Collision at Roosevelt Ranch

by Elise Faber

  Melissa, Kelly’s sister and Rob’s wife, chose that moment to walk through the door, two thermoses of coffee in her hands. She’d obviously overheard him because she grinned and teased, “Like mother, like daughter?”

  Kel shot her a sisterly glare. “Things happen sometimes, okay?”

  Melissa bumped her with her shoulder. “I’m teasing because, yes, sometimes things do happen . . . for the better.”

  Kelly’s face softened and she snagged a thermos from her sister. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “You’re welcome.” Melissa turned to Sam and extended the second thermos.

  “Oh, no,” he said, despite the mouth-watering smell of the freshly brewed drink wafting to his nose. “That’s yours. I couldn’t—”

  “I already had mine. I made this for you when Kel told me you were coming to the ranch.” She shoved the cup at him and since he wasn’t about to let good coffee go to waste, Sam took it.

  As he drank his first sip, she asked, “How are you? I heard you had an . . . eventful weekend.”

  He made a face that had Melissa tipping up the bottom of the thermos and dumping another sip into his mouth. “Drink,” she said. “Everything is better with coffee.”

  Sam obeyed then nearly groaned in relief as the caffeine headed straight from his mouth to his brain.

  Yup. That was just what he’d needed.

  “Better?”

  A nod.

  “Now, you’ll tell us what happened?”

  “You probably know as much as I do,” he said. “But Haley is pretty banged up. She has a broken ankle along with a concussion and stitches.” As he listed her injuries, the guilt peppered him anew. If only he hadn’t—

  “More coffee,” Melissa said.

  “Go easy on the full Missy offensive,” Kel interjected, sipping her own coffee and leaning back next to him against the closed door of Stella’s stall. “The poor man has had a time of it.”

  “I hope you’re not feeling guilty,” Melissa said. “Rob told me that a deer jumped in front of Haley’s car. It was just an—”

  “Accident?” He met her eyes. “And how would you feel if someone was hurt because you hit their car?”

  Melissa wrinkled her nose.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That.”

  “Okay, I may have a problem with guilt but . . .”

  “Don’t finish that sentence, Sissy,” Kel warned. “Because it’s all aboard the pot-meet-kettle train.” She grinned when Melissa smacked her. “Let’s talk about Stella instead.”

  Melissa’s expression filled with glee. “Yes, let me tease you about your horse’s unplanned pregnancy some more.”

  “You’re so sweet to me.” Kel pushed up and wrapped an arm around Melissa’s shoulders. Or maybe it was her neck, he realized with a grin. “So supportive—”

  “Your horse is a hussy.”

  A mock gasp. “How dare you . . .”

  Sam couldn’t hold back his chuckle, even as their squabbling made him jealous.

  As an only child with parents constantly on the road, he’d had more than his fair share of loneliness over the last few years. Yes, he’d dated some, but no one had stuck, and so he’d developed a pattern of working long hours and then going home to his meal for one at the end of the night.

  Which might be a little pathetic, but instead of going down that particular line of thinking, Sam was just going to pretend it was totally completely normal for a grown man to be alone and . . .

  It wasn’t like he was all alone.

  He saw his clients—people like Melissa and Kelly and, even Snapchat Esther, who’d gotten a new kitten. He traveled to the nearby ranches, which he supposed could fall under the client section of his life. But he went into town a lot, grocery shopping or eating at Henry’s diner when he needed to be around people.

  Might be a teensy bit pathetic, that train of thought.

  But pathetic or not, Sam couldn’t smother the feeling that he’d been waiting.

  For what, he wasn’t sure.

  At least, he hadn’t been sure until he’d crashed into Haley. Because after the collision, after the time at her house, after the kiss . . . he wondered if he hadn’t been waiting all along for Haley.

  “So, if Stella is such a virginal being,” Melissa said, tugging Kel’s arm from around her neck, “then how is she knocked up?”

  “Immaculate horse-ception?” Sam deadpanned, earning him a smack from Kelly.

  “Shut it you.” Kel tapped her finger to her mouth. “But yours is a good question, sissy.”

  “What’s a good question?” They all turned to see Justin striding into the barn, his and Kelly’s daughter, Abigail, riding on his shoulders.

  “Stella’s pregnant,” Kelly said.

  “What?” Justin asked, sliding closer to Stella’s stall when Abigail said, “Swella!” and leaned forward, nearly toppling herself from his hold.

  “I’ve got you, sweetie pie,” Kelly said, swooping in and hugging Abigail to her chest. “Do you want to see Stella?”

  The little girl smiled. “Yes.”

  Kelly lifted her up so she could pet the front of Stella’s head. “The twins?” she asked.

  “Still sleeping,” he said and held up a baby monitor. “Just this one”—he smacked a kiss to the top of Abigail’s head—"that decided she was raring to start her Monday.”

  “Don’t know where she gets the energy,” Kelly said.

  Justin waggled his brows. “I know.”

  “Barf,” Melissa said, her eyes dancing.

  Kel’s lips twitched. “Why do I feel like you’ve been waiting years to say that?”

  Melissa grinned. “Because considering the number of times you’ve said it about me and my husband, I definitely have been waiting to turn the tables.”

  “Terrible.”

  Melissa blew her a kiss. “You love me.” She pulled out her phone, glanced at its screen. “Well, I just wanted to drop by and make sure everything was good with your first baby,” she told Kel. “But it looks like Rob is sending out the S.O.S. to get the kiddos ready for school.”

  “Stella’s not my first baby,” Kel said then frowned. “Okay, fine, she basically is, but knowing you with your own babies, you’ve got the schedule down to the second and everything already laid out. Rob just needs to follow the plan.”

  A shrug. “Of course, I do.” She grinned as her phone buzzed again. “It’s just that plans tend to go out the window when Allie decides she doesn’t want to wear any pants.”

  It was Justin’s turn to frown as he voiced the same question Sam was thinking. “Can’t she just wear a dress?”

  Melissa smirked, patting him on the cheek. “Oh, you poor, poor dear. Just wait until that one”—she pointed at Abigail—“gets bigger. My daughter has decided that pants, shorts, sweats, skirts, dresses, and underwear are all too restrictive. She wants to be completely bottomless all the time.”

  Sam made a strangled noise.

  Melissa’s eyes flicked to his. “Case in point, Rob’s reaction.” She held up the phone so they could all see the screen and the GIF Rob had sent of an actor running around a room screaming.

  They all shared a laugh as she hugged each of them in turn and then said goodbye.

  Sam figured it was time for him to make an exit as well.

  If he hurried, he might have a chance to check on Haley before he headed into the clinic.

  “I’ll swing by next week with my ultrasound and we’ll see if we can find out exactly how far along she is,” he said, gathering up his supplies and tucking them back into his kit.

  “What I still don’t understand is how she’s pregnant in the first place,” Kelly said, having set down Abigail and moved to the table to cut up an apple. She helped her daughter feed a slice to each of the horses one by one. “We’ve been so careful to keep the horses separate while they’re in season and—”

  Sam caught Justin’s wince at the same time Kelly did.

  “Justin Roosevelt,�
�� she began, thunder in her tone. “What did you do?”

  He winced and held up the baby monitor. “Oh look, the twins—”

  “That isn’t even on,” Kelly snapped, yanking it from his hand and twisting the volume dial. A picture filled the screen, showing two sleeping babies, each in their own crib.

  “I should go—”

  They didn’t acknowledge him, so Sam began to make his escape.

  He was at the barn door when he heard Justin confess, “So, like a month ago, remember you and Melissa took the girls to Disney on Ice? The twins were, well, the twins, and I may have forgotten Stella was in heat when I turned her and Theo out to pasture together.”

  Kelly gasped. “You forgot?”

  Sam started to close the door behind him, figuring to give them some privacy for their argument, but when he turned to do so, he saw Justin had tugged Kelly close.

  He should look away. He really should.

  But instead, Sam found himself riveted.

  “Admit it,” he said. “You’re not really mad.”

  She huffed, turned her head away, but not before Sam saw that she was smiling. “I get to keep the baby?”

  Justin kissed her forehead, glancing over to check on Abigail who was practicing her saddling skills on a kid-sized stuffed horse. “As if we could ever give a Stello baby up.”

  “Stello?” Abby asked.

  “Theo and Stella,” Justin said as if it were obvious. “I’ve been coming up with combo names ever since I saw Theo mounting Stella and giving her his—”

  Kel gave an outraged gasp. “Don’t talk about her that way—”

  Justin cut off the rest of her protest by kissing her.

  Sam figured that was definitely his cue and tugged the barn door closed.

  A few minutes later, he drove to Haley’s house and couldn’t stop the longing from swarming over him. He wanted what Jordan and Kelly had, what Melissa and Rob also had—easy, comfortable, teasing, even a little irritated . . .

  But love.

  All of it was love.

  Sam wanted that.

  And he thought he might want it with Haley.

  Thirteen

  Haley

  * * *

  It had been five days, and Haley was losing her fucking mind.

  No work. No car—hers was in the shop with a wish and a prayer the mechanic could make it drivable again, not that she could drive anyway, considering her right ankle was the one she’d broken. She’d binged as many reality TV shows and documentaries as she could handle and had far exceeded her e-book budget for the month. She had even progressed beyond just talking to herself.

  Now she was arguing with herself.

  “No, you can’t,” she muttered as she considered crutching her butt out into her backyard for some fresh air and change of location. “Yes, I can.” She hadn’t needed any pain pills that day, so there was no risk of being too dizzy and cracking her head open.

  But, she probably shouldn’t.

  The skies had opened up that morning, dumping buckets of rain onto Darlington and turning her yard into a giant mud pit.

  “Fuck it,” she said. “I’m going.”

  She tucked her crutches under her armpits and thumped herself to the back door. Her scooter was useless on the steps and just as much so on the uneven path weaving its way through her garden. Mother Nature might have wreaked havoc in her yard, but Haley couldn’t deal with being sedentary any longer. She was used to moving, to being on her feet and running around the hospital for twelve hours at a time, not propping herself in front of her TV and her only exercise being when she wheeled herself down the hall to the toilet.

  She needed to find a way to get back to work, even if it was just for charting or to answer phones.

  Being here, alone, except for her sister’s daily visit, meant she was going crazy.

  Her sister had visited. Not Sam.

  “So, he missed one day,” she reminded herself. “He was probably busy with work and—”

  He’d forgotten about her.

  Haley wrinkled her nose. He hadn’t forgotten about her. Sam had been by every morning and every evening. He hadn’t stayed on her couch again, though she considered that a good sign, as in she had recovered enough from her injuries that she didn’t need a babysitter.

  Her concussion symptoms—mild to begin with—had all but faded. Her ankle still ached, and she was weeks away from being able to bear weight on it, let alone driving.

  And Sam hadn’t come that morning.

  Or that night.

  The sun was setting, and Haley had reheated the pasta he’d made for them the previous night for dinner. The man could cook—though to be fair to chefs everywhere, it was limited to one solid meal. As she’d waited for him to appear, she’d considered calling him to say thanks for the yummy leftovers, but one, she didn’t have Sam’s number and two, she wasn’t sure she had the right to call him even if she did.

  And . . . he hadn’t come.

  Which meant she was slowly, incrementally going insane.

  Should she call Maggie for his number? Obviously, her sister and Sam talked regularly. But what would Maggie think or assume or pinpoint with laser-like accuracy?

  That Haley liked Sam? That she missed him? That her sister was trying to horn in on her ex?

  Sighing, she crutched a few steps farther down the path before carefully lowering herself to a dry spot, or rather, a space that was damp but not thoroughly soaked.

  The evening air had a bite to it, just enough to make the end of her nose and the tops of her cheeks tingle. Rain aside, it really had been a beautiful spring week. Warm, but not the scorching heat of summer. No snow, no ice.

  And she was hobbled by her broken ankle.

  “Lame,” she muttered, leaning back against a rock and staring up at the sky. The sun had technically already set, the evening entering its twilight state as its shadows began to swallow the sunlight, dark bleaching the colorful flowers of her yard to different shades of gray.

  Yet, the moon was bright and full and beautiful, and a few stars were beginning to appear on the darkening curve of the sky, royal to navy to black. She reclined against the rock and just watched as day turned fully to night.

  The moon, shining brightly and yet so alone was lovely in its own way, but its isolation did nothing to dispel the loneliness within her.

  Sam owed her nothing . . . and he’d somehow still become an addiction.

  Five days, apparently, was all it took.

  She snorted. Because she knew it hadn’t been five days, not this boy she’d crushed on for so long. But in those five days, Haley had grown to really like the man, and she wanted to know him further.

  A dangerous thought considering what had happened with Maggie.

  Also, one she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind, despite the past, despite her misgivings, despite her sister.

  “Ugh,” she said, knowing she was twisting herself into knots for no reason.

  Sam hadn’t expressed any interest—

  Cough. The kisses?

  See what she meant about arguing with herself?

  Yes, he’d kissed her.

  Twice. No, three times.

  Yes, it had been three times. But that had been on Sunday and it was Friday now, and he had been over eight times since the kiss—kisses—and . . . he hadn’t tried to kiss her again.

  In fact, he hadn’t been anything aside from friendly.

  No flirting. No searing eye contact. No gentle caresses and . . . no kisses.

  She’d been friend-zoned.

  Hence the late-night garden brooding.

  Haley sighed, thus confirming said brooding. Sam had said all the right things, made her feel better, made sure she was healing and settled.

  He’d done everything right.

  But for a second there, she’d thought that maybe, just maybe she might have a chance at getting her mess of a love life straightened out. Because Sam was sweet and kind and hot and sexy a
nd—

  He wasn’t for her.

  “Yeah,” she said, adding another broody sigh, just for good measure. “I need to remember that.”

  “Remember what?”

  Sam’s voice made her gasp.

  But before she could scramble to come up with a response, the clouds she’d noticed but hadn’t particularly processed as dark or storm-wielding, opened up and rain poured down across her backyard for the second time that day.

  “Shit,” she cried, reaching for her crutches and fumbling to get herself up onto her feet.

  “Let me.” Sam scooped her up into his arms. He stood, running to the back porch and depositing her beneath the cover, before returning for her crutches. After tucking them inside her back door, he swept back over to her, gathering her against his chest again and carrying her inside.

  They were both soaked to the skin. Rivulets of icy water pooled in her hair, dripping down her nape, her face. Despite the cold, Sam was somehow still hot, his body heat almost scorching her through the layers of their wet clothes.

  “Wait here,” he said, setting her on the kitchen counter and hustling down the hall.

  A heartbeat later he was back, setting a towel around her shoulders then wrapping one above her cast to catch the water.

  Smart man. Brilliant man. Sweet man.

  “Sam—”

  He glanced up, and her breath caught at the heat in his eyes. “You okay?” he asked.

  Where had all the reasons to give this man a wide berth disappeared to?

  Because in that moment, his brown hair darkened to black, water dripping down his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth, his wet clothes sticking to a muscled chest, to thighs she wanted pressing against hers . . . fuck, she wanted nothing more than to reach up and slant her mouth across his.

  He was staring at her as though he wanted her.

  For a moment, she could actually believe it.

  Sam cleared his throat, the heat disappeared. “Let me get you some dry clothes.”

  Haley lifted her hand, placed it on his shoulder when he would have turned away. “Wait.”

  “You—?”

  She kissed him.

  If he’d had a heartbeat of hesitation or resistance or any type of shock that her twisted mind might have interpreted as not wanting the kiss—not wanting her—Haley might have shut down.