Amanda Berry - His Small-Town Sweetheart

Now her nails were perfectly manicured. Her knees were smooth and clean with only a few scars from her childhood adventures. Her dark hair flowed over her shoulders, tangle-free with the right products and a straightening iron. Her skirt and blouse were feminine with flowers, the way Jeremy had always liked her to dress. Maybe she should go shopping...

As she rounded a bend, she saw it. After all these years, it was still there. The slab of wood they’d built up in the tree and called a tree house. She stopped in front of the tree and dropped her shoes to the ground. Glancing around and seeing no one, she smiled and grabbed the rope.

* * *

Sam Ward had never minded chores, but he was getting tired of finding damaged fencing along his property borders. John Baxter was usually good about it; if he found it first, he fixed it. But the new guy who’d bought the place to the south loved to drive his four-wheeler in his fields, but not actually keep up the fencing or anything else.

As Sam walked the fence bordering the Baxter property, Barnabus, his big, shaggy dog, trailed along behind him. Suddenly Barnabus lifted his head and gave a sharp bark before trotting into the woods.

Sam whistled, but the dog kept going. Probably a squirrel or something, but it could be a larger injured animal. He had sheep in the field at this time of year, but even a squirrel would be a welcome interruption into the monotony his life had become. Since his recovery from his valve surgery, he had been feeling ten times better than earlier this spring, prior to the operation. The tedium hadn’t bothered him before, but now he felt as if he’d been wasting his life out here all these years. Some days he wished he could just move away and start over. But this was his family’s farm, passed down to him by his parents.

A flash of white in a tree caught his attention. He quickened his pace down the old trail. If that new neighbor was littering on his land, he’d need to have a talk with him. But as he got closer, what Sam saw in the tree made no sense.

A slender young woman in a floral skirt and blouse stood on the platform that had once been his tree house. Her black hair lifted and floated on the wind. As he drew closer, he noticed the high heels at the base of the tree.

“You’re trespassing,” he called up to the clearly insane woman in his tree.

“No, I’m not. I built this place with my own two hands.” She turned and leaned forward against a thick offshoot of the trunk. She had the smile of a garden fairy, full of mischief. He couldn’t tell her eye color from so far away, but he could tell her eyes were light.

“I built that tree house almost twenty years ago.” He squinted as the sun moved to shine into his eyes.

“Sam?” Her voice sounded incredulous. “Oh, my God. Sam Ward, is that you?”

“Great,” he muttered, “the crazy woman in my tree knows my name.”

She pushed away from the trunk and started down with the use of the rope.

“I wouldn’t use that rope,” he said and moved closer.

“Why not? It got me up here.” Her skirt blew in the breeze and he caught a glimpse of her long legs and pink boy-short underwear before he could look away.

“Because it might—”

Before he could finish the sentence, the rope snapped in two. He rushed forward and grabbed the woman around the waist to stop her from falling to the ground. Her back pressed into his front. Her hair smelled floral and like expensive perfume with rich undertones, making him want to lean into her and draw in more of the scent.

He set her down in front of him. She spun immediately and pressed the length of her body against him and hugged him around the neck, pulling him down to her height. She was at least a half foot shorter than him. Even if she was crazy, his body responded to the soft curves pressed into his hardness.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” she said. Her tone made it seem as if she was ecstatic to see him. No one was that happy to see him. She must be certifiable.

She finally pulled away. Maybe she’d finally noticed he wasn’t holding in return. “Sam, it’s me.”

He looked into the crazy lady’s light green eyes. Surrounded by her dark lashes, the green reminded him of spring and new growth.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” She smiled, and her eyes sparkled. Her lips drew his attention.

Aware of how close they were standing, he took a step back. “Should I?”

“Are you scared I’ll give you cooties or something?” She laughed, and it tickled the air around his ears pleasantly. “I cross my heart and hope to die that I have not been infected.”

When she crossed her heart with her finger, his gaze took in her breasts and waist and hips. By the time he lifted his eyes to hers, she had her eyebrow raised and was watching him with such an intensity that a spark of awareness flowed through him.

“Oh, I think he might have it, folks,” she said in a game show–style voice. “Come on. You never were as fast as I was, but I thought since you grew up so damned tall... When did you get that tall?”

“Nikki?” He couldn’t keep the awe from his voice. The corners of his mouth twitched into a quick smile. This couldn’t be the same tomboy with hair falling out of her braids and dirty jeans. She’d been straight as a rail and proud of it.

She grinned. “I go by Nicole now. Mom thought it sounded more mature, and who was I to argue with her?”

“You left.”

“All right. Apparently it’s going to take you some time to catch up. Yes, my mom and I moved to California when I was fourteen after the divorce. I’m back now. Staying with Dad until I can get back on my feet.”

“Are you sick?” He took a partial step forward, searching for signs of sickness. His own brush with illness was still a fresh wound, though he was almost completely healed.

Her brow furrowed and she shrugged. “No, just having issues with life in general.”

He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. His brain was still trying to reconcile the beautiful woman in front of him with the rough-and-tumble tomboy best friend he used to know. “What were you doing in the tree?”

She swung around and looked up into the tree. “I wondered if I could still climb it.”

“In a dress?”

She looked at him over her shoulder and smiled. “It’s a skirt. I didn’t think anyone would be out in the field at this time of day. I just remember how many days we spent up there and wondered if I could feel that way again.”

“What way?” He squinted up at the old tree house. “Dirty with splinters in your feet?”

Her laughter made his gut tighten. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear it more, or not at all. It made him feel strange.

“Maybe,” she said before she turned back to him and closed the distance between them until her toes were only a few inches from his boots. She put a hand on top of her head and moved her hand toward his chest. “How did you get so tall? We were the same height when I left.”

“I grew.”

Her hand reached out and touched his arm lightly. He automatically flexed his muscles beneath her touch.

Her green eyes looked up at him with a twinkle in them. “You certainly did. Do you spend all your time bench-pressing cattle?”

The image struck him as funny, and a slight laugh, more like a release of air, escaped before he could stop it.

“Did you lose your funny bone, too?” She squeezed his elbow. “Nope, it feels like one is still in there.”

His lips tried to curve up again. She was something else. He didn’t know what to say, so, as usual, he remained silent, trying to figure out this situation.

She breathed in deeply and wrapped her arms around his waist again, resting her head against his chest. “It is so good to see you again. I was afraid you’d changed too much, or that, once I saw you, I wouldn’t recognize you, but here you are. Oh, my goodness, we always had so much fun together. Climbing trees, running through the fields, snowball fights.”