him. Duke Gunderson wasn’t a total asshole. But Royal and his buddies? To those men, she was a weak female doing a real man’s job, and for some reason, they couldn’t let that stand.
She had to be put in her place. They had to put her in her place.
Over the years, she’d gotten real good with her rifle.
But Zack? Zack wasn’t like that. He didn’t use women; he didn’t press his advantage with her. He didn’t use her sex against her. All he did was run a single finger down the side of her face, real gentle-like.
Just thinking about that touch made her feel all kinds of things she wasn’t used to. Hell, if she didn’t know any better, she’d think she had a crush on the man, when that was entirely out of the question. She didn’t crush on anyone. It was safer that way.
The safest would have been to have walked him back to his truck and seen him on his way—at gunpoint, if necessary.
Why had she let him stay?
Because he’d needed one last chance, she told herself. It’d had nothing to do with his bare chest. Or other bare parts. And that was final.
It only got worse. Her office door popped open, making her jump. Heaven stuck her head in. “He’s back!”
“Walking or riding?” Taylor wasn’t one to throw a rider, but he clearly hadn’t climbed up into the saddle in a long time. Anything was possible.
“Riding.” Heaven’s grin bordered on cruel. “It’s a darn good thing he knows how to ride, ain’t it?”
She was gone before Sam could come up with an appropriate response. Damn it all, not only should she have not touched him, she should have done a much better job of making sure there was no one else around. How much had the girls seen? Had they seen him run a finger down her cheek like he was stroking silk?
She was not going to watch that man ride up the drive. She was going to sit right here and do what she always did—her paperwork. She would keep busy and not allow her mind to wander back down to the edge of her creek, where a man had no problem stripping down and wading in.
But she thought back to how Zack had sat so heavily in the saddle the first time. Before she knew it, she was up and moving for the door. She wasn’t going to watch him and that was final. She was just going to watch to make sure he didn’t hurt Taylor or ruin her saddle, that was all.
She made it out to the porch in time to see Zack riding back toward the house, the sun bright behind him. He wasn’t clinging to the horn as if his life depended on it. He didn’t even look nervous. Instead, his hips moved with Taylor’s gait as if he’d been riding his whole life. Damned if he didn’t look like a dyed-in-the-wool cowboy heading home after a long day out on the range.
Double damned if he didn’t look good.
“Not a thing wrong with that,” Heaven said under her breath. Sam was only vaguely aware that everyone else was out on the porch. Even Andy.
“Sure,” Lindy snipped. “If you like geeks.”
“First off,” Heaven said in a superior voice, “never discount the geeks. Second off, that man barely qualifies as a geek. Look at those arms.”
Everyone looked. Even Granny leaned forward and said, in a low voice, “He’s got the shoulders to match.”
Heaven laughed, Lindy groaned, and Andy chuckled, but Sam kept her mouth shut. She was too busy looking as Zack Baker fit into her ranch. He saw her watching and tipped his hat at her, like something out of a movie. As he did it, he gave her that lopsided smile that just about made her want to swoon. “Ladies,” he said as he rode past.
Sam Kenady did not swoon. Period.
Pointedly not swooning, she watched him unsaddle Taylor and turn him loose in the paddock. Already, Zack seemed to be getting over his case of nerves. His movements were more confident as he carried the saddle back to the tack room, and Taylor actually trotted alongside him in the paddock until Zack was in the barn.
Maybe this would work out—as long as she didn’t touch him again. After all, he was light years ahead of where Heaven had started, and Taylor liked him. Lord knew Sam could use the help this summer—especially help that knew how to handle bull-headed teenagers. Shouldn’t take too long for him to get comfortable in the saddle. But, as she watched him walk up to the house with a distinct bow in his legs, that was going to be a few days.
“I went to the road and back.” That lopsided grin was even wider. He looked real happy. Cute, even. “Thanks for getting me set up. And giving me a job.” The cute disappeared in a heartbeat. “And not shooting me.”
The way his eyes locked onto hers...it was the same way he’d looked at her earlier. Even though they weren’t touching—by about eight feet—she felt the heat arc between them.
Heaven snickered.
Even though she knew he shouldn’t look at her like that and she sure as hell shouldn’t look back, she couldn’t break his gaze. “You’re welcome. You’ve got about fifteen minutes before dinner.”
Exactly fifteen minutes later, a zoologist was sitting at her table. The boots were gone, replaced by his sneakers. The jeans were clean, and so was the t-shirt with some weird logo and what she could only assume was a band name scrawled on it.
“You know who Imagine Dragons is?” Lindy asked in a voice that was supposed to sound bored but was too curious to pull it off.
“Sure do.” But he didn’t do anything that could be construed as making nice with Lindy. Instead, he seemed almost to be waiting for her to make a big deal out of it.
She didn’t. She just took her seat at the table next to Andy and stared at her plate.
“Sit by me!” Heaven all but squealed as she patted the chair between her and Sam.
Sam tried to ignore Heaven, but she wasn’t the only one who was enchanted by their new dinner guest. Andy and Granny peppered him with questions in between bites of roast beef. Even Lindy was paying attention. Zack took the onslaught of questions in stride.
Yes, he was a zoologist. No, he’d never actually worked in a zoo. Yes, he’d gone to college for a really long time. “Four years for my undergrad, two for my masters, and four for my PhD.”
Lindy glared at him from beneath all her eyeliner. “Why would anyone go to school that long?”
“Learning is its own reward,” he said. “Plus, it meant I didn’t have to get a desk job and push paper.”
“Sounds like hell on earth,” Lindy replied. Sam couldn’t tell if Lindy was just being a jerk—always an option—or if she was trying to see how far she could push Zack. Either way, Sam didn’t like it.
“Beats jail,” Heaven pointed out, using her fork to emphasize her point.
Lindy snarled. There was no other word for it. “Says you.”
Sam cleared her throat. The last thing she wanted was for Heaven and Lindy to get into it right now.
“Maybe,” Zack said in a cautious kind of way, “you’ve just never had a very good teacher.”
Lindy glared with increasing intensity.
For a brief moment, Zack hesitated. Andy and Sam glanced at each other. This was becoming a bad idea real quick-like. But then Zack pulled out a look that could only be described as teacherly. If he’d been wearing glasses, he would have been looking over them—and down at Lindy. “You don’t want to be a high school dropout. People without a high school degree earn over two million dollars less in their lifetimes that people with at least a GED. You’ll never get ahead in life without an education.”
After he said it, he sort of—well, he didn’t shrink back. But he leaned back as if he were giving Lindy some space.
Lindy didn’t reply. She blinked once, then twice, and went back to staring at her food. He’d handled that well enough. Maybe he really did know how to deal with teenagers.
Sam made a mental note to tell Zack to lock up his valuables—if he had any, that was. She couldn’t imagine a man who was forced to live in his truck had a whole lot of assets he was sitting on.
The tension in the room seemed to reach a boiling point before Andy came to the rescue with more questions.
Yes, he studied foxes. No, he’d never had one as a pet. “They’re wild animals,” Zack said with a cautious smile as he looked at Katydid lying next to Granny’s feet.
Yes, he’d ridden a horse before. No, he’d never worked cattle, but he was looking forward to it.
Yes, he was going to be here for the summer. No, he wasn’t going to be missing out on anything “back home.” At that revelation, everyone else around the table practically hummed with energy.
Great, Sam thought as Heaven shot her a victorious look. Does no one remember the rules?
The pause was brief before the girls came up firing.
Clint Eastwood or John Wayne? He’d take The Duke every day of the week.
Coke or Pepsi? Coffee, if it was hot.
Watching Zack study the girls was revealing. He wasn’t missing a beat, that much was for sure. If Sam didn’t know any better, she’d swear he was taking notes on everything from the way Andy ate each thing in order, to how Granny grinned while waving away his compliment on her stewed tomatoes. He even seemed to notice the way Heaven was wiggling and giggling extra hard to catch his attention.
Something odd was happening, though. The few times Sam had seen Heaven act like the girl she used to be, men had fallen all over themselves, panting after her like dogs in heat. Not Zack. Oh, he was polite enough to her, but his focus always turned right back to...
Sam blushed. He was looking at her again. The sensation was unfamiliar to the point of being uncomfortable. That grin—no one else at the table got that grin. Not even Heaven. He only smiled like that at Sam.
No one else noticed. Instead, the questions kept coming.
Fox or MSNBC? BBC World News America, if he could find it.
Republican or Democrat? Whoever had the better education plan.
Country or Western? Zack grinned. Damn, he was cute. The Blues Brothers doing the theme to Rawhide.
Boxers or briefs?
Sam slammed her knife onto the table. Nope. That was the line, and Heaven had officially crossed it. “That’s enough.” It had nothing to do with the color of his boxers. Nothing at all.
Zack jumped, but everyone else glared at her for interrupting all the fun. Sam was used to interrupting the fun—part of the job description—but for the first time, even she could feel the fun being sucked out of the room. “We’ve got a lot of calves to work tomorrow.”
“Yeah, because you spent all morning not working,” Lindy said under her breath.
Sam ignored her. “Zack, you need to be ready to ride at 4:30 tomorrow. Foxes have to wait until after the cattle are done and you’ve tutored Lindy.”
“Wait, what?” Lindy’s head shot up and she looked shocked.
“Tutoring,” Sam replied. “You’re going to get your GED. That was the deal, remember? You follow the rules and get your GED or you go to prison.”
Her mouth opened, then closed as she blinked hard. For a moment, Sam thought she was going to pitch a fit. But at the last second, she seemed to give up. “Hell on earth,” she muttered again.
“It won’t be that bad,” Zack said, sounding hopeful. “I’m sure you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
Lindy rolled her eyes.
Zack met her gaze. “It shouldn’t be a problem. Foxes are nocturnal, anyway.”
“I know I have more fun after dark,” Heaven said, batting her eyes.
“You can ignore her.” Andy rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t have a filter.”
“Do too!”
“Does not,” Lindy replied without looking up from her plate.
Zack stood and thanked Granny for the meal. Then he looked at Sam. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
He said it to the whole room, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just talking to her. Not my type, he’d said about Heaven this afternoon. She’d sort of thought he was just humoring her, trying to follow the rules, but now, after watching him politely ignore the outrageous flirting, she was starting to believe it.
Granny wrapped up a piece of pie and sent Zack out with a mug of decaf coffee.
“What a nice young man,” Granny said as everyone pitched in to do the dishes.
“He seems smart,” Andy added as she began to wash. “I’ve never met a zoologist before.”
“I can’t believe some college guy would come out here to work cattle,” Lindy said. At least she said it without too much attitude. For her, anyway.
“Well, he did,” Sam replied, knowing it wasn’t the full truth of the matter.
“Must be some kind of loser.” Ah, yes—there was the attitude in action. “The only people out here are losers.”
“That’s enough,” Granny said as she smacked a hand on the countertop. “Get to the dishes, girl. Then get to your studies. That man’s going to tutor you and you know he’s smart. You don’t want to look stupid, do you?”
Lindy opened her mouth to reply, but she looked around the room and appeared to think better of it. She grabbed a towel and began to dry. Sam could only hope the girl wouldn’t “accidentally” drop a dish or three.
A long moment passed. Andy and Heaven shared a look. It was Heaven who spoke first. “I can’t wait until tomorrow!” she said as she clapped her hands with excitement, sending her dishtowel flying across the room. For once, Sam was glad for her silliness. “He’s never worked calves before. This ought to be good!”
Everyone smiled and nodded. “He works with animals,” Sam said as she began to stack the now-dry plates. “I don’t think he’s going to faint or anything.”
Heaven slapped at Sam with her towel. Sam glared at her.
“He’s a city slicker. I bet he throws up.”
“I bet he faints,” Lindy said. She sounded hopeful.
“I’ll take those bets,” Andy replied as she wiped down the counters. “Ten bucks.”
“You’re on.” Heaven and Andy shook.
In short order, the kitchen was clean. Lindy sat on the couch in the TV room with a workbook on her lap, but she wasn’t studying. She was watching Jeopardy with Granny. Sam tried to reason that at least she might learn something, but what, she didn’t know. When it was over, Heaven would turn on some trashy reality show and describe what everyone was wearing so Granny could laugh along with her. Sam couldn’t stand reality shows, but she liked to watch movies. However, tonight she wasn’t in the mood for more togetherness. She kissed Granny goodnight.
“Sam,” Granny said in that low tone of voice that wasn’t meant for anyone else to hear. She opened her mouth to say something else, but appeared to think better of it. “Sleep well.”
Not speaking her mind wasn’t like Granny. “You, too.”
Andy headed up with her. “Sam, is he going to be here for dinner Sunday?”
Sunday. Celine. Sam had almost forgotten about Andy and Celine. “I think that’s up to you.”
Andy shot her a weak smile. Andy never looked weak. It didn’t suit her. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of fellow to make a fuss over it.”
Sure, the rule was no men allowed, and that rule was primarily aimed at Heaven and Lindy and the other girls like them who had done some time on the ranch. But the truth was that both Sam and Andy felt safer with the rule in full effect.
Unfamiliar guilt snuck up on her. “I should have asked if it was okay with you for him to be here. We’re partners, after all.”
Andy’s smile got stronger. “We could use the help. And Granny likes him.”
Granny’s people sense hadn’t steered them wrong yet. “What do you want to do?”
They stopped outside the door to Sam’s floor. Andy slouched back against the wall, the exact same pose she’d been in when Sam had first seen her in ninth grade. The difference was that then, Andy had been insecure, glaring at a world she didn’t belong in. Now, she was as much a part of this ranch as the grass. Sam couldn’t imagine her anyplace else.
If she leaves, Sam realized, I’m going to miss the hell out of her.
Andy mulled it over. “I’ll invite him to dinner. He seems nice enough, and it’ll be good for Celine to see that I can get along just fine with men.”
It’s not like Sam ever really forgot the pain, but sometimes, something else came along that distracted her.
Someone else.
Zack Baker.