Page 61 of The Mistletoe Kisser

“Who are you?” Joey asked suddenly, her eyes narrowing in on him.

“This is Carson’s great-nephew Ryan. Ryan, this is Joey Pierce and her daughter Reva.”

Given the narrow age range between the women, Ryan guessed that biology hadn’t played a part in the parent-child relationship.

“What are you doing here?” Joey asked.

She was the first person to ask him that. Everyone else seemed to already know. “I’m handling a family matter for my uncle,” he said.

“Your uncle’s family matter involves my stables?”

“It’s a long story,” Sammy cut in. “Ryan’s car wouldn’t start, so he’s playing vet tech today in exchange for a chauffeur.”

“Hmm,” Joey mused. She sounded like she didn’t quite buy the explanation.

Sammy glared at the woman. “Don’t tell me you’ve been in the gossip group.”

“Ihaven’t,” Joey said defensively. “But that one over there maybe mentioned something about you two and your romantic romp around town.” She nodded in Reva’s direction.

“Romantic romp?” Ryan scoffed. “Doesn’t anyone here have anything better to do with their time than gossip?”

“Not really,” Joey and Sammy said together.

Reva grimaced. “You know. I think I hear something… somewhere that’s not here. Bye!” Hiding a grin, she jumped up from the desk and hurried out the door. “Nice to meet you, Ryan!”

“You, too,” he called after her.

“Well, let’s look at a horse uterus, shall we?” Sammy said, rubbing her palms together.

“Now,thanks to Apollo and Calypso, the farm’s biggest moneymaker is the breeding program,” Joey explained to Ryan.

“And you’re still running the riding school and boarding horses?” he quizzed her. The streams of income available to a farm with some creativity and capital were fascinating.

“Yep. Speaking of which,” she said, peering over Sammy’s shoulder at the ultrasound image on the iPad, “your girl could use a ride. I wasn’t able to get her out yesterday.”

Sammy blew out a breath through her teeth and hit send on the images. “I planned to today,” she admitted, “but we’re tight on time.”

Ryan felt a sting of guilt. If there was one thing he understood, it was responsibility. And the fact that he was keeping Sammy from one of hers irked him. Should some poor horse suffer just because he was in a hurry to go get paper cuts while digging through a disorganized mound of paperwork?

“I have time,” he announced.

Sammy looked at him with a “you’re sweet but” expression. “I’d need at least forty-five minutes. I know you have things to do.”

“I can wait,” he insisted.

“Why wait?” Joey piped up. “You ever been on a horse before?”

“Me?” Ryan looked over his shoulder to see if Joey was addressing someone else. “Hell no. I don’t like sitting on animals. It feels too Napoleonic.”

17

“Istill don’t understand how it happened,” Ryan complained. “I very distinctly remember saying no.”

Sammy turned in her saddle and grinned back at him as he plodded along on Shakira, a dappled gray horse with a bristly mane. She was a school mount for beginners. Ryan looked both uncomfortably out of his element and just a little delighted about it. It was adorable.

“Joey is very determined. It’s always safer to just go with whatever she wants you to do.”

“I seem to recall you were also rather convincing,” he said dryly.