SAM

The land they crossed was beautiful, the land was not flat but sloped into valleys and hills peppered with trees that gave shade and small streams, as they moved Sam spoke to him about the dry season, details of the land and where water could be found, and anything she thought would interest the man. Running out of things to say she turned to him and asked, " any questions?"

" not regarding the land, would you mind answering a few personal ones?" Bryan asked

Sam shook her head, "yes, I mind, I don't particularly like it, no offense."

"None taken, just curious to know why you want to be mistaken for a boy."

Sam reigned in her horse, and waited until he did the same. She pulled one leg out of the stirrup and placed it over the horn where she rested her elbow on her knee and placed her face on her hand, "think about this," she said nudging her horse so that she almost touched the man, "would we be riding here,like this, alone, if I looked like Cecile? All grace and delicacy?" Sam's eyebrows rose and an impish smile spread on her face as she watched Bryan's face change as her words sunk, and he pulled back.

I wrote this story in the nineties, for my mother who was an avid romance reader and Barbara Cartland follower, she had been diagnosed with lung cancer and there wasn't much to do. Since we lived far apart I wrote this and other stories to entertain her and show my love. She was a brave woman who ventured from her motherland, Germany and married a man from Peru which language she did not even speak. I based most of my stories in her circumstances of not fitting in, she went to a country where she knew no one, and there she stayed for the love of one man.