The Rancher's First Love. Brenda Minton

he had the present to concern himself with.

      Good advice, but he couldn’t quite make himself listen. The past six hours had drained him. Seeing Sam, even from a distance, shifted things.

      He hit his brakes at the first road and headed back in the direction of the rodeo grounds. He spent the next few minutes telling himself all the reasons he should let it go. Let her go.

      He still took the road that led to the saddle club. Because the girl he’d known ten years ago was buried inside the composed shell of the woman he’d met yesterday. The wild teenager who’d grabbed hold of every adventure, who could race him across the field and never stop laughing as she beat him, she was in there somewhere.

      Didn’t anyone else realize that the real Samantha Martin was missing, replaced by this stranger?

      He parked, got out of his truck and headed toward the arena. Sam stood next to her niece Lilly as the younger girl settled into the saddle of her horse. She glanced his way, shook her head and went back to the conversation she’d been having. Lilly held the reins in one hand and patted the neck of the chestnut gelding with the other. She smiled big, as if being there with Sam was better than Christmas.

      The two talked for a minute, then Sam said something. Lilly moved her left foot from the stirrup and Sam swung onto the back of the gelding and sat behind Lilly. Remington watched as the two walked around the barrels. At each one Sam would lean into the turn, moving Lilly with her.

      Two times they went around the barrels like that, and then Sam dismounted, landing lightly next to the horse. She patted Lilly’s leg and faced him.

      “We weren’t expecting an audience,” Sam said as she walked past him to her gelding that she’d tied to the gate.

      “I drove by and then thought...” He left the words hanging. He didn’t know what he’d thought. But here he was. He could fight it, but the attraction was still there. It felt like they were tethered together, like her blue eyes were the only eyes he should ever look into. He could get lost in those eyes, in the emotions that flickered through them.

      “You thought what?” She leaned against the fence, still inside the arena.

      “I thought I’d see what you were doing and how your dog is. I guess she had her puppies?” He headed for neutral territory, which was a lot easier than admitting he’d been a little wrung out from the time spent with a grieving family and he’d been drawn to see her.

      “How’d you know she had her puppies?”

      “I saw Brody earlier. He was heading to Dallas.”

      She watched Lilly, pretending for the moment that she hadn’t heard him. He’d seen the slight shift in expression, the indrawn breath.

      “It’s Brody’s business if he wants to visit Sylvia,” she finally answered. “But that isn’t why you’re here, is it?”

      “No, it isn’t.”

      She continued to watch her niece. The breeze picked up and Sam pushed her hair back, holding it in place as it tried to sweep across her cheek. Lilly rode up to them, pulling her horse in as she got close.

      “Take him again. And this time with some speed. You have to trust your horse, Lilly.”

      “Trust my horse. Got it.” Lilly grinned big at Sam and then at him.

      “Go,” Sam warned her niece. The girl turned the horse and rode away. “So, why are you here?”

      “I’m not really sure,” he said, watching her niece take the barrels. “No, that isn’t entirely true. I had a rough night with a family from Jamesville. I saw you down here and thought I’d stop and say hello.”

      Her hand touched his arm. “The car accident?”

      “Yeah.” He didn’t know what else to say.

      “I’m sorry. It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” Being a nurse, she would know how it felt to lose someone, to feel helpless and as if words were empty and meaningless in the face of someone’s grief.

      “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed.

      She looked away, focusing on her niece, calling out a few pointers.

      “She’s doing better this time,” he said as he watched Lilly take the barrels again. He saw her confidence kick in as the chestnut made good time and she brought the gelding home faster than the previous run.

      Sam noticed and she nodded. She cheered as her niece pulled the horse up. “Now that was a ride, Lilly. You’re going to be tough to beat.”

      “Thanks, Aunt Sam.” Lilly leaned down, hugging the neck of her horse.

      “Walk him around the arena, let him cool off, and then we’ll head back to the ranch.”

      Sam faced him then. “By the way, I have nine puppies. Since you were there, I hold you responsible for finding homes for at least four of them.”

      He held up his hands and shook his head. “I had nothing to do with that mess.”

      She grinned and it undid the tension he’d been feeling since the start of the conversation. When she looked at him like that, it felt like the sun coming out after a month of rain.

      “You were there, Rem. You share the blame and the responsibility.” And then the sun went behind the clouds. Her eyes shadowed and it seemed as if with one sentence she took on the weight of the world.

      “Sam?”

      “I have to go. Lilly needs me.”

      As she walked away, heading for the gate opposite where they stood, he hurried around the arena to catch up with her. He couldn’t let her get away, not now, when it seemed they had things to say to one another.

      But Lilly was there, unsaddling the horse she’d tied to the trailer, and Sam was smiling, pretending he hadn’t unleashed something deep inside her. He watched as the two of them discussed Lilly’s horse and how well she’d done. Lilly asked if Sam was going to ride her horse again. The palomino was still saddled and tied to the gate.

      “No, I think he’s had enough for the day. So have I. We should head back to the ranch and have some lunch before I have to go in to work.”

      That was his cue to stop standing around like a self-conscious kid trying to work up the nerve to ask out the most popular girl in school.

      “I need to get back to Gus. He’s trying to fix a tractor he should have replaced twenty years ago.” He backed away from them. Sam lifted the saddle off her horse and settled it on the saddle rack.

      She faced him again, her blue eyes the color of a perfect spring day. Yeah, she still made him wax poetic. He had written her a few poems. Really bad ones, if memory served. He doubted she’d kept his poetry that compared her hair to corn silk and her lips to cotton candy.

      “What are you smiling about?”

      He should have said nothing. Instead he pulled off his hat and laughed. “Your hair is the color of corn silk and your eyes the color of robin’s eggs.”

      “I can’t believe you remember that. You were the worst poet in the world. I take that back. You were no poet, Mr. Jenkins. There is nothing about my lips that resembles cotton candy.”

      But at least she was laughing. He guessed he’d have to add a line about her laughter being like the chorus of songbirds, or something equally corny.

      “No, I wasn’t a poet. But I’m sure that even my lack of poetic ability didn’t detract from my charming personality.”

      “Yes, you were charming.”

      “So the two of you dated?” Lilly stopped brushing her horse and looked at them. “Seriously?”

      “Seriously,” Sam answered. “It was a long time ago.”

      “I should go,”