Sassy Cowgirl Kisses by Kathy Fawcett
Chapter 20
“Iwish I was normal.”
At a young age, Sassy began to understand that she was beautiful. Not just pretty, like the Katies at her school, or interesting, like the Lindsay’s. She had the kind of beauty that made both men and women trip over their words as they stared at her—mesmerized. Like she was an alien or something.
She came home from school one day and complained to her parents, telling them how much she wished she could blend in.
Her mother just laughed, delighted.
“Of course you’re not normal,” she crooned. “Look at the two of us.”
Indeed, her mother was gorgeous. And her father looked like a movie star from long ago, before leading men could look like her gangly string bean science teacher, or the moody boy that bagged their groceries with a long swoop of hair hanging in his face.
Sassy herself was like a cocktail the two had created at the peak of their perfection and ingenuity. Even her name was one of a kind—which didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. She’d be just as pretty if they’d named her Shlumpy or Frumpy, she knew.
She tried to minimize herself in her adolescent years, slouching her shoulders and hiding her face. Until her father made it his mission to discourage these efforts.
“Would you believe it,” he told her once, “that teenaged years are difficult for everyone, no matter what you look like?”
She didn’t believe it.
“But it’s true,” he insisted. “You’re all going to get through it, and I’m right here with you.” Then he coached her, and encouraged her to take charge of her life, and not allow her beauty to define her.
“Your loveliness is an aside,” he said. “It’s incidental. You are smart, and you will design your life according to your own vision, not anybody else’s. You won’t let any man control your beauty for his own selfishness—you will decide what and who you want. Not the other way around.”
He spent years staying close and guiding Sassy. He told her how to be above reproach in conversations, and how to avoid gossip and innuendo. He insisted she only go on group dates, and suggested other ways to avoid being vulnerable.
“Don’t ever be in a position to rely on the kindness of strangers,” he said, after they’d watched a very old movie with the famous line. And she hadn’t—not until her car ran into a rock to avoid running into a herd of sheep. Then she relied on the kindness of Ash West. If he hadn’t been so disarming, she would have locked herself in her car, with her index finger poised on a can of spray mace.
As her father’s life came to a close, he told her other things, too. Weighty things. Before she left for the university, he told her the secret he nearly took to his grave.
The thing that brought her to Wyoming, and West Ranch.
It was also the reason she was openly flirting for the first time in her life. Surprisingly, it was a little bit of fun, especially with Ash West. He got the ball rolling by kissing her finger once he removed the splinter—and it was no innocent peck. It was a kiss that made her face turn two shades of red, and made her toss and turn at night.
Sassy flipped her hair over and brushed the sleep out of it, then chose a celery green sundress from the closet. She could hear Ash placing the last of the dishes in the drainer as she rolled on lip balm—her only makeup, ever—and grabbed her sandals and sunglasses.
“Be right out,” she called to Ash as she finished getting ready for their day; the date that she engineered out of the blue after seeing him drive up next door. At the very least it would get her out of the house for the day.
At best, it would get her one step closer towards accomplishing her task.