The Sticky Cowgirl (Lone Star Sweets, Book 2) (12 page)

“Easy for him? Really? You’re going to defend him?”

“Shit, Princess. Just go, will ya? Let me have my truck back.” He brushed past Samuel which was more like shoving Samuel into the steel cabinets to his left and flattening his whole left side because there wasn’t enough shoulder room.

Samuel had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the look on Samantha’s face at the nickname before Jackson’s shoulders blocked his view. It wasn’t pretty, that look. Kind of a distorted smirk combined with a sneer. “That’s not fair,” she said with a poke of her finger in her brother’s shoulder. “But fine.”

Outside in the sun, Samuel gazed down at the spitfire of a woman he couldn’t get out from under his skin.

“What?” she snapped.

“Just you,” he replied easily, taking a few steps in the direction of the river. He smiled to himself when she finally fell into step beside him.

“What about just me?”

Her tone hadn’t changed and something about that lodged in his heart. “You’re not meek or agreeable.”

“Of course I’m not. You’ve known that since we met.”

“I like it.”

“Huh? What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

Yelling, confused, sad, happy, excited, pleading. It didn’t matter what her mood, Samuel adored her. She was full of life in ways the women in his life previously hadn’t been. “It’ll never be dull, that’s certain.”

“What will never be dull? You’re not making a lick of sense.”

Samuel stopped at the top of the steps that would take them down to river level. It wasn’t too crowded and with a gesture, and his hand on the small of her back, he guided her around the parents trying to wrangle several kids. In a few hours, when it got dark, it would be drunk friends trying to stay upright getting up and down the stone stairs.

“Life with you,” he said, answering her question.

“Are you feeling all right? Have you eaten? Did Jacks hit you outside the truck or something?”

“No he didn’t hit me. And yes, I’m feeling perfectly fine.”

“Then could you please say something I understand? ‘Cause I’m a little concerned. I haven’t heard from you in days and today you show up talking nonsense..”

Samuel stopped along the edge of the water and slid his hands into his pockets. “What do you see when you look around here?”

Samantha sighed. “There you go again. I’m so confused.”

“I know and I’m sorry.” He reached out and brushed his hand down the back of her head, the silk of her hair sliding through his fingers. She’d pulled it out of the ponytail she’d been sporting in Jackson’s truck. He leaned toward her and kissed her shoulder. “There’s a method, I promise. Just stick with me and I’ll connect it all for you shortly. Now, what do you see?”

She eyed him skeptically, but soon took in the area of the Riverwalk around them. “People. Why? What do you see?”

“Money.” His answer was immediate as was the snort she let go as soon as the word was out of his mouth.

“Yes, I suppose that’s what you would see.”

“But if you put the two together, that’s a business.”

“Okay,” she agreed, though it was hesitant.

“You’ve been offered enough money that you could open a store here on the river. You’d have more foot traffic than you’d know what to do with. Some of these storefronts are twice as big as the one you’re in now. You could stay open later, draw in a different crowd every night.”

Samantha turned to face him with hands on her hips and a scowl on her beautiful face. Her eyes shot fire at him and he was pretty sure she wanted him to go up in flames on the spot. “You’re still missing the point, aren’t you? After everything, you’re still missing the damn point.”

“Actually, I’m not. I understand why you want to stay where you are.”

“Then what’s this little exercise all about?”

“Do you trust me?”

Chapter Thirteen

“Seriously?” she asked around a snort. His question had been sincere and she was laughing at him. Only Samantha.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. In business, no. Personally? I think so, although this last week really put a few chinks in that armor.”

“I suppose I deserve that. Okay. For right now, in this moment, I’m going to ask that you trust me in business.”

“ “Trust me for ten more minutes. That’s all.”

He hoped he could convince her in that short span of time. He held out his hand to her and after several heartbeats of uncertainty, she slid her palm in his.

“Ten minutes.” she agreed.

“Then we better get a move on.”

Samuel tugged her along, weaving through the visitors, tourists, locals, and patrons that lined the Riverwalk. Conversations and music filtered in and out of the various restaurants and shops with open doors. The area was always full of life and there was a constant hum of energy in the air.

Samantha’s smaller hand felt good in his. He’d marveled before that hers were slightly rough where his were very smooth. He’d never done any manual labor, never had cause to and somehow that small detail, that small difference between them made him feel inferior. He didn’t like that feeling at all.

He was in love with her. He’d known it the second he stepped foot inside the kitchen of
The Sticky Cowgirl
that first time. Did she know? Could she tell?
Not after this last week of silence, dipshit.

“Where are we going?”

“Just a little ways. I know you’re confused about a lot of things, especially when I turned you down after dinner with my family, but I’m hoping what I’ve got to show you will help my case.”

“All the secrecy and how weird you’re acting isn’t helping.”

He grinned at the sarcastic bent of her words. “I get that. Why aren’t at your own place today?”

“I’m letting Jackson’s girlfriend run the place through the weekend. She’s going to be starting her own business again soon. We’re calling it an internship.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. She had a bakery a few years ago and it went under after only a few months. With mine and Jackson’s help, she’s going to try again.”

“And managing The Sticky Cowgirl will help? How?”

“Seriously? You’re a businessman. You should know how this works.”

“Yes. Seriously. Humor me.”

She hesitated long enough for them to walk up a flight of steps and cross one of the bridges over the river. A boat of tourists passed beneath them and the smells of sizzling fajitas from one of the nearby Mexican restaurants tempted him. He loved the city, the river, the vibrancy of downtown. His mother preferred to be outside the city limits or in one of the more expensive areas, but not Samuel. He liked the casual ease of urban living.

“Sam?” he prodded.

“Well, Cass needed a chance to get back in front of customers, in front of the public. She teaches pastry arts and is in front of students all the time, but it’s not the same as strangers off the street wanting something she may not have. She needed the opportunity to have to meet a demand and deal with unhappiness and order volume and chaos and the exhaustion at the end of the day. Much as I love what I do, it’s almost as tiring as working the ranch and it’s a constant thought in my head. Did I order enough supplies? Will I make payroll? Will I be able to pay the light bill? If the health inspectors pop in for an impromptu inspection will I pass? Will the lime sticky buns sell or will I have wasted time and money?”

“Does she ever manage your brother’s cupcake truck? That seems like a good place to learn all about the demands and quick turn around.”

“She has a few times. It’s definitely a different atmosphere than The Sticky Cowgirl. Both are good for her. She’s super smart and can bake a cake with one hand tied behind her back while wearing a blindfold, but she lacked a little of the business tenacity. I mean, I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling thinking and stressing and wondering and fretting and knowing that any given day my sales could drop below the threshold of what my accountant and I have set the bar at and if that happens, I may be done unless I can turn it around. I didn’t know much at all about business and mostly went with my gut, but I took some classes and had my father that I could turn to when I was starting up. Jacks didn’t have that and I think Cass had one side of it, but not anyone to help her figure things out sometimes.”

Samuel nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at him. He was a business man and usually he was a brilliant businessman, but listening to Samantha talk, he knew he wasn’t as brilliant as he could be. He wasn’t doing all he could be doing.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, nudging his arm with her shoulder.

“That the stress of what I do isn’t as personally stressful as what you do and that I’d never put that together.”

“How so? Is it because I don’t have a big company backing my actions the way you did?”

Samuel chuckled. The woman never pulled any punches with him. It was likely she didn’t pull any punches with anyone. And it was definitely one of the things he’d fallen in love with about her. She was the challenge no one had ever given him. “Yes. You do it all yourself. You worry over everything. I didn’t have to do that.”

“But what about the money that’s at stake in the job you had? What about deals that didn’t work out? Weren’t there consequences?”

“There were always consequences. Trust may not be as easily given the next time and the deal may go to someone else until I prove myself again. I learned from every failed business deal and I never made the same mistake twice. As for the money, there was more for the next venture.”

“I’ve never worked for anyone else. I worked the ranch. That was expected of me and part of growing up. I worked my mama’s small dairy farm and dairy store, but it was part of my life, too. I’ve never worked for a company though. I don’t think I’d like it. I don’t think I’d like being in an office.”

“Too stuffy?”

“That, and too many rules and regulations and too cooped up.”

“You’re cooped up in your bakery.”

“That’s different. I’m at home there. I can wear whatever I want. I can change the hours if I want. I can step outside, I can see different people, I can take a walk. I don’t have to punch a clock or enter time in a computer. I have freedom working for myself.”

“Yes, you do and I have to agree. Working for a company not your own would not work for you.” Samuel pulled Samantha to a stop and turned her toward her own shop.

“What are we doing here?”

“I need you to hear me out.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “About what?” Her wariness was back and for a split second, Samuel wasn’t sure he could go forward with his idea. He didn’t want to see uncertainty and distrust in her eyes when she looked at him, but at the same time, he didn’t want to see unhappiness and dissatisfaction looking back at him when he stared at himself in the mirror every morning either.

“I’ve been working on a plan to get you what you want and get Brandt what he wants and maybe even get me what I want.” It was the first time he’d ever been selfish in his life, the first time he’d ever voiced that getting something he wanted was important to him.

“That’s a tall order. Hard to please three very different people all at the same time without someone having to give.”

Samuel couldn’t agree more. “But that’s just it. You and Brandt aren’t much different in this. You’re both mule headed and neither of you gives an inch or even a centimeter. Which, is why I have been forced to look outside the box to try and fix this.”

“And you think you have?”

Samantha walked away from him after asking the question. She took a seat at one of the small white tables in front of her bakery. There were a few people inside ordering and a few others digging into the sticky buns with forks and knives. He could almost taste the very first sticky bun she’d given him.

“Yes, I think I have.”

“I’m listening.”

Why did he have to look so good? He wasn’t in a suit or even in business casual clothing. He was in jeans, in a t-shirt, in boots. She’d never seen him in boots before. She’d never thought he could be even hotter in anything but a suit, but when she saw him inside the cupcake truck, it had taken every bit of righteous indignation she had to ignore how much she wanted to tackle him to the floor. She was angry at him. Hurt that he’d rejected her without so much as an explanation after putting her through the meeting with his mother.

She’d been a bitch all week and if it hadn’t been for her customers, the love and loyalty they showed her day in and day out, was the only thing that kept her from crawling under her blankets and staying there until she was over him.

But she didn’t. She pulled her ass out of bed every morning, forced herself to go to work, forced herself to smile and put Samuel out of her mind.

And she thought she’d done a pretty good job of it until she saw him today.

“I’ve presented the idea to Brandt and I’m having an architect friend work on modifying the original building plans and I’ve been working on modifying the building prospectus.”

“Modifying how? Is this the idea Daddy talked to you about?” Samantha didn’t want to get her hopes up on something that Brandt may ultimately decide against, but the look in Samuel’s eyes, the excitement and hope… She really wanted to feel the same.

“Yes, it is. I dismissed it at first, but the more I thought about it? I didn’t see that it would hurt to give it a shot. Brandt gave me the go ahead to work something up.”

“Daddy isn’t so bad,” she said, feeling proud to be the daughter of the man who raised her.

“No, he’s not. A little gruff, but not so bad.”

“So, why did you have to bring me here to talk to me about it? Are you planning to go back to work for Brandt?”

Samuel joined her at the small iron table. “No. I want to open my own business.”

“Really?” She was both shocked and not. “What type of business?”

“Small business consulting.”

Okay, now she was shocked. “Why?”

“Shane.”

“My customer Shane? What about him?”

“He’s majoring in business and entrepreneurship. He wants to help small businesses like yours and others. It was a great idea and honestly, ever since I met him and talked just that brief amount with him, I haven’t been able to get the thought out of my head.”

“But you don’t have small business experience.”

“No, but I can learn about it. You and your brother are a fountain of information and I’m sure I can get others interested in helping me learn. I’ve always been a quick study. I want to talk to Shane some more, see if he’d be interested in joining me as an intern while he’s still in school and then maybe coming to work for me.”

“You’re serious about this.”

“Yes.”

“What happened, Samuel?”

“You happened. You were not what I expected. Everyone one else on this block, in these buildings gave in so easily when we offered them a buyout. They snatched it up and left without a backward glance. You didn’t do anything of the sort. You have the grit and bullheadedness and determination to fight for what you believe in, including yourself.”

She beamed under his praise. She couldn’t help it. He was the man she loved and despite their differences, he had come to appreciate her as more than his lover. “Small business is hard. Owning a company, no matter the size, is hard work. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

“I know, baby. I’ve watched you and I’ve listened to you. Even when you were yelling at me that I didn’t get it, I was listening.”

“So, what were you doing outside my store last week?”

“Watching. Making notes of the people who are your customers. Your peak times of day and your lulls.”

“You were spying on me?”

“Not spying, no. That would only be done if I was trying to open up competition. I was again, trying to learn. You’re a busy woman. On your feet for hours and you’re always smiling when faced with a customer. You relate well to people. You’re engaging and you love what you do. I never knew that was something someone should have until I started becoming involved with you.”