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“Dinner!”
The cry startled Zack out of a deep sleep. For a second, he didn’t remember where he was, or why he was in nothing but his shorts. Then the heat hit him and it all came back to him in a rush of sweat. He was in the barn. He’d worked calves that morning, which left him exhausted in new and taxing ways. He’d tried to tutor Lindy and failed miserably. Because he was going out to watch foxes tonight, he’d taken a nap.
“Dinner!”
Oh. Yeah. Granny. Dinner. Sam.
Sam. As he dressed in a nap-based haze, something about her danced at the edge of his consciousness. Bareback—she’d been galloping bareback on a horse. Nude. A real Lady Godiva moment, sunlight streaking behind her...
He paused, grasping at the fuzzy edges of the dream, but the image of her bare breasts dissipated like the morning fog until all that was left of the dream was a half-awake hard-on.
He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. Even his subconscious was out to get him. While the dream faded, though, the feeling of her soft cheek, all pretty and freckled when he touched it, didn’t go anywhere.
If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she needed him—or, at the very least, wanted him. But because he knew better, he also knew that acting on either of those two desires was the quickest way to be unemployed and unhoused.
It didn’t matter that Sam Kenady shot him signals so mixed he felt like he was in a blender. It didn’t matter that he found her intriguing, to say the least. It didn’t even matter that she’d gotten him right back in the saddle.
No, what mattered was that she’d given him three months. In exchange for those three months, he had a job to do and rules to follow.
His mind made up, he hurried to the kitchen, where everyone else was already seated. The only space left was between Sam and Heaven again.
Tension hung over the room. A great deal of Lindy’s eye makeup was gone, but she was sitting at the table, staring at her plate again. Andy looked a little strained and Sam seemed tired, but other than that, everything could pass for normal.
“Sorry I’m late,” Zack said to Granny as he grabbed a plate. “Everything looks delicious.” Fried pork chops, red potatoes and green beans, fresh cornbread—no lie, everything was amazing.
“Where you been?” Heaven didn’t seem as obnoxious tonight. Less like a woman on the make, and more like a normal person.
“Since I’m going to be up most of the night, I thought I’d get some sleep now. Pass the beans, please.”
“You’re really going out tonight?” Heaven looked doubtful.
“Research doesn’t do itself—trust me, I know.”
“I guess the question is, where are you going?”
Zack looked up to find himself in Andy’s cross hairs. A flash of fear coursed down his spine, which was completely ridiculous. Andy had been nice to him from the get-go.
Shaking off the weirdness, Zack stopped to consider. “That’s a good question.” He’d been on the part of this ranch where he’d set up camp, but in the dark he wasn’t sure he could get back there without falling into a culvert or fox hole—or getting lost. But he’d have to put some distance between him and the house. He was willing to bet there wasn’t a fox within a square mile of the house—or Katydid.
Andy shook her head in pity. Right. He should have thought of that before. Damn. Now what?
“I can take him!” Heaven’s hand fluttered up and down his biceps.
Zack started to shudder, but then he noticed her gaze cut right past him and over to Sam.
“Wouldn’t that be fun?” she asked Sam, patting his forearm. Was she trying to antagonize Sam?
“Um...” Things were rapidly going from bad to worse again, but without the unwanted hard-ons. He couldn’t come up with a polite way of saying “not a shot in hell,” so he just said, “Um,” again.
Luckily, Sam came to the rescue. “No. I’ll take him.”
Zack’s head shot around to find those hazel eyes watching him with detachment. For a second, he was disappointed, but then he remembered. Sam with an audience was a different creature than Sam without an audience.
“I know a good spot. Once you learn the way, you can go by yourself.”
No one—not even Heaven—made a comment. The whole room seemed to be listening for what came next.
“We won’t stay out all night—”
Sam clucked at him as she cut into her chop. “I didn’t say I was going to watch foxes. I just said I’d show you a good spot. If you aren’t back by four tomorrow morning, I guess I’ll have to come find you.” She bit a piece of meat off the fork like she was mad at it and chewed, staring at him the whole time. “It’s the busy season, after all.”
The way she said it struck Zack as off. Like she was trying to prove a point, and that point was he was just an exception to the rules.
Right. Whatever had passed between them earlier was a one-off, a test to see if he could keep it zipped. And since she hadn’t shot him, he guessed he’d passed—for now.
Andy cleared her throat. “So, Zack, you going to be here on Sunday?”
Zack looked at Sam, but she was studying her dinner. “I don’t have any place else to be.”
Andy grinned, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m bringing my girlfriend out for dinner. You can join us if you’d like.”
As he finished chewing his food, Zack could feel every eye—even Granny’s sightless ones—on him. This was clearly a big deal, although he didn’t know why. It wasn’t the fact that Andy had a girlfriend, that much he knew. Sam had been upfront about that.
Was it because of him? It really didn’t matter to him. There were plenty of happily married same-sex couples running around academia. But then, that was academia. This was a working ranch. Perhaps a woman bringing her girlfriend to dinner out in the middle of nowhere was an entirely different ball of wax. “I’m honored to be invited.”
Andy’s smile got a little closer to her eyes. “Good.”
The rest of the dinner was quiet. Zack couldn’t tell if it was because of him or because of Lindy—or both. He didn’t want to tell Sam in front of everyone that he hadn’t noticed anything gone. Hell, if Sam hadn’t told him that Lindy was up in his room, he wouldn’t have even noticed anything was out of order. All he knew was he needed a little space between him and these women.
He was so eager to get back to the sweltering safety of the barn that he almost forgot the slice of peach pie Granny had ready for him.
“I’ll be out about 8:30,” Sam said after he thanked Granny for the meal.
An hour and a half and then he’d be out on the range, alone with Sam Kenady.
What choice did he have? “I’ll be ready.”
For a moment, Zack thought he saw a crack in her detached mask, and he was right back to being in the mixed-signal blender. But the moment was short, and again he found himself being appraised and again found wanting.
“You best be,” she said, the warning in her voice clear. “You best be.”
***
Sam walked out to the barn, her heels dragging in the dirt. Her stomach clenched in a tight knot, and she was unsure as to why. Something about riding off with Zack tonight had her on edge. Sam hated the feeling.
She stepped into the comforting familiarity of the barn, expecting to have to climb the stairs and hope he was wearing pants, but she was wrong. Zack was standing in the middle of the aisle, Taylor already saddled up. He didn’t have on the chaps, but he looked ready to ride.
“All set, boss,” he said without looking up.
Boss—the word grated over her nerves, and her nerves were already plenty grated.
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped before she could stop herself.
He didn’t say anything else, and the knot in her stomach got tighter and tighter. Zack always made everything about her feel tighter, but Sam was not enjoying the sensation this time. Instead of exciting tingles, she just felt sick.
It wasn’t until they’d ridden some distance from the house that he spoke. “Why don’t you tell me what I’m supposed to call you?”
“I already told you. My name is Sam.”
He let that set for a moment before he came back firing. “Which part of you is Sam? The part that carries a rifle and promises to shoot me if I do one thing wrong? The part that makes all those rules and expects everyone to follow them, no questions allowed? Or the part that blushes like a sun rising just because I notice you’re pretty? Because I can’t tell. I don’t know which person I’m going to find in the barn in the morning, at the dinner table, or on that horse, right now. I have no idea who I’m talking to.”
Sam’s brain fired in several directions at once. He thought she was pretty? He liked the blush? She’d promised to shoot him? And what the hell was wrong with rules?
The last thing on her mind was the first thing out of her mouth. “I have rules for a reason. Do you know what Heaven looked like when she got here?”
“No.”
“Her pimp had beat her to a pulp after she’d been picked up for soliciting an undercover cop for the third time. Lindy had gotten kicked out of school for fighting and had been arrested for shoplifting twice. Her granny couldn’t deal with her anymore, so I took her in. Otherwise, she’d have been out on the street and no one here’s foolish enough to think that she wouldn’t be in jail before much longer. And Lana, before her? She was on her last strike for forging checks. I’ve taken in fourteen women. Every single one of them had been written off by the rest of the world as hopeless. Helpless. A nobody. And not a one of them has gotten into trouble after they move on. Every single woman leaves here a somebody, all because I make them follow the damn rules.”
For some reason, she was breathing hard. Her blood was pumping, too, like it did whenever she had to fend off an attack.
But Zack wasn’t attacking. Instead, he was just looking at her in the exact same way he’d been looking at the girls at dinner the other night. Was he taking notes? “All women.” His voice even sounded different. Less pissed.
“Yes.
“All members of the same tribe?”
An innocent enough question asked in an innocent enough tone, but she still flinched. “Most were Lakota, Dakota or Nakota. One was Crow. Three were half, like me.”
“All in trouble with the law.”
“Yes.” Hadn’t she said as much?
His saddle creaked as he brought Taylor to a halt. “What about Andy?”
Stitch also stopped, although Sam didn’t remember telling the horse to. “Andy is a—” she bit the “convicted killer” off. No one knew. Why on God’s green earth would she even think about telling Zack? She kicked at Stitch, harder than she meant to, but she couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. She had to doing something—anything—so she wouldn’t have to think. “My friend,” she finished weakly.
The traitor horse didn’t move. She looked up, terrified that he would be sitting over there in judgment of Andy. But he wasn’t. He looked more worried than anything else. That was worst of all. “What about you, Sam?”
Her chest—something was crushing her chest. “I—” But she couldn’t get past the one word. The one letter. Her vision clouded, and all she could see was the inside of the car.
She was afraid.
“What about you, Samantha?” Tim’s voice sliced through the tense silence in his Camaro. He had a white-knuckled hold on the steering wheel and he was breathing so hard he was fogging up the windows.
What happened? Sam kept her hands in her lap as she tried to figure out what had set him off this time. For two months, Tim had been a good boyfriend. He was the son of the deputy mayor. He always held doors for her and ordered for her at dinner. But more than that, he loved her. He told her so all the time, even after she’d done something wrong. If she could just figure out what it was this time, she could apologize and then he’d get all sweet and the storm would be over. She took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice level. “What do you mean, what about me?”
“You.” He spat out the word and punched the dash like he was trying to kill it. “And that dyke.”
Andy? That’s what started this? Andy had come into the Taco Bell and stopped by their table. The whole conversation had taken less than three minutes. “Hey, Sam, how you doing?” “Fine, Andy. Thanks for asking. How about you?” Some small talk about upcoming tests. A question about a powwow on the rez. Then Andy got her burrito and left. Sam was glad to see Andy was okay after her ordeal. That’s all.
“We’re just friends.” Already, she sounded smaller. She hated feeling smaller. She hated that it happened so often now.
Tim punched the dash again. “I didn’t say you could be friends with her. For all I know, you’re sleeping with her.”
“I’m not!” Buried under the smallness that was Sam, a white-hot flash of anger threatened to break free. Since when did she need his permission to have friends?
“You are. I knew it! That’s why—” Tim’s knuckles were bleeding. He saw her notice. “Now look what you made me do,” he snarled.
At her.
The flash of anger inside Sam got stronger. She didn’t like this anymore. Tim used to be fun. Sweet. A good kisser.
Her first mistake was telling him that. Her second mistake was not getting out of the car before she said it.
The punch caved in her cheek. Time slowed to a crawl as she felt his class ring—he wouldn’t let her wear it because he said she’d lose it—cut through her flesh. She saw him rear back, the fist coming again, but she couldn’t move. He hit her in the nose, the pain blinding her to what came next. Why had she ever said ‘yes’ to a movie with Tim McClellan? How much longer could she hold on?
She didn’t have long. The next blow led to a sticky blackness.
She didn’t want to wait for that blackness again. He couldn’t make her. “Sam? What about you?” His gaze cut over to her cheek. Her guts clenched in a hot terror. Too late. She never saw the danger until it was too late.
No. Not too late. She could still run. She had to.
So she did.
***
One second, Zack was watching a battle between tough and something that looked more like scared play out on Sam’s face. The next, she was gone in a cloud of dust.
What the hell? “Sam?” he called out, but she didn’t pull up. It didn’t take long before she was a quarter mile away, getting smaller by the second. What had he done?
He’d screwed up, that much he figured as he kicked his poor horse with everything he had. Only the foolish would think this old boy would be able to keep up with Sam’s mount, but Taylor did his best. Suddenly, Zack was lurching along at a speed faster than he ever remembered going. At that moment, he knew exactly two things: one, he was going to break something important when he hit the ground—because hitting the ground was a given at this stage—and two, he had to catch her.
Zack tried to hold onto the horse and pull his bandanna up over his mouth at the same time before he ate half a prairie’s worth of dirt. He was kicking himself and the horse. At what point had it become a good idea to press this woman on her past? On anyone’s past? Damn it all, he had no business pressing anything.
“Sam, wait!” he shouted again, knowing full well that giving chase at this point was probably just making the whole thing that much worse yet not being able to stop himself. Catching Sam was suddenly more important than everything else. His field study? His Ph.D.? Tenure? None of it mattered if Sam was afraid of him.
Taylor cut left and unexpectedly Zack could see something besides dust. Ahead of him, he saw Sam’s horse leap into the air, but not a graceful sort of leaping. No, even though Zack was holding on for dear life, he could see the bump toss Sam back. Then her horse jumped again, and Sam was flying. He lost her in the dust, but he heard the thud.
“Sam!” He managed to get Taylor reined enough that he could steer him in a wide circle back to where he thought Sam had landed. “Sam, talk to me—where are you?”
Sides heaving, Taylor came to an abrupt halt. Zack looked down and saw Sam flailing on the ground. “Hell,” he muttered, getting down to her as fast as he could. “Sam, are you okay?”
She didn’t say anything. She just rolled back and forth. She was hurt.
“Sam, come on, babe,” he said, doing his damnedest to keep his voice calm as he scooped her into his arms. “Tell me where it hurts.”
The shot to his jaw caught him off guard, but not as much as the, “Don’t!” she screamed through clenched teeth.
His eyes watered with pain, but his thoughts were clear. He’d been wrong. That scar on her cheek? That bump on her nose? She hadn’t been in fights, holding her own. Someone had given her those scars. Someone had beaten her.
The thought made his blood run cold. In that flash of insight, he saw the tough-girl exterior for what it was—armor.
“I’m Zack,” he said, holding her tight enough that she couldn’t get off another shot. “I’m not him, Sam. I’m Zack.”
“Don’t,” she sobbed. Her boots kicked up another cloud of dust as she clawed at his chest.
“I’m Zack,” he repeated as he held on for both of their dear lives. What if he couldn’t get her to see reason? At least the gun had gone with the horse. “Zack.”
She fought for a moment longer, but went limp in his arms. “Zack?”
“Zack. Zack Baker. I’m not him. I won’t hurt you.”
Her chest heaved against him, and then she curled into a ball against him. “You won’t?”
Even though she’d gone soft, he couldn’t loosen his grip on her. “I will never hurt you,” he murmured into her hair. “Never, Sam.”
She was crying, but it was the silent kind. The only way he could tell was the irregular heaving of her chest and the dampness against his neck. She had a death-grip on his shirt. He couldn’t let her go if he tried.
He rocked her as he sat on his heels, holding her as she let whatever it was go. “I’m Zack,” he repeated over and over, hoping that was enough.
Time stretched as the sun set itself down for the night. At some point, she quieted. “Zack,” she whispered, and one of her hands unclenched from his shirt. Her fingers began to inch their way up the other side of his neck, and then, ever-so-lightly began to trace the contours of his face.
The way she touched him was not unlike the way Granny had found out what he looked like, but whereas Granny had been nothing more than a semi-scientific exploration, Sam was doing things to his pulse again. And after her little episode, there was no way in hell he could risk any change to his pulse.
“Zack,” she whispered again as she stroked his lips.
“Yeah,” he managed to get out as he forced his mind to think about, um, John Wayne. Yeah. His stuntman was Yakima Kanut. They designed stunts used for the next sixty years. Genghis Khan was a horrible movie.
Not even the Duke could block out the sensation of Sam stretching out and molding her shape to his. “I don’t know what to do about you.” Her voice was still soft, but the terror was gone. His pulse kicked up another notch.
“You don’t?” Damn. He sounded like he was reliving puberty all over again. But he couldn’t help it, not with the way she was just sitting in his lap.
“You’re not a woman, an Indian, or a criminal.” As if to emphasize that first point, she stroked his Adam’s apple.
What else would she stroke? “No.” One word—safer that way. Less squeaky voice.
“Just a man down on his luck.”
“Yeah.” She considered him a man? For too long, Zack had been just a guy. But not to her. Double damn. If his pulse kicked up any more, he was going to have to set her down on the ground so that the situation in his pants wouldn’t scare her off.
“I don’t know how to treat someone like you.”
Like him? He almost said it out loud, but realized how dumb that would be. Someone like him—as opposed to the asshole who’d terrorized her. No wonder she ran so hot and cold. Had any man ever treated her right?
He realized he was rubbing her back—and she was arching into the motion.
His toes were numb from rocking on his heels in boots that didn’t quite fit. He needed to sit all the way down, but he was afraid to move and break the calm that had settled over them. “We could be friends,” he offered, ordering his hands to be still. They’d only get him into trouble.
“Friends?” The way she said it made it clear she’d never considered friendship with a man an option. Her hand moved off his Adam’s apple and wrapped around the back of his neck. She pulled him in closer. He couldn’t help it if his lips were resting on the top of her head now. “What do friends do?”
John Wayne actually shot Liberty Valance, but he let Jimmy Stewart take the credit. Wayne’s real name was Marion Morrison. Pilgrim. “Friends hang out,” he said into her hair.
Her fingers found the nape of his neck and began to twist through his hair. Slowly. “Like how?”
This was, hands down, the biggest torture test he’d ever tried to pass. His pulse was raging out of control, her hands were all over him, and all he wanted to do right now was lay her down in the tall grass and show her exactly what friends could do for each other. He may have been wrong about the scars, but he’d been dead-on about the need he’d seen—good God, was that just yesterday? She hadn’t let a man into her life in so long...
Was she letting him in? He breathed deeply, smelling jasmine in her hair that was just strong enough to beat out the dust that had settled over them. He never would have guessed jasmine, something so soft and gentle on her.
For a second, his good-guy resolve wavered. The air was charged with want and need and jasmine. Friends could do some wonderful things for—to—each other.
Zack swallowed down the thought. She’d had a bad fall, carried some major baggage, and—and—shoot. He was sure there was another good reason, but Sam shifted in his arms and he could feel her lips against his neck now. Reason was the last thing on his mind. He wanted to move, but it wasn’t his move to make.
Stagecoach was directed by John Huston. “Um,” he started, and then stopped to clear his throat and try again, this time without the cracking voice. “Friends help each other out.” In so many different ways, his dick added, but he shut that thought down. “They look out for each other. And they don’t shoot each other.”
He felt her lips curve into a smile as her hips shifted against his raging hard-on. “Do friends apologize?”
Triple shit, she’d noticed the situation in his pants, again. “Yeah. I’m—”
She cut him off by raising her head and looking at him for the first time since she’d bolted. Although he could see where the tears had streaked through the dust, her eyes were clear. Even in the near-dark, the hazel flecks shone bright. “Do friends make up?”
Not his move. Her move. Dear God, let her make a move. Any move would do. “Yeah.”
The spark of need arced between them as she touched his lips with her thumb. “Do friends kiss?”
For the first time, he heard how ragged her voice was, felt how much her chest heaved against his—not in panic, no. Need. Want. It filled the air with enough electricity to set off a prairie fire. “Only if they want to.” The out was there—she could take it if she wanted. She could take anything she wanted.
Her tongue moved over her top lip in a slow gesture that did nothing to help Zack’s self-control. Somehow, he managed to keep from throwing her onto her back and licking her lips—her everything. His arms shook under the strain.
“I’m sorry.” But before Zack could ask what, exactly, she was sorry for, she pulled his face down to hers and pressed her lips against his.
Just a kiss, he screamed at himself in some vain attempt to keep his hands from yanking her shirt over her head so he could find out if everything else about her was as soft as her lips. An old song began to play in the back of his mind—“Just remember this, a kiss is just a kiss”—and for a second, he thought he was going to keep it together.
Three things happened at once. Her hips ground down onto his erection, she moaned into his mouth, and she bit his lower lip.
The next thing he knew, he had her by the wrists and was pushing her off his lap. Somehow, from somewhere deep inside, he had found some brakes and was applying them until they screamed in his ears.
“Zack?” That fear flashed over her eyes again. Zack dropped her wrists and scrambled to his feet. They throbbed with the sudden flow of blood. Everything throbbed. He took two steps back and put his foot in a hole. With a thunk, he landed on his butt.
Zack stuck his head between his knees and breathed. He smelled nothing but dirt and sweat and grass. Slowly, all his interrelated throbbing ebbed and his pulse returned to normal.
When he was sure he could handle whatever he saw—anger, betrayal, fear—he looked up to find Sam sitting where he’d shoved her, her head between her knees, too. At least she wasn’t still scared. He hoped.
He had the distinct feeling that he should apologize, but for what, he didn’t know. For not having animalistic sex under the wide-open sky? At the thought, he had to put his head back down.
When he looked up again, he could see the moonlight glinting off her eyes. At this distance, he couldn’t read her.
He said the only reasonable thing he could think of. “Are you okay?”
“I think I sprained my shoulder when I fell.”
And just like that, the softness was gone, and he was having a conversation with a rancher. A rancher who’d kissed him. The thought set his head spinning again. “You—uh, you stay there, I’ll find the horses.” That was something concrete and productive he could do that didn’t involve touching her.
He managed to get his foot out of the hole and up on both legs when the sharp whistle cut through the night. He jumped, and then jumped again when both horses came trotting up to Sam like this whole night was the most normal thing in the world.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she might be smiling at him. “Forgot about that, did you?”
“Yeah.” Shoot. He could have used a walk to clear his head. Just then, he spotted the white straw of her hat a few feet away. He took it slow—in case of more holes, he told himself. It had nothing to do with how blue his balls were.
When he got back, she reached out a hand for him. He had no choice but to help her up. Once she was on her feet, she didn’t let go of his hand, but held it between them. She met his questioning gaze with something that bordered on defiant.
“Friends are honest with one another, right?” A little of that softness crept back into her voice.
“Yeah.” To a point. Animalistic sex was on the other side of that point.
She tilted her head to one side. “Was it that bad of a kiss?” He could hear the forced bravado in her voice.
“No.” He paused, forcing himself to take a deep breath. Underneath that bravado, he could tell she was nervous. But he couldn’t spook her again. “It was amazing. That’s why I broke it off.”
She thought on that for a second, all the while never letting go of his hand. In fact, she was slowly stepping into him again. “I don’t understand.”
Honest. To a point. “I don’t think we’re the kind of friends who do more than kiss.”
Realization flashed over her face, but at no time did she look alarmed. “I’ve never had a...friend like you, Zack Baker.”
He was going to put that in the compliment file. Who would have guessed there were so many levels of friendship? Even after all this, he wasn’t sure he knew exactly where he stood with this woman. “I should get you home and get some ice on that shoulder.”
The smile was sweet, and then she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. Before he could react, she let go of his hand and stepped to her horse.
After all, what were friends for?