A Rancher's Pride(51)

The road ahead was clear.

He couldn’t help himself, he had to close his eyes for the briefest of moments. Had to try to shut out the sights from that night. The sounds, the smell.

A second later, his eyes shot open again. The blackness behind his lids only made the images more clear, the memories more real, like watching a movie projected on a screen in a darkened theater. Cold sweat ran down his brow.

“You can’t repeat any of this, Kayla. No one knows Porter was there that night.”

“What? How could they not know?” He could hear the bewilderment in her tone.

“The ranch hands were there in no time, but everything was in chaos. Later, Porter said he’d been in the house and run out to do what he could to help.”

“Sam…” She shook her head. “I just don’t understand. Why would you let him get away with that? Why would you take all the blame, when he was right there with you?”

“He begged me to. He’d been in trouble so often his old man had threatened the next time he would ship him off to military school.”

“Maybe that’s what he needed.”

“Maybe. Who knows now?” He sighed. “But back then, it was a big deal, and he was scared as hell his old man would follow through. Back then, we were best friends. He begged me to cover for him, and I did. And you can’t repeat any of this,” he said again. “I gave him my solemn promise no one would ever know. And even seeing the kind of scum he’s turned out to be, I won’t go back on my word.”



KAYLA LOOKED AT THE MANTEL clock. Not yet time for her to start lunch—or dinner, as they called the noon meal here. She sank onto one of the living-room couches with a cushion cradled in her arms.

On the opposite couch, Sam sat with a ledger spread open across his lap and a calculator balanced on one knee. He’d been at it since they’d come home that afternoon, figuring and crumpling up scrap paper and figuring again. Becky knelt on the floor, her coloring book and crayons taking up most of the space on the coffee table.

The two of them wore nearly identical frowns of concentration.

Kayla held back a groan and hugged the pillow more tightly to her.

After the fight between Sam and his neighbor, she had been frantic to get Sam out of there before any more damage was done. She couldn’t blame him for his reaction. She might have done the same herself. Wasn’t she already rushing to Becky’s aid when he had gone running past?

And that creep, Porter, had been manhandling a four-year-old!

Kayla didn’t know which to be more thankful for, the fact that Sam had stood up for Becky, or that he had trusted her with the truth about his next-door neighbor and their past.

Hearing the story about the fire had shown her Sam in a different light, too. Yes, he had done a stupid thing. But he’d paid the price for it, probably in more ways than one. She could see that in his face when he’d talked about the loss of the animals in the barn.

How could she hold either of those episodes against him?

For all those years, he had honored a promise he’d made to a friend—although to a friend who didn’t deserve Sam’s loyalty.

And today, at least he’d been fighting for his daughter, instead of ignoring her as he had done for so long. Nothing else would have even come close to affecting her. But the show of support for Becky forced Kayla to admit the truth.

Both from her own observations lately and from the certainty that had taken root in her, she knew Sam wanted to be a good daddy to his daughter. He just didn’t know how.

Across from her, he tossed a crumpled-up sheet of paper onto the coffee table. Becky laughed and batted it back toward him.

He smiled. The wistfulness of his expression tore at Kayla’s heart.

Becky got to her feet and ran off to the kitchen, where she’d left her dolls.

Kayla looked back at Sam and forced herself to keep her voice steady, her words light. “Having troubles?” she asked, glancing at the wads of paper all around him.

“Yeah. Color problems. Trying to turn red into black.”

Before she could ask what he meant, he leaned forward and picked up one of Becky’s crayons. With a grin, he held his hand out to her, the crayon balanced on his open palm. “How do you say black in sign?”

Kayla drew an invisible line across her forehead with the tip of her index finger. “What did you mean, you’re ‘trying—?’”

“How about red?” He picked up another crayon. “How do you sign that?” He seemed to want to distract her from what he had said.