Desert Dancer (4 page)

Sam wished Jen would hurry. Their meeting place was too crowded with Slocums. Because Dad and Brynna were good neighbors, the entire Slocum family had been invited.

While Linc boomed out folksy expressions, Rachel looked bored and Ryan accepted Nevada-style welcomes.

Most members of the ranch families knew Rachel, Linc's beautiful and snobby daughter, but many were taking their first look at her twin from England, and seemed dazzled by how different Ryan Slocum was from his father.

Sam was watching from the corner of her eye, trying not to stare, when Jen appeared beside her.

“Are you checking this out?” Jen nodded toward Ryan and his audience.

Jen looked pretty in a blue velvet jumper over a silky white turtleneck, but the twist of her lips was even more sarcastic than usual.

“They love it when he tilts his head and gets that serious little frown before saying ‘Reeeally?'” Jen observed. Grudgingly, she added, “He does look way British and sort of cute.”

Sam considered Ryan. “Looks aren't everything,” she said as Linc Slocum guffawed at one of his own jokes. “Think of his bloodlines.”

“He's a guy, not a horse, “Jen said, laughing. Her eyes glowed with thanks and she gave Sam's shoulder a gentle shove. “You are so good at cheering me up.”

“Why do you need cheering up?” Sam asked.

“Some people just don't like weddings.”

Sam's lips parted to ask why, but Jen's expression had changed. Her stare warned against it.

Sam felt chilled by Jen's look. Her best friend had been going through a tough time. Her parents were fighting. There was a chance they might leave Gold Dust Ranch, where Jen's dad was foreman, and move to town.

So Sam just smiled. She didn't want her best friend mad at her. Besides, if she was patient, Jen would explain.

But then Jen elbowed her. Hard.

“Ow! What was that for?” Sam gasped. She steadied her punch cup as it lapped near the edges. “You're just lucky I'm quick, because I really like this dress.”

“Sorry,” Jen said, but she didn't sound sincere. “You can forget watching Ryan,” Jen said, pointing. “The real show is right over there.”

“C
allie?” Sam asked.

“
Calliope
Thurston,” Jen corrected. “A weird name for the weirdest kid in Nevada.”

“She's not that weird. I was just talking with her.” Sam watched the girl with the yellow hair and pierced nose move onto the dance floor.

“Don't you remember that day on the bus when everyone saw you with the Phantom and she implied you were a witch?”

“Sort of,” Sam said. This probably wasn't the best time to bring up Callie's remark about communing with the stallion. Jen already sounded critical.

“How can you forget something like that?” Rachel Slocum stepped between Sam and Jen, inviting herself into their conversation.

Jen's index finger jabbed her glasses up her nose, while Sam shrugged.

“I was talking with her earlier,” Sam repeated,
“and I kind of liked her.”

Rachel fixed Sam with a disbelieving look. “Her parents are hippies.”

Sam refocused on Callie. Before, she hadn't noticed the back of Callie's hair was shaved up her neck. Only the sides were long. And she did have that tiny gold stud in her nose and wore sixties-style clothes. That was unusual for this part of Nevada, but she wouldn't have attracted a single glance in San Francisco.

“They ran a health food store in Darton,” Rachel confided, “until they got run out of town.”

“By the Health Department or something?” Jen asked.

“How can it possibly matter?” Rachel asked, raising one plucked eyebrow.

Sam hoped Jen had heard the echo of her own nasty tone. But Sam's hope was crushed the next time Jen spoke.

“I wonder why you're sticking up for her?” Jen gave Sam a suspicious look.

“I'm not—”

“Did you know Callie's parents let her drop out of school?”

Callie was dancing with a guy Sam vaguely recognized. He was a hand from a local ranch, not a high school student.

Still, Callie had seemed smart while they were talking. She wasn't the type Sam imagined as a
dropout. That did explain how she could be a hairdresser, though.

“She could've gotten sick and started failing classes,” Sam mused. She'd fallen behind a few times, herself, because she was too busy with horses. “And she might have gotten discouraged, trying to catch up. I could see that, but I wonder why her parents let her quit?”

“Who knows why people like that do anything?” Rachel said, shuddering a little.

“It's true,” Jen added. “She dropped out and, according to Clara from the café, she's living on her own in someone's converted garage. And she's only seventeen.”

Jen sounded like a judgmental old woman, Sam thought.

No, wait. It was worse than that. She sounded like Rachel. Sam took a deep breath and bit her bottom lip to keep from saying so. If she wanted to end their friendship forever, all she'd have to do is tell Jen
that.

Abruptly, Jen's focus shifted. Sam followed her glance to Jed and Lila Kenworthy. Jen's parents sat side by side on metal folding chairs. They held cups of punch and forced smiles onto their lips whenever anyone came up to chat, but they didn't talk to each other. The only thing they did together was watch the clock.

Sam noticed Jed's shoulder bump Lila's. Lila
drew her whole body away, as if she'd been burned.

No wonder Jen didn't like weddings.

As Rachel moved off to stand with her twin, Sam thought hard. There must be a way to improve Jen's mood. Before she came up with anything, Sam was interrupted.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Dad said.

Sam looked up. How could Dad look familiar but foreign at the same time? His tanned cowboy face was kind and serious as always, but he stood straighter and taller. The black tuxedo coat and white shirt with little pleats down the front made him look like Dad, undercover.

“I know you're busy with your friends,” Dad apologized. “But I was watching you from across the room and you look so pretty…I figured if I wanted to be the first to dance with you in a long fancy dress, I'd better quit wastin' time.”

Dad swept the crowded reception hall with a glare.

“Guys aren't exactly waiting in line.” Sam giggled.

“Only because I got here first,” Dad told her.

He swept her into a dance. The slow, sweet song was something she almost recognized. At least her ears recognized it. Sam wasn't so sure about her feet.

Dad must have noticed her looking toward her high heels.

“You're doin' fine, honey,” Dad said. “And you
look so grown up and lovely, I just…” Dad's voice trailed off.

He pressed his cheek to the top of her head. As Dad guided her in smooth steps, friends and relatives passed in a colorful whirl and Sam pressed her hand against Dad's back for balance. The crisp black cloth of the tuxedo jacket felt so different from Dad's flannel shirts.

“I'll be home before you know it,” Dad said, but Sam heard a catch in his voice. The little bow he performed as he left her with Jen was so unlike Dad, Sam almost didn't notice how hard his jaw was set as he walked away.

Back toward Brynna, Sam thought a little sadly. But then she saw Brynna dab her eyes with a bride's lace handkerchief. And then Brynna blew Sam a kiss.

“She'll probably be good, as stepmothers go,” Jen admitted. “At least she knows about horses.”

Suddenly, Sam knew how to cheer Jen up again.

“Callie's adopting a mustang,” Sam announced.

“Poor horse,” Jen sneered. “She'll probably have it wearing crystals and love beads instead of a bridle.”

Sam shifted her feet, listening to the rustle of her skirts. She was kind of mad at Jen for being so moody. In fact, she was about to give up on being the world's most determined best friend, when there was clapping and laughter from the other side of the room.

Sam stood on tiptoe, peering past the guests.
“They're cutting the cake!”

She didn't let Jen resist. She grabbed her friend's wrist and tugged her into a jog.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Allen.” Sam smiled in regret as she passed Trudy Allen, who'd recently opened the Blind Faith Mustang Sanctuary. She should have stopped to talk, but this was her last chance at making Jen smile.

Sam towed Jen past friends and neighbors. Some said how nice she looked. But Sam kept moving, even when she sideswiped Jake's brother, who was six feet tall and solid as a cottonwood tree.

“Sorry, Brian,” Sam apologized as she dragged a protesting Jen across the reception hall, then veered around two little kids and a lady carrying a tray full of dishes. Sam had no intention of slowing down.

Maybe if they were first in line, they'd get huge pieces of Gram's three-tiered, white-frosted fudge cake. If that didn't sweeten Jen's disposition, nothing would.

 

But Jen's attitude stayed sour until they hugged good-bye.

“Have fun in Utah,” Sam said.

“I don't think that's possible,” Jen answered. “But thanks for being a pal. I hope I didn't wreck your evening.”

“Of course not,” Sam assured her friend, but by the time Sam started for the parking lot and the
serenity of Aunt Sue's minivan to go home, she was exhausted.

Aunt Sue was already in the driver's seat and the warning light from the open passenger's door made Sam walk a little faster, until she heard someone call her name.

“Samantha!”

Sam froze. The parking lot was pretty dark, but she didn't need to turn around to see who'd called.

Her hair might have dried, but her temper hadn't cooled, and that low voice could only belong to one person.

She wouldn't speak to
that person
even if he was the last human being on the face of the earth. If she were dying of thirst and he had the last cup of water, she wouldn't ask him for a sip. If she were drowning and he had the only life raft, she wouldn't shout “ahoy!”

Jake's boot steps crossed the asphalt parking lot. His hand touched her shoulder. Sam spun around with something like a growl rising in her throat.

“Don't bite my head off, Brat.” He held both palms out as if warding off an attack. “I just want to talk.”

“I'm not speaking to you.”

“I have a question,” Jake went on, as if he hadn't heard her. Then he waited for a response. When he didn't get one, he sighed. “Your hair got dirty…”

Jake hesitated and his cowboy bravado fell away.
His boots shifted in shy discomfort as he noticed Aunt Sue watching and eavesdropping from inside the van.

Like it or not, Sam knew she'd have to be a good listener if she wanted to understand what Jake had to say. Around strangers, he used sentences that were so short, they were like code.

Not that she felt sorry for him.

Sam crossed her arms at her waist, and let her head tilt to the side.

“You were just ‘riding along minding your own business,' you said.” Jake swallowed with such discomfort, Sam heard him.

But she didn't explain what had happened.

Let him suffer. She'd been willing to relate the details of the stampede before he'd doused her over the horse trough. If he thought she was torturing him now, he was wrong. She hadn't even started to pay him back.

Jake cracked his knuckles and watched his shiny black boot toe as it rearranged the parking lot gravel.

“D'you get thrown again?” he muttered.

“I got off”—Sam wanted to kick herself for speaking. Jake looked up quickly. She couldn't see his expression, but she'd bet he was looking all protective and brotherly—“in a hurry,” she said.

“This have to do with that stud horse?” Jake's tone of voice warned that it had better not.

“Sam?” Aunt Sue called from inside the car. “I'm
ready to take off these high heels and have a cup of tea, honey. Can this wait?”

“Sure, Aunt Sue,” Sam made her voice cheery, then added, “after all, it is Christmas Eve.”

Jake didn't take the hint.

“Brynna told me about the mare,” he said. “Don't be goin' out alone, looking for her.”

Sam longed to imitate Jake's tough-guy tone and tell him she'd do whatever she pleased. Dad wouldn't be around to ride herd on her, and that meant freedom. There was no way she'd let Jake take Dad's place.

Wordless, Sam climbed into the minivan. As they drove away, she kept her eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. Jake still stood there alone and it looked like he was slamming his right fist into the palm of his left hand, over and over again.

 

It was only eight o'clock when they reached River Bend Ranch.

Little white holiday lights blinked around the windows on the two-story ranch house. The horses in the ten-acre pasture were dark shadows racing along the fence. Blaze, the Border collie, yapped six times as he stood on the front porch of the ranch house, keeping watch.

He must have been confused by the day's commotion, because usually he ran out to inspect strange vehicles. Or maybe Dallas, who'd left the reception
early, had just given Blaze dinner and the dog was guarding his food dish.

The first thing Sam heard as she climbed out of the minivan was Ace. His lonely, melodic neigh floated overhead.

“Later, boy,” Sam shouted toward the barn.

Aunt Sue's high heels crunched and her keys jingled as she came around the front of the van. “Does the horse know what you mean?” she asked.

“That was Ace,” Sam said. “He's
my
horse and, well, even if he can't tell what ‘later' means, he knows I heard him and returned his hello.”

Sam leaned her head back and stared up at the night sky. Black and strewn with silver stars, it looked exactly the way a Christmas Eve sky should. There were only a few more nights left in a year that had been crowded with adventure. She'd moved from San Francisco to the ranch, and found Blackie, who'd turned from her long-lost colt into a wild white stallion with a band of his own. She'd battled wild horse rustlers, a disreputable rodeo contractor, and an orphaned cougar that thought she was lunch….

Sam rolled her shoulders, vaguely aware that Aunt Sue had opened the back doors of her van. Sam was looking forward to a week of peace and quiet with Aunt Sue. She'd had enough excitement this year. And enough work.

This week, she wouldn't have to help Gram with the house and meals and Dad wouldn't be telling her
to do more than her share of ranch chores.

“Two entire weeks without homework,” Sam said with a sigh.

Aunt Sue chuckled. “I didn't bring mine, either. I have a stack of papers to grade at home, but they'll wait until I return home next week. I decided to make
this
week a real vacation.”

“Do you need help carrying things?” Sam asked as Aunt Sue tugged her suitcase out of the back of the van.

“Actually, that nice man Dallas left the reception early so that he could bring most of it here for us.”

“Great,” Sam said, though she knew that Dallas had been uncomfortable about being part of the wedding from the beginning. He'd only dressed up and acted as Dad's best man because he saw it as a test of their friendship. He'd probably jumped at the chance to leave early.

“Can you make the dog step aside?” Aunt Sue asked as Blaze advanced on her, tail wagging.

“He's friendly,” Sam assured her.

“I'm not afraid of him,” Aunt Sue said. She placed her suitcase between herself and Blaze. “And I don't want to hurt his feelings, but he's a dirty dog and this red suit represents two weeks of my salary. Once I change into something more casual, I'll pet him so he knows I'm not the enemy.”

Sam called Blaze away and considered Aunt Sue's attitude. Aunt Sue's only pets were a tank of well-behaved goldfish with long, silken fins. She treated
all other animals like, well, animals.

Sam opened the door. Aunt Sue's presence made her newly aware of the smells of cinnamon, wood smoke, and the fresh pine scent of the Christmas tree. To her, the aromas meant home.