Page 51 of Cowboy Stole My Heart
Mia visibly paled, and he wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. Usually he would have, but then usually he wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.
“Sam,” she said, setting her spoon down and splaying her hands on the counter in front of her. “I’m not trying to put a label on you. I’m just saying that I can see how horses could help with any sort of trauma.”
Once again, he’d been too quick to jump to conclusions where his past was concerned.
“Sorry. Sore spot and all,” he mumbled, sipping again. “Some of the guys were affected pretty bad, but mine was more struggling to fit in when I got back. I didn’t feel like I had a purpose, I guess.”
“So tell me about the horse that tamed you?” she teased. “Or was it the other way around?”
He grinned, liking how easy she was to talk to and how quickly she’d turned the conversation around—again. “You know, I’m pretty careful with my temper now, but I came home kind of bent out of sorts. The smallest thing would set me off, and I was angry a lot of the time. But the second I set foot into the round pen with a horse?” He returned the smile she was giving him, knowing he was talking to someone who knew exactly what it felt like to be around horses and get that buzz from them. “Everything else just melted away. I’d turn into this calm guy and nothing rattled me in there. I’ve lost my cool a lot inmy life, been in more fights than I can count, but I’ve never lost my cool with a horse. Something about them just brings out the best in me, I guess. It always has.”
“And something about you,” she said in a husky voice, her eyes dancing over his before pulling away, “brings out the best in every horse.”
“I guess it’s true what they say, that animals see through to the man beneath whatever façade is in place,” he said. “Or woman,” Sam corrected.
“I believe that,” she said, smiling over at him. Something about her gaze settled him, pulled him back and made him feel more comfortable about opening up to her. There was something about the way she looked at him, the way she spoke, that told him she understood. Or perhaps it was that she didn’t look at him with pity because she understood horses and the power they could have over a person.
“Anyway, how did you end up being a show jumper?” he asked, wanting to talk about her before he got pulled too far back into his past. Those months after he’d returned, they were part blur, part nightmare for him; in any case he’d done his best to block them out. “You know, I remember a really cute little girl, in a pretty little dress, arriving in her daddy’s big car at the King ranch looking like a real little lady.”
He took a pull of beer, the corner of his mouth rising as he saw the look on her face. It was half-scowl, half disbelief. She planted her hands on the counter and stared at him.
“Me? You remember me there?” she asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah, I remember you looking like that for all of five minutes, before seeing you sneak down tothe horses and come back filthy dirty hours later. But you had a great big grin on your face that made me think it was probably worth getting into trouble for.”
She laughed, her cheeks flushing at the memory. He liked seeing her like that, barefoot, smiling in her kitchen, swilling a beer and being so natural. So many of the women he spent time with lately seemed so fake, but then at least it was obvious what they wanted and what they were after. He’d fallen for the woman who seemed like perfect wife material before. He grimaced, staring down at his half-empty bottle.Look where that had got him.
“My dad had high hopes for me that involved a corporate career, not a life of being filthy dirty and riding horses.”
“Yeah? Well, I can’t see you donning a suit and heading off to an air-conditioned office every day,” he declared. He’d shudder at the thought himself.
“Funny, my father thinks the exact opposite. He keeps telling me that I don’t know what I’m missing out on, or at least he did until we had a big fight about it before my last trip to Europe to ride on the show jumping circuit over there. It hasn’t come up again.” Her words sounded wistful, and when she turned back to her cooking, he took up his spot at the counter again, watching as she moved about and checked the sauce, tasting it off the spoon and smiling to herself as if she didn’t even realize he was watching. Maybe she didn’t. It was one of the things he liked about her, that she seemed to have no idea how attractive she was. “He already has two of his offspring working in corporate life, so it’s not like that’s the problem. Cody and Angelina will be happy to take over the reins of the family business one day.”
“It’s hard being the black sheep of the family,” he said,rolling his beer bottle between his palms as she tipped out the pasta and steam billowed between them.
“I don’t know if I’m the black one, so much as dark grey,” she said, making them both laugh. “My brother Tanner, the one you met today, I think he’s the black one. Our older siblings perform diligently for daddy, but the bull riding youngest son and another daughter wasting her time riding horses? Not exactly living up to the family name.”
Sam watched as she put the spaghetti into bowls and then poured the tomato sauce on top it.
“Yeah, well, having a kid who’s the top of her sport? That’s something I’d be damn proud of if I was a dad,” he said honestly. “It’s bullshit to pretend that a corporate job is somehow better than doing what you love every day. I’d put money on it that he’s damn proud of you, you just probably surprised him by not following the path he’d always envisaged for you.”
“And with that,” she said with a grin, “dinner is served.”
Sam rose and reached for his plate, hand closing over hers as she went to pick it up at the same time. Mia looked up at him, smiling and wide eyed.
“I’ll carry them,” he said.
She gulped, the movement in her throat impossible to miss at such close range. Everything had changed between them in an instant, the touch of her skin reminding him exactly how soft and warm she’d been against him in bed.
“I thought we could eat outside,” she said, still not moving. “Unless you’re scared of getting eaten alive by bugs.”
“There’s not much that scares me,” he said, taking the plate and gesturing for her to walk out ahead of him.Except getting too close to a woman.
