He began to thrash as she grabbed hold of him where the stickers were buried in his skin.
“Trust me,” she said again, knowing full well that the cow couldn’t understand her, but hoping that he would somehow get her intention.
He was horribly tangled and she tried to help get him undone, sticking herself every few minutes with one of the terrible thorns. At least the animal tired after only a few moments and didn’t struggle anymore. Although, she wasn’t sure she should be relieved about that or concerned. Concerned, likely. If he didn’t even have enough energy to fight for himself...
She swallowed a lump in her throat, unsure why this was affecting her quite so deeply.
But the calf didn’t know any better. He was innocent. And he had wandered off and gotten himself into trouble. And she just wanted... She wanted to help.
She wanted to do something good and make a difference.
She fought harder with the brambles, her hands a bloody mess.
Rose was finally done with phone calls and turned her focus back to the spot, back to Sammy. “Holy hell, Sammy. What did you do?”
“Nothing intentional,” she said. “I just wanted to help.”
It sounded so feeble when she said it out loud.
“The boys will come with something to cut all this with. And Bennett will be here soon with his whole mobile unit.”
“Good,” Sammy said.
But still, she sat with the calf and worked at the thorns. Because she couldn’t stand for him to be in pain.
By the time the truck rolled up with Logan and Ryder, her hands were a disaster, and Rose was pacing angrily.
She had asked Sammy to stop several times, but Sammy wasn’t listening.
“What did you do?” Ryder approached her directly, sinking down to his knees beside her and taking her hand in his.
A bolt of electricity shot through her.
“I couldn’t stand him being stuck,” she said.
When her eyes caught his shamefully, her throat started to close. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she didn’t know what had her feeling so emotional. She wasn’t normally like this. But there was something about the tender fury in his gaze that struck her deep.
“Come here,” he said, hauling her to her feet, bringing himself with her. “You’re going to have to make sure you get medicine on these. And Band-Aids.”
“I know,” she said, feeling stubborn and grumpy. Like a little kid getting scolded in the too-hot sun, and the worst thing was she sort of felt like a petulant kid.
Plus, her hands hurt.
But Ryder’s hold on her was firm and masculine, and the feelings he created under her skin made her feel like a woman and not a child at all.
The contrast of the two warring sensations made her want to sit down on the ground and cry. And why on earth she should feel so emotional over her best friend touching her arm she didn’t know.
It had been sex.
Just sex.
Sex didn’t have to matter.
It could just be nice.
It didn’t have to change you.
As she looked into those whiskey-brown eyes she wondered though if you didn’t get a choice on when it might change you.
“Sammy...”
“Hey,” Rose said. “Break it up.”
And Sammy knew that Rose thought she was being funny. Because Rose had no idea what had happened between her and Ryder last night. But Logan did. And he was giving her a hard, appraising glance.
She scowled in return.
She would not be accepting the judgment of Logan Heath, thanks so much.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” Logan said, hunkering down by the animal. Ryder joined him, and Sammy stood back, pressing her thumb against one of the particularly deep gouges on her palm. Now it hurt. When before she had been able to ignore it a bit.
“Fool,” Rose said.
“I just wanted to help.”
It didn’t sound any better the more she repeated it. And standing there she couldn’t quite articulate why she had to.
It was just... It was all part and parcel to this weird feeling of uselessness inside her. That sense that she was adrift in some way.
There was something incomplete about her. Something that needed filling and fulfilling. Which was how she’d arrived at the baby.
At Ryder. At everything.
Using tools, Logan and Ryder got the little calf free much more quickly than the progress that she had been making. They got the calf loaded up into the back of the truck, and Logan got into the driver’s seat, Ryder getting into the bed. Rose got into the cab with Logan, and that left Sammy with the decision to