Saratoga Falls: The Complete Love Story Series Read online

  He’s teasing, but he’s all staunch composure and his voice is dry. I can’t help but let out a choked laugh. “Thanks,” I say, sniffling again and drying my eyes with the backs of my hands. “I might take you up on that.”

  His mouth curves into a small smile, and my heart feels a little lighter.

  “You know all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy, don’t you, Smurf?”

  Trying to soothe the ache in my chest, I let out a deep breath. I nod. “I know. I want you to be happy too,” I say, and I hope he truly understands how much I mean it. I glance over at him.

  “You haven’t been happy for a long time,” Papa says, thoughtful. I must look confused because he smiles in the glow of the dashboard and continues. “You’re just like your mama. Her heart was so big . . .” He shakes his head. “Yours holds too many emotions for its own good. I can see them in your eyes—your anger and misery, or when you’re truly happy—just like I could with your mama.”

  I can remember him telling me something like this before, when I was younger and I’d been angry about something. Something silly. But for some reason, his words seem more important now.

  “You love like it’s air you need to breathe. It’s what makes you special, but it’s also what will give you the most heartache.”

  I’m unsure if Papa is giving me a piece of Mama or if he’s just trying to make me feel better, but either way, I etch his words into memory. I cling to what few recollections I have of her. Her crocheted coverlet, soft against my skin, the lilt of her voice when she sang to me, every word filled with so much love and purity and joy it was like she truly had the power to take away all the bad and replace it with just enough good to make me smile and feel warm and special inside.

  “You really love her, don’t you,” I say. I’m not talking about Mama, though.

  When Papa nods, I promise him, “I’ll try harder with Alison.”

  We drive around the final bend, and exhaustion closes in on me, lets loose as my mind calms and I can finally really breathe again. I close my eyes, lean the side of my face against the window, and let the cool glass soothe the heat from my skin.

  A shiver creeps down my spine, and then I feel it. The truck lurches forward, the tires screech against the wet road, and my eyelids fly open.

  In a blur, a large, gnarled branch comes into view in the middle of the road. And the next thing I know, we’re swerving toward the mountain.

  Three years later

  One

  Sam

  Present Day

  Sprawled out beneath my favorite tree, I stare at the oak branches outstretched above me. Lichen, nature’s lace curtains, cast intricately sewn shadows across me, blocking out the harsh rays of the sun. This place, in the shade of the oldest, most unruly tree on the property—“the watchman of the lake,” as I’d pretended when I was younger—has been my sanctuary since I can remember.

  For years I’ve been retreating to this very spot, where the grass grows a little thicker from where I lie up on a slight hill down to the water’s edge, protected by the oak’s expansive shade. So much has changed since I was young—me, my family; even the small country town of Saratoga Falls seems to have found a quicker pace—but here, underneath this tree, it feels as if the past still lingers, coming in and drifting out on the breeze when I least expect it. This place is a mingling of my past, present, and future.

  The oak was my climbing tree when my golden hair was in pigtails, but now my pigtails have given way to a single, thick braid that feels lumpy beneath my back as I lie at its base. My little-girl hands have become calloused from seemingly endless days of horse grooming and stacking firewood. My cowboy hat’s bigger, sun bleached and weathered from years of abuse, and my boots are well worn from mucking out stalls and mending fences. This is my napping and hide-away-from-the-world spot. It’s where Mama and Papa are both buried and it personifies distant memories of first loves and wistful dreams.

  Not a day goes by that I don’t think about those things—of Reilly and the day we crossed the line from friends to something more, the promises we made to each other only to break them, the distance, his distance, and the fact that the day I fell in love with him, he chose to leave. All the regrets that followed still linger, too.

  Shasta, my old gray mare, snorts as she grazes beside me, a sound that stirs me back to the present. I hear the muffled sound of her hooves as she takes a lazy step between mouthfuls of the patchy green that grows around us.

  Telling myself I deserve a few more moments of respite, I close my eyes and fall back into a sleepy daze, listening . . .

  . . . red-winged blackbirds chirp as they fly from the fence line into the surrounding scrub oaks that sprawl out behind me . . .

  . . . insect wings flitter between drifts of dry breeze . . .

  . . . lizards scurry in the crisp, fallen oak leaves that litter the ground . . .

  This place, where life is simple and calm and known, is where I want to be. With a deep inhale, I let the fragrance of summertime—of red clay earth and sunbaked hillsides—wrap me in a blanket of sunshine and comfort me until the familiar tempos of nature fade. I exhale, and as I revel in a tension-easing stretch, I feel another familiar sensation as my knuckles brush against Papa’s gravestone, damning and ever-present behind me. A knot forms in my stomach. I don’t have to look at the gravestone to know what it says: Robert Miller, Loving Father and Husband, Beloved Horse Whisperer. May he rest in the valley of horses.

  Eventually, the undertones of country living dissolve and I’m left with the sound of rubber scraping across glass, and the warm breeze brings with it a chill that rakes over my skin . . .

  The road is dark and wet, and the headlights are all that illuminate the bend ahead. The air in the truck is stale and pregnant with a dozen emotions that suffocate me as I try to wade through them. I look at Papa, but his gaze is narrowed, angry. I disappointed him. I ruined everything.

  We see it all too late—the gnarled branch that blocks the road. In fast-forward, Papa slams on the brakes. Screeching rubber echoes in my ears as we swerve toward the mountainside, away from the cliff. Then the truck is rolling, the world is crushing in around me, and my head smacks against the window and then the dash. The sound of groaning metal against the asphalt grates in my ears, and I can hear Papa yelling something. His warm finger brushes against my skin, but I can’t concentrate as my arms flail and my head bangs against the roof of the truck.

  We crash. We lurch. We stop. Branchy fingers reach through the broken window and I glance over to see Papa. He’s bleeding.

  Distant, incessant honking wakes me, and I jolt upright. My heart’s sprinting, my mind spinning, and as I bring my palm to my forehead, I peer around, anchoring myself to here, to now. To the lake and the oak tree. To daylight.

  More honking startles me, and I climb to my feet. “Jesus, Nick,” I grumble. The day is no longer bright and comforting, and the dream leaves a heaviness hovering over my heart. I let out a slow, even breath, trying to dispel the unwanted memories creeping in.

  “Alright,” I say, squinting at Shasta. Her ears angle toward me as I stand and brush the debris off my backside, but she continues tearing what little nutrients she can from the ground like she’s even the slightest bit starved. “Time to get back to work, oinky.” I stretch, readjust my hat, and reach for her reins draped around the saddle horn.

  Shasta’s white- and gray-speckled head pops up at my sudden movement. She cranes her neck in my direction, grass hanging from the corners of her mouth.

  “Nice.” I smile and pull the errant weeds from the creases of her mouth and let them float down to the dirt. “Let’s go get you some supper. I wouldn’t want you to starve or anything.”

  Giving Shasta a quick pat on the neck, I step up into the stirrup and climb into the saddle. The leather creaks and groans under my weight, and it’s warm from baking in the sunshine. Then, nudging her forward, we leave our shady oasis and head down the hillside, to the ranch
.

  A mixture of pride and sadness sprouts in my heart as the newly remodeled farmhouse comes into view. It’s freshly painted white with a wraparound porch and navy shutters, facing a piecemeal settlement that feels completely different than it had during my childhood.

  The rickety 1900s barn I used to play hide-and-seek in is now only storage for hay and grain and Papa’s old John Deere tractor that’s still parked inside. The weathered toolshed beside it no longer spurs the trepidation I’d once felt staring in at the sharp objects adorning its walls and hanging in its dark, rotted corners. And the stable, a place where Papa taught me to saddle my own horse and where I often snuck off to when the house was too silent, stands two-tiered and looming beside it all. The paddocks facing me are an active arrangement of chestnut, bay, and sorrel tails whipping casually in the heat, a melody of soft snorting and the clomp of hooves coming out to greet Shasta and I as she hurries her pace down the hill toward her stall.

  “Sup, girl!”

  Nick’s voice echoes through the ranch, and I look toward my gray F-250, parked in front of the barn. Nick, my cousin, best friend, ranch hand, and overall godsend, steps out of the truck, causing it to shift beneath his six-foot-three build as he steps out. The truck bed is weighed down with bags of feed and supplies from town.

  I nudge Shasta to move a little faster, and then, like clockwork, barking ensues. The black and white terrier-bulldog mutt from hell springs into view from the other side of the house, loping toward Nick as he lets the tailgate down. Petey’s no doubt coming from a now-empty food bowl Alison put out for him. I know she feeds him to spite me.

  “Great,” I mutter. Though I consider myself a genuine animal lover, Petey has terrorized the horses one too many times to be considered anything other than a nuisance.

  “Hey, Sam,” Jessica, one of our boarders, says.

  I trot past her grooming her chestnut stallion at the hitching post outside the stable. “Hey, Jessica. Sorry about the dog.”

  Although Jessica smiles and waves the annoyance away, her horse doesn’t seems so indifferent.

  I’m about to tell Nick to shut Petey up when his palm flies up. “I got it,” Nick says, and he crouches down to the dog.

  “Let me unsaddle her, then I’ll help you unload,” I say, and nod toward the truck. Nick’s already heaving a sack of feed from the truck bed over his shoulder. I flash him a pointed look that warns, “I’m helping you, like it or not.”

  I tie Shasta up to the hitching post and rush to unsaddle her. No matter how many times I ask Nick to wait for me, to let me help him with his chores, he often ignores me. I don’t think he believes me when I tell him that without his help, we’d have nothing left. This place would be gone. I would have no connection to Papa, nothing left at all.

  This is the second summer he’s dedicated to helping us, and even during the school year, he spends most of his weekends helping me with the things I can’t do on my own. Sure he’s Alison’s nephew and has been my best friend since I was five—that’s how Papa and Alison met to begin with—so Nick’s somewhat obligated to lend a helping hand, but he’s done so much more than that. I ignore the way my chest tightens with yet another reminder of Papa and all my wrongdoings and hurriedly hose Shasta down, helping her shed the layer of sweat that cakes her body from our midday ride.

  After brushing off the excess water, I untie and guide her to her stall, not even needing her lead rope as she practically trots inside without any direction from me whatsoever. Though she’s an average size for a horse, she’s still much taller than me at my five-six, and I rush to keep in stride with her as she heads toward her supper. With a final pat on the rump, I nudge her deeper inside and heave the stall door shut behind her.

  I’m jogging toward the barn when Nick’s broad-shouldered frame disappears through the door with a fifty-pound bag of chicken feed tossed over each shoulder.

  “You couldn’t wait fifteen minutes?” I chide and heave a bag of oats over my own shoulder before heading into the barn behind him. “You’re not stubborn at all or anything . . .”

  “Shasta moves as slow as molasses, I didn’t have time to keep waiting,” he teases. Nick beams, then grunts and flops the remaining feed bag onto the small stack he’s already started next to the old grain. He gives me a sidelong glance.

  “I know,” I say, beating him to it, “I still need to distribute those into the bins. It’s on my list.”

  Nick grins at me, and I know he’s thinking that he would’ve done it already if I would’ve let him.

  I hold my index finger up. “No. It’s my chore. Don’t even say it.” Less gracefully than his display, I drop my bag of oats down beside his.

  “What can I say, I’m an overachiever.” Nick readjusts his cowboy hat and strides back toward the truck, me following behind.

  “That and you’re stubborn and impatient, and you like to irritate me beyond measure.”

  “Or we can just say that I’m a hard worker and always want to help a pretty lady out, since that’s what the women like to hear about us strapping young men.” Nick’s smile is all warmth and kindness, and his air is playful and endearing like always, something I rely on each and every day to keep myself chugging along.

  “I can get the rest of these,” he offers. “I know you’ve got to take Target out at some point today, too.” He peers up at the sun, already making its slow descent to setting.

  I tug a burlap bag of grain out of the truck bed, cradling it in my arms. “I’m helping you,” I say and retrace my steps back inside the barn. Nick’s footsteps are heavy behind mine, and I know his silence means he’s thinking of a smart-ass reply, so I wait for it.

  “I’d rather you exerted your energy making me some of that mouthwatering comida you promised me.” We toss our bags onto the appropriate piles, and Nick analyzes what looks like a tear in one of the sacks. “That son of a . . .” He shakes his head and follows me back out the door.

  “You’re hungry again?” I smirk at him. “Two helpings of leftover chili and cornbread wasn’t enough for your noon lunch, huh?”

  Nick grins. “I’m a growing boy, Sam. I need sustenance.” He flexes his bicep, large enough to make all the girls swoon. “I’m already starving again. Plus, there’s a baseball game on tonight I wanna watch down at Lick’s, so I’m a little pressed for time.” He taps his wrist when I turn around to glare at him. “Time’s a-tickin’.”

  I snort at his audacity, but love him all the more for it. “You and your damn baseball.”

  “Hey, what can I say? The high school jock in me lives on. I like sports, and therefore I like baseball. And I’m hungry. It’s actually very simple.”

  “Okay, okay, I got it. You are man. You want food.” I grab another bag of feed and flop it over my shoulder.

  Nick beats on his chest and makes a few throaty gorilla sounds before I can no longer contain my amusement. “Fine. You win. I’ll make an early dinner, but only because you’re so deprived of good food you’re practically willing to beg for it.”

  I hand him a sack of grain and then stack another one on top of it, feeling the strain in my arms as I lift it up into his. Grabbing a sack of my own, I walk with him into the barn. “So that means you’re just drinking at the bar tonight, not working?”

  Nick shakes his head and drops the feed bags onto the pile. “It’s my night off. So there’ll most likely be too much beer, copious amounts of peanuts, and a lot of cursing.”

  “Wow, that sounds like a good time—”

  “Samantha . . .” My smile falters at the sound of Alison’s voice.

  I discard the feed bag in my hand and step out of the barn. Alison’s standing on the farmhouse porch, using her hand to shield her eyes from the glaring sun. Her golden hair is glowing in the sunlight, and I can see why Papa was so drawn to her the day they first met.

  I take a couple steps toward the house.

  “Miss Naser just called. She said she can’t come out at all this week. She has final
s.”

  “Still?” I ask, my mind ticking through the list of things I’ve been putting off and the added workload that results from her “studying” spurts.

  “She asked that you continue to ride Target for her while she’s out.”

  Knowing summer session finals hadn’t even started yet, that Tara Naser was just flaking again, I try to keep the irritation from my voice. “Did she say when she’d be able to make it out here again? I’ve been riding him the last couple weeks as it is.”

  Alison shakes her head, and as I expect, she doesn’t bother offering to help.

  I shove my hands in the back pockets of my cutoffs. “Okay,” I say, unsure how I’m going to keep this up. “Jewels and Short Stuff need special care this week too, since Penny and Sarah are out of town. And Nick and I have to cut down the dead trees over the hill tomorrow.” I pause for a moment, consider my words, then go for it. “You wouldn’t be interested in riding at all this week, would you?”

  Alison’s eyebrows rise, and I know that look, even if she would never say it. The answer is no. She’s punishing me. For killing Papa, for ruining her life, for breathing. I’m not sure the exact reason matters much anymore.

  “I’m meeting with a rep for the new accounting software tomorrow, and we have another potential boarder stopping by,” she says and glances between Nick and me. “The trees can wait.” She turns and heads back inside the house.

  “Of course they can,” I breathe and rub my forehead. I clap my hands together and squeeze my eyes shut, pushing her antagonism away. Even if Alison hadn’t walked away, it would’ve been pointless to remind her that Nick and I have already postponed cutting firewood four times this year at her request. Before we know it, fall will be here, Alison will be cold and complaining the wood is getting low, and Nick and I will be scrambling to appease her. We are suckers like that.

  I sense Nick standing behind me, but I don’t turn around.

  “Don’t say it,” I bite out. He wants me to hire some help, but he knows we can’t afford it without Papa’s breeding and training income. He wants me to talk to Alison, to fix things. But talking to Alison about anything is pointless, something I’ve told Nick over and over. She shuts down. She doesn’t want to deal with me, not unless she has to. Nick wants me to “move on” and “do what’s right for me, screw the ranch,” but all of these things aren’t as simple as he thinks they are.