“She testified against him at his trial.” Travis took up the story. “He was an angry, powerful man who promised to hunt her down and ki—” He glanced at the children. “Find her. So she and the kids took her maiden name and hid out in San Francisco.”
“That’s why Travis bought this house in Rodeo. Because it’s remote.”
“Manny wrote to Sammy before Christmas. He found religion.”
“Yes,” Sammy continued. The two of them made a great tag team. “He’s come to a new understanding of life. He’s old. He won’t live long. He’ll spend the rest of his life in jail.”
She shrugged. “I guess he took stock and decided repentance was better than revenge.”
“Thank goodness,” Travis said. “I’m glad Sammy and the boys are safe.”
Travis was right. What Samantha had done had taken courage, but then, wasn’t that just her? She’d stood up against Michael’s anger to do the right things for his children, and for him.
The night ended early, with Karen saying little before she left. At the door, Michael hugged her and said, “You are welcome in my home anytime, Karen.”
He found he meant it.
With hugs all around, Travis, Rachel and the two girls left.
Samantha and Michael put the children to bed, then stared at each other in the sudden silence.
“What now?” Samantha looked as uncertain as he’d ever seen her.
“Now we turn in, too.”
“That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t talking about just tonight.”
“I know.” He drew her against his chest, his big hand on her soft hair. “I once thought that lightning couldn’t strike twice. I’d known love with Lillian. How could that possibly happen again? Then you came along.”
She leaned away from him to gaze into his eyes.
“Did lightning strike?”
“I’ve been singed. Scorched. I might never recover.”
He didn’t have romantic words, but he could be himself. He could lay his heart on the line.
“Will you marry me, Sammy?”
She burst into tears.
“Why do women get weepy when they’re happy?” He grasped her arms. “Wait a minute. You are happy, right?”
The wrong answer could break his heart.
“I’m ecstatic, but no, I can’t marry you.”
She’d sucker punched him. “No?” The word bled out of him along with his hope.
She stepped away from him. “I can’t. I want to, but I know that I would start to depend on you too much. I depended on Travis for too long. I have to learn to be independent. To take care of myself.”
When he stepped close, she raised her hand. “Please let me finish. I married Kevin too young, and too early in our relationship, because I thought he could provide a home and stability for me. Did you hear that? I said for me.”
She stood straight, back rigid, as though she needed to get through this quickly. “I shouldn’t have expected other people to make my life. It was always my own responsibility. I realize that now.”
Michael didn’t have a clue what to say. He’d found love, but Sammy was rejecting it. He had no words to help her change her mind.
“Sure, Kevin should have done a better job of providing for his children, but I shouldn’t have asked him to put my wishes ahead of his.”
“But you’re moving into a house your brother bought for you.”
“I know. It doesn’t sound like it makes sense, does it? But the original plan was for us to move in and for Travis to eventually move on like he always does.”
She chewed on her lip. “I had no intention of just taking the house from him. I planned to pay him back every cent of the down payment over time and take over the mortgage payments, as well. I wouldn’t allow him to give it to me.”
“What about Rachel and her children? Don’t you think Travis will keep the house for himself now?”
“Yes. He’s told us it’s large enough for all of us, but I don’t know...”
“So move in here with me. It’s the perfect solution.”
She shook her head. “No, Michael. The perfect solution is for me to find a place for my family on my own.”
Michael didn’t want to ask, but had to. “Do you feel anything for me?”
She closed her eyes and pressed a fist against her chest. “I feel everything for you.”
“Then give me tonight.”
Her eyes flew open. “What?”
“Come to my bed. Make love with me. Give me this last gift.”
He reached out his hand. It wasn’t even a fraction of what he wanted, but tonight he needed Sammy. He held his breath.
“Yes.” She placed her hand in his and he led her to his bedroom, making sure to lock the door.
Chapter Fifteen
They sat in the living room quietly. The children were absorbed in their own entertainment, the adults in their own thoughts.
In a couple of hours, Travis was coming to pick them up. Sammy’s car had been towed, but the mechanic was waiting for a part.
Michael sat on the sofa, gripping Samantha’s hand. He’d told her he didn’t want her to go. She wouldn’t let him convince her to stay.
Her usually sunny mood was strained. She hadn’t smiled all morning. She’d never been more miserable in her life, giving up love for...what? Independence? Was she—?
The front door burst open. Everyone startled. Travis wouldn’t enter Michael’s house forcefully without knocking first. Michael surged to his feet.
“Stay put,” he yelled over his shoulder as he hurried out of the room.
Heart pounding, Samantha held her breath when Michael disappeared. Strangely, she heard no sounds in the hallway, no confrontation, no conversation.
Her Spidey Sense went into overdrive.
Michael backed into the living room wordlessly, arms raised.
Manny’s top men, Frank and Karl, followed him into the room, holding him at gunpoint.
Sammy’s heart sank.
Manny had lied. How could she have been so stupid as to believe him?
She stood up, gesturing with her hand for the children to stay seated.
They disobeyed, clinging to her in wide-eyed fear, except for Jason who stood behind her.
She tried to edge the other three children behind her, too, but they resisted, terrified but also fascinated by the big men and their guns.
Big men, sure, but soft.
Michael, fit and strong and fiercely protective of his children, could have overcome them both easily, except for those paralyzing guns.
She wasn’t afraid of the men. She would gladly help Michael take them down. The guns were what scared her. Even if they could disarm the men, a finger could pull a trigger.
Terror filled her at the thought of one of the children being hurt.
Frank and Karl had aged in the past couple of years and looked gaunt, haggard, and desperate.
“Why are you here?” Samantha gently urged Lily behind her. Mick stubbornly refused to move, as did Colt. “Manny told me he called off the hunt.”
Frank snorted, one of the man’s many weird quirks that had never endeared him to her. “Yeah, we heard about that from Manny. He got religion.”
Religion might as well have been syphilis for all of the disgust in Frank’s tone.
“So why are you here?” she repeated.
“We want some of that money you took from Manny.”
Her expression flattened. They thought she had Manny’s money? She was the one who’d turned him in, for God’s sake! “Manny didn’t give me anything.”
“I didn’t say give, I said took.” Frank favored his right foot. She remembered his bad knees. He’d been a football player before starting to work for Manny. Over the years his bulk had morphed from muscle
to fat.
“I didn’t take any money, Frank. Manny was the guilty one. Not me.”
“There was a half million the Feds never recovered.”
“Talk to Manny about that. I don’t have it.”
Frank snorted again. Lovely. “You expect me to believe you never skimmed any off the top for yourself before you ratted on the boss?”
Samantha rolled her eyes. The man sounded like a lousy B-movie actor. “If I’d done that, would I have called the FBI?”
“You’re smart. You’re good with numbers. You woulda found a way.”
“I didn’t. I guess given the people with whom you associate you’re not used to meeting someone honest.”
“Not in our line of work.” That was Karl speaking, the coarseness of his voice getting worse. He obviously hadn’t quit smoking.
“I’m the exception.”
“I don’t think so.” She was back to sparring with Frank. “We got nothin’. No nest egg. No retirement. You need to cough up what you took.”
“Do you think that if I had thousands stashed away I’d be here now depending on this rancher?” She spread her arms to encompass the living room. “Why wouldn’t I be living it up somewhere in luxury?”
Frank hesitated, casting a glance around the room and noting the same decorations she had when she’d first arrived.
“This ain’t your style, no,” Frank conceded.
Maybe not, but she’d grown used to it. The old tools and evidence of the ranch’s history and heritage couldn’t be separated from Michael. They were a deep part of him and they were dear to her.
She could live here. She wanted to live here, in this house exactly as it stood.
She sensed Jason moving and wanted to stop him, but didn’t want to bring the men’s attention to her son.
Please, please, please, don’t do anything foolish.
“How did you find me? Manny?”
“Not directly, no, but I was there when Vivian told Manny where she’d found you. We asked around town. Heard you’d landed here in a storm.”
“You can get back out of here.”
Frank scowled and stepped forward, reaching for her, but his bad knee gave out.
Michael dived for him. Karl made a move to help, but Sammy got to him first, shoving one knuckle against the base of his throat.
She dug the fingernails of her other hand between two of Karl’s knuckles. His hand went limp and the gun fell to the floor. She picked it up and, for good measure, kneed him in the groin.
Jason dived for the phone.
A gunshot rang out. They stilled.
Frank fell to the floor, unconscious.
Michael staggered away from him with blood running down his arm.
Samantha lunged for Frank’s gun.
“What’s wrong with him?” She spun to Michael. “Why are you bleeding?” Her voice rose.
“I called nine-one-one,” Jason said, his voice shaking. “They need to know what the address is here.”
Michael rattled it off. Jason repeated it into the phone and added, “We need the sheriff and an ambulance.”
“I knocked him out. But the gun went off when he fell. He got me.”
Samantha cried out. She heard the children sobbing. She knelt on the floor beside Michael, with no clue what to do.
She loved this man. He couldn’t possibly be hurt. “You can’t die,” she sobbed. “I won’t let you.”
His smile looked wan. “I’m not dying. Hurt, though.”
He took in the entire room. “Jason, run out to the stable and get some rope or a harness. Samantha, calm down the children. When Jason comes back, tie up those two.”
He took the gun from Sammy and trained it on Karl.
Samantha took the children to the back playroom. “Stay here, okay? Michael will be fine. I’ll take care of him.”
She grabbed towels from the bathroom, fashioning one into a tourniquet above the wound. She didn’t know first aid, but the blood flow slowed.
Frank moaned. Karl wheezed. Jason ran into the room.
With her older son’s help, Samantha got both men tied up.
They heard sirens coming down the highway, and the children came running from the back room. Samantha knew it was pointless to shoo them out again. They needed to be with her and Michael.
A man she assumed was the sheriff burst into the house.
He introduced himself. “Cole Payette. You are?”
“Samantha Read. Michael Moreno’s been shot.”
“Are the perps Manny’s men?”
Surprised, she asked, “You know about them?”
“Travis warned me.”
Paramedics followed Cole inside. “This way.”
After the sheriff heard the story and Michael had been patched up, the paramedics left.
Sheriff Payette and his deputy hauled Frank and Karl to their feet to herd them to their cruiser.
“Rest up tonight, Michael,” the sheriff told him. “Usually I would need you at the station right away to give your full statement.”
Frank groaned. Payette ignored him. “As the medic said, it’s only a surface wound, but I’ll cut you some slack anyway.”
He scanned everyone’s faces, including the children. “Come in tomorrow to give your statements. I’ll be glad to get this scu—these bad guys into jail.”
With that, he grinned and headed out.
Samantha cleaned up the detritus left behind by the paramedics.
“The carpet will have to be cleaned.”
“We’ll get a new one,” Michael said. Though he looked a little gray, he seemed in fine spirits.
There he went with that we business again that she loved so much. She could have lost him. But she couldn’t think about it, not now, or she would break down.
“Jason,” she said quietly, “would you please take the children into the back room to play? I need a moment with Michael.”
“Wait,” Michael interjected. “Jason, come here first.”
Her son approached. Michael held out his hand and shook Jason’s. “I saw you sneaking over to the phone to call for help. Thank you. That’s about the bravest thing I’ve seen. You have more courage than many men I know.”
Jason leaned close and whispered, “I was scared.”
“But you did it anyway. That’s the definition of courage. I’m proud of you.”
Jason nodded. His thin throat worked while he swallowed. He said, “I’m proud of you, too, Michael. I want to be like you when I grow up.”
With his good arm, Michael hauled her son against his chest and Samantha had to turn away.
They released their holds on each other and Jason led the children to the back of the house.
As soon as they were out of sight, Sammy burrowed against Michael and held him. “I thought I’d lost you.”
He held her as if he would never let her go. His grip hurt. She didn’t want him to stop.
In time, he set her away so he could look at her.
“That stuff you told me about learning independence and strength?”
She nodded.
“I respect that.”
She sensed there was more to come and waited. Michael had taught her that not every silence needed to be filled. He’d taught her to calm down. She liked the feeling.
“But here’s the thing,” he said. “There are different kinds of strength. I’m good at providing. It’s what I was raised to do and what I have talent for. I know it’s old-fashioned, but I like it. I do it well.”
Michael didn’t give speeches. She watched him, waiting for the point.
“You have a different kind of strength I can’t begin to match. Jason was right. When you walk into a room all golden and beautiful, your goodness radiates from within. You are full of joy. You spread
that joy wherever you go.”
He brushed his hand across her hair. “You’ve brought my children joy. You’ve brought me back to life. Despite everything that’s happened to you, you still smile. If that isn’t strength, I don’t know what is.”
His fingers trailed along her jaw. She shivered. “Can’t we combine our strengths and support each other’s weaknesses? Can’t we make a perfect whole?”
He made such beautiful sense that she nodded. She could no longer see his handsome face through her tears.
“Marry me?”
“Yes!”
“Kids,” Michael called, “come here.”
When they entered the room, he said, “Sit down, I need to ask y’all something.”
Once they had settled, he gestured for Sammy to sit on the sofa beside him.
He squeezed her hand.
“Sammy and I are getting married,” he said. “Are you all okay with that?”
After a stunned silence, the kids erupted with joyful hoots and hollers. Nothing had ever felt more perfect or more right for Samantha.
Lily climbed up on her father and asked, “What’s married?”
Michael started to explain about blended families and shared responsibilities. Sammy laughed and interrupted. “It means that Colt, Jason and I are going to live here with you forever. We aren’t ever going to leave. Never, ever again.”
Lily’s little smile spread slowly as comprehension set in.
“It means that I love your father and Mick and you.”
Lily climbed onto her lap and rested her head on Samantha’s shoulder.
“I love you, too, Sammy. And Jason. He’s nice. And Colt, even if he is a boy like Mick. I love Daddy, too. I love you all.”
“And I do, too,” Sammy said, marveling at the steps that had led her to this house, this ranch, on that desperate snowy night—and that this rancher and his children had been here to rescue them from the storm. Michael had rescued her from more than that, filling in all of the empty spaces left by a scarred childhood. And Sammy and her love had rescued him, in turn.
Good fortune had led Samantha Read directly here to Michael Moreno.
“I love all of you.” She kissed each and every one of them.
“Oh, no,” she said, and everyone stopped talking to look at her and wonder what was wrong, but Jason had a twinkle in his eye. Her son knew her so well.
Rodeo Rancher Page 19