His Small-Town Sweetheart. Amanda Berry

phase of the breakup, because that didn’t hurt as much as it would have a few months ago. Or would it have hurt then?

      Sam turned down his driveway and pulled up next to the barn. She snapped out of her thoughts.

      “How many hogs are we loading?” She wished she could find a way to make him talk for longer than a minute and finally see his smile. If he was gorgeous sullen, would he be stunningly handsome full-on smiling?

      “A dozen.” He opened his door and got out. Before he could reach her side, she opened her door and hopped down in front of him.

      “A baker’s or literal?” Maybe if she were funnier, he would smile. She never was good at jokes or funny stories. Her jokes tended to meander too much, and she always screwed up the punch line.

      “Literal.” Not even a crack of a smile. Though she swore she saw a little merriment in his eyes.

      “Awesome.” She followed him down to the pen. Her father and brothers joined them.

      “Spread out around the outside and then we’ll slowly work them forward,” Sam said and handed her a square board about three feet by three feet and less than an inch thick. It had cutouts for her hands. “If they get past you, don’t worry, but try to keep them in the circle we create.”

      He could read the directions to build an IKEA chair and his deep voice would hold her enthralled. Maybe that was the way to get him to talk: read instructions. He raised his eyebrow at her when she didn’t respond. She nodded.

      “Don’t slip up.” Wes winked as he passed her.

      She wished she’d never taught those two brats to wink. The way they did it was obnoxious, as if they knew exactly what she was thinking about. Ideally Sam didn’t. He didn’t need to know that she had the equivalent of a schoolgirl crush on him. It wasn’t as if she was drawing hearts with their initials in her notebook or anything like that. All he needed to know was that she wanted them to be friends again.

      They all moved into the pen, and Sam showed her where to stand before going to his place near the gate. The poor pigs sensed something was up and moved away from them.

      When Sam nodded, they all started working the hogs. Moving them out of their comfortable home and into a trailer seemed cruel, but she wasn’t about to become a vegetarian over it. She liked her bacon too much to give it up.

      The majority of the hogs were blocked in, and her brothers helped Sam get them into the smaller run that would lead them to the trailer. Of course, the ornery one had to be near her. She pushed it with the tip of the board, but it merely rolled on its side in the mud. The chaos in the rest of the pen hadn’t reached this one’s brain yet. Or it just didn’t care. Maybe it didn’t have a brain. One too many dunks in the mud pit, perhaps.

      “You’re making me look bad,” she muttered to the pig. It snorted in response. Maybe a different tactic was in order. “What if I promised you some good slop tonight? The very best carrots and potatoes? What if I dump my whole plate in your slop bin? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

      The pig finally got up and meandered toward the gate.

      “Good pig. Who’s going to get a big apple with dinner tonight?” She followed behind with her board positioned between the pig and her. “The biggest pig in here, that’s who.”

      Proud of herself and her pig, she couldn’t help beaming at Sam as the animal kept heading his way. His gaze followed the hog, but then those blue eyes focused on her and she stopped in her tracks. His lips curved into a smile so genuine that her grip loosened on the board and her heart beat a little harder.

      As if sensing her resolve slipping away, the pig turned. It happened so quickly she didn’t have time to brace herself before the hog plowed into the side of her board and around her. She tried to turn, but the ground beneath her feet was wet for the pigs to wallow in, and the ground slipped out from under her. She set the board into the mud to try to keep herself from falling.

      Ethan and Wes would never let her live it down if she fell into the pig muck.

      * * *

      Sam couldn’t do anything but watch as Nicole’s feet went out from beneath her. The twins were already after the last hog. Sam rushed over to where she fell and knelt in the muck next to her. His pulse raced with fear. She could be hurt. The mud squished beneath the knees of his jeans. The wetness reached his skin. The board lay across her chest. She’d landed faceup in pigpen mud. It covered her back from head to toe.

      “If he thinks he’s getting an apple now,” she muttered angrily, “he has another think coming. I can’t wait to have bacon when I get up. And maybe some ham.”

      Sam couldn’t help the smile that touched his lips or the relief that flooded through him when he realized she was okay. Even down, she kept talking. He pulled the board off her and tossed it to the side. When he turned back to Nicole, she looked at him as if he were an alien.

      “What?”

      “Oh, don’t stop. Darn it. I finally get a full smile and it’s over before I can fully appreciate it.” She pushed up on her elbows. The mud sucked at her back and hair. Her face scrunched up. “Oh, that’s so gross.”

      “I smile.” He pulled off his brown work glove and brushed some mud off her cheek with his thumb. The touch hadn’t been anything other than an attempt to clean off her cheek before the dirt got in her mouth, but electricity sizzled through his blood. He almost missed her slight intake of breath and widened eyes, as if she felt it, too.

      “I’m not sure I can get out of this...mud.” Her smile was softer than the normal grins she gave him. “Would you mind giving me a lift, please?”

      He nodded and stood, leaning over and offering his hand. She grabbed his wrist, and he yanked her up. He hadn’t been thinking. The motion pulled something in his chest near his scar. It was enough to take his breath away for a moment.

      “Sam? Are you okay?” Her bare hands touched his cheeks, and she lifted his head until she was looking into his eyes. At some point, she must have taken off her filthy gloves. Her forehead was wrinkled with concern.

      He focused on the mixture of green and gold within her eyes and took slow breaths, willing the pain away. The color was soothing, like a field of spring grass, soft and damp with morning dew. Her eyes searched his, as if she was looking for some reason why he was acting as if he were an old man trying to catch his breath.

      “I’m okay.” He straightened away from her hands and took in a full breath. He rubbed at his chest. He’d felt like an old man before the surgery on his heart. The doctor assured him that he’d feel young again once he was done healing.

      “Did I hurt you?” She covered his hand on his chest with her own. “I’m going to blame the mud, because surely I don’t weigh that much if you can bench-press a bull.”

      He smiled. He couldn’t help it. Heck, he didn’t want to help it. She always said the oddest things. “I thought it was a cow.”

      “If I weren’t covered in more mud and...ew, other stuff than you, I would so hug you right now, Sam Ward.”

      “I’ll remember that next time you try to hug me.” He gave her a half smile, which seemed to please her to no end. He hoped she’d forgotten about his chest pain. He didn’t want to see that look of concern that always filled his brothers’ eyes when they looked at him. He’d had a bum valve. It was all fixed now and he should have no issues living his life. Except the odd strain on the healing scar.

      “I don’t suppose you are going to let me into your truck looking like this.” Her eyes danced as she met his gaze.

      “Brush the mud off and quit playing around, Nik.”

      Nicole winced at her father’s voice. “I’m not playing, Dad. I’m fairly certain this is more than a brush-the-mud-off situation.”

      “Oh, I can’t go on, either,” Wes yelled. His green