Stick in the Mud Meets Spontaneity (Meet Your Match, book 3) (28 page)

“Maybe another time.” Oh, geez. Why had she said that?
Liar, liar, liar,
she told herself.

“That’s your way of saying ‘not gonna happen’ isn’t it?”

Oh good, he figured it out. Sam offered a sympathetic smile. “I’m already taken.”

“I see.” He didn’t look overly happy at being rejected. “Well, when’s this lucky guy coming to town? I’m sure we’d all like to meet him sometime.”

He’s not coming,
Sam answered in her mind, trying to brush aside the stab of hurt that accompanied it. Every time she tried to remind herself that Colton had a very good reason for not boarding a plane to see her, a downer of a voice at the back of her mind would say, “If he really loved you, he’d come.”

Was Colton thinking the same thing about her? Or did he understand the only reason she wasn’t on a plane right now was because she had more work than she ever thought possible. That, and flights from New York to Denver cost about the same as the amount sitting in her bank account at the moment, and with rent due in three weeks there was no way she could afford a plane ticket.

“I’ll take that as a ‘you’re not sure,’” Derek said. He withdrew his arm from the top of the cubical and pressed his lips together as though he had something else to say but wasn’t sure he should say it. Then he cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “You’re still young and single, Sam. And people change. Remember that.”

Sam watched him walk away—the upright posture, the swagger, the confident way he’d looked back and gave her a nod, as though he’d known she’d still be watching.

She spun around and glared at her monitor, not happy with the seeds of doubt Derek had so easily planted in her mind. Colton wouldn’t change. She wouldn’t change. And this whole long distance thing wasn’t going to change
them
. The reason calls between them had become a little more distant were because she and Colton were both busy, not because things were changing.

She frowned at her computer yet again, determined to get the invitation right—to do something that would make the not-right feeling in her gut go away.

Colton’s booted feet came to an abrupt stop before the gap of open air between the jet bridge and the airplane. His heart pounded, his breathing grew erratic, and every instinct in his body told him to turn around and go back to the safety of the terminal. His fingers tightened around his wallet that held a picture of Samantha, and he tried to remind himself why he was here.

Someone from behind lightly touched his arm. “Are you okay, dearie?” came a kindly, aged, female voice.

Colton looked over his shoulder to see a tiny, wrinkled couple behind him. He couldn’t tell who was holding who up, only that the woman had reached out to him.

“I’m just… a little nervous about flying, that’s all,” he said. “Forty-five thousand feet above the ground is kind of high.” Why Colton had googled average cruising altitudes for commercial planes, he had no idea. All it had done was sear the number into his brain like a silent alarm.

“Feel free to go ahead of me.” Colton stepped aside, wondering where the couple had come from. He’d waited for everyone else to board ahead of him, and shouldn’t they have been in the pre-board line?

As if reading his thoughts, the bald and age-spotted husband spoke up. “Pre-boarding is for the ancient, crippled, or young ‘uns. Not us. It just takes us a bit longer to get down the ramp, is all. That’s why we wait for the springier chickens to board first.”

His wife leaned toward Colton and whispered, “I know we’re old, but I don’t want him to know that he’s delusional, so I humor him.” Her eyes crinkled even more when she smiled.

Colton liked them instantly. Someday he hoped that would be him and Samantha, only not at an airport about to step on a plane.

“We should go.” The husband began to move past, but his wife resisted, holding him back.

“Is this the first time you’ve ever flown?” She peered up at Colton through thick-framed eye glasses, her short white hair framing her face in soft, thinning curls.

“Yes.”

“Where’s your seat assignment?”

Colton glanced at his ticket. “Um… 14C.” An aisle seat. As far from the window as possible.

She continued to study him. “Why are you going to New York?”

Her candor charmed him, and Colton found himself answering. “To see my girlfriend.”

“Is she worth it?”

Colton didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Yes, she is.”

Her smile widened, deepening the lines around her lips. She let go of her husband’s arm and latched on to Colton’s. “Well then. Let’s get you to your gal, shall we? C’mon, Vern. We have a new mission.” She dropped her voice again. “He likes missions. He thinks he’s Tom Cruise.”

“And she thinks she’s as funny as Lucille Ball,” came the man’s ragged voice.

“I
am
Lucille,” she quipped and she led Colton onto the plane. “Lucille Anne Monteray Dungworth. You only marry a man with that last name if it’s true love.”

Even though Colton’s heart still raced and his forehead continued to perspire, he allowed the tiny woman to lead him on the plane and reconfigure a few seating arrangements so that he ended up in the middle of her and her husband. Without asking, Vern quietly lowered the window shade. They acted as though they often came across troubled, first-time fliers and knew exactly what to do.

Lucille took Colton’s roughened hand in hers and gave it a pat. “I want to tell you a very interesting story about how I wooed Vern without him knowing it. Because back then, you see, us girls weren’t supposed to do the wooing. I had to be sneaky about it, and I was. Vern didn’t know what hit him until it was too late. Believe it or not, he really did used to look like Tom Cruise. Or I should say that Tom Cruise looked like him because Vern came first, though he won’t admit it.”

She continued to talk as the plane pulled away from the terminal. For the few, panic-attack inducing minutes of takeoff, her voice faded away, and Colton squeezed her hand as hard as he dared and tried not to think about the forty-five thousand feet of air that would soon be between him and the ground. But as the plane leveled out and the seatbelts-fastened light went off, his breathing evened a little, and Lucille’s voice was there again, calming him down. Vern joined the conversation here and there, correcting his wife or adding something she’d forgotten, but mostly it was sweet little Lucille who got him to New York City.

As the plane coasted through the maze of LaGuardia and Colton’s heart rate returned to normal, Lucille asked, “When do you fly back to Denver?”

“Tuesday morning. The 10AM flight.”

She smiled and craned her neck to see her husband. “Hear that, Vern? He’ll be on our return flight too.”

Vern opened his mouth in what appeared to be the beginning of an argument then clamped it shut and grunted, looking resigned. Colton got the feeling they’d either be extending their stay or ending it early on account of him.

If it were anyone else, Colton would have tried to talk her out of it, but after listening to Lucille chat for a little over four hours, he knew that arguing with her wouldn’t get him anywhere. If she wanted to be on his plane at ten o’clock Tuesday morning, she would be on the plane. And Vern would be with her because he loved his wife.

Outside the door of her apartment, Sam rifled through her too-large purse for the keys. But when all she could find was lip gloss, Tic Tacs, several receipts, a water bottle, and granola bar wrappers, she gave the bag a shake. A muffled jingle came from inside, and she went fishing again. “I know you’re in there,” she muttered. “I can hear you.”

“You know that keys can’t really hide, right?” said a voice that made Sam’s knees feel like jelly and her heart skip several beats. Her fingers froze in her purse, and her feet slowly turned her around.

Four feet away, leaning casually against the wall in the narrow hallway, with his black Stetson, washed-out jeans, dark boots, and that almost-smile that made her insides turn to mush, stood the most handsome sight she’d seen since August twenty-fourth.

She squealed, dropped her purse, and plowed into him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“You’re here.”

“I am.”

“How?”

“How else?” He grinned. “Pony Express.”

“Did the pony have wings and look like an airplane?”

He nodded. “I almost didn’t make it but a really sweet, elderly couple talked me down from the ledge. They’ll be on my flight home, too, if you can believe it.”

“I can’t believe any of it.” Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, and her head continued to shake as she digested what it all meant—what he meant to her. He was here. In Manhattan.
Here
.

His palms framed her face, and his thumbs wiped away her tears. “Two years is too long to wait, and New York is too far,” he said.

“I know.” It was too long and
way
too far, and holy moly, he was
here
. For how long? Why hadn’t he told her? She would have left work earlier. She would have cleaned. She would have—

“I came for two reasons,” he said. “To see you and meet with a manager at NYEC.”

“NYEC?” Sam was having a hard time processing everything.

“New York Equestrian Center. They just opened an extension in Afton and need to fill some new positions. I happen to be a good fit for a few of them so they want to talk. We’ll meet tomorrow, and if things go well, again on Monday. If they offer me a job, I’ll spend the warmer months up in Afton and the winter months at their West Hempstead location.”

Whoa, what? Colton was considering moving to New York? Since when? Why? How?
Overload, overload, overload,
screamed her senses. She took a step back and searched his eyes. “Afton?”

“A city about two hundred miles north of here. In pictures it looks a lot like Colorado. It’s close enough we can see each other on weekends, and when I’m at West Hempstead we can see each other every day.” He paused. “If you want.”

“I…” Of course she wanted. She more than wanted. But he’d be giving up too much. It wasn’t fair. “I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because… because I can’t.”

He took her by the shoulders and gave her a slight shake. “It’s win-win, Samantha. NYEC is a pretty big operation, and I plan to come away with a lot of improvement ideas. It’s a good opportunity.”

“But—”

“But nothing. The ranch has been in our family for almost one hundred years, and it’s not going anywhere. It’ll still be waiting for us whenever we decide to go back.”

We.
It sounded so strong and permanent with no room for change at all, as though she and Colton were in this together no matter what.
Take that, Derek Lindstrom,
she couldn’t help but think.
I told you I was taken. And so is Colton.

“What about your family?” she said. “They need you.”

“They’ll be fine. I had a long chat with my parents before I made this decision, we all agreed that my brothers could use a lot more responsibility and Kajsa’s itchin’ to do more than muck out stalls and feed animals. Things will be fine back home. I promise.”

“What about you? Will you be fine here?”

His dark eyes became pools of warmth and desire. “Do you really have to ask? I’ll still be working with horses, and I’ll be with you. Of course I’ll be fine.”

Her head felt like a bingo cage. Too many thoughts and feelings churned around and around and around. Guilt, excitement, worry, elation, what ifs, possible regrets—What was the right way to feel? Could she really let Colton do this for her?

“I don’t know what to say,” she finally said.

Colton’s hands moved from her shoulders down her arms, causing an eruption of goose bumps to ripple across her skin. How she’d missed that feeling. How she’d missed him.

His fingers laced through hers. “Say you’re excited,” he said. “Say you still love me. Say you’ll marry me.”

Her breath caught. Her heart ceased beating. The hallway tilted on its side. “Marry you?”

His gaze remain fixed on hers. “I’ve had a taste of what life feels like without you in the everyday of it, and I don’t like it. I want us to be together from now until we’re old and wrinkly and delusional.”