Samantha and the Cowboy Read Free

below her waist. Her crowning glory. It would grow back in time.
    She knelt in front of her sewing basket and lifted the lid. She removed the scissors. They were cold against her fingers.
    She gathered her courage around her like a warm blanket in winter. We need the money. Desperately.
    Unfolding her body, she took one last glance at her reflection in the mirror. Using only her thumb and forefinger, she took hold of several strands of hair and lifted them straight up. Her heart thundered so loudly that she imagined it sounded like the hooves of cattle pounding the earth during a stampede.
    It’s only hair, she thought. Closing her eyes and shuddering, she took the first snip.
    She felt the fallen tresses float against her nightgown before they landed on the floor with an ominous silence. Opening her eyes, she cringed at the sight of the shortened strands curling just above her brow.
    It wasn’t too late to turn back. To crawl into bed and forget this hare-brained idea of hers. To leave the remainder of her hair alone.
    But in a way, she knew it had been too late the moment she had read the notice that had been posted outside the general store. She’d offered Benjamin the chance to help out the family, and he’d turned her down flat.
    Nothing got done if a person thought it couldn’t be done. Samantha knew she could do this.
    Grabbing more strands of hair, she released a quaking breath and went to work. Cut and snip, cut and snip, cut and snip. Her stomach tightened with each bite of the scissors.
    Within the mirror, the contours of her face seemed to change. The soft lines faded as though they mourned the loss of her hair. Her eyes seemed to grow larger, her cheekbones harsher.
    When she lopped off the final strands, she sank onto a nearby chair, her knees wobbly and unable to support her. With tears welling in her eyes, she stared atthe reflection in the mirror.
    What had she done?
    Samantha had disappeared. And in her place staring out of the mirror was Sam.

CHAPTER TWO
    Samantha—Sam, she had to remember her name was now Sam—stood outside the general store, her knees quaking. Her stomach felt as though someone had tied a noosed rope around it and was tugging hard.
    Two men stood in front of her. Men, not boys. A few men and boys stood behind her.
    It seemed several people were as desperate as she was to earn a hundred dollars. Fortunately, she didn’t know any of these fellas. Since the war, so many men were drifting aimlessly from place to place, never stopping long enough to put down roots. Those she did know were farmers who couldn’t risk leaving their fields.
    She knew she was taking a chance that the crops would suffer without her to care for them. But her mother had Nate and Amy. And even though Benjamin grumbled that he was useless, he did what he could, and she thought he did a fine job of working the fields.
    In the cold shadows, long before dawn, she’d sneaked through the house to Nate’s room and grabbed a pair of his britches, a flannel shirt, and an old coat. Nate was just a little bigger than she was, even though he was four yearsyounger. She’d located a battered black hat that had belonged to her pa. It made her feel closer to him, to think he might approve of her scheme.
    Leaving her mother a note explaining that she needed to go to town, she’d saddled her brown mare, Cinnamon, and headed on in. A thousand times during the journey, she’d questioned her sanity. A hundred times she’d almost turned around. But her family’s needs were greater than her fears.
    Her desire to help her family greatly outweighed her terror of the unknown, of the dangers that might lie ahead.
    Benjamin may have let the war defeat him, but she wasn’t going to allow it to get the best of her.
    Her mouth grew dry as the first man in line moved aside and the next fella stepped up to give his particulars to a man sitting behind a small table. She’d heard it