by Jane Porter
Ivy located the article on the front page of the local section and skimmed it. She knew almost everything already. Ashley had finished her ninety days at the center in Florida and was coming home for Christmas. The Howe family was thrilled and had made changes to their house for her, anticipating her arrival. It would be the best Christmas gift for the family to be together again, and according to the article, Ashley’s little brothers couldn’t wait to have their big sister home as it wouldn’t have been Christmas without her.
The aching lump returned to Ivy’s throat, and she carefully folded the paper and put it away. She understood missing, understood how Christmas wasn’t Christmas without family. This would be Ivy’s second Christmas without her mom, and she dreaded the holiday, dreaded it so much that she’d volunteered to work at the Wolf Den to make sure she wasn’t alone in her little rented room at Joan’s.
Ivy swiped the bar counter with her damp rag, polishing an already-clean surface. She honestly didn’t mind bartending at the Wolf Den. She earned big tips, and overtime, and if she kept being frugal, after she got her truck back, she could advertise that she was available for training. It was what she’d grown up doing with her mom, one of the best horse trainers in Montana, if not all of the US. And then eventually, Ivy would buy her own place and board and train horses there.
Either way, much like young Ashley, Ivy’s goal was independence. She’d tried relationships and had failed at the last two, and she wasn’t going that route again. Better to stand on her own two feet, better to be in control of her life, than let a man try to take over.
She was just checking the kegs and the lines, when the bar’s front door opened, pale sunlight spilling across the dark bar floor. She glanced up and saw the silhouette of a cowboy—hat, broad shoulders, tall, lean frame—before she wiped off the spigots, her focus returning to her work. Montana was filled with men and cowboys, but she wasn’t interested in any of them. Wes the wolf had cured her of that. He was a mistake she never wanted to repeat.
Boots thudded on the scuffed wooden floor. The cowboy was heading her way. The bar wasn’t officially opened for another half hour yet, but she didn’t mind an early customer. Management didn’t, either. A customer was money and everyone needed money.
She glanced up as he reached the bar. “What can I get you?” she asked, trying to inject some warmth into her voice.
It was only when she looked up that she realized who’d arrived.
Ivy’s heart fell, plummeting all the way to the pointed tips of her own boots. For a moment, she thought she might throw up, the shock enormous, and then she got control, and hid her surprise. “Sam Wyatt, what are you doing here?”
“I could say the same for you.” He stood, feet planted, hands buried in his coat pockets. “What are you doing at the Wolf Den?”
“Working.”
“Yeah, I can see that. But why here? I don’t get it.”
She pushed her long dark braid off her shoulder. “I was hired to work on the Kruse ranch, training horses, but things got lean, and they laid me off for the winter. They said there might be a job come spring, so here I am.”
“Come spring you should be on the road, competing.”
“Might do something different this year. Still thinking about my options.”
He pulled out a barstool and sat down. “How did you even know about the job on the Kruse ranch? They’re not a very big place.”
“A friend told me,” she said. “Sounded promising, but you know how it goes. Last one hired, first one fired.” She kept her voice casual, even as she avoided eye contact.
Sam was wearing his big black leather jacket, the one with all of the NFR patches. His hat was black, too, and in the shadowy light, he still managed to look impossibly handsome, but then, the Wyatt brothers were not short on looks. Or skill. They were some of the best cowboys in America and they knew it.
Ivy’s heart did another weird little flutter and she quickly put a hand to her chest, pressing against the odd painful sensation. She didn’t want to feel anything, not when feelings got her into so much trouble.
Sam studied her in silence for a long moment and Ivy stood there, holding her ground, refusing to reveal any of the anxiety she felt.
“What did you say you were drinking?” she asked, voice steady.
“I didn’t. But I’ll take a beer, bottled.”
She’d spent two years with him, two years as Sam’s girl, and those two years had been the best years of her life. So, of course she knew his favorite beer, his favorite color, his favorite side of the bed.
Ivy pulled an icy bottle of Coors out from the refrigerator, popped the cap and handed it to him. “I guess Tommy told you I was here.”
Sam took a swallow, set the beer down. “He was surprised.”
“And he asked you to check on me?” she asked, filled with bittersweet emotion because Tommy and Billy Wyatt had come to mean a lot to her while she and Sam were dating. The four of them traveled together, and by the time she and Sam split, they felt like her brothers, not just his.
“This isn’t exactly your kind of place,” Sam answered. “Wish you would have let Joe know you needed work. He would have found something for you.”
“That wasn’t necessary. I found work for me.”
“Here.”
She wasn’t going to take the bait. She wouldn’t be judged, either. “I make really good money here. Customers tips well.” She could tell he didn’t like her answer but she didn’t care.
The last couple of years had been hard, and the last year, well… that had been beyond brutal, and she owed him nothing, just as he owed her nothing. They’d broken up and they’d gone their separate ways and it had been hard, but she’d moved on. So had he.
“Where’s Wes?” Sam asked finally, breaking the long, tense silence.
For the first time since he’d arrived, Ivy looked at Sam, really looked at him, her gaze boring into his as if she could somehow see past the hard blue gaze and the even harder jaw into his soul. But Sam was guarded, and there was never anything she could see, no emotion she could discern.
“No idea,” she answered, and that was the truth. She’d blocked Wes on her phone, blocked him on her social media, and had even stopped updating her social media to keep him from knowing where she was, and if it cost her the rest of her sponsors, well, their money had stopped going into her pockets a long time ago.
“Not very chatty, are you?” he asked.
“Nope.” The front door opened and two bikers entered. Ivy nodded at them and then glanced at Sam. “Need anything else?” she asked him.
He shook his head and reached into his back pocket for his wallet.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “That was on me. Nice to see you, Sam.” And then she moved on, walking down the bar to the far end where the bikers had settled and tried to pretend she didn’t feel Sam’s eyes boring into her back, sending rivulets of sensation up and down her spine, reminding her just how much she’d once wanted him.
Needed him.
“Welcome,” she said to the newcomers, flashing a flirty smile. “What can I get you boys?”
*
Sam had intended to Christmas shop after swinging by the Wolf Den, and he tried, too. He drove to Main Street and parked his truck, stalking into the Western Wear store to see if he couldn’t find a new Pendleton shirt for Grandad, and maybe a warm soft vest for Mom, but as he surveyed the racks of clothes, he saw Ivy in her tight T-shirt smiling at the bikers, giving them the smile she’d always saved for him.
That sweet, sexy smile made him see red.
He was not happy.
Seriously. Not. Happy.
“Can I help you find something?” the older saleslady asked, approaching Sam.
Sam’s narrowed gaze swept from the offending racks of clothes to the saleswoman. He forced himself to soften his expression. “No. Thank you.”
“We have some good Christmas specials right now. Buy two off that rack there, and get
a third shirt for free.”
“Thanks,” he said, aware his tone was still far too curt. “I need to get home, but I’ll be back.”
“The special lasts until Friday.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
Sam fumed the whole drive home.
Ivy had changed. She’d always been an open book before, but she was all shuttered up now. Outwardly, she might still be the beautiful Ivy he knew, but there was a new guard up, a new hardness he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know what to think of the change, didn’t know what to think of her working at a stripper bar, either. Ivy was no prude, but she was a nice girl, conservative, raised in the church. She didn’t mess around. She didn’t take unnecessary risks. She lived for her horses and competing. But losing her mom two years ago had rocked her world. Ivy and her mom, Shelby, had been close, practically best friends, but then Ivy seemed to bounce back quickly, moving on with new boyfriend Wes, getting bigger sponsors, and a lot more visibility. Suddenly she was in magazines, featured in Instagram stories and ads. Slender, beautiful, photogenic, everybody wanted her, and she should have made a lot of money on those national sponsors.
So, if she’d made those lucrative deals, why was she scraping by here in Marietta? And why had she been reduced to working at the Wolf Den?
Something didn’t add up, and Sam didn’t know what bothered him more—the fact that he was so upset to see her there, or the fact she didn’t even seem to care that he’d come looking for her.
It wasn’t his problem, he told himself. Ivy was an adult, free to do whatever she wanted. But at the same time, Sam had promised her mom that he’d look out for her, and so far he’d done a pretty poor job of it.
Sam growled deep in his throat, foot heavy on the accelerator, as if he could outrun the vision of her in his head, in her tight red T-shirt and even tighter, fitted jeans, her western belt with the big silver buckle flat against her narrow waist, smiling at the bikers, calling them boys.
Those bikers weren’t boys. And back when they were together, Ivy didn’t know how to make a drink. Heck, she didn’t even drink. So why was she working the bar at the Wolf Den?
*
Ivy exhaled hard after Sam left. That had been weird. And incredibly uncomfortable. She didn’t like discussing Wes, and she certainly didn’t feel as if she had to defend herself to Sam, of all people. Sam Wyatt with his lofty plans and ambitions. Sam, with his dreams so big there wasn’t room for anyone else but him.
And then Ivy kicked herself, because she wasn’t being fair. Not totally.
Sam had never been bad to her. He just hadn’t given her enough.
She’d loved him, too, loved him so much it made her heart ache, but in the end, he’d let her go and that… well, that had broken her heart.
So, no, she didn’t hate him. How could you hate beautiful, swaggering, immensely talented Sam Wyatt? The cowboy was so confident, so intense, he reminded her of the sun. Necessary. Brilliant.
Scorching.
The scorching part was why she’d broken up with him. There just didn’t seem to be room enough in his sphere for both of them, and the only way for her heart to survive was for her to put space between them.
And yet, she’d hoped he’d come after her. She prayed he’d realize how much he missed her. But there was no epiphany on his part. He’d taken her at her word and moved forward with his life and career without her.
Sam’s single-minded focus was what made him so successful on the rodeo circuit. But that same single-minded focus made him a terrible boyfriend. She’d known from the beginning he was competitive and driven. He didn’t like turning down opportunities or events or money, not even so his brothers—or Ivy—could succeed. Initially, she hadn’t minded. She’d been an only child and she was plenty independent. Ivy figured out how to succeed around him, carving space out for herself so she could focus on her own events. It was only as time went on, and they were getting more serious, that she came to resent how Sam always came first and she came last. Why should it be her compromising all the time? Why didn’t he compromise more?
Maybe the problem was that she and Sam were too much alike. They both wanted big things, and neither were willing to make the necessary concessions a relationship needed. They’d always had a passionate relationship. When things were good it was very, very good, but when things weren’t good, it was very, very bad.
After the breakup, Ivy waited and waited to hear from him. Waited and waited for an olive branch. The waiting made her angry. They’d had so much history together. So much love. But Sam seemed to have forgotten the love, and after four brutal, lonely months—months where she cried every single day, if not twice a day—she realized he wasn’t coming back for her. There would be no reconciliation. They were done.
Through.
Then, in the middle of that year of that heartbreak, her mom died, and grieving for Sam was swallowed into grief over losing the most inspiring person Ivy knew. Ivy’s mom had been a trailblazer and fearless. A six-time national barrel racing champion, Ivy’s mom, Shelby Lynn, did the impossible, and she did it with style and grit and courage.
Courage.
Ivy tried to cling to some of that same courage as she made funeral arrangements for her mom and then decisions of what to do with her mom’s estate. Sam sent flowers with a card that read, Thinking of you. So very sorry for your loss. Sam.
That was all the card said.
That was all Sam could think of saying to her after so many months?
Ivy cried holding the card, crying hard because she realized that this was the best Sam could do, or would do, and it simply wasn’t enough.
His attempt to be sympathetic was pitiful.
She rejected it, and him, throwing away the card, and then the next day, throwing out the flowers because it hurt her, just seeing them. Better to not see them. Better to not be reminded of him.
Wes, a stock supplier who she’d known from the rodeo, sent flowers, too. She kept those flowers. She didn’t know Wes well, but his flowers were beautiful and they gave her no pain. He called a week later to see if she needed anything. She said she didn’t but thank you. He called two weeks later, letting her know he was in the area, and would she want to meet for coffee or a drink? Ivy thought about the invitation for a couple of hours, then texted that yes she’d enjoy meeting him, and the rest was history.
Bad history.
Chapter Two
Sam could feel his mother’s gaze all afternoon. She’d watched him during their late lunch—he’d made her a turkey bacon sandwich, her favorite—and every time there was a lull in the conversation, and he thought she’d ask him something personal, he dove into another story about Las Vegas, or his horses, or his shoulder, and whether he should get surgery or not.
He managed to escape the kitchen before she brought up whatever was on her mind, but now as they sat down at the dinner table, he could feel her watching him again, her brows slightly flattened, mouth firm, as she gazed at him from her place at the foot of the table.
If he could have headed to town and gotten a burger and beer at Grey’s Saloon, he would. But you didn’t do that to Mom, not so soon after returning from a lengthy absence.
During dinner, he tuned out the laughter and bantering. Tommy and Billy were like two kids, always having a good time together. Joe was smitten with his bride, unable to even eat without looking at her and smiling crookedly.
Joe being happy changed the house. Or maybe it was Sophie’s happiness. But the Wyatt Ranch felt warm and bright and full of love. It was almost too much love.
Even as a boy, Sam had found the noise overwhelming at times. He was more introverted than his brothers, and required a lot of alone time, something that was hard to find on the ranch, especially when everyone was home.
As his mom’s concerned gaze met his, Sam forced a smile. He wasn’t going to have her worry. There was no reason to worry.
His mom wasn’t buying it, though, but she did eventually look away, an
d nod and then respond to something Sophie was saying. His mom liked Sophie. And his grandad, well Grandad treated Sophie like a princess, or more accurately, the granddaughter he’d never had.
After the blessing was said and huge platters were passed around, Sam’s thoughts returned to Ivy, and suddenly he wasn’t interested in eating.
Ivy had struggled with his need for space. She didn’t understand why he’d pull away, or want to go for a drive on his own. She always wanted to go with him, always eager to keep him company, and he hated hurting her feelings, but he couldn’t unwind or recharge with others. It wasn’t her that he wanted to escape, it was everyone. Unfortunately, she took it personally, which turned into arguments neither of them needed.
Thinking of Ivy made Sam’s chest tighten.
They’d had a messy breakup. She’d said hard things when she ended the relationship, and he’d been hurt and refused to think of her, refused to miss her. But when he’d discovered Ivy’s mom, Shelby, wasn’t well, he did what he could to ease her suffering.
Shelby had made him promise to look after Ivy, and he’d made the promise, fully intending to keep it. But after Shelby was gone and Ivy was dating Wes, Ivy wouldn’t talk to Sam. In fact, she wanted nothing to do with him. Wes more or less said so to his face. Sam had longed to smash his fist into Wes’s stupid, smug face, but he didn’t. Instead, Sam kept his distance, making sure to avoid Wes and Ivy. They were not his favorite people, and they were most definitely not his favorite couple.
Dinner over, Sam rose to clear the table, indicating his desire to do the dishes. He had offers from the others to help, but he refused, preferring to clean up on his own. He scraped and filled up the sink, staring at the basin as it filled with hot sudsy water, doing his best not to think or remember more than necessary. Ivy wasn’t his problem. Ivy wasn’t his girlfriend. Ivy—
“So tell me about Ivy,” his mom said, her voice coming from behind him.
Sam stiffened at his mother’s question, not realizing she was there in the kitchen with him, nor how long she’d been standing there watching him. Ivy was exactly what he didn’t want to discuss, but at the same time, he’d never be rude to his mom. Sam turned the faucet off and then pivoted to look at his mother, who was standing next to the kitchen table, leaning on her cane. “Aren’t you missing the news?” he asked, familiar with his mother’s routine. Every night after dinner, Mom and Grandad would watch the news. Half hour local, followed by a half hour national.
