by Deb Kastner
“This is going to hurt,” she warned him.
He set his jaw and didn’t flinch when she gently dabbed the alcohol on his skin.
“Sorry. I know it’s painful. This is the worst of it, though. I just want to make sure I clean the wound well so there’s no chance of infection.”
“I can handle it. I’m a big boy.” He was too tough to let a little swab get the best of him, even if it was drenched in liquid fire. He tried to smile but grimaced instead.
She laughed, which somehow put him at ease. “No argument there. They grow men large out here in Texas.” She spread a big glob of antibacterial ointment over the wound, covered it with gauze and then ran the one-inch-wide self-sticking elastic tape around his biceps several more times than Jax thought was necessary. A little more and he’d practically have a cast.
“Are you current on your rabies vaccine?” she teased.
He snorted. “Fuego had better be the one worried about that.”
She laughed as she took Violet from his arms and settled herself on the burnt-orange sofa across from him. She shifted the baby to her shoulder and gently patted her back.
“I’m sorry my horse went after you that way,” she said, her smile faltering. “And after you came over here specifically to help me with him. I can’t believe he bit you.”
“I won’t press charges.”
She swept in a surprised breath, and her gaze widened. She looked as startled as if he’d just slapped her.
“You wouldn’t—”
“No, of course not,” he hastened to say. “I was just kidding. It’s not the first time a horse has charged me, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t. I’m sorry. It’s been a really tough day for me and I’m probably overreacting. It’s just that Fuego is on his third strike.”
“His what?”
“If he doesn’t work out here he’ll be put down. That’s why your remark shocked me so much.”
He caught her gaze and held it steady. “You don’t ever have to worry about me, Faith. Trust me. I would never do anything to purposefully hurt you or put your rescue in jeopardy. How did Fuego get himself in so much trouble, anyway?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know all the details. Probably displaying much of the same behavior as he did today. Possibly acting aggressive.” She pinched her lips into a hard line. “I don’t want anything to happen to him, but I can’t keep a horse who poses a threat to the rest of my herd, or to people who visit the rescue.”
She looked so brokenhearted that Jax’s gut flipped like a pancake, soaring up, over and then right back down onto the hot griddle. What she lacked in know-how she more than made up for in heart and determination.
“He’s not a bad horse. He’s a wild stallion. Aggression is to be expected. And I suspect he may not have had great experiences where people are concerned.”
Faith nodded and straightened her shoulders. “I was afraid of that.”
“Being wild and being gentle aren’t mutually exclusive, you know. Would you like me to help you with Fuego?”
Her eyebrows rose, and her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “Even though he took a chomp out of your shoulder?”
“Especially because he got his teeth into me,” he assured her. “It’s not just visitors to the rescue that I’m worried about. What if he does something to hurt you? I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.”
Relief flooded her gaze. “I feel like I owe you more than I can ever repay. You’ve done so much for me. And you keep offering.”
“Goes both ways. You helped me get on my feet when Rose and Violet got dumped on my doorstep,” he reminded her. “Besides—you bought me, remember? Five hundred dollars, I think it was. That’s a lot of man-hours.”
She chuckled wryly. “I don’t own you, Jax.”
He grinned.
Maybe she didn’t own him, at least not in the technical sense of the word. But he still wanted to help her, protect her and see her dreams come true. And in a way, wasn’t that the same thing?
* * *
Faith’s strategy—staying as far away from Jax and his babies as possible—was failing miserably. In the three weeks since Fuego took a chunk out of Jax’s shoulder, Jax had used his training as an excuse to visit her ranch nearly every day, often bringing his daughters along with him.
Faith’s favorite times were when his mother, Alice, accompanied him. Faith and Alice would sit and visit and take care of the twins while they watched Jax run Fuego through his paces. Without so much as a lunge lead, he encouraged Fuego to run around the perimeter of the corral, keeping him trotting as much as possible. Faith didn’t really understand the process, but Alice assured her she’d get it when Jax was finished.
Honestly, she didn’t really care how long Jax took. She enjoyed sitting on the porch, rocking the babies on one of the dual rocking chairs Jax had bought for Faith under the guise of needing to make sure his mother was comfortable. Faith knew it was as much for her as for his mother’s ease.
Alice regaled Faith with stories about Jax and his brothers when they were growing up. Not surprisingly, they’d been a handful, getting in trouble in turn and sometimes all three together.
Alice beamed whenever she spoke of her family. She was proud of all her sons. She couldn’t say enough good things about Jax’s gift with horses. And then there was Slade’s bull-riding achievements and Nick’s dedication to the ranch. Sometimes she even spoke of Jenson, her late husband.
Jax had shared with Faith how much of a hit his mom had taken when Jenson had passed away after a forty-eight-year marriage. The once-social woman had hidden away in her home and had stopped attending community functions.
Seeing Alice’s bubbly and outgoing personality, it was hard to imagine her under the heavy cloud of depression, but Faith knew just how hard grief could hit a person, taking her completely off guard and off grid.
Alice really was a lovely woman. Faith was grateful that Rose and Violet had brought new light into the woman’s life and knew that Alice was good for the babies, as well.
“He’s amazing,” Faith said, watching Jax run the stallion around the corral. “When he started, Fuego wouldn’t come within twenty feet of him. Now look at them.”
The horse was still skittish, but every day seemed to bring Jax one step closer.
“You haven’t seen the half of it,” his mother assured her. “He’ll have that stallion literally eating out of his hand before he is through. Right now he’s teaching the horse to trust him—his scent, his movements, his voice.”
She wondered if Alice was aware of the heat that crept up Faith’s face at those words. If she did, she was too nice of a person to show it.
Fuego wasn’t the only one who responded to Jax’s leathery scent, his smooth, muscular movements and that voice.
Every time she looked into the depths of his dark, chocolate eyes, all the promises she’d made to herself before moving to Serendipity just whisked away like dandelion seeds on a breezy Texas afternoon.
She knew all the reasons why a relationship with Jax McKenna could never be, but there were an increasing number of moments when it would have been all too easy to set reason aside.
She was grateful for the babies. They were good, natural interruptions that kept things light between her and Jax. And she needed all the help she could get.
After Jax was satisfied with Fuego’s progress, it would probably be better if he stopped coming by to check on her entirely, but she would miss Alice. And the babies.
And Jax.
When Fuego was settled, there would no longer be a reason he needed to come by. With a donation she’d received from a recent benefactor, she had been able to hire a couple of teenage wranglers—two girls who came highly recommended by
Jax and were especially good with horses. The kids had to balance their ranch work with their schoolwork, but Faith thought it was the perfect solution to a very messy problem.
“Jax was my quiet one,” Alice said, smiling softly at the memory. She rhythmically patted Violet’s back with each creak of the rocker. “He’s the middle child, you know.
“Nick is the textbook firstborn—walks the straight and narrow, strives for perfection in everything he does and really puts his heart into it.”
She chuckled. “Slade bothered Nick to no end before he found his way to God and really started growing up. His best friend, Brody, was killed while bull riding, God rest his soul. Such a terrible loss, but I think it forced Slade to take a hard look at his life in a way that he needed.” She frowned and shook off the memory. “Slade is settled down now—at least as much as a man like Slade will ever be.”
Alice appeared to be meandering in her thoughts. Even though Faith was most curious about Jax, she let Alice continue at her own pace.
“And Jax? He’s always been about the horses he trains. He helps Nick with the cattle and daily chores around the ranch, of course, but I think if he had his way, he’d sleep in the stable. Even more so now that—”
She paused. Her gaze darkened. Alice’s bottom jaw jutted out under her top one for a moment as she struggled to regain her composure. At length, the older woman scoffed and shook her head.
“I’m sorry, but when I think about what that woman did to my son, it makes me angry enough to spit nails. If ever there was a woman set out to try my temper, it is that woman.” She wouldn’t even say Susie’s name.
Faith didn’t want to pry, but clearly Alice needed to talk about it. She prayed she’d be a good sounding board and that Alice would realize she was trustworthy.
“You mean Susie? Are you talking about the way she dumped the twins on him?”
“Well, yes, there’re the girls, of course. There is no excuse for that but—”
Faith didn’t realize Jax had stopped calling and nickering to the stallion until he strode to the fence and braced one foot on the bottom rung, leaving Fuego to his own devices on the far side of the corral.
“You’re staring at me,” he accused, lifting his hat by the crown and wiping the sweat from his brow with the fabric at the bottom of his T-shirt. “Are you two talking about me?”
“I was just about to show Faith your baby pictures,” Alice teased. “I’ve already told her lots of stories about you.”
Scorching heat flooded straight to Faith’s cheeks. Jax caught her gaze and he raised one eyebrow. Silence stretched between them for what seemed like forever. Her heart pounded so furiously she thought he might be able to hear it.
Then he grinned, that heart-flipping half smile yanked up by his scar. And he winked at her.
Winked.
While Alice was sitting right there in their midst. His mother had surely seen the exchange.
Just when Faith thought the level of her mortification could rise no further, Jax found a way to increase it. Her head was likely to pop off from the pressure of the heat between her ears.
“All good things, I hope.” He included his mother with his statement and the wide grin that accompanied it. “I would hate to think you were talking trash about me.”
“I’ve been telling her what little terrors you and your brothers were when you were children. These gray hairs?” She pointed to her shoulder-length hair, still a deep black spun with shades of silver. “Every single one of them has your names on it. Nick. Jax. Slade.” She pointed them out one by one. “You’re blessed, young man,” she continued, wagging a finger at Jax. “You have daughters.”
Jax threw back his head and laughed. Faith smiled. It was the most carefree she’d ever heard him. He was always so tense, and with good reason. She was glad he could loosen up around his mother.
Fuego neighed and snorted.
“I’d best get back to the stallion. No rest for the wicked, right?”
Alice scoffed. “Don’t let him fool you,” she informed Faith. “He’s a good man, that one, right to the core. He has a heart of gold, broken though it is. He just needs the right woman to mend it up for him.”
Alice looked directly at Faith and raised her eyebrows.
Asking? Insinuating?
Faith cleared her suddenly tight throat and swallowed hard to relieve the pressure.
To distract herself, she laid a plastic pad across her lap and made a big production out of changing Rose’s diaper.
Alice was still peering at her inquisitively. What in the world did Jax’s mom expect her to say?
She knew what she should say.
I’m not interested in Jax in that way.
Well, that would be an outright lie, because how could she not be interested?
There’s nothing between us.
Still not quite right. After what had happened the day Fuego had taken a bite out of Jax, she could hardly say they hadn’t shared anything emotional. And the chemistry was undeniable.
There will never be anything serious between Jax and me because I won’t ever let there be.
It was as close to the truth as she was going to get in her confused state of mind.
It was also something she could never tell Jax’s mother.
“Susie was Jax’s high school sweetheart.” Alice picked up the thread of the conversation as if she’d never left it. “You know how it is in a small-town ranching community. Since most of the kids already know what they are doing with their lives, those who pair up tend to stay that way—after high school they marry off and have families right away.
“Susie wasn’t like that. She had aspirations that went beyond Serendipity. Which was okay, in theory. She went away to college while Jax remained home tending the family ranch.”
Alice shook her head, remembering. “When Susie returned to Serendipity, she was a different girl. Worldly and bitter. Life hadn’t quite worked out the way she’d anticipated. She didn’t ever get her degree. I don’t know what she was doing all that time away.
“Whatever she got into, it changed her, and not for the better. The only one who couldn’t see it was Jax. Or maybe he was just set on honoring his commitment to her. You know how Jax is. Honestly, what I can’t figure out is why Susie married him. She was never happy, even before...” Alice’s sentence trailed off.
“Before the accident?”
Alice pressed her lips and nodded. Her gaze flickered to Jax and then back to Faith again. “Jax should probably be the one telling you this, but he’ll never do it and I don’t believe he can move on until he gets past the tragedy of what happened. And that’s not likely to occur if no one besides his own family knows what truly went down that night.”
Faith was at once honored and terrified that Alice had bestowed on her the gift of her trust. She knew the woman wasn’t giving it lightly, not when it had to do with her son.
“He told me he was injured in an accident, but he never said any more than that.”
“He doesn’t like to talk about it. He was returning to Serendipity from watching Slade compete in an out-of-town rodeo. He’d asked Susie to accompany him, but she no longer cared for country activities. She’d seen how the other half lived, apparently, and wanted Jax to move to the city.”
Faith kissed Rose’s downy head and watched Jax work, his strength and confidence matching the stallion’s. It was hard to believe that a vulnerable heart beat in that big old chest of his, a heart that could be injured by one thoughtless woman’s words and deeds. But she’d glimpsed enough of Jax to know how badly Susie had hurt him.
“On the highway on his way home, a car in front of him blew out a tire and went headlong into a tree. Jax immediately pulled to the side of the road and called 911, then rushed to see if he could help. You know Jax. He�
��s not the kind of man to stand around and do nothing.”
That sounded exactly like the Jax Faith knew.
“The driver had hit her head and was barely conscious, so he wrapped his jacket around his arm and broke a window out and then dragged the woman and her six-year-old son to safety.”
Faith gasped, then frowned in confusion. The jagged scar on his face might possibly have been caused by a sharp piece of glass, but his shoulder told another story.
“What happened to his arm? That doesn’t look like an injury consistent with a wound caused by sharp glass. I’d have guessed it was a burn scar.”
Her eyes grew wide. “You’re right—it is from a burn. I have to say, I’m surprised he showed you his arm. It’s one of his big secrets.”
She sniffed. “Oh, believe me, he didn’t want me to see it. I kind of forced the issue. Fuego took a bite out of his shoulder, and I insisted that I be the one to patch him up, since it was my fault it happened.”
“Still...” Alice stopped her rhythmic patting on Violet’s back and tilted her head, analyzing Faith. “He’s very sensitive about that scar.”
“It doesn’t bother me. Honestly. But I’m curious. How’d he get burned?”
“The car was on fire when he went to rescue the woman and her child. He went back to make sure there weren’t any other people left in the car. The driver had been dazed and kept saying something about her baby—turned out later that she meant the six-year-old, but Jax believed another child might still be caught in the wreck.”
“There wasn’t, I hope.”
“No. But the engine exploded before Jax could clear away. The car rolled with him in it. He was badly burned and had to have skin grafts on his shoulder. And he lost most of the hearing in his left ear, you know.”
Faith hoped Alice didn’t hear her gasp. Jax was deaf in one ear. That explained a lot. “Praise God he’s still alive to tell the story.”
“Indeed.”
Faith reached out to squeeze Alice’s hand. The poor woman had been through so much recently. First she had lost her husband, and then the near death of her son so soon afterward. What a nightmare. It certainly put Faith’s meager problems in perspective.
