The Princess of Coldwater Flats (9 page)

“Hi, Sammy Jo,” she said. “I was moving some boxes around. Old files. Did you want something?”

“I was looking for Brent.”

“He’s sitting an open house down in Shady Glen, at 874 Dellwood Lane.”

“Thanks.”

“Any particular reason you want to see him?” she called after Sammy Jo, her curiosity apparently getting the better of her.

Only to ask him to marry me.

Sammy Jo didn’t bother stopping long enough to answer. She ground the pickup’s gears as she turned its nose toward Shady Glen.

It was a stupid plan, but it was all she had. And anyway, marriage wouldn’t be so bad. Besides, Brent Rollins was just one name on the list of possibles. There were lots of eligible bachelors with enough cash to pull her out of her financial slump.

Sammy Jo wrinkled her nose. That sounded so mercenary, but desperate times called for desperate measures. So, she’d start with Brent and work her way down. Next on the list, Tommy Weatherwood.

“Ugh,” she muttered, smoothing back a strand of hair. She wasn’t that desperate. Yet.

She thought of Cooper. The rugged planes of his face seemed to continually cross her vision. But he was off limits, out of bounds. She needed someone she could control, and if she were going to sell her soul, by God, it wasn’t going to be to some misogynistic, corporate demon with an attitude about women. Uh-uh.

So, Brent Rollins it was.

Pulling into the tree-canopied driveway of 874 Dellwood Lane, she felt her heart in her throat. She had to swallow several times to work up any saliva at all and was annoyed that she was so nervous. It was just Brent. Heck, she’d held him down in second grade and kissed him until he cried.

“Piece of cake,” she murmured, cutting the engine in front of a salmon-pink bungalow that was just too perky for words.

A quick self-assessment preceded her walk to the front door. She wasn’t a bad catch; Gil had said so often enough. She looked good and she was intelligent, quick and compassionate. With the Triple R as bait…‌why, any red-blooded, half-alive male looking to improve himself would jump at the chance to marry her.

Except she was stubborn, willful and a general pain in the tail end. Her father had been clear on that, as well.

“Brent knows your good points and your bad,” she told herself, rapping lightly on the salmon-and-white front door. She half expected Disney characters to answer.

Brent himself opened the door. “Sammy Jo!” he said with genuine pleasure.

She instantly felt like a fraud. “Hi, Brent. You got a minute?”

“For you, an hour. A week. The rest of my life.” He grinned.

“Yeah. Right.” Sammy Jo was unusually tongue-tied and she didn’t know what to do with her hands. She glanced around at the tidy living/dining area. The carpet was white, the walls a light lemon yellow. “How come I feel like I walked into candyland?”

He laughed and shook his head. Sammy Jo wasn’t certain he understood her point of view, or whether he was just being polite.

“What’s up?” he asked her.

Brent wore a green polo shirt and gray slacks. He was Coldwater Flats’s only realtor and he favored the casual look, which was just as well since his clientele favored jeans and work shirts.

For some reason, his very appearance slapped Sammy Jo like a cold shower. She was nuts. Completely nuts. “No reason,” she choked out, moving away from him. “How much are you selling this for?”

“You in the market for real estate?”

“Only if I’m selling,” she said.

“You’d really sell the Triple R?” His brown eyes brightened with surprise.

“When I’m six feet under. Why? You think there’s a market for it?”

“You bet. I’d buy it myself, if I could. It’s one fine piece of property as you well know, Sammy Jo.”

“What if you could buy it? I mean, what would you do with it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Keep it like you do, I guess. Or at least try to,” he added humbly.

Encouraged by his unspoken complement, Sammy Jo walked through the bungalow’s freshly painted white-tiled kitchen. “That’s nice.”

He cocked his head. “Something on your mind?”

Sammy Jo leaned against the counter, bracing herself in more ways than one.
Count to ten,
she thought.
Then dive in
. Silence grew as she made the mental count. Gathering her courage, she said, “I’ve got money problems that you would not believe.”

“Try me.” He was serious.

“I could lose the Triple R if I don’t fix things soon.”

“You need a loan?”

She’d thought of that, actually, but Brent lived in a tiny two-bedroom house with the sister he’d practically raised himself. The real estate business wasn’t that great in Coldwater Flats. If he loaned Sammy Jo enough money to pay off her debts, she was pretty sure she’d swallow up most of his nest egg.

“No.” She smiled with regret. “That wouldn’t be fair.”

“Don’t tell me you’re rethinking my marriage proposal,” he said lightly, with just a hint of desperation that made Sammy Jo realize how important her answer was.

“Did you propose to me?” she asked.

“About a thousand times.”

“I mean, seriously propose,” Sammy Jo said, her heart beating in her throat.

That gave him pause. His gaze swept over her tense face. “Yes,” he answered quietly.

“Well, then, I’d be a fool not to rethink it. You’re the catch of the day.”

Brent grinned widely.

“But I just dropped by to say hello,” she added hastily, backing toward the door. This wasn’t working. What had ever possessed her to think it would?

“Drop by again soon,” he said, with just the right amount of accent to let her know he’d been reading her mind. Her face coloring, Sammy Jo made a fast exit after paying a few more complements over the salmon-colored house.

She passed Tommy Weatherwood’s house on the way out of Shady Glen. Tommy himself was in the driveway, washing his glossy red Chevy truck.

Sammy Jo forced herself to slow to a stop and smile and wave. Squinting against the sun, Tommy finally recognized her. When he did, a grin crossed his somewhat dissipated features. The years had not been particularly kind to Tommy.

“Hey, Sammy Jo, you babe,” he said, striding over. He wore jeans and no shirt. Sammy Jo eyed the eagle tattoo he’d added to his bicep since the last time she’d seen him shirtless.

“What’s new, Tommy?”

“Same old, same old. You know, it’s been a while since you and me put down some of that rotgut liquor.” His smile was white, having so far escaped the ravages of nicotine. But then she remembered Tommy, for all his other faults, had never smoked.

“A long while.”

“Say, you in this year’s Fourth of July rodeo?”

“I retired years ago.”

“Prettiest damn rodeo princess this town ever saw. And the best. Sammy Jo, you could always do it.” He leered. “You could always do it for me.”

“Thanks,” she said with a dry smile. At least Tommy could make her laugh. He thought he was God’s gift to women, and instead of infuriating her, his attitude generally made her grin and shake her head. There was a puppyish way about Tommy for all his corny lines and low-life ways.

But husband material?

“Maybe I’ll see you around on the 4th,” he said in lieu of a goodbye.

“Maybe you will.”

The rest of the way home Sammy Jo criticized herself for being such a hypocrite. She couldn’t do it. She simply couldn’t marry some guy to save the ranch.

She changed her mind half an hour later when she opened Doc Carey’s veterinary bill. Gasping, she crumpled it in her fist, then smoothed it out again, chest tight. She was going down for the third time.

Grabbing her purse, she headed back to Shady Glen, got halfway there, stomped on the brake and turned back to town. In front of the High Noon Saloon, she clenched her hands around the wheel and fought a scream of frustration. Then she slammed out of the truck and stomped into the bar.

The place seemed empty, apart from Sam and Josh who were both at the bar.

“You look mad enough to kill a mountain lion with your bare hands,” Josh observed. “Have a brewsky on me.”

“Looking for somebody?” Sam asked.

“No,” Sammy Jo retorted.

“Here.” Sam handed her a frosted mug, which she stared down at uncomprehendingly. “He stopped by earlier,” Sam added helpfully.

“Who?”

“Mr. Ryan.”

Sammy Jo blinked at Sam. “I’m not looking for Mr. Ryan.”

“Yeah?” Sam seemed unconvinced.

“You must be looking for something,” Josh said. “You’re fit to be tied.”

“If I’m looking for anything, it’s salvation. I have got to save the Triple R.”

“Sell it to Ryan,” Sam said.

“No.”

“You’re going to lose it, anyway,” Josh pointed out.

Sammy Jo glared. “You sound just like him. Well, let me tell you something, I’d sell myself before I sold the ranch. Anybody looking for a good woman? How about me for a wife? All you have to do is save the ranch and I’m yours.”

Her words rose to the rafters, desperate, choked off, embarrassing. Sammy Jo closed her eyes, fighting hot anger.

And it was at that moment that Cooper Ryan chose to make his presence known. He’d been sitting around the corner behind one of the thick, rough-hewn posts that held up the High Noon’s roof. Now, he sauntered over to the bar.

Sammy Jo’s mouth dropped in mingled disbelief and horror. “You couldn’t have told me?” she gritted out to Sam who just shrugged and spread his palms.

“Is that a proposal for me or the bar in general?” Cooper asked. “If it’s for me, I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn you down.”

It was the way he said it. One moment she was sick with humiliation and fear, the next she was incensed beyond reason. Her temper, always ragingly healthy, rose like mercury in a thermometer—but at warp speed.

“I wouldn’t have you if you were the last man on earth. I wouldn’t have you if you groveled at my feet and begged. I wouldn’t have you period, mister. Don’t you dare listen in on my conversations.”

“I wasn’t exactly eavesdropping,” he said, enraging her further. “You were shouting. Damn near at the top of your lungs.”

“If I was shouting, your eardrums would hurt. I was talking normally. NOW, I’M SHOUTING! I’d rather boil in oil, eat nails and wallow with pigs than even look at you again.”

“Ooooh.” Josh grinned, holding up his hands in surrender.

Sam rubbed his jaw, fighting a smile.

Sammy Jo wanted to wring both their necks. And then disaster struck. Ginny unfolded her skinny legs from the banquet seat around the corner and strolled toward them. She’d apparently been cozying up to Cooper when Sammy Jo had banged in, and though Ginny was keeping her expression carefully schooled, Sammy Jo could read it immersed in her eyes.

It was too much, and it goaded Sammy Jo into one more childish and foolhardy remark.

“But if anybody else wants a wife, and therefore the Triple R,” she challenged rashly, “tell ‘em to look me up. I’m available.”

With that she slammed through the door without a backward glance, fighting self-recriminations and her still-flaming temper all the way home.

One hell of a woman…‌

Cooper tossed back the last of his beer and made a face. Josh’s words still hung in the air. As soon as Sammy Jo left, Josh had slapped his knee, howled with delight and crowed, “One
hell
of a woman! But she’d make one shrew of a wife.”

“You can’t take her seriously,” Sam said as he wiped down the bar.

“And why not?” Josh was perfectly reasonable. “She needs the money. And let’s face it. She could use a man.”

Ginny snorted. “Couldn’t we all.”

“Sammy Jo isn’t that mercenary.” Perversely, Cooper found himself defending her. Now, Pamela
had
been that mercenary. But Sammy Jo wasn’t Pamela. Not by a long shot.

Josh shrugged. “Who’s talkin’ mercenary? The girl’s in a bind. And she’s true-blue. She’d marry to save the ranch in a heartbeat, but she’d stick by the lucky devil. That’s how she’s made.”

Cooper wasn’t certain he liked Josh’s assessment. Her reason for wanting to marry sounded cold-blooded to him no matter what fancy motivations anyone might attach to it. And he didn’t like thinking that of Sammy Jo.

He was surprised to find her pickup parked in front of his house when he returned home later that night. He was even more surprised by his own sense of anticipation. Tamping that down, he entered the front door and followed the sound of her voice to the kitchen where she was leaning against the back door, arms folded across her chest, sharing a cup of coffee with Jack and Lettie.

“This is a surprise,” Cooper greeted her. With difficulty, he dragged his gaze from her lean form. What was it about some women that they just looked good in jeans? Slim, long legs capped by softly rounded hips and a firm, flat abdomen. Damn nice. And he wasn’t a man who really liked tan women, either; it seemed so calculated and narcissistic. But Sammy Jo’s tan arms spoke of work in the sun, and their sinewy strength was real and therefore sexy. No gym work for Sammy Jo Whalen. Uh-uh. The lady knew how to pull her own weight. Literally.

“I forgot to tell you about the beaver dam,” she said coolly. “A family’s moved in about a quarter-mile up Cotton Creek. That’s why everything’s so parched down here.”