A Small Town Thanksgiving

“When she finally found him,” Sam said glibly, “he was not only Mr. Right, but Mr. Right-Now. They got married and went off to parts unknown.” The last time she’d seen her stepfather or her mother was at their wedding reception. It still hurt her to think about that, but she’d made the best of it.

“They just up and left you?” Mike asked incredulously. The look he spared her this time was longer and he appeared to be more interested than he had before.

Was that compassion she heard in his voice? The idea surprised her. He didn’t strike her as someone who was capable of that sort of a reaction. Maybe she’d misjudged him.

At least she could hope so.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly a baby in a basket that they sent drifting off to sea,” she pointed out with a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I was eighteen and the truth of it was, I’d been on my own pretty much for years. My mother knew I could take care of myself.” And then, of course, she added silently, there’d been Daniel. Daniel, whom she’d always been able to count on and lean on.

Until he wasn’t there anymore and all she had to lean on was herself.

Mike had a feeling she was giving her mother far too much credit. He knew people like her mother. People whose vision was limited to what they saw in their bathroom mirror in the morning. Sam’s mother undoubtedly had a sink-or-swim attitude toward her daughter when she threw her into the deep end of the emotional pool. In either outcome, whether it was sink or swim, the woman’s hands were clean and she was free to just walk away from the responsibility for the human being she had brought into the world eighteen years ago.

Still, just because this woman sitting in his truck had had a hard time of it, that wasn’t a reason he should feel sorry for her or treat her any differently than he treated most people he came across, Mike told himself.

But after a beat, without bothering to look in her direction, he recited the names of his siblings—in birth order. “Eli, Rafe, Gabe, Alma and Ray.”

Talk about coming out of left field. Sam blinked, completely confused. “Excuse me?”

“You wanted names,” he reminded her briskly. “Those are my brothers’ and sister’s names.” Then, because she’d asked for more details, he gave her a little more to go on. “Eli has his own spread, Rafe is looking to have the same. Gabe and Alma work for the sheriff’s office and Ray is still doing odd jobs around the ranch until he decides what to do with the rest of his life.”

“How about you?” she asked. “Have you figured out what you want to do with ‘the rest of your life’?”

He’d figured that out when he was five. “Run the main ranch,” he told her simply.

In his opinion, as the oldest, there had never been any other course for him to take but that one. While it was true that the ranch officially belonged to all of them, someone had to handle the regular, day-to-day decisions that had to be made in order to keep it productive and running smoothly. Right now, that job belonged to his father, but more and more it was falling to him to be in the wings and ready to take over. He did it now for the short haul. Someday, that “haul” would be permanent. He neither resented it nor looked forward to it.

It was just the way it was.

It was his destiny.

Sam could tell by the cowboy’s tone that he meant it. Apparently, he saw the ranch as his responsibility and despite his lack of effusive words, he obviously took that responsibility very seriously.

“No other hidden ambitions?” She couldn’t help wondering.

“Nope,” he answered with just the right amount of conviction to make the denial sound true. “I’m doing what I like. Or at least I will be once I get you delivered to the house,” he amended.

She leaned forward to catch a glimpse of his face as she asked, “Didn’t sign up to drive some woman from back East around, right?”

The shrug was neither dismissive nor self-conscious. “You said it, I didn’t.”

The man probably didn’t realize that his body language gave away his thoughts. “You didn’t have to. Everything about you says you resent being viewed as an errand boy—even if no one actually sees you that way,” she added with emphasis. She certainly didn’t.

“Just what would you know about it?” he asked.

His tone told her that she’d hit closer to home than he was happy about. She’d been studying people all her life. It had been one of her main interests as well as a source of diversion for as far back as she could remember. It cost nothing and brought an education with it.

“I know a little about having a chip on your shoulder,” she countered kindly. “All it succeeds in doing is weigh you down and make you miserable. The sooner you get rid of it, the sooner you can see things in the right perspective.”

Mike could feel his back going up. He didn’t like being analyzed, even by an exceptionally attractive woman. “Looks like my father lucked out and got two for the price of one,” he said sarcastically.

She didn’t allow his tone to put her off. “I’m afraid I don’t understand—”

“He got a ghostwriter and an armchair psychologist. Maybe even a lecturer thrown into the mix,” he added for good measure.

Maybe she had that coming, Sam thought. She was usually better about keeping her opinions to herself. It was the silence that had gotten to her, made her talkative. Had he been a normal person, he would have felt uncomfortable about the silence as well and would have tried to get some sort of conversation going.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to sound like I was lecturing—or psychoanalyzing you,” Sam apologized. “I was just trying to tell you that I’ve been where you are and I know it’s not a comfortable situation.”

Mike turned his head and stared at her for a very long moment.

Granted it was October, but October in this region of Texas was not cold by any means. Still, she could have sworn she felt frost being sent in her direction.

“You mean like now?” he asked her.

Sam wasn’t sure just what the cowboy was getting at, if he was being sarcastic again or if there was some sort of hidden meaning to his question. In any case, she had a feeling that any further discussion on the topic might lead to some sort of an argument and she did not want to begin her stay here with a confrontation with her client’s son. That didn’t bode well for what she hoped to accomplish here.

Winning an argument had never meant all that much to her.

Still, she really didn’t just want to leave the subject hanging there either, so, in an effort to clarify things for herself, she ventured just one more question. “Did you try to talk your father out of hiring someone to work on your relative’s journals for him?” She needed to know just how much he didn’t want her here, although exactly why that was important wasn’t crystal clear to her yet.

Mike shrugged. “I didn’t know he was hiring someone until a few hours ago.”

Maybe his resentment stemmed from being kept in the dark? That would explain his less than friendly attitude.

“You didn’t know he’d hired anyone?” Sam asked.

Mike didn’t know how much more clearly he could say it. “Not until he told me that he needed me to pick you up at the airport.”

“That must have been some surprise.” No wonder the man seemed so disgruntled. She wouldn’t have been thrilled to have this sprung on her either.

Mike laughed then. It was a deep, robust laugh that sounded hearty rather than perfunctory. Sam found herself instantly captivated by the sound.

“I didn’t know you had the gift of understatement,” Mike said to her.

“I don’t know if it’s understatement so much as empathy,” she corrected him, then confessed, “I can put myself into almost anyone’s shoes. It’s a bit confusing to be able to see both sides of an argument.” At times it made her feel ambiguous, unable to back away from one side or the other. “But that does keep me fair,” she added.

“And that’s important to you?” he asked. He congratulated himself that not a shred of curiosity was discernible in his voice—even though he was.

“That is very important to me,” she told him with emphasis. “Being unfair puts us on the same level as soulless creatures who are looking to get the better of anyone remotely threatening.”

Before he could venture a comment, he saw the ranch house coming into view. They’d been on Rodriguez property for a bit now. That was when he realized that they had been traveling for close to an hour.

He supposed he had to grudgingly admit—if only to himself—that the constant droning of a conversation in the background made the time go by faster.

“We’re here,” he announced for her benefit as the ranch house grew steadily closer.

It was obviously the right thing to say—because Sam abruptly stopped talking.