Things that were not on my 2024 bingo card: writing a second chapter to my first Phantom Stallion fic from way back in 2016. Was this necessary? Or good? No, and no, but it was on my list, and maybe it'll trick me into writing more in the future.

If you want to read something that's actually good, GO READ MY RECENTLY-COMPLETED 20+ CHAPTER FIC, MUSTANG HEART. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

Sam sat down at the table carefully, balancing her cafeteria tray on one hand and a carefully-wrapped present on the other. Jen raised her eyebrows curiously. "What's in the box?"

"Jake's Valentine's Day present," Sam replied with a grin.

Jen rolled her eyes. "Yeah, the heart wrapping paper made that pretty clear. What'd you get him?"

"Cupcakes," Sam answered proudly, taking a bite of disappointing spaghetti. Jen looked dubious, so she elaborated. "Don't worry; Gram helped and I did a taste test. They're good."

"Good" probably wasn't even a strong enough word. Sam had spent hours baking and decorating the cupcakes, making sure the frosting was swirled just perfectly and the Cupid-shaped sprinkles were evenly distributed. She and Jake had only been together for a week and a half, but she wanted their first Valentine's Day to be special.

"That's not what I was worried about," said Jen, a frown crossing her face. "How did you wrap the box without turning the cupcakes upside down?"

Sam had to clap a hand over her own mouth to keep from dropping an f-bomb in front of the whole cafeteria. She stared at the box for a moment, as if it might reassure her everything was going to be okay, but Jen had made a very good point. "Um, I totally turned the cupcakes upside down."

Jen winced. She might not have been the biggest fan of Sam's boyfriend (she usually referred to him as "Jake [vomit noises] Ely") but she knew how important this was to Sam. "Well, that's okay! You'll probably just have to re-frost them, and if he's just coming over for dinner, you'll have time after school."

Sam groaned. "I have a meeting for the stupid school paper. I won't be home until five. My life is over."

"Your life is not over. At least you have a boyfriend," Jen pointed out, ever-practical. She and Ryan Slocum were currently in an "off" stage of their on-and-off relationship due to a heated argument over who had misplaced all of the barn's hoof picks.

"Yeah, I guess so," Sam conceded. It didn't really make her feel much better.

"Jake won't care," Jen promised. If she was speaking about Jake in a civil tone, that meant things were really bad. "Come on. The main part of Valentine's Day is the dinner date, isn't it?"

Now it was Sam's turn to roll her eyes. "It is not a dinner date. We're making dinner so Gram and Dallas and Dad and Brynna can go out for their dinner dates."

"What I'm hearing is you'll be home alone," said Jen, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"With Cody. We are babysitting. It's like the least romantic thing ever."

"I still can't believe your dad went for that."

"Neither can I," Sam agreed. When the news had first broken that her and Jake's years of friendship had bloomed into romance, her dad had, actually, been a little upset- although, maybe that was more about the circumstances of finding out than anything else. "But nothing's going to happen, especially if I don't even have a Valentine's present for him. Do you think we could scrape the frosting off and call them muffins?"

"First of all, what do you mean, we?"

"Hey, Sam!"

Sam's first instinct was to cover the present with her body, even though it wasn't Jake who was calling her, but one of her friends from the school paper. "Oh, hey, RJay. What's up?"

RJay paused only briefly by her table; apparently he had places to be. "Just wanted to tell you the meeting for tonight is cancelled."

Sam laughed. "What, did you finally get a date?"

"Nah, weather advisory. Can you tell Mariah and Kate?"

Sam agreed, and RJay scurried off. Once he was gone, Sam let out a big sigh of relief. "Alright. Back to Plan B."

"You really should be using numbers. At this rate, you're going to run out of letters."

"I've only gone through three plans today! And one of them was just accepting that my life was ruined."

"Well, I told you your life wasn't over. But it might be if Jake sees the present and you have to explain why you can't give it to him until tonight."

"Shit." Sam and Jake's lunch periods overlapped by about ten minutes, and the idea had been that Sam would give Jake his present in that window, but they were on Plan B now. "Alright, I need to hide this in my locker. If he asks where I am, can you cover for me?"

"I can, but that's a decision you might regret later."

Sam did not have time to ponder over what that might mean. She tucked Jake's gift under her arm and skedaddled, leaving Jen to deal with her lunch tray. It seemed fair at the time.

Stealth was key here. Sam was well aware of Jake's class schedule and habits- in many ways, he was a mystery, but not when it came to this- so she deliberately altered her route to avoid going past his locker. She felt pretty clever for that, so when she heard Jake's voice from down the hallway, she panicked. Instinct took over, and she ducked behind someone else going through their locker. The girl looked at her weird, but Sam didn't really care.

She heard Jake's voice again, so she knew she hadn't imagined it. "I'm picking you up at three-fifteen, right?"

"Yup."

Sam recognized that voice too- Darrell, one of Jake's best friends. Things suddenly made a bit more sense. In avoiding the hallway with Jake's locker, she had entered the one with Darrell's. If she backtracked and hurried, she could still get to her own locker and stash the present before her next class started.

Except…Sam found herself not wanting to move. What were Jake and Darrell talking about? Even though it was technically none of her business, Sam couldn't help being curious. Instead of turning back down the hallway, Sam leaned as close as she could without losing her cover, not wanting to miss a thing.

"Sam gets back at five. So we need to be at River Bend by three-thirty."

"Yup."

Wait, what were they talking about? Her? That was not part of Plan A, B, or C.

"I have all of my stuff ready. Do you have yours?"

"Yup." Sam could hear Darrell rolling his eyes. "You can calm down a little, bud. You know you guys have only been together for a week, right?"

"I don't care. Do not mess this up for me," Jake said in a threatening tone. Sam couldn't help grinning. "I'll pick you up at three-fifteen. We set up from three-thirty to five. If you mess up the surprise, I'll kick your ass."

Set up the what? Surprise her with what? Sam was dying to know, but nothing Jake or Darrell said after that cleared that up at all. Darrell agreed to Jake's terms, and they went their separate ways. Sam turned towards the lockers, hoping neither of them would notice her.

Even if they did, she had bigger problems. Jake's surprise counted on her being gone until five, but her meeting had been cancelled, and three-to-five was supposed to be designated cupcake time. There was no way Sam was going to interfere with that surprise, but what on earth was she supposed to do?

She took a deep breath. The solution was right in front of her. If she saddled up as soon as she got home, she could be gone before Jake and Darrell arrived to set up the mysterious surprise. Balancing a box of cupcakes on horseback would be difficult, but it wasn't far to Jen's house.

(She considered going to Jake's house, since it was closer and she knew he wouldn't be there, but she didn't want to interrupt any Ely Valentine's Day Lovin', and Jen was more likely to help her with re-frosting the cupcakes anyway.)

Alright. Onto Plan D.

Sam didn't have time to tell Jen about the newly-formed Plan D, but her friend was always up for anything and it was unlikely she'd have a problem with Sam just showing up at her house. The only issue was time. This wasn't something Sam wanted to rush through, but she would have to, to beat not only Jake but the dark clouds forming on the horizon.

She pushed Ace as fast as she dared, which wasn't all that fast. Ace was used to being steered with one hand, but normally her other hand wasn't occupied with a box of cupcakes. Sam felt off-balance in the saddle, like a good gust of wind might knock her out of it.

In the end, that wasn't exactly how it happened. The wind was picking up, yes, but Sam didn't really lose her balance until Ace stumbled cantering through a snow drift. The sudden shift in his momentum sent Sam flying. She went one way, her horse went the other, and the cupcake box went straight up in the air.

Sam experienced some very good luck followed immediately by some very bad luck. She landed on her shoulder in the snow, soft and deep enough to break her fall. The cupcake box, on its descent, bounced off Ace's butt, and the little bay mustang lost his mind.

"WHOA, ACE!" Sam called, already picking herself up, but it was too late. Tame as Ace was, he'd kept his mustang flight instinct, and he was already running home as fast as his little legs could carry him.

Sam went limp again. There was no catching Ace now, and therefore no reason to get up in a hurry. Why did this stuff always happen to her?

She didn't stay down for a long. Wallowing in a snow bank was pretty cold, actually, and Sam still had this desperate hope of salvaging her Valentine's Day. Getting chucked off a horse had surely sent the cupcakes into further ruination, but maybe she could be home in time to give Jake a nice card.

The wind howled, peppering Sam's face with tiny, brittle snowflakes. When she looked up, the sky was dark, a mix of February's early sunsets and an oncoming storm. For the first time, it occurred to Sam that the only reason she wasn't removing unnecessary semicolons from a freshman's article about a cheer competition right now was because of a winter weather advisory. Maybe she should have taken that into consideration.

Maybe she should have told someone where she was going.

At least she was only a couple miles from home, although it would feel like a lot longer, trudging through deep snow and clutching a box of cupcakes. Sam supposed she could have left the ruined cupcakes behind, but on the off chance she was stranded outside overnight, she wanted to have something to eat, even if those cupcakes were more or less responsible for her having to walk home in the first place.

The snow began to fall in heaps instead of flakes, and Sam was forced to acknowledge that she was in big trouble here. Every gust of wind pushed more snow into Ace's footprints, making it harder for Sam to follow the trail. The falling snow and lack of landmarks left her internal compass all but useless, and she had little to go on besides that. What if she was going the wrong way already, completely turned around?

It had been drilled into Sam back when she was a Girl Scout that if a person was lost, the thing to do was stay put and wait for help. As much as Sam still respected her troop leader Barbara, she knew that wasn't the thing to do now. She wasn't cold yet, but only because trekking through the deep snow had her working up a sweat. If she slowed down or stopped, it wouldn't take long for a chill to set in, and then she'd really be in trouble.

Still, something like despair was beginning to settle over her, and every step came a little slower than the last. The heat of exercise mixed unpleasantly with the chill of the wind, and Sam wished she knew how close she was to home. It would be easier to push on if she could count down every step she had left to take, instead of blindly continuing into the great unknown, but no matter how hard she squinted, she could only see wind and whipping snow.

But…wait.

There was something.

Sam shielded her eyes with her hand, not that it helped very much. Something still just looked like a black blob, which could have been any number of things. It was large and moving at a decent clip, but that still didn't really narrow it down. Thanks to the snow coming down from what felt like all directions, Sam couldn't define the blob as a horse and rider until it was almost on top of her.

Not just any rider, either.

Jake. Riding Jeep, ponying a sorry-looking Ace.

Relief, guilt, embarrassment. All washed over Sam with equal urgency, and a little squeak escaped her throat. "Jake!" she exclaimed. "How did you know I was out here?"

Her boyfriend scoffed, like it should have been so obvious. "You were late and Ace was gone. Get on; let's go home."

Home. Nothing had ever sounded so wonderful, but Sam's arms, stiff from the cold, were not very helpful in getting her back on Ace. Jake had to pull her up by the collar of her jacket, which had to be the least romantic thing he'd ever done to her, and that included years of calling her "Brat".

Still, Sam couldn't have been more grateful for him showing up when he did. Jake seemed to have a sixth sense for when she was getting into trouble, and he'd been right on the money this time. As embarrassing as it was to be rescued from peril by someone you were actively trying to impress, Sam was aware it was a lot better than the alternative.

Sam's teeth chattered as her heart rate slowed down, but Jake had other things on his mind. "So what exactly were you doin' out here?"

Sam groaned. All her plans and the trouble she'd went through, and she found herself faced with exactly what she'd hoped to avoid. "Well…it all started when I was wrapping your present…"

Jake listened to her tale of woe, claiming not to pass judgment but looking a little too smug for Sam to believe that. She threatened to wipe the smirk off his face, but Jake didn't seem fazed. Considering she was eight inches shorter than him and shivering, maybe that was fair, but Sam still thought it rude. Unfortunately, it was very difficult for her to stay mad at Jake, even when he was being a shit.

By the end of the story, Jake was visibly holding back laugher. As annoying as it was, Sam also saw it as proof of how much they'd grown. There had been a time- not even that long ago, really- when Jake had been wholly incapable of seeing the humor in anything that involved her safety. This largely-harmless incident would have turned into a fight, and they both would have walked away mad. They had grown up since then, a lot.

As Jake was wiping the lone giggly tear from his eye, a terrible thought struck Sam. "Wait, Jake, you said you came looking for me because I was late to meet you. How late, exactly?"

Jake shrugged. "I rode out around five-fifteen."

Sam gasped, already several worst-case scenarios down the line. "So Dad and Gram already left for their dates? Oh my god, where's Cody?"

"Calm down," Jake said seriously. His next words made that impossible. "Darrell's got him."

"Darrell, high school drug dealer, is watching my baby brother?!" Sam shrieked, her voice climbing to new octaves.

"First of all, Darrell does not deal drugs," Jake informed her. Like she was going to believe that. "…I think. Second, if you have such a problem with him as a babysitter, maybe you should have made more effort to not get lost in a snowstorm."

"Hey!"

"Or maybe, you shouldn't have been listening in on a private conversation."

"Says you."

"Then, looking back even further, maybe you shouldn't have wrapped the cupcake box upside down."

I can't believe I told you that, Sam intended to reply, but something distracted her before she could get the words out. "…Jake, are you wearing a heart print tie?"

"What? No, of course not." He hurried to zip his coat all the way to his chin.

"You are!" she exclaimed gleefully. She'd lived through a wild, up-and-down, embarrassing day, but all it took to undo that was one heart-print tie on the best boyfriend ever. "You dressed up for Valentine's Day! That's so cute!"

"Shut up," Jake grumbled. He looked away, but Sam could still see his flushed cheeks. She didn't think it was just from the cold. "I'm not cute."

"You're so cute," Sam insisted. "Is that my surprise? Did it take you two hours to figure out how to put it on?"

"I know how to tie a tie."

"What's the surprise, then?"

"A surprise. Obviously. If I decide to give it to you."

"What do you mean, if?!"

"I mean, maybe your new surprise is that I came out and rescued you."

Sam couldn't help smiling. "That didn't surprise me at all."

She had known since long before they got together that Jake would always come after her if she found herself in trouble. It was one of his best qualities, going hand-in-hand with Sam's very worst.

(Not to imply that getting lost or stranded was her fault. Obviously that was something that simply happened to her. Frequently.)

Sam continued to prod Jake about the surprise, but he wouldn't budge. He did, however, help her off her horse in the same way a gentleman might open a car door for a lady. It was the kind of chivalry Sam might have ordinarily found excessive, but by this point her legs were shaking from the cold, so she appreciated it.

Sunset came early; if not for the oversized yard light it would have been pitch black. The barn lights were on too, making it appear welcoming and hopefully warmer than the outdoors. Sam briefly indulged in a fantasy about hot chocolate and curling up in front of the fireplace the way Cougar did on cold winter nights.

All thoughts of hot chocolate vanished from her head when she saw how the barn had been transformed. Pink string lights criss-crossed the stalls, bathing everything in a soft glow. The end of the aisle, normally a catch-all for extra buckets and grooming supplies Sam would "need again soon" had been cleaned out and replaced with a massive candy hearts photo backdrop, complete with "spotlights" she was pretty sure normally lived on Luke Ely's work bench. Less obvious but equally important, Tempest was wearing one of those headbands with heart-shaped antenna. Sam was pretty sure she'd seen Mrs. Ely don that exact headband in Valentine's Days past, but that certainly wasn't her first priority at the moment.

She couldn't stop smiling. "This is my surprise?" she asked, awestruck. She looked back and forth between a suddenly-shy Jake and the beautifully-decorated barn, something she never would have thought to ask for.

Jake shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to act like it was no big deal. "Yeah. I just thought, you know, something with your favorite things- horses, taking pictures…"

"And you," Sam added, although her cheeks flushed as she said it. "Don't forget you."

He tried to brush it off, like it was no big deal, but it was a huge deal to Sam. She would have been pleased to get a box of chocolates or a card, but to turn the whole barn into a photo studio for her horses? That was further than a lot of guys would have gone. That was love, right there.

She couldn't say thank you enough times. She had to throw her arms around him and squeeze, burying her face in his jacket. Surprised at first, Jake eventually wrapped her in a hug too, trusting Jeep to stay ground-tied in the barn aisle.

They would have stayed like that forever, maybe, if not for the barn door banging open. "Aww, aren't you guys cute!"

Sights Sam never thought she'd see: Jake's best friend Darrell, wearing one of Gram's striped aprons over his jacket, holding Cody on his hip. If the day hadn't already been such a wild ride, the shock might have knocked her over.

"While you two were smoochin', I made dinner," Darrell announced. He even sounded a little bit like Gram. Somebody needed to take that apron away from him.

"We were not-"

"Don't try that with me. Come inside; let's have sandwiches."

Sam and Jake looked at each other, communicating the situation wordlessly. They had yet to take any cute Valentines pictures of the horses. On the other hand, Sam was hungry, to the point she was considering unwrapping Jake's former present and eating mangled cupcakes with her hands. On a secret third hand, Sam did want to share any of her Valentine's Day with Darrell, but she had a bad feeling he was counting on Jake for a ride home.

What even was her life, these days?

"Alright, I'm going without you!" Darrell announced, hiking Cody up on his hip. Sam's little brother was normally not a fan of strangers, but he seemed to be enjoying Darrell's company. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

That was enough to convince Sam. She was hungry, and the horses would wait for her, as would the box of props Jake had somehow collected. Still, she hung back for just a moment, waiting for Jake to close his gloved hand over hers. A mess, that's what all of this had turned into- but she didn't think Jake would hold any of it against her.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Jake."

"Happy Valentine's Day, Brat."