Claimed by a Cowboy. Tanya Michaels
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He shook his head at the asinine idea of him as a hotel manager. Granted, this was a very small hotel, but that made it worse. Guests expected a personal touch, that extra dose of folksy hospitality. On the trail, in his element, Sam did just fine with tourists as long as they followed his rules about the horses. Most clients who wanted to rough it had a certain expectation of what their guide would be like. His occasionally gruff demeanor fit the part. He didn’t have Wanda’s gracious nature. The first time some the-customer-is-always-right twit complained about sheet thread count or something equally ridiculous… Well, being raised by a cantankerous bachelor uncle was not the same as attending charm school.
Even though he wouldn’t be staying, he was touched by the gesture. If she had bequeathed him the inn, her intentions were good. Wanda may have been trying to give him a home—which was more than his actual mother had ever done—but she seemed to have overlooked that what he’d loved most about the inn was gone. He’d once got jalapeño juice in his eye, and it had burned like hellfire. His dry, unblinking eyes stung far worse now.
“Place won’t be the same without her,” Sam declared aloud.
A plaintive, otherworldly yowl of agreement came from the floor. Sam nearly jumped until he realized that the reclusive white cat had finally made an appearance—his first all night, although he’d halfheartedly eaten the small plate of food Sam pushed under the bed.
“You miss her, too, don’t you?” Sam reached down to scratch Oberon’s head, which the cat tolerated for a millisecond before scooting back, his ears flat and his yellow gaze suspicious. The feline had worshipped and adored Wanda Keller, but regarded all other human beings with contempt.
Sam might have made a sarcastic comment, such as telling the cat to have fun opening its own damn can of tuna tomorrow, except he couldn’t forget the pet’s distress earlier. It had been Oberon who had found Sam in the kitchen and let him know something was wrong, meowing anxiously, tail twitching, constantly glancing back over his shoulder, as if he wanted Sam to follow. Although Wanda normally rose at sunrise to roll out dough for breakfast, Sam had assumed she was sleeping in because of the bad headache she’d mentioned last night. He’d tried to help out by brewing coffee for everyone and putting boxes of cereal around the bowl of fresh fruit on the dining room table.
Sam had followed the cat to her room, but there was nothing to be done. She’d gone in her sleep; the doctors diagnosed a ruptured brain aneurysm. When the paramedics had tried to take the body, Oberon had launched himself at them in hissing attack. Attempts to get hold of the cat had proven futile, and the feline disappeared under Wanda’s bed, where he’d begun a low, spine-tingling wail. When Sam had returned from the hospital, Oberon had still been there, his cry hoarser than it had been hours before but just as heartfelt. Sam believed the cat was ornery enough to have tried stalking the ambulance, if Wanda had ever installed a cat door. She worried about him ending up in traffic and getting hit by a tourist watching for street signs.
Now, Oberon sat back on his haunches and studied Sam as if assessing him. The uneven triangle of black fur around the cat’s left eye added to his sinister expression. When his slim body tensed to pounce, Sam wondered if he was about to get lacerated for letting them take Wanda away. Instead, the animal shot into Sam’s denim-covered lap and circled twice before curling into a warm ball. Sam was shocked, but assumed this was a temporary truce. They were each saying goodbye to the only family they’d had.
We weren’t her only family. Wanda might have been “like a mom” to him, but she was a real mother to someone else. If there was one thing Wanda had talked about more than her legends, herbs and woo-woo philosophies, it was Lorelei. Sam’s jaw tightened. He’d heard dozens of stories about Lorelei, who’d pretended at five that her bicycle was a horse named Spokes and, at ten, had been the first in her class to memorize all the state capitals. Wanda always bragged that Lorelei was as “smart as a whip,” which would explain the extra cords and whatnot draped over the young woman’s gown in graduation pictures.
Most of the family photos Wanda liked to show off were from back when her husband was alive and Lorelei had been a chubby-cheeked little girl. The most recent portrait he’d seen was from several years ago: a flinty-eyed, unsmiling college grad who looked just a bit too smug beneath her mortarboard. Wanda had always made excuses for why her pride-and-joy didn’t visit. Sam was less inclined to do so.
“Things were hard for her after her dad died,” Wanda had said once, looking faraway and sad.
Not wanting to upset his friend, Sam had held his tongue. But he had trouble sympathizing. As a child, he, too, had lost a father. What he’d needed most was comfort from his mother. Instead…
Sam didn’t realize he’d been absently petting the cat until he stopped and Oberon butted his head into Sam’s arm, protesting.
“Enough of this,” Sam told the cat. “You want me to pet you, you have to come with me into the den. No more sitting in the dark, crying into our beer. Metaphorically speaking. Let’s see what’s on the tube.”
He gently set the cat on the floor, and, sure enough, Oberon followed him down the hallway. They passed by a framed picture of Lorelei as a teenager and Sam shook his head. If the woman was so damn smart, why hadn’t she known how lucky she was to have Wanda?
LORELEI WAS A LITTLE surprised that the man behind the counter handed over keys to the rental car. After her sleepless night and turbulent flight into San Antonio this morning, she had deep bags beneath her bloodshot eyes. She probably looked strung out and wouldn’t have blamed the guy if he’d insisted on some kind of drug test before letting her drive a car off the lot. Then again, he was already a little scared of her from when she’d growled, “Trust me, I understand the optional insurance policy, you can stop overexplaining!” So maybe his thrusting the keys at her was less about customer service and more about getting rid of her.
“Your luggage is already in the trunk,” he informed her. “You have a nice day.”
Not a chance in hell. “Thank you,” she said tightly. She’d been speaking through clenched lips all day; now she gripped the keys so hard they dug into her palm.
It was as if she were trying to hold herself together through sheer physical force because if she didn’t, Lorelei might fly apart. She stalked across the lot toward her assigned car, barely giving herself a moment to buckle in and adjust the seat and mirrors before heading for the exit. If she paused to consult a map, paused to find a radio station, paused for one second to think…
Although it had been a while since her last trip here—I’m sorry, Mom. I will always be sorry—she knew the I-10 route by heart. There were no surprise detours this Wednesday afternoon. The city gave way to unmanicured vistas, tree-studded hills and pastures that looked furry due to bunches of some tawny untamed grass.
About fifteen minutes from Fredericksburg, she stopped at a filling station to use their restroom even though it wasn’t really necessary. Maybe she was just stalling because she couldn’t face what awaited her.
It was surprisingly warm outside—she’d dressed that morning for March in Philly, not March in Texas. On her drive, she’d already seen a few patches of bluebonnets in bloom. Wanda had loved plants of all kinds. Lorelei had a stray memory of a picnic with her parents, long ago, in a field of wildflowers. Her mother had told her a Native American legend about how flowers had become fragrant. Wanda had grown plants both decorative and functional in window boxes and pots all through their house and yard. She and her husband had turned to medicinal herbs and holistic treatments when he was diagnosed with liver cancer, rather than to oncologists.
With a hard swallow, Lorelei climbed back into the rental car, annoyed with herself for postponing the inevitable. She could stop every mile between here and the bed-and-breakfast and it wouldn’t change anything. I’ve lost them both.
When she’d called Ava last night with her flight details, Ava had volunteered her husband, Clinton, to come pick up Lorelei in San Antonio. “If you insist on driving yourself, at least call us when you get close. We’ll meet you at the B and B.”
Lorelei had thanked