Page 50 of Cowboy Stole My Heart
She lifted the bottle and took a long, slow sip. “Somebody distracted me,” she said. “Seems I was in such a hurry to get back here that I forgot to go get the meat.” It had actually been her sister on the phone distracting her from that particular task, but she kept that fact to herself.
Sam touched her shoulder, a gentle, sweet gesture that rattled her more than any sexual innuendo would have. His smile was… hard to read. It was genuine and it was warm,but she wasn’t sure what it meant or if it was supposed to mean anything at all.
“So what’re we eating then?” he asked, hand dropping from her skin.
She sipped her beer again, liking it. He’d been right that she wasn’t usually a beer kind of girl, unless it was a burning hot day and she was poolside or something, but she was liking it now. “Pasta and homemade tomato sauce,” she said, putting the bottle down and getting out what she needed. “It’s good, I promise.”
She filled a pot of water from the tap on the back-splash and added some salt. When she turned, Sam was leaning into the counter, propped up on his elbows, beer in his hands.
“Homemade by your housekeeper up at the main house?” he asked, smile kicking out his mouth before he took a pull of beer. “The woman who answers the door?”
“Screw you,” she muttered. “I had to fill an entire pot full of tomatoes to make this one jar,” she told him. “It took me three hours of slow cooking to reduce it to this delicious sauce, but if you’d rather go up to the main house and see what my father’shousekeeperis making for dinner, then by all means, go for it. He’ll probably enjoy the company.”
Sam winked and she could have killed him. “Nah, I think I’ll stay put. It’s kind of fun watching you.”
She shot him a look that was supposed to be fierce, but from the way he was staring back at her, he didn’t exactly look scared.
“So, tell me something I don’t know about you,” she said.
When he didn’t reply she looked up at him. His face had changed, the set of his mouth different, his jaw tighter.
“Like what?” he grunted.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Like maybe how you got into training horses. Is that what you’ve always done?”
Mia emptied out the sauce to heat it, glancing up at Sam. He was staring down at his beer, using his thumbnail to work at the label. She set the jar down. “Did I say something wrong?” She wasn’t sure what, but something had changed the mood between them from light banter to something darker. “Sam?” she said after he still hadn’t said anything.
When he finally looked up, his smile was forced. “I was a soldier.”
***
Sam saw the look of surprise as it passed over Mia’s face. Man, it seemed like a lifetime ago that he was serving, but he hadn’t wanted to lie to her. What was the point? It was part of his past, something he was damn proud of doing, but he just didn’t like to talk about it. Besides, it wasn’t who he was now.
“You were asoldier?”
“Yeah, I was.” He downed the rest of his beer, needing to drain the entire bottle after telling her. “But it was a long time ago, and I’ve been working horses pretty much ever since.”
She put the sauce on, and tipped the fresh spaghetti into the now boiling water. He watched as she took a wooden spoon out of a drawer to stir the sauce with.
“Were you deployed?” she asked, her voice low, as if she wasn’t sure about asking him the details.
“Yeah. Iraq.” Sam stood and went to get another beer from the fridge. He glanced over at her. “You want another?”
“Ah, no, I’m good. Thanks.”
Sam opened it, went to sit back down but kept walking instead. He moved across the room, looked at her sofa and her trinkets, noticed how many lamps she had and decided to flick them on for her. It was almost completely dark outside now and the lamps cast a warm glow across the living room.
He stopped when he reached the massive glass doors that led out to her patio and pool. It was a small house, but it packed a big punch. The outside was beautiful, and with so much glass around the house, it was like being part of the ranch no matter what room you were in or where you looked out from.
“How did you end up going from soldier to horseman then?” she asked, her voice pulling him from his thoughts and making him turn back to the kitchen. “And why haven’t any of the Google hits I’ve found on you mentioned your past?”
Sam relaxed, the tension falling away from his shoulders, unclenching his fists and letting it go. He liked her even more now. She’d seen how uncomfortable he was, maybe she’d felt it, and she’d moved past the thing he didn’t want to talk about. Talking about his horse skills was safe ground. Iraq was not.
“I was pretty fucked up when I got home, and I moved in with Nate for a bit,” Sam said, slowly walking back across to Mia. It helped that she was only looking at him every now and again as she finished getting their meal ready; having those aqua eyes fixed on him and showing him pity would have gotten under his skin. He hated pity, and he would have especially hated it from her. “I’d spent half my childhood on that ranch, learned to ride there and had fun, but I wasn’t myself when I got back. The only thing that chilled me out was being out with the horses.”
“I’ve read a lot about how horses can help children with their…” she paused and he waited for it, wondering what she was about to say, “problems. I guess I never really thought about how it could help soldiers with their PTSD.”
Sam gulped, his mouth as dry as the desert. He tried not to squeeze the beer bottle too tight. “I don’t have PTSD.”
