“She’s on an antidepressant, two types of pain meds, and an anti-anxiety med.”
“That’s some cocktail. Do you get what you’re dealing with?”
“I’m dealing with Jamie. She’s not a lost cause, Bell. She just needs a safe place to find herself again.”
Bell sighed, obviously still on the fence about what to do. “If you even suspect she’s spiraling out of control again and will hurt you, herself, or anyone else, you will call the cops, or a medical professional, and get her the help she needs. Talk to her about getting help through the VA. See if you can get her to open up about what happened to her. Talking about it will help her cope.”
“Right. I’ll do those things. I’m starting with the basics, getting her to eat, sleep, and hopefully out of the house and her head. She’s just out there with nothing to do. She’s all alone. That can’t be good for her.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’ll take care of her, Doc. I swear.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing. If things get worse, let me know. Maybe I can help, or at least recommend a specialist who can work with her. You might want to contact her psychiatrist and let him know what happened.”
“I can’t do that, Bell. I can’t chance that he’ll hospitalize her for some evaluation that will do more harm than good.”
“Not getting her evaluated and the proper care she needs could do more harm. Letting her spiral endangers herself and others.”
“I swear, Bell, I’ll keep an eye on her. She can’t get into much trouble at her place. She’s been out there for several weeks. I think the parade yesterday, a fight with her mom, and seeing me again was just too much all at one time. Some peace and quiet today should calm her down. Besides, I left her the gun, but hid the bullets.”
Bell smirked and shook her head. “Smart man. Still, the fact you had to do that is what bothers me.”
“The desolation in her eyes is what scares me, Bell. No one should look or feel that way.”
Bell’s eyes filled with sadness. “No one should ever feel that alone.”
Bell would know. She’d been raised by her grandmother, a religious zealot who thought Bell was the spawn of the devil. She’d lived in isolation, made to feel like her very existence was evil. Dane changed all that for Bell. He fell hard and fast for her. It took some convincing for Bell to come around and believe the bull riding champion had given up the buckle bunnies and wanted something permanent with Bell. Now Dane gave Bell the things she’d never had—a family and infinite love.
Ford wanted those things for Jamie. He wanted to give them to her and spend the rest of his life making her happy. It seemed a long shot at the moment, but he’d do everything in his power to bring Jamie out of the dark and back into the light.
Chapter 7
Jamie wanted to slam her laptop shut and cut off Dr. Porter’s incessant questions. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted everyone to stop worrying about her deplorable mental state. She wanted what happened to disappear from her mind entirely. She wanted some peace and quiet and the too-short periods of blissful oblivion she’d found in booze and pills.
Unfortunately, she had some need for self-torture, because she kept her video appointment with Dr. Porter and stopped self-medicating five nights ago when Ford showed up out of the blue, cleaned her place, made her dinner, and made her see the light.
She’d nearly killed him.
Her heart pounded in her chest every time she thought about it. No matter how bad she felt, how much the pain throbbed through her body, she’d never get that wasted again and lose control.
“What are you thinking about right now?” Dr. Porter eyed her from the computer screen.
Jamie shook off her dark thoughts and blinked back the tears she couldn’t help. The thought of hurting Ford hurt her worse than the injuries she couldn’t hide or escape. “What? Sorry. I got lost in thought.”
“You do that a lot.”
Jamie nodded. “I have a hard time concentrating on anything for long.”
“How are the nightmares?”
“Vivid, scary, and incomprehensible.”
“So no better.”
“Nothing is better,” she snapped. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. For two hours every night she could breathe. Ford showed up at her place around six. He cooked, made her eat, but never made her talk. At first, she resented his intrusion. Checking up on her like she couldn’t be trusted to live on her own. She didn’t need or want a babysitter. So she gave him the silent treatment. He didn’t care. Just took over her kitchen and sat at her table and ate like they did it every night. The third night, she finally asked, “What are you doing here?”
He answered with a simple “I’m hungry. You need to eat. Might as well eat together.” He left that night with a “See you tomorrow.”
Sure enough he showed up the next night, and the next. She expected him soon. She didn’t know if she was stupid for feeling the butterflies of anticipation that she’d get to see him again, or for believing he came over for any other reason than he felt sorry for her.
“Jamie!” Dr. Porter shouted to get her attention.
“What?” She didn’t hide the irritation in her voice.
“What is going on with you?”
Defensive, she gave him a sour look. “Nothing.”
“You know, this doesn’t work unless you talk to me. Something is different about you. What is it?”
“I’m not drunk off my ass.” She threw out the words and meant for them to throw him off the scent of what she really had on her mind. Ford. Somehow he’d taken over her every waking thought. She didn’t get him, or what he was doing coming around all the time.
“Why?”
“Why?” She scrunched her face into a questioning, narrow-eyed expression. “You prefer me drunk and so doped up I can’t form coherent thoughts or sentences?”
“Of course not. I’m interested in what prompted you to lay off the sauce.”
That’s what she liked about Dr. Porter. He wasn’t some stuffy, pompous doc. He said what he meant and not always in the most diplomatic way. Ex-military, he got her in a way some high-priced, fancily educated psychiatrist wouldn’t. Of course, Dr. Porter had one of those fancy educations. He just didn’t see the need to demonstrate it in some superior way that made her feel inferior. She’d rather he give it to her straight, even if she didn’t like what he had to say most of the time. Mostly because he was right. But he never shoved it in her face.
“I did something,” she admitted. “Something that almost cost me . . . everything.” That’s as close as she’d come to spilling her guts about shooting Ford.
A shiver raced up her spine and goose bumps broke out on her skin. She wrapped her arms around her middle. Her defensive, and at the same time comforting, posture told Dr. Porter more than her words.
“What happened, Jamie? Did you hurt yourself? Someone else?”
No hiding things from someone trained to sniff out your deepest, darkest secrets. If she admitted what she did, he’d have no choice but to have her arrested, or committed. Maybe she’d be better off locked up where she couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again.
Still, she’d been living in survival mode for so long she kept her mouth shut, because over the last five days the fog she’d been living in had begun to lift and a glimmer of hope that she might actually find something worth living for had sprouted in her heart—a part of her she thought lost a long time ago. But hope did spring forth from one of the broken, battered pieces of her heart. While she felt it, she tried to ignore it, because she couldn’t afford to believe in it. Not when she’d lost so much.
One more disappointment just might break her irrevocably.
That little glimmer of hope glowing in her chest showed her like no words of encouragement from friends, her brother, or her doctors had that she could heal, she could one day be whole again, if a bit scarred and cracked.
She didn’t delude herself into thinking she
was okay now. She wouldn’t be for a long time, but at least she didn’t feel like the path ahead of her only led to her complete and utter destruction.
She owed Ford all the thanks for that. His unexpected return in her life shined a light in her dark world and woke her up. For a moment that night while sharing that pint of ice cream, she remembered what it felt like to be happy and wanted. I want some. Ford’s words. But did he mean them? She wanted to believe he did.
“Jamie, I wish you’d share the conversation you’re having in your head with me. I can help. I want to help. If nothing else, I’m here to listen.”
“I don’t want to die.”
Dr. Porter sat quiet for a good ten seconds. “I’m proud of you. That’s quite a breakthrough.” Code for he’d been worried that she might off herself at any moment.
Just like Ford. The thing was, she didn’t have thoughts of ending it all. Well, maybe once or twice in her darkest moments, but those thoughts disappeared behind the guilt she felt for surviving when her friends died. She should have died with them. At least, that’s what she’d thought day in and day out until Ford showed up and said all those things to her nearly a week ago. Now the thought of dying actually scared her. Ford made her hope. People with hope didn’t want to die. They wanted to believe that good things happen. She needed to believe that right now more than ever.
“It’s kind of been messing with my head the last few days. I’m here. Alone. With nothing to do but think that I want to live again, but I don’t seem to know how to do that anymore. I still feel overwhelmed by the simplest tasks. I’m still in constant pain. I still have nightmares. I want to move forward, but I’m mired in the past. I want to know what happened and I want to forget it all at the same time. I live with an unreasonable fear of being attacked, but I want to go out and see people, and I don’t because I’m afraid. I want my mother to support me, not tear me down. I want to know why my brother didn’t tell me I have a nephew. And where is that baby’s mother? She should be with her child. I want to be able to call up old friends and have a drink in the local bar. I want to know why the guy who pushed me away all of a sudden can’t stop coming around and says things that make no sense, but make me want to wish for things I thought would never happen. I want to have sex again. And damnit, I want to just be normal and not so screwed up that everything seems so fucking hard.” Out of breath, she sucked in a gasp and let it out, her shoulders sagging as she stared at the wall across the room, completely forgetting Dr. Porter was still there listening to her spill her guts. She didn’t think she’d strung that many words together in the last two months.
“Who’s the guy?”
“Huh?”
“The guy you want to have sex with?”
She laughed, despite the need to squeeze her thighs together to ease the throb of need for Ford. “That’s all you got out of that rant.”
Dr. Porter’s head tilted to the side. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you smile, let alone laugh. So yeah, who is the guy? Because he seems important to you. You’re different and he’s the reason why. Tell me about him.”
She stared out the window—able to do so because over the last few days she’d kept the drapes open and not closed herself off from the light and the world—and thought of Ford. The warmth that swept through her every time she thought of him eased her even more. He’d be here soon. Her heart fluttered in her chest and the tightness in her shoulders eased.
“So it’s like that. Even the thought of him makes you feel better.” He saw in her exactly what she felt. Ford did make her feel better.
“He’s an ex. Someone I knew a long time ago. Before the military. Before everything happened.”
“Does he know about everything that happened to you?”
“Only what he read on the internet. He doesn’t know the details about the attack.”
“Have more of the details surfaced in your dreams?”
Of course he wanted to know. The Army wanted to know. Well, she’d like to know what they knew, because maybe then she could put the pieces together. The Army kept their answers classified. She kept her bits and pieces locked in a loop in her head.
“It’s all still disjointed fragments that make no sense.”
“How did you two reconnect?”
“I punched my brother in the face in a diner and Ford stepped in to stop me from decking him again.”
Dr. Porter shook his head. “You need to control your anger.”
“If I could, I would.” She shook her head. “I’ll work on it.”
“Are you and this Ford rekindling the old flame?”
Ford definitely lit a spark in her every time she saw him. Even now, her fingers itched to touch all those hard muscles endless days working a ranch had sculpted. “Honestly, I don’t know what we’re doing. What I thought happened in the past doesn’t seem to be reality.”
“Did you ask him to explain?”
No, because she kept waiting for the day he wouldn’t show up because she was too fucked up to bother with. So far, he’d kept showing up. She wondered if he knew how much that meant to her. More than she was able to admit. “We haven’t talked about it.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Nothing.” Because I’m too scared to say anything that might make him stop coming. “He comes over. We eat. He goes home.”
“Why don’t you want to talk to him?”
“He doesn’t seem to want to say anything.”
“Could it be that he sees you aren’t ready to talk, so he’s waiting you out?”
Maybe there was nothing to say because they ended a long time ago. Though sometimes he looked at her with a longing she wanted to believe meant he still cared for and wanted her.
“Why doesn’t he just say what’s on his mind? He had no trouble the first night. Now he’s, I don’t know . . . quiet.”
“Does it bother you that you eat together every night and neither of you says anything?”
“Yes.” She let the word out without really thinking about it, but gave it a second thought. “No.” She enjoyed their quiet dinners, the space he allowed her without leaving her alone.
Dr. Porter held out his hands, palms up. “Which is it?”
“I spend every day here in the quiet and it eats away at me. It makes me anxious and worried and I feel like I’m going crazy because my thoughts are all over the place. I want to run. I want to escape, but there’s nothing to get away from because it’s all in my head.”
“Very insightful. You need to deal with those thoughts and your past and what happened to you.”
“I know. But when he’s here, the quiet is . . .”
“Comfortable. Bearable.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Sounds like you have a connection to this man that goes deep. Does he feel the same way?”
Jamie stared off into the distance and sighed. “I used to think so. And then I didn’t. Now he comes over without me asking him to and I want to think there’s something there, but I don’t trust it. I don’t believe in it, because I wonder if . . .”
“What?”
One side of her mouth scrunched into a sad half frown. “He just feels sorry for me.”
Dr. Porter gentled his voice. “Is he the kind of man who’d go out of his way to have dinner with you every night just because he feels sorry for you?”
Her instinct was to simply say no, but she second-guessed herself. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You’re just having a hard time trusting your instincts. When he comes over tonight, put your gut to the test.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You trust him enough to let him into your house each night. Be brave, Jamie. Talk to him. Ask him why he keeps coming back.”
“What if he tells me it’s only because he’s afraid I can’t be trusted alone?”
“If he thinks that, doesn’t that tell you he cares enough to check on you?”
“I guess.”
“And if he cares that much, maybe he cares more. I think you don’t talk to him because you’re afraid if he does care, he wants something from you that you think you can’t give him.”
“I’m not the girl he used to know. I have nothing to give.”
“Yes, you do. You just have to be willing to deal with the past so you can see that it is a small piece of who you are, not the whole. You can be happy. It’s okay to be happy. That scares you. Him wanting that for you terrifies you, because you can’t face the past.”
“I have the scars to prove the past is a scary place I don’t ever want to go back to.”
“It’s not going back when you are living in it each and every second of the day. You have to face it, Jamie. You have to look at it, deal with it, and find a way to let it go.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“You know it’s not. It takes time. And a willingness and a desire to do the work to make it happen.”
Dr. Porter gently tapped the alarm, turning it off, signaling the end of their session. Ford’s truck pulled into the drive out front. The engine rumbled then died.
“My dinner date is here.”
“We’ll talk again in a few days. You are brave, Jamie. Talk to him.”
Ford honked the horn twice.
Dr. Porter touched his index finger to his ear and winced. The sound must have amplified through the speakers. “Why does he do that?”
An instant before she clicked off their session, she answered, “So I don’t shoot him.”
Chapter 8
Ford walked up the rickety steps to the porch and put his hand up to knock on the door, but it opened before he ever hit the wood. He took Jamie in with one long and swift glance, noting she didn’t have a gun and she was smiling—kinda. Both things surprised him. He let loose the breath he unconsciously held every time he approached her door, unsure how it would go or how she’d be when he saw her.
But God, seeing her, cutoff shorts, white T-shirt, no makeup, the dark circles under her eyes fading, her soft pink lips slightly pulled back into a grin she tried to hide, and all those soft curves, punched him in the gut every time. He wanted to wrap her in a hug, pick her up off her feet, and hold her close.
His Cowboy Heart Page 7
