A Rancher's Pride(41)
If only the adults around her could manage even half as well. Or one adult, anyway.
When Kayla signed to Becky, she had begun to notice Sharleen watching. She’d even asked Kayla how to sign a few words.
Only Sam resisted.
Kayla knew she was partly to blame.
She still struggled to find answers to his challenge about deciding what she could believe. And to find a way to make up for her accusation. Even now, she didn’t know what to think—or what to do.
And Sam… Sam didn’t seem to want anything, except to prove his point with the judge.
The thought worried Kayla, filling her with panic and fear.
He’s throwing his barbecue here, she typed, adding in all capital letters, THIS WEEKEND! And the judge is his guest of honor. What am I going to do?
You’ll be fine. You’ll figure something out. Have you heard anything from Matt yet?
No. To her dismay, Sam had turned up clean on the background check Matt had done. She had called him again just the day before, urging him to find something—anything—that would help her case for custody.
He’ll come through for you. You know he will. Hang in there.
Kayla looked at the clock at the bottom of her screen. Her reprieve had ended. Time for dinner—and time to face Sam again.
Sighing, she said goodbye and closed the email program. Talking with Lianne about the day-to-day issues might help, but right now she didn’t have the mental focus even to begin to explain her feelings about Sam. And what could she say, anyhow, when she couldn’t understand them herself?
The recent weeks with Sam had only made things worse. And those moments of tension in the kitchen with him earlier had just about done her in.
They had also finally made her realize the truth.
She’d had an instant reaction to Sam. Oh, not five years ago. The stress and anger had been ratcheted too high for her to even think about him back then. And, of course, then he’d been married. But now that she’d come back to the ranch, there was no getting around her current interest in the man.
One look at him standing in the barn doorway the day she’d rushed here to get Becky had made her freeze in the front seat of her rental car. One look.
Broad shoulders and strong, sturdy hands, jet-black hair and glacier-gray eyes—any one of those things could do it for her every time. She’d never had the pleasure of seeing all those elements wrapped up in one neat package, though. The total effect was staggering.
She shouldn’t let herself notice these things. Not about Becky’s daddy. Not about Ronnie’s ex. But she’d noticed now, and the feelings wouldn’t go away. Worse, they turned traitor, twisting the situation around, filling her mind and heart with questions she couldn’t begin to list in a message to Lianne.
Didn’t want to think, even to herself.
What if she’d never come to Flagman’s Folly that very first time? What if Sam hadn’t had that bad memory of her to cling to? What if he didn’t see her as the enemy, then and now?
But she had come, and he had seen her, and he would hold that against her forever. No sense in dreaming of what-ifs, of a past she couldn’t change, a future she couldn’t hope for.
Sighing, she swiveled her chair sideways, ready to get up from her seat. The front panel of the rolltop desk hadn’t been closed completely. She saw something now she hadn’t taken in before. On the surface of the desk, Sam had left a book. In the space between the desktop and the front panel, she could read enough of the title to know it was a dictionary. Not just any run-of-the mill dictionary. Not one that you’d find on the bookshelves of most homes.
A dictionary of American Sign Language.
Her heart squeezed painfully, for Becky or Sam or herself, she didn’t know.
The sight of that book raised more questions she couldn’t answer. Sharleen had gone in to Flagman’s Folly only on the day of the parade, and she hadn’t entered a store. Sam must have bought the dictionary. Why hadn’t he mentioned it?
He wouldn’t explain, of course. He already considered her nothing but a roadblock in his life. Well, she was about to get in his way a bit more.
That book proved Sam cared about finding a solution to the current situation so awkward for all of them. So heartbreaking for little Becky. The fact that he hadn’t talked about the dictionary also proved he wasn’t sure how to go about things.
Kayla did. If Sam couldn’t reach out to her, she’d just have to reach out to him.