“…but of course, the Germans have lots of legends, too,” he was saying. She realized she’d tuned out some Hispanic folklore he’d shared. He had now moved on to other cultures with major influence in the region. “Including a seafaring legend that shares its name with one of our campers.” He met her eyes then, raising his cup of water in wry salute.
“There’s an ‘echoing rock’ on the Rhine River called the Lorelei that has been the site of many boating accidents. Skeptics say the murmuring ‘voice’ associated with the rock comes from a nearby waterfall, while others believe stories of an otherworldly female with a beautiful voice. A siren or mermaid who lures sailors in, bewitching them until they knowingly steer right into their own ruin.”
As if a woman by dint of being confident enough to call out to a man and let him know he was wanted was a nefarious enchantress, a threat? Screw this. Though Sam’s voice was smooth, his expression bland, she heard his words as an indictment. She hadn’t been plotting his seduction, hoping to snare him. Frankly, she didn’t think he was the one who’d been hurt by their short-lived affair. Because you had to let yourself care to be hurt.
Lorelei loudly faked a yawn. “Fascinating stuff. But I’m afraid I’m beat.” She stood, trying to look relaxed instead of stalking to her tent. “’Night, everyone.”
As soon as she was zipped in for the night, she’d check to see if she had enough bars out here to text Tess and beg her for a ride. If her friend couldn’t come pick her up from the ranch tomorrow, Lorelei would devise a Plan B. Because no way in hell was she riding with Sam Travis, spinner of tall tales and emotional coward.
Chapter Fourteen
It was time to go home, back to her real life. Lorelei stood in the driveway of the Haunted Hill Country Bed-and-Breakfast with Ava, who would be driving her to the airport, and Tess, who had come to say goodbye.
Lorelei hugged the redhead whose friendship she’d come to value, especially when Tess had shown up at the dude ranch three days ago with a steely glare for Sam and a box of tissues in the car for Lorelei.
After the two women had left, Tess had asked quietly, “You want to talk about it?” At Lorelei’s emphatic head shake, Tess had sighed. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I encouraged you to make a move.”
I’m not. Which was the problem in a nutshell. She didn’t regret what had happened with Sam. In fact, she craved more. Whereas he was backpedaling so fast that he could have biked the annual Hill Country 600 in reverse.
Tess had promised to stay in touch and maybe even visit Lorelei—and Oberon—in Philadelphia. The cat was not happy about his current location in the carrier.
“Thank you for everything, Tess. I owe you.”
“Are you kidding? After you spent all yesterday afternoon working on my taxes? I should name my firstborn after you!”
Ugh. So that a jaded man could one day accuse said firstborn of luring men to their dooms? “Let’s just call it a draw.”
Ava shuffled her feet. “Guess we should be going, huh?” But she didn’t move toward her car. Instead, she remained in place, clutching her keys and scanning the street every few seconds.
He’s not coming, Ava. Sam had already said goodbye, more or less. When she’d told him after the trail ride that she was going back to town with Tess, he’d nodded. “Probably a good idea,” he’d said with no inflection whatsoever in his voice. The only time she’d seen him since was at the lawyer’s office when paperwork for the inn had been handled. Afterward, he’d nodded to her and told her to take “real good care” of herself and the cat. And the jerk had actually sounded more choked up about the cat.
The B and B was officially hers now. And she was giving it away. She cast one last glance at the building, trying not to feel guilty. As if she were abandoning the place.
“Come on,” she told Ava. “I’m ready.” Which wasn’t true, but it sounded better than let’s get the hell out of Dodge before I fall apart.
As she climbed into the car, she felt an unexpected spark of kinship with her mother. Lorelei had been frustrated by her mom’s seeming inability to move on after her husband’s death, but Wanda had shared years of marriage and a child with the man she loved. All Lorelei had spent with Sam was a couple of weeks, some unexpectedly heartfelt confidences and the best sex of her life. Yet it felt as if she were leaving her heart in Texas. Would she be able to move on?
IF LORELEI HEARD “GOOD to have you back” from one more person, she was going to scream. She knew her coworkers at the insurance company meant well, but all they’d been doing for the past week was reminding her that it didn’t feel good to be back.
She was trying to have a good attitude. It just wasn’t working out very well. On her first day in, she’d dropped by Celia’s office with a cookie basket to thank her for all the extra work she’d done in Lorelei’s absence. She’d had half-formed plans of inviting the woman to have dinner sometime.
But she’d never issued the invitation because Celia had acted really weird, skittish even, glancing from Lorelei to the door as if considering making a run for it. Then she’d refused the cookies.
“If I ate stuff like that, I wouldn’t be a size four.” That had been the only time during the strange encounter her gaze settled on Lorelei, as if noting that Lorelei was categorically not a four.
Big deal, she’d found herself thinking. My body looks great. She knew this because Sam had told her, in various ways, about a hundred times in a forty-eight-hour window. She’d almost smiled at the memory until she realized that she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Sam Travis, much less grinning over him like a schoolgirl with a crush.
Lorelei had hoped that throwing herself into her job would distract her, but she wasn’t getting her usual satisfaction out of it. As she looked at trends and calculated the odds of disaster, she felt annoyed. Was it healthy to spend so much time expecting the worst? Sure, being prepared was smart, but why were people always bracing themselves for bad things? If there were a thirty percent chance of something horrible happening, didn’t that leave a seventy percent chance that it wouldn’t? Maybe we should play those odds for a change.
She was sitting at her desk reevaluating her career on Thursday evening when her phone buzzed and Rick told her he was in the lobby.
“Can I come up?” he’d asked. “I haven’t seen you since your trip.” The only contact they’d had at all was when he’d emailed to tell her that those event tickets had fallen through, so never mind.
“Sure.” She couldn’t say she’d missed him, but he’d certainly never done anything to warrant her being bitchy. They could be friends.
Moments later, he strolled into her office, every bit as debonair as she remembered. Not a hair out of place, not a smudge of lint on his expensive suit. Boring.
“Lorelei.” His voice was grave. “How are you? Holding up okay?”
If he’d been that worried, he could have called her.
“I’m fine.” It wasn’t strictly true, but it was a concise answer.
“Good. Look, Lorelei, my reasons for being here are twofold. First, I wanted to check on your well-being, of course.”
Mental eye roll. “Of course.”
“But I also felt I should discuss our relationship with you. You know we’ve always been free to see other people?”
“Mmm.” She made a vague sound of agreement, trying not to remember just how much she’d seen of another man.
Rick linked his fingers behind his back, pacing in front of her as if her desk were the jury box. “I don’t want this to be awkward for you, Lorelei. It certainly wasn’t planned—”
“Rick.” Her lips twitched and she wasn’t sure if she was feeling more amusement or impatience. Cut to the chase already. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve found someone?” Because, no offense, but she’s welcome to you
.
He nodded, looking pained for a second. “And she works here. You know my gym is just around the corner? It turns out she goes there, too. Celia Warren?”
Is that why Celia had acted so squirrelly? Maybe the woman had felt guilty, stepping into Lorelei’s shoes at work and then going out with a man Lorelei sometimes dated. Good grief. She’s Lorelei 2.0.
“I think that’s terrific news,” Lorelei said sincerely. “You and Celia have a lot in common. Enjoy each other! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was about to head home and feed my cat.”
Rick’s forehead crinkled into perplexed lines. “You’re not a cat person.”
“That’s okay, he’s probably not technically a cat. More demon spawn than feline,” she said with a fond smile. She should go home and see what Oberon had destroyed today. Yesterday, he’d knocked a glass award off the bookshelf. The day before, he’d shredded a roll of toilet paper into confetti. Prior to that, he’d hacked up a fur ball in her bathroom but hadn’t actually mangled anything. Oberon liked to mix it up, keep things fresh.
When she’d squirted him with a water gun last night for clawing at the curtains, she’d threatened, “Watch it, or I’ll mail you to Sam. And I might not poke holes in the box lid.” A laughable threat on many levels. And Sam the nomad probably didn’t even have a mailing address.
As she crossed the parking garage to her car, she wondered if Sam missed her at all. Probably misses the cat. And why not? Sometimes people who had trouble relating to others did better with animals. Look at how good he was with horses!
A horse wasn’t likely to abandon you for a better barn or dump you on an estranged relative and never come back.
Lorelei told herself that thoughts like these were a dead end. It didn’t matter if part of her sympathized with why Sam felt safer without any attachments. He, by his own choice, was no longer part of her life. But just as her car sat stuck in traffic, her mind seemed stuck on him. Everyone he’d cared about, including Wanda, had either died or left him. Like me and the cat. Assuming that he’d cared about her.
But she knew he did, whether he’d admitted it or not. He’d been candid with her about his past and about his fears. That couldn’t have been easy for a man who had trouble trusting others. And he’d liked her enough to let his guard down at times, laughing with her and making her laugh. She still believed that Sam had a lot to offer a woman.
Unfortunately, he didn’t see it that way. Maybe because no one’s ever tried to show him. Lorelei bit her lip. Had she given up too easily? Where was the determination that had gotten her into a highly selective college and earned her ACAS?
Oberon met her at the door when she got home. He flopped on his back and yowled pitifully. She looked around but her preliminary search didn’t find any new destruction. He followed her from room to room, meowing and sounding unhappy.
She scooped him into her arms and petted him. After a moment of token resistance, he stopped squirming and let himself enjoy it. Although he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of hearing it, she felt certain he was purring on the inside.
But as soon as she set him down so that she could look through the day’s mail, he began complaining again. Lorelei shook her head. “You don’t like it much here, do you? Want to know a secret? I’m not sure I do, either.” Philadelphia had served a purpose in her life, had been a refuge, her method of running away.
How could she stay mad at Sam for fleeing emotional complications when she’d done the same thing for so long?
“Maybe,” she told the cat, “it’s time we call our real-estate agent.”
“HEY, TRAVIS!”
Sam turned on his bar stool to acknowledge a man he knew from his rodeo days, Bryan Wilton.
“Caught you in the shootout today,” Bryan said as he took the seat next to Sam.
Sam was currently in Burnet, Texas, for their April festival. As part of the entertainment, tourists were treated to an old-fashioned bank robbery where the sheriff and his deputy chased thieves on horseback and justice prevailed in the end. Sam had first been offered the part of deputy, but these days he felt more like a bad guy, so he’d gone with that.
“Knew you were good with horses,” Bryan said. “But I didn’t know you could act.”
“Oh, I’m quite the actor,” Sam said, wondering if only he heard the self-loathing in his voice.
Those last couple of days Lorelei had been in Texas, he’d acted like he didn’t give a damn. He figured that was better than a messy goodbye where he admitted he didn’t want her to go. Part of him had wanted to hold on to her, but he knew that wouldn’t last. Either she would have resented how little he had to offer and eventually dumped him or he would have bolted, his natural aversion to committing himself to one person or place too ingrained to overcome.
“So what are you up to these days?” Sam asked as the other man signaled the bartender. “Still on the rodeo circuit?”
Bryan shook his head. “No, I’m managing a tack shop now. I needed something more stable before I could convince my girl to marry me.”
Sam almost spluttered beer. “You’re married?”
“Engaged.” Bryan beamed. “And couldn’t be happier. I know, I know, I said it would never happen, but I just hadn’t met the right woman yet. You’ll see! One day you’ll meet someone and it will change you.”
He already had. And it had definitely changed him. Oh, in most ways, he was still the restless loner he’d always been. But now he was painfully aware of what he was missing.
WORKING TRAIL RIDES after the festival shootout was a difficult transition. Sam found that blasting at people—with fake guns, of course—suited his current mood more than being patient with tourists who had signed themselves up for three hours on horseback even though they seemed to have no knowledge whatsoever of riding. Gonna have to take it really slow today. Thank God this was just an afternoon jaunt and not one of the overnight trips.
A stable hand named Dave was helping check riders in and compiling all the signed forms. Two other stable hands were introducing guests to their mounts. Sam had been checking on the horses and equipment to make sure everything was in working order. Against his will, he remembered that ride with Lorelei when she’d asked with wide eyes if he had any idea of everything that could go wrong.
For a woman who’d been so preoccupied with accidental injury, how had she not understood the hazards just her smile posed? Sam had been falling for her before they ever left the B and B, but once he’d seen her astride a horse, out in the sunshine, grinning at him, he—
“Yo, Travis!” Dave snapped his fingers. “Did you hear me?”
“Sure,” Sam lied.
Dave leaned against a stall door, smirking.
“But, uh, just in case I misheard, maybe you should say it again.”
“I just checked in a woman for the ride who asked to speak with you personally. She’s at the front of the barn. Guess she has some questions about the trail.”
Sam sighed, telling himself that even if the questions turned out to be an affront to common sense, he’d answer them patiently. He couldn’t take his black mood out on every random stranger.
But as he blinked against the sunlight that backlit her, he realized this was not a stranger. His chest constricted painfully. “What are you doing here?” In his mind, he was screaming the question. Thankfully it came out as a whisper others wouldn’t overhear.
Lorelei fisted her hands on her denim-clad hips, raising her chin in challenge. “I think you meant to say, ‘Hi, Ms. Keller, nice to see you again.’”
Nice? That was the most asinine description he’d ever heard. It was incredible to see her again, to look into those dark eyes that had haunted his dreams—and, let’s face it, most of his waking moments. But having her this close to him also hurt like breaking a rib or getting kicke
d in the gut, knocking the breath out of him as pain radiated through his body.
“I’ve signed up for today’s ride,” she informed him, as if this were an everyday event.
“You should be in Philadelphia.”
“That would make my commute a little difficult. Hard to run my bed-and-breakfast from there.”
“You took over the B and B?”
She couldn’t do that to him! While Fredericksburg may not be his permanent home, he spent time there regularly. Now just driving past the town would be a torment.
Lorelei continued as if blithely unaware that he was in hell. “I’m not using my mom’s theme, of course. I’ll have to come up with something new. Between that and opening my own bookkeeping service, I should stay pretty busy.”
“Sounds like,” he managed to spit out. “I wish you all the best with everything.”
Her eyes narrowed, sparks of anger beginning to show through her composure. “Oh, no. I’ve already heard that brush-off, the one where you tell me to take care and have a nice life. If you want to be rid of me this time, you’ll have to come up with something more original. Otherwise…”
Otherwise?
How could one word sound so ominous yet conversely make his heart kick into an excited rhythm? Some foreign emotion welled within him, and Sam ruthlessly tamped it down. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Then I’ll spell it out for you. I am fighting for us. Because you,” she said, jabbing him in the chest with her finger, “are too much of a… How would you cowboys put it? A lily-livered coward. If you won’t put it on the line for us, then I will.”
Claimed by a Cowboy Page 18