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Sam!
At some point in the future she would have no idea if a man was good-looking or not. She better enjoy it while she could.
“Has he worked for you long?” Sam asked, hearing footsteps above her head. It was a weird question to ask given that she suspected Clinton had worked for the ranch his entire life. He was this woman’s grandson. But Sam wasn’t thinking clearly. Up there, somewhere on the second floor, a man was stripping out of his clothes.
She swallowed, forced herself to meet Eugenia’s eyes.
“Who, Clinton?” she asked, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Well, uh. Yes. I guess you could say he has worked for me a long time. Practically his whole life.”
There was something about the way the woman said the words that alerted Sam to the fact that Eugena Baer thought Sam was clueless about Clinton’s true identity. Interesting.
“Does he help with the Baer Mountain Mustangs?” she boldly asked, hoping to startle a confession. She had broached the subject of the horses just before Clint had walked in and she’d yet to discover if Mrs. Baer would admit to the wild herd.
“Um, yeah,” Eugenia said, bending forward and grabbing her cup of tea off the table, “about those mustangs.”
And here it was, Sam thought. This was when Eugenia Baer would deny the Baer Mountain Mustangs were still alive. Although to be honest, Sam felt fortunate to have gotten this far. Telling Eugenia she’d driven two thousand miles because the dream of seeing the horses had been the one thing to help her through the loss of her mom and dad had touched the rancher. As it happened she, too, had suffered a loss: her son-in-law and daughter had passed away a few years back.
“I’ve heard the rumors about them, of course,” Eugenia said now. “Most people in these parts have.” She held a porcelain cup with tiny violets painted on the side and it somehow suited the woman whose gray hair and ivory skin appeared almost too delicate to belong to a rancher. “But whatever makes you think these mustangs even exist?”
And Samantha caught her breath. Not the brush-off she’d expected.
“My mother,” she said.
“Your mother?” the woman asked.
Sam nodded. “Before she died, when I was a child, she would tell me bedtime stories about them.”
Eugenia raised her eyebrows.
“My grandmother lived outside of Billings.”
“I see,” Eugenia said.
Sam almost added more, but how could she explain to this stranger how important this was to her? Horses has always been such a huge part of her life. Before her mom and dad had died, she’d shown on the American quarter horse circuit, coming close to winning a world title or two, despite her parents’ limited budget. They’d supported her riding into adulthood—if not financially, then emotionally—and then the accident had brought her whole world crashing down. Now, here she was, on the Baer Mountain Ranch, determined to do something she and her mom had always pledged to do together. Track down those horses. Sure it was a long way to drive in the hopes of convincing someone to help her dream come true, but she was determined to try.
“Look, dear,” Eugenia said, taking a sip of her tea before setting her cup back down with a near-silent clink. “I can’t tell you how many people have come to our ranch for the same reason.”
Sam grew motionless.
“Most people come here seeking answers for commercial reasons. But I don’t think I’ve ever had someone show up here asking to see the horses because their mom told them bedtime stories.”
Sam didn’t say anything. Frankly, she was on the verge of tears. The accident was fresh in her memory, and she still hurt every time she thought about that day. Still missed her mom and dad more than anything else in the world. Missed their daily phone calls. Missed updating them on her horse’s progress. Missed calling them just to talk. Still wished things had been different that day and that they hadn’t…
No!
That was a dangerous direction to take, her psychologist had warned her. There was a reason she’d been left behind. She had to believe that.
“Tell me, dear, how did they die?”
Sam cleared her throat. It took a second or two for her to gather her composure enough to talk. Above, the sounds had stopped. She hoped that didn’t mean Clint McAlister was on his way back down.
“Car accident,” she said. “We were on our way back from watching The Nutcracker last December. We did that every year, you see, ever since I was a little girl. It was icy. And, well…”
She couldn’t finish her sentence, didn’t need to. Eugenia reached out and clasped her hands. Sam looked into her eyes, saw compassion there and the deep, deep understanding that only someone who’d lost a loved one could ever understand.
“I was…out of it for a while,” Sam admitted, though she never talked about the wreck. Not to anyone. Not to her former coworkers. Not even to her friends. And yet here she was confessing all to this perfect stranger. “When I woke up I was told my parents were dead.”
Hot tears seared her cheek. “They were all I had, though I was closest to my mom. She shared my love of horses. Went to almost all of my horse shows…” She swallowed back more tears. “That’s why this is so important to me.”
Eugenia nodded. “I see,” she said with another squeeze.
“You don’t have to tell me about the mustangs if you don’t want to,” Sam said. “I respect your family’s desire to keep them to yourself. I mean, if they really are a wild herd running free on your land, you managed to keep them a secret all these years. I don’t think I’d want to share them with the outside world, either.”
Eugenia didn’t say anything, just stared at her, probing the very depth of Sam’s soul.
“You know what? Forget that I ever came here. I’m so sorry I intruded. I realize now what a terrible imposition this is.”
She got up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Eugenia asked.
And Samantha’s heart stopped.
“You sit down, young lady.”
Sam sank onto the couch.
“You drive a hard bargain, though,” Eugenia said.
“I do?” Sam asked.
“And I might have gotten crotchety in my old age, my grandson will tell you that, but even I’m not proof against such a request.”
“Are they real?” she asked, her voice close to a whisper.
Eugenia’s smile lit up the room. “What would you say if I told you they just might be?”
“I would say that’s all I needed to hear.” She started to stand again. But before she could turn away, Eugenia caught her hand.
“They’re real,” she said softly.
Samantha started to cry.
Oh, Mom. They really do exist.
She wished her mother was with her.
HE WALKED INTO A DAMN THERAPY session—at least that’s what it felt like what with everyone looking misty-eyed.
“What the hell happened?” Clinton burst out.
The two women glanced up. Samantha slowly sank back down to the couch. And then they were holding hands. Worse, he recognized the expression on his grandmother’s face: she wanted to pull Samantha Davies into her arms.
“Go on with you,” his grandmother said, releasing one of Samantha’s hands and wiping her own eyes. “We were just having a little heart-to-heart.”
“About what?” he asked.
“Our mustangs.”
And if Clinton had been near that damn couch, he’d have sank into it, too. Never. Not once. Not in all the years that he’d been alive, had his grandmother ever admitted to a stranger that their mustangs were more than local legend.
“Gigi,” he said gently.
“Sit down, Mr. McAlister,” she said, patting the couch. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” he asked, preferring to move forward and sit in one of two armchairs across from them.
“Don’t play stupid, young man. You’ll be gathering our horses next week. I want you to take Samantha here along.”
Samantha gasped. “Oh, Mrs. Baer. I can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“It’s too much of an imposition.”
Well, at least one of them was acting sensibly. “Gigi, please,” he said. “She’s right. It’s not feasible, not to mention that it’s highly dangerous. Why, can she even ride?”
She could be a reporter, he thought to himself. Or some kind of damn animal rights activist. Lord. The possibilities were endless.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” his grandmother said. “Of course she can ride. She’s from the east coast.” She said it as if everyone in that part of the country rode horses.
“What the blazes does that have to do with whether she can ride or not?”
“But I can ride,” Samantha said in a small voice.
Clinton leaned back. He stared at the two women in front of him. Somehow, Samantha Davies had managed to wrap his grandmother around her little finger…and he wished he could figure out how she’d done it in such a short amount of time.
“I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t bring her along. It’s too dangerous.”
“Poppycock,” Gigi said.
“Gigi, think about this. We don’t even know this woman.”
“She has a big heart,” Gigi said, taking the woman’s hand. “I can see it in her eyes.”
“Thank you,” Samantha said.
Clint released a sigh of frustration. “I’m telling you, Gigi, she might end up getting hurt. The spring gathering is tough. The weather’s unpredictable.” He motioned outside where the sun had started to pop through the clouds, the unsettled pattern typical for this time of year. “It’s a long ride. She’d have blisters on her bottom in two hours flat.”
“Excuse me,” Sam said. “I’m right here in the room with you and I assure you, I can ride. I can ride really, really well,” she punctuated. “No blisters would be sprouting on this bottom.” She smiled.
He ignored it. “Oh, yeah? Should we just take your word for that?”
“Of course not,” she said. “You have horses here, right? Test me. Right now, if you like.”
“Excellent idea,” Gigi said, standing. “Let’s go.”
“Gigi,” Clint said, “this is crazy.”
“It’s not crazy,” his grandmother said. “At least no more crazier than anything you’ve done in recent days, Mr. Ranch Manager. I want to do this.” She glanced in Samantha Davies’s direction. “For her.”
Clinton didn’t have a choice. “Hell’s fires,” he muttered. This day just got better and better.
Chapter Four
Clinton stormed out of the house, so upset he nearly slammed the door.
“Damn, foolish women.”
Gigi had insisted Samantha go and change, which meant Clint had been left with the task of fetching her suitcase. “Of all the stupid, ridiculous ideas. Probably wants me to go saddle up a horse, too,” he grumbled under his breath.
As it turned out, that’s exactly what his grandmother asked him to do.
“Please,” Gigi added with a smile. Clint stared between his grandmother and his “guest” and envisioned a cartoon character of himself—one with an angry red light shooting up his face like a thermometer.
“Sure,” he said sarcastically, having to resist the urge to slam the door a second time.
The rainstorm had passed—gone as quickly as it’d come. He paused for a second in the barn’s aisle. He wanted to saddle up the rankest bronc he could find, but as much as he was tempted, he wouldn’t do that. He didn’t want to kill the woman, no matter that she’d seriously pissed him off by batting her big green eyes at his grandmother. It didn’t matter that he owned the ranch, either, and that he had every right to tell Samantha Davies to get lost. He wouldn’t do that, either, because the plain and simple truth was, he loved his grandmother. He would do anything for her. She knew it, too. Gigi Baer had been a rock in his life and if she wanted Miss Samantha Davies to go along on the spring gathering, he’d let her go along.
If she could ride.
He wouldn’t compromise her safety, the safety of his men and the safety of his livestock just because some city slicker had a wild hair up her you-know-what.
“Oh!” he heard his grandmother say when less than ten minutes later, the two of them, Samantha and his grandmother, entered the barn, their footfalls clearly audible on the packed dirt. “You’ve saddled Red.”
Clint was tightening the girth—Red on cross ties in the middle of the aisle—the smooth leather strap Clint held gliding through the metal ring. Samantha now wore jeans, he saw, and a light green shirt.
“She said she could ride.” Red was at least sixteen hands, and about as wide as he was tall, too. Lots of power.
When he glanced up, Samantha was staring at him. Horses chomped on the midafternoon snack he’d given them, their softly muffled snorts breaking the silence, and he thought to himself that she didn’t seem afraid of Red at all. She came right up to him, offering the palm of her hand for the horse to sniff.
“Hey there, Red,” she said softly.
The horse started to nibble at her palm—as if trying to eat an invisible treat.
“Do you happen to have an English saddle?” she asked, green eyes shifting in his direction.
“Excuse me?” he asked, leather girth forgotten.
