A Rancher's Pride

chapter Fourteen





Sam got through breakfast. Somehow. He felt like he’d eaten in his sleep, and not only from getting up so early for the birth of the calf.

Kayla was quiet all through the meal, too.

Neither of them responded much to Sharleen’s attempts at conversation. Finally, she gave up, saying she and Becky would be out on the front porch. But as they left the room, she glanced back over her shoulder. Sharleen knew something was up between the other two adults.

He knew exactly what was bothering Kayla. She had nailed it the night before. He was out of his mind, all right, or else he’d never have blurted out that dumb suggestion. Crazy as a loon, for sure—over Kayla Ward.

The thought almost made him drop the glass he’d been loading into the dishwasher.

If that kiss they had shared…that kiss he had started wasn’t enough to tell him the woman was trouble, the reminder of her last name definitely shouted it loud and clear. He needed to get away from her.

“I’m going out to check on that calf.”

She just nodded.

But when he left the kitchen and went down the back porch steps, he heard the door open and close again behind him. He stopped in his tracks. He couldn’t talk to her right now. He felt too churned up. Too raw. Things were happening he wasn’t prepared for, and he hadn’t the first clue what to do about them.

But he’d already made a mess of the situation. Ignoring her would only make everything worse.

Slowly, he turned back.

To his surprise, he found Kayla had not followed him out onto the porch, after all. Becky had. She stood on the top step, looking up at him with those silver-gray eyes so like his own.

He stood frozen, just as he had done when he realized he had understood her request for the milk.

He’d understood her.

Kayla was right. It was a first step in building a relationship with his baby. And now he was being offered another one. If he wanted it.

If he could get up the courage to go for it.

He’d missed so many opportunities to be with his daughter. Been denied so many chances to spend time with her. How could he let another one slip by?

“Hey, Becky,” he said softly, “want to go look at a brand-new calf with me?”

He knew she couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t understand. Would she take him on trust, anyway?

Barely able to breathe, he held out his hand to her.

For a second, his entire body trembled. A very real tremor that shook him down to his boots as he waited to see how his daughter would react.

In another second, he knew.

She looked up, her eyes sparkling in the morning sunshine, her face so innocent. And she put her hand in his.

His eyes blurred. He blinked again and again, but no matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t seem to make them clear. With his free hand, he rubbed both eyelids, hard.

Becky came down the steps, her fingers still wrapped securely around his.

Shortening his stride to match hers, he led her across the yard and over toward the barn. He’d show her the new calf and its mama. Bring her out back of the barn to see the chickens. Take her for a ride on the calmest horse in his stable.

All of a sudden, he had a whole list of things he wanted to show Becky.

He had a lot of lost time to make up for.



KAYLA STOOD AT THE SINK, looking through the kitchen window and feeling the need to wring her hands like the heroine of an old silent movie. Some heroine she was.

Sharleen had gone up to her room after Becky had left with Sam. It had been more than an hour since then, and it was taking all Kayla’s willpower not to go track them down.

Becky could handle herself with Sam, that much she knew.

Reverse the roles, and she wouldn’t place any bets on Sam. He’d been so resistant to learning to sign.

She had watched through this window earlier, when he had left the kitchen and Becky had followed. When he had reached out and his daughter had put her small hand into his. His daughter.

Kayla gripped the edge of the sink, trying to anchor herself. Trying to stop the thoughts that were whirling in her head.

The fear that she could lose Becky. The knowledge that she was weakening when it came to Sam. She couldn’t lose. And she couldn’t weaken, couldn’t give in. Any indication of backing down, and he’d be all over that like ice cream on a summer sidewalk.

Through the window, she suddenly saw him emerge from the wide doorway of the barn. Alone. But as she watched, she discovered he held a horse’s reins. As he walked slowly forward, she saw the horse appear, too.

With Becky sitting upright in the saddle.

Kayla’s heart seemed to leap to her throat. She rushed across to the back door and out onto the porch.

“Sam,” she hissed, afraid that yelling his name might startle the horse.

He looked her way, put up a hand to stop the animal and waited while she crossed the yard toward them.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He shrugged. “What it looks like. Taking Becky for a ride.”

“On a huge horse like that? She’s too little to be up on him all by herself.”

“No, she’s not. Heck, kids around here start to ride practically before they start to walk.”

“Well, she’s not from around here and she’s not used to horses.”

“I am.”

She wanted to wipe the smirk from his face. “That horse is three times as tall as Becky.” At least, it looked that way.

He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. The mare’s a cream puff. I’ll give you a ride on her next, if you want.”

She scowled at him. “That offer’s about as funny as the last one you made to me. Will you please take Becky down?”

“Why? She’s having a great time.”

Becky did look happy, way up there on the horse’s back. That didn’t make Kayla feel any better. For all her insistence over the years that her niece needed to be independent, that the child could handle herself, there were some situations she just could not manage. Kayla felt sure this was one of them. Though you couldn’t tell it by the grin on Becky’s face.

“Sam.”

Instead of doing as she had asked and taking Becky down from the horse, he put his foot in the stirrup and hoisted himself up, settling in the saddle behind her.

“There. Now she’s not all by herself.” He did something with the reins that made the animal turn and start walking away. He looked at Kayla over his shoulder. “We’ll be fine,” he assured her.

“Sam,” she said from between gritted teeth.

Another flick of the reins, and the horse started off at a trot. Becky gave her an excited wave goodbye.

Clutching her hands together, Kayla watched them go. She wasn’t overreacting. She wasn’t.

But in her heart, she knew she was. Not to the fact that Becky was up on the horse, but that Sam had ignored her request. Had taken her niece away from her, despite the protest she’d made.

Was this an omen of what was to come?

The thought turned her hands to ice. She could barely open the screen door. Once she’d grabbed her cell phone from the kitchen counter, she had to fumble to punch the buttons.

“Answer, answer,” she muttered when the ringing began at the other end. To her relief, a moment later, she heard Matt’s voice on the line.

“Matt,” she said, gulping, trying desperately to calm herself so he wouldn’t know how agitated she was. “Just checking in. I wanted to see if you’d found out anything yet about Sam.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was planning to call shortly. I finally got some info on that suggestion you had about an incident when he was a teenager.”

“You did?” She gripped the cell phone more tightly. At last, she was going to find out something that would give her custody of Becky once and for all. “And—?”

“And it turns out, he’d almost done jail time when he was seventeen. He set fire—accidentally, he claims—to a barn on a neighboring property.”

She gasped. “No one was hurt?” Despite the news and what it might do to help her cause, she couldn’t stop herself from asking the question. The thought of Ronnie’s accusation ran through her mind. She pushed it away, hard. The judge and Ellamae had shown her that wasn’t true. She trusted Sam.

Yet, he had just gone off, alone, who knew where, with Becky.

She shook her head. Everything was all right.

“No one was hurt,” Matt confirmed.

She gave a sigh of relief.

“But it’s still not good, Kayla. Half the livestock inside the barn died from the smoke. The barn was considered a complete loss. And the family had no insurance to cover any of it. From what we were able to gather, Robertson’s mother made restitution for her son, but the Porter family holds a grudge against him to this day.”

Kayla closed her eyes against a sudden painful stinging beneath her lids. How awful for that to happen. And how terrible for Sam to have to live with it. It had to have been an accident. She refused to believe he could do something like that on purpose. Not Sam, who lived on a ranch filled with animals.

Now she could even understand his reluctance to have Pirate on his property. The dog belonged to that family next door.

Refusing to believe in Sam’s guilt only increased her own. She knew she would use this information against him if she could.

She had to.

“What happened after?” she asked Matt.

“He got off lucky. He was sentenced to a substantial number of hours of community service and had to report in to the local judge weekly for quite some time.”

“The local judge? What was his name?”

“Hang on, let me check.” She heard computer keys clicking in the background, but already her spirits were sinking. “Here it is. The Honorable Lloyd M.—”

“Baylor,” she finished in the same breath. She sighed. “I’m afraid that’s a dead end. He’s the same judge we’re dealing with now. He already knows about what happened back then. The information won’t do us any good.”

“True,” he agreed.

“So we’re no further along than we were before.” She dropped into the nearest chair at the kitchen table. “And time’s running out, Matt. I’m getting desperate. The judge is due here this Sunday for a good old-fashioned barbecue—and I just know Sam plans to pull out all the stops to win him over to his side.”

“I haven’t given up,” Matt said.

“I know, but it’s only two days away—”

“We’ll keep digging. Just hold tight.”

A noise sounded in the yard. She raised her head and caught her breath. Through the window, she heard the sound of a horse’s whinny.

Sam had come back with Becky.

She stood and moved over to the back door, keeping to the side so he wouldn’t see her. In one fluid movement, he swung himself from the horse’s back to the ground. When he reached up, Becky stretched both hands out to him. He lifted her from the saddle and set her beside him.

Even from this distance, Kayla could see her niece’s flushed face and sparkling eyes. Could see Sam’s grin as he stroked Becky’s hair.

Kayla’s grip on the phone made her knuckles hurt. “Yes, keep digging, Matt,” she said. She had to force the words past her tight throat. “Do what you can. And, please, do it fast.”