Ask No Tomorrows (17 page)

Riley learned
to ride better than most of her father’s hands, and shoot with
accuracy. She also learned to rope calves and brand them. She even
learned to castrate, which surprised all the hands. There were no
jobs on the ranch too dirty, or too hard for her to try. Deep down
Riley knew why she had to learn to do those things. She couldn’t
bear not being with her father. She’d wanted his praise, his
attention, his love and she got it in strange little ways. She had
learned to read a man’s feelings that way.

“
Looks like my little girl is more than capable of taking over
this ranch, than even I had hoped,” he had declared one day as they
were breaking broncs.

An unexpected
thunderclap interrupted her thoughts again and she cringed. Why had
she become so afraid of storms? Nothing scared her other than
storms and storm cellars, that is until Harry took over her ranch.
She shivered. Somehow she had to learn to control her fears, she
knew that.

Why
had she become such a coward? If she could handle a huge ranch, she
could handle a little old storm, couldn
’t she?

The room lit
up all around her as lightning streaked through the air, seeming to
slice it into pieces as the thunder would reverberate the
walls.

It was so loud
she couldn’t avoid it. She sat up in her bed, brought her knees up
and clasped her hands around her legs and held herself tight. She
would not be some screaming meme.

She shivered.
She needed to be with Sam. He knew how to quiet her. But relying on
Sam wasn’t a good idea, she knew. Sam would leave her someday and
then what would she do? No, her fears were her own, and for her to
get rid of somehow. But how did one go about getting rid of
fear?

But she
silently scolded herself for being such a coward. It was only a
storm, and she was in a building. However, she could almost feel
the building sway at the next clap of thunder, resurrecting her
fears.

The thought of
Sam not being around nearly paralyzed her. What would she do
without him? She’d come to rely on him and his judgment.

Garbed in her
flannel gown and a robe, she swung the door open. Peeking out in
the hallway, she didn’t see anyone about. But the minute she
stepped out, the clerk saw her and asked if there was a
problem.

“
No…it’s just the storm. It’s so loud, it scared
me.”

“
Sometimes it helps to keep a light on when it’s this bad,” the
clerk suggested.

“
A
light, okay…yes, of course.” She turned back to her room and
immediately lit a lamp by her bed. It illuminated her room. It did
make the lightning less threatening, but it did little for the
rackling and roaring of the thunder that came after.

She leaned
against the doorframe. She wanted to see Sam, but with the clerk
about she doubted she could get past him without him
seeing.

She’d wait
until later.

She stood
about, restlessly walking the floor.

Two hours
later, she peeked out again. The lights were out everywhere. She
remembered Sam’s room was on the first floor and she didn’t
hesitate to patter down the stairs. A cat crossed her path and she
nearly tripped. She covered her mouth to keep from
screaming.

She couldn’t
remember which room Sam had taken, but she went to the end of the
dark hall and stopped. Taking a deep breath, she barely tapped on
the door.

No one
answered. She tapped again. But afraid she would wake others she
opened the door and called out his name. He didn’t
answer.

She went
inside. She closed the door carefully so as not to wake
him.

In the
darkness she groped to find the bed. When she bumped into it, she
sat down. “Sam…?”

No
answer.

“
Sam…” she said a little louder this time.

Still no
answer.

She reached
her hand and searched around the bed for him, but he wasn’t
there.

Where could he
be? Had he thought better of it and left? The thought galvanized
her to the spot. What would she do when Sam decided to leave? For
she knew he wouldn’t stay forever. She curled herself into a ball
and snuggled into the covers.

She leaned her
head against his pillow and breathed in the scent of him. It gave
her comfort. No man, save her father ever made her feel safe except
Sam.

But where was
he?

Bereaved that
he might have fled without her, she cried.

“
Oh
God, I run him off. I don’t blame him. But I miss him so…If you let
him come back, I promise God, I won’t do it again.”

Sometime in
the night she got up and went back to her own bed. She disrobed and
slipped under her own covers once more, but as she peered out the
window at the storm, she saw Sam sitting in a corner, barely
covered by the roof overhang from the storm. He sat in a chair,
holding his gun and occasionally glancing in. He was watching over
her. And he was soaking wet. Rain dripped from his hat brim to his
clothes, but he just sat there. And Nodog was there by his
side.

She sighed.
“They are watchin’ over me?” she shrieked and covered herself once
more. “My God, he’s watching over me. How can I not love him for
carin’ so much?”

A rush of love
hit her so hard it nearly made her head swim, and confirmed what
she had thought earlier on. Sam loved her. She stared at him a long
time, then lay down, closed her eyes and let the feelings swamping
her subside.

How could she
leave him alone now? He was taking care of her. He’d taken care of
her all the way.

Through the
night, she woke up and glanced out the window and there it was,
somehow the dream catcher was pinned to the window and Sam and
Nodog were still outside. The dream catcher was inside though. How
had that happened? She wanted to run out and hug him and kiss him
and tell him how much she appreciated it, but the one thing he
didn’t want was someone to catch them in the clutches. Their eyes
met through the glass window that next morning. For a long moment
they just looked at each other. Then he finally left and went to
his room. She wanted to run down and hug him, but she couldn’t, for
it was daylight and people would see. She didn’t care, but he
would.

Riley’s trip
to the lawyer’s office the next morning was not productive at all.
And not at all what she expected.

“
Well you see, they thought you were dead,” the lawyer began,
glancing at her up and down. “So your assets are unobtainable until
you appear there in person and are declared legally alive. In other
words, I can’t get anything accomplished until you have either
established yourself as alive, or someone in your family comes to
claim it. They have to see you in person before they’ll release
it.”

“
See me in person? Is that the only way to get everything
settled?”

The lawyer
seemed to speculate on that question before answering. “No…not the
only way, but as your lawyer I have to explain all this to you.
There is another way.”

“
But it’s too dangerous to go back. If they see me they’ll kill
me,” she protested.

The lawyer saw
her dilemma. “Well, the only other answer is if you have a relative
that could go to the bank for you. Someone to collect the money, I
could draw up the papers and make it legal for them to get the
money out of the bank. If there is a will, it will be
simple.”

“
I
don’t have a will…” she began.

“
Who was to inherit the ranch if something happened to
you?”

“
My
cousin Ethan Morgan of course, he’d be the next of kin. He’s listed
in the will directly under me.”

The lawyer
pulled on his collar as though it bothered him and sat down behind
the huge desk.

“
Then I guess I’ll have to write him and see if he can come,”
Riley said, her face a wad of frowns and confusion as she squeezed
the handkerchief between her fingers.

“
That’s part of the reason I came to see you, to help me figure
out how to legally obtain my own money and land again.” Riley tried
to be tactful and gracious.

“
Ethan Morgan, I’ll write that down so I can have papers drawn
up for you then.”

“
Thank you, that would be helpful, and I must contact my
cousin,” Riley explained, glancing down at her kerchief in her
hand; she fondled it and tried to appear composed as the lawyer
seemed to watch her every move. “It would take a few
days.”

“
Would he come all the way out here?”

“
I
don’t know. It’s a great sum of money and I must get hold of it.
I’ll be in touch. Thank you.” She dismissed him and hurried out of
the room. Feeling lost and helpless again, she walked out into a
crowded room full of people that barely gave her a
glance.

The storm had
made a mess of the streets and she had to lift her skirt to get
across to the boardwalk without getting muddy.

Sam wasn’t in
the room though when she returned and she knew she couldn’t go
looking for him just yet, it was too early. He was probably
sleeping since he’d been up all night. She flopped down on the bed
and shook her head. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t just
return out of the blue, could she?

She needed to
talk to Sam, and see what he thought.

Stopping by
the local café, she ate alone. How she wished she could dine with
Sam. She hated being alone. She remembered the last time her father
treated her to a night in town and took her to the only place to
eat in Crossbow. She’d been fifteen at the time and she and her
father had a huge fight about her going to an all-girls school back
east. She realized now that he had tried very hard to be both
mother and father to her. Perhaps she should have gone, but she
wanted to stay with her father.

She moved the
ham and eggs around in her plate, not tasting them.

As she was
about to leave she noticed two cowboys staring at her and talking
and tried her best to ignore them, but they followed her. She
didn’t recognize either of them but it was plainly obvious they
were following her.

When they
accosted her near an alleyway, she screamed. They tried to get hold
of her, but she struggled against them, managing to kick one in the
shin, the other she punched him in the nose and after he recovered
he grabbed her harder.

“
Leave me alone…” she hollered.

“
Get her purse…” One of them swore when she bit him.

“
Look you little hell-cat, you better stop it, or I’ll kill
you, you understand.”

In the
distance she saw Sam strolling toward her, his face a storm of
reactions. They couldn’t be seen in public together, she knew that.
She had to handle this herself.

With a quick
knee jerk she nearly paralyzed one of them and the other saw Sam
coming and ran.

Without a
backward glance at Sam, she straightened herself and walked away,
toward the hotel. She ignored the fact that they must have bruised
her ribs and hurt her arms.

Tears ran down
her cheek as she entered the hotel lobby. The clerk saw her and
shouted, “Is something wrong, miss?”

“
N-no, I’m fine.” And she continued on her way.

In her room,
she threw the small purse on the bed and stood shaking.

“
You okay?” Sam asked, coming from the shadows of the
room.

Wanting to be
strong she nodded numbly, but inside she was shaking.

“
What did they want?” Sam asked, coming to stand in front of
her.

“
My
money, I guess…” She swallowed hard and finally looked up into his
face.

“
How’d they know you had any?” Sam frowned.

“
Well, when I went to pay for my meal, I took out a large
amount.” She saw Sam’s frown. “Well, I couldn’t help it, that purse
is way too little…”

“
You’ve got to be careful. You can’t go flashing a bundle of
money around. This isn’t some country town, it’s the big city and
there are too many who would knock you in the head for a
dollar.”

“
I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t think.”

He stared at
her, and he saw her tremble. He rolled his eyes, tried to turn
away, but the look in her eyes held him. Slowly he took her into
his arms and comforted her. She began to shake uncontrollably now.
Tears she didn’t want to shed gushed forth.

The tears
gushed from her now as he tried to console her.

Sam put his
chin on her head and held her against him. His lips grazed her head
and she looked up and into his eyes. She saw the mirror of her own
feelings in his eyes.

“
Dammit, Riley…” he cursed and then his head bent and he pulled
her fully into his arms, just before he covered her mouth,
possessively. He branded her with those soft comforting lips. She
melded herself against him, feeling the rock hard of his body,
needing those big strong arms around her. She sighed into his mouth
as their kiss deepened.

“
Oh
Sam,” she sighed as he roused her passion, her desires and her
love.