by Nancy Bush
She stood in utter silence for the space of five seconds, then marched through the door to Doc Carey’s surgery, the girl squeaking out protests behind her.
“Doc?” Sammy Jo called through a tight throat, cracking open the door.
“Whoa, there, Sammy Jo,” he called back. He was standing over an unconscious Irish setter, clearly getting ready to neuter the shaved animal.
“Sorry,” Sammy Jo murmured. “Do you have a minute when you’re finished?”
“I’ll be right there, darlin’,” the vet said, turning back to his task.
Nodding, Sammy Jo went the other way, down the hall to the back door and small wooden stairway that stood above a grass-choked alley. She was angry through and through. At herself mostly, but at the fates, too.
A hand settled on her shoulder. A strong, male hand. She prayed it was Doc Carey’s.
“You all right?” Cooper asked quietly.
Do I look all right?
“Couldn’t be better.” She lifted her shoulder pointedly, but he didn’t remove his palm. “What are you doing here?”
“The doc’s going to inoculate my new cattle. I was just waiting to talk to him.”
Sammy Jo nodded, her gaze straight ahead. “Me, too.”
The heat from his hand penetrated through her cotton shirt to her skin. It seeped in and prickled, like an itch she wasn’t able to scratch. Bothered, Sammy Jo moved away from his touch. Perversely, as soon as his hand was gone, she felt a pang of regret.
“I told him you were looking for him the other day,” Cooper said easily.
“Pardon?”
“When you came to the High Noon. You said you were looking for the vet.”
Did he know it was a lie? Was that what he was really asking? Sammy Jo turned to him carefully, her gaze narrowed. “I was really looking for you that day.”
“Ahhh…”
He did know, the bastard. The amusement deep in his blue eyes infuriated her. “I thought you might like to invest in Triple R. I made a mistake, okay?”
“So, then you decided to dig up a husband.”
“That’s right,” Sammy Jo said with a little less steam. Uncomfortable, she muttered, “What’s it to you, anyway?”
“Nothing.” He seemed to regret bringing it up, too. “Do whatever you want.”
“I will. And next time, if it isn’t too much to ask, maybe you could keep your nose out of my affairs instead of broadcasting them to the whole world.”
She brushed past him. His hand shot out and grabbed her bare arm. The image of his hard fingers closed around her flesh burned in her brain and she barely heard his words.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he said. “I didn’t know you’d be so sensitive.”
“Just leave me alone.”
“Why do you feel like exploding every time we have the simplest conversation?”
“An old habit of mine.”
“I think it’s something else.”
She twisted her arm, attempting to ease up from his grip. Her emerald gaze met his. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“Well, you’re damn well going to,” Cooper said through his teeth. “You’re the worst case of reverse misogyny I’ve ever encountered. Now, all I want to do is get along with you, but you’re not making it easy.”
“Reverse misogyny? I’m not even sure I know what that means.”
“You’re a man hater.”
Sammy Jo’s eyes narrowed. “I’m a man hater?”
“That’s right.”
“You have the lowest opinion of women I’ve ever seen and now you’re throwing it back on me. And…and you say you just want to get along with me?” She started laughing.
Cooper finally released her, but the more she thought about the remark, the funnier it was. He was so incredibly deluded. She actually doubled over with huge guffaws that echoed through the hot, quiet air that eddied outward like waves.
“You’re hysterical,” he stated flatly, which sent Sammy Jo into more gales of laughter. Stumbling backward, she grabbed the rail. And Cooper made the mistake of reaching for her. His hands connected with her arms, steadying her.
Sammy Jo froze instantly. “Let go of me.”
“I’m trying not to judge you. Lettie explained some things to me last night, and you’re right. Your business is your business.”
“What kind of things? What kind of things did Lettie tell you?”
Cooper realized he’d made a mistake again. “Nothing bad. She just explained about your family.”
“My family,” Sammy Jo repeated, her voice deadly.
“I already knew your dad ran that ranch into the ground. She just told me why.” When Sammy Jo didn’t respond, he added softly, “But that’s still the worst reason to get married.”
“You just said you’d stay out of my business,” she reminded. “Now get your hands off me.”
“What in God’s name is the matter with you?”
“You. You’re the matter with me.”
Suddenly, it wasn’t funny anymore. She didn’t want him touching her and she damned well didn’t want to have to explain her roller-coaster emotions.
“I don’t get you,” he said, staring down at her.
Sammy Jo didn’t like the expression on his face. If he were a scientist, she believed he might take a scalpel to her and rip her from stem to stern, determined to find out what strange internal makeup caused her to react the way she did. It was just fury at the world as a whole and at him in particular, for reasons she didn’t care to explore.
“I don’t get you, either,” she snapped.
“You’ve got attitude written all over you.”
“Look who’s talking!”
His lips tightened and her gaze fastened unwillingly on his mouth. A sensual mouth, she thought, bracketed by lines of disillusionment. From a woman? Sammy Jo never usually stopped long enough to psychoanalyze her fellow man, but now, just for an instant, she read deep pain in his face and she was surprised by the surge of understanding that swept through her.
“I…” she stopped, unable to complete her thought because, truthfully, there was no thought. No idea. No plan. Instead, to her intense amazement, the knowledge that they might have something in common other than a joint fence line, that there might be some emotional level at which they could touch stilled her tongue, leaving her speechless.
If Cooper felt the same, she couldn’t tell. The feeling was primal and deep, from some secret core of herself she hadn’t known existed until this moment. She tried to step backward again but there was nowhere to go. The rail stopped her on one side; Cooper filled up the other.
For the first time in her life, she called on her temper to rescue her and it wouldn’t respond. Instead, she waited, lips parted, breath coming in fits and starts, throat dry, for Cooper’s next move.
“Someone ought to take you in hand,” he muttered, as if the very idea infuriated him.
“I think it’s way too late for that.” She stared at the hard tan line of his throat.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a lost cause.” Her words were meant to be flip, but they came out sounding pathetic. She shook her head, embarrassed.
“Sammy Jo,” he hissed.
She waited, expectation like a living thing inside her, rising, desperate, anxious to be free. Cooper hesitated. Did he understand they were on the threshold of something dangerous? She did. Something dangerous and intoxicating. Something she wasn’t certain she wanted.
One moment the hard angles of his face swam above her, the next he swooped down to kiss her. But this was not some doting lover’s kiss. She felt frustration in the way his lips crushed hers. She couldn’t even tell if he liked her.
And that, finally, resurrected her temper. She jerked backward, clamping her lips together. Instead of releasing her, Cooper held her closer still, his mouth hot and commanding.
Sammy Jo paused. She didn’t mean to. It just happened. She’d been about to figh
t with all her strength, but her muscles weakened, destroyed by some inner elixir that swept through her, a sweet pathogen that dissolved reason in its path.
His mouth softened, sensing the change. That softening was her undoing. Her knees turned to water. Her fingers clamped around the rail but her hands itched to reach upward and wind themselves around his neck.
What is this? a distant, worried voice inside her head asked. She’d kissed men before. Boys, really. And she’d even tried some furtive touching with that guy who’d worked the ranch one summer. But she’d never gotten into real sex. Never gone “all the way”. The idea of melding one’s body to another had always left her feeling mildly impatient. Sure, she’d seen animals on the ranch and she knew the urge to mate was primal, but it just hadn’t been anything she’d ever really felt. But suddenly Cooper’s mouth, hard and urgent, brought out a hunger deep inside her that made her limbs tremble and her body shudder with untapped passion.
Tearing her mouth from his, she gasped when his lips pressed hard kisses against her jaw line. “Stop it,” she breathed, hearing the quaver in her voice.
“Make me.”
A challenge. Delivered in a husky voice that robbed Sammy Jo of the power to meet it. Her eyelids fluttered closed. A pulse throbbed in her temple. Damn, but his kisses felt good.
A whoosh of air. “Sammy Jo?” Doc Carey called in a worried voice.
She choked, pushing at Cooper’s shoulders.
“Oh, sorry.” Doc’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, no!” Sammy Jo struggled furiously. She punched at Cooper’s chest with one tight fist, but he’d already released her, the look on his face saying he was as shocked as she was. “I—I wanted to know—about the bill.”
“You can take your time. How’s Tick-Tock doing?”
“Fine…fine.”
Doc Carey glanced at Cooper who was remarkably quiet, his expression grim. “I’m just about finished here. I’ll be heading out to Serenity soon.”
“I’ll be there,” Cooper said.
The smile on the gossipy vet’s face made Sammy Jo groan inwardly. She knew this little scene with Cooper would soon be all over town. She would have to work fast to make certain everyone knew she and Cooper were just neighbors, period.
The door swung shut behind Doc Carey. Utter silence prevailed.
“Well,” Cooper said, his deep blue eyes cloudy with thought.
“Well,” Sammy Jo answered.
He stuck out his hand, inviting her to shake it. Sammy Jo lifted one eyebrow, drawing a reluctant smile from Cooper.
“I’d like to start over,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but I really can’t. Let’s try to get along.”
Sammy Jo didn’t trust herself to say the right thing. She merely shook his hand in agreement. Cooper left moments later, apparently deciding it was safer to leave things as they were.
Sammy Jo looked down at her hand, lost in thought. She could still feel the hot pressure of his mouth against hers. With a snort of self-deprecation, she yanked open the door of the veterinary office and hurried into the antiseptic-smelling hallway, drawing in huge breaths in an effort to clear away the musky, masculine scent of Cooper Ryan that seemed to fill her every pore and drug her senses.
THE PRINCESS OF COLDWATER FLATS — NANCY BUSH
Chapter Five
She was the laughingstock of the whole town!
Staring down at the Corral, the weekly that served as Coldwater Flats’s local paper, Sammy Jo’s eyes picked out the words in the sneaky little article that popped out at her like pointing fingers.
“…what feisty blonde-haired rancher is looking for a man? No one without a healthy bank balance need apply…”
Sammy Jo crumpled the paper up into a tight ball. “Damn that Cooper Ryan,” she muttered, even though she knew Ginny, or Josh, or Sam or anyone passing through the doors of Doc Carey’s clinic could have gotten an earful about her. Plus, Tess never knew when to keep her mouth shut.
Touching a finger to her trembling lips, she swallowed hard. She could still recall every moment of Cooper’s kiss even though she’d done her damnedest to forget.
Sammy Jo worked through the rest of her chores, squinting at the distant copse of trees where she knew the beaver dam stood. She was going to have to talk to Cooper again, but for the past few days, ever since that kiss, she’d been hiding out, unwilling to face him.
Which was a coward’s way out, and totally unlike herself.
“Everything I do is unlike me these days,” Sammy Jo moaned, washing her hands at the outdoor faucet beside the house.
She heard the distant reports of a firecracker and made a face. Today was the Fourth of July. Before all this other mess, she’d planned to go see the local rodeo and avail herself of the cotton candy, caramel apples and curly fries of the carnival, which was always a part of the festivities. But she hadn’t had the energy to ask Brent if he’d wanted to join her, and she just didn’t feel like going alone.
She finished washing up and threw on her jeans and a white, pearl-buttoned shirt, rolling the sleeves up her forearms. It wasn’t as though she’d be totally alone if she attended the celebration. She knew everybody in town. But for some strange reason, she felt melancholy.
Searching her feelings, she realized it was because Gil was gone. Her father had always been her companion. As a teenager, she’d tried to ditch him, favoring instead the wild times with Tommy Weatherwood and some of the girls in her class like Bev Hawkins who’d been Bev Jones then. But she’d slowly lost those friendships and ties, and as an adult, she’d been happy to be with Gil.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she chided herself. “You could stay here and do chores until sun up and still not be done.”
A depressing thought. A really depressing thought.
Sammy Jo made it ‘til six o’clock that evening before she could stand it no longer. Jumping into her pickup, she drove into town, becoming part of the snarl of traffic as soon as she got within a half mile. The Coldwater Flats rodeo was small potatoes but extremely popular nonetheless. She could hear the announcer on the loudspeaker reminding people that the next show started at eight.
The sky was a dusty blue haze bent over hot streets and the smell of horses, popcorn and exhaust. Sammy Jo pulled into a spot next to the horse barns. Climbing from the pickup, she turned her gaze to the weathered bleachers that sat on the south end of the rodeo arena.
She’d spent a lot of years hanging around with cowboys and cowgirls. She even learned to chew tobacco before her father found out and nearly forced her out of rodeo right then and there.
Instead of heading to the rodeo grounds, she moved into the throngs walking along the streambed, which was little more than a swampy trickle during this hot summer. Kids were staring down at the names of the rodeo queens imprinted in the metal stars embedded in the baked dirt. Sammy Jo’s name was there twice. Unheard of. She’d won two years in a row, and after that, the rodeo council had changed the rules amid a flurry of complaints from the likes of Ginny Martin. Sammy Jo hadn’t cared. And she’d been more annoyed than proud that her name was perennially nominated for princess of every court. The truth was, there weren’t that many women around with her skills. She was a true daredevil, or least had been, and though her temperament had never won her any awards, her expertise had.
But it was all nonsense, anyway. And her nickname, the Princess, was enough to shoot her temper into the danger zone.
Sammy Jo walked toward the center of town. The giant cowboy hat sat atop the clock tower and this year a humongous red bandanna was tied jauntily beneath it. Grinning, Sammy Jo deliberately threw off her self-pitying mood.
“Hey, Princess!” someone yelled.
Sammy Jo looked around. It was Josh Johnson, his red beard unmistakable. She waved at the same moment she realized he was with Tommy Weatherwood. With a groan, she steeled herself for the grief she was undoubtedly about t
o get.
“Hello, Sammy Jo,” Tommy greeted her, kissing her smack on the lips, much to her dismay. “You ought to be in there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the rodeo grounds.
“Those days are over,” Sammy Jo told him, searching for a way to escape. She didn’t want these two “adopting” her for the evening.
“Ah, yes. Josh here says you’re tryin’ hard to hang onto the Triple R.”
“That’s hardly a headline,” Sammy Jo answered dryly.
“He also says you’re lookin’ for a husband. Ain’t that right, Josh?” Tommy glanced at Josh for confirmation.
“Whoa, now. Uh-uh.” Josh’s complexion turned as red as his beard. “We were all just kiddin’ around the other day, right, Sammy Jo?”
“Just kidding around,” she agreed soberly.
Tommy looked down casually at his fingernails. “That ain’t what I read in the Corral.”
“If you believe everything you read in the paper, especially that paper,” Sammy Jo said with forced calm, “you’re more gullible than I thought.”
“It’s common knowledge, Sammy Jo, babe.” Tommy grinned like a lecher. Then again, he was a lecher.
“Get lost,” she told him, smothering a smile. What a juvenile. She couldn’t take him seriously.
A couple separated from the crowd that was milling around, and walked along the split-rail fence that surrounded Granger’s Shopping Center. Sammy Jo swept in a surprised breath. Immediately, Josh and Tommy turned to follow her gaze.
Cooper Ryan was strolling toward them, Bev Hawkins hanging on his arm.
“I heard she and Roy broke up,” Josh said, stunned, “but I didn’t know she was out huntin’ already.”
Sammy Jo’s heart beat so hard it threatened to suffocate her. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Cooper and Bev. Bev Hawkins! She should have known. Men couldn’t help falling under Bev’s spell, and Sammy Jo never had rightly believed that Bev was as happily married as she’d lead on. Roy Hawkins was one of the wealthiest men in the area, but he was nothing compared to Cooper Ryan.