Goddess Rising (50 page)

“Give me one sec, Ry,” Sam told her little brother. “Be right back.”

“What songs do you know?” Ry asked Wes excitedly as Sam went to follow her father into the house.

Sam greeted the people she knew with nods and smiles before slipping past, finding her father in the library, putting one of his well-worn acoustics into a guitar case. Robert looked up as he heard her shut the door behind her.

“Alright, what’s going on?” Sam asked, coming right out with it.

“What’s going on with what?” Robert replied casually, snapping the case closed.

Sam crossed her arms, leaning back on the door. “I don’t know what you’ve got planned, but I am absolutely certain you’ve got something up your sleeve, Dad.”

“Why on earth would you say that?” His calm, level glance told her everything she needed to know.

“You’ve been awfully nice to Wes for one, and I know what you look like when you’re holding one good hand for another,” Sam pointed out. “We’ve played too much poker for me not to recognize that look in your eyes. You’ve got something cooking, and I’m not sure what it is, Dad, but you’d better not be thinking of ways to get between me and Wes,” she warned.

Her father leaned against the credenza he had the guitar case on, a bemused expression on his face. “What makes you think I’d get in the way of young love, Sammy?”

Sam cocked her head. “You haven’t given me any flack about Wes or the Challenge since I got here, and that’s just not like you.”

Robert crossed his arms. A sure defensive tell, from what she’d been reading about body language in the Reid Technique. “You won’t like what I have to say, so why bother asking?”

“If I didn’t talk to you just because I didn’t like what you had to say, we’d never talk at all, Dad.”

“Touché.”

“Just calling it like I see it.”

Robert considered her. “How serious are you about this boy?”

I love him like crazy.
But Sam strongly suspected admitting that particular fact would be showing a vulnerability she wasn’t willing to expose. What she had with Wes was new and tender, and Sam wanted to protect it for as long as she could.

“I’m not planning to marry him, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she told him.

A brief look of relief flashed across her father’s face.

“Jeez, Dad—
I’m nineteen
!” Sam exclaimed. “I’ve got my whole life ahead of me!”

“Good,” her father nodded. “I’m glad you recognize that this is just your
first
relationship.”

“I know that.”
It just doesn’t feel like it—it feels like everything.

“And I want you to enjoy it, but I don’t want this relationship to limit your possibilities,” her father continued, expression serious. “Nothing’s sweeter than your first love when it’s early on, Sammy, but I won’t lie and tell you I’m worried you won’t be as focused now that Wes is around.”

Sam sighed, pushing back her cowboy hat. “Dad, has it occurred to you that Wes and I might be good for each other?”

Robert handed her the guitar. “I sure hope that’s the case, Sammy, but wishing doesn’t make it so.”

Sam accepted the guitar case and turned to go. She got her hand on the door before she turned back around, frustration getting the best of her.

“Why don’t you ever trust me to make the right decisions?” she asked, frustration making her face hot.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Robert replied smoothly. “As your father, it’s my job to guide you.”

“Oh, really?” Sam smarted. “Then where the hell were you when I was little and grieving over my mama and trying to take care of Ryland? And where were you when granddaddy died and Aunt Hannah and Uncle Grant had to stay in this house to make sure we were alright?”

“I took care of you in my own way—”

“
With money?”
Sam answered, her voice rising. “You think
your money
is what we wanted?”

“You’ve never wanted for anything a day in your life, Samantha—”

“I wanted for
my dad
,” she retorted angrily, years of suppressed emotion making her temper flare. “I wanted you to be there to take care of me and Ryland. I wanted you to tell me it was going to be alright, even if you didn’t think it was, and I sure as hell wanted you to spend more time with us than you did with a bottle or the business.”

Robert stood up, tall and stiff. “I love you and your brother more than anything in this world. That’s why I spent so much time with the business.
To provide for you
—”

“But that’s not what we needed, Dad,” Sam interrupted. “What we needed was a daddy, and what we got was a father who was either drunk or distant or busy or gone!”

Robert stared at her stonily, his mouth a thin, hard line. “I’ve always taken care of you. In my own way.”

“Yeah, I suppose you have,” Sam agreed, surprising him. “You taught me how to stand on my own two feet long before I was ready. I learned how to take care of myself and to take care of Ryland, before you cleaned up your act and came back into the picture,” she bristled. “So if you don’t like the decisions I make, and how I choose to run my life, then I’m sorry about that, Dad—but now you’ll just have to deal with the consequences of raising an independent woman.”

And with that, Sam opened the study door and walked back outside to join the little brother she’d helped raise—and the guy she loved.

To hell with her father.

October—Saturday Morning

Wyatt Ranch, Texas

W E S L E Y

W
es awoke at
the crack of dawn, searching sleepily for Sam’s warm skin under the quilts. He opened his eyes when he didn’t find her, sitting up slowly as he rubbed his eyes. The sun rose over the horizon outside his window, the soft lavender and yellow rays illuminating the gardens surrounding the guest house.

Bereft, Wes ran a hand over his face. In the brief time they’d been together, he’d spent nearly every night with her, waking up to the warm curve of her body, her scent on the sheets, silky hair spread across the pillow. He’d become so accustomed to being with her all the time, it felt disconcerting now to wake up without her. Wes shook his head, pushing the covers back as he stood and stretched. Had anyone told him a couple months ago that he’d feel like this about one person, he’d have laughed aloud at the notion.

As he showered and shaved, Wes wondered briefly if Sam was alright, recalling how she’d smoothed her troubled expression when she came out of the house with her father’s guitar the evening before. She’d put on a good show for Ry and Carey, teasing and entertaining them, helping her Uncle Grant pass out the s’mores while Wes sang and played. But Wes caught her moments of pensiveness, attuned to her troubled vibe. He also noticed how she and Robert tacitly avoided each other for the rest of the night, each playing their roles while they stayed in their own corners.

Wes had held and kissed her before they parted for the night. She laughed and ducked as Ry and Carey teased them and made kissy-faces, but he knew something was wrong. And he also knew it wasn’t the time to be bringing anything up—not in front of a couple dozen kids all hopped up on sugar and excitement, camping in sleeping bags under tarpaulin tents.

Wes stepped out onto the porch of the guesthouse, looping his camera strap over the collar of his flannel shirt before crossing the garden path to take some photos, making the most of the morning light. Heavy dew wet his boots as Wes approached the main house, and he pulled up in surprise when he caught sight of Samantha sitting on the porch swing by herself, nursing a cup of coffee. She had her hair in a loose braid, wearing a thick sweater over her pajamas, one leg tucked up under her as she sipped from her mug, watching the sun light up the expansive Texas sky—all cerulean hues and golden plains. Wes snapped off a couple pictures of her before she noticed him.

“Morning,” she said with a soft smile, and Wes could feel his heart expand as he strode toward her. He kissed her mouth before taking his seat beside her, slipping an arm behind her back so he could gather her closer. She curved into him like she’d been molded to fit there, soft and sweet as a kitten. Wes lifted her coffee cup to his mouth, took a couple hot, delicious gulps.

“I missed waking up to you,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her temple as he handed back her mug. “Hardly slept a wink, looking for you under the covers all night.”

Sam smiled. “That why you’re up so early?”

“You’ve unwittingly trained me to get up at the ass crack of dawn,” Wes joked as he looked across the fields. “You and your six-a.m. runs.”

“I don’t think lying in bed and watching me lace up my running shoes qualifies as getting up, Wes,” she replied with a little chuckle.

“Yeah, well, getting an eyeful of your cute ass in running shorts is a new habit of mine,” he answered with a wink. “Second best way to wake up.”

She glanced at him. “And the first?”

“Inside you,” he whispered into her ear, making her blush.

Wes loved that about her. His fierce little muse and utterly brave goddess still blushed like crazy at the mere mention of anything remotely naughty. He couldn’t resist squeezing her closer as they listened to the morning birdsong and the roosters crowing in the distance. But she was troubled with something on her mind. He could still sense it, like the night before.

“You remember when I saw you at Fargo’s after you had dinner with your daddy and Ry?” he asked her, swinging gently on the porch swing.

“You mean the night you stalked me and pretended to be picking up dinner for Chris?” she teased.

“Well, yeah—that too,” Wes replied with a little smile. “I told you I was a good listener that night. Remember?”

Sam nodded once. “I remember.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, darlin’, but whatever it is, you know you can tell me, right?” Wes murmured, pressing a kiss to her hair.

She was silent for a while. “Guess I’m not used to leaning against people,” she finally admitted, fingers tightening around her coffee mug.

“Did you get into a fight with your father?” he asked.

“No more than usual, I guess,” she said, frowning. “How’d you know?”

“You could cut the tension between the two of you with a butter knife, darlin’,” Wes observed, knowing he was the culprit. No way in hell Robert was going to take Sam dating him lying down. It wasn’t in the man’s nature. And perhaps it was a little in Wes’s nature to goad him by showing up right under his nose, especially after he’d lost the last round when he signed the non-disclosure agreement. Wes wondered fleetingly if he’d ever get the courage to tell Samantha about it.

“It’s a constant catch-22 with Dad,” Sam admitted finally. “He raised me tough—never treated me any different, never coddled me. He made sure I wasn’t given breaks anywhere just because I was a girl, but he also made sure I never looked at being a woman as a weakness either. He used to say to me, ‘Don’t ever let other people or circumstance tell you how to live your life. You make your own choices. You create your own destiny.’”

“So I guess now he sees you making your own choices, and he doesn’t like them all, does he?” Wes murmured in understanding. “First the Ranger Challenge, then me.”

“It’s more than that,” she replied with a sigh. “I was supposed to go to Harvard. I was supposed to go into the Navy ROTC. I was supposed to major in business.” Sam shook her head. “It’s not that any of those would have been bad things—they just weren’t my call. And if there’s anything I hate—”

“It’s being told what to do,” Wes finished for her with a knowing look. “We seem to have that in common,” he added. “You want to make a name for yourself, Sammy. I can understand that.”

“But Dad acts like I’m deliberately making choices to thwart him, and I guess a part of me cottons to that, but the truth is, I’m just trying to figure it out for myself. I don’t want to fight against him for a right he taught me to take advantage of from the beginning.” She sighed, clearly frustrated as she let her head drop back on his shoulder.

Robert Wyatt was mean, cunning, and hard-headed. Wes knew firsthand, though there was no way he was telling her that, especially not now. But he hated to see her messed up over this, so he told her what he also knew to be true, trying to help her find a path she could at least straddle in the time they had left at the ranch.

“Sammy, your daddy may be tougher than a nickel steak and just about as fun to chew, but truth is, he loves you like crazy, even if he doesn’t always show it the right way,” Wes told her. “I’d give anything to have a daddy who cared enough to argue with me for my own sake, but we get what we get in life. And maybe he was a shitty father to you, but it seems like he’s trying a helluva lot harder with Ryland.”

Sam released another sigh. “He is,” she acknowledged. “He’s a better parent to Ry than he ever was to me, I’ll give him that.”

“Darlin’, you two won’t always agree. And maybe it’s better that way,” Wes told her. “It forces you both to take into account different perspectives.”

Sam leaned back, looking at him with a bemused expression. “Are you actually
defending
my dad?”