A Soldier Saved--A Clean Romance

by Cheryl Harper

  “No one loves family drama.” Not that she was overly worried about that. Whatever happened, everyone involved would be fine all the way through. That was how they’d managed to stick together so far. She had no plans of changing that. “But at this wedding, you’ll be forced to tell your story early and often.” She wanted to let him off the hook, even if the whole event would be so much better if Jason was there. It would be so nice to have someone there protecting her back.

  “Listen, this is not something I ever expected to say, especially at this point, but I’m in. I want it all. Annoying ex, opinionated children. It’s part of who you are.”

  Angela wrinkled her nose as she considered that. When he put it that way, her package deal was a lot less impressive.

  But he was right.

  “I mean, you’ve met my mother,” Jason said and shook his head. “I can’t sweep her under the rug.”

  “Are you going to tell me why you were limping when you got here or...” Angela didn’t want to give another option. “It has to be okay for me to ask these things, Jason.”

  “Yeah.” He exhaled slowly. “Honestly? I tried to run on the wrong prosthesis. I deserved the pinch. I have to learn how to work in this new body. Some days, when I’ve forgotten how things have changed and I’m my old self, taking jobs and in a hurry to get on with life, it’s hard.”

  “It’ll get easier.” Angela believed it. All these things, his job and her family and the way he lived with his new body—it would all get better.

  “I agree.” Jason raised a hand to rest it under her chin, his thumb urging her head closer. Then he pressed his lips against hers, a sweet, sure, heated kiss with the heartbeat of a lifetime rolling underneath. He brushed his lips over hers and then teased her lips with his tongue. Angela squeezed his waist and relaxed into him as his arms tightened, raising a shiver of anticipation and soothing it at the same time.

  “Roses are red, violets are blue, all I need is this bench and you.” She wrinkled her nose up at him. “All my life I’ve been beating myself up to write poetry. Who knew it could be that easy?”

  He shook his head. “Will I regret embracing that format? Only time will tell.”

  “It made me laugh,” Angela said. “I love it. And it will always make me think of you.”

  “You love it.” He tilted his head to the side. “Jury’s still out on me?”

  “Love at first sight. Writers and poets have embraced the concept, but I’ve never believed it.” Angela smiled. “That day we met at Sawgrass? Your frown was not conducive to love at first sight. But a man who finds poetry in good music? I was helpless. All the rest of this has been me fooling myself. Love is like skydiving. Take the first step and then all you have to do is fall.”

  EPILOGUE

  A few weeks later

  Key West destination wedding

  “I LIKE THE stand-and-sway music this DJ has chosen,” Angela said as she danced next to Jason on the crowded dance floor.

  “Can’t get too wild. A yacht’s dance floor is roughly the size of a walk-in closet,” Jason murmured and thanked his lucky stars. If he fell here, the guy next to him would shove him upright. If he pushed too hard, the guy on the other side could correct.

  “At least there’s plenty of warm champagne to cool off with.” Angela grinned up at him and blinked innocently. “I’m having the time of my life with you. Thank you for coming.”

  “So glad I didn’t miss a thing, but you, in that dress... That’s worth a whole lot of family drama.”

  “Which you enjoy.” Angela raised an eyebrow. “You told me that. I’ve lost count how many times you’ve had to explain what happened to your leg.”

  “Running along the beach while you and Greer were snorkeling this morning increased my numbers.” Jason rested his hands on her hips. “It gets easier.”

  “I’m glad.” Angela brushed a hand over his shoulder. Every time she did that, touched him as if she’d done it a million times, the feeling settled deeper into his bones. He wanted that touch. He loved being able to meet her stare across a dinner table while her ex boasted how much the wedding was costing him, what with all the people they’d invited, and know that they were going to laugh about it later.

  Or wandering along behind Angela and Greer while they cooed and coaxed one of Hemingway’s cats closer. He hadn’t understood half of what they said, but that shared language made them both so happy and drew him into their circle, so he couldn’t complain.

  “Want to make some trouble?” he asked and ran his hands over the bare skin of Angela’s back. Her dress had surprised him, but she had come to make good on her original plan of showing everyone she was living her best life. The sexy dress was a solid point.

  “With you? Always.” She stretched up to press her lips to his.

  * * *

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  PROLOGUE

  ADAM CLARK WAS only five, but he knew one thing better than his ABCs and his 1-2-3s—the legend of Merciless Mike Moody.

  “He had a gun and a horse and a hideout on top of our mountain,” Adam told the new boys in town. They sat on the curb in front of the general store in Second Chance, eating Popsicles.

  “Your mouth is red,” one of the boys said. He and his brother were mirror images of each other and not yet in kindergarten.

  With only a month left in the school year, Adam was jazzed about being a first grader this fall. Kindergarten was baby stuff.

  He wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. “Merc’less Mike robbed a stage.” Adam wasn’t entirely certain what a stage was but he didn’t let anything but a lick of his Popsicle slow his story down. “And he rode off on a big black horse.” Bigger than Dad’s big black horse Deadly.

  Adam paused, trying to remember his dad’s face. He’d died when Adam was three, practically a baby. His mom was getting remarried now to Shane Monroe, the uncle of his Popsicle-eating friends.

  “Drip,” one of the younger boys said, pointing to the red Popsicle juice on the ground between Adam’s brown cowboy boots.

  Adam sucked on his melting Popsicle before going on with his story. “Merc’less Mike’s horse threw a shoe, so he stopped right there.” Adam pointed to the old smithy a few doors down. “And he yelled at my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandad to shoe his horse.” He counted all those greats—six of them—on the fingers of his free hand just like his Aunty Em had taught him.

  Popsicle juice dripped on his fingers holding the stick. It took Adam a bit to lick them clean, although they were now stained red. Not that Adam worried about being messy when Aunty Em picked him up from school, like she’d done today. She was the one who’d bought them Popsicles and was now inside picking up their groceries.

  Aunty Em was the best aunt ever. She was one of the toughest cowboys in Second Chance. A glance inside proved it. Someone from the Flying R was asking her advice, prob’ly about bulls. Bulls were the family business and important stuff.

  “Look.” One of the little boys grinned at his brother, mouth rimmed with red. “My brother’s a mess.”

  “Yup. We’re all a mess.” Adam got on with his story. “Merc’less Mike stabbed my great-great... Ah, you get the idea. He stabbed Old Jeb and raced up that hill.” Adam pointed across the road with what was left of his Popsicle.

  Splat.

  The last bit of red ice fell off the stick a
nd to the ground.

  “Darn it.” Adam stood, wiping his fingers on his jeans and his mouth on the neck of his T-shirt.

  “The man on the horse got away?” One of the boys squinted at the mountain across the road. “He didn’t die?”

  “He died, but not before he hid his gold.” Adam threw his Popsicle stick in the trash can. “And do you know how I know?”

  Wide-eyed, the younger boys shook their heads.

  Adam’s chest swelled with pride. “Because me and my mom and my new dad found it.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  OLD.

  That’s what thirty and unmarried was.

  Old.

  Emily Clark rested Deadly’s hoof on top of her knees and picked out pebbles. They fell onto the barn’s breezeway floor at the Bucking Bull Ranch and lay there waiting to be stepped on or swept away.

  Like me. Waiting for Prince Charming.

  Prince Charming didn’t reside at the Bucking Bull or in Second Chance, Idaho. In fact, Emily had no idea where to find her forever someone.

  Meanwhile, she’d turned thirty. Her eggs were aging out as surely as a swayback horse put out to pasture.

  “Happy birthday to you,” Adam, her youngest nephew, crooned as he ran into the barn. He skipped through the rest of the song at high speed. At nearly six and about to finish kindergarten, Adam thought he was hot stuff. He stopped next to her and kicked aside a pebble she’d removed from Deadly’s hoof. “Happy birth-day to-oooooooo...you!” He gave her the angelic smile that got him out of trouble ninety-nine percent of the time, one rimmed with red from the Popsicle she’d bought him in town earlier. “Can you take me riding?”

  “No.”

  “Can you take me on Merc’less Mike Moody’s trail?” Meaning the dirt access road that bordered their property and led to the former bandit’s small cave and hideout.

  “No.”

  Why on earth had the desperado robbed several stagecoaches only to live in a cave at the top of a mountain?

  Why on earth was Emily working on a ranch that was miles from a decent pool of eligible cowboys?

  Emily lowered Deadly’s hoof and straightened the kink in her back. Her brother’s horse had a habit of leaning on her. Emily supposed she shouldn’t complain. Kyle used to lean on her, too. Working his horse made her feel closer to him.

  Behind Emily, the big black gelding’s equally big and black brother, Danger, nickered.

  “Mom’s horse is talking to you.” Adam spun around, arms out. “Can you take me into town for a milkshake?”

  “No.”

  “Can you reach the candy shelf and sneak me a chocolate?” Adam was nothing if not persistent.

  “No.”

  “No?” Her nephew wound down and fell spread-eagle to the ground. “What can you do for me?”

  “Well, now...” Emily tipped up her straw cowboy hat and bent over to look him in the eye. “I can not tickle you.”

  Adam made a noise like a leaky balloon, mouth twitching.

  “Or I can not command you to muck out your pony’s stall.” Which she’d done for him before she’d saddled up because she was the kind of aunt who covered for angelic nephews.

  Adam giggled.

  “Or I can not let you have all the frosting on my birthday cake.” Because heaven forbid Prince Charming happened along and she had extra padding on her hips from cake frosting or Granny Gertie’s chocolate chip cookies.

  Not that she’d ever been skinny.

  Not that she aspired to be, either.

  “Okay. Okay.” Adam rolled to his feet and ran toward the farmhouse. “Happy birthday, Aunty Em!”

  “Happy birthday,” she mumbled, leading Deadly to his stall.

  The gelding was too proud to let a little thing like a jagged scar across his chest put a crimp in his stride. He always had his head up. He never plodded. Although, admittedly, he might plot to take control of the reins. He was a handful to ride and Kyle had been riding him when the pair had been ambushed by a feral bull two years ago. Only Deadly had made it back to the barn safely that day.

  Inwardly, Emily flinched.

  No morbid thoughts allowed on my birthday.

  “You think too much, Em,” Kyle had once told her. “You gotta move forward. And sometimes you gotta set aside what makes sense, take a risk, reach for what you want and hang on tight.”

  And sometimes you have to be careful and prepare for worst-case scenarios.

  Deadly turned around in his stall and nudged her in the chest, solid nose to her breastbone.

  She grunted and closed the stall door. “Thanks for the love pat, fella.”

  A truck pulled into the yard. Emily went out to see who it was.

  A tall man with wavy red hair and a red goatee climbed down from the driver’s seat one leg at a time. He was so citified he didn’t realize you had to hop out of a truck and land with both feet firmly planted. Jonah Monroe’s gaze lit upon Emily. “Hey.”

  “Not today,” Emily muttered to herself. “Are you looking for Shane?” His cousin. “He’s inside.” Shane was engaged to Kyle’s widow, Franny.

  “I never go looking for Shane.” Jonah’s grin widened. “You’re the person I wanted to see.”

  “Happy birthday to me,” Emily said under her breath.

  You could hardly throw a rock in Second Chance anymore without hitting a Monroe.

  Why couldn’t a different Monroe have been looking for her?

  Jonah and Shane Monroe were the cousins of Bo Monroe, a gorgeous, burly Texan who had more nicknames among the women in town than a mockingbird had songs to sing—Brawny Bo, Whoa Bo, Mr. Bodacious. Emily wanted nothing more than to be the apple of Bo’s eye. Instead, she was invisible.

  But not to Jonah. The quick-quipping scriptwriter from the Hollywood branch of the wealthy Monroe family seemed to see everything, including Emily’s infatuation with Bo. And it wasn’t like he let his observations slide. He called her out on it. Constantly.

  Emily, Bo doesn’t like to be mooned after.

  Emily, Bo likes intelligent conversation.

  Emily.

  Emily.

  Emily.

  Emily swallowed back a growl of frustration. “What can I do for you, Jonah? Are you here to buy eggs?”

  Jonah opened his mouth to speak.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. We’re out.” Emily cut him off and pulled the barn doors closed behind her. It was bug season and if they didn’t close the barn doors between chores birds swooped through and left a trail of droppings in their wake. She had just enough manners not to shut herself in the barn and Jonah out, but only just.

  Jonah stared at her.

  Oh.

  Jonah’s one redeeming quality was the startling blue color of his eyes.

  Emily didn’t care that he wore a slim-fitting gray T-shirt or cigar jeans, or that he looked like he’d climbed carefully out of his fancy truck on Hollywood Boulevard. She didn’t care that he had some bicep definition—proof that he didn’t sit at a keyboard all day. She didn’t care that he had ginger coloring like a certain handsome prince of England.

  Jonah Monroe is not my Prince Charming.

  She tipped her hat back and forced herself to look into his eyes.

  Although he’s not bad to look at.

  Those were her eggs talking.

  Desperate, those eggs. They sometimes wanted to override Emily’s decision that Jonah wasn’t husband material. They didn’t understand that he was too sarcastic, too bitter, too likely to be a vegetarian since there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man. She lived on a cattle ranch, ate red meat and had never met a carb she didn’t like.

  Jonah blinked.

  Oh.

  It was like being caught in a car’s high beams. Since she’d known him there had been moments like these when he wasn�
��t talking that she tended to agree with her eggs.

  “Let’s start again.” Jonah’s smile was slow-building. “I’m looking for you, Emily Clark. Don’t you want to know why?”

  Yes.

  “No.” Her hair was in a messy ponytail and she smelled like leather and horse sweat. Okay, possibly lady sweat, too. It was May and a hot day.

  Jonah’s grin widened. “I was looking for you because I’m thinking of hiring an aide.”

  “A what?” Franny planted her cowboy boots and crossed her arms.

  “An aide. An assistant.”

  “A secretary?” Emily looked down at her grubby cowgirl self. Could he not see with those incredible eyes of his? She wasn’t secretary material. “Do you even have an office?”

  Jonah was writing the screenplay of Mike Moody’s adventures. As far as Em knew, his office consisted of the couch in the common room at the Lodgepole Inn.

  “I’ve decided to move out of the inn and into my own space.” Jonah’s shoulders squared and his chin lifted, like a teenager announcing he was moving into a campus dorm room.

  “Bully for you,” Emily said with a goodly dose of sarcasm. “If you’re looking for a secretary, you might try Lisa Esperanza. She lives down the highway and does medical transcription.” Em pretended to type, moving her fingers over imaginary keys. “She can help you with dictation or whatever.”

  “I’m moving into your bunkhouse,” Jonah said when she took a breath, preparing to give him more suggestions.

  “Wh-what?” She choked on air. “The bunkhouse? Who gave you permission?”

  “I did.” Granny Gertie came out on the front porch. She’d suffered a stroke five months back and was just progressing to moving about with a cane instead of a walker. “Jonah, come in and we can talk specifics. We’re going to have birthday cake for Emily.”

  “It’s your birthday.” Jonah didn’t ask if it was Emily’s birthday. He moved quicker than a snake disturbed from a nap, wrapped his arms around Emily and gave her a squeeze. “Happy, happy day.”