by Gigi Thorne
“So you do this every day? Like a diary?”
“Oh god, no.” She laughed. “I’m so sick of my shit! It’s not like that.”
“Well, what is it like? What do you say?”
She tucked her loose hair behind both ears and gave a tiny shrug. “Mostly, I journal when I think of something, or you know,” she said with a second shrug, “if something happens.”
“Did something happen, Sami? Anything you wanna share with me?”
She paused for a second before turning in slow motion to fully face her dad. Pulling her legs up, she sat cross-legged and slumped forward. “I ran into Wyn.”
Startled, her dad grunted softly. “Bet that was fun, huh? Do ya mind if I ask where?”
“Sandler’s Creek. That’s where I went today when I took Dancer out.”
He chuckled although she wasn’t sure what was so damn funny. “And what? Wyn was there having a picnic?”
She scowled. “No! What? Dad, be serious. He rode up and caught me daydreaming.”
“Let me get this straight.” He snorted as though her upset was comedy gold. “You went out for a ride, and of all the places you could go, you end up at the creek. I won’t give you stink eye over what you were daydreaming about. And then out of the blue, Wyn, who also could ride elsewhere, shows up. It’s interesting, don’t you think?”
“What is?”
“That you come home, he avoids you like an incurable disease, yet both of you end up at the spot where I wager most of your teenage hijinks went down. What do you think he was doing there, hmm?”
“Uh, telling me to go home, that’s what he was doing.”
“Oh, so he spoke? You didn’t say that!”
“Dad, what is so goddamn funny? Why are you laughing?”
“Sami. Come on. Cut the crap. Country gals don’t need to play games. Just answer me this. Did you come back here because of Wyn? Is he the reason you walked away from Hollywood?”
Her lips pursed, and a snarl of displeasure curled her lip. “I left because it wasn’t real, and I was sick of pretending it was.”
“That’s not a complete answer, darlin’.”
“Okay, fine!” She huffed and threw her hands up in the air. “Yes. I want Wyn back. I was insane for letting our relationship die. It’s my fault. I totally know that, but Dad, it’s been almost ten years. He isn’t married, and neither am I. If he’d just give me a chance, I know I can make this better.”
“You hurt that boy, honey. Humiliated him in front of everyone he knows.”
“It wasn’t me,” she grumbled. “There was a whole team of managers and publicists and agents who created a fantasy that got fed to the public. None of it was real.”
“It was damn real to Wyn. After all, he …”
“He what?”
She knew a door slamming when she heard one, and that’s what her dad suddenly did. Slammed shut. “Oh, nothing. Nothing.” He shook his head and stood. “I’ll leave you to it. April wants me to judge a taste test at Millie’s. Butch ain’t having it with her and the fancy pies. The cantankerous old fart says apple is the only thing we need on the menu.” He laughed. “The guy may be head cook, but he hasn’t tasted her Key Lime pie.”
He kissed her head and smiled. “Keep the faith, honey. I’m all for it if landing Erwyn Thomas is what will make you happy. Just keep one thing in mind, okay?”
“Okay, what?”
“He’s not a twentysomething anymore. And more importantly, he’s a cowboy. You know what that means.”
“Making it right won’t be easy.”
“Buckle up, sweetheart. Wyn’s a proud man. I hope you’re ready to get a little back of what you dished out.”
She watched him stroll across the backyard and go into the house. Their property stretched from the highway to this unspoiled slice of heaven. Her family ran Millie’s Diner and the only gas station and convenience store for miles around. The businesses sat side by side on the main road and afforded them a modestly comfortable life.
This was all she ever really wanted. A house with a killer kitchen, a stable with a couple of horses, loads of babies and dogs, hanging with everyone at the annual rodeo, riding into town for services on Sundays, and picnics at the creek. If those things were a stretch, it was because she let the shiny, sparkly shit lure her away. She grabbed for the wrong brass ring and came to hate herself for it.
Inside the motor coach, she took a pint of ice cream from the little freezer and grabbed a spoon before settling down to record a confession about what happened today.
Clicking the record button, she wiggled into a comfortable cross-legged position, ripped the lid off the ice cream and sank the spoon into what was left of the chocolate fudge delight. Then she looked into the camera.
“I’ve known for quite some time that I fucked up.”
She scooped a large spoonful of the chocolatey decadence and started licking the glob. The way she ate ice cream drove most people batshit crazy. Each spoonful was a complete meal. Gobbling bite after bite was sacrilege!
“But ya wanna know when I knew for certain?” she asked with a wave of the spoon. “Today. Today when the most gorgeous guy who ever walked the earth rode up to me on his horse, hurled a few insults, and told me to get lost.”
She kept licking the ice cream spoon until it was clean, and she could scoop up another.
“I’ve pretty much felt like shit ever since, but it occurred to me that if he didn’t care – if he really and truly was over what we once had – he wouldn’t have been where he was, and he definitely would have been nicer. His growling snarl wasn’t the sound of a man who doesn’t care.”
She ate another spoonful in silence as the recording continued.
“Dad’s right. I’m the bad guy in this situation. My foolishness hurt the man I knew at sixteen that I was going to love for the rest of my life.”
When the pint was scraped clean, she put the lid on and pushed it aside.
“I was right to come home. This is where I belong, and Wyn Thomas is worth fighting for. Plan B, I think. The direct approach. Slow and steady wasn’t going to win this race. Time to pull on my country gal panties and get shit done.”
She nodded enthusiastically as a fantastic plan exploded in her head. Wyn needed a reminder to shake him loose from the anger, and she knew just what would fit the bill.
Throwing her head back, she enjoyed a good laugh, picked up the Bluetooth remote, and grinned into the camera.
“Sometimes a gal’s best weapons are her tits and ass.”
She winked, laughed again, and switched off the recording. It was Tuesday. The welcome home party her dad and April were throwing was on Friday night. Everyone from miles around, all her old friends and the families she knew on the ranches who made up her Wyoming life were coming. At least a dozen RVs and campers had staked out spots behind Millie’s for the weekend of fun, and according to April, they had to designate an area away from everything where a helicopter could land. Apparently, helicoptering was the new cowboy mode of long-distance travel. She thought it was funny, but the practicality of it worked too. Some of the surrounding ranches encompassed thousands of acres. Unless spending all day in a moving truck was a good use of time, flying made sense.
In less time than it took to choose an outfit, Sami knew exactly what to do.
3
“A weekday hangover, Wyn? Really?”
The censure in his mom’s voice made Wyn cringe. Marcy Thomas was a straight shooter who generally didn’t give a fuck if something she said put someone’s shorts in a knot.
She poured a mega mug of coffee and eyed him over the kitchen island. He was at the table, hunched over a stack of dry toast. His sunglasses and hat took up most of the space.
“It’s fine, Mom,” he grumbled. Despite brushing his teeth twice, his mouth still tasted like a patch of desert where coyotes pissed. Annoyed that his hand shook when he tried to hide behind a coffee mug, he slammed it back on the table and immediately re
gretted it when his hangover headache thumped. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, no.” She didn’t snicker but came damn close. “Fine isn’t on the calendar for today.” Her tone and the expression on her face told him she wasn’t about to give him any slack. “If you puke in my kitchen, I will drop your butt.”
A chuckle he didn’t expect rattled in his chest. He grabbed his head, committed the sin of putting his elbows on the table, and groaned as he hung there. “Nah, I’m all puked out.”
A chair scraping the wood floor sounded overly harsh in his present condition. He felt the air move, heard his mom’s soft sigh, and knew when she took the seat next to him. Her hand brushed shoulder to shoulder on his back.
“Drinking won’t help, son.”
He nodded against his hands, took a deep breath, and sat back in the chair so he could look at her.
“Ma, I wasn’t looking for help.” That was as honest as he could be.
Doubting she’d let it go, he wasn’t all that surprised when she rode roughshod over his attempt to deflect, ignored the angry stampede thundering inside his skull, and went right for it.
“But you know what will help? Hmm? Go and talk to her, Wyn. Hear what she has to say. You might be surprised.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The unfortunate reflex to snarl only made his agony greater.
“Watch it, mister,” she hissed. The tilted head, one arched brow, and mother glare made him flinch.
“I’m just saying,” she continued in a gentler tone as her hand stroked his back, “that what you hear in your head, what you’ve imagined she’d say … well, have you ever considered the possibility that you're wrong?”
Ah, fuck. His mom had always been on Team Sami. Even after he got a goddamn passport and flew to Rome with a head full of dreams only to return an angry, bitter man. It was Marcy Thomas who begged him to tell Sami. Tell her he was there and what he saw.
But he couldn’t. And he didn’t. It was much easier to dig a hole inside where he placed all his feelings. He was a rancher, not some pretty boy modeling underwear. There was work to be done. Hard work. Lots of it. All the damn time.
That work fueled by his anger led to the Triple T’s transformation. While Sami was off being a celebrity, he channeled his dad’s support and set in motion an audacious plan to bring the family ranch into this century.
He was damn proud of what they’d accomplished. It was mighty impressive and getting better and better with time.
The hole with his buried feelings was always there. It was covered over now, but sometimes he still tripped over the mound of dirt because no matter what he did or how much success he found, something was always missing.
He turned his head and locked eyes with the wisest woman to walk the Earth.
“I don’t want to be wrong, Ma. You know what it means if I am, right?”
“That you’ve been a fool? That all these years of hurt were for nothing?”
Staggered by her direct hit, he winced and looked away.
“Wyn, I love you, and I want you to be happy, so I’m going to administer some tough mama love. Here it is. I figured the minute Sami came home that this might happen. I realize that you don’t want to hear this, but oh stinkin’ well. All those years ago, I told you it wasn’t smart to surprise her. Showing up in Italy while she was shooting her first movie was a bonehead move. She didn’t know you were there, and when you left? What did you do? You cut her off. Don’t run away from your part in what happened. In Sami’s mind, you let her go.”
His head snapped up. Her comment and the hangover agony instantly cleared his mind.
“You paint her in unforgiving strokes,” she continued. “Was she swept away at twenty by promises of fame and fortune? Yes. But ask yourself this. Did you fight for her, Wyn? Did you ever tell her what was in your heart?”
“Ma, come on,” he growled.
“She was a young girl in an unusual situation. Luckily for her, the fame and fortune thing paid off, but what if you’d fought for her? Has it never occurred to you that maybe she’d have come home a lot sooner if she thought something or someone was waiting for her here?”
She tilted her mug. “Oops, looky there. Coffee’s gone cold. Can’t have that.”
Rising, she pushed her chair away and squeezed his shoulder.
“It’ll be okay, Wyn, but I swear on all that’s holy, if you don’t man the hell up and go talk to that girl, I’m gonna be forced to interfere.”
Pointing at his breakfast choice, she sniggered and said, “Now eat up, son. And then go locate some balls.”
* * *
“I don’t need no stinking stylist,” she drawled while performing for the mirror on her closet door.
Liking what she saw, Sami muttered, “Hell, yeah,” and turned around to peer over her shoulder into the mirror. Her backside view was important.
The washed-out jean shorts she found in a bin of clothes miraculously still fit. Although if seduction wasn’t her plan, she wouldn’t be caught dead in anything so short. Her damn ass cheeks hung out the bottom!
Pulling on a favorite pair of old western boots, she did a bit of boot-scootin' boogie for inspiration. Her small motor coach didn’t allow for a full routine, but she gave it a go.
Making sure the perfect amount of cleavage was visible, she re-tied the shirt in a knot and checked out how much of her stomach was on display.
With her hands slapped on her waist, she double-inspected the country girl seductress look she was going for and laughed like hell.
She shut the closet door and yanked the clip out of her hair. Shaking out the long mane, she ruffled it with her fingers.
Sudden nerves fluttered in her belly. Employing sex as a weapon was something she’d done in movies but never in real life. Using the attraction she and Wyn had was risky, but she didn’t see any other way.
The heat coming off his anger was very real, and while she got part of it – after all, she had cavorted around the globe in the sexiest outfits money and fame could buy – she still didn’t understand how or when it had all gone so terribly wrong. Without actual knowledge of what was going on in his head, that only left her with this as her best tactical choice.
Pulling a lidded pitcher of ginger iced tea from the compact fridge, she stepped through the kitchen, grabbed her hat and sunglasses off the table, and headed into the sunlight.
The sight of her dad’s old Ford truck that he’d had painted bright blue – just for her – put a wide grin on her face. Next to horseback riding, her next favorite mode of getting around was in a truck. Big truck or small truck – it didn’t matter. A truck was a truck, and this blue beauty was her first love.
Swinging behind the wheel, she balanced the pitcher on the bench seat next to her and wedged her hat and a discarded hoodie around it for steadiness.
Along with the killer paint job, her dad also upgraded the old radio. She plugged in her phone and searched for a playlist. With an hour to kill, she might as well sing and drive.
Waving out the window as she slowly cruised through Millie’s parking lot, she tooted the horn to alert Dad and April that she was leaving and then turned onto the main road for the drive out to the old bunkhouse on the edge of the Thomas ranch where she and Wyn used to meet.
Marcy Thomas was meddling behind-the-scenes, to Sami’s advantage. She’d stopped in at Millie’s to pick up a stack of pies and informed April that Wyn was spending the day at the bunkhouse working on a project. April, in turn, texted this info along with a suggestion that Sami take the bull by the horns.
It always made her laugh when city girl April tried to act all country and whatnot.
Crappy reference aside, her dad’s girlfriend was right. It was up to her to break the logjam.
The absolute perfect Sugarland song started. She loved this one. “Stuck Like Glue.”
Cranking up the volume, she powered down the highway with the windows down and her hair whipping in the wind. She bounced on the sea
t and sang her heart out. Truck sing-alongs on a stretch of empty road were as satisfying as performing in front of tens of thousands.
She let her inner speed demon off the leash and gave the snazzy blue truck a serious workout. Before long, she’d turned off the main road and started down the sometimes bumpy access road that curved along the edge of the Thomas ranch. Her heart started pounding.
Switching off the music, Sami didn’t realize how viciously she was chewing on her lip until a sharp bite made her wince. She felt like a shy teenager. A shy teenager stalking a boy.
Knowing every inch of the way, she held her breath when the truck cleared a cluster of enormous pines and up ahead was the first glimpse of the ramshackle bunkhouse where she and Wyn played out the wicked part of their ill-timed affair.
As the truck got closer, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Expecting a rickety old structure that was barely more than a shack, she gasped when a cute little rustic cabin came into focus. The most obvious changes were big windows and a new chimney.
Her astonishment changed to nervousness when she spied Wyn’s truck parked by the door.
“Please don’t let me screw this up,” she muttered out loud.
Because there was every possibility he was aware of her presence, she relied on her movie experience to get her through. She had no intention of putting on an act – not with him, never with him – but she was nervous and needed to feel like she had some kind of control over what she was doing.
She slid out of the truck and strode around the front bumper with fake confidence in every step. The metal on metal creak as she yanked open the passenger door was overly loud in the silence. In a weird way, it was the perfect backing sound. Sort of like a battered, metal box popping open for the first time after being slammed shut and left in a trash heap. The comparison was chilling.
Very aware of her ass cheeks hanging out of the bottom of her shorts as she leaned into the truck, she muttered to herself. “Fake it till you make it, Sami. He’s worth whatever groveling is necessary. And even if he pushes back” – she sighed – “his heart is still mine. I hope.”