“You need to stay right there,” I said. “If you want to help your brother, you need to stay where you are and not agitate him anymore. Just stay quiet.”
I got closer to the bed so I was pressed up against the edge of the mattress. My heart beat heavily in my chest and my stomach flipped over. I’d seen this before and I knew it could go very badly, very quickly if I even just startled Jesse again. I placed a firm hand on his shoulder, pressing down to provide enough pressure for him to notice my touch but not enough to make him feel like he was under attack.
“Jesse,” I said, forcing my voice to be as steady and calm as I possibly could. “You’re safe. You’re at the ranch in Montana. Your brothers are here. Sawyer is right here in the room with you. I’m here with you. It’s me, Shannon. I’m right here with you. This is me touching you. Do you feel my hand on your shoulder? That’s me. We are all safe. You’re safe. Everything is all right. Just breathe. Take a deep breath, Jesse.”
There was a tense moment when nothing changed. He stayed just like he was, staring right at me and yet through me, gasping for breath and sweating like he had just run a marathon. The sweat moved down to his shoulders and chest and his hands shook where they held on to the sheets on either side of him.
Suddenly, he sucked in a deep, ragged breath that sounded like it was the first air to go into his body. His tense muscles relaxed, and his fingers slowly unfurled from around the sheets. The brutal stare broke when he finally blinked and shook his head.
His eyes closed for a second, and when they opened again, Jesse was back. He blinked a few times and glanced around like he had no idea what was going on. He probably didn’t. Episodes like that often showed up as blank spaces in the memories of the people who went through them.
“Jesse?” I asked.
“Are you okay?” Sawyer asked from the doorway.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, shaking his head to keep getting rid of the fog and continue returning to himself. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m okay.”
I brushed his sweaty hair off his forehead and looked into his eyes. I only wanted him thinking about me, concentrating on me and nothing else.
“Jess,” I whispered. “You’re not okay, baby.”
I used to call him baby all the time. The term of endearment fell so easily from my lips, like I’d never stopped saying it. I said it as much for my own benefit as for Jesse’s. I wanted him to hear me. To think about what I was saying and know it was really me.
Even though he looked like himself again and the episode was over, I wanted to make sure I had enough of a grip on him to keep him in reality. As soon as he heard me say the word, his eyes sank deeper into mine. He was looking at me the way he used to, the same way he always did every time I called him baby. Like he couldn’t live without me.
I swallowed hard, fighting off the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me as I tried to process what just happened. Now wasn’t the time for me to fall apart. If there was ever a moment when I needed to put on my big-girl panties and be strong, this was it. Jesse needed me to be brave, to show strength and be there for him. He didn’t need to be coping with the idea of me being shaken up or upset after going through something like that. There was enough on his mind and in his heart without the pressure of being responsible for me pressing down on him like I knew it would if he knew how much watching him go through that affected me.
There was no doubt in my mind now. Jesse had PTSD and had just gone through a very serious episode. That meant I was right from the beginning. As soon as I saw him again, I knew it, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. He did bring something back home with him, and this was it. The burden of what he saw. And possibly of what he did. It hadn’t left him when he left the desert and came back home. It was still very much with him and would continue to affect him.
Sawyer reached down and picked his apple up off the floor. Brushing it off, he started walking backward toward the hallway. Spots of bright red on his cheeks and across his collarbones showed he was grappling with emotions he couldn’t quite place and feelings he didn’t know how to deal with. He rushed to try to help his brother as soon as he saw Jesse was in trouble, but that was instinct, not something that came from knowing what was going on. Now that the episode was over, Sawyer didn’t know how to deal with what he’d seen or what to do next.
“I’m, uh, I’m going to meet you guys downstairs,” he said. “Nice to see you again, Shannon. Sorry about the awkwardness.”
He left without another word.
I glanced toward Jesse and I shook my head, rolling my eyes. “Montgomery boys,” I muttered.
Jesse leaned forward and rested his forehead on my shoulder, obviously exhausted by the exertion of the episode. I stood there and stroked his head, wanting to comfort him and let him know I was there for him no matter what.
Chapter 27
Jesse
I could feel Shannon looking at me as I drove away from the ranch, following her directions to bring her to her apartment. I didn’t want to look at her, to see the pitying, worrying look in her eyes. She didn’t say anything that made me think she felt bad for me or that she thought of me any differently, but she had to. There was no way she couldn’t.
That was something I had never wanted her to experience. I never wanted her to see what it was like for me to go through one of those episodes. When I didn’t know where I was or what was happening, when my mind went back to the desert and everything in me reacted like I was still in combat. It was awful enough for me. She didn’t need to ever see it.
She didn’t say anything as we drove except for the occasional direction. When we got to her apartment building, I pulled the truck up to the curb and turned off the engine. We sat there in silence for another few moments before I turned to look at her.
“I’m fine,” I told her, not giving her the opportunity to ask me any questions or evaluate me in any way.
“Jesse,” she started, but I shook my head.
“Shannon, I’m fine. I just need some time to get my head on straight.”
“Jesse, you don’t need to feel uncomfortable. You shouldn’t be trying to hide this. You have PTSD. That’s not anything to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. A lot of guys—”
“I know,” I said, stopping her. “A lot of guys come back dealing with it. It’s almost to be expected. That’s why I don’t need to talk about it. I just need some time to really transition from being there to being here. You understand?”
Shannon looked like she wanted to say something else, but she kept her mouth closed and shook her head. We sat there for another few seconds before she took off her seatbelt.
“Thanks for bringing me home,” she said.
“Absolutely,” I told her. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She got out of the truck and walked toward the apartment, her head hanging slightly. I knew she wasn’t going to let it go that easily. She wasn’t going to get off my case about the PTSD and how it was affecting me now. It wasn’t that I expected her to not care or just take it in stride and pretend nothing was going on. Eventually, she was going to figure it out and we would have to deal with it. I just thought I’d be able to hide it longer than I did.
Then again, I didn’t expect her to share a bed with me ever again. Had I known that was coming, I might have handled the whole situation differently. Maybe I would have been more upfront with her from the beginning and let her know why I was back in Green Valley to begin with. I hadn’t told my brothers yet, but I guessed I wasn’t hiding it now. After the incident with Clayton knocking the mug off the counter and the way I reacted to the sound, then Sawyer witnessing another episode, the conversation was coming. It was just a matter of time and I had to get myself ready to handle that.
I got back to the ranch and headed into the kitchen to grab something to eat. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Sawyer sitting at the table, his feet propped up on the chair in a way we never would have been able to do when we were younger. My little bro
ther grinned at me, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Hey, stud,” he said. “Did you freak out on the way to Shannon’s place or did you get her there in one piece?”
I glared at him and shook my head. That was definitely not the way I’d expected him to respond. Maybe he didn’t actually know what was going on after all.
“Fuck off,” I growled.
“I’m just playing, man,” he said.
Sawyer stood up and came toward me, meeting me in the middle of the kitchen. He looked remorseful and suddenly reached out to pull me in for an aggressive hug. He pounded on my back perhaps a little harder than he might have needed to, to show affection, like he was trying to make up for the distasteful joke with insistent affection.
He knew what was going on. He just didn’t want to face it. I was his older brother. He looked up to me. The few years between us meant he was young when I left home and he still admired me, even when the other brothers and everyone else in town was telling him who knows what about me. Sawyer wasn’t ready to think of anything but that.
That was fine with me. I’d rather gloss over it. At least for now, I didn’t want to deal with it. For now, I just wanted to think about being home and finding my life again. That started with reconnecting with my brothers. I pulled back from the hug and looked at Sawyer with a broad smile on my face. I ruffled his hair and playfully patted him on the cheek.
“Last time I was home, I swear you were half a foot shorter,” I teased him.
He rolled his eyes. “Piss off. I’ve been taller than you for over a decade. Just because I’m the youngest brother doesn’t mean I’m the littlest.”
I rolled my eyes right back at him. Even though I knew he wasn’t a kid anymore, it was strange to see Sawyer so grown up. I felt like I missed everything about him becoming an adult.
“Tell me about the dude-ranch thing you’ve got going,” I said. “Cassidy and Clayton were saying something about it, but they didn’t really get into it.”
I went over to the coffeemaker where there was perpetually a pot hot and ready and I poured myself a mug. Then I went to the refrigerator and fished out a carton of eggs, a hunk of cheese, and a ham steak left over from supper a couple of days back. Sawyer leaned against the island in the middle of the kitchen while I started chopping up the ham and cheese. He watched for a few seconds, then went over to the vegetable storage basket and brought me an onion. I started chopping that up, too.
“It’s actually been pretty great,” Sawyer started. “You probably remember us talking about it years ago as just an idea. Something we were just batting around, but we’re really serious about it.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I remember. The ranch wasn’t bringing in as much money and everybody was trying to figure out ways to increase income. That was something that was put out on the table, but I didn’t think it was ever going to happen.”
“I don’t think any of us did,” Sawyer told me. “Not until it happened.” He laughed. “I thought it sounded ridiculous. We’ve spent our whole lives out on the ranch. It was just life, didn’t really seem like anything special. But when I really started looking into it and figuring out how it was a viable option, I realized a lot of people were interested in the whole ranching experience.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with an almost disbelieving scoff. “I set it off as kind of an experiment, just to see how people would react to it. The website was only live for one day before I got my first five bookings. It was insane how quickly people responded. They were excited about the whole thing. Tell you the truth, I hadn’t even thought it all the way through and didn’t have everything planned out. It was just a crap shoot and then it worked out.”
I cracked eggs into a big mixing bowl and went to the refrigerator to get milk to splash into it. Sawyer snagged a bite of the ham as I whisked the eggs up and then dropped a couple of pats of butter into a skillet on the stove. My eyes automatically moved to the counter by the side of the stove looking for the glass jar that had sat there when I was young and my mother cooked here at this stove.
I didn’t remember it being there before I left. Preparing meals was the furthest thing from my mind then. So it surprised me when I saw it sitting there. It might not have been the same jar. It probably wasn’t. But it still reminded me so much of my mother it brought a hint of emotion to the back of my throat. I fought off the feeling by grabbing the jar and cracking it open. The rich smell of the bacon fat rushed up to me and I scooped a generous glob into the skillet with the butter.
“Healthy,” Sawyer commented.
“Good for the energy levels,” I told him. “Tell me more about the dude ranch. What do you mean you didn’t think it all the way through?”
Sawyer laughed. “I just threw together the idea and put it up with the general idea of what it would be rather than any real specifics. I offered camping, horseback riding, campfires, and the authentic ranching experience. That was about it. So when all those people said they were interested, I had to come up with how it was all going to work. I had to choose where the campsites were going to be, the food, all that. We got it together right before the first group checked in.”
He grinned and snatched another piece of ham just before I added it along with the cheese and onions in on top of the cooking eggs.
“And people are liking it?” I asked.
He nodded. “We’re pulling in more profits than I ever could have imagined, and we’re really just getting started. We’re already thinking about expansion. All the slots fill up as soon as they are available with wealthy families wanting an authentic ranching experience. Who knew there was a market for rich people who want to get their hands dirty?”
“Shocks the hell out of me,” I said, splitting the omelet in half and putting each on a plate.
“Want to know the best part?” Sawyer asked, taking one of the plates and grabbing forks out of the drawer before walking over to the table.
I sat down across from him and took one of the forks, stabbing up a huge bite of the eggs. “Let me guess,” I said as I swallowed. “The—”
“Women,” he said, grinning as he took a bite of his own food.
I nodded. “Obviously.”
“Do a tour with me one of these days, man. Rich women with pretty boy business tycoon husbands who wouldn’t know what to do with their hands if their lives depended on it.”
“Have you told Cassidy you’re fucking the guests?” I asked.
“No,” Sawyer said sharply. “Sometimes, it’s best if the boss man doesn’t know the nitty-gritty of what’s going on at the ranch, you know?”
I chuckled. “Sure.”
Sawyer ate a few more bites of his eggs, then pointed at them with his fork. “They teach you how to cook like this in the Army?”
I let out a short laugh. “Not exactly. But I had to figure out how to take care of myself at least somewhat. Eggs are pretty much the only thing I learned how to cook.”
He nodded, staring down at his plate. He stayed quiet for a few more seconds before things got serious. He licked his lips, then lifted his head to look at me. “So what was that this morning, Jesse? You had this wild look in your eyes. Like you were seeing some shit.”
I didn’t want to talk about this, especially with Sawyer. I knew my little brother’s heart was in the right place, but I didn’t have words for what I was dealing with at that moment. It was all too heavy, too complicated, too loud. It had been hard enough to even skirt it with Shannon. I couldn’t do it with my little brother.
All I wanted was some peace and quiet.
I stuffed the last few bites of eggs into my mouth and swallowed them down with the rest of my coffee. “I’m going to get some work done out on the ranch. I haven’t been much help the last couple of days.”
I headed out of the house.
“We’re not done with this conversation,” Sawyer called after me.
I didn’t stop. I needed work I could lose myself
in so I didn’t have to think for a while.
Chapter 28
Shannon
I pulled up in front of my dad’s house and got out of the car. As soon as I was on the driveway, I heard him laughing and speaking in a loud, high-pitched voice. Every few seconds, there was a loud bark, which could only mean one thing.
Rather than going to the front door of the house, I walked around the side of the house to the gate in the large fence that surrounded his backyard. Opening it, I caught Beau and Dad running around in the yard. Dad tossed a knotted rope across the yard and Beau chased after it, leaping up into the air to catch it in his mouth before joyfully running it over to my cheering father.
“What a good boy! Such a good boy!”
Beau hopped up and planted his paws in the middle of Dad’s chest, lapping at his face with his long pink tongue. Dad scratched his sides enthusiastically and patted his back.
“He’s going to knock you over one of these days,” I said.
Dad looked up, surprised to see me standing there. “Hey, honey,” he said, then looked down at Beau. “Did you hear what she said? She said you were going to knock me over. You wouldn’t do that, would you?” He rubbed the eagerly panting dog’s head and reached down to pick up the discarded rope so he could throw it again. “Of course, you wouldn’t. We are too close for that.”
I laughed and shook my head at him. “Was he good?” I asked.
“He’s never anything but,” Dad told me. “I tell you what, there’s nobody better to watch late night retro game shows with. He never judges me for my snacks.”
“As long as you share them with him?” I asked.
Dad looked at me with a mock expression of horror. “You expect me to reveal the secrets of my male bonding time to you?” he asked.
I held my hands up as if to show my innocence. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right. What happens in the living room, stays in the living room. All right, Beau. Time to pack up your stuff and head out.”
His Reckless Heart (The Montgomery Boys Book 1) Page 16
