A Rancher's Pride(31)

Things were looking up.

He didn’t have to force himself to grin at Kayla. “Well, how about it?” he asked. “Why don’t we have some lunch and then get our tour started?”

The expression on her face could have dropped a coyote in its tracks from across a half acre.



KAYLA COULD BARELY RECALL what she had ordered from the menu at the Double S. She’d eaten her lunch while in a near daze and, even as she followed Sam and Becky from the café, she had trouble coming back to the present.

She couldn’t seem to forget the look on Sam’s face when he’d put his cowboy hat on Becky’s head and heard her laugh.

The wistfulness in his eyes had started a hollow ache in her chest, and the sensation hadn’t gone away yet. She had a bad feeling it was somehow connected to her heart breaking.

She needed to do something to save herself. And Becky.

“Let’s leave the car and the pickup here,” he said as they stood outside the café. “We’ll do the length of Signal Street, but I have to say, it won’t take very long to walk it.”

“Oh?” she asked, forcing a cool tone. “Even so, I’m surprised you’re taking the time away from your ranch to give us a tour. Ronnie once told me you were never free to do anything with her.”

He looked taken aback by her response. What he should have realized was, she had just pointed out something she could use against him with the judge. A father who would never have time for his daughter. Guilt warred with elation over this, and to her annoyance, the decision came to a close call. Elation finally won.

Becky skipped down the street ahead of them. Kayla and Sam fell into step behind her. She had thought he would ignore her previous statement, but to her surprise, he replied.

“Kind of hard to go on tours when I normally leave the house early and get back late.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s true.” Point number two, no matter what Dori and Ellamae thought.

At this rate, she’d have enough to go to the judge in no time.

Before he could have a chance to figure that out, she asked, “Just how did Flagman’s Folly get its name?”

He looked at her for a long while, as if wary of the change of subject. Or as if, for some reason, he felt reluctant to tell her.

At last, he said, “Back a century or so ago, there wasn’t a town here, just a small crossroad station in the middle of nowhere. Trains pulled in for refueling and picking up passengers. The flagman stationed here had the job of signaling to make sure two trains didn’t try to come in at the same time.”

“And something happened?”

Sam laughed. “Yeah, something happened. The flagman was so busy making his moves on a waiting passenger, he messed up. And the trains collided.”

Kayla gasped. “Were there many hurt?”

“No one, fortunately. The first train was slowed to a crawl getting ready to pick up passengers, and the second was a freighter with only the crew aboard.”

“The flagman got off lucky.”

“Real lucky.”

At the amusement in his tone, she looked at him.

“As it turned out,” he explained, “the man up and married the lady he’d been sweet-talking.”

She shook her head in disgust. “Well, that was a lot more than he deserved.”

“You could be right. The woman came from money and he was just a down-and-out bum until he got the job with the railroad.” He tilted his head, and she could see his eyes twinkling beneath the brim of his hat, but he didn’t say anything else.

Her heart thumped. Not only were they having a normal, peaceful conversation, Sam was teasing her, almost flirting with her.

“All right,” she said after they had walked several yards down the street and he still said nothing. “I give up. What’s the punch line?”

He grinned. “Those were my great-grandparents. They wound up settling here and, after a few others came along to join them, the town was incorporated. They named it and the main street from their story. You might say I have a vested interest in the place.”

Or I might say you come from a long line of bums.

What would that do to their nice conversation?

The story of his family history made Kayla recall what Ellamae had said about Sam’s “teenager ways.” Something she would have to look into at a later date—and let Matt know. Maybe Sam had inherited the flagman’s incompetence as well as his genes.