by Pam Godwin
He powers it off and secures it in the console, with his elbow resting on the lid. Then he turns his gaze to the road.
Swallowing past a tight throat, I find my voice. “What just happened?”
“I’ve been too soft on you.”
“Too soft—?”
“You needed a couple of days to adjust to being home and around me again. I gave you that.” His eyes lure and capture mine. “My goodwill has come to an end. It’s about to get very real for you.”
A chill whispers across my skin. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Expect more of that. More discomfort with a whole lot of tears and pain and catharsis. Cross those arms all you want. You’ll stand up to the challenge, because the Conor I know never backs down.”
I uncross my arms. “I’m not that girl.”
“That’s right. You’re stronger, fiercer, and so goddamn ornery it makes me hard. Really fucking hard.” The hoarse rasp of his voice curls through me like a slow burning flame. “I fell in love with your resilient spirit, and you’re still in possession of that. If you weren’t, I’d do this another way.”
My reflexive reaction is to punch him in the nuts, but I’ll save that fight for when he tells me what he’s planning.
“In two weeks,” he says, glancing between me and the road, “we’re going to commit the same crime that put your brother in prison.”
“Except Lorne killed an innocent man. Wyatt Longley lost his life for no reason.” I hope to God Jake isn’t getting cold feet. “Levi Tibbs doesn’t deserve to breathe.”
With one hand on the steering wheel, he places the other on the seat between us, palm up. “Give me your wrist.”
“No.” The hair on my nape stands on end, and I scoot closer to the door. “I can’t do that.”
“Put your wrist on my hand and I’ll explain how Lorne killed a bad man.”
“What?” My scalp tingles. “What do you mean?”
“Your wrist.”
My pulse thrashes, like the wind whipping against the windshield. The tone of his voice is so damn demanding, but that isn’t what moves me. It’s the love in his eyes, assuring me without speaking, protecting me without taking.
Something dormant in me answers, compelling me to gamble on that love.
I lift my arm and rest my wrist on his palm.
The strong muscles in his hand remain slack and loose, his fingers slightly bent but not clenched. I wait for the memories to rise, but Jake’s words distract me.
“Andy and Wyatt Longley shouldn’t have been near the ravine that night. They had no business traipsing around in the south pasture at all.” He scowls. “They were there to help two hitmen sneak on and off the property and dispose of the bodies left behind.”
“Bodies?” My stomach knots. “Mine and Lorne’s?”
“Yes.” Not a single twitch or crease of maybe I’m wrong in his stern expression.
“You have proof.”
“Three years ago, I recorded a conversation between my dad and Andy Longley.”
“You were spying on them?”
“By that time, I was spying on everyone. Their conversation didn’t elude to criminal activity, but something about it made me suspicious. So I confronted Andy and extracted a confession.”
“How?”
“I relieved him of his teeth. With my fist. Then I relieved him of his job.” He sets his jaw. “Only reason I let him live is because he let Lorne live. He was armed the night of your birthday and could’ve easily shot Lorne for killing his son.”
Pounding explodes in my ears. Is Jake in the habit of not letting people live?
“Does Lorne know?” I ask.
“He’s knows everything Jarret and I know.”
“You’re telling me my brother’s serving ten years in prison for killing a man who planned to dispose of his body?” My heart plunges into a pit of despair. “How can Lorne be okay with that?”
“He didn’t know about Wyatt Longley’s involvement when he pleaded guilty. Your dad told Lorne someone would kill you both if you returned to the ranch. That was the impetus for our decision to cut ties with you.”
“Dalton knew?” A ragged breath drags from my chest. “He told me he didn’t talk to Lorne. That Lorne was dead to him.”
“Communication was on and off. Your dad’s focus was on making sure your brother remained behind bars so he couldn’t return home. In the eyes of your enemies, those bars made Lorne a non-threat.”
“Who are our enemies? Your dad and—?”
“I’m not answering that today.”
“Is my life at risk right now?” I toss an angry glare at our surroundings. “I’m not at the ranch. Should I be worried about your dad?”
“You’re with me, and I can handle him.”
I’m not getting anywhere with this line of questioning, so I switch gears. “Today, Lorne said I need to understand his position. What did he mean?”
“His position on serving prison time… One, he doesn’t regret killing Wyatt Longley for the reasons I explained. Two, his incarceration hasn’t just saved his life. It helped me protect yours by keeping you away.”
My mind spins to make the connection. “Because he wouldn’t have gone to Chicago with us. He was eighteen, a legal adult.”
“He would’ve stayed at the ranch.”
“And I would’ve found my way back to him. Because he’s my flesh and blood.”
“Conor.”
“Hm?”
“Look at our hands and remember to breathe.”
I lower my gaze, and my lungs seize.
Fingers lock around my wrist, strong and constricting. I jerk back, and they cinch tighter, compressing, restraining. Like a knot. Rope. It scratches, tearing at my skin, holding me down.
“Let go.” I yank harder, unable to free myself. “Let me go, now! Let go! Let go!”
“Breathe and focus on my hand. It’s just me. It’s Jake.”
Muscles and veins strain against the skin of his forearm. Then black dots move in, blotting him out and taking me to that place, that terrible black tunnel.
“It’s too dark.” I wheeze, flailing and desperate. “Can’t breathe. Let go of me, dammit!”
“Focus on your wrist.” Jake’s voice filters in, deep and commanding. “Tell me what you see.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“Tell me what you see!” he shouts.
I blink rapidly and clear my vision. “A hand. A strong hand. Squeezing. Knotting. It’s too tight. I can’t get free.”
“Whose hand, Conor? Look at it!”
The shape of it blurs through my rising tears, but I know those knuckles. Those long, thick fingers.
“Your hand.” I pant, shaking from the inside out. “It’s yours. Jake’s.” Not a knot. Not rope.
“Describe how it feels.”
“Warm. Gentle.” My joints start to loosen, and I stop pulling. “Familiar.”
“Am I hurting you?”
I shake my head, eyes fixed on his grip. “But you’re…you’re holding me. Oh God, you’re holding my wrist.” My breaths pick up.
“Keep talking. Don’t take your eyes off our hands.”
For the remainder of the three-hour drive, he keeps his grip on my wrist and makes me endure the nightmares his touch evokes.
I fight and regress into memory, surrender and produce bursts of words, and he doesn’t let go. Doesn’t relent. Not once.
By the time he parks the truck at the ranch, my throat is raw from overuse and exhaustion liquefies my limbs.
The hand on my wrist slackens, and his fingers intertwine with mine. Strong, callused fingers that know their way around rope.
I roll my head and find him watching me.
Dark brown eyes glow with gold flecks in the sunlight. His sculpted features convey concern and alertness. He cares what I’m thinking and feeling, perhaps more than I do, and it moves me.
He could’ve spent the last three hours blaring music a
nd enjoying the drive. Instead, he attacked my trigger, lowered me into the darkness, and joined me there.
Something clicks inside me, like a turning key. I’ve been wandering aimlessly, so lost and far away from myself. But I just found the door that leads me back. He’s the other half of me, and he holds the pieces that will make me whole again.
“You cured me?” Tears threaten, and I swallow the salty taste.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” The Stetson sits low on his brow, and he nudges it up. “This isn’t about a cure. We’re just learning how to control your thoughts and feelings about the trauma and how to work through the memories during a panic attack. You still need to talk about the ravine.”
“What if I can’t? Will I have flashbacks next time someone grabs me?”
“Most likely, yes.” He slides his hand to my wrist and latches on. “Going forward, your arms are no longer off limits. I will touch them, grip them, and bind them. Same goes for your other triggers. I’m going to trespass all over your nightmares and walk through them with you for as long as it takes. It’s not going to be fun, Conor, but you won’t be alone. Never again.”
With his hand around my wrist and his thumb stroking my skin, I lean into the tenderness of his touch.
He took off two weeks of work to do this for me. To accompany me in the darkest corners of my mind.
“Jake, I…” I can’t express my gratitude with words.
Unbuckling the seat belt, I crawl across the bench seat and climb onto his lap. His eyes widen, and his arms go around me.
I remove his hat and run my hands through his sexy brown hair. Touching him is an irresistible impulse, and I indulge in it with greedy fingers, traveling along the chiseled shape of his face and caressing the thick column of his neck.
Leaning in, I inhale the scent of his scalp, his whiskers, his breath. He smells like leather and steel, testosterone and sex. He smells like the man version of the boy I fell in love with.
He watches me heatedly with erratic gasps, his body rigid, cock hard, and muscles vibrating with raw, hungry power. There’s no better feeling in the world than being desired by a man like Jake Holsten.
And that desire bucks restlessly between us. It feels cinched and saddled, like it’s ready to be kicked into a gallop and ridden hard.
I gravitate closer, sinking into the trap. Beneath that molten chocolate gaze prowls ruthlessness and danger. He’s not safe. Not where my heart’s concerned. Of all the men who have hurt me, his cruelty was the most damaging.
“I’m scared.” I cup his face, my eyes fixed on his seductive mouth.
“I know.” He drifts toward me slowly, intently, until his breath licks my lips. “But you never run from fear.”
He swoops in and kisses me, quenching my senses with his overpowering essence. His lips move urgently against mine, his tongue searching and plundering the hidden places in my mouth, as if I harbor the answer to everything he seeks.
I want to give it to him. I ache to surrender anything he demands. Because he makes me feel loved. Because he follows me into the dark. Because he dulls the pain pumping through my veins.
He slants his mouth and deepens the kiss, his tongue wild and demanding, his arms tightening my body against his.
His lips taste like happiness—the smoke and heat of a campfire, the sun over the meadow, and the birth of young love.
Our love.
I found my way home.
In a new pickup truck with a grown man, we recapture our irreplaceable bond. It arches between us, bigger, stronger, and more formidable than ever, extending from one heart to the other.
The bridge between us wasn’t lost. The pieces have always been here. They just needed to be fitted back together.
I lean up and touch my brow to his, reveling in the connection. “I never stopped loving you.”
TWENTY-ONE
Jake
“I hate you!”
Conor’s husky scream echoes across the sunny meadow, spooking the livestock and hardening my cock.
She doesn’t hate me.
She never stopped loving me.
It’s been three days since her groundbreaking declaration. Three days of trauma-focused therapy, which has proven more difficult than I expected.
The therapy is straightforward. Conor is the difficult part. But fuck me, I can’t get enough of her fire.
“Someone’s going to see me, you perverted prick!”
She’ll calm down, eventually. In the meantime, I have a killer view of her flexing ass.
I cinched a saddle on the fence at the far end of the east pasture. No one’s working near here this afternoon, and the fencing in this section is newer, sturdier, with thick wooden rails that hold her restrained body beautifully.
Heavy straps buckle the saddle in place and prevent slipping. More straps cross her back and bind her legs to the fence.
It took some wrestling to get her into position—face down and bent sideways over the saddle. Her pretty tattooed arms dangle on one side, her legs tied down on the other.
I stand behind her, torturing myself with the sight of her backside in frayed cutoff shorts. Every time she squirms, the denim inches higher on her creamy white legs.
I didn’t tie her arms. Not because she’s not ready. God knows my cock is ready. But she needs her hands free for the pencil and leather-bound journal I gave her. To be honest, I’m surprised she hasn’t hurled them at me.
“I’ll write down the damn words.” She pitches a glare over her shoulder. “Stop staring at my ass and unstrap me!”
“You said you’d rather hang your saddle on the fence and throw dirt at it.”
“You’re so fucking sick.”
“Write that down.”
I spent the last three days ordering her to keep a journal of every feeling and memory that surfaces. Words, pictures, prompts, details, anything that comes to mind. I touch her wrists constantly, and her flashbacks are growing fewer and farther between. But she needs to learn how to parse her distressing thoughts.
She carries a lot of blame—for the ravine, her dad’s abuse, and Lorne’s incarceration. By changing how she perceives the past, she can change how she feels.
Problem is she refuses to write anything down. Just getting her to vocalize the memories is like pulling teeth. She needs some motivation.
So I strapped her to a saddle with the journal.
She still hasn’t written a single word.
It’s time to coax some memories out of her.
From my pocket, I remove my phone and select a Chris Stapleton song to play on repeat. The thrumming chords of Whiskey and You draw her attention. As I begin to softly sing along, she goes still, lulled by my voice.
A dreamy look settles over her face. She rests her cheek on her arms, where they fold on the saddle beneath her, the journal forgotten in her hand.
Jesus, her expression, the waves of fiery red hair around her graceful shoulders, the gentle curve of her spine… My heart clenches.
She’s the kind of beautiful that brings a man to his knees, and for whatever reason, she loves when I sing. So I spend the next few minutes serenading her with all the soul and emotion she deserves.
Once she’s soothed into listlessness, I shift out of her line of sight and slip a flask from my pocket. A few hearty swigs saturate my breath and heat my throat. Then I return the flask and continue to sing.
The taste of whiskey warms my blood, but I don’t make a habit of drinking. It would be too easy to numb my troubles with a bottle. I’m afraid it’ll consume me, and that’s the last thing Conor needs.
“You were singing to her.” She lifts her head and finds my eyes behind her. “When you were with Sara Gilly, you were singing—”
“Beautiful War.” I climb onto the fence beside her, and the wood rail groans beneath my weight. “I knew you were outside the door. I was singing to you, Conor.”
Her face pinches with pain, and her shoulders shudder.
�
��I read and reread your letters every day.” I stroke the leather cuff on my wrist, tracing the scratches and dents. “I never take this off.”
“You wore it when you fucked other women?”
I nod, and her eyes lose focus, dulling beneath a sheen of tears.
A bone-weakening coldness spreads through my body. Sorrow. Shame. Heavy, inconsolable regret.
“Whatever you’re feeling,” I say quietly, “write it down.”
She turns her gaze to the journal and hovers the pencil over the page. Then she writes one word.
Death.
That’s how I made her feel when I broke her heart. I knew it while it was happening, but to see the brutal truth written so clearly in five letters… It hurts on a whole new level.
I guess that’s the point.
Conor isn’t the only one grieving the crimes that were committed against her.
Straddling the thick fence rail, I lean back against the post and work my throat against a searing lump.
“Don’t stop singing,” she whispers.
I clear my voice and give her what she needs. As I sing, the pencil moves beneath the curtain of her hair.
The journal will serve as an outline later, when we step away and decompress. We’ll be able to evaluate her thoughts and talk through them. Right now, she just needs to let it out.
The song loops twice before she stops writing. “I’m finished. You can untie me now.”
I decide when she’s finished. That’s a concept she seems to have forgotten.
She needs to yield to me as much as I need to take care of her. Our natures thrive in the roles we established long ago—the leader and follower, the top and bottom, the alpha and omega.
We both crave that pecking order. We find harmony in it. If I have any hope of making us work in the long haul, I need to maintain our dynamic.
This is the other reason I strapped her to the saddle.
I slide off the fence, lowering on the side she faces. Behind her, the sun makes its decent toward the hillside, taking some of the heat with it.
After a quick check on the straps against her back, I stand before her, a couple of feet away.
“Obey me.” I tilt my head, studying her face. “And I’ll tell you what happened when I went to Chicago.”
