Grant nodded at him from across the table where he sat with Hannah and Carey. “Ry did well—total natural.”
“And what about you, Carey?” Sam asked, smiling at the towheaded boy across the table. “You decide what you want to do too?”
Carey peered at her, color high on his cheeks. “I’m gonna go into the Navy like you,” he told her, a little bashful.
Sam blinked in surprise. “And what if I don’t go into the Navy after all?”
A quiet fell across the table. Robert took a sip from his glass, eyes intent on Samantha.
“Then I’ll go anyway,” Carey shrugged. “I want to protect people. Just like our daddies.”
Sam smiled gently at him, her fondness clear. “The Navy will be lucky to have you, Bear.”
“Am I the only civilian at the table?” Travis asked with a wry grin. He sat opposite to Robert, like a prince regent facing the king.
“Nearly,” Robert responded. “Wes is a photographer.”
“No kidding?” Travis looked him over. “You two meet at A&M?”
“Yeah,” Wes nodded, cutting into his steak. “I took a photo of Samantha that won an award. I pretty much started begging her to go out with me every day after that,” he answered, only half-joking.
“Well, you’d have to,” Travis murmured, sipping his wine.
“Have to what?” Wes asked.
“Beg,” Travis responded succinctly, though the rudeness of the remark was polished off with a wry smile. “Seems like getting and keeping a girl like Samantha would require a fair bit of tenacity, not to mention humility.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” Robert commented as Samantha shot him a warning look.
“Well, I’m around for as long as this gorgeous girl wants me,” Wes answered easily, meeting Travis’s eyes. Samantha squeezed his leg under the table, either in support or in warning, he couldn’t tell.
“Rob tells us you are studying to become a photojournalist?” Hannah prompted, diplomatically redirecting the conversation.
“Yes, ma’am,” Wes nodded. “I’m applying for an internship with a local paper right now.”
“That’s wonderful!” Hannah smiled at him. “I hope you get it.”
“Me too, ma’am. Though I’ll take that vote of confidence.”
“So you two are basically on divergent career paths,” Travis pointed out, interrupting again. “With Sam in the military, and you becoming a photojournalist after you graduate.”
“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” Wes answered honestly, though he didn’t like what Travis was implying. He picked up Sammy’s hand and held it on the table, interlacing their fingers. “We’ve got plenty of time to figure all that out, don’t we, darlin’?” he asked, smiling down at her.
“Yeah, we do,” Sam answered lightly, though her face looked a little strained, like it was an idea she didn’t want to entertain. “All the time in the world.”
“Well, enjoy it while it lasts,” Robert told them idly. Sam looked sharply at him. “College, that is,” he clarified silkily, looking at her, then Wes—like he was drawing a line between them. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
Chapter 31
October—Saturday Night
Wyatt Ranch, Texas
S A M A N T H A
The stars weren’t bright enough for the constellations to be seen tonight, and the boys were too exhausted to stay up late another night anyway, so Sam kissed Ry on the forehead and ruffled Carey’s hair before sending them off.
“G’night, sleepyheads.”
“Night, Sammy,” they echoed, trailing into the house, all the excitement for the birthday party weekend finally catching up to them.
Sam wrapped her sweater tighter around her as she looked up at the cloudy sky. Her father had lured Wes and Travis away with the promise of a thirty-year-old whisky, no doubt telling them his war stories. Sam figured they’d be trapped in the library for a good hour at least. She was just staring up at the sky when she heard the porch door swing open, the telltale squeak of the boards under a man’s weight.
“You don’t want to listen to Dad’s old war stories?” she asked over her shoulder, assuming it was Wes.
“I’ve known your daddy since the Navy,” her Uncle Grant replied. “And I’ve lived all his best stories with him,” he said, coming up behind her and squeezing her shoulder gently with his big hand.
“Did you bring the good stuff?” she asked, peering up at him.
“Don’t I always?” Uncle Grant replied as he handed her a bottle of ol’ Gus’s homemade moonshine. Sam opened the bottle and took a whiff, wincing. “Don’t know why we drink this. Hell, we should just use it to strip the paint off the barn.”
“Who says we don’t?” Grant replied with a quick-flash grin.
Sam sipped from the bottle, coughed once, her eyes watering a little. “Goddamn, that stings somethin’ terrible,” she remarked, passing it back.
“Yeah, it does,” he agreed gruffly, sipping from the bottle himself.
They’d been doing this on and off since she was a kid, though her Uncle Grant never let her have more than a couple sips of Gus’s moonshine. Not that she needed it. She’d could probably get a good buzz going off the fumes alone.
They walked past the quiet stables, their gait leisurely as they took a path they’d walked together many times over many years. Grant passed her back the bottle, and Sam held it for a while, looking out across the prairies, covered in nighttime and the dull silver of moonlight.
“Your daddy told me about what happened with the Challenge.”
Sam nodded, not saying anything. She’d finally told her father everything, from soup to nuts, after her talk with Wes in the morning. Her dad accepted the news with remarkable calm, just listening, his expression typically impassive. Sam came out of the conversation feeling like she’d squeezed pus from a wound. Sharply painful but somehow relieving, even with the dull throb of humiliation she’d felt after the confession.
“He didn’t want me to do it in the first place. I suppose he’s secretly pleased at how it all worked out,” she murmured.
“No father likes to see their child unhappy, Sammy. Rob may not want you to go into the Army, but he doesn’t want you sad either.”
Sam shrugged, taking another sip of the moonshine. It burned this time, but the kick wasn’t as hard.
“You decided what you’re going to do now?” Uncle Grant asked, getting straight to the point, as was his habit.
Sam looked at the bottle in her hands, rotating the beat up glass around and around.
“Don’t think the answer’s in there, Sammy girl,” he teased, nudging her a little.
“I know,” she sighed, handing him back the bottle. “I always wondered why people try to drink their problems away. It just makes it worse, doesn’t it?”
“Folks just need a little relief sometimes, I reckon. Living ain’t easy, you know?”
“Don’t I?” Sam responded, frowning.
Her uncle put a hand on her shoulder, meeting her troubled eyes. “You know I love you like my own, right? Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you as my daughter.”
“I know it.”
“You messed up, Sammy.” Uncle Grant squeezed her shoulder gently. “But it’ll be alright.”
“Will it?” she murmured, looking out across the darkened pastures, heart constricted as she relived her disappointment all over again.
“Yeah, Sammy. It will,” Grant told her. “You’ll learn from the mistake, and you won’t make it again.” He grinned at her in the darkness. “You’ll make new ones.”
Sam huffed out a wry laugh. “That’s hardly reassuring.”
“We’re humans, baby girl,” her uncle replied, shrugging. “And our lives are a constantly evolving process of fuck-ups. Just ask your Aunt Hannah if you don’t believe me,” he told her with a wink. “She’ll set you straight.”
Sam blew out a sigh, looping her arm through her uncle’s elbow. “What
’d you ever fuck up, Uncle Grant?” she answered mockingly.
He surprised the hell out of her when he said, “I let my best friend bury his wife and stay drunk and distant for half a dozen years while I raised his kids for him.” Grant took a deep drink of moonshine and then corked the bottle, wincing a little as the burn worked its way down his throat.
Sam stared at him in stunned silence. He’d never said anything remotely like that to her. Not ever. Grant took care of her and Ry and the ranch, but he’d never once barred his guilt or his feelings about it to her. “Uncle Grant—”
“No, Sammy,” he said, shaking his head. “No excuse for it. Grief is grief—we all go through it. But sometimes, you get so far down that well, you don’t know how to crawl out again. I should have whupped Rob’s ass sooner, dragged him back to the ranch, and got him cleaned out, but I didn’t, and that’s my cross to bear.” His mouth twisted down. “—Because he needed me to do it, and I was the only one who could.”
“It’s not your fault—”
“Sure it is,” her uncle interrupted softly, looking her square in the eye. “It was my mistake, and I own it. But does that mean you love me any less, Sammy?” he asked her openly. “For admitting I did wrong, knowing how much it hurt you, how much it affected your relationship with your daddy because of all those years you barely knew him?”
“Of course not,” Sam answered quickly, shaking her head. “I don’t blame you—”
“Then you shouldn’t blame him, either, Sammy,” Grant interrupted. “Honey, it’s over now. Ain’t nothing to do but to get past it,” he told her gently.
Sam closed her eyes against the unbidden the tears she felt rising—all the anger and hurt and frustration welling up. Why couldn’t she get past it? Why couldn’t she let it go and forgive him? She was tired of being angry with her father all the time. Tired of constantly being at odds with the one man she’d always loved but could never understand.
“So that’s why I’m asking: Have you decided what you’re going to do now?” her uncle asked again, his voice gentle in the darkness. “It ain’t about the Challenge, Sugar Bean. Never really was.”
Sam opened her eyes, looked up at the bank of clouds above them, the cicadas and night crickets the only other sound from the fields.
“You think I’m making my decisions just to be difficult, don’t you?”
“Well.” Grant shrugged in the moonlight. “Are you?”
She was and she wasn’t, she supposed. But Sam heard what he was saying: make new mistakes, not old ones.
“Dad sent you out here to talk to me, didn’t he?” she asked after a moment.
Grant guffawed. “Your daddy doesn’t send me to do shit, and you and I both know it.”
Sam nodded, knowing what he said was true.
“One of my professors asked me whether I’d considered being an interrogator,” she admitted. “She gave me a book on the different techniques. Said the military would be a great place to hone that skillset, what with my interest in languages.”
An approving light glowed in his eyes. “Have you read it?”
“Yeah,” Sam told him. “And it’s interesting. I think—I think I could be good at it.”
“Damn straight you’d be good at it,” her Uncle Grant said confidently. “You’d be an excellent interrogator, actually. Don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before.”
“Because you just want me to be a Navy sharpshooter just like you were,” she teased, nudging him with her shoulder.
Uncle Grant slung an arm around her shoulder. “Sammy, I tell the boys this all the time, but I’m telling you too—the world’s your oyster. You figure out what you want to do and you go after it a hundred and ten percent. I’m behind you, all the way.”
“Thanks, Uncle Grant,” Sam murmured, resting her head on his broad shoulder. “I wish Dad felt the same way.”
“He does—he just doesn’t know how to tell you his heart. Not all men know how, Sammy girl. Some never learn,” Uncle Grant told her, dropping a kiss on her head. “So I’m telling you the words Rob doesn’t know how to say, because I think you need to hear them: We only want good for you, honey. If you run the ranch, or take over Wyatt Petroleum, or become the world’s toughest interrogator,” he said with a smile, “we’ll still love you. No matter what—and you can take that to the bank.”
Sam let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She turned and hugged her uncle fully, relishing the strength and surety she felt in his arms. “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice muffled in his shirt. “I love you too.”
He squeezed her close, rocking her side to side like he had when she was little, standing on top of his boots to reach him.
“It’s our job, Sammy girl,” he told her. “Caring for you and loving you is our job, even if we ain’t always good at it.”
“I hope Carey grows up to be just like you,” she said into his shirt.
“Nah,” he replied. “He’ll be better. Smarter and braver and better looking. Like his mama.”
*
October—A Couple Hours Later
Wyatt Ranch, Texas
S A M A N T H A
Sam crossed the grass toward her father’s study, looking for Wes. She had a good buzz going from her talk with Uncle Grant and more than a little moonshine running through her system—and she wanted to make love to Wes like her life depended on it.
She was surprised to find Travis alone in the library, sitting next to the fire, a glass of whisky in hand as he read a book. He looked relaxed and at home, his shirt sleeves rolled up over tan forearms, legs crossed like he’d been sitting there for a spell. Sam cleared her throat and Travis looked up, surprised.
“Well, hello there.” He smiled, looking pleased to see her. “You looking for your dad?”
“Wes, actually.”
Travis shook his head, grinning. “Lucky bastard.”
“Not yet,” she responded with a naughty grin. It had to be the moonshine talking. Normally, the very idea of saying that out loud would have had her blushing something fierce. Sam rounded the armchair across from him and plopped down. “What are you reading?” she asked, tucking her legs under her.
Travis closed the book, his thumb holding his place as he showed her the cover. “The Aeneid.”
“One of my father’s favorites,” she commented, nodding with approval. “And in the original Latin. Impressive.”
“Catholic school,” Travis responded by way of explanation. “Figured I’d try to decipher how much of that Latin class I could actually remember.” He lifted the tumbler in his hand. “Figured if this whisky didn’t put me to sleep, trying to recall derivatives would.”
“That’s a reasonable plan,” she agreed. “Latin’s better than a sedative every time.” She laughed a little, grinning at him. She felt loose-limbed and a little uninhibited—definitely a result of ole Gus’s hooch.
Travis considered her with a bemused look. “You’re a little bit lit, aren’t you?”
Sam held up her thumb and index finger. “Just a teensy-weensy bit. What gave me away?”
“You seem a little…ah,” Travis seemed to search for the word, “friendlier to me now than you were earlier.”
Sam waved her hand airily. “Don’t take it personally.”
“You not being friendly earlier or your being friendly now?” Travis clarified, his pale blue eyes lit with good humor.
“Either,” Sam responded blithely. “I was under the influence both times.”
“Of what?” he asked.
“My father the first time and some incredibly powerful moonshine right now,” she answered honestly. “Ergo, don’t take it personally. You seem like a good enough guy, but you’ve got the cards stacked against you either way. A priori.”24
“Nice use of the Latin.”
“Not bad for a nineteen-year-old neophyte you thought you’d school in the ways of the big, bad world of petroleum, huh?” she teased.
“I’d sa
y I was definitely the one who got schooled,” Travis admitted. He nodded toward the whisky decanter sitting beside him. “You want to add fuel to the fire?”
Sam glanced out the French doors. “I shouldn’t.”
“But you want to, don’t you?” Travis poured her a measure before she could deny it.
Sam accepted the crystal glass and took a delicious sip, sighing. Fine Scottish malt sure beat the shit out of moonshine.
Travis settled back in his seat again, considering her with those gorgeous blue eyes of his. They reminded her of ice chips—bright with intelligence and something else—like a frozen fire.
“So you’ll never like me for the sole reason I work for your father?” Travis asked after a moment.
Sam smiled. “I like you just fine, Travis. Besides, what does it matter if I like you or not?”
“Maybe I have a delicate ego.”
Sam scoffed. “Doubt that.”
“Maybe I’d like us to be friends,” he suggested.
“We’re sharing a dram as we speak,” Sam pointed out, taking another warm sip.
“Maybe I’d like us to be allies. If I stick around—which I have every intention of doing,” Travis added meaningfully, “I’d rather have a good relationship with the heir apparent to Wyatt Petroleum. In all likelihood, my future boss.”
“Don’t hold your breath on that one,” Sam responded frankly.
“And why not?” he asked her.
“Well, I’ve got to finish college, for one, and then I’ve got at least four years of active duty to serve, for another,” Sam replied. “And if I’m very lucky, I’ll figure out what I want to do with my life sometime between now and then, so I’d say you’re safe from me for at least that long,” she finished with a shrug.
“And if I don’t want to be safe from you?” he murmured, leaning toward her, the firelight playing against the handsome angles of his face.
She was definitely tipsy, but she knew a come-on when she saw one. She waited a tic before she responded. “Travis, you strike me as a clever, ambitious guy. So let me assure you that trying to get close to me won’t do you any good.”
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