She knows I won’t deny her. It’s so rare they’re home, that when they are, there isn’t much I won’t do for them.
I stand up and kiss her on the head, as she had done to me. “Sure, mom, I’ll ask. Just for you.”
“You’re a good girl, Niahm,” she says as I walk out the door.
As I near the stable, I can hear my father talking. Not so unusual, for him to talk to himself, or Bob. I hear a familiar voice respond and pick up my pace. As I round the corner, my fears are realized as I see my father standing in conversation with Sam.
I’m surprised to see Sam here so early, especially after his strange behavior the day before. He seems happy this morning, his anxiety gone. He glances up at me and smiles, his smile open, but behind it just a tinge of the wariness resides.
“Hey, Sam, Dad, what’re you two up to?” I ask, rubbing Bob who bounds over, excited, as if he hadn’t just left my room thirty minutes ago.
“Well, there’s my princess,” my dad says, pulling me into a one-armed hug as he ruffles my hair. I groan—it’s bad enough that he calls me that in front of Sam, but his ruffling of my hair recalls to my mind that I haven’t even brushed it, let alone put a spot of make-up on. I guess I should at least be grateful that I brushed my teeth.
“Your dad was just telling me about his experiences, photographing other countries,” Sam says, trying to hold back a grin at my obvious discomfort.
“Dad,” I whine mockingly, “if you keep boring my friends with your stories, they are going to quit coming around. I’ve told you this.”
He laughs at me, knowing I’m only teasing, dropping a kiss on top of my head.
“All right, I’ve got some photographs to develop. You kids have fun.” I roll my eyes affectionately as he walks away. My dad is a complete dork. Who else would still use film rather than digital? He claims the photos lose something when pixilated.
“Nice guy,” Sam says as my father leaves the stable.
“Yeah, he is,” I agree. “I hope he wasn’t boring you, though.”
“No, his stories are actually quite fascinating.”
“Uhm,” I grunt noncommittally. My father’s stories stopped being fascinating to me long ago, but I guess they would be new to Sam.
“So, is that what I am, now?” he asks, looking at me slantwise, “Your friend?”
I glance away, thinking of my thoughtlessly spoken words. I shrug, and decide to change the subject.
“You seem better this morning. You were a little freaked out yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah, that.” He looks uncomfortable. “That was….” He trails off then looks at me. “I can’t really explain that.”
He waits for my response, but I don’t know what to say. It was definitely weird, but I guess everyone is entitled to their strange quirks. Instead of answering, I walk over to Sheila’s stall. She comes to greet me, knowing I’ll have an apple for her.
“Let’s go for a ride,” Sam says behind me, “on the horses.”
I look at Sheila longingly for a moment, before turning back to Sam.
“I wish I could, but there’s work to be done. If I don’t do it, who will?”
He glances toward the open door that my father just exited from, but doesn’t say anything. Good thing; I don’t deal well with criticism of my parents.
“You can’t take a break for a couple hours, have some fun?” he asks, instead.
“It’s not like I never have fun,” I defend. “It’s just that there’re things that need to be done.”
“I’ll help you, as soon as we get back.”
“You don’t understand, Sam. After I clean Sheila’s stall—”
“Done,” he interrupts.
“What?”
“That’s what your dad was doing when I got here.”
I glance toward Sheila’s stall, surprised I missed that when I looked in before.
“Huh,” I say. Brilliant, right? “Well, I’ve gotta milk Bessie and—”
“Wait, your cows name is Bessie?” Sam scoffs.
I narrow my eyes at him. “So?”
He bites back a laugh, “So nothing.”
I shoot him my best dirty look, and continue. “I’ve gotta clean out the chicken coop, change the litter boxes, check my ducks and make sure they’re doing okay, tend the garden, and start the apple picking—”
“Is that a normal Saturday for you?” Sam’s stunned.
I shrug. “A little hard work never hurt anyone.”
“Niahm, you’re seventeen. A child. You should hardly be expected to run an entire ranch by yourself.”
Of course, my anger rises.
“I’m not a child!” I explode, sounding very much like a petulant child, completing the illusion with my hands on hips. “And I’ve been running my farm since I was thirteen years old.”
“Why don’t you hire some help?” Sam questions, remaining calm in the face of my temper. I refuse to admit that my parents have tried to hire help multiple times, but it’s become a matter of pride to run the place myself. I keep my lips clamped, not wanting to admit my stubbornness.
“Look, just come for an hour. We can run the fence lines, check them over.” I’m about to argue; we don’t really have any animals to be kept penned in, but then he makes an offer. “When we get back, I’ll help you with whatever you need.”
I glance at him. “Anything?”
“Anything,” he confirms, “for the rest of the day.”
I narrow my eyes at him, “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’d really like to go for a ride, and I don’t want to go alone.” When I continue to look at him suspiciously, he grins. “And I have nothing better to do all day. What do you do for fun around here?” His city-slicker-ness is definitely showing. People who haven’t been raised in small towns don’t understand small towns.
“You can go to the movie,” I say.
“It’s been out on DVD for, like, six months,” he counters.
“Bowling,” I offer.
“There’re only four lanes, and they have their league play today.”
I’m impressed by his knowledge of that so quickly.
“Ma & Pa’s Diner,” I offer, starting to smile at him.
“All day in a diner?”
“You could hang out with old man Jones in front of the store.” He grimaces at the suggestion, and I relent with a laugh. “Or you could go for a horseback ride.”
“Ah-ha!” He grins. “That sounds like a fantastic idea. Now, if I only had someone to come along…”
I shake my head at him. “Fine, I’ll come, but you’re going to be sorry when you see how much work I manage to put you to.”
He rocks forward onto the balls of his feet. “Do your worst,” he teases.
Chapter 13
Sam
Niahm leads Sheila from a trot into a canter, taking the gait in her hips as any experienced rider would. Her upper body remains still, elegant in the saddle. With a gentle nudge of her calves, she urges Sheila into a run. Leaning slightly forward, she relaxes, a small smile playing across her mouth as we gallop across the fields, the cool air flooding her cheeks and nose with a charming shade of pink. I can’t take my eyes off the grace with which she rides. She seems to understand instinctively when Sheila begins to tire, and brings her back down to a canter. She pulls up and stops after twenty minutes, near a stand of trees and the creek which runs across their property. We swing down off our horses and lead them to the cool, clear water.
“Having fun?” I ask.
She grins at me as she loops Sheila’s reins over a low tree branch.
“A little,” she says, walking back to the stream where she drops to the green, grassy ground with a sigh of pleasure. I hurriedly tie Autumn Star off as well and join her. “There isn’t anything quite like it, is there?” she asks. “It’s so peaceful, almost quiet with the power of a horse beneath you. For a few minutes, anyway, you can forget about the world.” The contented expression on her face
speaks volumes, and not for the first time I wonder why a girl of seventeen needs an activity to take away worldly cares.
“How often do you take the time to do something just for you?” I expect her to bristle at the question as she does anytime someone questions her vision of her perfect life.
“Probably not often enough,” she surprises me by admitting. “But I can’t really complain, can I?”
“Why not?” I ask, genuinely curious why she would think that.
“Because I chose this life. I chose to stay home rather than globetrot with my parents. I chose to run things alone.” She pauses. “I chose to not ask my parents to stay home with me.”
I can hear the pain that laces her voice at the last admission. “Would they?” She glances at me. “I mean, if you asked, would they stay?”
She’s silent for long moments, staring at the water that meanders by. “Of course they would,” she mumbles. The doubt is clear in her tone.
“You do have some fun,” I offer, changing the subject. She glances up at me, and I’m struck once again by her eyes. “You have been known to take a ride on your ATV and eat a mouthful of dirt.”
She narrows her eyes at me, then bursts out laughing. “I can’t believe you still speak to me after I nearly spit on you.”
“Well, it wasn’t so much the spit as the cookie grenades that were the low point of that day.”
She looked chagrinned. “I’m sorry about that. It was a bit of an overreaction.”
“And a waste of some really good cookies,” I add.
“I’ll make it up to you,” she offers. “I’ll bake you some cookies. They won’t be as good, but….”
“How about a pie?” I venture, looking at her slantwise.
She narrows her eyes at me again, and her mouth tightens slightly.
“Kidding,” I laugh, holding my hands up in surrender.
“Not funny,” she mutters.
“No? Not even a little?” I bump her shoulder with mine; see the corner of her mouth lift. She pushes my shoulder with her hand, and I tumble away, as if she’d really pushed hard.
She laughs one quick laugh, then smothers it with her hand, though her shining eyes give her humor away. “You’re so not cute,” she laughs behind her hand.
I sigh dramatically. “I know. It’s this dang red hair, everyone hates it—”
“Who?” she demands, almost angrily. “Has someone said something? They’re wrong, Sam. Your hair is beautifu—” she stops abruptly, turning back toward the stream.
I crawl back over next to her. “I knew you thought I was cute,” I tease and she smiles, cheeks pink. “I’ll make a deal with you,” I say, and she turns to me with curiosity, her embarrassment forgotten. “If I work really hard with you today, and don’t make you angry once, you come with me next weekend, to dinner and a movie.”
One corner of her mouth lifts wryly. “You mean the movie that’s been on DVD for six months and the diner?”
“Nope,” I say, pulling a blade of grass near my feet, splitting it with my thumbnail. “A real movie, and dinner at a real restaurant, in the city.”
I look up to see her staring at me, stunned. “You mean, like, a date?”
I huff out a laugh. “You make it sound like I’m offering a disease.”
“No, it’s not… it’s just… uh…”
“The correct answer,” I tease, picking up her hand, ignoring the spark of energy that arcs toward me, placing the flimsy bracelet I’ve weaved from the blades of grass around her wrist, “is, ‘Yes, Sam, I would love to go with you to the city to see a movie that no one else has seen, and to eat a dinner cooked by someone besides myself. Thanks for asking.’”
She looks down at the bracelet, pulling her hand away from mine before I can get a read on anything more than a jumble of confusion, fingering it lightly. “This is your idea of a bribe?” she asks, then looks up and I see the teasing glint in her eyes.
“There’s more where that came from,” I say, sweeping my hands around, indicating the field peppered with grass and weeds. “And the color looks great on you.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she says, a small smile playing across her lips.
“Will it get me a date for next weekend, at least?”
“No,” she says firmly, hopping up onto her feet. “But it will get you a friend to go with you—dutch.”
I grin as I stand and follow her back to the horses.
Chapter 14
Niahm
Of course, I regretted telling Sam I’d go with him as soon as we arrived back at the house. No matter how much crappy work I gave him, no matter how hard I pushed him, he worked without complaining, without doing anything I could get mad at him for, making it that much harder to come up with an excuse to get out of it. He even talked to my parents, making sure it was okay if he took me, since it’s an hour ride each way.
This is how I find myself sitting next to Sam in his truck, one week later, as we make the hour long drive. I guess there are worse things than a night in the city, seeing a real movie, sitting next to a tall, red-headed Adonis.
We stop at an Italian restaurant, which is not the nicest restaurant I’ve ever eaten at—that would be when we were the guests of a Sheik in Saudi Arabia when I was about ten or so—but it is leaps and bounds above Goshen’s diner. The cloth napkins and Italian décor—complete with Italian opera playing—give the place a nice ambiance, a feel of luxury. They seat us smack in the middle of the room, as if on display. I look around at the other tables, mostly occupied by couples but with a few groups or families here and there.
“See that couple over there?” I ask him, pointing. The couple looks to be in their mid-forties, overweight and frazzled, and not speaking, let alone looking at one another. “They have eight kids, and this is their first night out without them. They’re so exhausted they can’t even muster the energy for a conversation.”
It’s a game I used to play with my parents when we traveled, making up stories about the people we saw. It doesn’t really work in Goshen as I know pretty much everything about everyone.
Sam chuckles and says, “Not just exhausted, but it’s been so long since they’ve spoken adult talk, they no longer know how.” I laugh, glad that he caught on so quickly. “And there,” he continues, pointing to a young couple, she texting madly on her phone while he appears utterly bored. “First date, she won’t get off her phone, he’s ticked that he has to pay for her dinner.”
“Hi there, I’m Sauna, can I get you guys something to drink?” our server interrupts our laughter. Sam raises his brows at me as she gives her name, and I have to bite my lip. We order our drinks, and as she walks away, Sam says, “Did she really say her name is Sauna?” He gives me a huge, over-dramatic wink. “That’s hot.”
I groan, “Bad joke, Sam Coleman. Besides, I am the last person in the world to mock someone’s name.”
After she returns with our drinks and takes our order, Sam says, “Okay, what do you make of that?”
I follow where he’s pointing to see a teenage couple sitting in a cove. Nothing unusual in that—if you discount that she’s completely Goth and he’s a complete nerd.
“Hmmm,” I try to imagine what would pull such a couple together. “Someone dared him to ask her out, and she’s too nice to say no?”
Sam grimaces at me. “Doubtful as far as her, I’d say, though I can buy someone daring him to ask her out. She’s out with him because someone either bribed her, or made a bet with her that she wouldn’t do it.”
I watch as the couple leans toward one another, almost subconsciously.
“She likes him,” Sam states, also watching them. “See how she leans toward him? She likes him, and she hates that.”
I can’t argue with that logic, since their body language seems to support his theory. I turn to another table. “See that group over there? They are on a double date, but the girl on the left side of the table really likes the guy on the right side, not the date she??
?s with.”
Sam’s attention is drawn back to the game, away from the odd couple, and after we’ve made up stories about everyone in the vicinity, and when our food has been served, I ask Sam about himself.
“So, what’s your story, Sam? Where did you and your uncle live before now?”
It may be my imagination, but Sam suddenly looks uncomfortable.
“New York,” is his short, hesitant answer.
“Why in the world would you move from New York to Goshen? That seems like… a colossal change.”
Sam clears his throat, suddenly interested in the dew collecting on the side of his glass. “Shane was… tired… of the city, I guess. Wanted to move somewhere small.”
“Well, he certainly accomplished that,” I laugh, wondering at his strange behavior. “How do you feel about that? I mean, you must have friends in New York. Wasn’t it hard to leave them?”
He glances up at me under his brow, and gives me a one-sided, wry smile. “It’s different there. There are a lot of people, Niahm. I wasn’t particularly close to anyone who I didn’t want to leave.”
“That’s kind of sad,” I say. “What was your school like there?”
The waitress walks up to the table with our bill. Sam’s attention is diverted while he pays her, completely ignoring my efforts to pay for my own meal.
“We should get going so we’re not late for the movie,” he says, standing and moving to pull my chair out. When I don’t stand, he raises one of his glorious auburn brows at me in question.
“Sam, this isn’t a date, remember? If you pay for me, and pull my chair out, then it becomes a date.”
He leans down, his face near mine, and I’m struck again by his dark green eyes. For the first time, I wonder if he wears colored contacts. “Would that be so bad, Niahm?” he questions, and I forget to breathe for long seconds. He leans back a little, and the spell is broken.