They'd spent their entire day at the canyon. Vin Tanner had promised to teach Samantha Crawford to shoot for months, and finally she'd cornered him and demanded he keep his promise. So they'd both risen early that Tuesday morning in July, and made their way out to the canyon, where a lesson in sharpshooting had begun.
Sam wasn't a bad student. Far from it, she had obviously inherited a few things from her father, ladies man and impeccable shot Buck Wilmington.
After a tree stump had been filled with lead, they sat back to rest on a huge boulder that overlooked the canyon, under the shade of a big old tree.
Sam took pleasure in asking questions about Vin's past, and for his sake he answered them all. He managed to avoid addressing the parts of his past that he was less than proud of. She didn't need to know those, anyway. They were over, and he was living a new life now, one he wouldn't have changed for the world.
Turning the tables, Vin brought up a subject that was nagging at him lately.
"Have you heard from JD?" he asked.
Before he'd asked that, Sam had been smiling and relaxed. Now, he noticed her smile fade and her body tense up.
She shook her head. "I don't know if he's alive or dead, anymore."
"I'm sure he's okay," Vin offered. "We may have all joked around, but he's a strong kid. Got good instincts."
"Yeah?" Sam asked. "Well, his damn instincts should have kept him around here instead of sending him god knows where." She threw the daisy stem to the ground and pulled her knees up to her chin. "He could at least write to me. I think this is his revenge for everything I ever did to him."
"You know that ain't it," Vin replied. JD had been heartbroken, but he wasn't a mean-spirited kid.
She looked over at him. "Then why hasn't he let me know he's alright? Not just me, I can understand why he didn't write to me, but he could have at least written Buck, or Chris, or..." There were any number of people in Four Corners that both Vin and Sam knew that JD could have written to.
Sam got to her feet and walked toward the canyon. She folded her arms over her chest and kicked at the dirt. Vin understood. She was scared, and frustrated, and angry at herself and JD both.
The one thing Sam didn't know was that Vin was falling in love with her. Hell, he'd only just figured it out himself a few days ago. Maybe she wouldn't have felt so alone had she known that.
Slowly, she turned back to Vin; her closest friend these days.
"I hate feeling helpless, you know that," she whispered.
He got up from the rock and went toward her. Sam, for her part, didn't move from where she stood. As had happened so many times lately, Sam noticed how clear his blue eyes were, how tan his skin was.. She quickly brushed those thoughts aside, but they snuck back into her head within a moment.
Vin stopped only inches from her and looked down into her dark eyes. Now or never, he thought, and opened his mouth to speak-
"Rider comin' in!" came a holler. Vin instintively stepped in front of Sam and reached for his gun. He stopped as soon as he looked up and saw who it was.
Chris Larabee and Josiah Sanchez rode up to the duo, looking mighty and powerful atop their large horses .
"I thought I'd find you two out here," Josiah said, tipping his hat to the two of them. Chris looked at their faces. He wasn't a fool, he'd seen how close they'd been standing only a moment before.
"The sheriff of Bitter Creek wired," Chris explained. "He needs someone to track a missing boy."
Vin nodded. "Sounds like you mean me."
Chris nodded. "Josiah's going with you. I came to take Sam back to town."
Sam smiled. "Still don't trust me, Chris?"
He smiled. "Hell, I trust you. It's the rest of the territory I don't trust." After everything Sam had lived through in the past year, Chris wasn't about to let her out of his sight if he could help it. Besides, a beautiful girl riding unescorted across the plains just screamed of danger.
Giving in, Sam went to her horse. First, though, she looked over at Vin. "Good luck," she said, touching his arm lightly.
He nodded. She was all the good luck he needed.
Josiah and Vin headed toward Bitter Creek at a gallop. Chris and Sam slowly began their trip back to town.
Neither of them spoke for a little while, both lost in thought.
"I know I ain't Buck," Chris suddenly spoke, "But I feel like I should say something. I don't know whats going on between you and Vin, but -"
Sam busted out laughing. "There's nothing going on between me and Vin." Her face was so honest, Chris had to believe her.
He nodded. "Well, even so. I feel like I should go on record as saying no matter what his past was, he's a good man."
Sam looked over at Chris, curiously. "Yes, indeed. But..what brought this whole thing about?"
Chris shrugged. "Call it intuition."
He saw her staring at him, her eyes searching his face for a clue as to what he meant by that. Not finding anything, she turned her eyes away. Chris realized that Sam, who tried so hard to pretend she had everything under control, had honestly no idea that Vin was head over heels for her. The girl had lived through so much at such a young age, yet she had no idea how to read love when it wasn't spelled out in blunt honesty like JDs had been. Vin's quiet-type of love was surrounding her, and she was totally oblivious to it.
"You're crazy, Chris Larabee," she said, shaking her head.
He grinned. "Crazy like a fox."
Sam rolled her eyes. "You been spendin' too much time around Buck. That's one of his famous lines."
They rode back to town, bantering the whole way.