Last Chance Ranch

Chapter Three: A Bumpy Ride

Wearing jeans, boots, and a white blouse now, Samantha came around to the front of the car.

Her hair had gotten pulled out of its ponytail and she was trying to wrestle it into submission, but the wind wasn't letting up.

Spitting hair out of her mouth, she cursed a blue streak as her designer sunglasses fell off the front of her blouse and broke apart as they hit the dirt road.

Just then she heard laughter and looked up to see Troy grinning that Devil smile that she'd been anticipating.

Except it lit up his eyes and suddenly he didn't seem sad anymore. She didn't mind that so much.

She frowned at him nonetheless as she finally got her hair snapped up into a high ponytail. "What's so funny, hot shot?"

"Nothin'. So you got everythin' you need?"

She hefted her purse on her shoulder and nodded in resignation. She had to slide her broken sunglasses into her purse with a heavy heart, but she was, in fact, ready to go home.

She hugged Nathaniel goodbye and thanked him, then dutifully headed out to the field with Troy.

###

"Hi, Curly." Samantha crooned as she walked up to the big sorrel gelding.

He lifted his head and pricked his ears forward curiously as she approached.

"He's beautiful." She murmured, stroking the gleaming red neck. She admired his white stockings and the white markings on his noble face.

She was instantly in love, breathing deeply of the good horsey smell as she pet him, momentarily forgetting all about the man beside her.

"You like him?" Troy said, stroking the horse's flank in an absent fashion.

Samantha finally turned to look up at him, and she couldn't rein in her grin of simple pleasure. She'd missed horses more than she'd even realized.

Looking up into his shadowed face, however, her smile faded. "What?" She asked self-consciously.

He was staring down at her with an odd expression on his face, like he'd never seen a woman before or something.

###

Watching her, he was transfixed.

With her sunglasses gone, he could see her big brown eyes for the first time. The way she lit up at the sight of Curly was unmistakable. Her whole face glowed. The warm sunlight was bringing out the delicate smattering of freckles across her nose.

"It's just..." he reached out and tucked that rebel strand of hair back behind her ear for her, "there's the girl I used to know."

A cloud passed across the sun just then and her expression became shadowed in more ways than one. He saw her retreat back into her shell and he inwardly cursed himself.

He was an expert at saying the wrong thing. Doing the wrong thing.

Every. Damn. Time.

"I'm nothing like the girl you used to know." She told him, more harshly than she'd intended to.

He cleared his throat, taking her purse from her to secure it to the back of the saddle where the saddlebag would usually go. "Jesus, what'd you got in this thing, bricks?" He muttered.