Sweet on You (Sweet on a Cowboy)

by Drake, Laura

  “Oh my God, Katya, you are such an idiot.” How could she have settled in here and not have seen it? Her feet moved continuing her journey to the car. To reality.

  She liked her job.

  She liked the cowboys.

  She really liked Cam.

  When had they shifted from spoiled athletes to… whatever they were now? She’d stepped over the line she’d drawn through the ashes of her burned-out career without even realizing it.

  How was that possible?

  Guilt and chocolate didn’t mix. Her stomach felt like a washer, stuck in the agitation cycle.

  She didn’t belong here. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be with her family, the army. Wherever in the world they were berthed.

  “I want that, dammit.” But she heard no conviction in the words before the wind whipped them from her. And that frightened her too.

  Yet here she stood no closer to a resolution. Today proved nothing. The medical diagnosis was low blood sugar, but she sensed the PTSD still coiled, waiting to strike. What would have happened if she hadn’t passed out? Would she have been able to do her job?

  She still didn’t know. And that was not acceptable.

  Time to stop playing around with cowboys and focus on getting herself better.

  First, she had unfinished business. She unlocked the car, opened the door, and fell into the seat. She dug her phone out of her backpack, and hit speed dial.

  “Goddamit, Tuck, I told you. I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice held gravel, no doubt chipped from his flinty cowboy facade today.

  That gravel hurt her soft places. It was there because of her. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Katya.” Her name came out a resigned sigh. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I just needed to call and thank you. I know that you put yourself in the line of fire for me today, and—”

  “It’s nothing. Forget it.”

  “It’s not nothing. I don’t know how I’ll make it up to you, but—”

  “I said it was fine. Let it go.”

  His clipped words only made her feel worse. He was hurting. “I know it won’t help, but won’t you let me buy you dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Well, at least let me take you out for coffee or something.”

  “What part of ‘no’ is ambiguous here? I need to go.”

  Irritation sparked, igniting the funk bathing her brain. “What is your problem?” She was trying to be nice, and he’d turned back into the asshole. Again. “Jesus, you macho guys kill me. You’re a diabetic. So the hell what?”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t. I’ve worked with men who’ve had limbs blown off. Burns. Massive trauma. Somehow your fragile ego taking a hit doesn’t quite compare.” She was on a roll now; the smoking funk blew out of her throat like volcanic ash. “You could be Buster, eighteen years old, and waking up in a hospital, hurt, and all alone.” She balanced the phone between her chin and her shoulder, and cranked the ignition. She needed to move. “And I know another redhead who’d have been happy to have that problem. There wasn’t enough left of him to bring him home to his parents.”

  Shut up. Shut up. Just shut the hell up.

  “I called to thank you. So thank you. Good-bye.” She hit End, tossed the phone into the passenger seat, and peeled out of the parking lot. Better this way. She didn’t have time for spoiled cowboys. She had a job to focus on: getting back to her family in Kandahar.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Cam sat on the edge of his hotel bed, staring at the phone. She was right, of course. His problems were nonexistent compared to those she’d seen. Not knowing what he was going to do with the rest of his life was messing with his head. And today, she’d made him realize he was behaving like a whiney pansy-ass.

  He was a lot more than the shallow asshole he’d been acting like lately. His dad had taught him that you didn’t really know a man until you’d seen him tested. It was time to man-up.

  His ego smarted from the spanking, and shame burned the back of his eyes. He dropped the phone on the bed and rubbed them. How had he ever thought that woman helpless? Comparing Katya to Candi was like comparing a Doberman to a Chihuahua.

  He’d been kidding himself that he knew anything about this woman. Kandahar. She’d been so upset, she’d let it slip in the treatment room today. A war zone.

  And all this time, he’d thought she’d spent her tour in the States, shuffling paper. He didn’t know a thing about her, not really. She wouldn’t open up to him.

  He knew her green eyes, flashing in the red silk draped lamplight. Sexy. And a Gypsy. A healer. A soldier. What else would he find if she really let him peel back the layers of restraint? He didn’t know. Still, he wanted to.

  And he planned to. But first he was going to have to mend some fences.

  He stood, gathered scattered clothes and equipment, and crammed them into his luggage. He had a plane to catch.

  You’re going to have to come up with something good, Hoss. You were an ass, and she’s pissed. He slammed the top on his suitcase, without realizing his other fingers were still in it.

  “Goddamn it!” He shook out his abused hand.

  He had to figure all this out. And he didn’t have a lot of time. He grabbed his rope keeper and slammed out the door.

  “So, how’s the kid doing now?” Trace’s voice came from the speaker of Katya’s phone, where it lay in the passenger seat.

  “I stopped to see him before I left. He’s conscious and alert. His parents were there and they were getting ready to release him.” She signaled, then pulled around the semi. “He’s got a concussion, obviously, a separated shoulder, and tendon strains from the dislocation. Lucky, all things considered.”

  “And how about you?”

  “Well, I still have a job. For now.”

  “There’s a ‘but’ in there.”

  The concern in his voice was only one of the reasons she’d called her old mentor. She needed an outside opinion and he knew her convoluted landscape inside and out.

  “I’m a mess.” She heaved an exasperated sigh. “This job has gotten to me, Trace. What began as a kind of morbid curiosity about these cowboys and their way of life has changed to… I don’t know what. You have to admire their guts, even as you question their sanity.”

  “You’re starting to like them.” He sounded smug.

  “Yes!” The admission came out hot, urgent. “I’m such an idiot! All I had to do was my job. Stay professional. Impersonal. But somewhere along the way, I started to understand them. They’re so old-fashioned and well-mannered. They have this crazy sense of values. They can be macho, insensitive assholes, but even though they’re exasperating, they can be so danged sweet.”

  A husky chuckle interrupted her rant. “Sounds like you’re talking individual rather than collective, Smitty.”

  “Yeah, maybe. That was a mistake, too.” She tightened her jaw, biting down on the soft little pillow of regret. “All that’s over now. I’m concentrating on getting better, so I can return to my unit. I don’t have time to play with cowboys.”

  “Why not?”

  “Have you been hitting the Jagermeister? Hello, the goal when you helped me get this job was to heal, to pass my fitness for duty test, and get back to my unit.”

  “I know. Sometimes plans can change, hon. No law says you have to go back.”

  She head whipped around to where the phone lay innocently in the seat. “What’s wrong with you? My family is in Kandahar.”

  “And they weren’t family before you enlisted. I’m just saying there’s more than one kind of family. ”

  “I have a duty—”

  “Yeah, I hear your duty. Smitty, you did eight years in a war zone. You’ve served your country. Almost gave your life for it. Maybe it’s time to let someone else step up.” His tone softened. “There’s something in your voice when you talk about this job. Something I haven�
�t heard in a long time. It sounds like contentment. Or at least the beginnings of it.”

  Shocked into silence, she focused on the road rolling under her tires, taking her to the next event in Fayetteville.

  “There’s more than one way to heal, Smitty. Promise me you’ll think about it. Okay?”

  She got off the phone without promising anything. She valued Trace’s advice, but this? Based on something he heard in her voice? She shook her head.

  Preposterous.

  Not even in the realm of possibility.

  She was not going there.

  At the same time though, she couldn’t deny the hollow ache that had opened in her chest. She was lonely in a way she hadn’t been since she was a little girl. Trace would always be there for her, and she was grateful. But she wanted—needed, more. She needed physical arms to hold her with more than just friendship.

  She felt as alone and empty as the landscape rushing past her window. Reaching for the dog tags between her breasts, she clenched them in her fist, which she held against her tug-of-war heart.

  Friday night she stood looking up at the Crown Center. She shouldn’t feel grateful that this was Dusty’s weekend as first responder in the arena. It would delay her knowing if she could function in a crisis. She was grateful just the same.

  When she’d forced herself to call Major Thibodaux last Saturday, he’d been very glad to hear from her. Of course, he’d thought she was calling to return to her unit. They were short on medics, again. Still, she couldn’t ignore the guilt that sliced through her. She touched the suddenly throbbing scar on her side.

  But when he heard why she was calling, he’d greased the wheels, getting her set up with an army psychologist she’d speak with via phone every few days. At least she’d taken a step.

  She hunched her shoulders in her pea jacket and headed for the huge roll-up doors that signified the bull entrance. Her first session with Dr. Heinz had been brutal. It was as if he’d known all her buttons, and hadn’t been shy about pushing them, one after another, until she ended up, forehead touching the shag carpet of her hotel room, her secrets in a steaming pile in front of her.

  Well, he should be good at it. He dealt with survivor’s guilt and PTSD every day. Her feet followed the pipe corral maze by rote.

  The homework he’d assigned was off the wall.

  Act like I’m sixteen again? Work at playing?

  Who the heck had time to be sixteen again? She crammed her hands deep into her jacket pockets. He told her that part of her problem was trying to hold too tightly to her emotions trying to control them. She had “too many expectations of herself.”

  Well, duh. That hadn’t begun with her enlistment. You didn’t survive growing up in her parents’ house, wearing your emotions on your sleeve.

  But she’d promised to try. Now she only had to figure out how one went about “playing.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  Cam lay on the training table, eyes closed, while Katya worked on his shoulder. Her fingers were competent as always, but something about the massage felt perfunctory. Impersonal. He hadn’t realized she’d put so much of herself into these massages until today when she didn’t. A thought hit his mind like a wasp’s sting. Was that personal touch he’d felt a part of all her massages? Or just his?

  He opened his eyes and studied her face. Her lips taut, her eyes cool, shuttered, and professional. And that hurt. “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

  Her look lasered to a hawk’s predatory gaze. No cool there now. He tried to ignore the bustle of the treatment room, and the fact that anyone could overhear them. He’d known this wouldn’t be easy. This time, he was going to have to put some of himself on the line. In front of an eavesdropping audience. He swallowed. “Because I was an ass, and I’m sorry. Because I want to know you better. Because I’ve missed you the past week.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise, then flew to the cowboys waiting in line before returning to him.

  He wasn’t above blackmail. “You offered to buy me dinner, remember?” Watching the reflection of the war flickering in her eyes, he ignored a pang of guilt. “You’re not going to renege, are you?” He tipped a corner of his mouth into what he hoped was his best-ever woman-slaying smile.

  She vacillated a moment longer. Then her shoulders lost their crisp line, and she sighed. “I do owe you. I pay my debts.” Her chin came up. “But only if I buy.”

  He wiped the smile off his lips. Now was not the time for smug. “I can possibly live with that.”

  Following the event, Katya wet her palms under the faucet of her hotel bathroom then ran them over her hair in an attempt to tame the flyaways. Tonight, she could kill two birds with one stone—pay off her debt to Cam and do a little homework at the same time. She’d moved beyond the terminology lately. She wanted to know more about his world and what he thought about it. His dreams, his plans.

  Relax. Enjoy yourself like a sixteen-year-old.

  The underwear-clad woman in the mirror did not look relaxed. She tried for it, then realized that showing her teeth did not constitute a smile.

  She was lying to herself.

  She wasn’t just killing birds with this date. She wanted to get closer to that sweet guy. The hollow place that had opened in her when she’d talked to Trace had become a cavern where a cold wind of loneliness howled. But there could be a price to be paid. She’d have to open up as well.

  She practiced her smile in the mirror. Turns out, for a smile to look real, you had to relax. Dr. Heinz would appreciate the irony.

  She strode into the room, stood in front of the closet, and chose an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse. It had a Gypsy feel, blousy and sexy, but was Mexican white cotton, with colorful embroidery on the front placket, and down the slit sleeves that tied at the elbow. Slipping it on, she relished the feel of softness sliding over her skin.

  Then she pulled out the jeans she’d bought today. Shocked by the huge selection, and not having a clue what to buy, she’d called Bree. On her recommendation, she’d bought a pair of skinny jeans for work, and a pair of what Bree had called “blinged out” ones, with sequins on the pockets. She’d wondered why the salesgirl called them skinny jeans, until she’d worked them up her legs and fastened them.

  Taking her new belt from the suitcase, she fastened it loosely over the long blouse, to rest on her hip bones. She had to buy it because the silver conchas had called to her Gypsy soul.

  Stepping into her rarely worn, toe-cleavage black heels, she surveyed her look in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. Nice.

  I hope to God I don’t turn my ankle in these things, and if these jeans don’t stretch, I’m not going to be able to eat much.

  Lifting her jewelry bag, she selected simple thick silver hoop earrings, slid three inches of bangly silver bracelets on her wrist, then checked the mirror again. Even better.

  A knock sounded at her door. She practiced the relaxed smile in the mirror one more time, then, after a quick glance to be sure there was no underwear lying about, she grabbed her purse, crossed to the door, and opened it.

  “Are you read—” Cam’s low wolf whistle made her want to slam the door and find something else to wear. “Lord ’a mercy, woman.” His gaze traveled from her almost exposed toes to her flyaway hair. He put his hand over his heart. “I know I suggested you buy jeans, but if you wear those to work, the guys aren’t going to be able to focus on their rides. They’re gonna get stomped.”

  “Are these not okay?” She looked down and ran her hands over her thighs. “Bree said that—”

  “Hon, those are the most okay jeans I’ve ever had the pleasure to peruse.”

  She smiled a real smile. For some reason, the minute she’d opened the door, she’d relaxed. She realized she was beginning to trust him.

  Time to practice that “carefree sixteen-year-old” thing. She put a hand on her hip. “If my mother had ever met a sweet-talking cowboy, she’d have warned me about them.
I’m sure of it.”

  She stepped out the door and closed it behind her, happy she’d chosen the heels that made her an inch taller than him. She needed all the advantage she could get. Those light blue eyes made her heart hammer, and his cologne was melting her insides. It felt like she’d just drunk a shot of something strong and heady. “Tonight I’m taking you somewhere exotic.”

  “Bring it on. I’m up for a challenge.”

  She walked past him to her rental car. He mumbled something she didn’t quite catch, but she was sure was suggestive. In a fit of sassy, she strutted a few steps, rolling her hips, giggling at the stifled moan behind her.

  Seriously, had she really just giggled? Not my fault, doctor’s orders.

  Besides, it served him right. Let him see what it was like to be off-kilter. God knows, she knew the feeling.

  Within a half hour, they were seated on pillows on the floor of what the Internet declared to be the best Indian restaurant in Fayetteville. She could have kissed whoever thought to put spandex in denim.

  They had a little alcove to themselves, with candles beside their drinks on the low table, the sultry smell of incense burning somewhere nearby.

  “Okay, I’m down here.” Cam straightened his bad knee. “But you may need to rent a crane to get me on my feet again.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll help.” She watched his face carefully. “Are you hurting anywhere else from your buckoff today?”

  He winced. “Only my pride, darlin’.” He rolled his neck.

  “No, it’s more than that. I can tell. Here.” She placed another pillow in front of her crossed legs, and patted it. “Come here.”

  “You worked all day. You don’t need to be messing with me.”

  When she continued to pat, he scooted over. She worked the tense muscles of his shoulders, rolling them in her hands. As if they recognized her, they loosened, and she moved on to the tight muscles of his neck.

  After a few minutes, he put his hands over hers. He turned sideways, which put him much too close. Close enough to notice a slight nick on his neck, where he’d gotten too close shaving. She’d never realized that his blond eyebrows were threaded with russet. There was no way she should be able to feel the heat of his skin, but when warmth caressed her face, she knew it was his.