Chapter 34
Jake was over when Sam and Gram arrived home from Sam getting her cast off. Dad had gotten in a new horse that morning that Jake would be training. He was mounted on the horse in the round pen when Gram parked the Buick.
Sam saw Jake's grin as she got out of the car.
"Say it and you will pay," Sam shouted at him.
"I brought them," Jake shouted back at her.
"Oh shut up, Ely," Sam shouted.
"Samantha Anne," Gram tsked at her granddaughter.
"Gram, you don't know him like I know him," Sam told her. "Do you realize he brought horse clippers to shave my leg?"
Gram snorted.
"Gram!" Sam yelped.
She heard Jake's chuckle and she went to the pen and looked between the railings at him. Though his black Stetson was pulled low over his eyes, she saw the whiteness of his smile.
She stuck her tongue out at him and his smile widened.
"Should I get down and get them for you?" Jake asked. "They're in Witch's saddle bags."
"I should shave your head," Sam retorted.
"I don't mind shaving the forest for you," Jake teased.
Sam looked back towards the Buick, but Gram must have gone into the house.
"Oh yeah, like that's going to happen," Sam responded.
Jake rode the horse closer to her. Sam heard him murmuring calmly to the horse as he did. Sam was careful not to do anything that would spook the horse.
"What did the doctor say?" Jake asked as he got closer.
"I just need to take it a bit easy for awhile so I don't damage it," Sam told him. "The muscles are weak."
Jake nodded, meeting her eyes as he bumped up his Stetson.
"Do you want to go out tonight?" he asked.
"And do what?" Sam tilted her head at him.
"Dinner? Movie?"
"I'd love to," Sam smiled at him and he smiled down at her. She loved his smile and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he did.
"About five?" Jake asked.
Sam glanced at her watch and nodded.
"Why don't you get ready and come home with me," Jake suggested. "Then I'll clean up and we can go."
"Okay," Sam said. "How much longer do you have?"
"An hour or so," Jake felt the horse shifting under him and he murmured to it.
"It will take me that long to get through the forest," Sam giggled.
She heard Jake's chuckle as she pushed away from the pen and started for the house.
"My offer stands," Jake called. "The clippers are in my saddle bags."
"Oh shut up," she shouted before entering the house.
"Are you still yelling at Jake?" Gram asked, humor in her voice.
"Always," Sam laughed. She told Gram about their plans.
"I probably will need his horse clippers to get through all this hair," Sam complained. "I only have an hour or so, so I guess I better get started."
"Do you have enough razors?" Gram wondered.
"I'll let you know if you have to go out and get the horse clippers," Sam told her as she started slowly up the stairs.
She stripped out of her jeans when she got to her room and gasped at the amount of hair on her left leg. The hair was as dark and as thick as the hair on Jake's head. She groaned as she wrapped a robe around her and headed into the bathroom.
Sam turned on the water as warm as she could stand it and lathered herself in the shower. She ended up using all the razors she had trying to get the coarse, black hair off her legs.
"I wonder if Jake will stop at the drug store so I can buy some more," Sam snorted as she ran her hand over her leg. She saw the scar where the bone had popped out of the skin and grimaced.
She looked at her thigh and saw the bite mark there. Luckily, Jake had never given her any indication that he was turned off by it. Of course, he had a similar bite on his upper arm from the Phantom. Even though she hated the scars, she had to smile. She and Jake were a matched pair. Not that she ever doubted it.