Page 38 of If the Boot Fits

Asher collected the lead line and moved back to the center of their imaginary circle. Maybe it was a good thing he was leaving in a couple of weeks, because if he stayed, and he and Samantha continued to see each other, he’d eventually have to confess all. And that confession would either solidify their trust or utterly destroy it.

****

Later that evening, Samantha hummed softly to herself as she unpacked items from an old trunk in the attic at the Three Cedars. Each tiny shirt, sleeping gown, and pair of booties stirred an odd mix of nostalgia and new longings. The nostalgia she’d been prepared for. The longings? Those had taken her by surprise. Finding a silver rattle, she lifted it out of the trunk and gave it a shake. The bells at the top jingled, eliciting a smile.

What would it be like to hold a baby of her own? After being forced into a mothering role at an early age to care for her brother, her dreams had centered less on home and hearth and more on independence and freedom from familial responsibilities. Yet her father’s eagerness to see her married, combined with her encounter with Ida Mae, had caused something inside her to shift.

All right. The shift wasn’t only because of Daddy and Ida Mae. Asher Ellis carried most of the blame. After spending an hour with him for her riding lesson, then having him escort her home after she’d tutored Jack, he occupied most of her thoughts. When he’d offered to drive the buckboard home for her, she’d tossed all her independent ideals out the window and accepted his offer. Mostly because the memories of what had happened on her last drive home still plagued her with lingering anxiety, but she’d be lying if she failed to acknowledge that she’d wanted him to sit next to her on that bench. So she might admire him up close. Perhaps even brush up against him should they hit a jostle-inducing rut. Having him near would allow them to converse or even just to sit in companionable silence as they watched the sunset.

Was it any wonder that when domestic ideas invaded her mind, he was the husband she envisioned at her side? His hand gently caressing her back as he peered into the crook of her arm to smile at the imaginary child she held—a child possessing Asher’s sandy brown hair and her blue eyes.

“Whatcha doin’ up here?”

Samantha startled so badly the rattle slipped from her hand and clattered onto the hardwood floor. “Clint! Must you always sneak up on me?” She pressed a hand to her chest in an effort to calm her pounding heart as she craned her neck around to scowl at her snickering brother.

“What? I’m just walking. It’s not my fault you were too busy woolgathering to hear me coming.” She might have believed him had his eyes not been glowing with triumph as he held up his hands in manufactured innocence.

Biting back a sigh, Samantha retrieved the rattle and added it to her keep pile, then turned back to the trunk. “I’m going through your old baby clothes.”

“Why?”

“I ran across a friend in town today. She has a little boy, and I thought I would let her borrow some things.”

Her brother knelt beside her in front of the trunk, then leaned over the edge to look inside. “Hey! I remember this blanket.” He pulled out the stained and misshapen knitted baby blanket he’d slept with until about four years ago.

After their mother died, Clint had often lain awake crying until Aunt Regina got the idea to dab a little of Mother’s perfume on his blanket and place it in bed with him. The scent had soothed him and allowed the entire household to sleep. After Aunt Regina left, Samantha had continued the practice, applying dots of perfume every few weeks until the vial on her mother’s dressing table was empty. By then, Clint had grown accustomed to sleeping with the small blanket tucked beside him and refused to go to bed without it. At least until Daddy and Duke started training him to run the ranch, and he decided he was too manly to sleep with a baby blanket.

Clint rubbed the sky blue knit against his chin, an expression of fond remembrance passing over his face that tugged on Samantha’s heartstrings. It didn’t last long, however. He seemed to recall the threat baby blankets posed to his masculinity and tossed it aside, nearly toppling her share pile.

“Careful.” She lifted the blanket off the wobbling stack of toddler-sized clothing. “I can’t have you messing up my system.”

Clint eyed the piles stacked in a semicircle around her knees. “What system?”

“I’m stacking them by age-appropriateness.” She pointed to a pile on her right. “These are for infants and are too small for Ida Mae’s baby.” Shifting to the left, she pointed to a stack by her knee. “These are clothes that would likely fit Jimmy now and over the next year or two.” She shifted her hand to lie atop a pile by her hip. “This pile contains larger items that we can pass along in a few years. And this small pile,” she said as she touched the few items between her knees and the trunk, “is things too sentimental to part with.” The rattle, a wooden horse on wheels her father had made, Clint’s first pair of tiny cowboy boots.

Her brother eyed the piles a little more seriously, then took the baby blanket from her hand and dropped it into the pile with the rattle and boots. Samantha bit back a smile. He might do his best to act like one of the men, but his heart still retained a boyish tenderness.

Samantha reached inside the trunk for the next item. “Was there a reason you came to find me?”

“Oh yeah.” Clint sat back on his heels. “Daddy sent me to fetch you. He’s done with the payroll accounting and ready to meet with you.”

Samantha dropped the set of short trousers she’d just collected and pushed to her feet, her belly tightening. She and her father had been getting along better the last few days. He’d been particularly solicitous after her accident, checking in on her before going to bed and staying close to the house the following day just in case she needed anything. She would hate to reinstall the cold formality between them, but the conversation she was fixing to have with him could do just that. Yet it had to be done. Injustice must be brought to light. If she pretended not to see it because confronting it complicated her life, she’d have no one to blame but herself when it struck again. Perhaps closer to home.

“I’ll have to finish this later, then.” She bent to retrieve the lamp she’d placed on a nearby table and headed for the stairs at the end of the long narrow room. “Come on. It’s too dark to be up here without a light.”

Clint had just straddled a rocking horse he’d last ridden around age six and was poised to fold his lanky adolescent frame onto the unsuspecting equine when she made that comment. He moaned quietly to register his protest of her bringing an end to his fun, then traipsed after her.

They separated on the second-floor landing, Clint continuing downstairs, likely to the kitchen to pilfer a snack, while Samantha made her way down the hall to her father’s office. She set her lamp on the hall table, then smoothed her skirt, brushing off the thin coating of attic dust that had collected around her knees. Once she felt sufficiently tidied, she inhaled a steadying breath and knocked.

“Enter.”

Her father stood behind his desk, an open book in his hands. When he saw her, he smiled and slid the book back into its place on the shelf. He gestured for her to join him on the furniture across from his desk. “Did everything go well with the Ellis boy tonight?”

She smiled. “Yes, Jack is quite bright. I imagine he’ll be caught up to the other children his age by the end of the summer.”

“Good, good. And your journey home was uneventful, I trust?” He waited for her to settle on the sofa before lowering himself into the chair to her right.

The ride home hadn’t felt uneventful with Asher at her side, but she kept that little detail to herself. “All four wheels performed their duty admirably. Not a single mishap to report.”