His Cowboy Heart

by Jennifer Ryan

  “You’ve spoken to her?” the lieutenant asked.

  One side of his mouth drew back in a half frown as his heart throbbed with the regret he’d carried since she went home. He missed her. “No. She won’t take my calls.”

  That raised an eyebrow on the lieutenant’s suspicious face. “I thought you were close friends.”

  It appeared to a lot of people that he and Jamie had a close relationship, but he’d never been allowed to cross the friend line into something more. Not even for a few benefits, despite his best efforts.

  “She’s not talking to anyone right now. I’m surprised she talks to her shrink. She’s home, trying to put her head back on straight.” Though he wished she’d stayed here with him where he could watch over her.

  “After what she’s been through, I can’t blame her.” Lieutenant Gedetti pressed his lips together, his eyes filled with concern for Jamie. “Enjoy the rest of your leave. You’re dismissed.”

  Tobin rose from the chair and exited the office. He hoped the lieutenant and the Army left Jamie alone and closed the matter soon so he could get back to the only thing he had left in his life if he didn’t have her.

  Chapter 4

  Jamie drove into her yard and cut the engine with a flick of her wrist. She gripped the steering wheel tight and shook herself in a mini tantrum that didn’t make her feel any better, then let her head fall against the top of the steering wheel. She’d made a complete fool of herself today. Again. And in front of everyone in the restaurant, the entire Kendrick family, and especially Ford. He must think her completely nuts.

  “God help me.”

  Yeah, like God ever did anything for her. He’d dumped her in this life with a you figure it out dismissal.

  Tears stung her eyes. The look of sadness and pity in Ford’s eyes made her gut sour. She didn’t want his pity. She didn’t want him to think her so pathetic she couldn’t get through one lunch with her family.

  Well, her mother provoked her. She’d needled Jamie into losing her temper and making a complete fool of herself to show Ford he’d been right to leave her all those years ago. She wanted Jamie to know no man would ever want her now. In her mother’s twisted mind, Jamie had always been “scheming” to “seduce” the men in her mother’s life. Her mother wanted to see her brought low. Jamie had been brought down and dumped in a dark pit that collapsed on her every time she tried to claw her way out. No matter how hard she tried, the hole kept getting deeper, falling in on top of her at the same time. One day, she feared it would swallow her whole.

  When will it end?

  She slipped out of her truck and walked up to the dilapidated house. She should spend her time fixing it up. Instead, she let it sit with all its imperfections.

  Exactly what she did inside those walls.

  She went right through the front door and kicked it shut behind her, letting the darkness swallow her. She kept the drapes drawn, the light and outside world blocked out, so she could try to feel safe and protected in her cave, but nothing really made her feel either of those things. Not anymore.

  She tore off her uniform, tossing the garments and her boots aside because she couldn’t stand to be in them one second longer. In her panties, bra, and tank top, she went to her room, grabbed her gun off the sheets, because she needed it close at all times, and went back down the hall past her trail of discarded clothes to the family room. She sat on her sagging sofa, grabbed one of the bottles of pain meds she’d left on the scarred coffee table, and twisted off the safety cap.

  Seriously, who are they kidding?

  Nothing would keep her from getting to the only thing that dulled the pain and thoughts in her head.

  That’s all she wanted, to stop thinking and feeling. Anything. Everything.

  Make it all go away.

  If only for a little while.

  She popped three pills into her mouth, unscrewed the cap on the bottle of whiskey, and drank them down with one searing gulp and then another.

  Her phone trilled in her fatigues pants pocket with yet another text message. Tobin. Just thinking about him took her mind back to the one place she couldn’t get far enough away from to save her life.

  She ignored the message and sat back, waiting for the numbness to overtake her, hoping this time the blackness cast out everything and allowed her blissful oblivion.

  Please.

  A noise startled her as she drifted off. An engine.

  Someone was here. Coming for her. The enemy found them.

  A surge of adrenaline washed through her, making time slow, the anticipation build. She raised the gun in her hand, pointed it at the dark shadow moving in to take them down. They wouldn’t get past her. She’d kill them before they hurt her or someone from her team. She fired. The dark figure fell back and yelped in pain. She shifted her arm and fired again, hoping she finished him off before he got too close.

  I have to save them!

  “Fuck, Jamie. Stop shooting!”

  The voice penetrated the fog in her mind and transformed the all too familiar interior of her supply truck into the house she remembered from visiting her grandparents as a kid. It hit her all at once. She wasn’t driving down some Afghan road and falling under attack, she was home.

  Oh God. Oh God, she shot Ford. His anguished voice blocked out the screams of her team echoing in her mind.

  Where did Ford come from? Why is he here?

  Did I kill him?

  The thought sent an icy bolt of terror through her system, chilling her to the bone.

  She leaped from the couch and ran for the door, stumbling on one of her discarded boots on her unsteady legs. The bullet hole through her flimsy front door made a cannon ball of dread drop in her stomach. Fear made her heart thrash against her ribs, rivaling the tempo of a hummingbird’s. The sound echoed in her ears too fast to really distinguish the beats separately. It roared like the rush of a river through her mind.

  Her trembling hand reached for the door handle, but her mind screamed, Don’t open it! She didn’t want to see what she’d done to the one man she loved so much it was the only thing that kept her heart beating. The one person she would die before hurting.

  Ford lay on the porch, his hand over his upper arm, blood oozing out his fingers. He released his arm, revealing the long gash along the outside of his beefy muscle freely oozing blood, which dripped over his skin and onto the wood deck. He pinched the inch-long splinter of wood sticking out of his cheek and pulled it free. A trickle of blood ran down his face. He stared up at her, fear and pain and that same pity in his eyes. His gaze dropped to her thigh and the scars from the bullet that ripped through her leg. His eyes met hers again and filled with such sadness.

  “No.” She shook her head, feeling the booze in her gut threaten to blaze a trail back up her throat. She swallowed back the bile filling her mouth, but it didn’t help, because the sight of Ford on the floor bleeding because she’d shot him made her ill. Not a mortal wound. But no relief came from that realization.

  “No.” The guilt she carried since that ominous day in Afghanistan intensified, tightening her gut and squeezing her heart. Right now, she hated herself for all she’d done, and most especially for hurting him.

  She wanted this torment to end.

  She didn’t want to be responsible for hurting one more person.

  The medication and alcohol still coursing through her system made her head swim. She tried to hold on to his image and not get lost in the wave of nightmares that swamped her mind. She wanted to make this right, but didn’t know how. She wanted to take it back, take all of it back like it never happened, but she couldn’t and the pain and guilt grabbed hold with sharp claws that tore her to shreds.

  Ford rose up so fast, she didn’t know what he meant to do. He wrapped his hand around the gun and held it away from both of them. She slammed her free hand into his chest to push him away, but ended up gripping his shirt in her tight fist and holding on to him for dear life.

  “Damni
t, Jamie, let it go,” he ordered. “Please, baby, let it go. Don’t do this, Firefly.” His eyes implored her, but the sorrow and plea in his voice tore what pieces of her heart she had left to bits.

  “Please, Jamie, I know the girl I used to laugh with and talk to for hours under the stars is still in there. Please, baby, come back to me.”

  If only it were that easy.

  With his free hand settled on the back of her neck, his fingers gripped in her short hair, holding her so she’d look at him, their bodies pressed together in sweet agony.

  “Do you see me?”

  The overlay of past and present in her mind cleared and she stared at his face and the blood running down his cheek. She unclenched her fingers from his shirt and reached up and touched his face, then pulled her bloody fingers away and stared at them. All of a sudden it hit her like a wrecking ball.

  I never should have come home. The people I love always end up hurt or dead.

  She felt herself falling again. Her back hit the ground and everything went black.

  Ford tried to hold on to her as her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted and fell to the floor. The gun thumped on the wood beside them. He swatted it away and out of her reach just in case she woke up and made another grab for it.

  He kneeled beside her and looked his fill at the troubled woman he’d longed for every day since he sent her away. Her chest gently rose and fell. Tears tracked out of her eyes and down the sides of her face and into her short hair.

  “Fu-uck.” He strung the word out and raked his trembling hand through his hair. He hung his head and took a moment to compose himself and breathe. The adrenaline still racing through his veins didn’t help to slow his thrashing heart but did mask the pain in his shoulder.

  Zac’s words about the doctor warning him about veteran suicides, the devastation and pain he’d seen in Jamie’s eyes when she saw him lying there bleeding, and seeing the gun in Jamie’s hand and not knowing what she’d do next echoed through him.

  He hoped she wasn’t that desperate to escape, but couldn’t take the chance, so he’d tried to get the gun from her and make her see him and not an enemy.

  She shot him. Why? Did she hate him that much?

  He’d never seen anyone look so translucently pale. He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers, his hands on both sides of her head. He held her close, hoping she felt his presence, knowing he didn’t deserve to be this close to her again, but needing the contact, the touch of her skin against his.

  “God, I missed you.”

  Her soft breath, tinged with whiskey, brushed against his cheek.

  “What happened to you? Why would you do this?”

  He kissed her forehead and leaned back, sitting on his heels. He stared down at her. She wore next to nothing. The scar on her thigh, the ones peeking out the black tank top straps at her shoulders, disturbed him. But the roundish scar on her chest tore him to pieces. The thought of what she’d endured, survived, ate at him like acid eroding his insides. To think of how she’d been hurt like this, how it still hurt her . . .

  “I’m not worth saving.”

  Her words. She meant them, and it made him so sad his chest ached with a hollowness that filled him up, erasing all the good he had in his life because she had none.

  She’d tried to kill him, but he didn’t think she’d known it was him. She’d seen an enemy she’d fought once, one who still tormented her without actually being here.

  He needed to believe that, because the girl he knew would never hurt him. She had to be in there still. Somewhere. He needed to find her and remind Jamie that she still existed.

  He needed to do something. But what? He had no idea how to make her feel safe and happy again. He had no idea what to say that would make her forget, or at least help her cope with what she’d been through.

  He stared into her place, at the bottles of pills and whiskey on the table. He had no idea how many pills she’d taken. How much did she drink on top of it? She needed help, but not the pharmaceutical kind. She needed to be shown that she was worth saving. She was worth loving.

  Somewhere buried deep inside this angry, scared, broken soul lived the woman he loved. He’d bring her back. He had to.

  Even if she didn’t want to be with him again, he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t try to save her from herself.

  Maybe if he’d gone with her all those years ago, she wouldn’t have ended up like this.

  Guilt sat heavy in his gut. Things could have been different. For both of them. But second-guessing his choices didn’t do him, or her, any good.

  She’d never mentioned joining the military. He guessed when she got to her cousin’s house in Georgia and discovered her options were limited the military had looked like a good and steady job. She’d be a part of something bigger than herself. She’d have wanted something like that, since she’d never felt like a real part of her family.

  The pain in his shoulder penetrated his brain. He looked down at the deep gash and thanked God he’d caught her movement and the gun through the slit in the drapes and dove for cover as the shots rang out. If he’d stood in front of the door, she’d have shot him through the chest, too. Lucky for him, the bullet whizzed past over his head.

  It scared the shit out of him.

  The scratch on his face was the least of his worries. His throbbing shoulder hurt like hell and was getting worse by the minute as the adrenaline rush wore off.

  He bit back the pain and tried to think what to do first.

  Right now, he needed to take care of Jamie. He contemplated calling an ambulance, but discarded the idea. She passed out, but didn’t seem in any physical distress. Plus, if he called 911 she’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble. He couldn’t explain away his injury or the bullet holes through the window and door.

  She wasn’t likely to wake up for some time with the meds and booze in her system, so he stood and went into her house, past the clothes strewn on the floor, and into the kitchen. He grabbed the dish towel off the oven handle and tied it into a loose knot. He stuffed his hand in the hole and pulled it up his arm. Every tiny movement of his shoulder stung like a thousand bees. He held the towel in place against his ribs. He took one end of the towel between his teeth and held the other end in his free hand and pulled it tight around his wound to staunch the bleeding, groaning with the pain and gnashing his teeth around the fabric.

  “Fuck.” Man that hurt.

  With more important matters to deal with, he left the kitchen and headed for Jamie’s bedroom. The bullet holes in her door disturbed him and made him breathe out a frustrated sigh. Apparently, she couldn’t sleep without waking up shooting at imaginary targets.

  The whole place was a mess. He ignored the pain and stripped the tangled, sweat-stained sheets from the bed, mostly using his good arm. He dumped them on the floor with her dirty clothes and rummaged through the hall closet for a clean set of sheets and a blanket. He remade the bed. He went back through the house to Jamie lying on the floor just outside the front door. He slipped his arms beneath her shoulders and knees and scooped her up and held her close to his chest. Pain seared through his arm, making him hiss out a ragged breath, but God it felt good to hold her close again.

  He rose and carried her to the bed and gently laid her on the cool, clean sheets. She rolled to her side, turned away from him. He stared at the burn scars on the back of her neck and shoulders. He didn’t want to look, but had to see for himself how badly she’d been injured. His hand trembled when he reached for the bottom of her tank top. He pinched the material between his fingers and pulled it out and away from her back. He stared at the rippled and puckered scars, the still blotchy red skin mixed with patches of white that had healed, but would never look the same. He tried not to think too deeply about how she’d gotten them and wondered if it still hurt.

  About to put her shirt back in place, he stopped and stared at the scar on her side. Different than the burns, he recognized the round patter
n that matched the one on her chest. Another bullet hole. This one bigger. He leaned over and saw a smaller scar on her stomach. The bullet went right through her.

  Ford leaned over and held his weight on one hand. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, another to the soft spot behind her ear. The sadness inside of him expanded until it pushed against every inch of his skin. He just might burst with the overwhelming ache that made tears clog his throat and sting his eyes.

  He kissed her temple, lingering with his lips pressed to her soft skin. She sighed in her sleep. He whispered into her ear, “Dream of me, Firefly. Dream of us. You’re safe. You’re home. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  He wanted to crawl in bed beside her and hold her, but didn’t think she’d want him that close—or here at all. But he refused to leave her, not in this condition. Not until she was well again. If he was lucky, maybe never.

  Chapter 5

  The ancient bed creaked down the hall. Ford turned the stove on to heat the pot of stew he made after cleaning Jamie’s house, tending to the front door and window, and driving into town for a grocery run. Jamie had only had a bottle of vodka in the freezer, a near empty bottle of orange juice in the fridge, plus two apples, a loaf of moldy bread, turkey bologna, and a wilted head of lettuce. Even the cereal boxes in the cupboard were either empty or stale, plus she didn’t have any milk. The meager supplies and healing injuries explained her too thin frame. She needed to take better care of herself.

  He’d taken one of her pain pills and used the first aid kit from her bathroom to patch up the gash on his shoulder. Half an inch the other way and he’d have a fucking huge hole in his arm.

  Ford put the loaf of bread he’d purchased in the oven to warm. He grabbed the butter out of her now fully stocked fridge and set it on the table. Since he’d washed the mound of stinky, dirty dishes, he took two clean bowls from the cupboard and spoons from the drawer. He set them all next to the stove and waited for Jamie to come out and face him.