The Princess of Coldwater Flats (21 page)

Sammy Jo slowed the pickup to a throbbing rumble and threw it into park. Outside her window, the oak tree lay twisted, ravaged and helpless. She stared at its charred remains. Blackened embers. Skeleton branches. Gray ash.

If she were superstitious, she would believe it was a sign to give up. There was nothing left for her here. She might as well move out of town and start over.

Climbing from the cab of the truck, Sammy Jo wiped sweat from her forehead, then walked through the dust and debris, poking at a burned fragment with the toe of her boot. Swallowing, she tried hard not to mind.

And just as hard, she tried to forget the aftermath of the fire, the sweet, hot, melting moments in Cooper’s arms where some passionate stranger inside her head reveled in his touch, smell and taste.

Groaning at the memory, Sammy Jo squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her whole body tensed; her teeth clenched.

“No,” she declared to the empty air and listless oak. She was not going to give in. Not to pain and despair, and not to Cooper Ryan ever again.

With that, she kicked at the rubble and stomped back to the pickup, yanking open the door on one try. A faint, self-deprecating smile crossed her lips. At least she’d won that small battle.

At the house, she rinsed the sweat from her face, then glanced at the table. The mail lay scattered across its scarred finish, one letter catching Sammy Jo’s attention: Valley Federal’s latest missive, this one with a deadline.

She couldn’t marry Brent now. She never really could. But she knew if she went down to the bank today and told Matt Durning that she and Brent were getting married, and that Brent had told her he would put up part of his money to pay off part of her mortgage and trade mortgages on some of his other real estate for the rest, Matt would call off the hounds. And she would still have the Triple R.

It was that simple.

And that hard.

The thought made her skin itch. Shaking her head, she walked to the barn, grabbed a bridle and a pan of oats before going into the fields in search of Pokey; Emmy, Van and Alex would soon be at the ranch to hone their rodeo skills on the Shetland.

She caught up with the horse fairly quickly and seduced him with ridiculous ease. Pokey’s number-one concern was food. By the time she got back to the house, the little girls were already there, as were Bev, Ginny and Tess.

Bev’s greeting was noticeably chillier than it had been, but Sammy Jo didn’t much care. She didn’t want to even think about Cooper Ryan. The memory of their lovemaking made her shiver with guilt. Best to block it out entirely.

“Me first! Me first!” Emmy cried, her helmet sliding forward a little on her head. Sammy Jo lifted the five-year-old onto the bareback saddle. Pokey dutifully began plodding around in a circle.

Emmy quickly grew impatient. Before Sammy Jo could stop her, she’d climbed to her feet and bent over, clutching the saddle’s handle. “No!” she cried when Sammy Jo stopped Pokey. “Go! Go!”

“Sammy Jo Whalen, you get her down from there!” Bev screeched.

“Emmy, you aren’t ready for that.”

“Yes, I am!”

A part of Sammy Jo had to admire the little girl’s stubbornness—a kindred spirit. But she wasn’t about to let Emmy risk injury.

Realizing Pokey wasn’t going to move unless she sat down, Emmy did the exact opposite, standing straight up on the horse and toppling onto the ground.

“Emmy!” Sammy Jo cried, rushing to the girl.

Bev was beside her in an instant, clawing Sammy Jo away, screaming to beat the band. Scared, Pokey jumped forward and raced to the other side of the paddock, reins flying. Emmy started crying as Bev scooped her up.

“You have no business teaching riding if you can’t control your animals!” Bev shrieked.

“Is she all right?” Sammy Jo asked anxiously, reaching toward Emmy.

“She fell off!” Tears filled Bev’s eyes.

“Let go of me!” Emmy demanded, squirming furiously. “I want to ride. I want to ride!”

It took all Sammy Jo’s willpower not to smile. She could feel the smile growing, twitching the corners of her mouth, threatening to break into a shout of laughter.

Bev stared in horror at her dust-grimed daughter who was valiantly seeking escape. Reluctantly, Bev let her slip to the ground. Emmy tried to tear off toward Pokey, but Bev held on to her daughter’s arm. “You’re going to see a doctor!” Bev declared.

Emmy howled in frustration. “I want to ride Pokey. I want to ride!”

Bev’s jaw tightened. Sammy Jo sucked in a breath, expecting Bev to shake the little girl’s arm, she was so mad. But Bev released her, and Emmy ran for Pokey, who led Emmy on a merry chase around the corral, seeming to delight in keeping just out of reach.

“She won’t be coming back for lessons,” Bev said tightly.

“Bev, she just fell off. It happens in rodeo-riding.” Sammy Jo was losing patience herself.

“It’s dangerous. I won’t have it. And I won’t let Roy buy her any more lessons from you, either!”

“Fine. But you won’t hear the end of this.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” Bev demanded acidly.

Hooking a thumb in Emmy’s direction, Sammy Jo said, “Your daughter wants to rodeo. She loves horses, and she’s fearless. She won’t give you a minute’s peace. And yes, I’m speaking from experience.”

The two other girls watched Emmy with a mixture of delight and horror. Ginny sucked on a cigarette, squinting against the smoke. Van squeezed her mother’s hand tightly. Sammy Jo didn’t have to be told that Van was through with rodeo-riding. Conversely, Ginny seemed kind of reluctant to give it up.

“Emmy okay?” Ginny asked.

“No, she’s not okay.” Bev was frosty.

“She’s tough,” Sammy Jo answered in a sideways compliment as Emmy finally caught hold of Pokey’s reins and then proceeded to stroke the Shetland’s nose.

“I never thought this was a good idea. It’s too dangerous. And it’s…‌smelly!” Bev looked down at her grimy clothes in disgust.

Tess snorted in amusement, and Bev sent her an icy look.

“I want to ride,” Alex suddenly piped in, her thumb hovering just outside her mouth.

Everyone turned to look at her. Tess grinned.

“You have to promise to stay seated,” Sammy Jo told Alex.

“Promise,” she mumbled, the thumb firmly implanted once more.

Emmy threw a fit when she realized Alex was going to get to ride. Bev tried reasoning with her, and when that didn’t work, she grabbed Emmy’s arm and dragged her around the house because Emmy refused to walk on her own power.

Alex rode docilely around the paddock. When she was finished, Sammy Jo brought Pokey over to the rail. Tess swept Alex into her arms and held her tightly, filled with pride.

“You sure you don’t want to ride?” Sammy Jo asked Van.

The little girl glared at Sammy Jo. Ginny’s mouth was tight, Sammy Jo realized she was angry because Van hadn’t measured up to Ginny’s expectations. At that moment, Sammy Jo vowed to herself that if she ever had children, she would never put her child in competition with anyone else’s. It was a dangerous game.

Suddenly, Emmy came racing around the house, her face shining. “I get one more ride! One more ride!”

“Oh, honey, I don’t think so. Your mom’s kind of upset and she won’t want you to—”

The words died in Sammy Jo’s throat as Bev suddenly strolled toward her. Cooper Ryan was at her side.

Sammy Jo’s heart banged in her chest. She had to look away. Anywhere. Just not at Cooper’s broad chest and sinewy forearms. Not at his lean legs and hips.

What was he doing here? The bastard,
she added purposely, determined to stay as angry at him as she’d been the night of the fire.

“Hello, Cooper.” Ginny’s voice thrummed with pleasure and grated against Sammy Jo’s nerves.

“Hi, Ginny.”

“This is my daughter, Vanessa. Van, say hi to Mr. Ryan.” Van’s suspicious gaze slid over him, and she remained ominously silent.

“Well, Mr.
Ryan
,” Tess stressed, shooting Sammy Jo a glance of amusement. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Tess Miller, and this is my daughter, Alex.”

Cooper shook her hand. Sammy Jo licked her lips and squinted at a faraway tree as if she were focusing on something important. She just couldn’t look at Cooper. Cooper…‌at least Tess had gotten his name right this time.

“You work at the bank, don’t you?” Cooper asked, his voice sending a chill down Sammy Jo’s the back, in spite of the heat.

“I sure do,” Tess said, sounding gratified he remembered.

“Tess is a teller,” Bev revealed in an icy breath.

Emmy had climbed the fence. Sammy Jo helped her down and sent her scampering toward Pokey since Bev seemed to have swallowed her objections. Tess held Alex’s freehand while Alex smiled up at Sammy Jo, clearly pleased with her riding lesson.

“The girls were having a riding lesson until Emmy fell off,” Bev told Cooper. “It’s a miracle she wasn’t seriously injured. Sammy Jo assured me it would be safe.”

Sammy Jo shot Bev a glare. The woman’s animosity had fast changed to something else. Jealousy? Female territorialism? Bev clearly wanted Cooper enough to risk another ride for Emmy on Pokey.

He deserves Bev,
she told herself judiciously.

“She looks all right to me,” Cooper drawled, his gaze following Emmy’s progress before turning to Sammy Jo. Color heated Sammy Jo’s cheeks and she turned away, heading for Emmy and the safety of the far end of the corral.

“Will you show me?” Emmy demanded. “Will you show me how to do it?”

“Do what?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ginny and Bev hang on Cooper’s every drawling syllable. Her blood boiled.

“How to stand up on a horse? Please, please, please!”

“Emmy, I can’t stand up on Pokey. It’s not good for him. I’m too big.”

“Then another horse. I want to see!”

“I was a barrel-racer. Trick-riding wasn’t something I did much.”

“But you can do it, can’t you?” she kept after Sammy Jo. “You can!”

“Yeah, I guess I can.”

“Then do it!”

An infantile part of herself wanted to perform. Like in seventh grade, when she’d shown the prissy girls in her class how to slide underneath the belly of a running horse without getting hurt. Of course, that was after she’d been trampled once and broken her arm in two places, but she hadn’t mentioned that to her impressed friends.

Nope. She wasn’t going to pull that stunt again.

“Sorry,” Sammy Jo told the little girl, hauling her onto Pokey’s broad back.

Emmy stayed seated but she squirmed and jiggled and bopped as if to some music of her own. Sammy Jo circled around several times and came to a stop in front of Cooper and the other women.

“So you give a rodeo-riding lessons,” he said to Sammy Jo. His first direct conversation. Was he feeling as awkward as she was?

“Yup.” Sammy Jo still couldn’t meet his gaze as she helped Emmy off the Shetland and watched the little girl duck through the fence.

“Maybe I should take a course.”

He was baiting her, the monster. She glanced up, her green eyes cool. “Sure, why not? Anytime you feel like it.”

“Now why does that sound like a challenge?”

‘Cause maybe it is.

It annoyed her that every remark she made fueled his amusement. Burning, Sammy Jo refused to say anything more, but Tess had no such compunction.

“You know, you ought to take lessons. I think Sammy Jo could teach you a thing or two.”

Sammy Jo stared at her friend in horror. She’d been debating on telling Tess about what had happened between her and Cooper; she needed a confidante. But now she knew she couldn’t. Tess insisted on playing matchmaker between her and Cooper even though she knew Sammy Jo was still “engaged” to Brent.

“Is that right?” Cooper asked.

“I don’t think Sammy Jo teaches adults,” Bev said quickly.

It took every ounce of willpower Sammy Jo possessed, but she managed to keep from giving Bev the rough side of her tongue. Ginny looked as if she wanted to kill Bev, too. Good. Let the two of them duke it out.

“Can I talk to you up at the house?” Sammy Jo asked Tess, forcing a sweet smile.

“Sure thing.”

Tess grabbed Alex’s hand as Sammy Jo climbed the fence and dropped lithely to the ground beside Bev, Ginny and Cooper. With long strides, she put distance between herself and their little group. Tess had to half run to catch up.

“Do you mind?” Sammy Jo demanded in a furious whisper when they reached the back porch. She shot a glance toward Cooper. Ginny and Bev had hung back, their faces turned up to Cooper, silently begging him to notice them.

“You like him,” Tess declared. “It’s written all over you.”

“I think I hate him.”

Tess laughed and Alex, hearing her mother, removed her thumb and laughed, too. “You can hardly stand them,” Tess said, jerking her head in Ginny and Bev’s direction. “You’re eaten up with jealousy.”

“Just because I don’t fawn over him like they do? Give me a break. By the way, I noticed you finally got his name right.”

“Sammy Jo, listen to yourself. You want some advice?”

“Never.”

“Tell Brent it’s over. It was all a mistake. And then, let things happen with Cooper. He wants it, too.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sammy Jo grumbled.

“Let me ask you this—who would you rather sleep with? Brent or Cooper?”

“Tess.” Sammy Jo shot a meaningful look toward Alex who was sucking happily on her thumb, her gaze fixed on Pokey.

“Think about it.” Tess gave Sammy Jo a hug, then walked around the side of the house.

Sammy Jo stared after her. Shouting, she said to the remaining group, “I’ve got some work to do. You all can hang out as long as you like.”

With that, she opened the creaking back door and walked into the house. They didn’t take the hint. Long after she was inside, and peeking through the curtains, they were all still standing by the rail. She could see the way Ginny and Bev fought for Cooper’s attention, even though she couldn’t hear a word. And Cooper just ate it up. Just ate it up.

She eyed the width of his shoulders through his denim shirt, the sexy way his jeans hugged his hips, the way his hair curled against his neck beneath his hat. “How could I have ever slept with him?” she demanded in a whisper to the empty room.