Free Rodeo Sweetheart by Betsy St. Amant

sleep—too bad she’d only get three at best before having to sneak out for her midnight ride with Cole and Lucy. Maybe this time Ethan wouldn’t crash the practice session. Even with Ethan shadowing her around the stable all day, Sam had still successfully avoided telling him why she was determined to ride the steer in the first place. That was one more complication she just didn’t need.
    Sam tiptoed past the computer nook. Hopefully her mom wouldn’t hear her on that squeaky bottom step—
    “Sam? Is that you?” Angie’s voice sounded more exhausted than Sam felt.
    Sam hesitated on the staircase. Then guilt took precedence over exhaustion and she shuffled into the den. “How’s it going?”
    “Same as always.” Angie pushed her short, sandy-colored hair back from her face. The light from the desk lamp shone on her tanned skin and she rested her elbows on the tabletop.
    Sam swallowed the pride lingering in her throat and forced the words she’d hoped to never utter from her mouth. “Do you need me to get a second job again?” She held her breath.
    Angie sighed. “That’s thoughtful, but we’d be worse off losing the work you do around here.”
    Relief crowded Sam’s already full stomach. She couldn’t handle an outside job, not among her other daily chores on the ranch and her new hours of training for the upcoming competition.
    Sam studied her mother’s scribbled notes in the margins of the ledger book. If only she could tell her mom her plan to save the ranch she would, but the timing was more than a little off. As soon as Angie heard the words bull and rodeo, she’d go berserk—even under the best of circumstances. Bill paying was probably the worst timing of all. Until Sam was positive her mom would understand that the end result was well worth the risk, she’d have to stick to her original plan of keeping the secret. Sam peered over her mom’s shoulder to better read the bottom line. “Are we going to be okay?”
    “We’ll make it.” Angie shoved up the sleeves of her shirt and bent over the pile of envelopes and the ledger book, shielding it from Sam’s view. “We always do, somehow. But if we considered selling…”
    “Things will get better soon.” The promise rolled off Sam’s tongue before she could stop it, desperate to ease the stress lines tainting Angie’s once-young face. Sam hoped she’d be able to make the assurance true and keep the farm where it belonged—with the Jensons.
    “I know. God always provides, doesn’t He? Your optimismis contagious.” Angie’s smile appeared slightly more sincere this time and she squeezed Sam’s hand. “Go to bed. You’ve done enough for tonight.”
    Sam squeezed back before turning and heading silently up the stairs to her room. She hadn’t done anything yet, not anything that mattered, at least—but she was about to, starting with round two on Lucy.
    Would it be enough?
     
    Ethan’s muscles ached, his head throbbed, and his eyes felt sticky from lack of sleep—yet he’d never felt so good in his life. Who knew hard manual labor carried even more endorphins than his logged treadmill miles?
    He glanced at the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. Only fifteen minutes until Sam would be at the north paddock with Cole and that crazy bull—no, steer. The scariest part of the whole experience was that he hadn’t minded the chores nearly as much as he’d expected. Mucking out the stables wasn’t exactly fun—especially after the sparks with Sam when they touched hands—but grooming the horses, learning how to saddle them for trail rides, and helping distribute fresh hay to all the stalls hadn’t been bad. Pleasant, even, once he and Sam kept to their no-more-arguing truce.
    Now if only his emotions could stick to the pact he made with himself.
    Ethan tapped his watch with his finger. Ten minutes until practice time. He hadn’t told Sam he was coming, but it should be assumed. They were in it together. He just still